had to make promulge or execute the same And that his Majesty do give his most Royal assent and authority in that behalf And whereas diverse Constitutions Ordinances and Canons Provincial or Synodal which heretofore have been enacted and be thought not only to be much prejudicial to the Kings Prerogative Royal and repugnant to the Laws and Statutes of this Realm but also overmuch onerous to his Higness and his Subjects The said Clergy have most humbly besought his Highness that the said Constitutions and Canons may be committed to the Examination and Iudgement of his Highness and of thirty two persons of the Kings Subjects whereof sixteen to be of the upper and nether house of Parliament of the Temporality and the other sixtéen to be of the Clergy of this Realm and all of the said thirty two persons to be chosen and appointed by his Majesty c. And then Enacts viz. Be it therefore Enacted by the Authority of this present Parliament according to the said submission and petition of the said Clergy that they nor either of them from henceforth shall presume to attempt alledge claim or put in urd any Constitutions or Ordinances Provincial or Synodal or any other Canons nor shall enact promulge or execute any such Canons Constitutions or Ordinances Provincial by whatsoever name or names they may be called in their convocations in time coming which always shall be assembled by authority of the Kings Writ c. And the Penalty for doing other than this Act directs was imprisonment and Fine at the Kings will as by the Statute more at large appears So that by this Statute their whole power was now invested in the King and till new Canons were made or the old ones confirmed as the Statute directs the Clergy of England could in no sort act and from that time of the making of this Statute until this present I cannot find that ever any liberty was given or that any Canons were made or confirmed by Law other than what were judged unlawful in King Charles the First 's time and damn'd by Act of Parliament in 1640. Which you will hear more of by and by If it be thus then from 25 H. 8. I must date their downfal a most happy day to England from that time and it may be said all their Canons are now out of doors or at seast very lame and if so then let the Reader judge where is their Authority for their Courts for they must and do own that it was the Canon Law they acted by and if so then sure if they have no Canons to act by or at best but doubtful Canons then I conceive they can have no power except they can find it by the Statute Law which I would be glad to see In the next place another Law is made against them in 25 H. 8. which takes away all First-fruits to the Bishop of Rome 25 H. 8. c. 20. and ordains that Elections of all Bishops shall be by the Kings Writ under a severe pain In the same year an Act is made to take away Peter-pence and Dispensations Idem cap. 21. in which Statute it is expresly declared that this Land ought not to be subject or bound to any humane Laws but such as are of their own making within this Realm The King being declared head of the Church 26 H. 8. cap. 1. it is expresly there enacted viz. Shall have full power and authority from time to time to visit repress redress reform order correct restrain all such errors heresies abuses offences contempts and enormities whatsoever they be which by any manner of Spiritual Authority or Iurisdiction ought or may lawfully be reformed repressed ordered redressed corrected restrained or amended most to the pleasure of Almighty God c. This being the Case what colour can here be for any Spiritual or Ecclesiastical power to any person whatever but what must be derived from and under the King and by his Authority and Commission and in his name and not in their own nor in the Bishop of Rome But because the Reader may be more fully satisfied I have here inserted the Statute made 37 H. 8. cap. 17. 37. H. 8. c. 17. Entituled viz. A Bill that the Doctors of Civil Law being married may exercise Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction In most humble wise shew and declare unto your Highness your most faithful humble and obedient Subjects the Lords Spiritual and Temporal and the Commons of this present Parliament assembled That whereas your Royal Majestie is and hath always been justly by the word of God Supreme head in the Earth in the Church of England and hath full power and authority to correct punish and repress all manner of Heresies Errors Vires Sins Abuses Idolatries Hypocrisies and Superstitions sprung and growing within the same and to exercise all other manner of Iurisdictions commonly called Ecclesiastical Iurisdiction Nevertheless the Bishop of Rome and his adherents minding utterly as much as in him lay to abolish obscure and delete such power given by God to the Princes of the Earth whereby they might gether and get to themselves the Government and rule of the world have in their Councils and Synods Provincial made ordained established and decréed diverse Ordinances and Constitutions that no Lay or married man should or might exercise or occupy any Iurisdiction Ecclesiastical nor should be any Iudge or Register in any Court commonly called Ecclestatical Court lest their false and usurped power which they pretend and went about to have in Christs Church should decay wax vile and be of no reputation as by the said Councils and Constitutions Provincial appeareth Which standing and remaining in their Effect not abolished by your Graces Laws did sound to appear to make greatly for the said usurped power of the said Bishop of Rome and to be directly replignant to your Majesty as supreme head of the Church and Prerogative Royal your Grate being a Lay man. And albeit the said Decrées Ordinances and Constitutions by a Statute made in the five and twentieth year of your most noble reign be utterly abolished frustrate and of none effect yet because the contrary thereunto is not used nor put in practice by the Arch-Bishops Bishops Arch-Deacons and other Ecclesiastical persons who have no manner of Iurisdiction Ecclesiastical but by under and from your Royal Majesty it addeth or at the least may give occasion to some evil disposed persons to think and little to regard the procéedings and censures Ecclesiastical made by your Highness and your Vicegerent Officials Commissaries Iudges and Visitators being also Lay and Married men to be of little or none effect or force whereby the people gathereth heart and presumption to do evil and not to have such reverence to your most Godly injunctions and procéedings as becometh them But forasmuch as your Majesty is the only and undoubted supreme head of the Church of England and also of Ireland to whom by Holy Scripture all authority and
THE Bishops Courts DISSOLVED OR THE LAW OF ENGLAND TOUCHING Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction STATED Wherein it appears that the Spiritual Courts want both Power and Might to execute their Wills upon his Majesties good Subjects at this day BEING A short and brief Account of the several Statutes made concerning the Spiritual and Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction By E. W. LONDON Printed for T. Reyner to be sold by Rich. Janeway in Queens-head-alley in Pater-noster-row 1681. THE Bishops Courts DISSOLVED OR THE Law of England Touching Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction Stated THe design of this Narrative whatever Censurers it may meet with hath no other end than to bring truth to light and that truth more especially which hath been so long masqued and hid under Church-mens Gowns and which hath been most industriously concealed with great Artifice from the ignorant vulgar as they are generally pleased to term Lay-men though some of those Lay men nay the most of them I think are both for Parts and Piety not in the least inferiour to the best of them though they call themselves the only Clergy-men as if every member of Christs Church were not the Clergy or Gods heritage as well as they But my present business is only to meddle with the coercive power they pretend to in Courts Christian or Spiritual Jurisdiction which for them to claim such a power in England distinct from the legal power known in this Kingdom and contrary to the Supremacy of the King in direct opposition to his Authority as he is by Law supreme head of the Church of England is a very great wonder to me and I believe to the Ingenuous Reader if he consider the matter of fact as it lyes In the first place the Reader must know that all manner of Spiritual Jurisdiction used in this Nation had its original and foundation from the un-holy Mother Church the See of Rome and her Canon Law and was born or rather brought into this Northern Island of England by Austin the Monk for before his time we do not find any tract of Church-Government that is by way of Excommunication in Court Christian When he came here it was with the same specious pretence that Rome and her Adherents and Devotaries to this day use that is decency and regular government of the Church of Christ But no sooner had this Monk set foot into this Kingdome but he began to shew his cloven foot◠as it evidently appear'd in a very short time after for when he found that the Christians in this Island were more holy than himself and that they liked not his Pride and Arrogancy he fell upon the Monks of Bangor and began to Curse them with Bell Book and Candle till they should submit to him and the unholy See of Rome And from that time and not before all manner of Ecclesiastical Courts and Censures of the Church both grew and continued in this Kingdom until the time of Henry the Eighth under the Popes Authority and how they used the people in these Courts and how many were murdered and destroyed for Religion sake in all that time is too great a number now to be reckoned But not withstanding they had this vast power and held Courts Canonical as they term them by Authority from the See of Rome even from Austin the Monk to William the First commonly called the Conquerour and from thence to the time of Henry the Eighth yet the Bishops and Clergy of England sometimes by the Statute Law of the Land met with many rubs in their Canon Law for their oppressions being become very great even so great that in those dark times and fogs of Popery the Lay-men began to discover their cheats and therefore the wings of the Clergy began sometimes to be a little clipped by the Statute Law of the Land as you will find by several Statutes made since Henry the Third Vide Rot. An. 1257. 3 Ed. primi Cap. 2. particularly in the Statute made in Edward the First 's time which ordains That a Clerk being indicted of Felony by solemn Inquest of lawful men in the Kings Court in no manner shall be delivered without due Purgation Now before this Statute the Church-men pleaded exemption from the Temporal Law and offenders it should seem which were Church-men claimed a priviledge to be only liable to the power of the Church In the next place you will find by the Statute of Edward the First in the thirteenth year of his Reign the Spiritual Courts were prescribed what it was they should be suffered to take Cognizance of and no more see the Statute Viz. The King to his Iudges sendeth gréeting Called Stat. de circumspect agatis made 13 E. 1. Anno Dom. 1285. Vse your selves circumspectly in all matters concerning the Bishop of Norwich and his Clergy not punishing them if they hold plea in Court Christian of such things as be meer Spiritual that is to wit of Penances enjoyned by Prelates for deadly sins as Fornication Adultery and such like for the which sometimes corporal Penance and sometimes pecuniary is enjoyned especially if a Fréeman be convicted of such things Now after this Kings time those spiritual men finding themselves by his Laws kept within some moderate bounds Vid. Rot. de Artic. Cleri An. 9 Ed. 2. A. D. 1315. grew very uneasie and therefore in Edward the Second's time they began to stir for the enlarging their power For you will find in his Reign that the Clergy got Laws to pass then that the Clergy might correct in their Spiritual Courts for defamation and corporal penance was to be enjoyned as you may see by the Rolls of those times In these Statutes made at Lincoln they had diverse Priviledges given them Idem Cap. 3. as in the third Chapter they had power allowed them to lay Corporal punishment And in the fourth Chapter Cap 4. Prelates might correct for Defamation by that Statute In the eighth Chapter it appears that the Clergy did use to meddle with the Kings servants Idem Cap. 8. and censure them at their pleasure till they were limited and bounded by this Ordinance which Ordinance viz. It pleased our Lord the King that such Clerks that attend in his service if they ostend they shall be corrected by their Ordinary like as other but so long as they are occupied about the Exchequer they shall not be bound to kéep Residence in their Churches And in the same year among the Articles made for to give power Idem Cap. 14. and to restrain it is ordained viz. Also if any dignity be vacant where Election is to be made it is moved that the Electors may fréely make their Election without fear of any power Temporal The Kings Answer was They shall be made frée according to the form of Statutes and Ordinances This power continued to the Clergy till King Henry the Eighth only sometimes there was some small abridgements by several Statutes and Ordinances as in 31 Ed. 3. Cap. 4.
power is wholly given to hear and determine all manner of causes Ecclesiastical and to correct all vice and sin whatsoever and to all such persons as your Majesty shall appoint thereunto That in consideration thereof as well for the Instruction of ignorant persons as also to avoid the occasion of the opinion aforesaid and the setting forth of your prerogative Royal and Supremacy It may therefore please your Highness that it may be ordained and enacted by the authority of this present Parliament That all and singular persons as well Lay as those that be now married or hereafter shall be married being Doctors of the Civil Law lawfully create and made in any Vniversity which shall be made ordained constituted and deputed to be any Chancellour Vicar-General Commissary Official Scribe or Register by your Majesty or any of your Heirs or Successors or by any Arch-Bishop Bishop Arch-Deacon or other person whatsoever having authority under your Majesty your Heirs and Successors to make any Chancellour Vicar-General Commissary Offical or Register may lawfully execute and exercise all manner of Iurisdiction commonly called Ecclesiastical Iurisdiction and all Censures and Coercions appertaining or in any wise belonging unto the same albe it such person or persons be Lay married or unmarried so that they be Doctors of the Civil Law as is aforesaid any Law Constitution or Ordinance to the contrary notwithstanding Now here it appears plain that all Authority must be derived from the King and he alone as head of this Church hath power to correct or amend Heresies and all other Misdemeanours having the sole jurisdiction in Courts Spiritual called Ecclesiastical Courts and none to be made or Synold held but by his authority and permission so that it cannot be imagined by any that the Clergy had power to make Canons either new or to go on with their old ones till another Law be made and power given them by the King as the Law directs And from this time of the making of this Law none of the Canons or pretended Canons are any more in force in England than if there never had been any such thing in the world This therefore I lay down as a sure rule that the Ecclesiastical Courts have no power but what must be given them by the Statute Law of the Land. And therefore to come nearer to the matter I shall set down what Laws have been since made in their favour and what against them Which is thus King Edward the Sixth being a Protestant and having a wise and honest Council about him foreseeing the great benefit did accrue to the Crown and whole Nation by those good Laws made in his Fathers time made a Law that takes away all scruple and doubt whatsoever about the Ecclesiastical Courts and gives them not so much as power to hold any Courts in their own name nor to use their own Seal although they were suffered to act by from and under the King according to the Laws made by his Father And it appears by the Statute Entituled viz. An Act for the Election of Bishops Which Act for the better information I have inserted at large hoping those worthy Spiritual men will vouchsafe the reading it Which is as follows Forasmuch as the Elections of Arch-Bishops and Bishops 1 Ed. 6. cap. 2. by the Deans and Chapters within the Kings Majesties Realms of England and Ireland at this present time be as well to the long delay as to the great costs and charges of such persons as the Kings Majesty giveth any Arch-Bishoprick or Bishoprick unto And whereas the said Elections be in very déed no Elections but only by a Writ of Conge d'Eslire have colours shadows or pretences of Elections serving nevertheless to no purpose and séeming also derogatory and prejudicial to the Prerogative Royal to whom only appertaineth the Collation and gift of all Arch-Bishopricks and Bishopricks and Suffragan Bishops within his Highness said Realms of England and Ireland Wales and other his Dominions and Marches For a due reformation hereof Be it therefore enacted by the Kings Highness with the assent of the Lords Spiritual and Temporal and the Commons in this present Parliament assembled and by Authority of the same That from henceforth no such Conge d'Eslire be granted nor Election of any Arch-Bishop or Bishop by the Dean and Chapter made But that the King may by his Letters Patents at all times when any Arch-Bishoprick or Bishoprick is void confer the same to any person to whom the King shall think méet The which Collations so by the Kings Letters Patents made and delivered to the person whom the King shall confer the same Arch-Bishoprick or Bishoprick or to his sufficient Proctor or Attorney shall stand to all intents constructions and purposes to as much and the same effect as though Conge d'Eslire had béen given the Election duly made and the same confirmed And thereupon the said person to whom the said Arch-Bishoprick Bishoprick or Suffraganship is so conferred collated or given may be consecrated and sue his Livery or Ouster le Main and do other things as well as if the said Ceremonies and Elections had béen done and made Provided always and be it Enacted by the Authority aforesaid that every such person to whom any collation and gift of any Arch-Bishoprick or Suffraganship shall be given or collated by the King his Heirs or Sure essors shall pay do and yield to all and every person all such fées interests and duties as of old time hath béen accustomed to be done any thing in this Act or in any other to the contrary hereof in any wise notwithstanding And whereas the Arch-Bishops and Bishops and other Spiritual persons in this Realm do use to make and send out their summons citations and other processes in their own names and in such form and manner as was used in the time of the usurped power of the Bishop of Rome contrary to the form and order of the summons and process of the Common Law used in this Realm séeing that all Authority of Iurisdiction Spiritual and Temporal is derived and deducted from the Kings Majesty as supreme head of these Churches and Realms of England and Ireland and so justly acknowledged by the Clergy of the said Realms that all Courts Ecclesiastical within the said two Realms be kept by no other power or authority either foreign or within the Realm but by the authority of his most excellent Majesty Be it therefore further enacted by the Authority aforesaid that all summons and citations or other Process Ecclesiastical in all suits and causes of Instance betwixt party and party and all causes of Correction and all causes of Bastardy or Bigamy or enquiry de jure patronatus Probates of Testaments and Commissions of Administrations of persons deceased and all Acquittances of and upon account made by the Executors Administrators or Collectors of goods of any dead person be from the first day of July next following made in the name and
Objections which I have met with in this Affair the First is this That the King permits it and if any wrong be done by the Spiritual Courts it is to him and what hath any private person to do to concern himself therein In that the King may pass it by 't is true but wrong may be done by these Courts to the Subject as well as to the King and there may be Damage to a single Person by these Courts by being Excommunicated which cannot be to the King and whoever suffers under that Burden hath cause enough to complain and seek their Remedy tho' the King think fit to forgive the wrong done to himself The other Objection is That the Course of the Ecclesiastical Courts hath been such time out of mind and no hurt comes to the Subject by their Courts whether it be done by Commission or not To which I Answer That I never yet heard of any Good ever did come from those Courts but many have been ruined and undone by them And in the next place for their Custome time out of mind there is no such thing if Custome should prevail against Law which it cannot be for the longest time they can bring for this Custome is but 1610 at the furthest time and there are some persons yet living can remember that time But I believe it will be hard for them to prove that they exercised Ecclesiastical Power by their own Authority in any time in the Reign of King James However if they do they cannot make it a Law for an evil Custom against Law never yet made a Law and for them to say Custome will carry it the Highway-Man may as well plead the same for Robbery and say Oh Sir I have been accustomed to Rob tho' there be a Law against it There is another Objection which carries as little weight as the rest and that is the Opinion of the Judges in the Star-Chamber which ought to have the Answer that before is given that it was an Extra-Judicial Opinion and given at such a time and by the same Judges that over-ruled the Plea of the Lord Hollis and Elliot which was many Years after reversed in Parliament Therefore to Sum up all the case lies thus before the 20 of H. the 8. The Spiritual Jurisdiction and all the proceedings in England by the Ecclesiastical Courts was by from and under the power and authority of the See of Rome and by there Cannon Law afterwards to the end of his Reign all that power was invested wholly in the King and no authority belonged to them in any matters whatever but what must be derived by from and under him King Edward the 6. of Famous memory did by his honest and wise Councel not only approve of what was dune in the Church affairs in H. the 8ths time but goes on furder and takes away the very form and mould of the Spiritual Courts by making a Law that those Courts should not so much as beheld in their one name but in the name of the King and all there Citations and Prosses whatever was to be in the Kings name as in Judicial proceeding at Law and the Bishops name of the Diosess to be at the bottom as test to the writ and not as Lord Paramount the Kings authority and by this Kings Law they were not to use any Seal to the Court but with the Kings Arms in Graven so it rested in his time Queen Mary she came in Popishly affected and by the help of Cardinal Poole Legate from Rome prevails with her for the good of her Soul and Honour to the unholy Church of Rome to pass an Act called an Act of repeal to take away all those Laws that abridged the Power and Supremacy of the See of Rome sence the 20 year of H. the 8. And as some will have it this Law of Edward the 6. must be meant to be one of those but what reason can be in Law given is not yet known for it is not perticularly Repealed as other Laws are in that Statute of Repeal and then in the next place being not so perticularly it is believed it could not be Repealed by that Act of Repeal because that in the very same Act it doth set fourth perticularly all other Acts intended to be repealed and not that Then Queen Elizabeth in her first year Repealed the Act of Repeal made in Queen Mary's days and restores all again as was in Henry the 8ths time and Edward the 6. And declared particularly that all manner of Ecclesiastical power must be from and under her and by her Authority and none else and more particularly to shew all the Church power was then lost without new power given by that Act a Clause is incerted in the said Act that She and her Successors shall give command under the great Seal of England to such commmissions as she pleased from time to time to hold Court Ecclesiastical and not otherwise To the same effect it is again declared by the Statute made the 8th of her Reign And it is most certain that by Vertue of the Clause in that Statute Primo Eliz. That gives power of granting Commissions to hold Spiritual Courts they did Act and without it neither Queen or King could grant such Commissions nor they hold any Courts without such Commissions Thus then it continued all the time of Q. Eliz. and by such Commissions they acted and no other Authority was known nor from her time can they shew other Authority to impower them but on the contrary they will find themselves lessened For in King Jame's time they acted by the same Authority and in full Parliament in 1610 it was owned of all hands In King Charles the first 's time the Spiritual Courts became a Burden to the Nation so great that the people were not able to bear them although they did Act by such Commissions or at least ought so to do which appears plain by the Statute 16 Car Primi which takes away all their whole power and as a reason or means to take away their power what do the Parliament do why it is most clear both by the Title and Body of the Act they tell you they must repeal that part of the Law of Q. Eliz. that gave power to grant Commissions for them to hold Spiritual Courts Therefore the taking away and Repealing that Branch of the Statute of Eliz. that gives power to grant Commissions it was taken for grant then that they had no power at all For no more of that Statute was Repealed is evident then what related to the Comissions they did not let them loose to Act as before it was so far from that that it appears they intended not to let them Act at all neither under the King in his Name nor any otherways whatever then in this of Car. 2d The Ecclesiastical persons meant to Repeal the Act of Primo Car. But mistook the year so in truth they did nothing at all but they may be liable to be called to account for all they have acted ever since nor can they Act with safety till this Law be mended for Acts of Parliament must be punctually repealed and exactly recited or else in Law it will not do But if that had been well Repealed it is far short of giving them any power for it is only to take away the Clause that was repealed about given Commissions to hold Courts but gives them no new power at all it doth not tell them notwithstanding the Laws of H. 8. Ed. 6. The rest of the Statutes of Elizabeth and the practice in King James time that they shall hold Courts in their own Names no it is so far from that that the Act saith expresly they shall have no other power by this Act or was it intended them then what they had in 1639 now if they can shew that they had any power given them between the year 1610 to the year 1639. Then I say they are right and may go on if not I appeal to all mankind what culler or pretence these men can have to hold Courts Spiritual at all much less by their own Prerogative or in their own Names which I take to be as unlawful and as directly against the Kings Prerogative as any thing can be For that since all power Spiritual and Temporal is by Law invested in the King they may as well hold Courts again under the Popes Authority and in his Name as in their own Names and it is a wonderful thing to consider that these Churchmen who cry down all for Phanaticks and tells the World at every turn they are Sedious and Disloyal that do not obey the Kings Laws and say as they say although sometimes they say and do they know not what themselves And yet what Phanatick is there this day in England does or ever did make so bold with the Kings Prerogative as these high Churchmen who in every of their Courts as they call them and every process they make say in effect as the great Cardinal Woolsey did when in his splender and glory in England Ego Rex meos But I considering we are here discoursing of Protestant Churchmen and knowing well their very Tongues are tipped with Loyalty We must not therefore venture to say more or meddle further then to beg their Charitable opinion once to a Discenter both from their Courts and Cannons FINIS