regulated by the Laws of the Land. Thus the Priest has a power to bind and loose from our Saviour's Commission and yet according to this Author before the Reformation the Inferior Clergy might not exercise any Church Censure contrary to the Commands of their lawful Spiritual Superior Thus also if a General Council have power to determine matters of Faith then according to his Principles they have power to convene in order to such Determination and this power of theirs is unalienable and yet the Romanists will not allow that such Conventions may be made at pleasure but that the hic nunc are determinable by the Pope who only has power to indict Councils and to give Autority to those decrees which yet derive their power from the Council's being infallible and from the Holy Ghost assisting them Another Act which from the same Thesis he accuses of Injustice is the Clergy's beseeching the King's Highness that the Constitutions and Canons Provincial and Synodal which be thought prejudicial to the King's Prerogative Royal or repugnant to the Laws and Statutes of this Realm or to be otherwise overmuch onerous to his Highness and his Subjects may be committed to the judgment of his Highness and of 32 Persons 16 of the Temporalty and 16 of the Clergy of this Realm to be chosen and appointed by the King's Majesty and that such Canons as shall be thought by the more part of them worthy to be annull'd shall be made of no value and such other of the Canons as shall be approv'd to stand with the Law of God c. shall stand in power Now it is to be consider'd that the Laws which the Clergy here desire may be revis'd are of a far different Nature and therefore the Inspection of them may well be committed to different Judges Some of them were suppos'd prejudicial to the King's Praerogative Royal or repugnant to the Laws of the Realm and here the Lay-Commissioners being persons of the upper and lower House of Parliament see the Stat. were the best Judges Of others it was to be enquir'd Whether they were agreeable to the word of God or not and here the Clergy were ready to give their Determination And altho' they both acted in a joynt Commission yet no good reason seems assignable why both Lay and Ecclesiastical Judges should be appointed but that the matters to be examin'd being of different cognizance those which related to Civil Affairs should be determin'd by the Temporalty those which were of a Spiritual Nature by the Spiritualty And if so then the deciding of these matters is not transfer'd from the Spiritualty to the Temporalty but from one part of the Clergy to another And this He himself after all his descants upon this Act confesseth For whatever sense the words in the Praeface of this Act were or may be extended to I do not think the Clergy at first intended any such thing as to make the King or his Commissioners Judges of matters of Faith or Divine truth and for this Opinion of his He gives us his Reasons in that and the subsequent pages Another Act which is by this Author judg'd contrary to his first Thesis is that Statute of King Henry the eighth which orders that no speaking holding or doing against any Laws call'd Spiritual Laws made by Autority of the See of Rome which be repugnant to the Laws and Statutes of the Realm or the King's Praerogative shall be deem'd to be Haeresie from which he infers that the King and Parliament undertake to be Judges of Haeresie Now the King and Parliament do not here in my Opinion take upon them to decide matters of Faith but only to Enact that in such a case the Subject shall not suffer the Punishment usually inflicted on Haereticks Whether such speaking or doing be Haeresie or not they have power to ordain that it shall not be deem'd so i. e. the Speaker shall not suffer as an Haeretick Something parallel to this we have in that Statute of much concernment to use our Author's expression of another Act made 23. Eliz. c. 1. Wherein it is enacted that The Persons who shall withdraw any of the Queens Majesties Subjects from the Religion established by Law to the Romish Religion shall be to all intents adjudg'd as Traytors and shall suffer as in cases of High Treason and the like of Persons willingly reconcil'd Where without disputing whether every such Reconciler or Reconciled is necessarily for that Act ipso facto a Traytor all that is here enacted is that he shall suffer as such For it is undoubtedly within the reach of the Civil Power to ordain where they will inflict or not inflict their Secular Punishments without being accountable for this to any Autority under God's And it seems very hard that if a Subject expresses himself or acts against such Laws of a Forreigner as are repugnant to the Laws of his own Country there the Prince cannot exempt him from a Writ de Haeretico comburendo without invading the Churches right Another Act condemn'd by Virtue of his 1st and 2d Theses is The Convocation's granting to certain persons to be appointed by the King's Autority to make Ecclesiastical laws and pursuant to this 42 Articles of Religion publish'd by the Autority of King Edward in the 6th Year of his Reign Now not to engage my self in a dispute Whether these Articles were not really what in the Title praefix'd they are said to be Articuli de quibus in Synodo London A. D. 1552. ad tollendam opinionum dissentionem consensum verae Religionis firmandum inter Episcopos alios eruditos Viros convenerat Regia autoritate in lucem editi I shall only accept of what is by him granted that de illis convenerat inter Episcopos alios eruditos Viros qui erant pars aliqua de Synodo London So that here is only a part of the Synod employ'd in drawing up these Articles and not any Jurisdiction Spiritual transfer'd from Ecclesiastial persons to Secular which was by him to have been prov'd Another Inference which he deduces from these Theses is the Unlawfulness of the Oath of Supremacy Now how far the Regal Supremacy is by us extended will best be learnt from our Articles The King's Majesty has the chief power in this Realm of England and other his Dominions Unto whom the chief Government of all Estates of this Realm whether they be Ecclesiastical or Civil in all causes doth appertain and is not or ought not to be subject to any forreign Jurisdiction So far for the extent of this power but now for the restraint Where we attribute to the King's Majesty the chief Government by which Titles we understand the minds of some slanderous folks to be offended We give not to our Prince the ministring either of God's word or of the Sacraments the which thing the Injunctions also lately set forth by Q. Elizabeth do most plainly testify
as those of Preaching Ordaining Absolving c. Yet whether these are not subject to be limited inhibited or otherwise regulated in the outward Exercise of them by the Laws of the Land and the Autority Regal is the thing quaestion'd This cannot perhaps be better exprest then in the words of the Reverend Bp. Sanderson The King doth not challenge to himself as belonging to him by Virtue of his Supremacy Ecclesiastical the power of Ordaining Ministers excommunicating scandalous Offenders or doing any other act of Episcopal Office in his own Person nor the power of Preaching Administring the Sacraments or doing any other act of Ministerial Office in his own person but leaves the performance of all such acts of either sort unto such persons as the said several respective powers do of divine right belong to viz. of the one sort to the Bishops and of the other to the Priests Yet doth the King by Virtue of that Supremacy challenge a power as belonging to him in the right of his Crown to make Laws as well concerning Preaching Administring the Sacraments and other acts belonging to the Function of a Priest as concerning Ordination of Ministers proceeding in matters of Ecclesiastical Cognisance in the Spiritual Courts and other acts belonging to the Function of a Bishop to which Laws as well the Priests as the Bishops are subject and ought to submit to be limited and regulated thereby in the Exercise of those their several respective Powers their claim to a Ius Divinum and that their said several powers are of God notwithstanding Now to apply this That the deciding Controversies of Faith and Excommunicating Offenders c. are the proper Province of the Clergy we deny not but that the indicting Synods in order to such Matters or making Laws to regulate the Exercise of them are purely Spiritual is not so undoubted as He would perswade us Again that the Spiritual Autority which is to be exercised in the Episcopal or Sacerdotal Functions can be derived from none but those spiritual persons who were invested with that Autority and power of delegating it to others is willingly allow'd but that collation to Benefices can be the act of none but the Clergy will not be hence infer'd For the Spiritual Autority it self and the application of it to such an Object are very different things The power by which a Clergy man is capacitated for his Function is derived from the Bishop which ordains him but the applying this Power to such a Place the ordering that the Ecclesiastical Person shall execute that Autority which he deriv'd from the Church in such a peculiar part of the Kingdom is not without the reach of the Civil Jurisdiction and therefore Collation to Benefices in the sence this Author understands it should not have been reckon'd by him amongst those things of which it is not doubted but they are purely Spirituall Another power of which he abridges the Prince and by consequence would have to be esteem'd purely Spiritual is the deposing from the Exercise of their Office in his Dominions any of the Clergy for transgressing of the Ecclesiastical Canons Now that the Secular Prince should have an Obligation from God over all Persons in all Spiritual matters to bind them by Temporal Punishments to the Obedience of the Churches or Clergy's determinations and decrees as he words it and yet that the Exercising this power their performing what they are obliged to by God should be without the reach of their Autority seems to me a paradox That the Christian Emperors in the Primitive times challeng'd such a power is plain from the undoubted testimony of the Learned Petrus de Marca Who tells us that by the care of Christian Princes Hereticks were represt the contumacy of Bishops and Clergy-men against the Decrees of Synods punish'd and Bishops restrain'd from oppressing their subjects by the violation of the Canons If we inquire how the Princes secur'd the Keeping of the Canons He tells us they did it by these 2 Methods 1st By delegating Magistrates to see they were observ'd 2ly By punishing those who were guilty of the breach of them And he particularly mentions Deprivation inflicted by the Secular power for violation of the Canons For that they thought removal from the See within the reach of their Jurisdiction tho' not Degradation which is a punishment merely Ecclesiastical Which neither did the Reforming Princes ever think in their power to inflict And he there gives instances of Bishops so depriv'd And indeed this seems to be a Necessary branch of power which naturally flows from his being Custos Canonum which he is prov'd by this Author at large to be How far the Prince may abridge himself of this power by the laws of the Land I meddle not it suffices to shew that it is not originally a power merely Spirituall And from this and the former Instances the Reader will be able to judge the truth of that assertion That there is nothing touch'd in this Discourse concerning such Matters as it is dubious whether they be Spiritual or Temporal Come we now to that other assertion of his That he knows not of any Ecclesiastical powers in this Discourse denied to the Prince but which or at least the chiefest of which all other Christian Princes except those of the Reformed States do forego to exercise Now if by the chiefest which he excepts he means preaching the word and administring the Sacraments Excommunicating and absolving neither do the Reformed States challenge the Exercise of these and as for others it will appear that the Princes of the Roman-Catholick Communion extend their Supermacy as far as the Reformed And here it may not be improper to instance in that right which the Kings of Spain enjoy in Sicily which seems to extend even to those Spiritual powers which our Author calls the chiefest And this I find usher'd in by a Roman-Catholick Writer with an assertion quite opposite to that which is laid down in this Epistle It even surpasses saith he that which Henry the Eighth of England boldly took when he separated from the Church of Rome The King of Spain as King of Sicily pretends to be Legate à latere and born Legate of the H. See so that he and his Viceroys in his absence have the same power over the Sicilians as to the Spiritual that a Legate à latere could have And therefore they who execute that Jurisdiction of Sicily for the King of Spain have power to absolve punish and excommunicate all sorts of persons whether Laicks or Ecclesiasticks Monks Priests Abbots Bishops and even Cardinals themselves that reside in the Kingdom They acknowledge not the Popes Autority being Sovereign Monarchs as to the Spiritual They confess that the Pope hath heretofore given them that priviledge So that his Holiness it seemes thought even those chiefest Powers of the Church alienable but at the same time they pretend that it is not in his power to
Pastours who so unfaithfully manag'd the Depositum of their Saviour If denying the Popes Authority was so piacular a Crime what Opinion shall we entertain of those Religious Persons in Monasteries who professing a more then ordinary Sanctity and being obliged by the strictest Vows of Obedience so resolutely abjur'd it What of those Learned in the University who after a solemn debate and serious disquisition of the cause so peremptorily defin'd against it What of the Whole Body of the Clergy whose proper Office it is to determine such Controversies and to judge what is Gods Word and divine Truth what are Errors who in full Synod so Unanimously rejected it What of the leading part of those Prelates Gardiner Bonner and Tonstal who Wrote Preach'd and Fram'd Oaths against it What of the Nobles and Commons Persons of presum'd Integrity and Honour who prepared the Bill against it What lastly of the Sovereign a declar'd Enemy of the Lutheran Doctrine and Defender of the Roman Catholick Faith who past that Bill into a Law and guarded the Sanction of it with Capital punishments If all these acted sincerely then it is not the Doctrine of the Reformed but of the Romanists which is written against If not we seem to have just praejudices against a Religion which had no greater influence over its Profesors then to suffer a whole Nation of them perfidiously to deny that which if it be any part is a main Article of their Faith But to return to our Author what shall we judge of his skill in Controversie who from Principles assum'd gratis draws Deductions which by no means follow and which if they did follow would be the greatest Wound to that cause which he pretends to Patronize But because he has offer'd something under this first Thesis why the Prince should pay an implicit Obedience to his Clergy I come now to consider it He tells us therefore that the Prince professeth Himself with the rest of the Christians as to the knowing of Spiritual Truths a Subject and Scholar of the Church and he earnestly claims a Supreme power and confesseth an Obligation from God over all Persons in all Spiritual Matters to bind them upon Temporal Punishments to Obedience of the Churches or Clergy's Determinations and Decrees But here he either willingly misrepresents or ignorantly mistakes our Principles For the Prince claims a supreme power over all persons to bind them by temporal Punishments to the Obedience not of the Churches but of Christs Laws or of the former no farther then they are agreeable with the latter But saith He if the Prince meaneth here only where himself first judgeth such their Decrees Orthodox and right this power is in effect claim'd to bind all persons in all Spiritual matters only to his own Decrees whilst he praetends an Obligation both of himself and His Subjects to the Churches But what if the Prince judge such Decrees neither Orthodox nor right Must he here give them the Autority of Civil Sanctions This is to establish Iniquity by a Law and a power is claim'd in effect to bind all persons to the Decrees of the Clergy whilst as has been said He praetends an Obligation of Himself Subjects to the Laws of Christ. But he goes on and tells us That all Texts of the New-Testament do ordain Obedience of Church-men to the Pagan Princes that then Reigned no less then to others From which I suppose he would infer an exemption from Obeying the Prince in Spiritualibus But supposing that all Texts do aequally ordain Obedience to Princes Pagan and Christain yet the Obedience to a Christian Prince will be of greater latitude since because he professes the true Religion his Commands in Spirituals not contradicting our Saviours will exact our Compliance Obedience in licitis is all the Subject ow's to a Prince either Christian or Infidel but the Christian Prince will oftner challenge my Obedience because he more rarely transgresseth the bounds of licita If as he adds all Princes are oblig'd with the Sword which God hath given them to protect and defend his true Religion and Service in their Dominions whensoever it offers it self to them Since many Religions offer themselves it becomes the Prince to take Care which is the true and not to take whatever is offer'd which would be utterly destructive of our Authors Principles As for the Acts of Ancient Councils obliging even without the Emperours consent We own their Obligation over their proper Subjects so far as they were agreeable with the Laws of Christ and his Apostles and urge the Autority of Emperours no farther then as adding their Civil power to the Spiritual Power of the Church And here we challenge no other Power to our Princes then was exercis'd by Christian Emperours that is to call Synods and to have a liberty of confirming or not confirming their Decrees by Civil Sanctions As for what he cites out of our Writers all amounts to no more then this that there are some Offices peculiar to the Church Which neither do we deny nor did our Princes ever invade these Functions But because from hence He would insinuate that the Prince has no power at all in Causes Ecclesiastical in his Citations from these Writers comes up to that Character which the Book of Education gives us of the SLY the CLOSE and the RESERV'D who take notice of so much as serves to their own designs and misinterpret and detort what You say even contrary to Your intention I shall as briefly as may be shew that their Concessions are far from giving any Countenance to his Cause Bishop Andrews doth indeed say as all other of our Church Potestatis mere Sacerdotalis sunt Liturgiâ—e Conciones i. e. dubia legis explicandi munus claves Sacramenta omnia quae potestatem ordinis consequuntur But then there are other Ecclesiastical powers which he challenges to the Prince viz. To have Supreme Command in the exteriour Polity of the Church To be keeper of both Tables To exercise all that Power which the good Kings of Israel did To make Ecclesiastical Laws To delegate Persons to judge in causes Ecclesiastical To punish the breach of those Spiritual Laws To learn the will of God not only from the Mouth of the Clergy but also from the Scripture To have autority over all Persons To eject even the High Priest if he deserve it To pull down High-places and to Reform the Church from Idolatry and Superstition These He claims to appertain to the Prince Iure Divino The next Author is Dr. Carlton He amongst other rights of the Church reckons Institution and Collation of Benefices which this Writer marks with Italian Characters and makes much Use of But this Apostolical Institution and Collation by the Bishop alluded to doth also involve in it Ordination even as the Ordination which is observ'd by himself from the Bishop signified also
this Authority is by the Laws vindicated from Forreign Usurpation then he would have been in those days when such Usurpation was tolerated and conniv'd at Having dwelt hitherto on the Epistle and discover'd so much Insincerity in that which yet was to bespeak the Reader 's good Opinion of the ensuing Discourse We have no great reason to expect any fairer dealing in the prosecution of his design And here I shall be excus'd if I be the shorter in the Examination of his Theses both because they are such as being propos'd only and not prov'd it lies in our power to accept or reject them at pleasure as also because they have already undergone the Censure of a Noble Pen and have not been able to abide a fair Tryall Some of them are so ambiguously exprest that they may be either true or false according to the different construction they are capable of The fals-hood of others is self-evident But then for the better vending of these some truths are intermix'd according to the policy of Luther's Antagonist observ'd by his Biographer Who to make his bad wares saleable diligently mixeth some small stock of good with evil so to make this more current and all easily swallow'd down together by the imprudent and credulous Another Artifice much practis'd by our Author is that he lays down his Propositions in general terms but afterwards restrains them by such limitations which if adher'd to would make them utterly disserviceable to his Cause but then when they come to be applied the These are refer'd to at large without any regard to such limitations Thus when in his first Thesis he has propos'd That it is not in the just power of the Prince to deny giving the Ministers of Christ license to exercise their Office and their Ecclesiastical Censures in his Dominions He means he saith in general for he meddles not with the Prince his denying some of them to do these things whilst he admits others Now if this Restraint be observ'd then all which he would establish from this Thesis will come to Nothing For he will not I believe presume to say that the Reforming Princes ever laid a general Interdict upon all the Clergy to prohibit them the exercise of their Ecclesiastical Functions This is an Act which the Reformation detests and which we leave to the charitableness of the Universal Pastor who by Virtue of our Saviour's Command of Pasce oves challenges to himself a power of depriving the flock of all Spiritual food Thus again When in his third Thesis he has asserted that the Secular Prince cannot eject from the exercise of their Office in his Dominions any of the Clergy nor consequently the Patriarch from any Autority which he stands possest of by Ecclesiastical Canons He restrains such Canons to those only that cannot justly be pretended to do any wrong to the Civil Government Now he knows that all Canons which would obtrude upon us a forreign usurp'd Autority are by us pretended whether justly or not they will best judge who impartially weigh our Reasons injurious to the Civil Government Another Limitation of this Thesis is that the Civil power may judge and eject and disauthorize Spiritual Persons for Moral and Civil Misdemeanors damageable to the Common-Wealth But this Limitation is forgot when from this Thesis He would prove the ejection of the Bishops in Queen Elizabeth's time unlawful For their Deprivation was for refusing the Oath of Supremacy made first by Roman-Catholicks in King Henry the 8th's time and reviv'd by Queen Elizabeth so that the Justice of it depends merely on the Right of the Civil power to make Oaths for the better security of their Government and to impose such Penalties as are exprest in the Law on the Violators and if such Refusal be damageable to the Common-Wealth as it was then judg'd then the Deprivation of those Refusers will be justifiable according to his own Principles Thus again in his 8th Thesis When he has laid down That as for things of meer Ecclesiastical Constitution Neither National Synod nor Secular power may make any New Canons contrary to the Ecclesiastical Constitutions of former Superior Councils nor reverse those formerly made by them He restrains it to those only as neither the Prince can shew some way prejudicial to his Civil Government nor the National Synod can shew more prejudicial to their particular Church then the same Constitutions are to the rest of Christian Churches Where by the way methinks it should suffice if they were aequally prejudicial for one Church is never the less wrong'd because another suffers Now we desire no more then the benefit of this limitation for if the Prince may reverse such Constitutions when prejudicial to Civil Government and the National Synod when praejudicial to their particular Church and each of these are Judges of such praejudice for neither doth AEquity admit nor doth He appoint any other Arbiter then each of these have as much power granted them as they challenge which is only to alter such Constitutions as are prejudicial to them Having praemis'd thus much in general and caution'd the Reader against this piece of Sophistry which runs through the greatest part of this Discourse I shall now proceed to a particular survey of his Theses As for the first and second I shall at present grant him that favour which he seems to request of all his Readers i. e. suppose them to be true and shall content my self only to examin what Inferences he deduces from them And here I cannot but commend his Policy for setting his Conclusions at so great a distance from his Praemisses for they are commonly such as would have by no means agreed to stand too nigh together From his first and second Thesis that the Clergy have power to determine Controversies in pure matters of Religion and to judge what is divine truth what are Errors that they cannot alienate this Power to the Secular Prince he infers That that Synodical Act of the Clergy in K. Henry the Eighth's time whereby they promise not to Assemble without the King 's Writ nor when Assembled to execute any Canons without the King's consent is unlawful Now it is to be observed that the Clergy neither do deny that they have a Power to determine Controversies in pure matters of Religion which is what the first Thesis would prove nor do they transfer such a Power on the King which might be against the Tenor of the second The utmost which can be deduc'd hence is That the Clergy did for prudential motives limit themselves in the Exercise of one branch of their Spiritual Power and it will be difficult for this Author to prove that He who has a power jure divino may not by humane Laws be limited in the Use of it Husbands have a power over their Wives Fathers over their Children and Masters over their Servants by the Law of God and yet this power may be