1381. cannot deny the truth of the assertion quod panis vinum remanent post consecrationem in naturis suis adhuc servatur Laicis antiquitus servabatur And here it is not unworthy the remembring that by the law of the 6 Articles 31. Hen. 8. cap. 14. containing in effect the body of Popery no man was to dye as an Heretick but he who denyed this Tenet all others onely as felons or men endangering the peace of the Kingdome by teaching contrary to what was publickly received By which it likewise appears in fixing th' imputation of Heresy the English looked on their home Determinations not those of any forreign Church 29. But I do not take upon me to dispute matters controversall which I leave as the proper subject to Divines it shall suffice onely to remember the Church of England having with this great deliberation reformed it self in a lawfull Synod with a care as much as was possible of reducing all things to the pattern of the first and best times was interpreted by such as would have it so to depart from the Church Catholick though for the manner they did nothing but warranted by the continuall practice of their predecessors and in the things amended had antiquity to justify their actions and therefore th' Archbishop of Canterbury in a provinciall Synod begun in S. Pauls the 3 of April 1571 and all other Bishops of the same Province gave especially in charge to all preachers to chiefly take heed that they teach nothing in their preaching which they would have the people religiously to observe and believe but that which is agreeable to the doctrine of the old Testament and the new and that which the Catholick Fathers and ancient Bishops have gathered out of that doctrine So that nothing is farther off truth then to say such as reformed this Church made a New religion they having retained onely that which is truly old and Catholick as Articles of their faith 30. Thus was Religion reformed and thus by the Queen establisht in England without either motion or seeking any new way not practised by our Ancestors but using the same courses had been formerly traced out unto them for stopping profaneness and impiety when ever they peeped in the Church And certainly to my understanding there can be none that will with indifferency look upon those times but he must however he mislike the thing done approve the manner of doing it Yet the favorers of Rome ceased not to proclaim all had thus past to have been hereticall without instancing any particular as to say such a carriage was after the manneâ— of Hereticks ever condemned by the Catholick Church and by orthodox writers in former times or such a Tenet in your confession was held heresy from this place of Scripture anciently by such holy Fathers met in generall Councell and to raise stirs and commotions in the Commonwealth to excommunicate the Queen as flagitiorum serva free her subjects of their allegeance to give out we had a Parliament-religion Parliament-Gospell Parliament-Faith and this before ever the 39 Articles one main pillar of the English reformation were confirmed by Parliament 31. Upon the whole it is so absolutely false that the Church of England made a departure from the Church which is the ground and pillar of truth as I am perswaded it is impossible to prove she did make the separation from the Roman it self but that having declared in a lawfull Synod certain opinions held by some in her communion to be no articles of faith and according to the precedent of former times and the power God and nature had placed in her self redressed particular abuses crept into her the Pope and his adherents without ever examining what was the right of the Kingdom in such like cases that had from all antiquity done the same would needs interpret this a departing from the Church because he resolved to maintain as articles of faith thrust on others as such some ambiguous disputable questions the English did not think fit to admit into that number To make a departure from Christs Church is certainly a very hainous offence she never commanding ought but what is conformable to his will nor requiring her children to believe any thing as matter of faith but what is immediately contained in the word of God or by evident consequence drawn from it and as she excludes no Christians from being her children who by their own demerits deserve not to be out of the divine favour so in opposing those who endeavour to procure some tenets to be admitted for hers which cannot be deduced from that ground we do not depart from her but gainsay humane errours and conceipts which they would infer to be her commands who acknowledges them not But as St Augustine in a dispute with a Donatist utrum schismatici nos simus an vos non ego nec tu sed Christus interrogetur ut judicet Ecclesiam suam so may I whether we are the schismaticks or the Church of Rome Christ himself be the Iudge But whether divided from the other being matter of fact let the histories of former times the extraordinary proceedings of the See of Rome of late against the Queen and this Commonwealth be compared and I am confident the judgment may be referr'd to any indifferent person though of that belief who made the separation and whether this Kingdom on so high provocations did any thing would not have been parallell'd by former times had they met with the like attempts 32. Neither can the Crown in this reformation be any way said to have enterprised on the papall primacy which for ought I know it might have acknowledged so far as is exprest or deduced from holy Scripture or laid down in the ancient sacred Councells or the constant writings of the orthodox primitive Fathers and yet done what it did but to have exercised that auctority alwayes resided in it for conserving the people under it in unity and peace without being destroyed by the Canons and constitutions of others not suffering a forraign power ruine them to whom it owed protection In which it did not trench upon the rights of any but conserved its own imitating therein the Imperiall edicts of severall Princes and of those were in possession of this very diadem conformable to their Coronation oath 33. And from hence may be answered that which Rome brings as her Achilles touching the succession and visibility of the Protestants Church and doctrine in all ages since Christ for if theirs have been it is impossible to say the others have not the former adding onely more articles for a Christian to believe which the latter will not embrace as needfull so that if theirs as they so much glory have had the continuance from the Apostles these needs must which onely denies some part of that they hold Protestants says Stapleton have many things lesse then Papists they have taken away many things
to the King this cause seemed to him non ad plenum tractata ideoque sicut in canonibus cautum est in pristinum locum debere restitui judicavimus Deinde causam ejus juxta censuram canonicae traditionis diligenter retractandam definiendam praedicto fratri nostro Archiepiscopo Lanfranco commisimus It is certain however some writers might upon this or for â— other causes think his degradation to have been non canonice those times did not interpret this though writ with so great earnestnesse for other then advise or intercession not as of a person had an absolute power of commanding in the businesse for we never read of any proceedings upon it not Lanfrank at all ever to meddle in the case that he ever esteemed Stigand a lawfull Bishop Epist. 27 28. who in the year 1075. being in a Councell at London according to the Decrees of it removed his Episcopall Chair from Selsey to Chichester of which he died Bishop 1087. without being at all for what appears questioned or disturbed after the first grant of it Divers examples of the like nature occur too long to be repeated where the King or his chief Iustice prohibit the Papall precepts from being put in execution and it is agreed by Lawyers that not the command but the constant obedience is it which denotes a right of commanding and in cases of this nature prohibentis potior est condito one example in the negative when the thing is stood upon being of more weight then twenty by compliance in the affirmative 77. It is probable neither the King nor the Bishops would introduce any new matter of great concernment into this Church without the privity of so great a Doctor Patriarch of a See from which their auncestors had received the first principles of Christian Religion but it is manifest what past if he were acquainted with it was by their own auctority not his When Off a intended the erecting of Litchfield into an Archbishoprick he did it by a Councell at Calcuith Lambertus as what he approved not producing crebra sedis Apostolicae vetera nova edicta against it yet the thing proceeded Lucius the 2 went so far in his intentions to raise Winchester to an Archiepiscopall Chair as he sent the pall to the Bishop yet it being not approved here as the event shews that Town never yet had the honour Henry the first having in his Lawes appointed how a Bishop Presbyter Monk Deacon c. should suffer committing homicide concludes Si quis ordinatum occidat velproximum suum exeat de patria sua Romam adeat Papam consilium ejus faciat de adulterio vel fornicatione vel Nunnae concubitu similiter poeniteat Where it is observable the King ordains the Penance permits the delinquents peregrination to Rome to receive from the Pope as from a great Doctor of the Church spirituall counsell which else he was not admitted to seek for peregrina judicia modis omnibus submovemus and again ibi semper causa agatur ubi crimen admittitur 78. VVilliam the first who began his expedition against Harald by the counsell of Alexander the 2. and received a banner from him minding the deposition of th' Archbishop of Canterbury procured the Pope to send certain Ecclesiasticks hither to joyn in the action as likewise soon after for determining the question of precedency between Canterbury and York upon which there grew an opinion Archiepiscopum Cantuariensem à nullo hominum nisi à solo Papa judicari posse vel damnari nec ab aliquo cogi pro quavis calumnia cuâ—quam eo excepto contra suum velle respondere This no doubt was promoted by th' Archbishops as what exempted them from all home jurisdiction the Bishops in generall did after think in some sort to introduce and thereupon put in this petition in Parliament 18. Ed. 3. qe pleise a Roy en maintenance del estat de seint Esglise graunter ordeiner en cest Parlement qe nul Ercevesque ou Evesque â—oit desormez arreynez ne empesâ—hez devaunt ses Iusticos en cause criminele par quecunque voye de si come sur tiele cause nulle alme ne les poet juger si noun le Pape seulement But to this the answer is no other then Il est avis qe en cause de crime nul Ercevesque ou Evesque soit empesche devant les Iustices si le Roy ne le commande especialment tant qe autre remedie soit ordeinez which he did likewise confirm by Charter there registred and as Walsingham hath truly recorded 79. This opinion though new to the English questionlesse incouraged Anselme to oppose the King in many particulars and Popes to go farther as to claim Princes should not confer Investitures nor define matters of Episcopacy c. then to bestow preferments within this Kingdome at first by consent and with the limitation no Italian to succeed another then to reserve to themselves the collation of all benefices of which before To conclude this whosoever will without prejudice weigh the reformation of England by Hen. the 8. Edward the 6. and more especially Queen Elizabeth in the point of supremacy must grant these Princes did not assume to themselves any thing but such particulars as the Court of Rome had in a long series of time incroached in on the Crown and English Church If at any time our auncestors styled the Pope Princeps Episcoporum it was in no other sense then they did St. Peter Princeps Apostolorum by which what principality they intended him we cannot better understand then by the Saxon who renders it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Apostola the Elder of the Apostles If they called him successor or Vicarius Petâ—i they were not alone appropriated to him for Petrus Blesensis and others give the Bishop of York the same titles and the Bish. of Bath who had a Church dedicated to St. Peter he bids remember quia Petri Vicarius estis So did they likewise in some sense call Kings Christs Vicars as well as Bishops If at any time they gave the Pope the title of head of the Church it was as being the first Bishop he was held to be as St. Bernard tells us in beneficam causam as they termed Oxford the fountain and mother of our Christian faith I cannot therefore but with a late writer that sayes England had a known subjection to Rome acknowledged even by our Laws ever from the conversion of our Country under St. Gregory had expressed in what particulars that subjection did consist what those Laws are and where to be found The truth is as there is no doubt our Auncestors in former times would not have joyned with the Synod of Gap in causing so disputable ambiguous a question as that the Pope is Antichrist to have been taught as the faith
of the English Church so there is no question but it hath been ever the Tenet of it Pontificem Romanum majorem aliquam jurisdictionem non habere sibi à Deo collatam in Sacrâ Scripturâ in hoc regno Angliae quam alium quemvis externum Episcopum Which our Historians do mention as what proceeded from the constitutions of the Church and assent of Emperors not as of a thing in it self juris divini insomuch as 80. That proposition when it was propounded 1534. in Henry the 8 ths time in convocation all the Bishops without exception and of others onely one doubted and four placed all Ecclesiastick power in the Pope both the Universities and most of the Monasteries and Collegiat Churches of England approved avowed as the undoubted opinion of the Church of this Nation in all ages Neither can I see how it can be otherwise for if the Church of Canterbury were omnium nostrum mater communis sub sponsi sui Iesu Christi dispositione if it were Mater omnium Anglicanarum Ecclesiarum suo post Deum proprio laetatur pastore that is if th' Archbishop had no mediate spirituall superior but Christ God if the power the Pope exercised over him within this Realm were voluâ—tate beneficio gained as I have shewed by little little voluntarily submitted unto it could be no other then jure humano and then it must be granted the Church of England could not hold any necessity of being in subjection to the See or Church of Rome jure divino as it is manifest they did not in that they sometimes acknowleded no Pope otherwhiles shewed an intent of departing from his union and the Bishops as well as Lay Lords advised Anselm Vrbani obedientiam abijcere subjectionis jugum excutere c. Neither could the Church of England be any way possible guilty of Schism adhering to their Ghostly Superior next and immediate under Christ Iesus As for the temporall profits the Court of Rome received hence though the denying them can be no just cause of such a spirituall imputation especially on privat men yet certainly who will examin their beginning as he shall find it to have been by the bounty or permission of our Princes so upon search he will perceive the Kingdome went no farther then the Common Law the precedent of former times and such an exigency did force them to of which therefore I shall adde a word or two CHAP. IV. Of the Payments to the Papacy from England THe vast summes the Court of Rome did of late years upon severall occasions export out of this Kingdome mentioned in the statute of the 25. Hen. the 8. are spoken of by severall of our writers and though some have in generall expressed how much the Nation suffer'd in that kind yet none that I know in one tract did ever shew by what degrees the Papacy gained so great a revenue as the Commons in Edward the thirds dayes had cause to complain it did turn a plus grand destruction du Royaume qe toute la guerre nostre Seigneur le Roy. I have thought therefore that it will not be amisse to set down how the Pope came to have so great an influence over the treasure of the Clergy in this Land by seeking out how and when the greatest of the paiments made to him began what interruptions or oppositions were met with either at the beginning or in the continuance of them 2. The first payment that I have read of which gave the Pope an entrance as it were in to it was that bounty of our Princes known to this day by the name of Peter-Pence and this as it was given for an Almes by our Kings so was it no otherwise received by the Court of Rome Eleemosyna beati Petri prout audivimus ita perperaâ—â— doloseque collecta est ut neque mediam ejus partem hactenus Ecclesia Romana susceperit saith Paschalis the 2. So that no question Polidore Virgil very inconsiderately termes it vectigal and others who by that gift contend the Kingdome became tributarium feudatarium S to Petro ejusque successoribus for though the word tributum may perhaps be met with in elder writers yet never did any understand the Pope by it to become a Superior Lord of the Lay fee but used the word metaphorically as we do to this day terme a constant rent a kind of tribute and to those who pay it and over whom we have in some sort a command we give the title of subjects not as being Princes over them but in that particular being under us they are for it styled our inferiors 3. What Saxon King first conferred them whether Ina as Ranulphus Cestrensis sayes report carryed or Offa as Iorvalensis I will not here enquire as not greatly materiall Polidore Virgil tells some write Ethelwolphus continued it with whom Brompton seems to concur It is true our Historians remember he caused 300. mancusas denariorum Malmsbury renders it trecentas auri marcas which was ten times the value of silver as another trecenta talenta to be carried every year from hence to Rome which could be no other then the just application of Peter-Pence for amongst sundry complaints long after from Rome we find the omission of no paiment instanced in but of that duty onely neither do the body of the Kingdome in their Remonstrance to Innocentius 4. 1246. mention any other as due from hence to Rome 4. This therefore thus confer'd by our Kings was for the generality continued to the Papacy yet to shew as it were that it proceeded only from the liberality of our Princes not without some stops Of those in the times of VVilliam the first Henry his Son I have spoke Henry the 2. during the dispute with Becket and Alexander the 3. commanded the Sheriffs through England that Denariibeati Petri colligantur serventur quousque inde Deminus Rex voluntatem suam praeceperit During the Reign of Edward the 3. the Popes abiding at Avignon many of them French their partiality to that side and the many Victories obtained by th' English begat the proverb Ore est le Pape devenu Françeis Iesu devenu Angleis c. about which time our Historians observe the King gave command no Peter-Pence should be gather'd or pay'd to Rome And this restraint it seems continued all that Princes time for Richard the 2. his successor at his beginning caused Iohn Wickliffe esteemed the most knowing man of those times to consider the right of stopping them whose determination in that particular yet remains entituled Responsio Magistri Iohannis Wicliff ad dubium infrascriptum quaesitum ab eo per Dominum Regem Angliae Richardum secundum magnum Concilium anno regni sui primo then the question followes Dubium est utrum regnum Angliae