before-hand led the way and that All therefore that those Princes generally did was to re-enact by the Civil what had been before enacted by the Ecclesiastical Authority and to give the Church Decisions more weight and force by inserting 'em into the Body of the Imperial Laws and annexing further Penalties to the Breach of them This is so certain and known a Truth that even at this day we can point out the several Canons upon which almost all the Civil Constitutions of those Princes were founded and in which the matter of 'em was either particularly and in Terms or at large and in general determined And if in some few Instances we should not be able to do this what wonder is it when it is considered at what a Vast Distance of Time we live from the first Rise of these things and how many Antient Church-Monuments that would have given light in these matters have in the course of so many Ages perished Iustinian in his Laws appeals frequently to the Canons and professes to follow them * Nov. 6. c. 1. Ibid. §. 8. Nov. 58. sub finem Nov. 123. c. 36. And by this Pattern the French and German Princes in after-times framed their Capitularies taking the Subjects of them from the Resolutions of antecedent Synods †Decrevimus juxta Sanctorum Canonum Regulas Caroloman in Syn. Leptin Anno 747. and even referring themselves thither for the more clear understanding of what their Law only briefly and in General delivered ‖ P. 91. A Truth so Notorious that Dr. Wake himself durst not dissemble it And it would puzzle a man therefore to shew how such Laws should any ways derogate from the Authority of Synods which they took their rise from and were made on purpose to support and confirm I must put the Doctor in mind here of a way of arguing made use of by one of his Seconds in this Controversie where he is disputing against the Universities Authority to declare Heresie there he lays down this Position That the Convocation of the University of Oxford have never forbid any Doctrine to their Scholars before that very particular Doctrine was first declared Erroneous or Heretical by some Persons who were then reputed to have Power to declare Heresie * L. M. P. p. 69. The Truth of this Assertion I at present trouble not my self with but supposing it true the Inference that arises from it has weight I own and when applied to our Present Argument is of use to inform us what Secular Decrees in Church-matters are no ways prejudicial to the Power of the Church and the Authority of Synods And this was an Head I say upon which Dr. Wake should have explained himself largely and openly if he had intended a fair state of this Controversie or had had any other New in what he wrote than merely to serve a Turn and to advance some colourable kind of Plea for a Practice which if he knew any thing of these matters he must know was indefensible and be writing all the while for his Point against his Conscience and if he knew nothing of it with what Conscience could he undertake to determine it These are words that I do not easily persuade my self to bestow on any Man but his Gross Prevarications and Disguises of Truth in Doctrines of so great moment wherein the Interests of his Order and of Religion are so nearly concerned force this hard Language from me Nor stops he at General Reflections in this case but brings them home also to our own Church and Constitution pretending in his Appendix †Num. vii to give us an Abstract of several things relating to the Church which have been done since the 25 Hen. 8. by Private Commissions or otherwise out of Convocation In which Abstract many of the Points mentioned had certainly the Authority of Convocation tho' he would fain have us believe they had not and that antecedently to the Civil Injunction Others are such Acts of Ordinary Power as by the consent of All Churches and Parties of Men every Christian Prince is confessedly intitled to and some few perhaps might be owing to the Necessity of Affairs which would not then admit of more Regular Methods and should not therefore be vouched as reasonable Precedents and setled Rules and Standards of acting in more quiet times which is manifestly Dr. Wake 's End in producing them The Reader must forgive me if I detain him so long as to run through the Particulars of this List and shew upon each of 'em how far the Ecclesiastical Power concurred and led the way to it It will be a dry unpleasing Task but is of use to clear the Orderliness of some steps taken in those times which are generally misunderstood and is necessary to wipe off the Dirt thrown by Dr. Wake on the English Reformation the Process of which I am satisfied was very Regular and Canonical in most Cases tho' in some by reason of the Loss of Records it cannot easily be proved so Of this we are in General assured by such as lived at the time when those Records were in being particularly by Sir Robert Cotton and Mr. Fuller The first in his Posthuma * P. 215. has these words If any shall object that many Laws in Henry the Eighth's time had first the Ground in Parliament it is manifested by the Dates of their Acts in Convocation that they All had in that place their first Original The Latter speaks as follows Upon serious Examination it will appear that there was nothing done in the Reformation of Religion save what was acted by the Clergy in their Convocations or Grounded on some Act of theirs precedent to it with the Advice Counsel and Consent of the Bishops and most Eminent Church-men confirmed upon the Post-fact and not otherwise according to the Usage of the best and purest Times of Christianity * Church-Hist xvi Cent. p. 188. To which I shall add the Testimony of one who must be allowed a Good Witness in this case my Lord of Sarum He assures the Bishop of Meaux in the Answer he made to his Variations that Our Parliaments and Princes have not medled in matters of Religion any other way but that they have given the Civil Sanction to the Propositions made by the Church and this is that which Christian Princes do in all Places †P. 35. And in 1604 I find a Puritan Writer making this Challenge Let them if they can shew any one Instance of any Change or Alteration either from Religion to Superstition or from Superstition to Religion to have been made in Parliament unless the same freely and at large have been first agred upon in their Synods and Convocations ‖ Assertion of True and Christian Policy P. 168. Which is no otherwise considerable I own than as it comes from the Pen of an Adversary These are General Proofs which would go a good way towards setting aside the Particulars in
Entertainment that follows P. 84. He proposes this Question Whether the Prince should be allow'd a Power to alter or improve what a Synod has defin'd to add to or take from it and thus he resolves it Sure I am that this Princes have done and so I think they have Authority to do For since the Legislative Power is lodg'd in their hands so that they may make what Laws or Constitutions they think fit for the Church as well as the State since a Synod in matters relating to Discipline is but a kind of Council to them in Ecclesiastical Affairs whose Advice having taken they may still act as they think fit seeing lastly a Canon drawn up by a Synod is but as it were Matter prepar'd for the Royal Stamp the last forming of which as well as enforcing whereof must be left to the Princes Iudgment I cannot see why the Supreme Magistrate who confessedly has a Power to confirm or reject their Decrees may not also make such other Use of them as he pleases and correct improve or otherwise alter their Resolutions according to his Own Liking before he gives his Authoty to them †P. 85. He is speaking here I confess of the Power of the Prince at large without pointing his words particularly on England but since he asserts this Power to every Prince and does not except Ours it is manifest he means him as much as if he had particularly mention'd him And this he himself is not shy of owning for before the End of this Chapter he in plain terms tells us that by Our Own Constitution the King of England has all that Power over Our Convocation that ever any Christian Prince had over his Synods †P. 98. And goes on afterwards ⸪ P. 136. to shew that H. the VIII did this very thing in 1536 correcting and amending with his Own Hand the Articles of Religion then drawn up before they were publish'd He does not indeed expresly Iustify this Act of H. the VIII but which is all one he mentions it without a word to shew that he disapprov'd it I will be bold to say that were this single Doctrine true the Late King might have gone a great way toward subverting our Religion without breaking in upon the Constitution or doing any thing Illegal He might have assembled the Clergy and commanded their Iudgment upon such and such Points and then alter'd their Resolutions to his Own Liking and so have set up Rank Popery under the Countenance of a Protestant Convocation Especially if he had call'd this other Principle of Dr. W's into his Aid Some of our Princes he says have not only prescrib'd to our Convocations what they should go about but have actually drawn up before hand what they thought Convenient to have established and have requir'd them to approve of it without submitting it to their Iudgments whether they approv'd of it or not ‖ P. 110. Which Fact also he gives us as a Right without insinuating the least Dislike of it And a very Convenient Right it is for Princes that meditate New Schemes of Church Government Twelve Years ago enforc'd by the Pen of a Parker or a Cartwright it might have done great Service it would have helpt on all the Pious Designs then upon the Anvil and if the Asserter of it had not been a Bishop to be sure it would have made him one Can such Doctrines ever be Serviceable I say not Grateful to This Government which would have ruin'd our Establish'd Religion under the Former But his Conclusions are not worse than his way of coming at them which is in this and in every case first by shewing what has been practis'd by the Emperors and other Absolute Princes and by asserting the same Power to belong to Our King as a King not by vertue of the particular Laws and Usages of this Realm but by the Right of Sovereignty in general †See Appeal p. 111.112 upon which he expresly owns himself to found the Authority of our Princes in Matters Ecclesiastical †See Appeal p. 111.112 and says therefore as we have heard that they have the same Power over Our Convocations that ever any Christian Prince had over his Synods And accordingly makes it the whole Business of his second Chapter that is of a Fourth part of his Book to set out the Powers exercis'd by Absolute Princes and particularly by the Roman Emperors over their Synods in order to warrant the Use of like Powers here at home I know not how this Doctrine may relish now but in the 7th * Mr. Nicholson See Hist. Libr. part 3. p. 177. according to his Exactness in Dates places this 3 io Iacobi whereas the Book it self was not set out till two Years afterwards as if he had seen any Edition of it he might from the Date of the Preface have known But he unluckily met with a false Print to this purpose in the Posthumous part of Spelman 's Glossary in Voce Tenura and he is always an Implicit Transcriber Year of King James the I. as high as Prerogative then ran it did not I am sure go down well with the Parliament for then Dr. Cowel's Interpreter was censur'd by the Two Houses as asserting several Points to the overthrow and destruction of Parliaments ond of the Fundamental Laws and Government of the Kingdom And One of the Articles charg'd upon him to this purpose by the Commons in their Complaint to the Lords was as Mr. Petyt †Miscell Parl. p. 66. says out of the Journal this that follows 4thly The Doctor draws his Arguments from the Imperial Laws of the Roman Emperors an argument which may be urg'd with as great reason and with as great Authority for the reduction of the State of the Clergy of England to the Polity and Laws in the Time of those Emperors as also to make the Laws and Customs of Rome and Constantinople to be binding and obligatory to the Citys of London and York The issue of which Complaint was that the Author for these his Outlandish Politicks was taken into Custody and his Book condemn'd to the Flames Nor could the Dedication of it to his then Grace of Canterbury save it who did not think himself concern'd to countenance whatever Doctrine any Indiscreet Writer should take the Liberty to ascribe to him He that thinks a Prince Absolute in Spirituals thinks him no doubt as Absolute in Temporals and will when a Proper time shall come not stick to say so Dr. W. has given some significant Hints that way in the words already produc'd from him for what else can he mean by the Legislative Powers being lodg'd in the Princes hands so that he may make what Laws he pleases for the Church as well as the State if we consider him to speak as he does of the Prince exclusively to the Three Estates of the Realm And when he adds therefore a few Lines afterwards that a Canon is
to determin him Those little shifting Equivocal Forms of Speech he is so full of thâ—se savings and softnings he throws in every where shew that the Thistles he was mumbling did not pass easily and that he had not only no Assurance that he was in the Right but a Shrewd Guess that he was in the Wrong and laid in matter therefore for Evasion against he should have need of it So that whenever he thinks fit to make a Reply I question not but this will be one main part of it That He Good Man is much misunderstood and his Opinions ill represented which are at the bottom and taken together very Innocent and Blameless since whatever he has said that may sound harsh in any one part of his Book he has unsaid again explain'd and qualify'd in another I will not deny him to have in several Instances a Right to this Plea such an one as it is But He who makes use of it does in effect own that he had taken upon himself the hard Task of maintaining a Point which yet he saw was not defensible and that his Conscience star'd him in the Face every step that he took nevertheless being in he was resolv'd to go through with it And if this Excuse will be of any service to him by my Consent he shall be allow'd it Could we excuse his III Principles yet what shall we say to those Injurious Reflections that accompany them Those Slights and Reproaches he so Liberally casts on his Order when it has the Ill Luck to come in his way Many Actions of the Old Popish Clergy ly open enough in Conscience to censure but he is sure always to give the Worst and most Invidious turns to them He never distinguishes between the Men and their Popery but censures them in the gross and in such a Manner sometimes as to leave the Reader in doubt whether the Function it self were not in fault The Clergy of his Own Time are dealt with yet worse by him That part of them which desire a Convocation that is by his Leave the far Greater part of them are so represented by him as if they were Irregular in their Lives Violent in their Tempers and Factious in their Principles †That Little Noysy Turbulent Party that now set themselves up as Iudges amongst us Ap. p. 119. Some Hot Men for ought she knows her Enemies Ib. p. 119. What shall we say of the Conversation and Examples of some of those who wait at the Altar Pride and Peevishness Hatred and Evil Will Divisions and Discontents prevail among those who should teach and correct others and instead of improving a Spirit of Piety and Purity c. we mind little else but our several Interests and Quarrels and Contentions with one another c. Authority c. p. 333. Some there are of those that wait at the Altar much fitter to be cast out of the Church than to Officiate in it Pref. p. 8. Men notorious for their Irregularitys who have scandalously departed from the Rules of their Holy Profession Ibid. By these means the Busy Tempers of some Forward Men may be restrained But they are such Men and such Tempers that make these Restrictions necessary And their Unwillingness to submit to them shews but the more clearly how fitting it is that Princes should have all that Power to prevent them from doing both Themselves and the Church a Mischief p. 43. It is probable had not the Prince had this Ty upon us we should before this time in all appearance have expos'd both Our selves and the Church for a Prey to the Common Enemy p. 271. I am fully perswaded that nothing at this day preserves us from Ruin and Desolation but that we have not Power of our selves to do the Church a Mischief Ap. p. 211. A new sort of Disciplinarians are risen up from within our selves who seem to comply with the Government of the Church much upon the same account that others do with that of the State not out of Conscience to their Duty or any Love they have for it but because it is the Establish'd Church and they cannot keep their Preferments without it They hate our Constitution and revile all such as stand up in Good Earnest for it but for all that they resolve to hold fast to it and go on still to Subscribe and Rail App. Ep. Ded. and the Government is in the very last words of his Book excited to take Vengeance upon them as Men embark'd in a Separate Interest and averse to all the Methods of supporting it * The only way to deal with with some Men is to treat them as they Deserve and to let them know that those are unworthy of the Protection of the Government who are Embark'd in an Interest different from it and Refuse to contribute to the Necessities of it Authority c. p. 355. In a word so Contumelious is his way of treating them that had he not inform'd us who he was in his Title Page we should have guess'd him rather to have been of the Cabal against Priests and Priestcraft than One of the Order And this he has done at a time when Religion is struck at every day through the sides of its Ministers and he could not but know that such Reflections from such a Pen would be greedily entertain'd and ill employ'd Can a Man pretend to Principles and act at this rate The very Swiss that fight for pay will not march against their Own Country but whenever it is attack'd go home and defend it Must we believe that the Friends of Convocations have been represented under the same Colours to his Majesty that they are to the Reader as Enemies to his Government Hot Immoral considerable neither for their Merit Interest nor Number If so indeed we have here an Easy account of the Distinguishing steps that have of late Years been taken But sure they who talk at this rate do not believe themselves Hot Busy men would not have sat still and cool thus long under the Want of what they so earnestly desir'd would not have waited the Good Pleasure of their Superiors with so much submission and silence in a Point of such tender Concern to them but have taken other kind of steps than any that have been yet made use of towards obtaining it Were a Convocation the Desire of a small Despicable Party only and not of the Generality of the Clergy how come such Assemblys to be laid aside where a few Men though never so furious would make no figure nor be able to disturb measures And as to the Charge of Immorality it runs high indeed but 't is to be hop'd that it is groundless For were there so many Men of scandalous Lives among the Clergy sure the Fathers of the Church who have the Inspection of their Manners would ere this time have made Publick Examples of several of them I cannot think that their Lordships have been so far wanting in
some Late Writers pretending to answer the Letter to a Convocation Man particularly by the Author of a Letter to a Member of Parliament and by Dr. Wake in his Book intitled The Authority of Christian Princes over their Ecclesiastical Synods asserted c. This Book being written by a Person of some Station in the Church and as is pretended under the Cover of a Great Authority deserves to be examined with a more than ordinary care which accordingly I have resolved to bestow upon it Dr. Wake indeed has a Peculiar Talent at enlarging on a Controversie the shortest Point when it comes under his Fruitful Pen immediately improves into a Volume I shall not so far follow his Example as to trace all he has said step by step and Page by Page and take every Opportunity that he has given me of laying open his misapplied Reading and mistaken Reasonings That would be an Endless Task which I have no leisure for neither does the Cause require it nor would the Reader bear it I shall endeavour therefore as much as I am able to shorten this Debate and in order to it shall first of all make some General Reflections upon his way of managing it wherein I shall shew how very little there is in his Tedious Work that really concerns the Point disputed and how much of it is written against no body and for no End in the World that I can see but the Pleasure of Emptying his Common-Place-Book I may very aptly apply to him what Bishop Andrews said of a much Greater Adversary Etsi nobis lis nulla de Regiâ in Ecclesiasticis Potestate tamen exorari non potest Tortus quin in Campum exeat istius Controversiae ubi quaestio nobis nulla de eâ re ostendat tamen nobis Testes minimè necessarios Explicare scilicet voluit Opes suas ostendere quae habebat in Adversariis suis. Habebat autem ad hanc rem nonnulla si incidisset alicubi Iam quia non incidit occasionem arripit non valdè idoneam ea quoquo modo proferendi Vult enim Lectorem videre quà m Cupressum pingat eleganter * Tortura Torti p. 169 I shall not I hope be thought impertinent in displaying these Impertinences of his which I shall do in as narrow a compass and under as few Heads of Observation as the variety of the matter will admit of And I. I observe that Dr. Wake has put himself to a great deal of needless pains to prove a Point which he might if he pleased have taken for granted that every Christian Prince and Ours in particular has an Ecclesiastical Supremacy and that the Clergy are not by a Divine Right intitled to transact Church-affairs in Synods as they please and as often as they please without any regard to the Civil Christian Power that they live under Many of those numerous Instances he has produced of Princes intermedling with Church-matters here at home or abroad are designed only to assert this Great Truth which however is a Point that he needed not to have laboured so heartily because no Church of England man ever denied it not the Man he writes against I am sure who says only and what he says I shall not fear to say after him that the Civil and Spiritual Powers are distinct in their End and Nature Lett. to a Conv. Man pp. 17 18. and therefore ought to be so in their Exercise too The One relates to the Peace Order Health and Prosperity of the Man in this Life as a Sociable Creature the other concerns his Eternal State and his Thoughts Words and Actions preparative thereto The first is common to all Societies whether Pagan or Christian the Latter can rightly be exercised among Christians only and among them not as inclosed within any Civil State or Community but as Members of a Spiritual Society of which Iesus Christ is the Head who has also given out Laws and appointed a standing Succession of Officers under himself for the Government of this Society And these Ministers of his did actually govern it by these Powers committed to them from him for near 300 years before any Government was Christian. From whence says he it follows that such Spiritual Iurisdiction cannot be in its nature necessarily dependent on the Temporal for then it could never have been lawfully exercised till Kings States and Potentates became Christian. And agen in another place This Power having been claimed and exercised by the Apostles and their Successors without any Regard nay in Opposition to the Heathen Temporal Authority is therefore we say not necessarily in its own nature dependent on such Authority †P. 19 20. Than which Reasoning nothing certainly can be more just nor could that Writer have expressed himself with more Caution and Guard upon so nice an Occasion Dr. Wake seems here to have apprehended him as if he had affirm'd that Princes have nothing to do in Church-matters the Management of which lyes without their Sphere and no ways depends on Their Authority But no Man living could have struck this sense out of his words that was not either very Blind or very willing for some small End or other to misunderstand him Cannot this mighty Controvertist distinguish between Denying the Exercise of Ecclesiastical Power to be necessarily dependent on the Temporal and affirming it to be necessarily independent upon it Does he not see a difference between saying that the Church may subsist without the State and that the State has nothing to do in the Government of the Church If he does not he ought to forbear tampering in Disputes of this kind till his Judgment is better and his Head clearer But if seeing this difference he yet resolved to take no notice of it either because he had made Collections some time of his Life about the Supremacy and was resolved to take this Opportunity of giving himself the Credit of them or because he saw it would be of use to him to have the Writer he appears against represented under as Invidious Colours and his Opinions loaded with as much weight as was possible if this were the Case it must be allowed him that there was some little Art tho' I think no very great share of Honesty in his Management 'T is true the Letter to a Convocation-man immediately after the last words I transcribed from it adds And if we should say further that this Society has an Inherent and Unalterable Right to the Exercise of this Power it would be no more than what every Sect or Party among us claims and practises c. But Dr. Wake could not with any colour lay hold of this Passage as asserting the Independency of the Church on the State for besides that it is only a way of arguing drawn from other Mens Principles it is a few Lines afterwards expresly retracted and qualifyed But this says he is what at the present we neither do nor need say Notwithstanding which Dr.
Domestick Constitution and the approved Laws and Usages of the Realm When Dr. Wake therefore by the Authorities produced in his Last Piece would excuse the Doctrine laid down in his former he deals unfairly with us for those Authorities justifie only that part of his Doctrine which was foreign to the Argument they being Declarations chiefly of the General Rights and Interests of Supreme Christian Powers in Ecclesiastical Affairs without entring into the Various Restrictions of that Right which the Spiritual Subjects may in several Places be intitled to by the Concessions of Princes and States and by their particular Priviledges and Immunities and without considering nicely Where that Supremacy may in different respects be said to be lodg'd and Who therefore must be taken in as Sharers in several Acts and Branches of it Which Considerations nevertheless are necessary to determine the just Extents of our Princes Rights in this Case and the Measure of our Obedience as will hereafter in Due Place more clearly appear In these Opinions our Old Writers had an Eye to the Act and Oath of Supremacy to maintain which was the business of that Age in which they wrote and their words therefore must be understood as that Oath is drawn up Negatively not Positively that is as denying the Usurpations in Ecclesiastical Matters that have been made or attempted from without upon the Crown of England not as setling the exact Boundaries and Limits of that Supremacy within in relation either to those who are to govern or those who are to be governed by it which is a Controversie that there has hitherto been but little said of and indeed but little Occasion to consider and which could not therefore be setled and determined by such Writers as lived and died before it was started Dr. Wake 's Cloud of Witnesses therefore which he produces in his Appeal are very properly such for they serve only to darken and confound the Point we are in pursuit of not at all to clear it They are such a Nubes Testium as we had in the Late Reign for Transubstantiation and other Romish Articles where the Old Fathers were vouched by whole-sale for a Doctrine that came not upon the Stage till they were gone off it And much the same Usage have the Fathers of our own Church had from the Pen of this Appellant who has cited 'em if pertinently to Points that perhaps they never heard of and to purposes that to be sure they never dreamt of and to which had those Excellent Persons foreseen that their words would have been stretched they would certainly have renounced such Consequences or rather have prevented 'em by expressing themselves more warily They were to plead for the Supremacy of Princes against Those who were for allowing them no manner of Interest in Church-matters and what wonder is it if in the warmth of this Dispute they should as the Fate is in All Controversies have sometimes a little over-thought or over-expressed themselves and have laid down such Positions as tho' of sound Sense when opposed to the Principles of those against whom they contended yet when applyed in other Cases and Circumstances then out of their Thoughts and the Debate might need some little softning Their Great Concern was to secure the Royal Prerogative and when that was done they thought their own Rights and Priviledges would be secure under the Shadow of it These they were then in a full Uninterrupted Possession of without apprehensions that a Time might come when they should be put to prove their Title to 'em and when that Power which they so warmly and with reason pleaded for should be turn'd upon them and made use of against the Maintainers of it Much less did they suspect that ever any pretended Son of the Church of England would amass together all the Highest Assertions of the Regal Supremacy scattered up and down in their Writings in order to furnish out a Plea for suppressing the Liberties of that Church and on purpose to prove that Convocations were what the Letter to a Member of Parliament sawcily says * P. 26. Bishops are the Creatures of the Crown which therefore as it created so it may annihilate at its pleasure Such kind of Books indeed were written Twelve Years ago by some False Members of our Communion to make way for those Ill Designs that were then on foot but to the Eternal Infamy of the Writers of them who thought to find their particular account in the General Ruin of that Church and Constitution to which they belonged but were God be thanked every way defeated in Their Expectations There is not 't is true so much Hazard now as there was then in exalting the Regal Power when we live under a Prince who is too Just and too Clear sighted to be flattered into a Misuse of his Authority However no Thanks are due for this to the Flatterers who have markt out the Arbitrary Scheme and it is no fault of theirs if it be not afterwards followed My Indignation at such Unworthy and Mean Attempts has carried me away into Considerations not so proper for this place and led me a little from a strict pursuit of my Argument I left it where I was shewing how weak Dr. Wake 's way of reasoning is from the Powers exercised by Princes over the Greatest Synods to their interposing equally in the Less He himself seems to be sensible of it and therefore to prevent this Long Chapter of his being One Entire Impertinence has sprinkled up and down in it a few Instances of the Authority of Princes over their Provincial Synods which being the only Instances there that any ways affect our Argument I shall not think much to consider ' em And in order to it I observe III. That in those Few Historical Facts which seem apposite and proper he either manifestly mistakes National for Provincial Synods or Extraordinary Assemblies for Ordinary and stated ones or conceals some Circumstances relating to the Story of those Meetings which when known give an Easie Account how the Royal Power came so particularly to interpose in ' em Several of the Synods which he calls Provincial were undoubtedly not so Others which were yet were called by Princes upon Extraordinary Emergences and do no ways prejudice the Right which the Church then had of assembling ordinarily at set times without a Lay Summons For whâ—n Princes admitted the Canon of the Nicene Council to take place in their Kingdoms and allowed the Synods of every Province to meet twice a Year in vertue of it they did not by that preclude themselves from calling those Synods together at other times when the Circumstances of the Church or State should require them They parted with no Power that they had to Convene such Assemblies but only gave a Liberty to the Clergy of the Province to meet at appointed Times whether they had a Royal Command for it or no. Besides had Dr. Wake intended a fair state of this
Canons of the most General Councils have been confirmed by the Civil Power and confirmed at the Instance and Petition of the Synods themselves * P. 80. And from hence he infers therefore that their Definitions are no farther Obligatory than as they are ratified by the Civil Authority †P. 79. And this Point he is so sure of that he conceives it to be allowed on all hands whereas I on the contrary conceive that it is allowed on no hands and is a Conclusion I am-sure that neither agrees with the Principles of our Church nor can ever be drawn from the Premisses on which he pretends to establish it If this Doctrine be good then is that of our Twentieth Article stark naught which determines that the Church hath Power to decree Rites or Ceremonies and Authority in Matters of Faith But how has she Power and Authority to this purpose if her Synodical Decisions are in no case farther Obligatory than as they are ratified by the Civil Authority The Magistrate at this rate will have Power but the Church her self can have none For she speaks only by her Synods in matters of this nature and if therefore her Synodical Decrees have not any Authority of their own till confirmed by the Prince then under an Heathen or Heretical Prince the Church has not I say any Authority tho' the Article expresly says that she has It is very observable that Dr. Wake has not in either of his Books mentioned this Article which yet surely in a Controversie of this nature deserved to have been taken notice of Such an Omission could not be by chance and we must believe therefore that he is of the Opinion of those Back-friends of ours in Charles the First 's time who would allow the former part of the Article no more Authority than Dr. Wake allows to the Church but said it was deceitfully inserted by Archbishop Laud and wanting in the Original He might be ashamed to take up with this Reproach after that Solemn Appeal which the Archbishop in his Speech in the Star-chamber * Anno 1637. See Heylin 's Life of Laud p. 339. made to the Records of Convocation for the disproof of it If he have any Suspicions still left in this matter my Lord of Sarum in his Late Exposition †P. 26. will clear them In the mean time let me put him in mind of the Fate of Dr. Mocket's Book de Doctrinâ Politeiâ Ecclesiae Anglicanae ‖ In 4 to London 1617. which tho' writ by Archbishop Abbot's direction yet was Burned publickly and that chiefly on the account of this very Omission if Dr. Heylin's History ⸫ Life of Laud p. 76 may be relyed on But how comes he to dream it to be allowed on all Hands that Synodical Definitions are no farther Obligatory than they are ratified by the Civil Power What Church upon Earth ever determined or allowed this Doctrine Because the Fathers of many Synods desir'd the Prince under whose Direction they met to inforce their Decrees by Civil Sanctions and Penalties does it follow that therefore these Decrees without the Addition of the Civil Sanction would have had no Authority no Force to oblige the Consciences of Christians Does the Subsequent Authority destroy the force of the precedent one Is the one of these lost and swallowed up in the other At this rate what will become of Excommunication when confirmed as it is here with us by a Civil Penalty Has the Church Sentence in this case no Authority because the Writ de Excommunicat◠capiendo is linked to it and issues out upon it Such arguing would have become a Disciple of Erastus much better than a Son of the Church of England But he will tell me Canons lose no Authority in this case which they ever had because indeed they never had any the Great Priviledge of the Church being only to prepare Draughts of Canons and Dead Matter as it were for the Royal Stamp afterwards to put Life into But if so How shall we account for the Acts of Church-power exercised by Synods from the first Planting of the Christian Religion till the Empire turned Christian It is plain that the Governours of the Church for three hundred years before the Civil Power came in to assist them met in Synods and made Laws which were universally submitted to not only as Councils or Advices proceeding from Men whose Character was had in great Reverence but as the Commands of Lawful Superiors towards their Spiritual Subjects and as such they were understood to oblige the Consciences of all good Christians in those Ages And if they had such an Authority before Constantine's time how came they to want it afterwards As the Church could get no New Power by coming under the Protection of the State so how does it appear that she lost any Old one The Emperors indeed by turning Christians gained something to wit an Interest in the management of Ecclesiastical Affairs but their Gains were not built on the Church-Governours Losses the Power that by this means accrued to 'em was Accumulative not Privative i. e. it gave them some Authority which they had not but it took not that away which the Spiritual Pastors and Governours had A Distinction that I am not afraid to make use of notwithstanding the Quarter it comes from If Dr. Wake therefore denies the Definitions of Synods held under the Civil Power to have any other Authority than what they derive from that Power he by consequence denies that the Anti◠Nicene Fathers assembled in Synod had any Right to prescribe Rules to those Christians that lived within the District over which they presided or that those Christians were bound to obey 'em He affirms in effect the several Canons that these Assemblies passed the Censures that they pronounced all the Acts of Synodical Authority which they exercised to be in themselves Null and Void and mere Usurpations upon the Liberty of Christians And whether he will take up with these Scandalous Notions or not we shall see when he blesses the World with his Next Performance Sure I am that without 'em his Scheme cannot be consistent and of a piece Agen Dr. Wake is also very faulty on this Head when in order to depress the Power of the Church he promiscuosly enumerates all the Laws framed by Princes about Ecclesiastical Affairs without informing us which of those Laws only traced the steps of precedent Canons and which of them proposed New Matter of Obedience beside or contrary to those Canons which would in this case have been a very Material and Pertinent Distinction He is full of the Edicts relating to Church-matters that are to be met with in the Code of Theodosius the Code and Novels of Iustinian c. * P. 11. But it would have been very honest of him here to have told us as the Truth is that there were scarce any of these Edicts to which some Canon had not
others and there was no change made in a Tittle by Parliament So that they only Enacted by a Law what the Convocation had done * Pp. 74 75. And agen As it were a Great Scandal on the first General Councils to say that they had no Authority for what they did but what they derived from the Civil Power so is it no less unjust to say because the Parliaments impowered †Here I must beg leave to say that his Lordship's Expression is not Exact The Parliament did not impower but approve of them some Persons to draw Forms for the more pure Administration of the Sacraments and Enacted that these only should be lawfully used in this Realm which is the Civil Sanction that therefore these Persons had no other Authority for what they did Was it ever heard of that the Civil Sanction which only makes any Constitution to have the force of a Law gives it another Authority than a Civil one The Prelates and other Divines that compiled our Forms of Ordination did it by vertue of the Authority they had from Christ as Pastors of his Church which did impower them to teach the People the pure Word of God and to administer the Sacraments and perform all other Holy Functions according to the Scripture the Practice of the Primitive Church and the Rules of Expediency and Reason and this they ought to have done tho' the Civil Power had opposed it in which case their Duty had been to have submitted to whatever Severities and Persecutions they might have been put to for the Name of Christ or the Truth of his Gospel But on the other hand when it pleased God to turn the Hearts of those which had the Chief Power to set forward this good Work then they did as they ought with all thankfulness acknowledge so great a Blessing and accept and improve the Authority of the Civil Power for adding the Sanction of a Law to the Reformation in all the Parts and Branches of it So by the Authority they derived from Christ and the Warrant they had from Scripture and the Primitive Church these Prelates and Divines made those Alterations and Changes in the Ordinal and the King and the Parliament who are vested with the Supreme Legislative Power added their Authority to them to make them obligatory on the Subjects * Pp. 53 54. I have produced these Passages at length not so much for any Light they give to the Particular we are now concerned in the Authority of the English Ordinal as for the General Use they may be of in setling the Dispute between Dr. W. and the Church about the Distinction of the Two Powers Ecclesiastical and Civil and the Obligations we are under to the Decisions of the one antecedently to the Sanctions of the other I subscribe to his Lordship's state of it and think nothing can be said more justly and truly 1552. The Observation of Holy-Days ordered by Act of Parliament Ibid. pag. 191. This Act traced the Steps of the Rubrick in the Common-Prayer-Book relating to Holy-Days and ordered none to be kept Holy but what had before-hand been so ordered to be kept by the Clergy in Convocations only it added New Penalties 1553. A New Catechism by the King's Order required to be taught by Schoolmasters Ibid. p. 219. This Catechism was published with the Articles of 1552. and had I suppose the very same Convocational Authority which those had It was compiled indeed by Poynet but is said in the King's Patent annexed to have been afterwards perused and allowed by the Bishops and other Learned Men by which we are to understand either the Convocation it self or a Grand Committee appointed by it and upon which its Power was devolved That the whole Convocation have been by these or such like Terms about this time often expressed the Instances given in the Margent * The Six Articles in the Act 31 H. 8. c. 14. are said to be agreed to by the Archbishops Bishops and other Learned Men of the Clergy who a little before are styl'd a Synod or Convocation In the Articles of 1536. See 'em in Bishop Burn. Vol. 1. Coll. of Rec. p. 305. the Convocation is expressed by the Bishops and others the most Discreet and Learned Men of the Clergy The Articles of 1552. are in the Title said to be such de quibus in Synodo Londinensi inter Episcopos alios Eruditos viros convenerat And iâ— will scarce I think bear a Reasonable Doubt whether these Articles passed the Convocation Finally The Act about Holidays as 't is called is in the Canon it self See it in Sparrow p. 167. said to be decreed by the King with the Common Assent and Consent of the Clergy in Convocation assembled But in the King's Letter to Bonner about it the words are By the Assents and Consents of all you Bishops and others Notable Personages of the Clergy of this our Realm in full Convocation and Assembly had for that purpose will evince And that this Catechism was generally understood to have the Authority of Convocation is plain even from the Exception made to it by Dr. Weston †For that said he there is a Book of late set forth called the Catechism bearing the Name of this Honourable Synod and yet put forth without your Consents as I have learned c. â—ox Vol. 2. p. 19. in the first Synod of Queen Mary but plainer still from Philpot's Reply to that Exception which discovers also to us somewhat of the Manner by which the Convocation came to be Intitled not to this Catechism alone but to several other Pieces that seem to carry the Name of a Committee only upon them His words are that This House of Convocation had granted the Authority to make Ecclesiastical Laws unto certain Persons to be appointed by the King's Majesty and whatsoever Ecclesiastical Laws They or the most part of them did set forth according to a Statute in that behalf provided it might be well said to be done in the Synod of London although such as be of this House now had no notice thereof before the Promulgation And in this Point be thought the setter forth thereof nothing to have slandered the House since they had our Synodal Authority unto them committed to make such Spiritual Laws as They thought convenient and necessary * â—bid p. â—0 The Knowledge of the Time and Circumstances of appointing this Committee we have lost together with the Acts themselves however plain it is from this Assertion of Mr. Philpot made in open Convocation that such a Committee there was named by the Crown at the Instance of the whole Clergy and that this Catechism among other things passed them and had on that account as He judged the Authority of Convocation It is left to the Reader by whom in this caâ—e he will be guided the Churches Martyr or her Betrayer And here the Instance of the Catechismus ad Parochos is very pat
Wake it seems has different notions of these things for he tells us that Whatever Priviledges he has shewn to belong to the Christian Magistrate they belong to him as such they are not derived from any Positive Laws and Constitutions but result from that Power which every such Prince has Originally in himself and are to be looked upon as part of those Rights which naturally belong to Sovereign Authority and that to prove any particular Prince entitled to these Rights it is sufficient to shew that he is a Sovereign Prince and therefore ought not to be denied any of those Prerogatives that belong to such a Prince unless it can be plainly made out that he has afterwards by his own Act Limited himself * Pp. 94 95. So that according to Dr. Wake 's Politicks All Kings in All Countries have an Equal Share of Power in their first Institution none of 'em being Originally Limited or subjected to any Restraints in the Arbitrary Exercise of their Authority but such as they have been pleased by after-acts and condescensions graciously to lay upon themselves Which Position how it can be reconciled with an Original Contract and with several Branches of the Late Declaration of Rights I do not see and how far it may appear to the Three States of this Realm to entrench on their share in the Government and on the Fundamental Rights and Liberties of the Free People of England Time must shew That all Bishops indeed are Equal is the known Maxim of St. Cyprian but which of the Fathers have said that All Kings are so too I am I confess as yet to learn For my part I should think it as easie a Task to prove that every Prince had originally the same Extent of Territory as that he had the same Degree of Power The Scales of Miles in several Countries are not more different than the Measures of Power and Priviledge that belong to the Prince and to the Subject But Dr. W. has breathed French Air for some time of his Life where such Arbitrary Schemes are in request and it appears that his Travels have not been lost upon him He has put 'em to that Use which a Modern Author * Moldsworth's Pref. to the State of Denmark observes to be too often made of 'em that they teach Men fit Methods of pleasing their Sovereigns at the Peoples Expence tho' at present I trust his Doctrine is a little out of season when we live under a Prince who will not be pleased with any thing that is Injurious to the Rights of the Least of his Subjects when duly informed of them Whereas then Dr. W. in great Friendship to the Liberties of his Church and of his Country asserts that by our Constitution the King of England has all that Power at this day over our Convocation that EVER ANY Christian Prince had over his Synod I would ask him one plain Question Whether the King and the Three States of the Realm together have not more Power in Church-matters and over Church-Synods than the King alone If so then cannot the King alone have All that Power which ever any Christian Prince had because some Christian Princes have had all the Power that was possible even as much as belongs to the King and the Three Estates in Conjunction There is one thing indeed which seems material to be observed and owned in this case 't is the Assertion of the Second Canon which declares our Kings to have the same Authority in Causes Ecclesiastical that the Christian Emperours in the Primitive Church had But this Canon must necessarily be understood of the King in Parliament for out of Parliament it is manifest that he is not so Absolute in Ecclesiastical Matters as those Emperors were In Parliament he can do every thing that is by the Law of God or of Reason lawful to be done out of Parliament he can do nothing but what the Particular Rules of our Constitution allow of And VIII This too is a Distinction which Dr. W. should have taken notice of had he intended to do Justice to his Argument For the Church here in England is under the Government both of the Absolute and Limited Sovereign under the Government of the Limited Sovereign within the Compass of his Prerogative under the Government of the Absolute Sovereign without any Restraints or Bounds except what the Revealed Will of God and the Eternal Rules of Right Reason prescribe The Pope usurped not only on the King the Limited but on the King and Parliament the Absolute Sovereign and what was taken from Him therefore was not all thrown into the Prerogative but restored severally to its respective Owners And of this Absolute Sovereign it is the Duty when Christian to act in a Christian manner to be directed in matters Spiritual by the Advice of Spiritual Persons and not lightly to vary from it By the same Rule the Limited Sovereign is to steer likewise within the Sphere of his Prerogative And he is also further obliged to preserve those Priviledges of the Church which belong to her by the Laws of the Realm Now Dr. Wake I say confounds these two Powers and the Subjections that are due to them speaking all along of the King as if He in Exclusion to the Three Estates had the Plenitude of Ecclesiastical Authority lodged in him and were the single Point in which the Obedience of the Church and of every Member of it centered This is a Fundamental Mistake that runs quite through his Book and is such an One as overturns our Constitution and confounds the Executive and Legislative parts of it and deserves a Reprehension therefore some other way than from the Pen of an Adversary Henry the Eighth 't is true in vertue of his Supreme Headship laid claim to a Vast and Boundless Power in Church-affairs had his Vicegerent in Convocation Enacted every thing there by his own Sole Authority issuing out his Injunctions as Laws at pleasure And these Powers whether of Right belonging to him or not were then submitted to by All who either wished ill to the Pope or well to the Reformation or wanted Courage otherwise to bear up against his Tyrannical Temper and Designs and were the more easily allowed of by Church-men because they saw him at the same time exercise as Extravagant an Authority in State-matters by the Consent of his Parliament However the Title of Supreme Head together with those Powers that were understood to belong to it was taken away in the â—â—â—st of Queen Mary and never afterwards reâ—ved but instead of it all Spiritual Iurisdictiâ—â— was declared to be annexed to the Imperial â—rown of this Realm 1 Eliz. c. 1. and the Queen enabled to â—xercise it by a Commissioner or Commissiâ—ners This Power continues no doubt in â—he Imperial Crown but can be exerted no â—therwise than in Parliament now since the â—igh Commission Court was taken away by â—he 17 Car. 1. It was attempted indeed to be
was requir'd of them On the 10th the Archbishop of Cant. reported it to the Lords and Commons On the 11th the King let the Queen then at Richmond know what was done and had her Consent to it and on the 12th a Bill was brought into the House annulling the Marriage which says my Lord of Sarum Vol. 1. p. 282. went easily through both Houses for the Summer was now far come on and the Parliament of Necessity soon to disperse it could not therefore be committed separately to the Convocations of either Province there to be transacted in a Regular manner But all the Bishops of the Province of York being present in Parliament and all the Clergy of that of Canterbury being ready hard by in their Convocation the King took this way of joyning both together by his Commission and forming One National Assembly To these he recommended the Discussion of his Case so that what should be by them determin'd id demùm says he Totius Ecclesiae nostrae Autoritate innixi licitè facere exequi audeamus It is manifest that this Commission to Treat or rather to Sit †The Clergy are said in the Instrument to be Congregati Convocati virtute Commissionis c. but there is no formal Mention of their Treating in vertue of it was here necessary to be issu'd out for such Reasons as sufficiently distinguish both this Meeting and their Business from those we are discoursing of To proceed therefore to the times of E. VI. In his first Year I have shewn the Custom still continu'd for the President to declare the King's good Pleasure to the Houses Orally without producing any License under the Broad Seal 'T is true there is the Draught of a Petition of this Year preserv'd which seems at first sight to imply the contrary and shall be fully consider'd under a separate Head All I shall here say to it is that should the Sense of the Inferior Clergy be justly express'd in this Petition at the opening of this Convocation yet 't is certain they continu'd not long of this Opinion but were soon satisfy'd either from the Answer made to them by the Bishops or some other way that their Fears of incurring a Premunire if they treated without a Commission were vain and groundless because we are as sure as we can be of a Negative of this nature at this distance that in all the Convocations for many Years after this they treated without one In the 6 th of the same Prince 1552 that Convocation met in which the first 42 Articles pass'd whose Title is Articuli de quibus in Synodo Londinensi Anno Dom. 1552 ad tollendam Opinionum dissensionem consensum Verae Religionis firmandum inter Episcopos alios Eruditos Viros convenerat Regià Authoritate in Lucem Editi And here again the Omission of a License in form ought to satisfy us that there was no such thing because where we know it was granted as in 1603. and 1640. there the Titles of the Canons then fram'd carry an Express mention of it 1 o. Mariae The Prolocutor certify'd the Lower House upon their first Meeting that it was the Queens Pleasure that the Company of the same House being Learned Men * This explains the Eruditi Viri in the Title of the Canons of 1552. And is another Instance of the Convocational Vse of that Phrase to be added to those I have given p. Assembled should debate of matters of Religion and constitute Laws thereof which her Grace and the Parliament would ratify †Philpot 's account in Fox Vol. 3. p. 19. And the same Intimation was given I suppose by Bonner the President of the Upper House to the Bishops or rather to both the Houses joyntly and his Speech reported afterwards by the Prolocutor to the Lower Clergy as the Custom is for the Speaker to do in Parliament The Business committed to this Convocation was very extensive we see and yet no other License but what was Verbal either given or requir'd tho' the 25. H. VIII stood in full force both then and the Year afterwards When another Convocation met Nov. 13. 1554. They too debated and acted though Unlicens'd †As far as the Silence of the Acts in this case good part of which I have seen are an Evidence of it and among other things sollicited for a Repeal of this Statute Twenty Eight Articles of Reformation the Lower House preferr'd and in the Preface to those Articles assert the Power by which they did it Accounting our selves say they to be called hither to treat with Your Lordships as well concerning the restitution of this Noble Church of England to the Pristin State and Unity of Christ's Church as of other things touching the State and Quietness of the same Church in Doctrine and in Manners we have for the furtherance of your Godly Doings therein devis'd these Articles following †Bishop Burnet 2. Vol. Col. of Rec. p. 207 The next Convocation Dr. IV. * Appeal p. 30. assure us out of the late Life of Cranmer was assembled by Cardinal Pole in vertue of a License from the Queen whereby he was impower'd also to make Canons But this is according to his usual Exactness in these Matters The Convocation in 1555. met Oct. 22. †Act. MSS the Cardinal's License to hold a Synod bears date Nov. 2. ⸪ Anth. Harmar p. 142. that Year and that Convocation therefore could not possibly be assembled by him in vertue of this License Besides he was not consecrated till the Day after Granmer's Death 22. March 155◠‖ Hist. of Ref. Vol. 2. p. 340. and could not therefore as Archbishop till then summon a Convocation of the Province The true account of this matter is that the Parliament meeting this Year Oct. 21. †Dâ—dg Sum. p. 517. the Convocation also in course met the day after it at Pauls being conven'd by the Dean and Chapter of Cant. ‖ Heylin Hist. Q. Mary p. 223. as was usual in the Vacancy The Cardinal though in England did not appear at it but Bonner by Commission from the Chapter presided There they sat and did business till Oct. 30. * Act. MSS when I find them coming to a Conclusion and offering their Subsidys and Complaints to the Queen The second of the next Month Anth. Harmar p. 141 the Cardinal had his License under the Broad Seal to hold his Synod Legatin of both Provinces and upon it issu'd out his Mandate to Bonner Nov. the 8 th for the Prov. of Cant. to meet those of York on the second of Decem. following Accordingly both Provinces met in the King's Chappel at White-Hall †Act. MSS. Memorandum 〈◊〉 post incaeptam Convocationem in Ecclesiâ Divi Pauli c. Loco Capitulari ibidem posteà Episcopi unà cum Inferiori Clero Prov. Ebâ—r comparuerunt in Synodo Reverendissimi in Christo Patris Domini Reginaldi c.
THE Rights Powers and Priviledges OF AN English Convocation STATED and VINDICATED IN ANSWER TO A Late Book of Dr. Wake 's Entituled The Authority of Christian Princes over their Ecclesiastical Synods asserted c. AND TO Several Other PIECES And one shall say unto him What are these wounds in thine hands Then he shall answer Those with which I was wounded in the House of my Friends Zech. XIII 6. Eâ Tempestate facies Ecclesiae foeda admodùm turpis erat non enim sicut priùs ab Externis sed à Propriis vastabatur Ruffin Eccles. Hist. L. 1. c. 21. LONDON Printed for Tho. Bennet at the Half-Moon in St. Paul's Church-yard 1700. THE PREFACE BEtween three and four Years ago came out A Letter to a Convocation-Man concerning the Rights Powers and Priviledges of that Body which together with the Replys that were made to it by Dr. Wake and some Other Writers led the Author of these Papers to consider the Point in Debate with a Particular Care and Application He confesses he came to Dr. W's Book with expectations of finding there whatever was necessary to set this matter in a clear Light The Bulk of the Work the Appearance of Learning it carried and the Great Authority by which it endeavored to recommend it self All seem'd to promise Exactness But upon perusing it to his Surprize he found that it was a Shallow Empty performance written without any Knowledge of our Constitution any Skill in the Particular subject of Debate upon such Principles as are destructive of all our Civil as well as Ecclesiastical Libertys and with such Aspersions on the Clergy both Dead and Living as were no less injurious to the Body than his Doctrine The Love I bear to Truth to my Church and Country soon gave me Resolution of stating this matter anew and of taking off the slight Colors under which Dr. W. had disguis'd it if at least I were not prevented by some Abler Hand particularly by the Author of that Letter which first gave rise to this Debate and who it was expected would have appear'd once more upon it and freed what he had advanc'd from all Exceptions This and some other Accidents were the Cause that the following Papers though prepar'd early saw the Light no sooner and have indeed been deferr'd so long till it is now grown absolutely necessary to say something in Defence of the Churches Rights or to sit down contentedly under the Loss of them For by this time Dr. W's Book Weak as it is has yet by not being oppos'd gotten strength and made its way into the good Opinion of many who wish not ill to the Order A Learned Adversary indeed has taken him to Task upon the General Principles of Church-Discipline and Government but in the Domestick Part of the Dispute which relates to our Own Laws and Usages nothing has been said For which reason even from well meaning Men we every day hear this Language If the Dr. has indeed misrepresented the Constitution why does not some body set it right again If he has given up the Libertys and Priviledges of his Church how comes the Body to be silent They understand their Own Rights sure and will not suffer themselves to be writ out of 'em we must believe therefore that they have 'em not if no body thinks fit to claim them This indeed is the Natural Construction which People must and do make of our silence and his Principles therefore must either quickly be disprov'd or prevail Nay upon these Principles a suitable Practise may soon establish it self and as Some New Customs first made way for his Doctrine so the Doctrine it self may make way for Others which when once taken up will be difficultly laid down for it is much easier to preserve a Constitution than to retreive it Already since he wrote it has so hapned that upon the Calling of a New Parliament the Writ for the Province of York has been dropp'd thro' Forgetfulness no doubt however for the same reason it may so happen again when another Parliament is call'd that the Writ for the Province of Canterbury shall be forgotten too And if it should withall be forgotten to be Claim'd as well as Issu'd We should then be in the same case with our Neighbours of the Church of Ireland among whom as I am inform'd Convocation-Writs are now grown out of Date two New Parliaments having been successively summon'd without them And by the same Degrees that the Convocations of the Establisht Church have declin'd in both these Countrys those of our Brethren of the Separation have begun to revive The Summer after Dr. W's Book came out a General Meeting of the Dissenting Ministers was appointed here in London as appears by the Date of the Newbury-Letter printed in the Appendix * Numb 11. and it is not long ago since the Irish Nonconformists met publickly at Dublin and printed a Sermon preach'd at the Opening of their Synod tho' I think the Establisht Clergy there have never been Synodically conven'd since the Revolution And how affairs stand in Scotland with relation to these matters the Reader if he desires Information may in the 25th Page of the following Papers find it Nor is it to be forgotten that since this New Doctrine came abroad a New Definition of Convocations has obtain'd which we are now told are only Occasional Assemblys for such Purposes as the King shall direct * Nicolson Hist. Lib. Vol. 3. p. 200. And even the New State of England Man has upon it varied his Phrase for his last Edition says that they are to meet now and then in Time of Parliament †Meige N. S. of E. part 3d. p. 64. It may seem not Material to observe any thing that falls from such a Pen but it shews how Common Opinion runs as much as if a Wiser Author had said it It was High time therefore to assert a Right which was so far endanger'd And this unequal as I may be to the Task yet rather than it should remain undone I have resolv'd to do not led so much by Inclination to studys of this kind as pushed on by an Hearty concern for the Interests of Religion and of my Order as far as the Latter of these is subservient to the Former and by an Eager Desire of doing somewhat towards supporting the Good Old Constitution I live under which Dr. W. has both in Church and State done his best to undermine His Blow indeed is directly levell'd at the Rights and Libertys of the Church only but it glances often on those of the State and wounds them sore as far as His Arm was capable of putting strength into it The Argument of his Book throughout turns upon such Maxims and Grounds as equally affect Both of them And because I am not willing to say any thing against him without good Proof I shall here give the Reader a short Tast of his Principles to prepare him for the larger
only matter prepar'd for the Royal Stamp we are not at a loss to know what further he aims at This is doctrine that at a Convenient Season will serve as well for Acts of Parliament as Canons Let us hear some more of it One great Position of Dr. W. is that the Convocation cannot move a step but as they are directed by the King or debate of any thing but just what he impowers them to consider And thus far he is safe in his Assertion for unâ—itting Assemblys may be insulted at pleasure But when he tells us further that the Parliament it self is as much directed by the King in the main part of their Debates as the Convocation is †P. 289. the Comparison begins to be sawcy and may prove Dangerous He would seem to qualify it indeed by saying that the Parliament are as much though not as necessarily directed but this does not much soften the Expression for still it leaves the Parliament as much though not as necessarily Slaves in the Point of Freedom of Debate as Convocations are said to be and is I dare say such an Instance of Free Speech as was never yet practis'd towards a Parliament Another of his Maxims is that whenever a Synod meets the King may give Direction for the Choice of the Persons that are to compose it that so he may be satisfy'd that they are such whose Piety and Temper has fitted them to serve the Church and in whose Prudence and Conduct he himself may safely confide †P. 42. And then by vertue of his General Rule that gives to Our Princes all that Power which ever any Christian Prince had over their Synods he brings it home to us and says that the Choice of the Persons composing our Convocation is thus determin'd by the King 's Writ †P. 103. which implys that his Writ might determin the Choice otherwise that he might order more or fewer to be sent up or New ones to be return'd in the Room of those whose Temper he shall not approve of and whose Prudence and Conduct he cannot safely confide in And if he can deal thus with our Convocation-Writs and Members what hinders but he that may deal thus also with those of Parliament for his Writs alike determin the Choice as to Both these Meetings and then there 's an End of our Constitution whenever a Prince arises that has any Ill Designs upon it The laying aside of Convocations is thus justify'd by Dr. W. in divers parts of his Book * Pp. 107.227 250. c. that the Great and almost Onely Use that has been made of them was to raise Money and that Use therefore being now out of Doors there is no need of regularly assembling them Let us apply this to Parliaments and suppose that the King's Revenue was so setled and the Publick Debts so far discharged that there was no occasion for them to sit for the giving of Money would there be no occasion therefore for their sitting at all in order to assist the Crown with their Counsels or to redress Grievances This is unavoidably the Consequence of Dr. Wake 's way of arguing and he seems not to be asham'd of it for p. 207. he thus accounts for the Rise and Birth of Parliaments as now setled They were to meet he says when requir'd and that as often as the Prince wanted Money or expected a Supply from them Can a Man talk at this rate and pretend to be an Englishman Or can true Englishmen stand by and hear him talk thus without resenting the Indignity The Clergy therefore are not the only Persons concern'd in this Dispute the Laiety too have their share in it For besides that if Slavery be once establisht in the Church it will quickly spread it self into the State Dr. Wake 's Principles we see are such as have an Immediate Tendency toward subverting Liberty in General and would if pursu'd through their just Consequences give the Prerogative as high an Ascendant over Parliaments as Convocations And when such things are said therefore not the Men of the Church only but every Freeborn subject of England ought to take the Alarm for their Birthright is endanger'd The very best Construction that has been put upon Dr. W's Attempt by Candid Readers is that it was an Endeavor to advance the Prerogative of the Prince in Church-matters as high and to depress the Interest of the Subject Spiritual as low as ever he could with any Colour of Truth But surely this it self is no very creditable account of it Those Casuists that have taken pains to instruct men how near they may possibly come to a sin without actually sinning have not been reckon'd the honestest part of their Profession And those Divines who read Lessons to Princes how to strain their Ecclesiastical Power to the utmost without exceeding it and oppress their Clergy legally are not surely the best Men of their Order They are Church Empsons and Dudleys and usually find the fate of such Wretched Instruments to be detested by the One side and at last abandoned by the Other Were all that Dr. W. says strictly true and justifiable yet whether the laboring the point so heartily as he does and shewing himself so willing to prove the Church to have no Rights and Priviledges be a very Decent Part in a Clergyman I leave his Friends to consider The World I fear is so ill natur'd as to believe that seldom any Man is over busy in lessening the Publick Interests of that Body to which he belongs who does not hope to find his Private Account in it But when all a Man advances is not only ill design'd but ill-grounded and his Principles are as False as they are Scandalous as I have evidently prov'd his to be there are no Names and Censures too bad to be bestowed on such Writers and their Writings Will it be said in his Excuse that he wrote his Book in the Dark without a Competent Skill in the subject of it and that his Mistakes therefore are the Effects of Pure Ignorance allowing it how came he then to write at all in a Matter that he was not and could not but know that he was not Master of How came he to express himself so peremptorily in such Tender Points wherein the Great Priviledges of his Church and the Chief Interests of his Order are concern'd Was there less of Wisdom or Honesty in endeavoring to write down these without being sure that he had good grounds for it In truth though the best thing that can be said for Dr. W. is that he wrote at this rate because he knew no better yet I fear that even this it self cannot be justly pleaded For as little as he knows of these matters he seems to have known yet more than he was willing to own and enough to have kept him from engaging on that side of the Question he has done if some very Powerful Motive had not come in
their Duty to God and the Church as not to have let the Laws loose upon such Offenders if they knew them And till they do so this Censure of Dr. Wakes must pass for a Scandalous Reflection both on their Lordships and his Brethren But this is the Ordinary Cry of Designing Writers who from hence raise to themselves a Character of Impartiality of a singular Integrity and Courage Their Own Vertues also shine to advantage upon such a Comparison and withal they intimate by it how fit they are to be advanced to a Post wherein they may correct such Enormitys And when that happens it will make some Amends or Excuse for their not effectually doing the Duty of their station if to their Complaints about the Lives of Churchmen they add others concerning the Church it self and say that even her Canons and Constitutions want reforming Dr. Wake seems to have hinted His Opinion in the case already where he says that the Church of England has a Peculiar Veneration for the Discipline and Doctrine of the Primitive Church beyond most Churches in the World †Pref. p. 4. Beyond most Churches why what Churches in the world have more or so much where are they planted what are their Names Is it the Scotch the French or the Dutch Church he means is it a Church with Bishops or without them Let him speak out and tell us the Church that has a truer or even so true a Regard for the Doctrine and Discipline of the Primitive Church as the Church of England has and then we shall know by what Model she is to be reformed and withall be let perhaps into the secret Reason of the Present Disuse of Convocations Grotius though a Forreigner would have taught him better Language Nullibi atque in Angl◠says he tantus honor piae defertur Antiquitati †Ep. 2. Should not an English Divine speak of our Constitution with at least as much respect as a Dutch Layman The Liberty Dr. W. has taken in his Censures is considering his Present Rank in the Church a little too early nor will the Pattern he follows in it justify him My Lord of Sarum indeed may freely have tax'd the Vices of the Clergy even in Books where he was defending the Orders of the Church of England or the Truth of the Christian Religion His High Station is his Warrant for whatever he has done of this kind lately and a Bar to all manner of Reply And his Former Reprehensions should they have been somewhat too Free are capable of this Excuse that being a Stranger he might not then have throughly acquainted himself with the state of our Church or the Characters of its Members And if he saw faults in them it was not to be expected that he should conceal them with the same Tenderness as if he had had his Birth and Breeding amongst them But Dr. Wake is neither Above those he reproves nor has drawn a different Air from them He was Baptiz'd and Educated in Our Communion and receiv'd his first Impressions of Men and Things in an University a Place that has not been thought apt to instill into its Members a Disesteem of their Holy Mother or a love of blackening and betraying their Brethren Methinks Men who talk so much of Moderation and Temper would do well to shew it in allowing a Common share of those Good Qualitys to some of their Neighbours who can be contented well enough without Titles but are however very loth to be stript of their Good Names The Comfort of such Good Men whom his General and Undistinguishing Censures have thus aspers'd must be to say to themselves as St. Cyprian once did Neque nobis Ignominia est pati à fratribus quae passus est Christus nec illis Gloria est facere quae fecerit Judas It was the Abhorrence I had of this Unworthy Treatment which the Reputation and Rights of the Order have found from Dr. W. and of the Slavish Tendency of his Principles in respect both to Church and State that gave me Resolutions of exposing the Weakness and Insincerity of his Attempt and of doing Right to Truth and an Injur'd Constitution He has modestly wish'd this Argument a Better Hand and a Better Head †Pref. p. VI. than his Own How far in these respects I am fitted for the Service I cannot say However One Quality there is unmention'd by Him but no less requisite than either of these a Better Heart I mean and that I am sure I have brought along with me to the Work and should there be further Occasion for it I trust that it will not fail me The Dr. I do not doubt considering on which side he wrote thought himself as secure in his Defyance as a Crown-Champion at a Coronation and that No body would have been hardy enough to take up the Gaunt let he threw down Something of this kind seems to have been in his Thoughts when he said that the Gentleman he attacks had written in such a manner as would not he suppos'd at all encourage any one to stand up in defence of him †Ib. p. 1. But in this as well as in a Thousand Other things he finds his Mistake There are he sees Those who will not desert Truth when it grows out of fashion and have Courage enough to espouse a Good Cause though Great Names and Great Interests are made use of to discountenance it Not that the Author of these Papers is concern'd any ways to vindicate the Manner of that Gentleman 's Writing whom the Doctor engages it is his Argument only that he undertakes to defend in which he thinks him to have dealt both Skilfully and Honestly professes himself freely to be of his Opinion has reasserted it here in this Book and will by the Divine Assistance go on to maintain it He matters not what Dirt may be thrown at him on this account he expects to traduc'd by little Officious Pens and by Dr. Wake 's the least of them as Disaffected and Undutyful But as he is satisfy'd of the Uprightness of his Intentions and knows how full his Heart is of Duty and Respect toward Those whose Characters ought always to be and shall ever be Sacred with him so he thinks he has taken a very proper way of expressing it in what follows where it seems to him that he pleads for his Majesty's Honor and my Lord Archbishop's Interest more effectually than they can pretend to do who differ from him It is certainly for the Honor of the Crown to be attended always with the Great Council-Spiritual of the Realm as well as Temporal and my Lords Grace of Canterbury is never so Considerable as when he is at the Head of the Clergy of his Province The Author is perswaded that he cannot make a more wellcome Present to good Governors either in Church or State than by affording them a True Account of the Wants and Rights of such as are entrusted to
their Care and an Opportunity by that means of exerting their Power to the Good Ends for which it was design'd And They who shall represent him as Disaffected on this account do not sure consider what a kind of Compliment they make to Those for whose Interests they pretend to be so warmly concern'd Disaffection to the Government as the Charge is commonly manag'd is a Word only made use of by those that are in favor to keep others out it is a Reproach taken up on purpose to justify premeditated Designs of oppressing Men For so the Soldier said that the Countryman whistled Treason when he had resolved to plunder him For my part I am not shy of Owning to Dr. Wake my naked Thoughts on this Head and he may make what Use he thinks fit of them If then to be a True Lover of England its Monarchy and Episcopacy if to have the Utmost Esteem for the Heroick Qualitys and Matchless Merits of our Prince and to think no Instance of Respect and Duty that Subjects can pay him too great while they take care to preserve their Own Rights and Priviledges if to preferr the True Interests of the Protestant Religion and the Preservation of our Civil Libertys to all other Considerations and for these among other Ends to pray heartily for the Continuance of our Present Government both in Church and State if these be Instances and Marks of Disaffection then the Author of these Papers must own himself disaffected and not otherwise No the Imputation is more justly to be laid at Their Door who are for such New Methods and Practises as naturally tend to alienate the Hearts and Affections of Subjects and make Governments uneasy who blast great Numbers of Good Men with Ill Names and endeavour to make them what they are not disaffected by so representing and using them as if they were And at the same time that they would have others thought Unwilling to serve the Crown take care effectually to disable themselves from serving it by forfeiting all the Credit and Interest they have among their Brethren For what can the Clergy think of such Men as bend all their Wit and Skill to dress up Schemes for suppressing their Parliamentary Assemblys and even their Summons for rendring their Body as such Useless to the State and by consequence Contemptible in a word for introducing the Portuguese Model of Church Government by which a late Author tells us †Account of the Court of Portugal p. 22. the attendance of the Lower Orders is excus'd and their Bishops with the Assistance of the Pope act for them and conclude them Can any Member of the Church that has his Eyes open think such Men Friends to it or so treat them and speak of them as if they were How is it to be expected that this Management should work on the Inferior Clergy What else can it produce in them but Distrusts Uneasinesses Complaints and Endeavors of Righting themselves as they are able The Projectors of such Schemes may fancy them proper Methods of laying Mens Passions asleep but will in the End find that they are the sure Ways of raising them Nothing will by this Means be Effectually laid asleep but the Churches Parliamentary Meetings and it is well if the Dose given them be not so strong as to make them sleep their Last Does it at all soften the severity of this Usage to tell the Clergy That it is really for their true Interest and Service if they would but understand it That they are a Number of Men too Warm Indiscreet and Unpractis'd in Business to be saâ—ely trusted together and were they indulged the Liberty they claim would soon ruin themselves by the use of it These are Dr. W's Thoughts upon the matter and are they not decent ones This is not only oppressing but insulting Men the Reason given for the Usage is more provoking than the Usage it self If under a Sense of these Injurys I have not so temper'd my Pen every where but that an Hard Word may now and then have escap'd me I need no Excuse for it Dr. Wake 's way of Dealing would I am sure have justify'd much rougher Returns than any I have made him But what ever of this kind the Reader meets with he may assure himself that it sprung not from any the least mixture of Private Prejudice or Resentment For I have no Quarrel with Dr. Wake but on a Publick Account On the contrary the Good Services he did against Popery enclin'd me always to wish well to him and to esteem him Or had I wished him ill yet I would never have taken this way of expressing it for Petavius †Petavius Croio responsurum se negat ideò quod novit Annua augeri semper Ministris contra quos scribitur Grot. Epist 1742. has taught me long ago that to write against some Men is the Way only to have their Pensions doubled And the Experience of later Times than his has shew'd that it is possible to write a Man out of Reputation into Preferment Much less can I be suppected to have engag'd in this Design out of Interest The way to That is not by appearing in behalf of Councils which as Johannes Major †Johannes Major c. XVIII Comment in Evang. Matth. Versùs finem aït Nemini mirum videri debere quod Plures Papam esse supra Concilium quam contrà Concilium supra Papam esse doceant cum Papa det Dignitates Beneficia Ecclesiastica Concilium verò det nihil Richer de Conciliis well observed meet but seldom and have no Dignitys to dispose of No it is neither from these nor any such Low Inducements as these that I have enter'd on this Work but from a Desire only of Perpetuating to the Church the Use of her Parliamentary Assemblies and of that Free Debate which is inseparable from such Assemblys Both which Rights were in great Danger of being lost by Popular Misapprehensions and a Discontinuance In the management of this Argument I have chiefly had an Eye to what Dr. Wake has advanc'd without neglecting however what has been offer'd on the same side from Other Pens particularly by the Author of the Letter to a Member of Parliament One who to do him right saw where the stress of the Dispute lay and endeavour'd here and there to write up to it though for want of fit Materials he was not able He has however in a Page or two of his Pamphlet said more for the Cause than Doctor Wake has done throughout his Mighty Performance which is really nothing more than a Series of Long Flat Impertinent Accounts attended with suitable Reflections but without One wise Word spoken or True stroke struck in behalf of his point from the beginning of the Book to the End of it And were it not therefore on some Other Accounts besides the mere Merit of the Work it would have deserv'd no Answer but what the Fryar in one of
Subjects Right and matter of Duty as well to those who Call as those who are Called to them and would oblige therefore though there were no positive Law that fixed the times of such Meetings Indeed Either of these Assemblies in State or Church may sometimes have been intermitted for emergent Reasons and such as the Members themselves that compos'd 'em might be presumed willing to allow yet those Intermissions must not be supposed to take away the Right of meeting except they are withal suppos'd to take away the Right of Convening So that the Provincial Inferiors may well demand to be Assembled as soon as those Reasons Impedient shall cease and much more when stronger Reasons shall arise on the other side such as would justify the Clergy's desire of an extraordinary Convention if they had not an ordinary one to claim And among many other Reasons which may occasionally move Inferiors to claim the Recontinuance of these Meetings this may be one That their Right begins to be questioned by the Discontinuance especially if the Superior shall take care to assert his Own at the same time that he sets aside Theirs and Commanding them to Come shall yet not suffer them to Assemble in Form nor let them instead of being a Convocation Legally to confer together and to frame their Requests to their Lordships the King or Parliament be so much as a Congregation once to say their Prayers together and hear a Sermon Now as it is manifest that this Right of Assembling is Attested by the usage of our Church and founded upon the Canon Law so may it be remembred that it is no Papal Grant but derived from very ancient Christian Practice established by the great Council of Nice and other succeeding General Councils and adopted particularly into the Body of the Canons of Most I might say All Christian Nations The Disuse indeed and Suppression of Synods has been frequently charged upon the Arbitrary Proceedings of the Papacy but no Primate need fear lest he should be thought to take too much of the Legatus Natus upon him if he pleases to convene them For so far are the Clergy of England from being Unreasonable or Singular in their Desire of such Meetings that there is no part of the Reformed Church beside that does not duly hold them They are constantly kept up in the United Provinces and even in France they were never denied the Protestants by this King as long as the use of their Religion was allowed them These Assemblies having been always esteemed by all Christians as the best and most proper means for the Preservation of Unity and suppression of Errors and Disorders in the Church of God To draw nearer home what we plead for has been allow'd the present Scotch Kirk nay and something more than we plead for I hope it will not be thought foreign to my Subject if I stop to give some short account of it Their Assembly has sat often since the Revolution and done business with a witness if a thorough purging of Churches and Universities if exercising their Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction over the whole Kingdom as well over those who renounc'd their Government as those who own'd it be doing Business If to Excommunicate Suspend and Deprive at Pleasure if to be Patrons General of all the Livings of the Kingdom and to Induct as well as to Eject what Persons they thought fit if by an Act of theirs for so the Style runs to appoint National Fasts and to settle General Rules for Church-Discipline and Government without so much as asking leave of the Civil Power be doing Business then I say the Scotch Assembly have within these ten years last past effectually done it They have acted up to the utmost Extent of their pretended Divine Charter of Priviledges and have scarce been withstood in any one Branch of it for tho' the King's Commissioner has sat with them yet has he not been allow'd either to interpose in their Debates or to have a Negative upon their Resolutions no nor so much as to confirm them And when he pretended to adjourn or dissolve the Synod they protested against it and appointed a New Meeting by their own without any regard to His Authority and in the Intervals of their Sessions they have had a standing Committee of their Members who have been as it were a Perpetual Assembly These are the High Favours and Indulgences that have with a Liberal Hand been bestow'd on our Neighbours in Scotland to the utter Abolishment almost of the Civil Magistrates Supremacy in Church-Affairs Shall they who deny the Prince his Due have more than their Due allow'd them and shall not those have so much as their Due who allow him every thing that either the Law of God or the Law of the Land allows him Shall not the modest Claim of an Episcopal Church which professes all due Subjection to the State put in for as fair an Hearing as the Unreasonable Pretensions of an Holy Kirk that acknowledges no Superior but Christ Iesus Nor have those of the Presbyterial and Congregational way been less indulg'd here at home for that They too have their Convocation in as Regular and Full tho' not in so open a manner as the Members of the Church of England desire to have appears from that Circular Summons which about Eighteen Months ago was issu'd out and casually came into an Hand that it did not belong to The World has already had a sight of it however it may not be amiss once more to Print it in these Papers * See the Append. N. II. Nay the Priviledge we claim is not deny'd to any the most Wild and Extravagant Sect among us even Quakers themselves have their Annual Meetings for Ecclesiastical Affairs and are known to have and allow'd to hold them Shall Schism and Enthusiasm to say no worse have the free Liberty of these Consults for the Propagation of their Interests and shall an Apostolick and Establish'd Church want it God forbid In Popish Countries indeed these Synods are discountenanc'd and out of use notwithstanding the late Decree of the Council of Trent which orders that they shall be Celebrated once at least in three years But this Decree stands in the Acts of that Council to no other purpose than as it is a Testimony of the sense that even that Corrupt Body of Men had of the necessity of these Assemblies for the force of it vanished almost as soon as it was made The Undersharers in Spiritual Dominion secretly agreeing to lay it asleep and his Holiness who alone can awaken it conniving at their Neglect because the less such Meetings as these obtain in the Church the greater recourse will there be to his Chair and his Empire will be the more Absolute In France particularly though this Decree has been Authorized by the Edict of Blois and by several others yet have there not been any Provincial Synods held in virtue of it for above these Threescore and Ten
p. 552. ad an 1095. p. 722. Where also it is said Abbates totius Provinciae cum Clero parte Procerum affuerunt and united them more closely than before by his new Tenure of Knight-Service which oblig'd all Persons that held of the Crown whether Spiritual or Temporal equally to Attend his Great Councils And to These therefore were Summoned not the Bishops and great Abbots alone but many others also of the Lower and even of the Undignified Clergy who as Dooms-day Book shews held Lands of the King in every Shire †4711. Knight's Fees were Vested in Parochial Churches says the Author of Eulogium and to be sure therefore were present together with the other Crown-Tenants even in the Conqueror's Curiae held acourse at the Three great Festivals and appear'd no doubt in greater Numbers at his more full and general Assemblies of all the States of the Realm At such only Church-Affairs seem to have been Transacted not at his Ordinary Curiae though some of the Clergy of all Ranks might be present there unless when these Curiae and those great Councils were co-incident and the latter Summoned to meet extraordinarily at the same time that the former met acourse As the Case was in that mixt Convention at Winchester where Stigand was Deprived and in another at Gloucester where several Bishops were made How long exactly the Saxon Manner of Mix'd Councils continued is not easy to say However that for several Reigns after the Conquest it obtained is certain and it is probable that the Disuse of it might begin toward the middle of H. II. when the Clergy we are told Disjoined themselves from the Laity ‖ Post Turonense Concilium which was in 1163. about the Time of the Council of Clarendon cum Omnibus penè in Rebus Clerus se a Populo disjunxisset Antiqu. Britann p. 131. in every respect and set up to be Independent being encouraged in this Attempt by the Pope whose Power was then very great and by the Success which they had in their struggle with the Crown about the Affair of Archbishop Becket and the Articles of Clarendon And this Division of the Spiritualty from the Temporalty which began in H. the IIds time took Root under his Successors and was settled more and more by the Absence of Richard the First in the Holy Land by King Iohn's weak and H. the IIIds troubled Reign Now therefore the Clergy seem to have declin'd Obedience to the Lay-Summons except such of them only as were oblig'd to attend the Great Councils of the Realm by their Offices or their Tenures so that in the Sixth of King Iohn when the King had a mind to have all the Abbots and Priors present in Parliament he was forced to Cite them by the several Bishops of the Dioceses * Cl. 6. Jo. M. 3. dors and not by an immediate Summons And in 49 H. 3. when every Abbot had his Distinct Writ they are said to have been Voluntariè summoniti †Pat. 26. E. 3. PS 1. M. 22. in Pryn's Reg. of Par. Writ Vol. 1. p. 142. i. e. by their own Consent not as of Right or as owing the Crown any such Service To this Recess a way had been before opened by the Dispute between the Two Metropolitans Thurstan Archbishop of York refusing that Subjection to the See of Canterbury which had been paid to it by his Predecessors from Lanfranks time when in a great Council held first at Winchester and then at Windsor it was solemnly determined That the Archbishop of York and his Clergy should attend the Archbishop of Canterbury's Conciliary Meetings and Summons ‖ Diceto de Archi. Cant. p. 685. But this Rule was broke in upon in less than Fifty Years after it was settled and the See of York by the favour of the Pope made Independent And now therefore the Archbishop of Canterbury's Authority being confined to his own Province and the Interest of the Crown in calling the Body of the Clergy together afterwards lessening apace the Affairs of the Church came at length to be transacted in Two separate Provincial Synods and the Clergy seldome to Assemble Nationally but at the Command of a Legate who often called them together in H. the IIId's Reign and that to bring the Observation nearer to my Subject at the very time of Parliament And sometimes I find that both the Regal and Legantine Authority joined in Convening them * Compare M. Par. p. 915. with the Ann. of Burt. p. 355. But their ordinary way of attending the Parliament was not in one National Council but in two separate Assemblies of the Province as is manifest from the Constitution of Reading formerly Cited where Two Proctors are appointed to be sent from every Diocese to appear in proximâ Congregatione nostrâ tempore Parliamenti proximi †Constit. Provinc p. 25. Here we see the Provincial Synods of the Clergy for the Council of Reading was such are spoken of in the 7th Year of E. I. when this Council was held as Meeting acourse together with the Parliament And we may be sure therefore that the Custom was of Elder date though when it arose canot be precisely determined But this Wise and High-spirited Prince finding the Clergy thus divided from the Laity and from one another hard to be dealt with resolved to restore the old Practice and to bring them Nationally to Parliament which he did by inserting into the Bishop's Writ that Clause which begins with the word Premunientes and Summoning by the means of it all the Secular Clergy under Bishops either in Person or by their Proxy's as also those Religious who were so far Secular as to be Chapters to the Bishops and placed in the Heads of the several Dioceses such as the Priors and Convents of Canterbury Winchester Worcester c. were The Mere Religious as professing to be out of the World had the Privilege also of being left out of those Summons the Crown contenting it self to direct particular Writs to all the great Abbots and Priors whether holding by Barony or not without commanding the Attendance of their Convents The Numbers of the Lower Clergy Cited by the Archbishop to his Parliamentary Convocations had born some proportion all along to those of the Lower Laity called at the same time to Parliaments * For this Reason the Constitution of Reading appointed two Proctors for every Diocese And a Mandate of Peckam in 1290. See his Register Cited out of every Diocese Duos vel tres Procuratores when the Commons Writ of the same Year ra◠Duos vel tres de discretioribus milibus Brady Introd p. 149. and the Premunitory Summons therefore when first practised by this King still carried on the Parallel By it some were ordered to appear for the Diocese the County Christian and some for the Cathedral Clergy of those Cities that sent Members to Parliament And as the Welch Shires return'd but one Knight apiece
†When this began I know not for many Years after the Commons were Summoned as they are now I find the Community of Wales appearing in Parliament as those of Scotland sometimes did by a certain Number return'd for the Whole so their several Dioceses were to appear by a single Proctor ‖ So I gather from the Usage of those Assemblies which were purely Ecclesiastical To one of which An. 1302. the English Clergy were Summoned by Two and the Welch by One Proctor apiece Registr Winchelâ—ey fol. 147. And beside all these the Archdeacons (*) M. Par. ad Ann. 1247. p. 719. and Deans (†) Idem p. 240. ad 15. Joh. having been long before called to the Great Councils of the Realm were not omitted now but comprised in the same Writ of Summons Nor were their Numbers only in some measure proportionable but the Powers also with which they came Originally the very same so that their first Writs of Summons ran equally ad Tractandum Ordinandum Faciendum * 22. E. 1. in Registro Henr. Prioris 23. E. 1. apud Dugdal Summon and when the one Summoned ad Ordinandum only †Registr Hen. Pr. Fol. 69. Dugd. Summ. p. 13. or ad Faciendum Consentiendum ‖ 17. E. 2. Dugd. p. 92. Pryn. Reg. Parl. Wr. Vol. 2. p. 77. 5 E. 3. Dugd. p. 163. Pryn. Ibid. p. 86 c. so did the other The Minute Alterations of these Forms taking place in both Writs at once in various Instances and the Procuratoria which were fram'd upon those Writs for the Lower Clergy answering almost in Terms the Returns that were made for the ⸪ Pryn R. P. W. 4. Vol. p. 436. Laity To omit other Correspondencies which might be observed if these were not sufficient to shew That the Clergy brought to Parliament by the Premunientes were to all intents and purposes what they were long afterwards in the Rolls of Parliament called The Commons Spiritual of the Realm This Clause how much soever to the real Interest and Advantage of the Lower Clergy was yet thought a Burthen by them and an inroad upon their Priviledges and they tried all ways therefore of withstanding or declining it but in vain for the Genius of that mighty Monarch who was not us'd to be baffled in any Attempt carried it against all their Opposition And the Ground he had thus gained upon them he kept throughout all his Reign as appears by the Records of the last Parliament but the First whose Proxy Roll is preserved which Ryley has Printed at lâ—â—gth in his Placita Parliamentaria * P. 321. There the Proxy's are enter'd of every Bishop Abbot Prior Dean and Archdeacon that did not Personally appear in Parliament as also of the Clergy of every Chapter and Diocese But a weak Prince and a disorderly Government succeeding they laid hold of that favourable Opportunity to resume their pretences to Exemption The wise Maxim was now forgotten by which they governed themselves and made their stand against the Pope in Henry the Third's Reign Regnum Sacerdotium nullatenùs sint divisa †An. Burt. P. 307. A Maxim that never hurt the Clergy when they stuck to it as it has never prosper'd with them when they departed from it nor I believe ever will They liked not the Premunientes at first and the severe Taxes they had smarted under ever since it went out made them like it still worse and had quite alter'd their Mind and their Measures So that now they thought their Interest and Safety lay in Uniting as closely with the Pope and Dividing as far as they could from the Laity The Archbishop no doubt favouring this Opinion with a prospect of sharing the Pope's Power over them and under the Pretence that it would be more for the Honour of him and his Clergy to be still by Themselves in Two Assemblies of Convocation answerable in some proportion to the Two Houses of Parliament according to Bishop Ravis's just and impartial ‖ In his Reasons for a Reunion presented to Q. Eliz. Hist. Ref. Part 2. Coll. of Records n. 18. Observation The Separation therefore was resolved on attempted in Edward the First 's advanc'd very far in Edward the Second's and fully settled in Edward the Third's Reign Even under the former of these Princes though the Clergy obeyed the Parliamentary Summons duly yet were they backward to answer the Ends of it unless they might do it in their own Manner and therefore referred themselves more than once to a Fuller Assembly of the Province to be gathered by the Archbishop where they knew they should be join'd by All the Religious and by Their help be enabled either better to put off the Burthen that might be laid upon them or better to bear it His easy Successor was prevailed with yet further to mix Authorities and to take the Archbishop's Power along with him in Convening them so that under him the way was often when the Bishop's Writ with the Clause Premunientes went out to send Two other Writs to the Two Metropolitans directing them to cite Those and Those Only of their Province by a general Mandate which were Summon'd severally by the Bishops Writs But because this though a great Condescention of the Crown was still an Hardship upon the Archbishop out of whose Province the Parliament was held who could not regularly bring his Subjects to any place not within his Jurisdiction and because it was known to be more agreeable to the Rules of the Church and found to be more conducive to the Peace of the State * In respect to the Controversy about the Supreme Bearing of the Archiepiscopal Crosses which never rag'd so high as when the Archbishops met one another at the Head of the Clergy of their Provinces that the Clergy of each Province should Assemble apart therefore this Accommodation afterwards took place That the Premunientes should still Summon them from the King to meet Parliamentarily but that sufficient Obedience should be understood to be paid to it if the Clergy met Provincially though not at the same Place yet about the same Time and to the same Purpose to be ready to hear what should be Proposed from the King to give their Advice when ask'd and their Consent when requisite to offer their Aids and their Petitions and in short to answer the necessary Affairs of the King and Kingdom Not that the Clause Premunientes now grew useless and insignificant for still the Bishop who executed the Royal Writs upon the Clergy of the Diocese as the Sheriff did upon the Laity of the County when he received his Summons to Parliament transmitted it to those of the Lower Clergy concern'd and they still made their returns to it Such of them as were not to Attend in Person formally Impowering their Proctors to Appear and Consent for them in Parliament according to the Tenor of the Bishops Writ though those Proctors
sat afterwards and acted in Convocation An instance of such a Procuratorium for the Parliament I have seen as low as 1507. and another of an execution of the Premunientes by the Bishop yet lower in the Reign of Edward the Sixth though Returns had then Ceas'd or at least were not Enter'd Thus the Forms were kept up and by that means the King 's Right of Summoning the Clergy asserted and owned And so the State-ends of Summoning them were also answered they were left to do it in an Ecclesiastical way and to attend the Parliament and the Business of it not in One Body as they were called but in Two Provincial Assemblies This they did at first by the Connivance of the Crown rather than any express Allowance the Archbishop of his own accord sending out a Provincial Citation concurrently with the Bishops Writs of Summons which Method obtaining and these Meetings of the Province being tacitly accepted in lieu of the Clergy's resort to Parliament it grew necessary for the King to employ his Authority also in Convening them for otherwise it had been at the Archbishop's Discretion whether he would have any such Meetings or not and so the Crown might have lost the Clergy's Assistance in Parliament This gave birth to the custom of issuing out Two Convocation-Writs when a New Parliament was to be Chosen which though set on foot before yet settled not into a Rule till some Years after Edward the Third was in the Throne and then it was practised as duly and regularly and in much the same manner as it is at this day Take one Instance and that not the Earliest which might be given instead of many In the Parliament Roll of his Eighteenth Year we read That it had been agreed for the urgent Affairs of the Kingdom to hold a Parliament at Westminster on the Monday after the Octaves of Trinity and that the Archbishop should call a Convocation of the Prelates and others of the Clergy of his Province to the Church of St. Paul's London on the Morrow of Trinity for the Dispatch of the said Affairs To which Convocation none of the greater Prelates came on the said Morrow of Trinity or in the Eight days ensuing except the Archbishop or Two or Three other Bishops there named as the King was given to understand at which he much marvelled As also that the Great Men were not come to the Parliament upon the Day to which they were Summoned And he charged the Archbishop therefore to do what belonged to him in relation to those of the Clergy of his Province who came not to the said Convocation nor Obeyed his Mandate And the King would do what belonged to himself in relation to such as came not to Parliament nor Obeyed his Commands * Rot. Par. 18. E. 3. n. 1. If we supply this Record with the Writs extant on the Back of the Roll it will appear that the Clergy were Summoned here just as they are now by the Archbishop at the King's Order or Letter of Request as it was then deemed and †Even by the Crown it self for in the 25 E. 3. a Writ to the Archbishop of York in the Close Roll of that Year recites that the Archbishop of Canterbury had called his Clergy in Quindenâ Paschae ad Rogatum Nostrum stiled though it ran as now Rogando Mandamus and though the peremptory Time and Place of the Clergy's Assembling were prefixed by it and we see therefore that Punishment is Ordered in the Roll for their disobeying the Archbishop's Mandate but not a word of their not complying with the King's Summons But this was only the Language of Popery by which they kept up their pretences to Exemption and the Clergy were indulged in the Form so the Thing were but effectually done which was to have them Meet together with the Parliament and for the Dispatch of the same urgent Affairs of the Kingdom * Pur treter Parler ordeigner ce que soit miet affaire pur l' esploit des dit busoignes Are the Words of the Roll and one of these words is that from whence the Name of Parliament is derived for which the Parliament Met. And this was no new Practice but a Method now Settled and Customary of which various Precedent Instances might if they were needful be given but it is a short and sufficient Proof of it that the Words of the the King 's Writ to the Archbishop run More solito convocari faciatis We shall find also that the Archbishop of York had a Writ for That Province as the Archbishop of Canterbury had for This only he was to Convene his Clergy about a Fortnight Later than the other Province met †Province of Canterbury met on the Morrow of Trinity i. e. May 31. Easter falling that Year on April 4. That of York the Wednesday after St. Barnabas i. e. June 16. And in this the way then taken varied a little from Modern Practice which has made those Two Meetings perfectly Coincident But the ancient Usage was for the Clergy of Canterbury to Assemble first in order to set the President which it was expected that the other Province should almost implicitly follow and with reason since if the Two Provinces had continued to attend the Parliament in One Body as they did of Old the York Clergy would have had no Negative upon the Parliamentary Grants of the Clergy being a very unproportioned part of the Assembly When therefore they desired to Meet and grant Separately the Crown had reason to expect that what the greater Province did should be a Rule to the less or otherwise not to have consented to their Separation Very early in the Rolls therefore this Passage occurs That the Archbishop of Canterbury and other Nobles the King's Commissioners in his absence should require the Archbishop of York to contribute for the Defence of the North as They i. e. I suppose as the Archbishop of Canterbury and his Clergy had done 13 E. 3. n. 18. And even in Church Acts as well as State Aids what had passed the one was held to be a kind of Law to the other so that in 1463 we find the Convocation of York adopting at once all the Constitutions made by that of Canterbury and as yet not receiv'd †Memorand quòd Praelati Clerus in Convocatione 1463. Concedunt Unanimiter quòd Effectus Constitutionum Provincialium Cantuar. Prov. ante haec tempora tent habit Constitutionibus Prov. Ebor. nullo modo repugnant seu prejudicial non aliter nec alio modo admittantur Et quòd hujusmodi Constitutiones Prov. Cant. Effectus earundem ut praefertur inter Constitutiones Provinciae Ebor. prout indiget decet in serantur cum eisdem de caetero servandae incorporentur pro Jure observentur Registrum Bothe Arch. Ebor. f. 143. a Practice that I doubt not was often in elder times repeated and we know is still
of all the States of this Lond c. I desire not to be misunderstood in the Recital of these Testimonies I have no other Aim in 'em than barely to shew that the Inferior Clergy tho' meeting and consulting apart from the Parliament yet were still reckon'd to belong to it and to be in some sense and to some Purposes a Member of it and together with the Prelates of the Upper House to compose not indeed one of the Three Estates of Parliament but however an Estate of the Realm assembling joyntly with the Parliament and oblig'd by the Rules of our Constitution to attend always upon it If my Proofs may be allow'd to reach thus far and I have no manner of Mistrust but that they will I give up willingly whatever beyond this they may seem to imply which neither my Argument nor my Inclination any ways leads me to maintain It is so far from being in my Intention that it is not in my Wishes to set up a Plea for any of those Old Priviledges and Preheminences of the Clergy which are long since Dead and Buried and which I think ought never to be reviv'd even for the sake o◠the Clergy themselves who have thriven best always under a Competency of Power and Moderate Pretences The Present Rights they stand plainly possess'd of by Law are sufficient to render them useful Members of the Common-wealth within their Proper Spheres and that these Rights may be well understood and secur'd is the great and only design of these Papers To that end I have vouch'd the Precedent Passages from the Records of Parliament and Convocation not to set up any vain Pretence to the utmost of that Parliamentary Interest which the Clergy sometime had but to secure only what remains of it to them by shewing that their Separation from Parliament did not cut them off from all manner of Relation to it but that still after that their Convocations though held at a distance from the Parliament were in their own nature as well as in the Acceptance of the Crown and in the Eye of the Law Parliamentary Assemblies These Parliamentary Meetings of the Clergy were at first Congregationes or Convocationes Cleri but not therefore Concilia Provincialia Which were Extraordinary Assemblies for Church Business only for the restoring laps'd Discipline and reforming Ecclesiastical Abuses whereas the Others were originally held for Civil Purposes alone and the Common Affairs of the State And when Archbishop Stratford therefore called a Council of his Province * By a Writ dated 10 Kal. Aug. 1341. which begins thus Quamvis sit Sacris Canonibus Constitutum quod Metropolitani Archiepiscopi Primates annis singulis Legitimo Impedimento cessante pro Excessibus corrigendis Moribus reformandis debeant Provinciale Concilium celebrare the Preamble of his Letters Summonitory owns both the Obligation he was under by the Canons of Assembling them Yearly and his having omitted to do it for Eight Years last past though doubtless he had often in that time Convened the Clergy of his Province to Parliament However this Distinction held not very long the Business of Provincial Councils being in tract of time done in the ordinary Congregations of the Clergy and these and those being promiscuously stiled Convocations Till at last Provincial Councils properly so called ceased altogether and Parliamentary Convocations came into their room The Frequency and fix'd Certainty of which gave the Clergy a Regular Opportunity of doing all that for which the other Synods did but occasionally serve And when Warham therefore in 1509. did by his Own Authority call a Synod for the Redress of Abuses and Reformation of Manners his Mandate warn'd it to meet a few days after the Parliament * Parliament Met Jan. 21. Convocation Jan. 26. See Mandate in Bishop Burnet 's Collection of Records Vol. I. p. 6. and stiled it not a Provincial Council but a Convocation of the Clergy And this Word therefore afterwards in the Submission-Act as I understand it was applied strictly to signify the Clergy's Parliamentary Meetings For otherwise it could with no colour of Truth have been affirmed as it is there That the Convocation had always been Assembled by the King 's Writ unless both the Submitters and Enacters had by the Word Convocation understood the Consults of the Clergy in time of Parliament which in some sense were held always by the King 's Writ that is by the Premunitory Clause in the Bishops Summons and let me add are so held still as good Lawyers own †Bagshaw in his Argument about the Canons and Bishop Ravis in his Paper of Reasons to Queen Elizabeth ‖ § 5. affirms and the whole Lower House did to the same Queen upon occasion solemnly declare Witness their Remonstrance in 1558 to justify the Freedom of which they in the Preamble of it suggest the several Authorities by which they Assemble The Instrument is Printed in Fuller ⸪ Ch. Hist. IX Book p. 55. but with the Omission of some words which in that part of it which we have occasion to mention may be thus supplied Nos Cantuariens Provinciae Inferior Secundarius Clerus in ano Deo sic disponente ac Serenissimae Dominae nostrae Reginae Iussu Decani Capituli Cantuariensis Mandato Brevi Parliamenti ac Monitione Ecclesiasticâ sic exigente convenientes partium nostrarum esse existimavimus c. And this Opinion also that Parliament was of which Voted the Canons of 1640. Illegal chiefly on this head because they were made in an Assembly which though it met by the Parliament Writ yet Sate and Acted after the Parliament was determined Nor were they contradicted in it by the Famous Judgment given under the Hands of his Majesty's Counsel and other Honourable Persons Learned in the Law if the Words of that Judgment be well considered which are these The Convocation being called by the King 's Writ under the Great Seal doth continue until it be dissolved by Writ or Commission under the Great Seal notwithstanding the Parliament be dissolved Troub Try Laud. p. 80. Which is all very true and yet it may be true too that such a Writ or Commission ought of course to issue from the Crown upon the Dissolution of the Parliament But this Point is not touch'd upon in the Judgement given and seems to have been purposely declined For otherwise it had been a clearer and fuller Determination of the Matter in Question if they had said That the King might by his Prerogative keep a Convocation sitting as long as he pleased notwithstanding the Dissolution of that Parliament with which it was called I will not say That the Parliament of 1660. were certainly of the same mind though it is probable they were and that this was One if not the Chief Reason why in the Act * 13 Car. II. c. 12. Restoring Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction they so particularly and by Name excepted those Canons from a Parliamentary
being oppos'd or understood since That it self would be a Misfortune to 'em tho' they were sure to have it quash'd elswhere The Bishops Interest Authority Eloquence 〈…〉 sufficient to plead the Churches 〈◊〉 and secure her Interests in the House of Lords where all the Noble Members are under so favourable a Disposition towards Her that they would certainly do Her Justice tho' they were sollicited by less Powerful Advocates However the Commons Spiritual think it very Proper and Reasonable that they should in these cases have a Recourse to the Commons Temporal whose Interests in the State running parallel with Theirs in the Church and being nearly linkâ—d with them seem mightily to encourage such an Application and to make it a Point of Prudence as well as Duty in the Clergy to practise it where it may be had The Commons have a considerable Interest in the Lesser Clergy by reason of their Patronage They are their Protectors and Guardians appointed by Law in relation to one part of their Maintenance and will be extremely tender therefore of all their other Civil or Ecclesiastical Rights and careful to cover them from any Attempts that shall be made upon their Priviledges That so they may be in Heart and at Hand always to stand up with them in behalf of Liberty when it shall be attack'd and to resist a Growing Tyranny either in Church or State as it may happen For Arbitrary Government is a Spreading and Contagious Thing and when once it is set up any where there is no knowing where it will end My Lords the Bishops therefore must excuse us if as great a Reverence as we bear to their Characters and as high an Esteem as we have of their Personal Qualifications their Integrity Capacity Courage yet we think it fit that other Helps should be call'd in since All Helps are but little enough to support the sinking Interests of Religion and the Clergy and judge the Great Concerns of the Church no where so secure as where the Wisdom of our Constitution has lodg'd 'em in the Hands of a Convocation of the Province We know the Enemies of the Church sleep not tho' the Watchmen sleep too often are the words of one once an Active Presbyter of this Church now a Vigilant Prelate * Dr. Burnet 's Fast-Sermon before the House of Commons Anno 1681. p. 25. We cannot God be thanked apply 'em to the Present Bench of Bishops and would not if we could unless in a Case of the Utmost Necessity because nothing less than that would justifie such a freedom in Meaner Authors However Times may come that will deserve such Language but when if the Provincial Assemblies of the Church be together with its Watchmen laid asleep it will be too late to use it The Right Reverend Author of that Discourse who should understand the Frame of our Church well having written the History of it observes that it is happily Constituted between the Extremes of Ecclesiastical Tyranny on the one Hand and Enthusiastical Principles on the other Hand †Ibid p. 9. It is so and the Happiness of this Constitution in relation to one of these Extremes lyes in the Interest which the Lower Clergy have in Convocation where they are associated with their Lordships in the Care and Government of the Church Whereas out of Convocation they are not I think advis'd with and have little else to do but to observe Orders The Diocesan Synods of our Church being not for Counsel now but for the Exercise of the Episcopal Authority This Happy Frame therefore should by all means be kept up and the rather because it suits very happily with that of the State and with the Constitution of Parliaments And it is highly expedient for every Church and State that the Ecclesiastical Polity should be adapted to the Civil as nearly as is consistent with the Original Plan of Church-Government which in our Case there will be no danger of departing from by a Compliance with the State-Modell For I am sure and am ready when ever I am call'd upon particularly to prove that the more our Church shall resemble the State in her Temper and Manner of Government the nearer still will she approach to Primitive Practice and the nearer she comes up to Both these the more likely will she be to Endure and Flourish What the same Eminent Pen has said on this Occasion I willingly subscribe to That as in Civil Government a Prince governing by Law and having high Prerogatives by which he may do all the Good he has a mind to which yet he cannot abuse to act against the Law and who is oblig'd often to consult with his People in what relates to common safety by whose Assistance he must be enabled to put in Execution the Good Things he designs is certainly the best Expedient for preventing the Two Extremes in Civil Society Confusion and Slavery So a Bishop that shall have the Chief Inspection over those whom he is to Ordain and over the Labours of those already plac'd whom he shall direct and assist in every thing and who governs himself by the Rules of the Primitive Church and by the Advice of his Brethren is the likeliest Instrument both for propagating and preserving the Christian Religion * Pref. to the Hist. of the Regal I add and for the keeping up of this Particular Church in some Degree of Repute and Authority which have ever been best secur'd to it when her Prime Pastors have met their Clergy often in Synod and by their Advice and Assistance manag'd the Great Affairs of it But if that be thought too much and sound too high for the Lower Orders to pretend to who must be contented rather to be the Subjects of Ecclesiastical Government than any Sharers in it yet even Subjects themselves may Petition and make known whatever Grievances or Requests they have to offer without Encroachment on any of their Superiors And that the Liberty of such Addresses and Representations is still left to the Convocation to the Lower House alone or to Both joyntly I have fully shew'd The Statute of Submission even under the most Rigorous Interpretation of it being scarce pretended to abridge their Priviledges in this respect And because Practice in this kind is the best Proof I shall here add a few Instances of it In the Convocation of 1542 33 Hen. 8. the Acts say that at the passing of the Subsidy Clerus exposuit 4. Petitiones to the Upper House who when they presented the Subsidy were to acquaint the King with them 1. De Legibus Ecclesiasticis condendis 2. De Conjugiis factis in Bethlehem abolendis 3. De veneundis Beneficiis 4. De Decimis solvendis Act. MSS. Sess. 20. The Two Petitions in the first Convocation of E. 6. See 'em in Bishop Burnet's Hist. Vol. 1. p. 118. Collect. of Records whatever force they may have to prove a License necessary on other Occasions which shall hereafter be fully
Noise of Thunder from Above yet their Present Successors may not be e'er the less Dutiful tho' they are not quite so much frighted as having the happiness to live in a Time when the Priviledges and Rights of the English Subject are more clearly understood and much better secured Upon the whole then it appears That the Clergy Commoners have all along had an undoubted Right of being frequently assembled and particularly by the Law of England as often as a New Parliament is call'd That being assembled they had antiently a Right of framing Canons and doing several Synodical Acts not inconsistent with the Law of their Country without expecting the Prince's Leave for entring on such Debates or making such Decrees That the 25 H. 8. c. 19. has not in the least infringed this Right as far as the Lower Clergy are concerned in it That the Limitations there made to the Exercise of it chiefly concern the Archbishop of either Province who is now restrain'd as from calling a Convocation without the King 's Writ so from Passing or Ratifying any Canon without the Royal License and from Promulging the same by his Own Authority That the Inferior Clergy are no otherwise concerned than to take care that they give their Consent to no Canon fram'd by themselves or sent from the Upper House otherwise than with Submission to the Royal Pleasure if the King's License and Assent be not before obtained That they are left therefore intirely at their Liberty to Confer and Deliberate even about New Canons and also to Devise Frame and Offer them to the Upper House if with a Protestation annexed that they are neither intended nor desir'd to be enacted without the King's License Much more that there remains to 'em a Liberty of Petitioning either that Old Canons may be executed or New Ones made according to Law and to such Purposes as the Petitioners shall suggest or of representing their Humble Opinions concerning the Affairs of the Church and of Religion and if need be beseeching a Redress at least in General Terms This I take it is their Undoubted Priviledge and would be used by them on Great Occasions with the same Prudence and Temper that their Predecessors are known to have practised who when they met without Interruption were so cautious of giving no unnecessary Trouble either to Church or State that they were more complained of in some Reigns for sitting still than for stirring By this time the Reader sees that the Reason given for the Clergy's not Meeting because when met and formed into a Body they can do nothing is a strange one For supposing 'em to be tyed up never so strictly in their Decreâ—ing Capacity yet surely it does not follow that they can do nothing because they cannot Make or Attempt a Canon Is it nothing to speak the sense of the whole Clergy of the Kingdom in matters proper for them to intermeddle in is it nothing to Petition Advise Address Represent to give their Judgment where it may be desired or their Censure where it may be needful Is it nothing with a Dutiful and Discreet Zeal to suggest the fittest Methods of securing the Christian Faith of preventing the Revival of Old Heresies and Errors and the Growth of New Ones Is it nothing to do that which anciently when Bills began by Petition was the Great Priviledge of one Great Part of the Legislature the House of Commons I had thought that while they had this at least tho' they should have no more than this to do they had not nothing to do but rather a very Great and Necessary Work And whether such Applications are necessary should I suppose be left to the Convocation it self to determine tho' others afterwards may either second or reject these Applications who may in these Cases have the Power of Judging but not of Prejudging the Actions of a Lawful Assembly much less have they the Power of precondemning the very Being of such an Assembly because they foresee not what may be done in it In truth whatever may be pretended of the Convocations being able to do nothing yet their not being allowed to Meet is a shrewd sign that they can when met do something and that they of the Clergy who oppose their Meeting are themselves of that Opinion for were their Mouths really shut and their Hands ty'd to that Degree they are represented to be there could certainly be no Inconvenience in trusting such an Harmless Body of Men together nor would it be worth while to break through Antient and Received Practice in order to prevent their Assembling The Innovation made in these matters has begun within these Ten Years last past For tho' it has been usual to adjourn Convocations a few days after they had met and sat when there was little or no business to do yet it was never till this time known that a Convocation was adjourned before it sat that is indeed before it was a Convocation This New Practise which Dr. Wake in my Opinion by as New Law justifies we know the Date of and have reason therefore to obviate it while it is New and to take some care that it may not in a little time be able to plead a Quiet Prescription The Clergy betray their Priviledges if they lye still under the Publication of such Oppressive Schemes without as Open a Disavowal of them and without expressing their Detestation of the Meanness of the Publisher They deserve to be used as ill as their Open Adversaries or their False Friends would have them used if they can suffer their most Valuable Right to be thus torn from 'em in Print without the least struggle for it The Virgin in the Law of God was judg'd consenting to the Rape who did not cry out when Help was near and was order'd therefore to be stoned together with her Ravisher To prevent such an Imputation upon the Church and the sad Consequences of it her True Sons were they as Rash as they are represented to be would e'er this have shewed themselves against this New Advocate in a more Open Manner and in somewhat Greater Numbers than they have hitherto done and might perhaps for that End could they no otherwise be heard have interposed a Subscribed Protestation from their whole Body But if this way of gathering scattered Hands would seem disorderly and unsuitable to their Characters and prove dangerous it may be to the Persons engaging in it the more reason still have they to esteem and assert the Priviledge of being Legally assembled and put into such a condition as to be able duly and safely to make their just Complaints and represent their Grievances CHAP. IV. HAving largely shewed what the Two Great Convocation-Rights are which I proposed to Treat of and withal offered the several Chief Evidences and Proofs on which I build 'em my Method laid down leads me in the next place to consider the Exceptions of all sorts which have been made to this Claim by
Wake is resolved that this he shall say and maintain and supposing it therefore to be his avow'd Opinion draws down all his strength and sets his Quotations in Array against it From Fathers and Councils from Antient and Modern Writers our Own and Foreign Historians he learnedly proves that the Church-power in a Christian Commonwealth is to be exercised in Subordination to the State that Princes have of right all along called Councels and dissolved them have hindred the Execution of some Ecclesiastical Canons which were prejudicial to their Kingdom and given the Civil Sanction to others and a great deal more of this kind they have and may do and must be allowed therefore a Supremacy in Ecclesiastical Affairs and over Ecclesiastical Persons And what if they be Is there a Line in that Book he opposes but what will stand good notwithstanding all this were made out never so irrefragably This is bringing the Great Engines of Battery against a Place which he might have marched directly into without Opposition 〈◊〉 Enemy having never undertaken to defend 〈◊〉 Qui operosè probant c. says Grotius or some such sly Dealers in this very Controversy stultum sibi fingunt Adversarium de quo facilè triumphent * De Imp. Summar Pot. circa Sacra Dr. Wake with great Modesty advises his Learned Adversary Not to increase the Necessary Bulk of their Dispute by alledging passages out of the Antient Fathers to prove that which neither of 'em make any doubt of †Appeal Pref. p. XXI Had he given this Advice first to Himself and taken it his Huge Performance had shrunk away into a few Pages and been as inconsiderable for its Bulk as it is for the Importance of the matter contained in it II. A second Instance wherein Dr. Wake has spent his Learned Pains to no purpose is in the Tedious Account he has given us of the Power exercised by Princes in relation to General Councils and the Greater Church-Assemblies These Researches as he calls 'em might well have been spar'd upon a double account both because the matter of 'em lyes not very deep and can be no News to any Man that has but once touched on this Controversy ‖ Veteramenta omnia detrita jam repetita millies says Bishop Andrews Tort. Tort. p. 173. of some of those very Instances which 90 Years ago it seems were grown stale tho Dr. Wake produces 'em now with such Pomp and Pleasure and because his Reading of this kind tho' never so hard to come at yet is nothing to the purpose For the Dispute turns on Provincial Synods only and the Rights which the Church lays claim to in relation to Them and it is no Proof or Disproof of these Rights to shew what the Practice of Princes has been in convening and presiding over General Councils which are Meetings of another Nature and Original and subject to quite different Laws and Usages By Provincial Councils the Church was govern'd and in such Councils all the Great Affairs of it were transacted for some hundreds of Years before the Empire became Christian whereas General Councils owe their very Being to the Civil Power without the Express Allowance and Encouragement of which after Christianity had once spread it self wide they never did or could assemble The Times when Provincial Synods were to meet the Persons that were to compose them and preside in them the Causes that were to come before them and the manner of deciding those Causes and of enforcing Obedience to their Decisions by Spiritual Censures c. these were all things fully agreed on and determin'd by the Rules of the Church while it subsisted independently of the State and when Constantine therefore by embracing the Faith became its Protector he only confirm'd those Antient Usages to the Church which she was in possession of He left the Practice of the Church just as he found it only what was before an Ecclesiastical Rule he made a Civil Right and a Law of the Empire Not so as to General Councils the Church had no Custom no Prescription to plead in relation to Them they were Then first to be set up by the Civil Power framed and moulded * L. M. P. Proves a Convocation not to be incident to a National Church by a passage in the Preface to Aelfricus 's Canons where he finds it said that the Christian Church for the first 300 years had no Convocation p. 46. Can one imagin it possible for a Man to be in the Dark to that Degree as not to know that this was meant of General Councils But his Skill in Ecclesiastical History it seems goes no further than Lambert and no wonder therefore if the Method of their Meeting and Acting was regulated in some of its chief Circumstances by that Power which gave Birth and Establishment to them The First of these Assemblies that ever sat provided by a Canon for the continuance of Provincial Synods upon the Foot they had always stood and this Canon was reinforced by several succeeding General Councils was ratified by the several Emperors in whose Times these Councils were held and inserted at last into the Code of the Imperial Laws and from thenceforth the Synod of every Province was as Legal an Assembly as the Senate it self had a right at stated Times to be Summoned as duly and to act within its proper Sphere as freely as any Civil Convention whatever But General Councils even after they were set up were not by any Law thus provided for they were in their nature and Institution Occasional Meetings which had no fixed time allotted to them but were to be called together in Extraordinary Cases only and when the Pressing Exigences of the Church required them And no Bishop Then pretending to an Authority over All the Rest even on that account it fell acourse to the Emperors share to Convene them The Assembling of so many Men of Rank and Character from so many Quarters of the Empire was a Power that could safely be lodg'd in no Hands but his that rul'd it He was to be Judge when such a vast Confluence was fit to be allow'd and how far it consisted with the Peace of the State at what Place and Time the Session should be opened and how long it should continue He by his Officers provided for the safe Conduct of the Fathers going to the Council and returning from it at his Expence they had Reception and Entertainment on the way and under the Security of his Protection they met and consulted The Debates of such a Numerous Assembly must have been very disorderly and tumultuous unless conducted by a Rule which no single Bishop had a Right to prescribe to the rest and which could not therefore come so properly from any one as from Him that Summon'd them And that this Rule might be sure to be observ'd it was requisite that the Emperour should have a Place in their Assembly should preside over
of Eadmerus he mentions by which it is clear that that Prince was as Absolute in Ecclesiastical as in Civil Affairs and his Acts therefore are I hope no Precedents to any of his Legal and Limited Successors His Present Majesty is not William the Conquerour and can no more by our Constitution rule absolutely either in Church or State than he would even if he could His Will and Pleasure is indeed a Law to All his Subjects not in a Conquering sense but because his Will and Pleaâ—ure is only that the Laws of our Country should be obeyed which he came over on purpose to rescue and counts it His Great Prerogative to maintain and contemns therefore I doubt not such sordid Flattery as would measure the Extent of His Supremacy from the Conqueror's Claim Intimations of this kind have been thought so Heinous as to be purged only by Fire a Punishment which our Gentle Laws tho' they have taken it off from Men have still reserved for Books and applyed it now and then to repress a State-Heresie and secure the Fundamentals of our Constitution against All its Underminers This Conqueror and his Family are much in request with our Writer and agen therefore of his Son William Rufus he tells us not without a Glance on more Modern Times that he would suffer no Ecclesiastical Synod to be held during the thirteen years of his Reign * P. 185. But let me ask our Man of History which of all those Historians in whose Works he has so happily spent his Researches represent this part of Rufus's Character to his advantage which of 'em that mention the thing do not also complain of it as one of the Greatest Hardships of that Cruel and Oppressive Reign and to be ranked with that other Righteous Practice of his by which he kept Vacant and set to Farm all the Bishopricks and Abbies as they fell and had by that means when he died no less than Twelve of them in his Hands * Iorvall apud X. Script Col. 996. and of these the small Bishopricks of Canterbury Winchester and Sarum were Three These are sad Stories but God be thanked they were done a great while ago and do not therefore much concern us For we live now neither under William the First nor William the Second but under William the Third A short Answer to an Hundred such Old Tales as these but every good Englishman will think it a full one Less have we to do with his Outlandish Instances of Ecclesiastical Tyranny such as the Dealing of Constantius was with the Council of Ariminum A very Righteous and Laudable Act which Dr. Wake proposes for the Instruction of future Princes and was as follows When the four Hundred Fathers assembled there had finished the business for which they met and determined the disputed Points clearly against Arius they begged of Constantius that they might return home and attend their Flocks but he refused 'em ordering his Officers to keep the Synod together by force till they had revoked their former Decision and subscribed an Arian Form that he transmitted to them upon which those who were resolved not to comply made their Escape as well as they could and even without his Permission went back to their Dioceses But Constantius not having given them his Leave neither will Dr. Wake give them His and does as good as say they did Ill to separate without the Emperor's Order and deserved his Resentments for so doing * See p. 77. I know in his Appeal †P. xviii he pretends to fosten this Censure and to take off several Invidious Instances of the same kind by saying that we are to distinguish between what he relates as matter of History and what he delivers as his own Opinion But how should the Reader distinguish where the Writer does not nay where the Writer has left no possible room for a Distinction tho' the Reader should be never so willing to employ it For it is certain that Dr. Wake produces these Facts purely to establish Rights upon them and having laid down his Historical Grounds therefore does in every Instance proceed to draw his Conclusions from them particularly in This we are upon the Instance of a Tyrannical Power exercised by Constantius over the Fathers at Rimini after he has told the Story and added Two other accounts of the Imperial Authorities exerting it self on the like Occasions he thus concludes It is therefore the Duty of All Synods as they are conven'd by the Prince's Authority so to tarry till they have the same Authority for their Dissolution * P. 79. Let him not hope then after amassing together all the Instances of an Ungodly Usurpation in Princes upon the Liberties of the Church to come off by saying that we are to distinguish between what he relates as matter of History and what as matter of Opinion and by leaving it in his own Power afterwards to apply this General Plea to any particular Instances in his Book as he shall have need of it for these Two in Works of this Nature cannot be separated Where an enquiry is made what Princes may lawfully do and in order to it an History drawn up of what they have actually done there all the Accounts the Historian gives us of their Acts he must be supposed to approve too unless he has taken care to warn us to the contrary and to express his Abhorrence of them Should a Man pretend to mark out the Bounds of the King's Prerogative in Civil Affairs and to that End deduce an account of all the most Arbitrary and Illegal Acts of our Princes by which they have trampled on the Liberties of their Subjects and the Power of Parliaments would it avail him afterwards in abatement to say that he intended these Instances by way of History only and not to express his own sense of things when his own sense of things is manifestly built on those Historical Accounts his Conclusions deduced from them and supported by ' em Such a poor Excuse would not be admitted in behalf of such a Chronique Scandaleuse Every Good Englishman would still see through and detest the Design and the Author under all his shifts would be as scandalous as his History But to proceed in our Remarks I observe V. That Dr. Wake in his accounts of Antient Councils often confounds two things that are widely different the Prince's power of proposing any Subject of Debate to his Synods and his Power of confining 'em to debate of nothing but just what he proposes As to the First of these no body questions the Prince's Right in all Synods from the Greatest to the Smallest but as to the Latter he has neither Right or Practice on his side not even in the most General Councils where the Civil Authority always exerted it self most whatever Dr. Wake may pretend to the contrary 'T is true in those Larger Synods which met at the Call of Princes upon Extraordinary Occasions
Liberty as these Princes left their Metropolitans he would not think it I believe a sufficient Direction of their Choice because I dare say he would not find it so In the mean time what Bungling Work is this for an Old Controvertist that has encountred the Bishop of Meaux and half persuaded him to be a Protestant The Dr. indeed lets us know plainly enough what he would be at in the Positions he lays down but by the Instances he sometimes brings to back 'em one can hardly tell which side he is retain'd on CHAP. V. HItherto I have made only some General Remarks on Dr. Wake 's way of managing this Controversie and by that means shew'd the Reader how much there is in his Loose Work utterly wide of the Mark he should have aim'd at and how unfair he is in his Representations and defective in his Proofs even on those Points which are not pertinent and where Truth had been of little or no disservice to his Cause I might go on and in the same manner lay open his Fourth Chapter also which he calls a Short View of the State of our Convocation in times past * P. 147. and which is just as short a View as it is a True one it being drawn out to the length of an hundred tedious Pages in which there is scarce One I speak what I have considered that would not upon a careful Review yield a manifest Proof of his Insincerity or Ignorance So slight and partial are the accounts he there gives of the Business of Convocations and the Ends of assembling them so false are his Allegations often times and so weak the Inferences he draws from them such an Implicit Relyance has he on every Relation he meets with in any of the Monkish Chroniclers and so willing is he to think it as Exact and Full as if the Authors had written Just Histories of Ecclesiastical Affairs and not Lean Journals only so thoroughly in the dark does he appear every where to be as to all those Manuscript Papers and Records that might be of use to clear up this Controversie so base and untrue are the Aspersions he casts on some of the best Clergy-men of those times and where he can on his Whole Order so mean and fulsome is the Flattery he bestows on the Memory of some of our Worst and most Arbitrary Princes Upon all these Accounts I say and many more than these Dr. Wake has left so much room for Censure that it would be the business of one entire Book to set out the Mistakes and Prevarications of that single Chapter But in this I shall rather trust the Reader to believe as he pleases than tire him with a proof of it especially since opportunity will be given me of displaying some of them here and there under the following Heads of Matter I have mark'd out and according to the Method I have resolved to proceed in By That I am now led to consider the Exceptious of all sorts that have been taken at the Two Points asserted in the Entrance of this Work by any of those Writers who have pretended to answer the Letter to a Convocation-man We have hitherto done little more than set aside what in Dr. Wake 's Book is foreign to the Argument he treats of let us see now what there is either in That or any other Piece written on the same side that can be thought Material I shall conceal nothing that may seem in the least to affect the Truth I contend for or the Proofs which I have brought to support it In Relation to the first Point laid down we are told that the Provincial Writ by which a Convocation is Summon'd has no relation to the calling of a Parliament nor does so much as mention it †L. M. P. p. 29 30. That by such Writs the Clergy may be assembled when no Parliament is in being may meet before the Parliament and be continu'd after the Dissolution of it That as to the Clause Praemunientes in the Bishops Writ it is matter of Form only having stood there these three hundred Years without any manner of use ‖ Ibid. p. 32. and referring to a Convocation which for many Years past has had no Existence * W. p. 284. That it was first inserted upon some Particular Occasion and continu'd after the Cause was determin'd †L. M. P. p. 32. and that merely by the neglect of a Clark as my Lord of Sarum conjectures ‖ Hist. Ref. Vol. 2. p. 49. That upon the whole therefore the Time of the Convocations meeting is no ways fix'd but Precarious * L. M. P. p. 27. and it 's Iust Definition is an Occasional Assembly for such Purposes as the King shall direct when they meet as a late Little Author †Nicolson Hist. Libr. Vol. 3. p. 200. has told us out of a Great one But let the Definition come from what Hand it will I must be bold to say that it is unskilfully drawn For from the Accounts already given in these Papers it appears that the Convocation is not an Occasional but a Stated Assembly in some measure Stated as a Provincial Synod simply in it self considered much more so as a Synod attendant on a Parliament As a Provincial Council the Rules of the Church receiv'd in all Christian States and particularly in ours direct that it should be Annual As a Synod attendant on the Parliament it has the same stated times of assembling that the Parliament has And such Parliamentary Meetings of the Clergy ought the rather to be kept up because it was from These that the Disuse of yearly Provincial Councils here and elsewhere originally sprung For when through the Piety of our Saxon Ancestors the Clergy were call'd to the Great Councils of the Realm and made a constant and necessary part of them they were oblig'd so frequently to attend in that Capacity that they had neither Leisure nor Need to observe the set times of their Provincial Assemblies The Ordinary Business of These was dispatch'd at those State-meetings which were frequent and gave the Clergy the Opportunity of an easie Recourse to the Civil Power for a Confirmation of their Decrees And this by degrees brought on a discontinuance of Provincial Synods which from thence began to meet only on Great Emergencies and for Extraordinary Occasions Thus the matter stood throughout the Saxon Times and for some Reigns after the Conquest The Clergy of the whole Realm met Nationally with the Laity and did Church-business at the same Time and Place that the Great Affairs of the State were transacted Afterwards it was thought more Regular that they should attend the Parliament not in one Body but in Two Provincial Synods which would equally answer the State-Ends of assembling them and would withall be more strictly agreeable to the Canons Accordingly they have for near 400. years past constantly thus attended and are therefore in this respect as
a Man and how far in time it may carry him from mending the Model of the Church which was the work Ten years ago to the Improving that of the State without considering that the One of these may be tamper'd with and practis'd upon more easily than the other and more securely When such Bold Proposals as these come from Private Unauthoriz'd Hands they deserve a Publick Censure and because I am for every thing 's having what it deserves I hope will find it Dr. Wake it seems does not understand to what purpose this Clause is retain'd in the Writ and proposes therefore a Retrenchment of it An hard Case this that the Writ should be alter'd because he does not understand it for at this rate what Old Forms are secure I have endeavour'd however to help his Understanding a little and to shew him that it is retain'd there to very good Purpose that it declares the King's Right of Summoning the Clergy to attend his Parliaments in Body the Lords and Commons Right of being thus attended and the Clergy's Right also to be Summon'd and to attend accordingly And that These are very great and weighty reasons for keeping it there appears from what has hapned already and may happen hereafter The Time is now come when the Clergy find themselves oblig'd to put in their Claim to a Parliamentary Attendance because it is disputed and according to the Natural Vicissitudes of things a Time may possibly come when the Crown or the Lords and Commons shall want the Parliamentary Attendance of the Clergy and be willing to claim it Equal Provision is made against each of these Inconveniences by continuing the Praemunitory Clause in the Bishops Summons where I hope it will ever continue even tho' a Sett of Future Bishops should arise which God forbid that would be contented to be Summon'd without it as not considering that it is as much Their Interest as the Inferior Clergy's â—o keep this Form whole and intire and that if the one part of the Writ goes the other may not stay long behind it Were this Alteration at any time to take place it had been well for Dr. Wake that it had hapned before he wrote his Book for then had the Clause been left out of the Writ he might have left it out of his Appendix too and by that means sav'd himself the shame of those Childish Mistakes which he has committed in Reciting it and which shall in due Time and Place be made known * See p. 427 8 9. of these Papers Nothing could have taken off from the Extravagantness of Dr. Wake 's Proposal but as wild an Assertion of a certain Acquaintance of his who is not afraid to tell us that Parliamentary Writs prove â—othing of the Constitution * L. M. P. p. 32. and this in words at length and not in Figures A Glorious Maximâ— which the Lords and Commons at Oxford knew nothing of who declare that the Writs of Summons are the Foundation of All Parliamentary Power †Declaration of the Treaty p. 15. I shall say not one word to disprove it for Parliamentary Writs and Constitutions are able to take care of themselves Only I cannot but observe how wise a way he has taken of making this Maxim good For continues he a Writ of Summons in the Time of Edward the First upon occasion of War with France had 〈◊〉 Chiuse Qâ—â—d omnes tangit ab omnibus approbetur And it may with as much reason be concluded from that Writ that the King cannot make War without the Approbation of his Parliament 〈◊〉 from the Present Writ that he cannot hold a Parliament without calling the Clergy to it That is the King 's known Prerogative may with as much reason be barr'd by an Expression once inserted in the Preamble of a Writ as the Clergy's Right and Priviledge can be grounded upon a Clause in the Body of a Writ which has stood there for above four hundred years What a wonderful way of arguing is this how can we choose but surrender upon such Proofs as soon as they are produc'd Dr. Wake I remember has an Axiom that Logick is one thing and Law another ‖ P. 252. which by the by is all he knows of either And I must needs say that I never in my life met with a better Instance of the Truth of that Axiom than in this Gentleman 's Law-Reasonings Thus far of the Inferior Clergy's Summons to Parliament by the Clause in the Bishops Writ the Rise Nature and Force of which I have fully explain'd and proâ—'d that it is not even at this time so insignificant a Form as we are made to believe much more that it has not been so now for some Hundreds of years But there is also another Summons of the Clergy tho' not to Parliament yet to meet in Parliament-time under the Two Archbishops in their several Provinces And This too has been regularly issu'd out as often as a New Parliament was call'd from the Latter End of Edward the Second till now with Few Exceptions to the contrary and with None from the first Dawn of the Reformation in Henry the Eighth's Reign down to this present And from this Antient Custom as Antient as the Compleat Settlement of our Constitution the Clergy think themselves intitled to be Summon'd to assemble and to sit Provincially when ever a New Parliament meets But here it is objected that the King 's Writ to the Two Archbishops to call the Clergy of their Provinces together has no relation to the calling of a Parliament nor does so much as mention it * L. M. P. p. 29 30. that a Convocation is not in its Nature and Constitution at all dependent upon a Parliament that its Summons is distinct from that of a Parliament and so is its Dissolution and admitting therefore that the Clergy ought to be call'd to Parliament which is all that can be inferr'd from the Bishops Writ yet doth it not follow therefore that the Convocation ought to be Summon'd when the Parliament meets for that is plainly a Distinct Assembly and Summon'd by a Distinct Writ * P. 32. And much to the same purpose Dr. Wake p. 226. 284. and elsewhere has stated the matter I think this needs no Answer but what it has already receiv'd For allowing the Objection in its full force yet since Custom is the Law of Parliaments and it has perpetually been the Custom to issue out these Writs to the Archbishops whenever Writs went out for the Parliament it is certain that the Clergy have a Right to these Provincial Assemblies in Parliament time on the account of this Antient Prescription tho' the Convocation-Writ it self should neither mention a Parliament or any ways refer to it For if a Custom of three or four hundred years standing will not create a Right I know not what will However that I may not seem to neglect any thing that has the Look of an
200 Years Disuse has barr'd the Clergy from acting Parliamentarily in several Instances which heretofore they were allow'd to interpose in Our Constitution is much alter'd in many of these respects and to say the Truth it was fit that in many of 'em it should be alâ—er'd and that the Parliamentary Interest of the Lower Clergy should be reduc'd as it is to Matters Ecclesiastical and such Things as concern either Religion or their Order And in this Sphaere I conceive they still move and are still a Parliamentary Assembly whose Consent is regularly to be had to all Laws relating to Faith or Church-Discipline when ever the Parliament shall please to enact any and whose consent when Previous to such Laws is I presume most Regular They have still a Right oâ— being summon'd to and with every new Parliament and a Right of sitting by vertue of that Summons in order not to those High Affairs of State which they once consider'd jointly with my Lords the Bishops when they sat with them in Parliament and which made the Constant Preamble of their Convocation-Writs long after they separated but for some Religious Ends and Church Purposes with which however the Safety and Peace of the State is closely interwoven They are to be ready to offer to the King and Parliament what they shall Judge serviceable to the Interests of Piety and Good Manners and to consider of what shall be offer'd to them to remonstrate against what may be passing there to their Disadvantage and to pray Help of the States in such matters as may redound both to the Benefit of their Own Order and to the good of the whole Kingdom In these and several such respects as these the Clergy have still a Right of Attending on every New Parliament and which ought to be consider'd the Parliament have also a Right of being attended by them as their Proper Assistants and Councelors in matters Ecclesiastical whose Judgment is in many cases to be ask'd even where it may not be follow'd and whose Resolutions are not without Weight even when they are without Authority 'T is in this case as in that of the Iudges the Masters in Chancery and the King's Council learned in the Law who have a Right of being call'd up to the House of Lords and to that end can demand their Writs of Assistance Nor is this all for the Lords also have a Right of being thus assisted by them and can therefore claim their attendance though they themselves should be willing to forego it The Priviledge is mutual and not to be wav'd on the one side without Consent of the other In like manner I say the Convocation-Clergy may be consider'd as the Council Spiritual of Parliament to whose attendance therefore that August Body is entitled and in whose Summons and sitting consequently it is in a near manner concern'd For should there not be frequent need of their Advice or Assistance yet as it is for the Honour of the two Houses that the Clergy should be ready always against there shall be need of it so is it for their Interest too to keep up a Title to such Assisting Assemblys by keeping up the Assemblys themselves It is possible that there may be no occasion of advising with the Iudges throughout an whole Session of Parliament Could the Lords certainly foresee this yet they would not I suppose consent that their Summons should for that time be drop'd or even their Attendance excus'd The Argument therefore advanc'd in these Papers must be look'd upon as a Plea for the Priviledges not of the Convocation-Clergy only but of the Parliament it self also to which they belong and to whose Assemblys Theirs are now and from the first settlement of Christianity among us have been strictly united not indeed constantly in the same Respects and by the very same State-Tyes and Ligaments but sometimes by more and sometimes by fewer and always by such and so many as were needful to preserve and prove the Union An Account of these regularly deduc'd through the several Periods of time from the earliest Saxon Age downwards has been the business of this Chapter not with any Aim of retrieving lost Rights or building New Pretensions on Old disus'd Practises but merely to shew that the Parliamentary Assemblys of the Clergy are of the Essence of our Government have been practis'd from the foundation of it and are woven into the Frame of it and can never therefore without doing Violence to our good Old Constitution be suppress'd The Ends and Uses indeed of these Conventions of the Clergy have been different but under all those Varietys the Right and the Practise of Convening has still continu'd the same without being ever till now interrupted or disputed And therefore to repeat here at the close of this Chapter what I have said already at the Entrance of it it makes nothing against the Clergys Right of Meeting with the Parliament that they are now no Member or Estate of Parliament as Dr. W. objects since they are however an Estate of the Realm oblig'd and entitled by the fixt Rules of our Constitution to assemble with the Parliament and which has according to this Obligation and by this Title assembled with it now for some hundred Years since all Pretence of assembling as an Estate of Parliament vanish'd And now I have I think answer'd all Dr. W's Objections on this first Head unless we should allow a certain poor Colour of his to pass for an Objection where he tells us that Our Kings have often been wont to hold Convocations when there were were no Parliaments sitting †Pp. 229. 286. from whence he would have it understood that those two Meetings have no manner of dependence upon one another and that the King therefore is as much at Liberty to hold a Parliament without a Convocation as he has been to call a Convocation without a Parliament To this End he has adorn'd his Appendix with a learned List of Convocations antiently held without Parliaments or at different Times from them * Num. VI. an whole Dozen of which he finds in the Compass of 240 Years †From 1287. to 1538. 'T is a mercy his knowledge is somewhat stinted in this way for else we should assuredly have had fifty Instances more of the kind since so many at least might within that Compass of time have been fetch'd from our Manuscript Registers and Printed Historians I could without difficulty number up the greatest part of them now if it were either worth the Readers while to have such a List or related any ways to the present Dispute which turns not on the King's Prerogative of assembling Convocations out of Parliament a Right undoubtedly belonging to the Crown in elder Times but on the Spiritual Subject's Priviledge of being assembled in it Had Dr. W. given us a List of Parliaments antiently held without Convocations That indeed had been to his purpose and would have gone a good way towards
setling the Point between us But here he is as reserv'd as one would wish for from the beginning to the end of his Crude Work there is not a single Instance of this kind made out or so much as pretended †Except the Trite Instance of Exclus◠Clero Nay to see the fate of misapply'd Reading even of those twelve insignificant Instances which he has produc'd no less than eight are evidently mistaken as to the Dates either of the Parliaments or Convocations mention'd in them The Reader will rather take my word for it than allow me the liberty of interrupting the Course of my Argument so far as to prove it And I shall proceed therefore to consider and remove the several Objections that lie also against the second Point advanc'd in these Papers that the Clergy when met have a Right of Treating and Debating freely about such matters as lie within their proper Sphaere and even of coming to fit Resolutions upon them without being necessitated antecedently to gratify themselves for such Acts or Debates by a License under the Broad Seal of England CHAP. VIII IT had been argu'd from the General Nature of such Assemblys as these we are treating of that Freedom of Debate was their undoubted Right and Priviledge incident to them as such and inseparable from ' em To this I find these several Answers return'd Dr. W. assures us that the Debates of the most General and Famous Councils have been under as great Restraint as he supposes the Convocation to be †P. 288. L. M. P. adds that Poyning's Law has ty'd up even a Parliament in Ireland as strictly †P. 44. and the Author of the Postscript ⸪ At the end of a Book entituled An Essay concerning the Power of the Magistrate 8◠1697. fetches a third Instance from Scotland where the Three Estates he says can debate of nothing but what the Lords of the Articles have beforehand agreed on ‖ P. 198. As to the first of these supposing Dr. W's Allegation true yet he has been told that there is no arguing from the Powers claim'd or exercis'd by Emperors in those Great and Extraordinary Assemblys to what is fit to be done in lesser and stated ones and why such Inferences do not hold some Reasons have been given him which I need not now repeat But in truth he mistakes or misrepresents the Practise of the Emperors even in these General and Famous Councils which I have shewn him p. 125 6. went no further than to require a preference to that Particular Business for the Dispatch of which they were Summon'd not to exclude their debating on any thing but what the Emperor propos'd to them And of this the Canons of those Councils are an Evidence beyond Dispute which both as to Matter and Form took their Rise from the several Synods they were made in without any Imperial Leave or Direction for the framing them With what Face then can Dr. W. vouch the Practise of these Councils as Precedents for that Degree of restraint he would have laid on an English Convocation With what Truth or Conscience can he affirm that they acted intirely according to the Prescription of the Emperors †P. 288. and deliberated on nothing but what they were directed or allowed he means expresly and particularly allow'd by the Prince to deliberate on †P. 48. Whatever our Author may think of such Doctrine Now or whatever he may Hope from it sure I am that had he liv'd and utter'd it while those Holy Synods were in being it would not have been two or three Years afterwards before he had repented of it But Old Councils are Dead and Gone and any thing it seems may be said of them Let him not depend too much upon that for they have Friends still in the World that may happen yet before he dies to meet together and ask him a few Questions A living Synod may sometime or other think it for its Interest and find it in its Power to vindicate the Honor and Authority of the Dead ones Well if Old Councils cannot afford a Precedent Modern Parliaments shall Poyning's Law therefore is urg'd which provides that All such Bills as shall be offer'd to the Parliament of Ireland shall be transmitted hither under the Great Seal of that Kindom and having receiv'd approbation here shall be sent back under the Great Seal of England to be preferr'd to the Parliament of Ireland †L. M. P. p 44. But what have we to do with Instances fetch'd from Conquered Countrys who must receive what Terms the Victor pleases and be glad of any We live among another People always Jealous of their Libertys and careful to preserve them in a Land where slavery either in Church or State though sometimes planted could never thrive And those Fetters therefore which might perhaps justly be laid on an Irish Parliament may not fit an English Convocation so well which is therefore free because it is an English one But after all how far does this Law of Poynings reach Our Lawyer tells us that it leaves not the Parliament at Liberty to propose what Laws they please that the Irish look upon it as Conclusive upon their Debates and are satisfy'd and again that we have here an Instance of a Parliament without Liberty of Debate But this is too gross an Imposition upon the Credulity of his Readers few of which are so ignorant as not to be aware that Poyning's Law layes a restraint only on the Enacting Power of their Parliament but not on the Debates of it which notwithstanding this Act are left as free as ever They can still Treat and Conferr about all Matters and Causes that are of Parliamentary Cognizance they can Petition Represent and Protest Nay they can propose what Heads of Bills they please to be transmitted hither and sent back thither in Form of which we have had very late and frequent Experience And how therefore the Abridgment of the Convocations Liberty of Debate can be pretended to be justify'd by this Irish Precedent is I confess past my English Understanding For as I take it the Convocation desires no other Powers and Priviledges but just what this Parliament claims and practises and pleads only that the 25 H. VIII may not be extended to such a Rigorous and Unjustifiable Sense as will lay greater restraints upon Them than Poyning's Laws does upon Those of Ireland But our Letter-writer himself is sensible that this Instance is not to the purpose for at the close of it his Conscience gives a little and he is forc'd to confess that the Irish Parliament are not under an Universal Restraint nor wholly mute till the King gives them Power to Debate and Act †P. 44. Are they not Why then was it generally said that they were a Parliament without a Liberty of Debate or of proposing what Laws they please in the very next Lines to these where it is all unsaid
Point he would have set aside all those Instances of Provincial Councils Summoned by Princes where those Princes exerted their Power only to make Metropolitans who were remiss do their Duty and obey the Canons or where they interposed only to revive the Use of such Meetings which had been under a long Discontinuance in their Kingdoms and when they had done so lest them afterwards to their Ordinary Course In these Cases whatever the Prince did he did in behalf of the Churches Rights and his Act ought not therefore to be alledged and cannot fairly be construed to their prejudice Nay in the most Ordinary and Regular Assemblies of the Province should any mention be made in their Acts of their Meeting by the Civil Authority yet it ought to be considered whether at the same Time and in the same Acts their Right of meeting by the Canons also be not claimed For if it be the Exercise of the Regal Power in such Instances is no Bar to those Liberties of the Church which are at the same time expresly asserted and maintained Kings may order their Bishops to meet when those Bishops would have met tho' unordered and all therefore that such Bishops when met could do to secure their Ecclesiastical Right of Meeting was to mention it together with the Royal Precept and this we may presume 'em purposely to have done to prevent those Precedents being drawn into Consequence and under a Prudent Foresight of the Ill Uses that might be made of them by such Betrayers of the Church-Rights as our Author in Future Ages These Circumstances should have been considered by him and where they take place in any of the Instances of Provincial Councils he alledges acknowledged But it was not agreeable either to his Design or his Temper to enquire into matters thus carefully or to state 'em thus candidly and fairly It was enough if upon a Superficial View of the Acts of Provincial Synods or those that passed for such he found at the Entrance of any of 'em a mention of the Royal Power This he knew would have the Look of a Proof and whether it had more than that he knew not and cared not and hoped other People would not give themselves the Trouble to enquire To come to Particulars The First Instance he has produced of the Authority of Princes over Provincial Synods is this When Theodoret says he began to be busie in calling the Bishops together Theodosius not only laid a Prohibition upon him but confined him to Cyrus his own little See as a Punishment for what he had done before P. 18. I question whether Dr. Wake ever gave himself the Trouble of reading those three Epistles * Epist. 79 80 81. which he cites on this occasion tho' not with right Numbers For there he would have found that Theodoret when thus prohibited by the Emperor was at Antioch where he had no more Authority to call the Bishops together than at Rome or Constantinople He had been called up thither from his Little See to reside with Iohn the Patriarch and whatever of this kind he did therefore he did by his Order and as his Substitute But Theodosius finding the Peace of the East hazarded by these Assemblies and the Nestorian Heresie favoured by them sent an Order to Theodoret upon whose Advice the Patriarch acted to retire to his own Diocese and live there This is the true account of that matter which how it makes for or against any Point in Dispute between Dr. Wake and his Adversaries is to me hard to apprehend The next Provincial Synod he mentions is that of Agatha called by Caesarius Bishop of Arles but not says the Dr. till he had obtain'd the Consent of Alaric the Goth for it and it is expresly noted that it was held by his Allowance †P. 20. What if it were was it not a mighty favour that thirty five Catholick Bishops for so many were present ‖ Vide Conc. Meld c 73 should be allowed to meet under an Arian Prince tho' the Rules of the Church were on their side and was not this favour fit to be acknowledged in their Acts especially since at the same time they took care to assert their Ecclesiastical Right to such Meetings and to ordain * Can. 71. that for the future in obedience to the Canons Provincial Synods should be held yearly The Permission of the Prince would be sufficiently accounted for this way had this Synod been both Ordinary and Provincial but it was really neither not Ordinary for it was called after a long Intermission of Councils in those parts to restore the Decayed Discipline of the Church not Provincial for De Marca has observed * L.VI. c. 17. §. 1. that no less than five Metropolitans and the Proxy of a sixth subscribe to it But the Doctor found it styled Provincial in the Tomes of the Councils and he look'd no further Such another Provincial Council is the very next he insists on †Ibid. p. 20. that of Epaon it was composed of the Bishops of Two Distinct Provinces those of Vienne under their Archbishop Avitus and of Lyons under Viventiolus as the Subscriptions if he had not been too much in hast would have informed him Among the Spanish Councils he meets with Two that were Provincial the Synods of Narbonne and Saragosa and of both these he tells us it is said that they met according to the Order of Recaredus Pag. 23. But by his favour this is said of neither In that of Narbonne they affirm ‖ Concilia Sanctorum Patrum vel Decreta observare cum timore Dei cupientes Nos in Urbe Narbonî secundum quod Sancta Synodus per ordinationem Gloriosissimi nostri Recaredi Regis in urbe Toletanâ finivit in unum convenimus themselves to meet in vertue of the Antient Canons and of the Decree of the third Council of Toledo which met by Recaredus's order In that of Saragosa they own themselves indeed to meet by the Permission but not by the Order of Recaredus and this Permission might be and probably was no more than what was contained in the Canon of that Council of Toledo which had revived the use of Provincial Synods in Spain but just before and the Acts of which Recaredus had confirmed In Gallicia he finds the Second Synod of Braga which was Provincial to have assembled at the Command of Arianirus * P. 23. It did so but it must be considered that no Synod had been held in those parts for many years before †Diu est says the Metropolitan in his Speech by which he opened it Sanctissimi Fratres quòd secundum Instituta Venerabilium Canonum Decreta Catholicae Apostolicae Disciplinae desiderabamus Sacerdotalem inter nos fieri debere Conventum quia non solùm Ecclesiasticis Regulis Ordinibus opportunum est sed stabilem etiam semper efficit Charitatis Fraternae Concordiam dum