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A40713 Leges AngliƦ, The lawfulness of ecclesiastical jurisdiction in the Church of England asserted and vindicated in answer to Mr. Hickeringill's late pamphlet stiled, Naked truth, the 2d part by Fran. Fullwood ... Fullwood, Francis, d. 1693. 1681 (1681) Wing F2509; ESTC R18058 41,024 102

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LEGES ANGLIAE THE LAWFULNESS OF Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction IN THE CHURCH of ENGLAND Asserted and Vindicated In ANSWER to Mr HICKERINGILL's Late Pamphlet Stiled NAKED TRUTH the 2d Part. Gen. II. ult Naked but not ashamed By Fran. Fullwood D. D. Archdeacon of Totnes in Devon LONDON Printed for R. Royston Bookseller to the King 's most Excellent Majesty at the Sign of the Angel in Amen-Corner 1681. TO THE READER I MUST beg my Readers pardon that I have not chastified so spiteful an Adversary according to his merits and provocations for I verily want his Talent and dislike the Sport I confess that when a Divine of the Church of England who hath also a share in her Government when such a one shall be taken throwing dirt in the face of his Mother Fathers Brethren and his own Profession he cannot but expect to be lasht to purpose and to be told roundly that none but accursed Children and very fools would speak such Naked Truth Some Censors that observe his endeavours to make not only the Canons of the Church but the very Canon of Scripture it self to vail to the Law of the Land would charge him with the profaneness of Hobbs yea others that find him playing tricks and sporting according to his little wit with the very names of Canon Clergie Church and Church-men and scoffing at almost all that 's Sacred will take him to be at Hugh Peters's game and running his wretched race But while he damns the Presbyterians Independents and the Fifth-Monarchy together with the Church of England he tempts the Wits to produce thirty one reasons to prove he is something viz. a Papist notwithstanding his drollery and railery about Foppery and Popery Lastly For Pride Envy Wrath Malice Spite and Revenge some say he is a very Angel of Light and in somewhat more excellent for the Scriptures witness that the Devil himself spake many words both of truth and soberness and that he seldom or never speaks like an Atheist For my part I say nothing of him further than this That if others can find Truth in the man I cannot And though I am sure he lies open and naked enough yet I had never troubled my self to expose him had it not been to secure the Government and to preserve the Simple from being betray'd to the danger of the Laws by the insolent Rant of a pitiful Sophister THE PROEME The Contents of it 1. Power purely Spiritual of Divine Right 2. Emperors confirm'd Bishops-Canons 3. The force of our Canons not from Rome 4. Officers of our Courts 5. Magna Charta 6. The Authors Concessions 1. DIscoursing in the following Treatise of the Forensic Jurisdiction of this Church as Establish'd by the Law of the Land we had no direct or necessary occasion to speak of the Churches Power as purely Spiritual touching Preaching the Sacraments and Censures For this is certainly of Divine Right and was given to the Church by Christ himself with the Keys of the Kingdom of Heaven and was accordingly exercised in the Apostles times and several hundred years after without the allowance of the Civil Magistrate and was also supposed allowed and admitted as such in our own Kingdom and by all the world even with their receiving Christianity without question or Alteration as is evident in all our Histories and indeed our own Laws exclude this purely Spiritual Power of the Keys from the Supremacy of our Kings except it be to see that Spiritual men do their duty therein 2. Neither doth it concern me to enquire what Power the Church had and exercised after the Empire became Christian only it seems very clear that Constantine and the other eminent Christian Emperors never made any Ecclesiastical Laws without the Counsel of Bishops but only in Confirmation or for the Execution of Ecclesiastical Canons Yet it cannot be denied but they called Councils they approved their Canons and afterwards enter'd them into the body of their Laws and still ratified the Sentences of Ecclesiastical Judges with Civil penalties 3. Nor yet is' t my present Province to recollect what Influence Imperial Christian Rome had upon the Tender Age and immature State of the new born Church of England though we do not deny but it might be considerable both as to the Form and Order of our External Jurisdiction in our inferiour Ministers and ancient Canons But how great soever it was it was at first only by way of Example and Direction and when afterwards it was by Command it was such Command as according to the Rights and Constitution of this Church had no Legal obligation upon us but by our own consent and as it became part of our own Establishment either by Custom or express Law upon such an occasion the ancient State of England cry out Nolumus mutare Leges Angliae This Realm hath been and is free from Subjection to any mans Laws but only to such as have been devised within this Realm or to such other as by sufferance of your Grace and your Progenitors the people of this Realm have taken at their free liberty by their own consent to be used amongst them and have bound themselves by long use and Custom to the observance thereof not as to the observance of the Laws of any foreign Prince 25 Hen. 8. 21. For as Coke declares in Cawdries Case as the Romans fetching diverse Laws from Athens yet being approved and allowed by the State there called them Jus Civile Romanorum and as the Normans borrowing all or most of their Laws from England yet baptized them by the name of the Laws or Customs of Normandy so albeit the Kings of England derived their Ecclesiastical Laws from others yet so many as be proved approved and allowed here by and with a general consent are aptly and rightly called The Kings Ecclesiastical Laws of England 4. As for the Inferior Ministers in the Ecclesiastical Courts that seem to be so offensive to weak people that they are not Popish or so slanderously to be reported there is this plain demonstration that these Courts are the Kings Courts and the Laws thereof are the Kings Laws and that notwithstanding all the severe Statutes especially since the Reformation against all foreign Jurisdiction and all such as act under or by vertue of any foreign Power within this Realm yet such Ministers are both permitted and required to execute their places in the said Courts by the Laws and Statutes of the Kingdom But grave Mr. Hickeringill saith there is not the least Specimen of Chancellors Registers Sumners Officials Commissaries Advocates Notaries Surrogates c. or any ejusdem farinae in holy Writ and hence 't is learnedly inferred by some that we have made so many new Officers in the Church of Christ But how witless and Quaker-like is this and how unlike Mr. Hickeringill I should suspect he would call for Scripture for an hour-Glass and for Clerks and Sextons were it not that he is so palpably in the service of a
any exteriour person to declare and determine all such doubts and to administer all such offices as appertain to them for the due administration whereof the Kings of this Realm have endowed the said Church both with honour and possessions both these Authorities and Jurisdictions do conjoyn in the due Administration of Justice the one to help the other And whereas the King his most noble Progenitors and the Nobility and Commons of this Realm at divers and sundry Parliaments as well in the time of King Edw. 1. Edw. 3. Rich. 2. Hen. 4. all which were certainly before Hen. 8. and other noble Kings made sundry Ordinances Laws Statutes and provisions for the entire and sure preservation of the Prerogatives and Jurisdiction Spiritual and Temporal of the said Imperial Crown from the annoyance and Authority of the See of Rome from time to time as often as any such attempt might be known or espied Vid. 25 Hen. 8. 12. These things plainly shew that the whole State in Hen. 8's time was not of Mr. Hickeringill's mind but that before that time the whole power of the Church was independent on the Pope and not derived from him but originally inherent in the Crown and Laws of England whatever he blatters to the contrary Vid. 25 Edw. 3. Stat. 4. cap. 22. pag. 123. Sect. 3. 27 Edw. 3. cap. 1. 38 Edw. 3. c. 4. Stat. 2. c. 1. 2 Rich. 2. cap. 6. 3 Rich. 2. c. 3. S. 2. 12 Rich. 2. c. 15. 13 Rich. 2. Stat. 2. c. 2. 16 Rich. 2. c. 5. 2 Hen. 4. c. 3 4. 7 Hen. 4. c. 6. 9. Hen. 4. c. 8. 1 Hen. 5. 7. 3 Hen. 5. Stat. 2. c. 4. Adde to these Mr. Cawdries Case in my Lord Coke and he must be unreasonably ill affected to the Church of England that is not more than satisfied that the chief and Supream Governours thereof were the Kings of England and not the Pope before the Reign of Hen. 8. 3. Also it was the sence of the whole Kingdom that the Pope's power and Jurisdiction here was usurped and illegal contrary to Gods Laws the Laws and Statutes of this Realm and in derogation of the IMperial Crown thereof and that it was timorously and ignorantly submitted unto before Hen. 8. as the words of that Statute are 28 Hen. 8. cap. 16. SECT III. BUT if our Gentleman be wiser than to believe their words the matter is evident in our ancient Laws and constant practice accordingly before Hen. 8. his time Indeed all the Statutes of provision against foreign powers are to own and defend the Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction at home under this Crown Yea all the Statutes made on purpose to restrain and limit the Spiritual Jurisdiction in certain cases and respects do allow and establish it in others exceptio confirmat Regulam in non exceptis 2. Much plainer all the Statutes that prohibit the Kings Civil Courts to interrupt the Ecclesiastical proceedings but in such cases and the Statutes granting consultations in such cases and the Statutes directing appeals in the Spiritual Courts and appeals to the Chancery it self and the Laws ratifying and effectually binding their Sentence by the Writ de exc cap. much more plainly do these establish the Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction in the laws of the Land before Hen. 8. 3. By this time 't is vain to mention the Statutes which of old did specifie and allow particular matters to be tried only in the Ecclesiastical Courts such as Tithes 18 Edw. 3. 7. the offences of Ecclesiastical persons 1 Hen. 7. c. 4. causes Testamentary 18 Edw. 3. 6. Synodals and procurations and pensions c. 15 Hen. 8. 19. Defamations 9 Edw. 2. 3. 1 Edw. 3. c. 11 c. all which are clear evidences that the Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction was establish'd by the Statutelaws of this Realm and consequently did not depend upon was not derived from any foreign power before the 20 of Hen. 8. SECT IV. TO seek for the Original of our Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction and Courts in the Statute-book is more than ridiculous seeing they both stood in a flourishing estate long before the beginning of that book and are among the number of the great things which were then secundum consuetudinem leges Angliae and are plainly establish'd in the Common Law of the Land by which they have stood and been practis'd ever since as we shall prove more fully anon 2. Magna Charta which is found first in the book of Statutes and is said by Lawyers to be Common Law i. e. shews us what is Common Law in this Kingdom begins thus We have granted and confirmed for us and our Heirs for ever that the Church of England shall be free and shall have all her whole Rights and Liberties Inviolable Reserving to all Archbishops and Bishops and all persons as well Spiritual as Temporal all their Free Liberties and free Customs which they have had in times past and which we have granted to be holden within this Realm and all men of this Realm as well Spiritual as Temporal shall observe the same against all persons 3. Now what can any man that knows the practice of the Spiritual Courts before that time at that time and ever since imagine what is meant by the Liberties and Customs of the Church i. e. in the sence of Mr. Hickeringill and the words of Magna Charta Archbishops Bishops and all Spiritual men but the Jurisdiction Ecclesiastical in the first and chief place And these by the great Charter are confirm'd for ever and the like confirmation hath been made by the many succeeding Kings and Parliaments in their confirmation of Magna Charta 4. Therefore I cannot but conclude that the Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction being founded in the Common Law Magna Charta and the Statutes by so long practice beyond all Records is in the very Constitution of the Kingdom The great men of the Church having always had authority in the very making of Laws as they had before Magna Charta and been reputed as in the Statute of Eliz. one of the three States in Parliament and the Execution also of the Ecclesiastical Laws of the Church of England SECT V. LASTLY All this is plainly confirm'd by ancient Ecclesiastical Canons which seems to be an Argument of great weight with Mr. Hickeringill as well as by the Ancient Laws and Customs of the Land In the Apostles Canons 't is ordained that every National Church should have its own chief or head and thence derive all Power under the Crown 'T is acknowledged against the Papists that we had our Archbishops and Bishops before the Vsurpation of the Pope We were anciently a Patriarchate independent upon Rome The four first Councils confirm'd the Apostles Canons and establish'd our ancient Cyprian priviledge Let after encroachments of the Pope be accordingly renounced as lawless Vsurpations Let us quietly enjoy our restored ancient priviledges and let ancient Custom prevail according to the Sentence of the ancient Councils in spight of