of Evangelical Truths Her Religious Performances her holy Offices ordered and regulated agreeable to the strict expedient of such Sacred Actions Her Discipline Model sutable to the Apostolick Form The set and suit of her whole Tribe renowned â—or Piety and Learning are all those in so super-eminent a degree that no Church on this side of the Apostolick can or could compare with her in any one All Arts and Sciences highly honoured and consequently their Academies to flourish To which last part of the Character let me add thus much That the Universities never had such a flourishing time for number of Students civility of Conversation and eminence in all parts of Learning as when the influences of his Power and Government did direct their Studies If you will take her Character from the Pen of a Iesuit you shall find him speaking amongst many falshoods these undoubted Truths viz. That the Professors of it they especially of greatest Worth Learning and Authority love Temper and Moderation That the Doctrines are altered in many things as for example the Pope not Antichrist Pictures Free-will Predestination Vniversal Grace Inherent Righteousness the preferring of Charity before Knowledge the Merit or Reward rather of good Works the 39 Articles seeming patient if not ambitious also of some Catholick sense That their Churches begin to look with a new face their Walls to speak a new Language and some of their Divines to teach That the Church hath Authority in determining Controversies of Faith and interpreting the Scriptures That men in talk and writing use willingly the once fearful names of Priests and Altars and are now put in mind That for Exposition of Scripture they are by Canon bound to follow the Fathers So far the Iesuit may be thought to speak nothing but truth but had he tarried there he had been no Iesuit And therefore to preserve the Credit of his Order he must fly out further and tell us this viz. That Protestantism waxeth weary of it self That we are at this time more unresolved where to fasten than in the infancy of our Church That our Doctrine is altered in many things for which our Progenitors forsook the then visible Church of Christ amongst which he reckons Limbus Patrum Prayer for the Dead Iustification not by Faith alone The possibility of keeping Gods Commandments and the accounting of Calvinism to be Heresie at the least if not also Treason Which Points the Iesuit cannot prove to have been positively maintained by any one Divine in the Church of England and yet those foolish men began to phancy such a misconstruction of that Ingenuity and Moderation which they found in some Professors of our Religion whom they affirmed to be of greatest Worth Learning and Authority as to conceive that we were coming towards an Agreement with them even in those Superstitions and Idolatries which made the first Wall of Separation between the Churches Upon which hope as weak and foolish as it was the late Archbishop of Canterbury was no sooner dead but one of their Party came to Laud whom they looked upon as his Successor seriously tendred him the offer of a Cardinals Cap and avowed Ability to perform it to whom he presently returned this Answer That somewhat dwelt within him which would not suffer him to accept the Offer till Rome were otherwise than it was And this being said he went immediately to his Majesty acquainting him both with the Man and with his Message together with the Answer which he made unto it The like he also did when the same Offer was reinforced a fornight after upon which second Refusal the Tempter left him and that not only for that time but for ever after But to proceed To welcom him to his new great Charge he received Letters from his Majesty dated upon the very day of his Confirmation upon this occasion It had been ordered by the ancient Canons of the Church That none should be admitted Deacon or Priest who had not first some certain place where he might use his Function And it was ordered by the Canons of the year 1603. in pursuance of the said old Canons That no person should be admitted into Sacred Orders except he shall at that time exhibit to the Bishop of whom he desireth Imposition of Hands a Presentation of himself to some Ecclesiastical Preferment then void in that Diocess or shall bring unto the said Bishop a true and undoubted Certificate That either he is provided of some Church within the said Diocess where he may attend the Cure of Souls or of some Ministers Place vacant either in the Cathedral Church of that Diocess or of some other Collegiat Church therein also scituate where he may execute his Ministry or that he is a Fellow or in right as a Fellow or to be a Conduct or Chaplain in some Colledge in either of the Universities or except he be a Master of Arts of five years standing that liveth in either of them at his own charge And hereunto was added this Commination That if any Bishop shall admit any person into the Ministry that hath none of these Titles as is aforesaid then he shall keep and maintain him with all things necessary till he do prefer him to some Ecclesiastical Living and on his refusal so to do he shall be suspended by the Archbishop being assisted with another Bishop from giving of Orders by the space of a year Which severe Canon notwithstanding some Bishops of the poorer Sâ—â—s for their private benefit admitted many men promisâ—uously to Holy Orders so far from having any Title that they had no Merit By means whereof the Church was filled with indigent Clerks which either thrust themselves into Gentlemens Houses to teach their Children and sometimes to officiate Divine Service at the Tables end or otherwise to undertake some Stipendary Lecture wheresoever they could find entertainment to the great fomenting of Faction in the State the Danger of Schism in the Church and ruine of both It had been formerly ordered by his Majesties Instructions of the year 1629. That no private Gentleman not qualified by Law should keep any Chaplain in his House Which though it were somewhat strictly inquired into at the first yet not a few of them retained their Chaplains as before For remedy whereof for the time to come it was thought fit to tie the Bishops from giving Orders unto any which were not qualified according to the foresaid Canon which was conceived to be the only probable means of diminishing the number both of such petit Lecturers and such Trencher-Chaplains the English Gentry not being then come to such wild extremities as to believe that any man might exercise the Priests Office in ministring the Sacraments Praying Preaching c. which was not lawfully Ordained by some Bishop or other Now his Majesties Letter to this purpose was as followeth CHARLES REX MOst Reverend Father in God Right Trusty and Right Entirely-beloved Counsellor We greet you well There
Hierarchy and the Church of England against the Practices of the Scots and Scotizing English and no less busied in digesting an Apologie for vindicating the Liturgie commended to the Kirk of Scotland In reference to the last he took order for translating the Scottish Liturgy into the Latine Tongue that being published with the Apologie which he had designed it might give satisfaction to the world of his Majesty Piety and his own great care the Orthodoxie and simplicity of the Book it self and the perverseness of the Scots in refusing all of it Which Work was finished and left with him but it went no further the present distemper of the times and the troubles which fell heavily on him putting an end to it in the first beginning But the best was that the English Liturgie had been published in so many Languages and the Scottish so agreeable to the English in the Forms and Offices that any man might judge of the one by perusing the other The first Liturgie of King Edward vi translated into Latine by Alexander Alesius a learned Scot for the better information of Martin Bucer when he first came to live amongst us the second Liturgie of that King with Queen Elizabeths Emendations by Walter Haddon President of Magdalen Colledge in Oxon. and Dean of Exeter and his Translation rectified by Dr. Morket in the times of King Iames according to such Explications and Additions as were made by order from the King The same translated into French for the use of the Isle of Iersey by the appointment of the King also into the Spanish for the better satisfaction of that Nation by the prudent care of the Lord Keeper Williams And finally by the countenance and encouragement of this Archbishop translated into Greek by Petley much about this time that so the Eastern Churches might have as clear an information of the English Piety as the Western had In order to the other he recommended to Hall then Bishop of Exon. the writing of a book in defence of the Divine Right of Episcopacy in opposition to the Scots and their Adherents Exeter undertakes the Work and sends him a rude draught or Skeleton of his design consisting of the two main points of his intended discourse together with the several Propositions which he intended to insist on in pursuance of it The two main points which he was to aim at were First That Episcopacy is a lawful most ancient holy and divine institution as it is joyned with imparity and superiority of Jurisdiction and therefore where it hath through Gods providence obtained cannot by any humane power be abdicated without a manifest violation of Gods Ordinance And secondly That the Presbyterian Government however vindicated under the glorious names of Christs Kingdom and Ordinance hath no true footing either in Scripture or the Practice of the Church in all Ages from Christs time till the present and that howsoever it may be of use in some Cities or Territories wherein Episcopal Government through iniquity of times cannot be had yet to obtrude it upon a Church otherwise settled under an acknowledged Monarchy is utterly incongruous and unjustifiable In which two points he was to predispose some Propositions or Postulata as he calls them to be the ground of his proceedings which I shall here present in his own conceptions that so we may the better judge of those corrections which were made upon them The Postulata were as followeth viz. 1. That Government which was of Apostolical Institution cannot be denied to be of Divine Right 2. Not only that Government which was directly commanded and enacted but also that which was practiced and recommended by the Apostles to the Church must justly pass â—or an Apostolical Institution 3. That which the Apostles by Divine Inspiration instituted was not for the present time but for continuance 4. The universal Practice of the Church immediately succeeding the Apostles is the best and surest Commentary upon the Practice of the Apostles or upon their Expressions 5. We may not entertain so irreverent an opinion of the Saints and Fathers of the Primitive Church that they who were the immediate Successors of the Apostles would or durst set up a Government either faulty or of their own heads 6. If they would have been so presumptuous yet they could not have diffused an uniform form of Government through the world in so short a space 7. The ancient Histories of the Church and Writings of the eldest Fathers are rather to be believed in the report of the Primitive Form of the Church-Government than those of this last Age. 8. Those whom the ancient Church of God and the holy and Orthodox Fathers condemned for Hereticks are not fit to be followed as Authors of our Opinion or Practice for Church-Government 9. The accession of honourable Titles or Priviledges makes no difference in the substance of the calling 10. Those Scriptures wherein a new Form of Government is grounded have need to be very clear and unquestionable and more evident than those whereon the former rejected Politie is raised 11. If that Order which they say Christ set for the Government of the Church which they call the Kingdom and Ordinance of Christ be but one and undoubted then it would and shall have been ere this agreed upon against them what and which it is 12. It this which they pretend be the Kingdom and Ordinance of Christ then if any Essential part of it be wanting Christs Kingdom is not erected in the Church 13. Christian Politie requires no impossible or absurd thing 14. Those Tenets which are new and unheard of in all Ages of the Church in many and Essential points are well worthy to be suspected 16. To depart from the Practice of the Universal Church of Christ ever from the Apostles times and to betake our selves voluntarily to a new Form lately taken up cannot but be odious and highly scandalous These first Delineations of the Pourtraicture being sent to Lambeth in the end of October were generally well approved of by the Metropolitan Some lines there were which he thought to have too much shadow and umbrage might be taken at them if not otherwise qualified with a more perfect Ray of Light And thereupon he takes the Pensil in his hand and with some Alterations of the Figure accompanied with many kind expressions of a fair acceptance he sent them back again to be compleatly Limned and Coloured by that able hand Which alterations what they were and his reasons for them I shall adventure to lay down as they come before me that so the Reader may discern as well the clearness of his apprehension and the excellency of his judgment in the points debated The Letter long and therefore so disposed of without further coherence that so it may be perused or pretermitted without disturbance to the sequel some preparations being made by the hand of his Secretary he proceeds thus to the rest The rest of your Letter is fitter to be
amongst the People yet is but in one of our Authors neither who hath no other Author for it then a nameless Doctor And in the way towards so happy an agreement though they all stand accused for it by the English Pope pag. 15. Sparrow may be excused for placing it with Auricular Confession and Wâ—llâ— for for Penance Heylyn for Adoration toward the Altar and Mountague for such a qualified praying to Saints as his books maintain against the Papists If you would know how far they had proceeded towards this happy Reconciliation the Popes Nuncio will assure us thus That the Vniversities Bishops and Divines of this Realm did dayly embrace Catholick Opinions though they profess'd not so much with Pen or Mouth for fear of the Puritans For example they hold That the Church of Rome is a true Church That the Pope is Superiour to all Bishops That to him it appertains to call General Councils That it is lawful to pray for the Soul of the Departed That Altars ought to be erected of Stone In sum That they believe all that is taught by the Church but not by the Court of Rome Another of their Authors tells us as was elsewhere noted That those amongst us of greatest Worth Learning and Authority began to love Temper and Moderation That their Doctrines began to be altered in many things for which their Progenitors forsook the Visible Church of Christ as for example The Pope not Antichrist Prayers for the Dead Limbus Patrum Pictures That the Church hath Authority in determining Controversies of Faith and to interpret Scriptures about Free will Predestination Universal Grace That all our Works are not Sins Merit of Good Works Inherent Iustice Faith alone doth justifie Charity to be preferred before Knowledge The Authority of Traditions Commandments possible to be kept That in Exposition of the Scripture they are by Canon bound to follow the Fathers And that the once fearful Names of Priests and Altars are used willingly in their Talk and Writings In which Compliances so far forth as they speak the truth for in some Points through the ignorance of the one and the malice of the other they are much mistaken there is scarce any thing which may not very well consist with the established though for a time discontinued Doctrine of the Church of England the Articles whereof as the same Iesuit hath observed seem patient or ambitious rather of some sense wherein they may seem Catholick And such a sense is put upon them by him that calls himself Franciscus a Sacta Clara as before was said And if upon such Compliances as those before on the part of the English the Conditions offered by the Pope might have been confirmed Who seeth not that the greatest Benefit of the Reconciliation would have redounded to this Church to the King and People His Majesties Security provided for by the Oaths of Supremacy and Allegiance so far as it concerned his Temporal Power The Bishops of England to be independent of the Popes of Rome The Clergy to be permitted the use of Marriage The People to receive the Communion in both KINDS and all Divine Offices officiated in the English Tongue No Innovation made in Doctrine but only in the qualifying of some Expressions and discharging some Out-landish Glosses as were put upon them And seeing this What man could be so void of Charity so uncompassionate of the Miseries and Distractions of Christendom as not to wish from the very bottom of his Soul That the Reconciliation had proceeded upon so good Terms as not to magnifie the men to succeeding Ages who were the Instruments and Authors of so great a Blessing But then admitting as we may That no such Reconciliation was upon the Anvil and that our two Discoursers have proceeded only upon Suppositions yet Canterbury had good ground for what he did were it no other than the settling of the Church of England upon the first Principles and Positions of her Reformation But he had further aims than so He had some thoughts and I have reason to believe it by Conferences first and if that failed by the ordinary course of Ecclesiastical Censures of gaining the Papists to the Church and therefore it concerned him in point of Prudence to smooth the way by removing all such Blocks and Obstacles which had been laid before them by the Puritan Faction He knew that from their Infancy they had been trained up in a Regular Order of Devotion and that they loved that Religion best which came accompanied with Decency and External Splendour That they objected nothing more against us than the Novelty of our Doctrine the Heterodoxies maintained in Publick by some of our Preachers the slovenly keeping of our Churches the Irreverence of the People in them the rude and careless slubbering over of our Common Prayers And what Encouragements had they for resorting to the Congregation when they should hear the Pope defamed whom they behâ—ld with Reverence as their Common Father their Ceremonies to be counted Antichristian their Mass â—â—â—latrous their whole Religion worse than that of the Turks and Moors conâ—ormity to whom in Rites and Ceremonies was held to be more tolerable by the Puritan Preachers than to those of Rome These â—ubs were first to be removed before they could have any thoughts of uniting to us And for the removing of those Rubs he â—â—ll up on the courses before-mentioned which being Renovations only of some ancient Usages were branded by the odious name of Innovations by some of those who out of cunning and design had long disused them Some zealous Protestants beheld his Actings with no small fear as byaâ—sing too strongly toward Rome that the Puritans exclaimed against him for a Papist and the Papists cried him up for theirs and gave themselves some flattering hopes of our coming towards them But the most knowing and understanding men amongst them found plainly That nothing could tend more to their destruction than the introducing of some Ceremonies which by late negligence and Practice had been discontinued For I have heard from a Person of known Nobility That at his being at Rome with a Father of the English Colledge one of the Novices came in and told him with a great deal of joy That the English were upon returning to the Church of Rome That they began to set up Altars to Officiate in their Copes to Adorn their Churches and to paint the Pictures of the Saints in the Church Windows To which the old Father made Reply with some indignation That he talked like an ignorant Novice That these Proceedings rather tended to the Ruine than Advancement of the Catholick Cause That by this means the Church of England coming nearer to the ancient Usages the Catholicks there would sooner be drawn off from them than any more of that Nation would fall off to Rome In reference to Doctrinal Points Heterodoxies and new Opinions and such extravagant Expressions both from Press and Pulpit he took as much
assured that even with my whole heart God is my witness in the Bowels of Christ I love you in truth and for truths sake which abideth in us and I am perswaded by the Grace of God shall abide in us for evermore Acts and Mon. in Edw. vi fol. 1366. Now as Bishop Ridley thus declares himself to be of the same Judgement with Bishop Hooper so Cranmer the Archbishop doth declare himself to be of the same Judgement with Bishop Ridley for being charged in his examination with thinking otherwise in the point of the Sacrament then he had done about seven or eight years before he answereth That he then believed otherwise than he did at that present and that he did so till the Lord of London Dr. Ridley did confer with him and by sundry perswasions and Authorities of other Doctors drew him quite from his opinion with whom he now agreed ibid fol. 1702. Which words though spoken only in relation to such points about the Sacrament of the Altar concerning which he was then examined by the Popes Commissioners yet do they signifie withal that he relyed very much on Ridleys Judgement and that they were as like to be accorded in all other matters of Religion as they were in that And though Cranmer exercised his Pen for the most part against the Papists yet in his Book against Steven Gardiner Concerning the Sacrament of Christs Body and Blood first published in the year 1551. he thus delivereth his opinion in the present Controversies For speaking of the Sacrifice which was made by Christ he lets us know That he took unto himself not only their sins that many years before were dead and put their trust in him but also all the sins of those that until his coming again should truly believe his Gospel so that now we may look for no other Priest nor Sacrifice to take away our sins but only him and his Sacrifice that as he dying once was offered for all so as much as pertained unto him he took all mens sins unto himself fol. 372. Which is as much as could be looked for from a man who did not purposely apply himself to the points in question Finally it were worth the learning to know why the Paraphrases of Erasmus a man of a known difference in Judgement from Calvins Doctrines in these points should be translated into English by the care of our Prelates and being so translated should be commended both by King Edward vi and Queen ELizabeth to the diligent reading of their Subjects of all conditions which certainly they had not done if they had not been thereunto perswaded by those Bishops and other learned men about them who had a principal hand in â—he Reformation which clearly shews how much as well the Priest as the people were to ascribe unto the Judgement of that learned man and consequently how little unto that of Calvin in the present Controversies 39. So near this Church comes up unto the Church of Rome in Government forms of Worship and some points of Controversie And some there are in which they totally disagreed and stood in opposition unto one another viz. In the Articles touching the sufficiency of the Scripture Iustification the merit of good Works Works done before Iustification Works of Supererogation the Fallibility or Infallibility of the Church of Rome the Authority of General Councils Purgatory Adoration of Images Invocation of Saints the Celebrating of Divine Service in the vulgar tongues the nature and number of the Sacraments Transubstantiation the Communion in both kindes the Sacrifice of the Mass the single life of Priests the power of National Churches in ordaining Ceremonies and of the Civil Magistrate in matters of Ecclesiastical nature In many of which it might be found no difficult matter to atone the differences whensoever it shall please God to commit the managing of them to moderate and prudent men who prefer truth before opinion and peace before the prevalency of their several parties But whether it be so in all is a harder question and will remain a question to the end of the world unless all parties lay aside their private interest and conscienciously resolve to yield as much to one another as may stand with Piety And then what reason can there be why the breaches in the walls of Ierusalem should not be made up and being made up why Ierusalem should not be restored to its former Honour of being a City at unity within it self The hopes of which may be the greater because there are so many points so far forth as they stand comprised in the Book of Articles in which the first Reformers were so far from being at any difference with the Church of Rome that they did rather joyn with them in opposing the common enemy Familists Libertines Anti-Trinitarians Anabaptists and other Hereticks of that age who seemed to dig at the foundation of the Christian Faith and aim at the subversion of humane Society Of which sort are the Articles of the Holy Trinity the Incarnation of the Son of God the Divinity of the Holy Ghost of the Old Testament of the three Creeds of Original Sin of the Authority of the Church of ministring in the Congregation of hindring the effect of the Sacraments by unworthy Ministers of Infant Baptism and the Traditions of the Church of the Consecration of Bishops and Ministers of the Authority of the Civil Magistrate in making Wars and punishing Malefactors with Temporal Death of the community of Goods and the exacting of an Oath to finde out the truth Of most of which it may be said in St. Augustines language His qui contra dicit aut a Christi fide alie nus est aut est Hereticus that he who shall deny to give his assent unto them is either an alien from the Faith or at least an Heretick 40. And then there are some other things which are not comprehended in those Articles in which though there were differences between them in point of Judgement yet the Reformers thought not fit to determine of them positively upon either side but left them to the liberty of opinion to be disputed Pro and Con amongst learned men according as their understandings fancy or affections should dispose them to it some points there are of Phylological and others of Scholastical Divinity in which there is Libertas opinandi a liberty of opinion left unto us de quibus sentire quâ—e velis quae sentias loqui liceat in the words of Tacitus In thâ—se and such as these St. Paul himself seems to leave a latitude when he gives way Vt quilibet Abundet in suo sensu Rom. 14.5 that is to say Let every man abound in his own sense as the Rhemists read it especially If he be fully perswaded in his own minde touching the truth of what he writes as our last Translation Which liberty as some have taken in closing with the Papists in some particulars which are not contrary to the Faith and
pass'd two Acts in the Assembly held at Aberdeen Anno 1616. the one for making one Uniform Order or Form of Worship to be prepared by some Bishops and other Learned men amongst them by them to be presented to the King and being by the King approved to be by him commended to the use of that Kirk The other for consulting the Registry of their formeâ— Assemblys and extracting out of them such Canons as being ratified by the stamp of Royal Authority might pass for currant in the same To speed this business and strike the Iron whilst it was hot his Majesty made that chargeable Journey into Scotland which before we spake of with an intent to press them personally to the receiving of some few of the English Ceremonies which had been offered to the consideration of the late Assembly the better to advance his hopes of introducing by degrees the Liturgy of the Church of England Which Ceremonies being reduced to five Articles and propounded to them at his being there found such success and put the King upon such Councels as have been formerly declared But what he could not compass in the year foregoing he obtained in this those Articles being passed in an Assembly held at Perth in the Month of August and are these that follow 1. That for the more reverend Receiving of the Holy Communion the same should be celebrated to the People thereafter kneeling and not sitting as had been the Custom since the Reformation of Religion 2. If any good Christian visited with sickness which was taken to be deadly should desire to receive the Communion at home in his house the same should not be denied to him lawful warning being given to the Minister the night before and three or four of good Religion and Conversation being present to Communicate with him 3. That in case of necessity tried and known to the Minister it should be lawful to Administer Baptism in private Houses the same being always Ministred after the form in which it should have been in the Congregation A publick Declaration of it to be made the next Sunday after 4. That the days of the Birth Passion Resurrection and Ascension of our Saviour Christ and of the coming down of the Holy Ghost in regard of those inestimable Benefits which the Church of God had received on them should be publickly Solemnized in the Congregation the Ministers making choice of fit Texts of Scripture agreeable to the Occasions for their several Sermons 5. That the Minister in every Parish having Catechized all Children above eight years of age according to the short Catechism used in the Church and taught them to repeat by heart the Lords Prayer the Creed and the Ten Commandments should present them to their Bishops in their Visitations by them to be blessed with Prayers for the increase of Grace and continuance of Gods heavenly Gifts upon them And this indeed was a great step to the work of Uniformity so much desired which had it been pursued as vigorously by the Bishops of Scotland as by the King it had been piously begun the Service which was sent into that Kirk almost twenty years afteâ— had been better welcom'd by the Scots and drawn less danger upon Laud who was then Archbishop for his pious Actings in the same But on the other side the condemning of the five Arminian Articles as they commonly called them at the Synod of Dort was altogether as much unpleasing as the others had been grateful to him for well he saw the great dangers which might thence ensue to the Church of England whose Doctrines were openly confronted and her Discipline secretly undermined by the Decisions and Determinations of that Synodical Assembly In which regard it will not be unnecessary to make a brief Relation of those stirs and differences which hapned in the Belgick Churches from the time that Doctor Iacob van Harmine was made one of the Divinity Professors in the University of Leyden Concerning which we are first to know That at the Alteration of Religion in those Provinces the French who were most active in it brought with them Calvin's Platform both for Doctrine and Discipline as commonly the one makes way to bring in the other according unto which the Belgick Confession was drawn up in the year 1567. Which notwithstanding such of their Ministers as better liked the Melancthonian Doctrines in the points of Predestination Grace Free-will c. than they did the other spared not to publish their Opinions as they saw occasion as well before as after the establishing of the said Confession and did it without check or censure Amongst which we may first reckon Anastasius Veluanus in a Book of his entituled Odegus Laicorum or the Lay-mans Guide published in the year 1554. and much commended by Henricus Antonides the Divinity Reader in the University of Franeker after whom followed in the same Opinions Iohannes Isbrandi who openly profess'd himself an Anti-Calvinian Clemens Martini who took his Principles from Hardinbergius one of the first Reformers of the Church of Embden Gellius Sueranus in West-Friesland who looked upon those of the other Perswasion as Innovators in that Church Holmanus the Divinity Reader in Leyden Cornelius Menardi a man of good esteem amongst them and generally all the Ministers successively in the Province of Vtrecht some of which had maintained these Doctrines before the birth of Iacob van Harmine better known in these later times by the name of Arminius and all of them before such time as any publick notice had been taken of him by which it seems that these Doctrines were of a long standing and had took deep rooting in these Churches though they had not gained such a large and general spreading over them as they after did For in the year 1603. the Learned Iunius one of the Professors for Divinity in the University of Leyden being then deceased the Curators or Overseers of that University made choice of this Van Harmine the Pastor as they phrase it of the Church of Amsterdam to succeed in his place But the Inhabitants of that Town amongst whom he had served in the Ministry for the space of 15. years and moâ—â— were so affected to the man that they would by no means yield unto his departure till over-ruled by the intreaties of some and the power of others A matter very unpleasing to the Rigid Calvinians informing against him to the State for several Heterodoxies repugnant to the received Doctrine of those Churches Arminius for six years before had by exchange of Letters betwixt him and Iunius maintained the Melancthonian Doctrines in those points of Controversie before remembred which Papers being dispersed abroad in several Copies but not published till after his death and then published by the name of Amica Collatio c. gave the Calvinians some fair Colour for their information But the business being heard at the Hague he was acquitted by his Judges dispatch'd for Leyden and there confirmed in his place
their own distaste or smoothing up of those idle fancies which in this blessed time of so long a Peace doth boil in the brains of an unadvised People That many of their Sermons were full of rude and undecent railings not only against the Doctrines but even against the persons of Papists and Puritans And finally that the People never being instructed in the Catechism and fundamental Grounds of Religion for all these aiery novellisms which they received from such Preachers were but like new Table-books ready to be filled up either with the Manuals and Catechisms of the Popish Priests or the Papers and Pamphlets of Anabaptists Brownists and other Puritans His Majesty thereupon taking the Premises into his Princely Consideration which had been represented to him by sundry grave and reverend Prelates of this Church thought it expedient to cause some certain Limitations and Cautions concerning Preachers and Preaching to be carefully digested and drawn up in Writing Which done so done as Laud appears to have a hand in the doing of it and being very well approved by the King he caused them to be directed to the Archbishops of Canterbury and York by them to be communicated to the Bishops of their several Provinces and by those Bishops to be put in execution in their several Diocesses Which Directions bearing date of the fourth of August 1622. being the 20th year of his Majesties Reign I have thought convenient to subjoin and are these that follow viz. I. That no Preacher under the Degree and Calling of a Bishop or Dean of a Cathedral or Collegiate Church and they upon the Kings days only and set Festivals do take occasion by the Expounding of any Text of Scripture whatsoever to fall into any set course or common place otherwise than by opening the coherence and division of his Text which shall not be comprehended and warranted in essence substance effect or natural inference within some one of the Articles of Religion set forth 1562. or in some one of the Homilies set forth by Authority in the Church of England not only for a help of non-preaching but withal as a pattern as it were for the Preaching Ministers and for their further instruction for the performance thereof that they forthwith read over and peruse diligently the said Book of Articles and the two Books of Homilies II. That no Parson Vicar Curate or Lecturer shall Preach any Sermon or Collation hereafter upon Sundays and Holy-days in the Afternoons in any Cathedral or Parish Church throughout this Kingdom but upon some part of the Catechism or some Text taken â—ut of the Creed or Commandments or the Lords Prayer Funeral Sermons only excepted and that those Preachers be most encouraged and approved of who spend their Afternoons Exercise in the Examination of Children in their Catechisms which is the most ancient and laudable Custom of Teaching in the Church of England III. That no Preacher of what Title soever under the degree of a Bishop or Dean at the least do from henceforth presume to Preach in any popular Auditory the deep Points of Predestination Election Reprobation or of the universality efficacity resistibility or irresistibility of Gods Grace but rather leave those Themes to be handled by Learned Men and that modestly and moderately by Vse and Application rather than by way of positive Doctrine as being fitter for Schools and Vniversities than for simple Auditories IV. That no Preacher of what Title or Denomination soever shall presume from henceforth in any Auditory within this Kingdom to declare limit or bound out by way of positive Doctrine in any Lecture or Sermon the Power Prerogative Iurisdiction Authority or Duty of Sovereign Princes or therein meddle with matters of State and reference between Princes and People than as they are instructed in the Homily of Obedience and in the rest of the Homilies and Articles of Religion set forth as before is mentioned by Publick Authority but rather confine themselves wholly to these two Heads of Faith and Good Life which are all the subject of the ancient Sermons and Homilies V. That no Preacher of what Title or Denomination soever shall causelesly and without any invitation from the Text fall into any bitter Invectives and undecent railing Speeches against the Papists or Puritans but wisely and gravely when they are occasioned thereunto by the Text of Scripture free both the Doctrine and Discipline of the Church of England from the aspersions of either adversary especially when the Auditory is suspected to be tainted with the one or the other infection VI. Lastly That the Archbishops and Bishops of the Kingdom whom his Majesty hath good cause to blame for their former remisseness be more wary and choice in Licencing of Preachers and Verbal Grants made to any Chancellor Officiall or Commissary to pass Licence in this Kingdom And that all the Lecturers throughout the Kingdom a new body severed from the ancient Clergy of England as being neither Parson Vicar or Curate be licensed henceforward in the Court of Faculties only upon recommendation of the party from the Bishop of the Diocess under his hand and seal with a Fiat from the Lord Archbishop of Canterbury and a confirmation under the Great Seal of England and that such as transgress any of his directions be suspended by the Bishop of the Diocess or in his default by the Lord Archbishop of that Province Ab officio beneficio for a year and a day untill his Majesty by the advice of the next Convocation prescribe for some further punishment No sooner were these Instructions published but strange it was to hear the several descants and discourses which were made upon them How much they were misreported amongst the People and misinterpreted in themselves those very men who saw no just reason to condemn the Action being howsoever sure to misconstrue the end For though they were so discreetly ordered that no good and godly man could otherwise than acknowledge that they tended very much to Edification Yet such Interpretations were put upon them as neither could consist with his Majesties meaning nor the true sense of the Expressions therein used By some it was given out that those Instructions did tend to the restraint of Preaching at the lest as to some necessary and material points by others that they did abate the number of Sermons by which the People were to be instructed in the Christian Faith by all the Preachers of that Party that they did but open a gap for Ignorance and Superstition to break in by degrees upon the People Which coming to his Majesties Ears it brought him under the necessity of making an Apology for himself and his actions in it And to this end having summed up the reasons which induced him to it he required the Archbishop of Canterbury to communicate them to his Brother of York by both to be imparted to their several Suffragans the inferiour Clergy and to all others whosoever whom it might concern which notwithstanding it
mature deliberation and with the Advice of so many of Our Bishops as might conveniently be called together thought fit to make this Declaration following That the Articles of the Church of England which had been allowed and authorized heretofore and which Our Clergy generally have subscribed unto do contain the true Doctrine of the Church of England agreeable to Gods Word which We do therefore ratifie and confirm requiring all Our loving Subjects to continue in the Vniform Profession thereof and prohibiting the least difference from the said Articles which to that end We command to be reprinted and this Our Declaration to be published therewith That We are Supreme Governour of the Church of England and that if any difference arise about the External Policie concerning Injunctions Canons or other Constitutions whatsoever thereunto belonging the Clergy in their Convocation is to order and settle them having first obtained leave under Our Broad Seal so to do And We approving their said Ordinances and Constitutions providing that none be made contrary to the Laws and Customs of the Land That out of Our Princely care that the Church-men may do the work which is proper unto them the Bishops and Clergie from time to time in Convocation upon their humble desire shall have licence under Our Broad Seal to deliberate of and to do all such things as being made plain by them and assented by Vs shall concern the settled continuance of the Doctrine and Discipline of the Church of England established from which We shall not endure any variation or departing in the least degree That for the present though some differences have been ill raised We take comfort in this that all Clergie-men within Our Realm have alwaies most willingly subscribed to the Articles established which is an Argument to Vs that they all agree in the true usual literal meaning of the said Articles and that even in those curious Points in which the present differences lye men of all sorts take the Articles of the Church of England to be for them which is an argument again that none of them intend any desertion of the Articles established That therefore in these both curious and unhappy differences which have for many hundred years in different times and places exercised the Church of Christ We will that all further curious search be laid aside and these disputes be shut up in Gods Promises as they be generally set forth unto Vs in holy Scriptures and the general meaning of the Articles of the Church of England according to them And that no man hereafter shall either Print or Preach to draw the Article aside any way but shall submit to it in the plain and full meaning thereof And shall not put his own sense or Coment to be the meaning of the Article but shall take it in the literal and Grammatical sense That if any Publick Reader in either Our Vniversities or any Head or Master of a Colledge or any other person respectively in either of them shall affix any new sense to any Article or shall publickly read determine or hold any publick Disputation or suffer any such to be held either way in either the Vniversities or Colledges respectively or if any Divine in the Vniversities shall Preach or Print any thing either way other than is established in Convocation with Our Royal Assent He or they the Offenders shall be liable to Our displeasure and the Churches Censure in Our Commission Ecclesiastical as well as any other and We will see there shall be due execution upon them No sooner were the Articles published with this Declaration but infinite were the clamours which were raised against it by those of the Calvinian Party Many exclaimed against it for the depths of Satan some for a Iesuitical Plot to subvert the Gospel For what else could it aim at as they gave it out but under colour of silencing the disputes on either side to give incouragement and opportunity to Arminians here to sow their tears and propagate their erroneous Doctrines And what effects could it produce but the suppressing of all Orthodox Books the discouraging of all godly and painful Ministers thereby deteâ—red from preaching the most comfortable Doctrines of mans election unto life The Arminians in the mean time gathering strength and going on securely to the end they aimed at And to give the better colour to these suspitions a Letter is dispersed abroad pretended to be written to the Rector of the Jesuites in Bruxells the chief City of Brabant In which the Writers lets him know with what care and cunning they had planted â—ere that Soveraign drug Arminianism which they hoped would purge the Protestants from their Heresies and that it begin to flourish and bear fruit already That for the better preventing of the Puritans the Arminians had lockt up the Dukes ears c. with much of the like impudent stuff which no sober man did otherwise look on than a piece of Gullery Upon which grounds a Petition was designed for his Sacred Majesty by some of the Calvinian Party in and about the City of London For the revoking of the said Declaration by which they were deterred as the matter was handled from preaching the saving Doctrines of Gods Free Grace in Election and Predestination And this say they had brought them into a very great straight either or incurring Gods heavy displeasure if they did not faithfully discharge their Embassage in declaring the whole Counsel of God or the danger of being censured as violaters of his Majesties said Act if they preacht those constant Doctrines of our Church and confuted the opposite Pelagian and Arminian Heresies both preached and Printed boldly without fear of censure And thereupon they pray on their bended knees that his gracious Majesty would take into his Princely consideration the forenamed Evils and Grievances under which they groaned and as a wise Physician prescribe and apply such speedy Remedies as may both cure the present Maladies and secure the peace of Church and Common-wealth from all those Plagues which their Neighbours had not a little felt and more may fear if the Council of his Majesties Father to the States of the United Provinces were not better followed But this Petition being stopt before it came to the King they found more countenance from the Commons in the next Parliamentary meeting than they were like to have found at the hands of his Majesty For the Commons conceiving they had power to declare Religion as well as Law and they had much alike in both they voted this Anti-Declaration to be published in the name of that House viz. We the Commons now assembled in Parliament do claim profess and avow for truth the sense of the Articles of Religion which were established in Parliament the thirteenth year of Queen Elizabeth which by the publick Acts of the Church of England and the general and currant exposition of the Writers of our Church have been delivered to us and we
Preoccupate the most Reverend Archbishop Whitgift with most sad complaints touching the Rupture made by Baroe in that Vniversity For remedy whereof the Archbishop calls unto him Fletcher the Lord Elect of London Vaughan the Lord Elect of Bangor Tyndal Dean of Ely and such Divines as came from Cambridge who meeting at his house in Lambeth on the twenty sixth day of November Anno 1595. did then and there conclude upon certain Articles for regulating disputations in those points of Controversie Which Articles being nine in number are these that follow I. God from all eternity hath predestinated certain men unto life certain men he hath reprobated II. The moving or efficient cause of Predestination unto life is not the foresight of Faith or of perseverance or of God-works or of any thing that is in the person predestinated but only the good will and pleasure of God III. There is predetermined a certain number of the Predestinate which can either be augmented or diminished IV. Those who are not predestinated to salvation shall be necessarily damned for their sins V. A true living and justifying faith and the Spirit of God justifying is not extinguished falleth not away it vanisheth not away in the Act either finally or totally VI. A man truly faithful that is such a one who is enduced with a justifying Faith is certain with the full assurance of faith of the remission of his sins and of his everlasting salvation by Christ. VII Saving grace is not given is not granted is not communicated to all men by which they may be saved if they will VIII No man can come unto Christ unless it shall be given unto him and unless the Father shall draw him and all men are not drawn by the Father that they may come to the Son IX It is not in the will or power of every one to be saved These Articles being brought to Cambridge so discouraged Baroe that when the ordinary time of his publick readings was expired he forsook that place and not many years after died in London His Funerall being attended by order from Bishop Bancroft by most of the Eminent Divines about that City which shews that both the Bishop and the most eminent Divines of London were either inclinable to his opinions or not so averse from them as not to give a solemn attendance at the time of his Funeral The news of which proceedings being brought to the Queen she was excâ—edingly offended conceiving it a deep intrenchment upon her Prerogative that any such Declaration should be made in matter of Religion without her Authority Once was she at a point to have them all indited of a Praemunire but the high esteem she had of Whitgift whom she commonly called her black husband reprieved all the rest from the danger of it Howsoever such a strict course was taken for suppressing the said Articles that a Copy of them was not to be found in Cambridge for a long time aâ—ter though after the Queens death they began to peep abroad again and became more publick Nor was King Iames better conceited of them than Queen Elizabeth was for when it was moved by Dr Reynolds at Hampton Court that the nine Orthodoxal Assertions as he pleased to call them which were concluded on at Lambeth might be admitted into the confession of the Church of England the King so much disliked the motion that it was presently rejected without more ado But that which the Calvinians could not get in England they effected at the last in Ireland where the true and genuine Doctrines of the Church of England had been less looked after than at home For in the year 1615. a Parliament and Convocation being holden in Dublin it was resolved on by the Archbishop Bishops and the rest of the Clergy then assembled that a Book of Articles should be framed to be the Publick Confession of that Church for succeeding times the drawing up whereof was committed to Doctor Iames Vsher afterwards Archbishop of Armagh and Lord Primate of Ireland a Rigid Calvinist but otherwise the ablest Scholar of that Nation And he accordingly fashioning the Doctrine for that Church by his own Conceptions inserted into the said Book of Articles the nine Conclusions made at Lambeth to be the standing Rule as he thought and hoped of that Church for ever And yet they did not stay there neither The Sabbatarian Doctrines had been broached by Bownd in the same year wherein the nine Articles had been made at Lambeth Which being opposed by Archbishop Whitgift and never admitted in this Church were by the cunning of that Faction and the zeal or diligence of this man incorporated into the Body of the Articles for the Church of Ireland in which it is declared for a Doctrinal Point That the first day of the Week which is the Lords-day is wholly to be dedicated to the Service of God and therefore we are Bound therein to rest from our common and daily Business and to bestow that leisure upon holy Exercises both Publick and Private And because he concluded in himself that the Pope was Antichrist that also must be made an Article of this Confession in which we find it in these words viz. The Bishop of Rome is so far from being the Supream Head of the Vniversal Church that his Works and Doctrines do plainly discover him to be the Man of Sin foretold in the Holy Scripture whom the Lord shall consume with the Spirit of his mouth and abolish with the brightness of his coming And hereunto That the Plantation of the Scots in Vlster unhappily projected in the time of King Iames brought in so much Puritanism such a contempt of Bishops such a neglect of the Publick Liturgie and other Divine Offices of this Church that there was nothing less to be found amongst them than the Doctrine Government and Forms of Worship established in the Church of England The Papists in the mean time encreasing more and more grew at the last to so great a confidence by the clashings here in England betwixt the King and his Parliaments that they gave themselves great hope of a Toleration And possibly enough they might have obtained somewhat like it if the Irish Bishops had not joined together in a Protestation to the contrary and caused it to be published in the Pulpit by the Bishop of Derry with infinite Acclamations of the Protestant Hearers Howsoever the lost hopes had so far emboldened them that they set up some Religious Houses even in Dublin it self shewed themselves openly in their Friars Habits and publickly affronted not only the Mayor but the Archbishop of that City This coming to his Majesties knowledge he caused his pleasure to be signified to the Lords of his Council That Order should be taken there That the House where the said Seminary Friars appeared in their Habits and wherein the Reverend Archbishop and the Mayor of Dublin received their first Affront be speedily demolished and be the Mark of Terrour to
conjure down these unruly Spirits which otherwise would not be confined within their Circle Mady the Lecturer of Christ-Church near Newgate must needs fly out upon the Point of Election and the motives to it For this contempt he is called before the Bishop of London and on some further misbehaviour prohibited from preaching any more within that Diocess Burges who afterwards pulled down the Cross in St. Pauls Church-yard must needs add scorn to his contempt telling his Auditors that if their Minister preached Popery or Arminianism they might change their dwellings and not trouble the peace and order of their Church For which about the same time he is questioned also White and some others in that Diocess suspended by this Bishop on the same occasion From the City pass we to the Court Where toward the end of the same Month we find Davenant Bishop of Sarum preaching a Lent Sermon before the King and therein falling upon some of those prohibited points even before his face for which the King being much offended as he had good reason he caused him to be called before the Lords of his Council The cause is managed against him by Archbishop Harsnet Laud all the while walking by in silence who gravely laid before him as well the Kings Piety in setting forth the said Declaration as the greatness of his the said Davenants offence in making so little reckoning of it Davenant at first endeavoureth many defences to make good his Action but at last wisely casts himself upon this submission he tells the Lords in answer to one of Harsnets objections That he was sorry he did no sooner understand his Majesties intention which if he had done before he would have taken some other matter to treat of which might have given none offence and that for the time to come he would conform himself as readily as any other to his Majesties Command Arundel Earl Marshal bids him hold to that as his safest plea and that he should proceed to no further defence a bad cause not being made the better by two much handling To this counsel he conforms himself And being afterwards admitted to the kiss of his Majesties hand which his attendance might deserve though his Sermon did not his Majesty declared to him his Resolution That he would not have this high Point meddled withal or debated either the one way or the other because it was too high for the Peoples understanding and that other Points which concerned Reformation and Newness of life were more needful and profitable I hope the lower Clergy will not say hereafter as some did of old That Laws are like the Spiders Cobwebs which suffer the great flies to break through and lay hold only upon those of the smaller size From the Court let us go to Oxon. where we find the next year beginning in a manner with a Sermon preached at St. Maries Church by one Hill of Heart-hall May 24. point blank enough against his Majesties Declaration and more than bitter enough against those of different perswasion from him whom he charged with handling Scriptures worse than poor Christians were by the Turk at Tunis enforcing them to the vassallage of the foulest errours not without some reflection on the Higher Powers by whom they were mischieved into honour For which indiscretion being convented before the Vice-Chancellor and Heads of Houses but not without the Chancellors privity he confessed his fault and craved pardon for the same which he obtained on his submission made in the Convocation the sixteenth of Iuly following But worse it fared not long after with Ford of Magdalen Hall Hodges of Exeter Colledge and Thorne of Baliol who in their several Sermons had not only committed the like error but charged their Renovation of some ancient order in the Church to be no other than plain Innovation Questioned for this by Smith then Warden of Wadham Colledge and Vice-Chancellor of that University they appeal from him to the Convocation The Proctors having unadvisedly received the Appeal were at the point to have named Delegates when Smith appealed to the King But they took their aim amiss when they shot this bolt For both his Majesty and the Chancellor were alike concerned in it the King to justifie his Declaration the other to preserve his own power and dignity neither of which could have been done but by defending Smith in his lawful acting On the twenty third of August all Parties interessed in the Cause appeared before the King at Woodstock who after a full hearing of both sides it was ordered thus That the three Delinquents should be expelled the University Doughty and Bruch the two Proctors should be deprived of their places Prideaux and Wilkinson this last then Principle of Magdalen Hall being checked for stickling so much in it and glad they were that they escaped without further censure But they shewed not the same mercy which they found for Rainsford of Wadham Colledge preached at St. Maries in August following in defence of Vniversal Grace and Mans Election unto life from Faith foreseen No man more forward than Prideaux to appeach him of it on whose complaint and prosecution he was sentenced to a publick acknowledgment of his offence in a form prescribed which was as much as had been done in the case of Hill So that the Rigid Calvinians can pretend no just ground for that so great Calumnie that none but they were censured from preaching those prohibited Doctrines those of the Arminian Party as they commonly called them going off unpunished From Oxon. cross we into Ireland where we shall see Lauds care as great for preserving the Kings Authority and the Churches peace as it was in England Vsher the Lord Primate of that Church had published a Book this same year in the Latine Tongue called The History of Gotteschalchus for which he was after much extolled by Twist of Newbury as professed a Calvinian as himself in a Letter of his dated May 29. 1640. For having first commended him for his great learning and various reading manifested in his Book De Primodiis Britannicarum Ecclesiarum he magnifies next his singular wisdom for taking an occasion to insert therein the History of the Pelagian Heresie coming so opportunely in his way and then he addeth that his History of Gotteschalchus was a piece of the like nature and came forth most seasonable so much the more because it seemed to give some check to a Book written by Vossius a right Learned man which had been much cried up by the Remonstrants Downham then Bishop of Derry had somewhat before that published a Discourse about Perseverance wherein some Passages were found directly thwarting his Majesties most pious purpose in the said Declaration But Vshâ—r's Book being writ in Latin gave the less offence Nor seemed it fit to put any publick disgrace on a man to whom the Government of the whole National Church had been committed by King Iames of most Blessed Memory By questioning
County of Kent situate about seven miles from the Sea and neighboured by a little River capable only of small boats and consequently of no great use for the wealth and trading of the place It was made an Archiepiscopal See at the first planting of the Gospel amongst the English Augustine the Monk who first preacht the one being the first Archbishop of the other For though that Dignity was by Pope Gregory the Great designed for London yet Augustine the Monk whom he sent hither on that Errand having received this City in gift from the King resolved to six himself upon it without going further Merlin had prophesied as much if those Prophesies be of any credit signifying that the Metropolitan dignity which was then at London should in the following times be transferred to Canterbury Ethelbert then King of Kent having thus given away the Regal City retires himself unto Reculver where he built his Palace for himself and his Successors in that Kingdom leaving his former Royal Seat to be the Archiepiscopal Palace for the Archbishops of Canterbury The Cathedral having been a Church before in the Britains time was by the said Archbishop Augustine repaired Consecrated and Dedicated to the name of Christ which it still retains though for a long time together it was called St Thomas in honour of Thomas Becket one of the Archbishops hereof who was murthered in it The present Fabrick was begun by Archbishop Lanfranck and William Corboyle and by degrees made perfect by their Successors Take Canterbury as the Seat of the Metropolitan it hath under it twenty one Suffragan Bishops of which seventeen are in England and four in Wales But take it as the Seat of a Diocesan and it containeth only some part of Kent to the number of 257 Parishes the residue being in the Diocess of Rochester together with some few particular Parishes dispersed here and there in several Diocesses it being an ancient priviledge of this See that wheresoever the Archbishops had their Mannors or Advousons the place forthwith became exempt from the Ordinary and was reputed of the Diocess of Canterbury The other Priviledges of this See are that the Archbishop is accounted Primate and Metropolitan of ALL England and is the first Peer of the Realm having precedency of all Dukes not being of the Royal bloud and all the great Officers of the State He hath the Title of Grace afforded him in common speech and writes himself Divina Providentia where other Bishops only use Divina Permissione The Coronation of the King hath anciently belonged unto him It being also formerly resolved that wheresoever the Court was the King and Queen were the proper and Domestical Parishioners of the Archbishop of Canterbury It also did belong unto him in former times to take unto himself the Offerings made at the holy Altar by the King and Queen wheresoever the Court was if he were present at the same and to appoint the Lent Preachers but these time hath altered and the King otherwise disposed of Abroad in General Councils he had place at the Popes Right foot At home this Royal Priviledge That those which held Lands of him were liable for Wardship to him and to compound with him for the same though they held other Lands in chief of our Lord the King And for the more increase of his power and honour it was Enacted 25 Hen. viii and 21. That all Licences and Dispensations not repugnant to the Law of God which heretofore were sued for in the Court of Rome should be hereafter granted by the Archbishop of Canterbury and his Successors As also in the 1 Eliz. and 2. That by the Advice of the Metropolitan or Ecclesiastical Commissioners the Queens Majesty might ordain and publish such Rites and Ceremonies as may be most for the Advancement of Gods glory the Edifying of his Church and the due Reverence of Christs holy Sacraments To this high dignity Laud succeedeth on the death of Abbot nominated unto it by the King on the sixth of August the Election returned and presented to his Majesty from the Dean and Chapter on the twenty fifth of the same and the translation fully perfected on the nineteenth of September then next following on which day he kept a solemn and magnificent Feast at his house in Lambeth his State being set out in the great Chamber of that house and all persons standing bare before it after the accustomed manner his Steward Treasurer and Comptroller attending with their white staves in their several Offices Thus have we brought him to his height and from that height we may take as good a prospect into the Church under his direction as the advantage of the place can present unto us And if we look into the Church as it stood under his direction we shall find the Prelates generally more intent upon the work committed to them more earnest to reduce this Church to the ancient Orders than in former times the Clergy more obedient to the Commands of their Ordinaries joyning together to advance the work of Vniformity recommended to them the Liturgie more punctually executed in all the parts and offices of it the Word more diligently preacht the Sacraments more reverendly administred than in some scores of years before the people more conformable to those Reverend Gestures in the House of God which though prescribed before were but little practised more cost laid out upon the beautifying and adorning of Parochial Churches in furnishing and repairing Parsonage houses than at or in all the times since the Reformation the Clergy grown to such esteem for parts and power that the Gentry thought none of their Daughters to be better disposed of than such as they had lodged in the Arms of a Church-man and the Nobility grown so well affected to the State of the Church that some of them designed their younger Sons to the Order of Priesthood to make them capable of rising in the same Ascendent Next if we look into the Doctrine we shall find her to be no less glorious within than beautified and adorned to the outward eye the Doctrines of it publickly avowed and taught in the literal and Grammatical sense according to the true intent and meaning of the first Reformers the Dictates and Authorities of private men which before had carried all before them subjected to the sense of the Church and the Church hearkening to no other voice than that of their great Shepherd speaking to them in his holy Scriptures all bitternesses of spirit so composed and qualified on every side that the advancement of the great work of Unity and Uniformity between the parties went forwards like the building of Solomons Temple without the noise of Axe or Hammer If you will take her Character from the mouth of a Protestant he will give it thus He that desires to pourtray England saith he in her full structure of external glory let him behold the Church shining in transcendent Empyreal brightness and purity
it was not easie to Transcribe them insomuch that few of the Presbyters themselves could tell which of them were authentical which not So unsafely and uncertainly kept that they knew not where to address themselves for consulting with them That by reducing those numerous Act and those not known unto themselves to such a paucity of Canons published and exposed to the publick view no man should be insnared by ignorance or have just reason to complain of their multiplicity And finally That not one in all that Kingdom did either live under the Obedience of the Acts of those General Assemblies or did know what they were or where to find them Upon which grounds the Book of Canons being drawn up and presented to him he gave a Warrant under his Hand to the Archbishop of Canterbury requiring him together with the Bishop of London to peruse the same to see that they were well fitted to the Church-Government and as near as conveniently might be to the Canons of the Church oâ— England giving them and either of them full power to alter any thing in the said Canons as they found most fitting Which being done as he commanded and the Book made ready for the Press he pass'd his Royal Confirmation of it under the Great Seal oâ— the Kingdom in this manner following CHARLES REX WE 〈◊〉 of Our Royal Care for the Maintenance of the present Estate and Government of the Church of Scotland have diligently and with great content considered all the Canons and Constitutions after following and finding the same such as We are perswaded will be profitable not only to our whole Clergy but to the whole Church of that our Kingdom if so they be well observed Have for Vs Our Heirs and Lawful Successors of Our especial Grace certain Knowledâ—â— â—nd meer â—otion given and by these presents do give Our 〈◊〉 Assâ—â—t â—nto all the said Canons Orders and Constitutions 〈◊〉 all and every thing in them contained as they are afterwards set 〈◊〉 And further We do not only by Our Prerogative Royal and Supreme 〈◊〉 in Causes Ecclesiastical Ratifie and Confirm by these Our Letters Patâ—nts the said Canons Orders and Constitutions â—nd all â—nd every thing in them contained But likewise We command by 〈◊〉 â—uthority Royal and by these Letters Patents the same to be diligently observed and executed by all Our Loving Subjects of that Our Kingdom both within the Province of St. Andrews and â—lascow in all points wherein they do or may concern every or any of them according to this Our Will and Pleasure hereby expressed and declared And for the better observation of them We straightly Charge and Command all Our Archbishops Bishops and all others thaâ— exercise any Ecclesiastical Iurisdiction within that Our Realm to see the same Canons Orders and Constitutions to be in all points duly observed not sparing to execute the Penalties in them severally mentioned upon any that shall willingly break or neglect to observe the same as they tender the Honour of God the Peace of the Church the Tranquility of the Kingdom and their Service and Duty to Vs their King and Sovereign Given at Our Mannor of Greenwich 23 May 1635. These Canons when they came abroad were presently quarrelled and disclaimed by the Scottish Presbyters Quarrelled in reference to the subject matter comprehended in them Disclaimed because imposed upon them without their own approbation and consent The points most quarrelled at were these 1. That whosoever should affirm That the Kings Majesty had not the same Authority in Causes Ecclesiastical that the Godly Kings had among the Jews or the Christian Emperors in the Primitive Church or impugn in any part his Royal Supremacy in Causes Ecclesiastical was to incur the Censure of Excommunication 2. The like Censure to be inflicted on those who should affirm That the Worship contained in the Book of Common Prayer and Administration of the Sacraments though at the making of these Canons there was no such Book of Common Prayer recommended to them or That the Government of the Church by Archbishops and Bishops or the form of Making and Consecrating Archbishops and Bishops c. did contain any thing repugnant to the Scriptures or was corrupt superstitious or unlawful in the Service and Worship of God 3. That the Ordinations were restrained to four times in the year that is the first Weeks of March June September and December 4. That every Ecclesiastical Person at his Admission should take the Oath of Supremacy according to the form required by Parliament and the like Oath for avoiding Symonie required in the Book of Consecration 5. That every Presbyter shall either by himself or by another Person lawfully called read or cause Divine Service to be done according to the form of the Book of that Common Prayer before all Sermons and that he should Officiate by the said Book of Common Prayer in all the Offices Parts and Rubricks of it when as yet none of them had seen the said Book or Liturgie 6. That no Preacher should impugn the Doctrine delivered by another in the same Church or any neer adjoining to it without leave from the Bishop which they conceived to be the way to pin their whole Religion on the Bishops Sleeves 7. That no Presbyter should hereafter become Surety or Cautioner for any Person whosoever in Civil Bonds and Contracts under pain of Suspension 8. That whatsoever remained of the Bread and Wine prepared for the Communion should be distributed to the poorer sort which receive that day to be eaten and drunken of them before they go out of the Church 9. That Presbyters are enjoined to Minister the Sacrament of Baptism in private Houses and upon every day alike in case of infirmity and that the People were required not to receive the Sacrament of the Lords Supper but upon their knees 10. That in all Sentences of Separation a Thoro Mensa there shall be a Caution inserted and given accordingly That the Persons so separated should live continently and chastly and not contract Marriage with any Person during each others life which seemed to put the innocent Party into as bad a condition as the guilty contrary to the Judgment of the Reformed Churches 11. That no private Meeting be kept by Presbyters or any other Persons whatsoever for expounding Scripture or for consulting upon matters Ecclesiastical Such matters to be handled only in the Lawful Synods held by Bishops 12. That under pain of Excommunication no Presbyter or Layman jointly or severally make Rules Orders or Constitutions in Causes Ecclesiastical or to add or detract from any Rubricks or Articles or other things now established without the Authority of the King or his Successors 13. That National or General Assemblies were to be called only by the Kings Authority That the Decrees thereof should bind as well the Absent as the Present in Matters Ecclesiastical and That it should not be lawful for the Bishops themselves in such Assemblies or otherwise to
the holy Table being appointed to be placed where the Altar stood by the Queens Injunctions Anno 1559. and that position justified by an order of Dr. Davenant Bishop of Sarum of which we have already spoken whom the Libellers themselves were not like to accuse for a man that purposed the ushering in or advancing of Popery The setting of a Raile before it or about it howsoever placed was only for avoiding of Prophanation and for that cause justifiable As for the reading of the Second or Communion Service at the holy Table it was no more than what had formerly been used in many places to his own remembrance first altered in those Churches where the Emissaries of that Faction came to preach and therefore the Innovation to be laid on them Secondly That it is not only fit and proper for that part of the Divine Service to be read at the Communion Table but that it is required so to be by the Rules and Rubricks of the Church It being said in the first Rubrick after the Communion that on the Holy Daies if there be no Communion all shall be read which is appointed at the Communion and in the last Rubrick before the Communion that the Minister standing at the North side of the holy Table shall say the Lords Prayer with that which follows And finally as to that of bowing towards it at their first entrance in the Church or approaches to it it is answered that it was agreeable to the Practice of Moses David Hezekiah recorded in the holy Scriptures and that Venite Adoremus O come let us worship and fall down c. was used constantly in the beginning of the Ancient Liturgies and preserved in the beginning of ours in England and therefore that the people may as well refuse to come as at their coming not to Worship he added that by the Statutes of the noble Order of St. George called the Garter the Knights whereof were bound to do their Reverence versus Altare toward the Altar that it had so continued ever since the time of King Henry the fifth that if there were any Idolatry in it neither Queen Elizabeth who drove out Popery nor King Iames who kept out Popery would have suffered it to remain in Practice and in a word that if it were Gods Worship and not Idolatry he ought to do it as well as they but if it were Idolatry and no Worship of God they ought to do it no more than he But the fourteenth and last charge which most concerned him and the rest of the Bishops to make answer to was the forging of a new Article of Religion brought from Rome to justifie their proceedings and Innovations and foysting it to the beginning of the twentieth Article The Clause pretended to be added is That the Church hath power to decree Rites and Ceremonies and Authority in Controversies of â—aith because not found say they in the Latine or English Articles of King Edward the sixth or Queen Elizabeth ratified by Parliament adding that if to forge a Will or Writing be censurable in the Star-Chamber though it be but a wrong to a Private man how much more should the forgery of an Article of Religion be censured there which is a wrong to the whole Church And unto this he answered that the Articles made in the time oâ— King Edward the sixth were not now in force and therefore not material whether that Clause be in or out that in the Articles as they passed in Queen Elizabeths time this Clause was to be found in the English Edition of the year 1612. of the year 1605. of the year 1593. and in Latine in the year 1563. being one of the first Printed Copies after the Articles had been agreed on in the Convocation that it was to be found in the same terms in the Records of Convocation Anno 1562. as he proved by a Certificate under the hand of a publick Notary and therefore finally that no such forgery in adding that Clause unto that Article had been committed by the Prelates to serve their own turns by gaining any power to the Church but that the said Clause had been razed out by some of those men or some of that Faction to weaken the just power of the Church and to serve their own These Innovations thus passed over and discharged he signifies unto their Lordships That some other Charges were remaining in matter of Doctrine that they should presently be answered justo volumine to satisfie all well-minded people and that when Burtons Book was answered his Book he said but not his raylings none of the rest should be answered either by him or by his care leaving that Court to find a way for stopping the mouths of such Libellers or else for him they should raile on as long as they listed And thus beginning to draw toward an end he declares himself to be in the same case with St. Cyprian then Bishop of Carthage bitterly railed upon by a pack of Schismaticks and yet conceiving himself bound which he made his own Resolution also not to answer them with the like Levities or Revilings but to write and speak only as becomes a Priest of God that by Gods grace the Reproaches of such men should not make him faint or start aside either from the right way in matter of Practice or à certa Regula from the certain Rule of Faith Which said and craving pardon of their Lordships for his necessary length he thanks them for their just and honourable censure of those men in their unanimous dislike of them and defence of the Church Makes his excuse from passing any censure of them in regard the business had some reflection on himself and so leaves them to Gods mercy and the Kings Justice Thus have I acted Phocion's part in cutting short the long and well-studied Speech of this grave and Eloquent Demosthenes which I have been the more willing to reduce to so brief an Abstract that the Reader may perceive without the least loss of time and labour on what weak grounds the Puritan Faction raised their outcry against Innovations and what poor trifles many of those Innovations were against which they clamoured and cried out But for the Speech in its full length as it gave great satisfaction unto all that heard it so by his Majesties Command it was afterwards Printed for giving the like satisfaction to all those who should please to read it In obedience unto which Command he caused the said Speech to be Printed and Published although he was not ignorant as he declares in his Epistle to the King that many things while they are spoken and pass by the ears but once give great content which when they come to the eyes of men and their open scanning may lie open to some exceptions And so it proved in the event for though the Speech was highly magnified as it came from his mouth yet it had not been long published in Print when it was encountred with
and that for assembling a Convocation their different Forms and the independence of the one upon the other but more especially betwixt the Writ by which they were made a Convocation and that Commission by which they were enabled to the making of Canons That though the Commission was expired with the Parliament yet the Writ continued still in force and by that Writ they were to remain a Convocation until they were Dissolved by another With which Distinction the greatest part of those who before had scrupled at their Sitting did appear well satisfied but better satisfied on the Munday by a Paper which was sent unto them from the Court For the King being made acquainted with these scrupulosities proposed the Question on Sunday May 10. to the greatest Lawyers then about him who gave their Judgment in these words viz. The Convocation called by the Kings Writ is to be continued till it be dissolved by the Kinâ—s Writ notwithstanding the Dissolution of the Parliament Subscribed by â—inch Lord Keeper Manchester Lord Privy Seal Littletâ—â— Chief 〈◊〉 of the Common Pleas Bancks Attorney-General Whitfeild and Heath two of his Majesties Counsel Learned in the Laws of this Land Incouraged with which assurance and Animated by a New Commission to remain in Force during the Pleasure of the King they settled to their work again on Wednesday the thirteenth of that Moneth but not without some trouble of mind in regard of the Apparent Danger which seemed to threaten them The Archbishops house at Lambeth had been assaulted on Munday by a Rabble of Anabaptists Brownists and other Sectaries to the Number of five hundred and upwards who seeing they could not force that house resolved to turn their fury on the Convocation Of which his Majesty being Informed he caused a guard to be set about them consisting of some Companies of the trained Bands of the County of Middlesex under the Command of Endymion Porter one of the Grooms of the Bed-chamber an honest man and of good affections to the Church and his Majesties Service To such extremities were the poor Clergy brought during these confusions in danger of the Kings displeasure if they Rose of the Peoples fury if they Sate in danger of being beaten up by tumults when they were at their work of being beaten down by the following Parliament when their work was done But they went forward howsoever to the end of their journey and did the business as they went dispatching more work in so short a time then could be easily imagined Tâ—ree things there were which Canterbury was to take special caâ—e of in reference to the Publick peace of the Church and State That is to say the Reparation of the breaches made in the Regal and Episcopal Power by the late batteries of the Scots and their adherents on the commending of the Uniformity to all parts of the Kingdom which had been happily begun in so many places 〈◊〉 râ—ference to the first some propositions touching the institution Power and Priviledges of Sovereign Princes were recommended to the consideration of the Prolocutor and the Rest of the Clergy by them to be corrected if they saw occasion and being so corrected to pass into a Canon The Propositions six in number and were these tâ—at follow I. The most High and Sacred Order of Kings is of Divine Right bâ—inâ— the Ordinance of God himself founded in the prime Laws of Nature and clearly established by Express Texts both of the Old and the New Testaments A Supream Power is given to this most Excellent Order by God himself in the Scriptures which is That Kings should Rule and Command in their several Dominions all Persons of what Rank or Estate whatsoever whether Ecclesiastical or Civil and that they should Restrain and Punish with the Temporal Sword all Stubâ—â—â—n and wicked doers II. 〈◊〉 care of Gods Church is so committed to Kings in Scripture that they are commanded when the Church keeps the Right way and taxed when it Runs Amiss and therefore her Goverment belongs in Chief unto Kings For otherwise one man would be commended for anothers care and taxed but for anothers negligence which is not Gods way III. The Power to Call and Dissolve Councils both National and Provincial is the true Right of all Christian Kings within their own Realms and Territories And when in the first times of Christs Church Prelates used this Power 't was therefore only because in those days they had no Christian Kings And it was then so only used as in time of persecution that is with supposition in case it were required of submitting their very lives unto the very Laws and Commands even of those Pagan Princes that they might not so much as seem to disturb their Civil Government which Christ came to confirm but by no means to undermine IV. For any Person or Persons to set up maintain or avow in any the said Realms or Territories Respectively under any pretext whatsoever any Independent Co-active Power either Papal or Popular whether directly or indirectly is to undermine their Great Royal Office and cunningly to overthrow the Most Sacred Ordinances which God himself hath established And so it is Treasonable against God as well as against the King V. For Subjects to bear Arms against their Kings Offensive or Defensive upon any pretence whatsoever is at least to Resist the Powers which are ordained by God And though they do not invade but only Resist S. Paul tells them plainly They shall receive to themselves damnation VI. And although Tribute and Custom and Aid and Subsidies and all manner of necessary Support and Supply be respectively due to Kings from their Subjects by the Law of God Nature and Nations for the Publick Defence care and Protection of them yet nevertheless Subjects have not only possession of but a true and Iust Right Title and Propriety to and in all their Goods and Estates and ought for to have And these two are so far from crossing one another that they mutually go together for the Honourable and Comfortable support of both For as it is the duty of Subjects to supply their King so is it part of the Kingly office to support his Subjects in the Propriety and Freedom of their Estates These Propositions being Read and Considered of were generally past and approved without contradiction but that a little stop was made touching the Necessity of Aid and Subsidie to Kings from their Subjects which some thought fitter to leave at large according to the Laws of several Countries then to entitle it to the Law of God Nature and Nations but after a very light dispute that clause was allowed of with the Rest and a Canon presently drawn up by a ready hand according to the Vote of the House to make them Obligatory to the Clergy in the course of their Ministries The preamble which was sent with the Propositions required them to be read distinctly and audibly by every Parson Vicar Curate or Preacher upon some one Sunday
of the Church by whom a Sub-Committee was the same day named to prepare such matters as were to be discoursed and concluded by them the Bishop of Lincoln being in the 〈…〉 both Which Sub-Committee being made up of the Divines above-mentioned consisted of three Bishops nine Doctors in Divinity and four of some inferiour Degree in the Universities some of them being Prelatical and some Presbyterian in point of Government but all of them Calvinians in point of Doctrine Beginning first with points of Doctrine complaint was made that the whole body of Armimanism and many particular points of Popery for so they called all which agreed not with Calvin's sense had been of late maintained in Books and Sermons and sometimes also in the Divinity Schools And then descending to matter of Discipline they discoursed of many Innovations which they conceived to have been thrust upon the Church most of them in disposing and adorning the Communion Table and the more reverent Administration of the holy Sacraments some of them positively required or at least directed by the Laws of the Land as reading the Communion Service at the Lords Table on Sundaies and Holidaies reading the Litany in the middest of the Church the Ministers turning toward the East in the Creed and Prayers and praying no otherwise before Sermons than in the words of the Canon some of them never having been disused in many Parochial Churches and retained in most Cathedrals since the Reformation as standing at the Hymns and the Gloria Patri placing the Table Altarwise and adoring toward it some being left indifferent at the choice of the Minister as the saying or singing of the Te Deum in Parochial Churches officiating the Communion and the dayly prayers in the Latine tongue in several Colledges and Halls by and amongst such as are not ignorant of that Language And others not of so great moment as to make any visible alteration in the face of the Church or sensible disturbance in the minds of the People Which therefore might have been as well forborne as practiced till confirmed by Authority or otherwise might have been borne without any such clamour as either out of ignorance or malice had been raised against them They also took into consideration some Rubricks in the Book of Common Prayer and other things which they thought sit to be rectified in it Amongst which they advised some things not to be utterly disliked viz. That the Hymns Sentences Epistles and Gospels should be reprinted according to the new Translation That the Meeter in the Psalms should be corrected and allowed of Publickly and that no Anthems should be sung in Colledges or Cathedral Churches but such as were taken out of the Scripture or the publick Liturgy That fewer Lessons might be read out of the Books called Apocryphal and the Lessons to be read distinctly exclusive of the Liberty which is given to sing them as appears by the Rubrick That the Rubrick should be cleared concerning the Ministers power for repulsing scandalous and notorious sinners from the holy Communion and that the general Confession before the Communion be ordered to be said by the Minister only the People repeating it after him That these words in the Form of Matrimony viz. With my body I thee worship may be explained and made more intelligible And that instead of binding the married Couple to receive the Communion on their Wedding day which is seldom done they may be obliged to receive it on the Sunday after or the next Communion day following That none be licenced to marry or have their Banes asked who shall not first bring a Certificate from their Minister that they are instructed in the Catechism and that it be not required that the Infant be dipt in the water as is injoyned by the Rubrick in the case of extremity Some Passages they observed impertinently and not worth the altering as the expunging of some Saints which they falsly called Legendaries out of the Kalendar The constant adding of the Doxology at the end of the Pater noster Reading of Morning and Evening Prayer dayly by the Curate if not otherwise letted The leaving out of the Benedicite and the changing of the Psalm used in the Churching of Women That those words which only workest great marvels be left out of the Prayer for the Bishops and Clergy That Grievous sins instead of Deadly sins be used in the Letany That the sanctifying of the Flood Iordan be changed into sanctifying the Element of water in the Form of Baptism That those words In sure and certain hope of Resurrection which are used at Burials may be changed to these knowing assuredly that the dead shall rise again And that the Commination should be read at the Desk and not in the Pulpit all which remaining as they did could give no offence and might have easily been changed to give some content And finally some things there were of which they desired a Reformation which seemed to have so much of the Anti-Papist that they came close to the Puritan viz. That the Vestments prescribed by the first Liturgy of King Edward vi should not be required and the rule in that case to be altered That the Alms should be gathered rather after than before the Communion These words This is my body This is my bloud not to be Printed in great Letters and that a Rubrick be inserted to declare that kneeling at the Communion is required only in relation to the Prayer of the distribution Preserve thee body and soul c. That weekly Communion every Sunday be changed to monthly in Colledges and Cathedral Churches That the Cross in Baptism be either explained or quite disused and that in the Form of Confirmation these words importing that Children baptized are undoubtedly saved be no longer used That no times of Restraint may be laid on Marriage And that the Authoritative Form of Absolution in the Visitation of the sick may be turned to a Pronouncing or declaring of it I have the longer stood on the result of these Consultations because of the different apprehensions which were had of the Consequents and Issue of them Some hoped for a great Reformation to be prepared by them and settled by the Grand Committee both in Doâ—â—â—iâ—e and Discipline and others as much feared the affections of the men considered that Doctrinal Calvinism being once settled more alterations would be made in the Publick Liturgy than at first appeared till it was brought more near the Form of the Gallick Churches after the Platform of Geneva Certain I am that the imprisoned Archbishop had no fancy to it fearing least the Assembly of Divines in Ierusalem-Chamber so the place was called might weaken the foundations of Ierusalem in the Church of England That this Assembly on the matter might prove the National Synod of England to the great dishonour of the Church and that when their Conclusions were brought unto the great Committee the business would be over-ruled by the Temporal
it is affirmed That the ground of this Government by Episcopacy is so ancient and so general so uncontradicted in the first and best times that our most laborious Antiquaries can find no Nation no City no Church no Houses under any other that our first Ecclesiastical Authors tell us of That the Apostles not only allowed but founded Bishops so that the Tradition for some Books of Scripture which we receive as Canonical is both less ancient less general and less uncontradicted than that is So he when he was come again to his former temper and not yet entred nor initiated into Court preferments Nor was the point only canvased within those walls but managed in a more publick way by the Pens of some than there it had been tossed on the Tongues of others The Bishop of Exon. leads the way presenting An humble Remonstrance to the High Court of Parliament in behalf of Liturgie and Episcopacy which presently was encountred with an answer to it wâ—erein the Original of Liturgy and Episcopacy is pretended to be discussed c. This Answer framed by a Juncto of five Presbyterian Ministers in or about the City of London the first Letters of whose names being laid together made up the word Smectymnuus which appears only for the Author The Bishop hereunto replies in a Vindication by which name he called it which Vindication had an Answer or Rejoynder to it by the same Smectymnuus During which Interfeats of Arms and exchange of Pens a Discourse was published by Sir Thomas Ashton Knight and Baronet In the first part whereof he gives us A survey of the Inconveniences of the Presbyterian Discipline and the inconsistences thereof with the constitution of this State And in the second The original Institution Succession and Iurisdiction of the ancient and venerable order of Bishops This last part seconded within the compass of this year by the History of Episcopacy first published as the work of Theophilus Churchman and not till many years after owned by the Authors name The next year bringing forth a book of Dr. Taylors called Episcopacy asserted and the Acriomastix of Iohn Theyer c. All of them backt and the two last encouraged by many Petitions to his Majesty and both Houses of Parliament not only from the two Universities whom it most concerned but from several Counties of the Kingdom of which more hereafter I shall conclude this year with a remembrance of some change of Officers in the Court but of more in the Church Windebanke Secretary of State being questioned for releasing divers Priests and Jesuites contrary to the established Laws conveyed himself over into France and Finch Lord Keeper on some distrust which he had of his safety for acting too zealously in the Forrest-business and the 〈◊〉 of Shipmoney withdrew at the same time into Holland Pembroke Lord Chamberlain of the houshold was discharged of his Office by the King upon just displeasures before his late going into Scotland The Earl of Newcastle for the Reasons before remembred had relinquished his charge of the Princes Person and Cottington his Offices in the Exchequer and Court of Wards Neile Archbishop of York died some few daies before the beginning of the Parliament Mountague of Chichester Bancroft of Oxon. Davenant of Salisbury Potter of Carlisle and Thornborough of Worcester within few months after Nature abhorreth nothing more than Vacuity and it proved to be very agreeable to the Rules of Polity not to suâ—fer their preferments to lye longer in a state of Vacancy To fill these Places the Earl of Hertford about that time advanced to the Title of Marquiss was made and sworn Governour of the Prince Essex Lord Chamberlain of the Houshold Say Master of the Court of Wards and Liveries Littleton Chief Justice of the Common-Pleas preferred to the honour of Lord Keeper Faulkland made Secretary of Estate and Culpepper Chancellour of the Exchequer Which two last being Members of the House of Commons and well acquainted with such designs as were then in Project and men of good parts withall were thought worth the gaining and fastned to the Court by these great Preferments Next for the Vacancies in the Church they were supplied by preferring Williams Bishop of Lincoln to the See of York and Winiff Dean of St. Pauls to the See of Lincoln Duppa of Chichester to Salisbury and King then Dean of Rochester to succeed at Chichester Hall Bishop of Exon. translated to Norwich and Brownrigg Master of Catharine Hall in Cambridge preferred to Exon. Skinner of Bristol removed to Oxon. and Westfield Archdeacon of St. Albons advanced to Bristol the Bishoprick of Carlisle was given in Commendam to the Primate of Ireland during the troubles in that Kingdom and Worcester by the power of Hamilton conferred on Prideaux who formerly had been his Tutoâ— all of them of good parts and merit and under some especial Character of esteem and favour in the eyes of the People though some of them declined afterwards from their former height Nor were there more Changes after these till the suppressing of Episcopacy by the Ordinance of the Lords and Commons bearing date October 9. anno 1646. but that Frewen Dean of Glocester and President of Magdalen Colledge in Oxon. was consecrated Bishop of Coventry and Lichfield on the death of Wright in the beginning of the year 1644. and Howel one of the Prebends of Windsor and Chaplain in Ordinary to his Majesty was preferred to the Bishoprick of Bristol on the death of Westfield before the end of the same year The passing of this Act forementioned put the imprisoned Bishops in some hope of a speedy deliverance though it proved not so quick as they expected For though on Munday February 14. an Order came that they might put in bail if they would that they should have their hearing on the Friday following and that some of them went out of the Tower the morrow after as appears by Breviate fol. 25. yet the Commons took it so indignly that either that Order was revoked or the Bishops had some private Advertisement to return and continue where they were The Bishops being deprived of their right of Peerage must be supposed to stand on the same ground with the rest of the People and consequently to be accountable for their Actions to the House of Commons whose Priviledges if the Peers invade they must look to hear of it as well as the poor Bishops had done before And on these terms the business stood till May 5. being just eighteen weeks from their first Imprisonment at which time without making suite to the House of Commons the Peers releast them upon baile and dismist them to their several dwellings There they continued all of them at their own disposing till the War forced them to provide themselves of safer quarters except the Bishop of Ely only who within few months after he was discharged from the Tower was seised on by a party of Souldiers at his house of Douwham and brought
r. was commanded p. 113. l. 40. r. Scrinia p. 119. l. 26. r. home p 134. l. 24. 〈◊〉 it p. 144 l. 23 r. named any p. 150. l. 4. 〈…〉 p. 151. 4. 11. r. â—een p. 161. l. 1. r. land p. 170. l. 8. r. in the. p. 172. l. 14. â— â—â—gden p. 174. l. 17. r. at it p. 181. l. 26. r. the suppâ—sed p. 182. l. 28. r. there â— p. â—â—9 l. 36. r. tares p. 192. l. 14. for worse r. wiser p. 194. l. 19. r. Acts of Grace p. 197. l. 4. â—eie for l. 27. r. Embarrassâ—s p. 215. l. 40. r. Twisse p. 219. l. 41. r Subscriptiâ—ns p. 233. l. 3. r. given p. 250. l. 31. r. of them p. 271. l. 20. r. Dauphine p. 〈…〉 33. 〈◊〉 them p. 298. l. 36. r. quarrelled with p. 308. l. 38. r. in a manner p. 321. l. 25â— but. p. 331. l. 11. r. knows p. 340. l. 26. r. they come p. 343. l. 37. r. keep p. 345. l. 15. r. Osbeston p. 378 l. 36. r. distaste p. 381. l. 8. r. too blame p. 390. l. 23 r. sentences of the Kirk l. 25. r. calumnies p. 392. l. 39. r. Vâ—rres p. 401. l. 43. r. 〈◊〉 p. 407. l. 8. dele be p. 410. l. 35. dele as p. 412. l. 39. r. imploy p. 413. l. 23. r 〈◊〉 p. 415. l. 45. dele for p. 432. l. 28. r. in the. p. 436. l. 37. r. thwarting p. 465. l. 45. r. â—y the Lord. p. 464. l. 46. r. he l. 46. till p. 465. l. 45. r. silliest p. 467. l. 31. r. tâ—le p. 476. l. 44. r. as to take p. 488. l. 37. r. nor p. 491. l. 11. r. them p. 493. l. 30. r. Scotland p. 495. l. 9. â— Consents of p. 500. l. 40. dele the. p. 515. l. 29. r. nor AN ELEGIE ON THE DEATH OF The most Reverend FATHER in GOD WILLIAM Lord Archbishop of Canterbury c. Ianuary 10. 1644. Horat. Carm. Lib. 4. Od. 8. Dignum Laude Virum musa vetat mori AND yet not leave thee thus I fain would try A Line or two in way of Elegie And wail so sad a Loss if to express The greatness of it would not make it less If to Lament thee might not vex thee more Than all the Scorns thou hast endur'd before And make thee think we envied thee thy start Or doubted that thou wert not where thou art Yet with thy leave I needs must drop a Verse Write it with Tears and fit it for thy Herse And at this distance from thy Grave which lacks The Pomps of Sorrow hang my Heart with Blacks Religious Prelate What a Calm hast thou I' th' midst of those turbulent Storms which now Shipwrack this Island At how cheap a Rate Hast thou procur'd this Change of thy Estate The Mitre for a Crown A few poor days For endless Bliss Vile Earth for Heavenly Joys Such Glories has thou found such Alteration In this thy Highest as thy last Translation How were thine Enemies deceiv'd when they Advanc'd thee thus and chalk'd thee out the Way A Way so welcome to thee No Divine But knows the Red-Sea leads to Palestine And since Christ Iesus Sanctified the Cross Death 's the best Purchase Life the greatest Loss Nor be thou griev'd Blest Soul that Men do still Pursue thee with black Slanders and do kill Thy Shadow now and trample on thy Ghost As Hectors Carcass by the Grecian Host Or that thou want'st Inscriptions and a Stone T' ingrave thy Name and write thy Titles on Thou art above those Trifles and shalt stand As much above Mens malice Though the hand Of base Detraction hath defil'd thy Name And spotless Virtues yet impartial Fame Shall do thee all just Honours and set forth To all succeeding Times thy matchless Worth No Annals shall be writ but what Relate Thy happy Influence both on Church and State Thy Zeal to Publick Order Thy Great Parts For all Affairs of Weight Thy Love to Arts And to our shame and his great Glory tell For whose dear Sake by whose vile Hands he fell A Death so full of Merits of such Price To God and Man so sweet a Sacrifice As by good Church-Law may his Name prefer To a fixt Rubrick in the Kalender And let this silence the Pure Sects Complaint If they make Martyrs we may make a Saint Or should Men envie thee this Right thy Praise An Obsequie unto it self can raise Thy brave Attempt on Pauls in time to come Shall be a Monument beyond a Tombe Thy Book shall be thy Statua where we find The Image of thy Nobler Part thy Mind Thy Name shall be thy Epitaph and he Which hears and reads of that shall publish thee Above the reach of Titles and shall say None could express thy Worths a braver way And thus though murther'd thou shalt never die But live Renown'd to all Posterity Rest thou then happy in the Sweets of Bliss Th' Elyzian the Christians Paradise Exempt from Worldly Cares secure from Fears And let us have thy Prayers as thou our Tears FINIS Submission of the Clergie Character and Ejection of the Pope No Diminution of the Power and Priviledges of the Church by the Alteration The manner of Electing and Confirming Archbishops and Bishops Established by King HENRY viii still continuing in effect notwithstanding some Statutes to the contrary by K. EDW. vi The Reformation of the Church under EDW. vi Modelled according to the Scriptures and the Ancient Fathers but with relation rather to the Lutheran then Calvinian Forms Bishops a distinct Order from that of the Presbytery The Power ascribed unto the Priest or Presbyter in hearing the Confession of and giving Absolution to the Penitent Party The security of the Penitent provided for by the Church and the Authority of Absolution more fully justified The several Offices which be performed by the Priest attired at ordinary times in his Surplice and at extraordinary in his Cope The Priest in his officiating the Divine Service of the Church Restrained to his appointed Postures Not permitted to use any Form of his own Composing Tyed to officiate daily both at morning and evening but With a liberty of officiating in the Latin tongue at some times and places Presbyters not to Preach without being Licenced By whom they were to be so licenced And why they were directed to the reading of Homilies Preaching or Homilizing only once a day on the Sundays and Holy dayes Lectures upon working dayes by whom and for what ends erected and Of the dangers which arose from the Institution Of Sacraments and Sacramentals No orders to be given but by Bishops only and Confirmation reckoned for one of their peculiars The rest promisenously permitted to the Presbyter also Penance how far retain'd in the Church of England Not only as commemorated on Ashwednesday yearly but As judicially imposed on scandalous and notorious Sinners in the open Consistory Consecration of Churches truly Primitive Honoured with Dedication Feasts and Those Feasts made annually and