all his violences had success according to his own mind the King gave Cromwell a more ample Commission over the Bishops themselves and with Power of Spiritual Coercion answerable to the utmost rigor of these loose Opinions now mentioned And he was a person every way fitted for it As he was an intimate Friend of Archbishop Cranmer ' s so he was also a favourer of that singular Opinion which was so much for the interest of his Commission Our Historian himself takes notice of it as one of the things objected to him at his Attainder that he had said that it was as lawful for every Christian man to be the Minister of that Sacrament of the Eucharist as a Priest This clearly shews that Opinion to have been odious even then in the Consciences of the Attaindors themselves and therefore that their other Acts grounded on that and such like Opinions were not bona fide upon true conviction of Conscience Otherwise they could not have had the confidence to charge the belief of such Opinions as a Crime on him if they had in earnest believed them themselves The odiousness also of such a Power as was exercised by Cromwell appeared also in this that after him there was no Successor substituted in his place with such a Commission as his was nor any general Vicegerent appointed for executing the Kings Supremacy in Spirituals distinct from the Bishops and Archbishops However whilst his Commission held he acted to the height of what his Friend Cranmer ' s Opinion would warrant him He gave out general Injunctions for all Spiritual Jurisdictions as Bishops had done formerly for their own Dioceses He took upon him to call Bishops to an account for their administration in Spirituals Our Historian himself has inserted some of his Letters to this purpose sufficiently Imperious But however odious such general Commissions were for things beyond the Power of the Laity yet the Lay Law-makers could not be restrained from encroachments as they thought they had occasion But this they did by the degrees now intimated § XIII In the next year which was the XXVth of that King's Reign there is an Appeal allowed from the Archbishops themselves to the Kings Majesty in the Kings Court of Chancery And upon such Appeal a Commission was to be directed under the Great Seal to such Persons as should be named by the Kings Highness his Heirs or Successors which Persons so empowered were thereby Authorized to give definitive Sentences from which no further Appeal was allowed This was the very Power which had formerly been allowed to the Pope Accordingly it is enacted that no Archbishop nor Bishop of this Realm should intermeddle with any such Appeals otherwise or in any other manner than they might have done before the making of this Act. So that as the Power of the Pope was by the former Act translated to the upper House of our own Convocation in matters wherein the King himself should be concerned so here the same Power is again translated from the Convocation to the King himself and the Power of the Convocation is transacted by a smaller number and those of the Kings nomination This did put the decision of such Cases as much in the Kings Power as himself could desire though the persons to be nominated by him had been Ecclesiasticks Yet even that confinement is not laid upon him that they should necessarily be so He was therefore at perfect liberty not to exercise any part of this Power by Lay-men any further than as the Ecclesiasticks acting herein by his Commission might be supposed to derive their Power from him who was himself a Lay-man Yet even that was capable of a better Interpretation that the Commission did not give them the Power by which they acted but only Authorized them to exert the Power they had before with impunity from the Secular Laws and with the secular support This was only dare Judices as the Praetor did to particular Causes out of those who were by the Laws qualified and empowered to be Judges in general Thus Constantine the Great did dare Judices to the Donatists Melchiades and other Gallicane Bishops who otherwise was notwithstanding very wary of encroaching on the Bishops Rights in general to judge concerning Spiritual Causes What therefore was done hitherto was fairly reconcilable to our Doctrine without asserting any Right as to Spirituals derived from the King to the Bishops which as it was given by him might consequently be deprivable by him also What the King himself did in giving such a Commission to Cromwell was a Personal Act not granted him by any express Law during the time that Cromwell possessed it and therefore cannot be any just ground for interpreting the Supremacy and the Oath concerning it with relation to Posterity but must have been extinguished with his Person though he had been more constant to it than it appears he was Much more considering that even he himself did not think it fit to continue th Office after Cromwell The same may also be observed concerning the Bishops who took out Commissions for their Spiritual Episcopal Power There being hitherto no Law obliging them to do so must make their Acts also Personal For this is sufficient to shew they were not obliged to it by any Sense of the Legislators which cannot be known but by their Laws There was not so much as Proclamation for it that might reduce it to that Law which was made in the same Reign for equalling the Kings Proclamations with Acts of Parliament though that Law had continued still in force as it is certain it has not Less than one of these will not suffice for proving us concerned in what was then done as an Argument of that Sense of the Legislators which was to oblige all Posterity till the Law was repealed by the same Authority that made it § XIV THE next Act in the XXVIth year of the same King gives him as Head of the Church of England full Power and Authority from time to time to visit repress redress reform order correct restrain and amend all such errors heresies abuses offences contempts and enormities whatsoever they be which by any manner Spiritual Authority or Jurisdiction ought or may lawfully be reformed repressed ordered redressed corrected restrained or amended c. Here are Spiritual Causes Errors and Heresies given as Instances wherein the King might concern himself And Spiritual Power in all the kinds of it is supposed in these Corrections to be performed by the King when he is allowed to correct all sorts of abuses that might by any manner Spiritual Authority or Jurisdiction be corrected No part of the Episcopal Power is here excepted not even that of Excommunication But then it is not even yet determined whether this Spiritual Authority and Jurisdiction be supposed in them who are to be by the King obliged to exercise it or whether also the Authority was to be derived from him too If the
and all their Power as Bishops of the Catholick Church is gone and all they do after the Lay Magistrate has deprived them will be perfect Nullities till they be again confirmed by Power derived from the Civil Magistrates This Hypothesis supposing the Legality of the Civil Power will indeed serve our Adversaries designs to the full But it is as notoriously false as it is notoriously true that there was even in the Apostles time a Discipline exercised independent on the Civil Magistrate And our Adversaries dare not stand by it § XVI THIS extravagant Notion of the Supremacy continued through the next Reign of King Edward the VI. Not only as that same Act continued still unrepealed but as the same Practice which supposed it continued and as no better Explication of the Supremacy was substituted in stead of it Now it was that Archbishop Cranmer took out his new Commission from the King for his Archbishoprick in the style formerly used by Bishop Bonner perfectly adapted to his own singular Opinion Now it was that the Bishop of Worcester took out the like Commission in the very beginning of this Reign Though Bishop Burnet observes that no such form was imposed on Bishop Ridley nor on Bishop Thirlby who were consecrated in the year 1550. In that same year it was that the young King himself expresses his own Opinion in these words But as for Discipline I would wish no Authority given generally to all Bishops but that Commission be given to those that be of the best sort of them to exercise it in their Dioceses By which we may easily understand that Bishop Ridley who did put out Injunctions had singular favour shewn him in that he was permitted to do so So that no general Inferences are to be gathered from his Case Yet even he and such as he were to Act by Commission which is perfectly consistent with the Hypothesis that was so destructive of the Churches Authority The only difference between him and others was that he was to hold his Authority for Life they only during the Princes pleasure But for proving the sense of the Law-makers of those times I rather chuse to insist on the expressions of the Laws themselves And those are very home to this purpose In the Statute 1 Edw. VI. c. 2. They say that all Authority of Jurisdiction Spiritual and Temporal is derived and deducted from the Kings Majesty as Supream Head of these Churches and Realms of England and Ireland They therefore enact that all Processes Ecclesiastical should run in the King's name only that the Teste should be in the name of the Archbishop Bishop or other having Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction who hath the Commission and grant of the Authority Ecclesiastical immediately from the Kings Highness They add withal that the Seal of Jurisdiction was to have the Kings Arms on it as an Acknowledgment from whom the Jurisdiction was derived There are indeed some exceptions in that same Act wherein the Archbishop of Canterbury and the other Bishops are allowed to use their own Seals But considering that the reasons given for their using the King's Arms are general such as extend to all Archbishops and all Spiritual Jurisdictions whatsoever those exceptions cannot argue any independence of the Spiritual Jurisdiction even in the Cases so excepted The Archbishop had a liberty of using his own Seal in Cases of smaller consequence which were not likely to be exempted from the Secular Power when the greater were not and in Dispensations to be granted to the King himself where though the Power had been in general originally derived from the King yet it had not been decent in the Dispensation it self to express its being so For that had been to the same purpose as if the King by his own Authority had dispensed with himself Yet the Power might have been derived from him as that of our ordinary Judges is when they give Sentence against the King in favour of a Subject by virtue of their Commission from the Crown empowering them to do so And the Cases wherein other Bishops are there allowed to use their own Seals are only such wherein their own inferiors are concerned who derive their Power from them which is very consistent with their own deriving their Power from the King Especially when this liberty is granted them by that very Power which pretended to be the Original of all their Episcopal Spiritual Power I mention not now the several Acts sufficiently frequent in this Reign requiring Clergymen to admit to Communion and empowering them to punish by Spiritual Censures though these do also proceed on the same supposal when they are not in execution of Canons made before by Ecclesiastical Authority that even such Spiritual Authority is originally vested in the Lay Magistrate For my design at present is not to enquire how far the Lay Power even the Legislative Power has encroached on the Rights of the Clergy actually but how far they have declared their encroachments included in the Sense of the Supremacy for maintenance of which the Oath was made and which must therefore be maintained by them who would then take the Oath veraciously according to the true meaning of the Legislators But what I have insisted on from this Act shews the Legislators sense of the Supremacy it self § XVII YET though this impious notion of the Supremacy was continued in the Reign of this excellent Prince who did not live to that maturity of his own Judgment that might otherwise have enabled him to have seen the falshood and all tendency of these ill Principles which had been instilled into him by his Godfather who was always the most forward promoter of them yet they were first introduced in the Sacrilegious Reign of King Henry the VIII And why should any Posterity have regard for such an Age as that was which had themselves so little for all the Acts of their own Ancestors Why should any who regard Religion have any for them who brought in principles so destructive to all Religion and to the very Fundamentals of the Church as it is a Society and a Communion Atheists themselves who have no concern for the Truth of Religion yet cannot chuse but be concerned for the security Religion gives them in their present enjoyments by the Opinions of those who do in earnest believe it true and for the restraint it lays on such not to molest them in their possessions of what they are Legally intituled to when it is otherwise in their Power forcibly to dispossess them That wicked generation broke even this security All that could have been done had been done by their Ancestors for the security of Magna Charta and the Rights of the Clergy concerned in it as the first and sacredest part of it It had been confirmed by solemn and frequently repeated grants of all the Parties who had a Right to confirm it Not only so but all the Obligations for observing it were laid on their
better Title might notwithstanding continue their old Possession upon their Predecessors death upon a more unquestionable Right without 〈◊〉 new Consecration For those Episcopal Orders which had been given them in Schism but had been given them by true Bishops sufficiently Authorized to give them though they might be Nullities at first whilst the Person ordained was incapable of receiving them that is whilst he was ordained into an Office already full and whereof there could be but one at one time might yet in process of time recover their full force as soon as the incapacity was removed which had invalidated their first collation That is as soon as the See which was before full became vacant and thereby capable of receiving a Successor Especially when not only the Impediment is removed but the first Right is ratified by all that are concerned in it not only by the unanimous reception of the Subjects of the Jurisdiction now no longer divided but united among themselves by this unanimous reception but also by the Episcopal College ratifying his Acts of Communion and Excommunication When this is the Case I know not what a new Solemnity of Consecration can add to such a Bishop beyond what he is possessed of already His being unanimously receiv'd makes him already a Principle of Unity when none can partake of the Unity of the Body who is not united to him And his ratification by the Episcopal College at least by as many of them as in this divided State of Christendom profess the same Faith and pretend to a correspondence in Communion must make his Communion as much Catholick as it can be in our present Circumstances For that would make the Case such that none who lived within his Jurisdiction could expect to be received to Communion by the rest of the Episcopal College without his Communicatory Letters and that with his Communicatory Letters they might The Consequence of these things must be that his Acts of Communion and Excommunication must both the Catholick at least as far as the Correspondence reaches and that all that are of his Jurisdiction must be obliged to maintain Communion with him under pain if they should do otherwise of being excluded from the Catholick Church And then who can doubt but that GOD will own them for his Peculiar People and CHRIST will own them for his Members whom the Body of their Authorized Representatives do judge to be so For GOD has Authorized them for this purpose that in things relating to the external Discipline of the visible Body it not being usual for him to interpose immediately their Judgment may be taken for his For this is the meaning of his ratifying in Heaven what is by them performed on Earth of his giving them the Power of the Keys and his binding and loosing in Heaven answer ably to their binding and loosing in Earth that he will admit into his Mystical Body those whom they admit into his visible Body and exclude from the Mystical Unity those whom they exclude from that which is visible This being true concerning particular Bishops may be much more securely relyed on in the Case of the Episcopal College That the Body which is owned by them all will be owned by Christ for his Mystical Body Thus it appears that the Communion of such a Bishop owned without a Rival by the Episcopal College must on that account be owned for Catholick He has therefore all already that they could give him by a repeated Consecration And being also known and owned to have it and to have it by their consent their Consecration after this can be no more necessary than it was for St. Peter to lay his hands on Cornelius in order to the giving him the Holy Ghost when he was otherwise well assured by external Manifestations that Cornelius had received the Holy Ghost already It is indeed only the Episcopal College that gives any particular Bishop the Right of having his censures ratified over all the Catholick Church And the two or three Bishops requisite for Consecrations can do it no otherwise than as by the Roman Laws the two or three represented the whole College and as the whole College had obliged themselves to ratifie what should be transacted by so small a number appointed to represent their absent Brethren also in the Solemnity This is plainly the Sense of the first and most famous General Council of Nice They require to the making of every new Bishop the consent of all the Bishops of the Province and only allow that two or three shall represent them in the Consecration when they have the consent of the Metropolitan and when no more can conveniently be present Thus it appears that the consent of the Episcopal College was that which was principally regarded in conveying the Episcopal Power I might also have shewn that the Sense of the College was allowed the same force however it was signified whether in Synods or Separately and Extrajudicially The greatest part by far of the 300 Bishops mentioned by Athanasius in favour of himself were such as were not at the Sardican Council but who had given him their suffrages by separate Subscriptions By all which it appears that the Invalidity if any had been in the Deprivation of the Popish Bishops cannot affect our Succession now so long after the decease of the injured â—ersons though we had not had the other exception already insisted on of our being even then different Communions § XXXII I grant indeed upon that Supposition it had been in the Power of the Popish Bishops to have perpetuated the Invalidity of our Succession if themselves had pleased That might have been by keeping up a Succession down to our times of their own which on that Supposition had been the better Title For by the same reason as the Title of their first Persons in their Succession had been better than the Title of the first in our Succession their whole Succession also which had been nothing but a propagation of that same first better Title had been better than ours which had been also a like continuation of the same Title which originally had been the worse of the two And therefore as the confessedly better Title in the first Persons in their Succession had made the first Persons in our Succession Schismaticks by the same reason the better Title of their whole Succession had also made our whole Succession Schismatical But since they have let fall their Succession and left our Bishops without any Rivals in the sole possession of their respective Jurisdictions the same Reasoning which upon supposition that we had been of one Faith and one Communion would have been favourable to them in the Case now mentioned will proceed against them as strongly now Since our Bishops have been left in the sole possession of the Diocesane Jurisdictions their endeavours to keep up a distinct Communion and sometimes to set up distinct Bishops in the same Dioceses fairly and Canonically
THE DOCTRINE OF THE Church of England Concerning the Independency of the CLERGY ON THE LAY-POWER AS To those Rights of theirs which are purely Spiritual reconciled with our Oath of Supremacy AND THE Lay-Deprivations OF THE Popish-Bishops in the beginning of the Reformation By the Author of The Vindication of the depriv'd Bishops LONDON Printed MDCXCVII THE CONTENTS § I. THE Independancy of Bishops on the State pretended to be contrary to the Oath of Supremacy P. I. § II. And contrary to the Principles on which the Popish Bishops were deprived and our present Succession depends P. III. § III. The Authority of the Primitive Catholick Church is greatâ— then that of any Modern particular one P. IV. § IV. Even with regard to our particular Church Our behaviour signifies more Love and Concern for her than that of our late Brethren does P. VII § V. We shew our greater Love to our Churcâ— particularly in not yeilding so easily as they do that she should lose her Rights on any Te 〈…〉 P. IX § VI. What we do is perfectly consistent with the Authorized explication of the Supremacy vested in the King P. XI § VII Archbishop Cranmers Opinions in Henry the VIII's and Edward the VI's time perfectly destructive of all Spiritual Authority P. XII § VIII Archbishops Cranmers Authority in these matters none at all P. XV. § IX It is not for the Interest of the Church of Reformation that his Authority in these things should be regarded P. XVII § X. His Opiniens in this matter no more agreable to the Sense of our present Adversaries than to 〈◊〉 P. XXI § XI The Supremacy and Title of Head when first assumed by Henry the VIII consistent with our Doctrine P. XXIII § XII When the King gave the encroaching Commission to Cromwell it was not yet agreeable to the true Sense of the 〈◊〉 P. XXV § XIII The Appeal allowed from the Archbishops to the Kings Commissioners in Chancery no Argument of any Spiritual Power derived from the King P. XXVII § XIV The Supremacy explained 26. H. VIII 1. not contrary to our Doctrine in this Cause P. XXVIII § XV. The Supremacy as explained 37. H. VIII 17. full to our Adversaries purpose and the sense of Archbishop Cranmer P. XXX § XVI The same notion of the Spuremacy continued also under King Edward the VI. P. XXXIII § XVII King Henry the VIII's Reign by no means to be allowed for an Age of Precedents P. XXXV § XVIII Queen Elizabeth explained the Supremacy in a sense consistent with our principles P. XXXIX § XIX That Explication discharges us now from any Obligation to believe Archbishop Cranmers Principles P. XLI § XX. What the Queen requires we can Sincerely undertake and in a Sense fully answering the Imposition of the Leg 〈…〉 ors P. XLIII § XXI The Queens Injunction excuses us from Swearing to the Supremacy over Spiritual Persons in Causes purely Spiritual P. XLVI § XXII This Injunction of Queen Elizabeth still in force P. L. § XXIII The Explication in the Injuctions Authorize by our Church in her XXXVII Article P. LI. § XXIV The same Explication of the Injunctions confirmed by Act of Parliament P. LIII § XXV It is rather supppsed than contradicted by the 2 Canon P. LV. § XXVI The Practice of the Supremacy to our times no Argument of the Imposed Sense of the Legislators against us P. LVIII § XXVII The Objection proposed that our present Protestant Succession seems to depend on the validity of the Deprivation of the last Popish Bishops which was no other than Laical P. LX. § XXVIII The Lay-Deprivations of those Popish Bishops who took out Lay-Commissions for their Episcopal Power does not by any jast consequence effect our present Case P. LXI § XXIX The Popish Bishops were of another Communion and therefore needed no other Deprivation than that of the Lay-Magistrate P. LXIII § XXX This Doctrine agreeable exactly to the Sense and Practice of Antiquity P. LXVI § XXXI If the Popish Bishops had had a better Title yet that could not have illegitimated Successors any longer than their own Lives P. LXVIII § XXXII If the Popish Bishops then had the better Title yet their discontinuance of their Succession has made their Title worse now P. LXXI § XXXIII Present Settlements give Right where no better Rights is injured by them P. LXXII § XXXIV This is proved from the Donatist and Luciferian Disputes P. LXXIV § XXXV They who took out Lay-Commissions for their Episcopal Power might yet keep their better Title P. LXXX THE DOCTRINE OF THE Church of England Concerning the Iudependecy of the Clergy on the Lay-Power as to those Rights of theirs which are purely Spiritual reconciled with our Oath of Supremacy and the Lay-Deprivaons of the Popish Bishops in the beginning of the Reformation § I. SINCE the finishing of the former Discourse I have been warned of one Prejudice ogainst the Doctrine delivered in it concerning the Independancy of Church-Power on the State very necessary to be removed in order to the preparing our late Brethren for an impartial consideration of what we have to say in it's defence That is that as our Case of Protestant Bishops set up in opposition to other Protestant Bishops deprived by an incompetent Authority is new so our Principles on which our Plea in reference to the Schism is grounded are also charged with Novelty if not with regard to the Doctrine of the first and purest Ages of the Christian Church yet at least with regard to the Doctrine of our late common Mother the Church of England and with regard to that later Antiquity which is derivod no higher than the beginning of our Reformation from Popery It is therefore pretended that our Doctrine concerning the undeprivableness of the Bishops by the Lay-Power is inconsistent with the Supremacy asserted to our Princes in all Causes as well as over all Persons that it is therefore inconsistent not only with all the Lay Acts by which the Supremacy has been asserted but also with all those Acts of the Church by with she also hath concerned her self in this Dispute with the xxxvii Article and the Injunction of Queen Elizabeth owned by an Act of Parliament in her Reign for an Authentical Interpretation of the Supremacy with the Doctrine of the Homilies and the several Injunctions of the Ecclesiasticks for explaining and recommending the same Doctrine to the Belâ—ef and Consciences of their Auditors particularly with the Second Canon which Excommunicates all those who deny the Supremacy in any of those branches wherein it was allowed either to Jewish or Christian Princes and with all those Legal Oaths for maintaning it which have been taken not only by the generality of the Laity but the Ecclesiasticks also as many of them as have been admitted to any eminent station in the Ecclesiastical Government Not now to descend so low as a particular enumeration of the suffrages of our most celebrated Writers It
them indeed a liberty of remonstrating But what can even that avail them when they neither have power to enter their Remonstrances on any Records or to oblige their Adversaries upon their pleading such Records not to suffer such violences to be Precedents for future practice § V. THUS if our common Mothers Authority be urged by our Adversaries as an Argument of their good will to her I cannot see how they can in that regard pretend to rival us They may indeed tell us that our Mother has by her own Act and Deed in the surrendry of the Clergy in King Henry the VIII ths time devested her self of that Authority which before that surrendry was justly her due Whatever the belief of this would signifie to shew our good will to her I am sure we might by doing as the Objectors do better signifie our good will to our selves if we could consistently with our Duty to her qualifie our selves for the favours of the Invaders of her Rights and Priviledges as far as gratifying flesh and blood can be taken for consulting our own Interests But still methinks it should be a greater Argument of our good will to our common Mother to be unwilling that she should on any terms be deprived of whatever was once her due Still it would become well-wishers to her not to be too easie in believing such a cession of Rights though by her self till it were well proved and proved still to be obliging Still it would become well-meaning Children to be willing to contribute as much as lay in them to recover such Rights at any rate of inconvenience to themselves that may be less to the Publick than the loss of such Rights of so great importance for the Publick Interests of Souls And all worldly inconveniences would be reputed less by generous and affectionate Judges of the Publick Interests Such would still be favourable Auditors of what might be produced for discharging her from such Obligations of Conscience which if still in force may make it unlawful now to retrieve and challenge her lost Rights They would be ambitious of prudent and lawful occasions of testifying their love to her at the expence of worldly losses when they might be once secured from any danger of sin in incurring them I am sure it must needs argue more love and good-will to be so Nor could they think it imprudent to retrieve publick Spiritual Rights by losses only private and temporary Especially where there might be the least appearance of Duty that might oblige them to it That very Duty would over-rule loving and dutiful Children beyond all worldly and carnal considerations to the contrary Much more it would do so when the Duty incumbent were pretended of so great importance as this here is by us as that without it we could not have a Church or a Communion any longer than it should please the Civil Magistrate that without it we could have no Principles that might cement us under a Spiritual Government in a state of Persecution at least that might oblige us to do so as most certainly Christ has done When these things were pretended they would at least let us know what might satisfie them if it could not us how these consequences intolerable to a true lover of the Church and Religion might be avoided And till they could do so they could not think the considerations hitherto insisted on by them of an irresistible force c. sufficient to make amends for so abominable consequences But hitherto they have not signified that solicitude for avoiding such consequences which would certainly have become them as hearty lovers of Religion Nor have they attempted any thing on their part for a re-union with such as differ from them in things which would be as much their interest as ours for us all to be unanimous in if they really took the subsistence of our Church and our Communion for our common Interests How then can they even in this regard of their so easily yielding in matters of so intolerable consequence pretend to rival our good will to our common Church and Communion § VI. BUT we must not suffer even our good will to our Mother to mislead us into any Acts of undutifulness to her though it were on pretence of saving her Uzzah laid hold on the Ark with a good design when he thought it in danger of falling Yet God struck him dead upon the place for venturing on his own judgment to shew his zeal for him beyond what was allowable to his Station So among the Romans Fabius Rullianus with great difficulty escaped punishment for venturing on his private Judgment though with as probable a prospect and as great success as his General himself Papirius Cursor could have desired and that for fear of the many ill consequences that might follow on it for the future if such a Fact had been by its impunity recommended to posterity for a precedent But I have already shewn that not to be our case here We do not oppose our private Judgments to any Authority at all But we oppose the publick Judgment of a greater to that of a lower Authority Yet we have no need of insisting on that Plea at present We can fairly reconcile our sense in this affair with the imposed Sense of our dear Mother the Church of England even as established by Law and with the full design of the Legislators as far as that can be gathered from the Cases in prospect of which the Laws were made and with Authentical Interpretations of the meaning of the Legislators themselves allowed by both Powers concerned in them as well the Civil which has imposed them by Civil as the Spiritual which has done the same by Spiritual coercions I know not what our Adversaries themselves can desire more And I cannot but look on it as a peculiar over-ruling Providence that this is capable of being performed in a Reformation wherein the Ecclesiasticks have been so manifestly overborn by the Laity and a Laity headed by a Prince so impatient of restraint as Henry the VIII was Who could expect that where the encroachers made themselves Judges in their own Case and the true Proprietors were forced to submissions and surrendries of their Rights the determinations could be just and equal on both sides § VII IN Henry the VIII th time under whom the Oath of Supremacy was first introduced the Invasions of the Sacred Power were most manifest Yet so that even then they appear to have been Innovations and Invasions But who can wonder at his success considering the violent ways used by him So many executed by him for refusing the Oath The whole Body of the Clergy brought under a Premunire for doing no more than himself had done in owning the Legatine Power of Cardinal Wolsey and sined for it and forced to submissions very different from the sense of the majority of them He did indeed pretend to be advised by some of the
Ecclesiasticks as appears from several of their Papers still preserved But they were only some few selected by himself never fairly permitted to a freedom and majority of suffrages And when even those few had given their opinion yet still he reserved the Judgment of their reasons to himself And to shew how far he was from being indifferent those of them who were most open in betraying the Rights of their own function were accordingly advanced to the higher degrees in his favour and were intrusted with the management of Ecclesiastical affairs None had a greater share in Ecclesiastical Counsels than Archbishop Cranmer Nor is there any who upon all the Questions proposed wherein Ecclesiastical Power was concerned does more constantly side with the Kings imperious humour against the true Rights of his own Order He allows the King the Rights even of preaching the word and administring the Sacraments and allows neither of them to the Ecclesiasticks any further than as they derived them from the Princes Lay Commissions He permitted indeed their Consecrations as he had found them by those of their own order but derives nothing of their Power from those Consecrations He makes the Ceremonies of Consecration indifferent things no way concerned in conveying the Spiritual Power That he derives wholly from their Lay Deputation He gives them a Power of preaching the Word and administring the Sacraments where the Lay Powers allow it and he allows them neither where the Secular Magistrate forbids them They must admit whom the Laws oblige them to admit and they must not excommunicate any whom the Secular Laws take into their protection The Magistrate notwithstanding his being a Lay-man may perform these offices himself if he pleased And the Ecclesiasticks notwithstanding their Consecration are not by him permitted to perform them unless the Magistrate be pleased to give them leave Nay so far he proceeds in his flattery of the Civil Magistrate that he allows no more gifts of the Holy Ghost in the laying on of the hands of the Presbytery than in the collation of any Civil Office Even in the Apostles themselves he rather excuses than commends all the exercise of their Spiritual Authority as necessitated to it by the exigency of their present Circumstances As if any necessity could excuse Usurpation As if any exercise of a Power not belonging to them could have been seconded by so visible manifestations of God himself as that was which was exercised by the Apostles Yet even their Authority he makes perfectly precarious He owns no obligation on the Consciences of the Christians of those times to obey even the Apostles themselves but ascribes their Obedience then wholly to their good will so as to leave it to their own liberty whether they would be subject or no. And why so Only because the Apostles had no Civil Empire This wholly resolves all obligation of Conscience into Civil Empire and makes it impossible for the Church to subsist as a Society and a Communion without the support of the Civil Magistrate Accordingly that same Archbishop Cranmer took out a Patent for his Episcopal Power preserved by Bishop Burnet full of a Style so pernicious to Ecclesiastical Authority He there acknowledges all sort of jurisdiction as well Ecclesiastical as Civil to have flowed originally from the Regal Power as from a Supream Head and as a Fountain and Spring of all Magistracy within his own Kingdom He says they who had exercised this Jurisdiction formerly for which he took out this Patent had done it only PRECARIO and that they ought with grateful minds to acknowledge this favour derived from the Kings liberality and indulgence and that accordingly they ought to yield whenever the King thought fit to require it from them And to shew what particulars of Ecclesiastical Power he meant his Patent instances the Power of ordering Presbyters and of Ecclesiastical coercion meaning no doubt that of Excommunication Nay further the same Patent gives him a Power of Executing by the Kings Authority those very things which were known to have been committed to him by God himself in the Scriptures per ultra ea quae tibi ex Sacris Literis divinitus commissa esse dignoscuntur By which we understand that no branch of Spiritual Power whatsoever was excepted Yet all this grant was to last no longer than the Kings pleasure I know not what the Lay Encroachers themselves can desire more Here is so little security for the Churches subsisting when the Secular Laws discountenance her as that she is not allowed the same liberty that other subjects have of pleading the Secular Laws already made in favour of her but is left exposed to the Arbitrary pleasure of the Prince which is thought hard in the Case of other Subjects This yoke the Politicians have lately imposed on the Church of Scotland GOD in his good time release her from it § VIII I have often wondered how the most learned Bishop Stillingfleet who first published the forementioned Papers as far as they concerned Archbishop Cranmer could think them consistent with his own Principles They are so perfectly contradictory to his Discourse concerning the Power of Excommunication subjoyned in the Second Edition of the Irenicum and indeed to the Doctrine of the Irenicum it self as far as it was consistent with it self or with any one Hypothesis For sometimes he seems to doubt whether there can be any Power properly so called without coercion or any coercion without external force As if indeed the fears of the future mischieves attending exclusion from the Priviledges of Church Communion had not been in the purest Ages of the Christian Religion more properly coercive than the fear of any evils that were in the power of the Secular Magistrate It is certain that good Christians then chose rather to suffer any thing the Magistrate could inflict than Excommunication But I more admire that such a betrayer of Ecclesiastical Rights should by our Ecclesiastical Historian of the Reformation be proposed as the Hero of his times and as Exemplary to such as might in his opinion deserve the name of Heroes still Yet he calls it a strange Commission in Bishop Bonner when he took out a Commission from the King as to his Spirituals conceived in the same terms with that of Cranmer in the particulars now mentioned He grants that Bonners inducement to take out that Commission was that it was observed that Cranmers great interest in the King was chiefly grounded on some opinions he had of the Ecclesiastical Officers being as much subject to the King as all other Civil Officers were Yet Cranmer was to be excused because that if he followed that opinion at all it was out of Conscience Why he should doubt whether he was of that Opinion I cannot guess when himself has published those very Papers of the learned Bishop Stillingfleet wherein Archbishop Cranmer does so plainly own himself of that opinion when he has also published Cranmers own
they could they did so it being notorions in those Primitive Times that they had no more consent of the Civil Magistrate for the one than for the other and yet exercised both and were seconded by God in their Acts of Discipline which supposed their claim to both of them But by Archbishop Cranmer ' s Principles the Apostles themselves could lay no claim to either of them without the consent of the Civil Magistrate and therefore could derive no such Rights to Successors claiming from them that could be undeprivable by the Civil Magistrate Had this Doctrine been true Bishops deprived by a lawful Magistrate cou'd have claim'd no longer But even our Adversaries themselves seem sensible now not only how contrary those Paradoxes were to the Sense of truly Catholick Antiquity but also how little agreeable they are to the prevailing Opinion of them who cordially espouse the Cause of Religion in general and of the Church of England in particular even in this present degenerous Age. This being so our Adversaries themselves cannot be displeased at us for disowning a Supremacy explained by and grounded on such Doctrines as even themselves dare not undertake to defend § XII AND such indeed was the Supremacy as it was first introduced by King Henry the VIII and as it was continued under King Edward the VI. Then as much was challenged as could be allowed by even those licentious Principles of Archbishop Cranmer I mean so much was challenged by the Kings themselves and by the Laity who made a majority in the Legislative Power by the Constitution So much was plainly the design of King Henry to whom Cranmer so effectually recommended himself by these Opinions as our Historian observes And the Sense of the Legislative Power cannot be better proved â—â—an from the Expressions of the Laws themselves T 〈…〉 st Law is more modest and though it do own the King for Head of the Body Politick consisting of Spiritualty and Temporalty yet withal it clearly distinguishes their two Jurisdictions and does not make them interfere any further than as that perhaps might be meant by making the King the common Head of both of them For so the words of the Act run The body Spiritual whereof having power when any cause of the Law Divine happened to come in question or of Spiritual learning that it was declared interpreted and shewed by that part of the said Body Politick called the Spiritualty now usually called the English Church which always hath been reputed and also found of that sort that both for knowledge integrity and sufficiency of number it hath been always thought and is also at this hour sufficient and meet of it self without the intermeddling of any exterior Person or Persons to declare and determine all such doubts and to administer all such Offices and Duties as to their rooms Spiritual doth appertain c. And the Laws Temporal for tryal of Property of Lands and Goods and for the conservation of the People of this Realm in Unity and Peace without rapin or spoil was and yet is administred adjudged and executed by sundry Judges and Ministers of the other part of the said Body Politick called the Temporalty And both their Authorities and Jurisdictions do conjoyn together in the due administration of Justice the one to help the other Accordingly it is afterwards enacted that all Causes concerning our Dominions be finally and difinitively adjudged and determined within the Kings Jurisdiction and Authority and not elsewhere in such Courts Spiritual and Temporal of the same as the natures conditions and equalities of the Cases and matters aforesaid in contention or hereafter happening in contention shall require Thesâ— things plainly shew the State wherein that assuming Princes â—ound things when he began his Innovations and which all o 〈…〉 to endeavour to restore who desire that the antient bounds of Magna Charta should be preserved inviolable For what security can it give us in our present Settlements if former violations of it in others by not being repealed must be allowed to pass into Precedents for new and future violences when any are possessed of force sufficient to attempt them But this will directly overthrow the Legality of what has been done for depriving our Holy Fathers by a Lay Authority even supposing it Legal It is indeed probable that when this Act was made the King himself designed no such exercise of purely Spiritual Authority by Lay Persons Bishop Burnet himself observes that in Cromwell ' s first Commission as no such Precedency was granted him as was afterwards next the Royal Family so neither was any Authority at all granted him over the Bishops And this Act now mentioned shews plainly that the Case was so All Appeals here of private Persons in Spiritual Causes are ultimately to the Archbishops saving the Prerogative of the Archbishop and See of Canterbury And in Causes wherein the King should be concerned the ultimate Appeal is to the Spiritual Prelates and other Abbots and Priors of the upper House assembled and convocated by the Kings Writ in the Convocation being or next ensuing within the Province or Provinces where the same matter of contention is or shall be begun Thus far therefore it is very plain that neither the Title of Head nor the Supremacy could oblige us to own any Lay Authority whatsoever to be sufficient for a Spiritual Deprivation even interpreted according to the Sense of the Legislators themselves So all the Right that the King as a common Head could pretend to over the Clergy in Causes purely Spiritual was not a Right to give them any Power which they were not supposed to have Antecedently to any exercise of the Kings Authority over them but a Right to oblige them to make a good Use of that Power which they had already received from God But on this Supposition as he can give them no new Power in these matters so neither can he take that Power from them which he never gave them Which will alone be sufficient to ruine the validity of Lay Deprivations § XII HOWEVER Archbishop Cranmer ' s Opinion being so grateful to the King and the Laity who made the majority in the Legislative Power did accordingly prevail But being withal as singular among the Clergy who were notoriously the only competent Judges of Spiritual Rights it prevailed in such a way as one would expect an Opinion labouring under such a disadvantage of true Authority would do that it was urged to the height when either elation of success or an exigence of affairs urged them to such odious extremities otherwise the practise of it was intermitted when cooler thoughts took place as having great presumptions against it that it was unwarrantable and those good ones even in the Opinion of the Governours themselves who having now intirely subdued the Clergy were no longer under any other restraint than that which was from their own Consciences Accordingly after the surrendry of the Clergy when now
the Title of Supream Head The Bishops as it is said will not swear to it as it is but rather lose their Livings The occasion seems to be that now the Succession falling to a Woman it seemed very indecent to believe her an Original of Sacerdotal Power who was by her Sex incapacitated for exercising any Sacerdotal Act to believe that a Right of Excommunication could be derived from her who was on the same account unqualified to consecrate the Eucharist and to give the Communion though they who had the Right had given her that power that she could be the Head of Sacerdotal Power to others who was not capable of being a Sacerdotal Head at all For the Apostles Reasoning holds concerning this Sacerdotal Headship which is the principle of mystical Unity that the Man in general is as much the Head of the Woman in general as the Head of the Man is Christ and the Head of Christ is God These things no doubt gave the Papists a subject of tragical Declamations then as their Books shew they did after Nor was the scandal only given to the Papists but to the Protestants also who returned from their exile with a zeal as great for the Geneva Discipline after the troubles at Frankford as the others could pretend to for the Papal And accordingly it was a Protestant that perswaded her to lay aside the Title of Supream Head or rather not to resume it after it had been laid aside by her Sister However the Supremacy it self she did resume but with such an Explication as made it thence forward tolerable The Supremacy it self she resumed as it had been practised formerly by her Father and her Brother as far as by any Spiritual or Ecclesiastical Power or Authority had heretofore been or might lawfully be exercised or used So the words of the Act run wherein she also revives the Act of 37 Hen. VIII 17. as far as it concerned the Practise of Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction by Lay Doctors of the Civil Law She also resumed a Power of issuing out Commissions for exercising Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction and of giving out Injunctions as formerly Thus the Case stood in her first Parliament which began Jan. 23. and was dissolved May 8. of the year 1559. Which things if they had held had been little else besides the abatement of a word But her Injunctions themselves followed that same year after the dissolution of the Parliament wherein she remits of the things themselves at least with reference to the Oath which was first introduced in this Parliament in the form wherein we use it now In these Injunctions she forbids her Subjects to give ear to those who maliciously laboured to notifie to her loving Subjects how by words of the said Oath it may be collected that the Kings or Queens of this Realm Possessors of the Crown may challenge Authority and Power of Ministery of Divine Service in the Church She therefore tells them that her Majesty neither doth nor never will challenge any other Authority than under God to have the Sovereignty and Rule over all manner of Persons born within these her Realms Dominions and Countries of what estate either Ecclesiastical or Temporal soever they be so as no other foreign Power shall or ought to have any superiority over them She tells them therefore that if any Person that hath conceived any other sense of the form of the said Oath shall accept the same Oath with this interpretation sense or meaning her Majesty is well pleased to accept every such in that behalf as her good and obedient Subjects and shall acquit them of all manner of Penalties contained in the said Act against such as shall peremptorily or obstinately refuse to take the same Oath § XIX HERE is a fair Legal Interpretation allowed by the Regal Authority it self for whose sake the Oath was imposed perfectly discharging us who have been concerned in it from the Belief of Archbishop Cranmer ' s Principles themselves and therefore from meaning any such sense of it as otherwise mig 〈…〉 have followed and indeed must if the taking of the Oath had necessarily supposed our belief of those Principles Here we find those Principles denied to have ever been the Sense of the Legislators even in the time of King Henry the VIII or King Edward the VI. The Queen in the same Injunction calls it a sinister perswasion and perverse construction to think it was so We need not now dispute how true this assertion was for the time past It is sufficient for our purpose that from the time of this Injunction we are not obliged to mean it so how plainly soever it may seem to be supposed in the Acts revived by her Yet whâ—â— I have already said is sufficient to shew how unsteady the Legislators were in urging the belief of these Principles on them who took this Oath even when the Words of the Laws themselves did seem most literally and naturally to import them in the Sense of the Legislators themselves I have already observed the Paper subscribed by Cromwell and Cranmer himself contrary to their own Doctrine in the height of Cromwell ' s Power I have observed that Cromwell ' s opinion that Lay-men might consecrate the Eucharist was so odious even in King Henry ' s Reign that it was made an Article against him for his Attainder So also in the Reformatio Legum Ecclesiasticarum wherein Cranmer had a principal hand drawn up in the later end of King Edward the VIth the Power of the Keys is owned to have been given by Christ to the Church and the Power of Administring the Sacraments and of Excommunication â—s asserted to the Ministers and Governors 〈◊〉 the Churches and they are allowed to be the Judges who are to be admitted to the Holy Table and who are to be rejected notwithstanding the Laws made in that same Reign prescribing to the Ministers what they were to do in these very Cases notwithstanding the words of the now mentioned Acts nay even of that very Collection asserting expresly that the King within his own Dominions has plenissimam Jurisdictionem over the Bishops and Clergy as well Ecclesiastical as Civil and that both Jurisdictions are derived from him as from one and the same Fountain This Reformatio was intended to have been confirmed in Parliament according to so many Acts made concerning it if the Kings death had not prevented it Whether these things be reconcilable or not I am not now concerned It is very possible that the same Legislators may own that in certain consequence which they do disown in express terms And in such a Case the securest way for the Subject who cannot be obliged to Contradictions will be rather to be concluded by their express professions than by their reasonings and consequences where they are not reconcilable Especially where those professions are agreeable to that Practise which is notoriously allowed by the Legislators themselves Allowed Practise is granted by
given formerly that their favours might not be perverted against the Interests of the Lay Power by which they had been originally granted Thus it appears had than Acts of Parliament were really true concerning all the Jurisdiction of the Spiritual Courts concerning the seculars annexed to Spirituals And even in the Spiritual Causes in which the Spiritual Judges had a Right Antecedently to the grants of Princes yet the Right of punishing refractory Persons with Temporal Coercions was the Prince's and truly derived from the grants of the Lay Magistrates So that indeed all Parts of the Spiritual Jurisdiction had some thing of Original Secular Right and therefore resumable by Princes so far as they should judge it necessary for their own Preservation And so far it was necessary to resume it and justifiable too as it was necessary for reducing Spiritual Persons to their Original due Subjection in Temporals for which the Temporals annexed to Spirituals were abundantly sufficient For this would perfectly reduce them to the same subjection under which they were before those favours were granted by the Secular Magistrate And more than that he cannot justly challenge as his due These therefore are the only Spiritual Causes that can be meant in the Oath by this explication of Queen Elizabeth and will in some sense reach all Spiritual Jurisdiction and all Spiritual Causes as there was a mixture of both Powers in the Proceedings of the Spiritual Courts of those times And this is the Explication of the word Spiritual given as I remember by Sir John Davyes in Lalor ' s Case But this will not justifie the Magistrates assuming what never belonged to him his intermeddling with matters of Faith and with Crimes not barely as Crimes injurious to the State but as Scandals to our Religion Much less will it justifie his presuming to give Commissions for inflicting Spiritual Censures From the belief of the allowableness of these things the Queens Explication will fully discharge us Yet without these things he can never pretend to a Power of depriving our Bishops of their Spiritual Power nor of absolving us from our duty to them as over us in the Lord. § XXII NOR is there any reason to doubt of the sufficiency of this Explication of the Queen for satisfying our Consciences in this Age as well as in that wherein these Injunctions were first set forth I am very well aware of the pretences of the violent Party concerning the Canons of 1640. which yet our ablest and most impartial Lawyers think to be still in force Indeed the whole Supremacy in Ecclesiasticals has been by all the Acts made in favour of it vested in the King without the least mention of the Secular States And accordingly the Prince ' s Act in such affairs has been always thought sufficient for giving Authority to them without any confirmation in Parliament And that not only for his own time but for ever till a Revocation of it by the same Power by which it was established Who doubts but the XXXIX Articles and the Canons made in year MDCIII are still good Ecclesiastical Law Yet what Authority have they to make them so besides the Regal confirmation of Queen Elizabeth for the former and of King James the I. for the later Nor was it counted material for this purpose whether any Parliament was sitting or not when the Prince was pleased to ratifie such Ecclesiastical proceedings Indeed I see no reason why it should be counted necessary that a Parliament should be at the same time when the Parliament was not necessary for their confirmation The Act for the Kings Authority in confirming Constitutions Ecclesiastical 25 Hen. VIII 19. requires no more confirmation than that of the King And King James the I. grounds his confirmation of the Canons on that Act which yet none thinks extinguished with his Person There might have been more pretended for the necessity of a Parliament sitting at the same time with the Convocation antiently than can be now Then the Clergy acted Parliamentarily and had their Members in both Houses Yet not so but that even then we have had several Synods distinct from the Parliament Now the Convocation even in Parliament time is notwithstanding a distinct Body and a distinct Assembly from it since the Clergy have been excluded from the lower House and the Bishops sit in the upper House rather on account of their Baronies than their Spiritual Jurisdiction And their meeting and acting wholly depends on the Pleasure of the Prince and is not confined to Parliament times in the Act now mentioned I see not therefore why the Injunctions may not be counted Ecclesiastical Law still on the account of the Regal Authority by which they were set forth and why the explication given in them of the Oath of Supremacy may not still be allowed as a good Authority If it be requisite that the Oath have a certain Sense the Explication of the Oath cannot be esteemed a more temporary thing than the Oath it self is This at least will be reasonable that this Sense be taken for the true Sense of the Oath till it be contradicted and another substituted instead of it by the same Authority § XXIII AND yet though this should not hold we have all the confirmation of this Particular of the Injunctions that we need desire The grant of the Supremacy to the King in the Act now mentioned under Henry the VIII was grounded on the surrendry of the Clergy as appears from the Preamble of the Act it self What therefore was surrendred by the Clergy that same was the power that by the Act was vested in the Crown But concerning the Sense of the surrendry none can be supposed more competent Witnesses than the Body by which the surrendry was made Especially when the Act by which the Oath is explained by the Clergy is not only allowed but Authorized by the Regal power to which the surrendry was made Upon this account we we have reason to believe the Explication so given to be the sense of both parties concerned in the surrendry and to be as well accepted by the Prince as given by the Clergy which should alone be sufficient to satisfy all the reasonable Scruples that can be in this matter At least the Judgment of our Church must needs be satisfactory and a sufficient Authority to explain her own sense in this matter and to shew what liberty may be allowed a Member of our Church in it consistently with the principles of his Communion and his pretentions of being a Member of it and withall how other Acts of the same Church are to be interpreted And the sense of our Church of England both concerning the Oath and the now-mentioned Injunction is manifest in her xxxviith Article So she there teaches us Where we attribute to the Queens Majesty the chief Government by which Titles we understand the minds of some dangerous folks to be offended we give not to our Princes the ministring
either of Gods word or of the Sacraments the which thing the Injunctions also lately set forth by Elizabeth our Queen do most plainly testify But that only Prerogative which we see to have been given to all Godly Princes in Holy Scriptures by God himself that is that they should rule all estates and degrees committed to their charge by God whether they be Ecclesiastical or Temporal and restrain with the Civil sword the stubborn and evil doers Here we have the Explication in the Injunctions approved by our Church her self who gives us the same sense in her own words expressly and is fully satisfied with our believing the Prince ' s Right to govern both sorts of Persons By this we may also know her meaning in the words immediately preceding where she mentions all Causes that she did mean only such Causes as were absolutely necessary for making the Prince's Right perfectly practicable for governing the Persons of the Ecclesiasticks We are also here clearly and expressly discharged from all Obligation to believe Archbishop Cranmers singular Opinion and consequently from the belief of that Supremacy which was grounded on that Opinion without which I do not see how our Adversaries can ever be able to justify the validity of these Lay-deprivations And none that I know of doubts but that this Article at least of our Church does as much concern our times as those wherein it was first made § XXIV YET further that no Authority may be wanting we have this same Explication in the Injunctions expressly referred to and ratified in an Act of Parliament of the same Reign of Queen Elizabeth still in force and unrepealed The words are those Provided also that the Oath expressed in the said Act made in the first year shall be taken and expounded in such form as is set forth in an Admonition annexed to the Queens Majesty's Injunctions published in the first year of her Majesty's Reign That is to say to confess and acknowledge in her Majesty her Heirs and Successors none other Authority than that was challenged and lately used by the noble King Henry the VIII and King Edward the VI. as in the said Admonition more plainly may appear The word Admonition is taken from the Title of that particular Injunction wherein it is stiled an Admonition to simple Men deceived by Malicious that there may be no doubt but that the forementioned Injunction is intended in this Act. And that the Supremacy here assumed by the Queen and said to be the same that was challenged and lately used by King Henry the VIII and King Edward the VI. may not be so understood as to exclude the benefit of the Interpretation here referred to Indeed such a rigorous Construction had been perfectly to overthrow the whole Design of the Act in referring to it But that very Expression is used in the Injunction it self from whence the Parliament took it and therefore is to be understood in a sense consistent with the rest of the Injunction and therefore in a sense consistent with the renunciation of that singular Opinion of Archbishop Cranmer how much soever it may seem to have been supposed in the words of the Acts and to have been therefore the private sense of the Legislators themselves Yet they as well as the Queen her self think it was never the Legislators design even in those Reigns where it seems indeed to have been their sense to impose the belief of it on those who should take the Oath This must necessarily have been their sense when they refer us to the Injunction as expressing that sense of the Supremacy which they allowed and approved This must make the Explication in the Injunction theirs and consequently must make the true design of this Act as full to our purpose as the Injunction it self I need not now add to this Authority the Explication of the Supremacy by Archbishop Usher and approved of by King James the I. Much less the Opinions of the generality of our Divines since the beginning of Queen Elizabeth against that Opinion of Archbishop Cranmer without which as I have shewn it is impossible for our Adversaries to prove the validity of Lay Deprivations What some of them have reasoned from the Case of Solomon and Abiathar is the less to be regarded being destitute of Principles by which the like Practise had it really been such as they think it was can be proved allowable by the Doctrine of the Gospel and the Priesthood constituted by it nay being contrary to their own Doctrine concerning the Divine Right of Administring the Sacraments All that can be said is that by defending that Right of Solomon and by applying it to the Case of the Christian Magistrate with regard to the Popish Bishops who were of another Communion they may seem to have said things consequently applicable to our present Case of Bishops of the same Communion Yet whether they would have stood by this Consequence in Case of a Lay Deprivation of Protestant Bishops our Adversaries themselves cannot undertake and it is much more probable that many of them would not have stood by it But on the other side we can also say that when they denied the Right of Administring the Sacraments to be derived from the Magistrate they must by consequence deny the Right of Spiritual Government resulting from the Right of excluding refractory Subjects from the Sacraments and from the Spiritual Body and from the Rights annexed to that Body of CHRIST himself they must I say by necessary consequence deny this Spiritual Power to be the Magistrates Right they must by the same consequence deny all Right the Secular Magistrate can pretend to deprive of this Power which was never derived from him Thus there will be Consequence against Consequence But there is this difference between the two Consequences that ours reaches the present Case fully and directly but it may be questioned whether that of our Adversaries do so For it may well be questioned whether if the Lay Magistrate may deprive Popish Bishops of another Communion it will thence follow that he may also deprive Protestant Bishops of the same Communion as I shall shew hereafter § XXV BUT the second Canon of the year 1603. is objected against us The words are these Whosoever shall hereafter affirm that the Kings Majesty has not the same Authority in Causes Ecclesiastical that the Godly Kings had amongst the Jews and Christian Emperors in the Primitive Church or impeach in any part his Regal Supremacy in the said Causes restored to the Crown and by the Laws of this Realm therein established let him be Excommunicated ipso facto and not restored but only by the Archbishop after his repentance and publick revocation of those his wicked errors Here all that is affirmed to our Adversaries purpose is only this that our Kings have the same Authority in Causes Ecclesiastical that the Godly Kings had amongst the Jews But what that Authority was or what the
prepassessed by our Bishops must make the Schism and the erection of Altar against Altar imputable to them by the Principles now mention'd For theirs must be the Bishops which are Consecrated into full Sees Theirs therefore in the Reasoning of St. Cyprian ' s Age must be foras must be alieni must be not secundi but nulli And therefore the Communion which has since owned them must be divided from the true peculiar People and from all solid Claim to the Priviledges of that People § XXXIII BUT to return from whence I digressed to the Case of our Protestant Bishops true Antiquity was so far from allowing defects in Originals to invalidate Successions at such a distance as ours is from the beginning of the Reformation that they thought it not only most prudent but most just to silence such Disputes when the Persons injured were deceased and their Right extinguished with them having left no Succession behind them that might perpetuate their first Original Right In this Case they thought the Possession it self a sufficient Title to Right where there was none out of Possession that could pretend a better Right And that so as to look on it as just before GOD and as obliging the Consciences of the Subjects who had it in their Power to rebell not to do so This seems to be the ground of allowing Prescription by the Law of Nations sufficient to make a Cause just that had not been so otherwise It is indeed the Interest of Mankind in general which seems to have been the ground of this Law of Nations that all Controversies should at length have an end And it is agreeable to the same Interest that process of time and such a peaceable Possession as has no Rival that has a better Right should be allowed as an Expedient for ending Controversies concerning Right and therefore for determining the Right it self The Mischief to the Publick in disturbing a present Possession is more than can be recompensed by a Right that is no more than equal to that which has Possession already And there is no Succession in the World but in a Revolution of many Ages has some unjustifiable turns which must make its present Settlement litigious if such distant Injuries must be allowed on equal terms to do so This therefore makes it the common Interest to allow Prescription on such terms for a determination of Right And there is reason to believe that GOD who as Governour of the World is determined by the Publick Interest will judge it so and punish such as violate it accordingly Nor is there any thing in the Nature of Ecclesiastical Government as it is a Government of external Bodies and managed by Men of the like infirmities with those who are engaged in the Civil Government that can secure it against the like Violences of ambitious and unreasonable Men who will judge too partially in their own Case But it is no way probable that GOD will make any Souls but their own Responsible for such consequences as are by others unavoidable Yet such violences upon the Government may sometimes make a Breach in the due Succession and affect the direct conveyances of that Authority from GOD which is requisite for giving a Title to those Spiritual benefits to Souls which are the great designs of Ecclesiastical Communion When therefore this falls out to be the Case there will be reason to believe that GOD who judges himself as much obliged by the equity of his Covenants as Men usually think themselves obliged by the letter of theirs will perform what his Covenant would in Equity oblige him to perform notwithstanding any failings on Mans side which by the common Nature of such a visible Body as he has been pleased to constitute in his Church are unavoidable to truly diligent and Pious Communicants For this being a necessity of his own making in Constituting his Church such a Body when he might have made it otherwise his equity is more concerned to provide for the consequences of it And there is reason to believe that he has done it the same way as he has done in other visible Bodies of the like constitution As therefore by confirming present settlements where no better claim is in view GOD by the Law of Nations has taken care for the Bodies of Subjects in Secular Societies that they may not miscarry by ignorance of the duty justly expected from them in the station wherein he has placed them So there is reason to believe that he has not taken less care for the more valuable Interest of their Souls that they may not fail of the Favours designed for them by a necessity of his own contrivance and by them perfectly unavoidable And seeing he has warned us of no other 't is highly reasonable to presume he has Secur'd the validity of his conveyances by the Spiritual the same way he has done in the Secular Government by ratifying the present Constitution when it is not injurious to a better Title notwithstanding any faileurs unknown and unavoidable by the Subjects on account of the station which he has given them in it § XXXIV ACCORDINGLY it was Observable that even the two great Factions of the Donatists whose whole Schism was grounded upon an Extravagant Zeal for Discipline when they charged each other as it should seem very truly with being Traditors both of them being equally guilty they agreed to let the Controversy fall and refer it to GOD without ingaging in any farther Schism upon it Yet the Delivering up their Bibles to be Burnt was in their opinion at least such an Act of Communion with the Devil as had made the Persons who had really been guilty of it uncapable not only of Episcopal but also even of Lay-Communion which incapacity had it been proved might have made all their following Episcopal Acts questionable and justifyed Schisms in opposition to them by the same Principles by which both those Factions Defended their common Schism against the Catholick Church for the pretended Traditions of Caecilian and Felix And in this case these early Schismaticks are the more to be regarded because the Catholicks agreed with them in it that such Cases being left to GOD would not though the Facts had proed true prejudice the consequent Authority and Communion with GOD when no injury was done nor any Schism formed upon it So far they were of their minds in this particular that it is the professed Subject of those who wrote against them that such Personal crimes as these which if debated between Persons might have given one Person the advantage over another could not involve Posterity in the same guilt when there was no injury committed by it So far I say they were of their mind in this particular that they turn their Practice in this Case into an Argument against themselves as a professed condemnation of those Principles on which themselves proceeded in dividing from the Catholick Church Not much unlike this was
particulars of it were that our Church does not tell us here Yet without an enumeration of particulars none can tell what particulars were intended But these are rather to be judged of by other passages where the same Church tells us what that Authority was which she thought the Godly Kings had amongst the Jews This she her self tells us expresly in the Article She there tells us that the only Prerogative which we see to have been given always to all Godly Princes in Holy Scriptures by God himself is that they should rule all Estates and Degrees committed to their charge by God whether they be Ecclesiastical or Temporal and restrain with the Civil Sword the stubborn and evil doers If this Right of ruling the Ecclesiasticks be all that is asserted to the Prince by the Supremacy in Spirituals and that very ruling be only a restraining them with the Civil Sword these two things are so very exactly agreeable to our Doctrine that we can by no means be concerned in the censures mentioned in the Canon I might withall mention what I have already insisted on the approbation of the Explication in the Injunction in the same Article by which we are excused from believing that the Lay Magistrate has any Right to deprive Bishops of their Spiritual Power or from believing any thing from whence that may be solidly inferred For why should we not interprete the sense of our Church of England in her Canons by her sense in her Articles Why should we suspect she meant to Excommunicate her Members by her Canons where no particulars are expressed for particularly disowning that extent of secular Authority in Spirituals which in her Articles where she states the Question and tells us what she takes to be the Rights of Princes as expressed in the Scriptures she does not mention as a Right of the Jewish Kings nor consequently of our own We deny not our Kings a Right of driving Bishops away by the Civil Sword if no more be insisted on from the Case of Solomon and Abiathar And no more can be pretended to be the Right of our Kings by this Explication in the Article This is in truth an antient Right of the Supream Power even before it was Christian. The Emperor Aurelian had it though then a Pagan and afterwards a Persecutor and practised it with the approbation of the Primitive Church against Samosatenus Exile and imprisonment and confinement to a certain place such as that was of Abiathar to Anathoth we grant to be Temporal Punishments in the Power and Right of him whoever he be who has the Right of managing the Civil Sword But it is very plain by this Interpretation of the Queens Injunction allowed in this Article that our Church did not oblige to the rigour of some mens private opinions and particularly not to these of Archbishop Cranmer concerning the dependence of the Sacordotal Power on the Prince And therefore though there have been those who from that Case of Abiathar have inferred the deprivableness of the Episcopal Power by the Lay Magistrate there is no reason to believe that ever our Church in that Canon intended to exclude all such from Communion who could not come up to the heights of these private Oâ—â—â—ators The rather this is credible because I have already shewn that even in the times of King Henry the VIII and of King Edward the VI. when these Opinions were believed by the Legislators themselves they notwithstanding had not the confidence to impose them How much less were they likely to 〈◊〉 under King James the 〈◊〉 when these Opinions were generally disbelieved I am sure those Fathers who made those Canons could not with the least likelihood pretend that in those Times of the Primitive Church when the first Christian Emperors governed this Opinion was believed that all Spiritual Power was derived from the Emperor and was therefore deprivable by him Yet if they did not they could not give this Right of depriving Bishops of their Spiritual Power to our Kings considering that in this very same Canon they do not pretend to give our Kings any other Rights than what were owned in the first Christian Emperors by the Primitive Christians § XXVI WELL. But however our Adversaries think that the sense of the Legislators as explained by the Practise is against us that Laymen have been permitted the use of Spiritual Censures Such was that Case of Cromwell Such that of the Lay Civilians still permitted by the Spiritual Courts and defended by the Act of Parliament Such the late Commission Court empowered to suspend and deprive the Bishop of London consisting of Laicks mixt with Ecclesiasticks and a Lay President But Facts alone do by no means signifie the mind of the Legislators unless they be approved and agreeable to Principles Much less can they pretend to be Rules in Conscience to the Obedience of the Subjects For Princes do many things upon exigencies of state which even themselves do not approve when they are free from those exigencies So far they would be even themselves from imposing them generally on their Subjects Consciences And the Facts we are speaking of have been so rare and discontinued that even that is suffiâ—ient to shew that even the Princes themselves have done them unwillingly and with regret and under the necessity of those very exigencies I need not repeat what I have already observed to this purpose in the Reigns of King Henry the VIII and King Edward the VI. As for the Commission Court it is no wonder if King James the II. took the utmost liberty that Protestant Lawyers allowed as Law It is rather to be admir'd that Protestant Lawyers should help him to an Expedient so hurtful to their own Communion and that upon such slender grounds as a few Facts which they were pleased upon so little probability to allow as Precedents The Bishop of London then when it was his own case did not think the Laymen his competent Judges in order to his suspension or deprivation from Spirituals And those Lawyers who had so much zeal not as to pervert them but keep them equal and unbiassed between both extreams did think his Plea not only equitable in conscience but warrantable in Law It were well his Lordship and those Lawyers would recollect how applicable those things are to our present case which themselves so zealously defended then As for the Act in favour of the Lay Civilians it self complains of the rareness of such Examples then because of the averseness of the Bishops to imploy such persons on such affairs That is sufficient to shew how much it was even then against the sense of the Ecclesiasticks who were the only competent Judges of Right in matters of this nature with regard to Conscience Since that time it has been still more disagreeable though the Practice has continued on account of that Act in favour of it Yet it has furnished the Non-conformists with an Objection and that such an one
as has put the Defenders of the Church rather on Excuses than Defences A plain token they would rather have wished it otherwise if the Lay Powers who had introduced this custom would have given leave None have been more zealous in this particular than our modern Latitudinarians a Party which has been of late as taking among our Lay Nobility and Gentry as among the Ecclesiasticks themselves Accordingly there has been a shift found that the censures adjudged by the Lay Civilians should be published by Presbyters that so the Censures themselves might seem to proceed from the purely Spiritual Authority The like care is taken in the Canons made in the time of King James the I. that when a Sentence of Deprivation or Deposition is to be pronounced against a Minister it be pronounced by the Bishop himself with the assistance of his Chancellor the Dean if they may conveniently be had and some of the Prebendaries if the Court be kept near the Cathedral Church or of the Archdeacon if he may be had conveniently and two others at the least grave Ministers and Preachers to be called by the Bishop when the Court is kept in other places The less these things agree with the Private not as I have shewn imposed sense of the Legislators in that Act which was by asserting directly the Right of such Authorized Lay Doctors for inflicting such Consuâ—es to assert consequently the Right of the King though a Layman also for being a Fountain and Original of all Spiritual Power the more they shew the sense of our late Princes and all that are concerned in the Practice of these Lay Judges in Spirituals now since these Canons are Authorized that this Practise as it is continued now cannot argue any design of the Legislators to oblige Persons who take the Oath to mean any such â—enchroaching notion of the Supremacy But let the most that can be be made of this Argument from Practise it is notwithstanding certain that as none but allowed Practise can be fairly suppos'd to prove the sense of Authority so that Practise which is most agreeable to allowed Doctrines and Explications has the fairest Pretensions to be taken for allowed And such Practise I have shewn to be in favour of ours rather than our Adversaries Opinions by shewing that we take no more liberty than what we were allowed to take by Authorized Explications § XXVII BUT there will be no need of proving Archbishop Cranmer ' s Principles to be the Doctrine of our times if our present succession cannot be maintained without defending them And that is thought to be our present Case For an Invalidity in the Original must affect all those later Orders that are derived from the same faulty Original For if the first Ordainer could convey no Power to the Person Ordained by him neither can the second who has himself received no Power give any Power to a third nor that third for the same reason to a fourth nor much less to any remoter degree of distance from the same Original If therefore the Deprivation of the Popish Bishops which was no other than Laical was invalid then their Protestant Successors in the same Sees yet full if the Deprivation was invalid were not second Bishops but none by the Doctrine of St. Cyprian ' s Age defended by us which will affect all the Titles since derived from those Successors It is thought to affect the Right of all who have succeeded them in the same Sees who deriving their Right from the first Successors then have no better Right than they had from whom they derived all they pretend to have and therefore can have none if the others had none to give them Nor is it thought only to affect them but all those other Bishops also who have been since Consecrated into other Sees by those who being themselves no Bishops could no more Consecrate Bishops into other Sees than keep up a Succession in their own Either therefore we must allow the validity of that first Lay Deprivation or we cannot in our Adversaries Opinion defend any Right in our present deprived Fathers For if they have any our Adversaries think it must be founded on the validity of that Lay Deprivation of the Popish Bishops which could not otherwise legitimate the Title of their first Predecessors of the Reformation For unless this Act of the State was entirely valid they think their Title must fall to the ground And if a Lay Deprivation could vacate Sees for the first Predecessors of our Fathers now concerned our Adversaries think the like Lay Deprivation may now also vacate our present Fathers Sees so as to legitimate Successors in them But if we should upon that supposed Invalidity of the Lay Deprivation of the Popish Bishops make the first Protestant Bishops in the same Sees uncapable of receiving the Episcopal Power then they think we cannot assert our deprived Fathers ever to have had any Right even before the Deprivation And then it will be of no consequence whether this Lay Deprivation be valid or not We cannot in that Case as they think pretend any Right our Fathers can have now though the Lay Deprivation had been as invalid as we conceive it to be § XXVIII I need not here insist on the Royal Commissions taken out by Bishop Bonner and as many as followed his Example for their Spiritual Power in the licentious Stile of Archbishop Cranmer Yet these will afford a sufficient reason for the validity of the Lay Deprivations of as many as concerned themselves in such Commissions which notwithstanding will not be applicable to the Case of our Fathers now For by taking these Commissions from the King they might in Law be supposed to have renounced the better Title they had to their Spirituals from Christ and his Apostles If this be true they could thence-forward have no more Power than what the Lay Magistrate could confer upon them Euher therefore they did really receive Power from the Magistrate or they received none If they did receive Power from him then no doubt what Power he could give them of that he was able by the same Right to deprive them If they received none all that can be gathered from the Invalidity of the Lay Deprivation is only that it must leave them in the same Right in which it found them If therefore they had no Power before the Lay Deprivation it is no matter whether the Lay Deprivation were valid or not As they lost no Power by an Invalid Deprivation so neither to be sure could they gain any by it Having none before they had none to be deprived of and therefore could have none that could oblige the Consciences of Subjects to stand by them against even an Invalid Deprivation But this cannot be pretended to be our present Fathers Case They have not God be prais'd betrayed their better Title to their Spirituals by taking out a Commission from a Power which had no Right to