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Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
england_n	bishop_n	king_n	scotland_n	4,378	5	8.3735	4	true

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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A93888	An ansvver to a letter vvritten at Oxford, and superscribed to Dr. Samuel Turner, concerning the Church, and the revenues thereof. Wherein is shewed, how impossible it is for the King with a good conscience to yeeld to the change of church-government by bishops, or to the alienating the lands of the Church.	Steward, Richard, 1593?-1651.; J. T.; Turner, Samuel, D.D.	1647 (1647)	Wing S5516; Thomason E385_4; ESTC R201455	34,185	56

AN ANSVVER TO A LETTER VVritten at OXFORD And superscribed to Dr. SAMVEL TVRNER Concerning the CHURCH and the Revenues thereof Wherein is shewed how impossible it is for the King with a good conscience to yeeld to the change of Church-Government by Bishops or to the alienating the Lands of the Church Printed in the Yeere MDCXI VII Faults escaped correct thus Page 5. line 30. for Lawes read Lands p. 7. l. 30. r. preserving p. 9. l. 8. r. this in the Postscript p. 12. l. 20. r. visum p. 17. l. 15. r. and elsewhere part p. 18. l. 27. for then r. that p. 19. l. 11. for since r. sure p. 19. l. 15. r. aliquid p. 20. l. 20. for this r. the p. 21. l. ult. r. that error ibid. l. ult. r. that consent p. 24. l. 8. r. Creet ibid. l. 27. r. Apostolicall p. 31. l. 14. r. vindicta p. 35. l. 26. dele not p. 39. l. 1 r. must not p. 44. l. 5. for there r. other p. 47. l. ult. r. preserve p. 50. l. 3. r. the Commons p. 51. l. 22. for 〈◊〉 r. are p. 52. l. 19. dele that A Letter written to D. SAMUEL TURNER concerning the Church and the Revenues thereof Noble Doctor I Expected when you had seen the Kings last Messages your reason would have prompted you to have look'd this way which caused a delay in sending unto you untill the difficulty of the passage made me suspect whether this may come safe to you and by the preparations and designes here I feare I shall not have another oportunity take this therefore as a farwell-truth that the moderate party here are at their Ne plus ultra the presbyterians Independants will agree and the Scots and we shall not fall out and it must now be the wisdome of your selfe and such as have power and interest with the King to save him your selves and Country from ruine Your visible strength to hold out much lesse to prevaile is too well known here and your hopes from France and Ireland will soon vanish which if successefull by a victorious Army which I beleeve you shall never see would but make you and us slaves to a forraign Nation and extirpate that Religion both sides pretend to maintaine To be plaine I know no way left you but to accept such conditions of peace as may be had you are too much a souldier to thinke a retreate upon so many disadvantages dishonourable to a Generall or acceptance of hard conditions by a starved beleagured Garrison to the Governour In short of evils choose the least and I must tell you it is expected from you and the more wise and honest party with you that they should make use of their reason and advise the King to save what is left wherein it is believed you may prevaile considering what hath already passed in so many free offers to give satisfaction in the Militia Ireland paiment of the publique Debts choice of Judges Lord Admirall Officers of State and others with an Act of oblivion and free Pardon free exercise of Religion to Presbyterians and Independants their own way and a promise to endeavour in all particulars that none shall have cause to complaine for want of security things so farre beyond our former hopes that I cannot doubt but the same reason which moved the offer of these will obtaine to concession of such others as the Parliament shall require in order to peace which as neere as I can guesse will be either the removall and punishment of evill Counsellors and Ministers who have drawn the King into these troubles or the busines of the Church all other materiall things to my apprehension being already offered For the first of these I know not how you can with reason gain-say the bringing offenders to Justice and if the Parliament Prerogative streine justice in the tryall and punishment beyond example of better times it were wisdome for such as may therein be concerned to withdraw Dum furer in cursu for if it must come to suffering Melius unus quam unitas for the busines of the Church I wish it could be prevented there are who can witnesse the labour and hazards I have undergone for that end conceiving no government equall to a well ordered Episcopall for the well-being of this Church and State But when the necessity of times hath proposed this sad question for resolution whether consent to alter Episcopall government in the Church or let both Church and State ruine together my reason assents to the former I beleeve the doctrine of the place where you are would perswade the contrary and it hath been from thence transmitted hither as an orthodox truth that the altering that government being as they say jure divino is sinfull and the taking away the Church-lands sacriledge at least unlawfull which if I could believe would change my opinion for I cannot give way for the committing a sin for a good end what ever the Romanist or Jesuited Puritan pretend in defence of it but if I mistake not and if I doe I pray reforme me the opinion that the government by Bishops is jure divino hath but lately been countenanced in England and that but by some few of the more Lordly Clergy for we alwayes acknowledge the Protestants of Germany the Low Countryes and elsewhere part of the reformed Protestant Catholique Church though they had no Bishops and I am certaine the King would never have given way for the extirpation of Bishops in Scotland had he conceived them to be jure divino nor to the Presbyterians and Independants here to exercise their Religion their own way as by his late Messages when such a tolleration in the face of such a divine Law must needs be sinfull and for the latter opinion against taking away of Church Lands I am lesse satisfyed being so farre from conceiving it sacriledge that I do not conceive it unlawfull but may be done without breach of any Law which must be the rule for tryal of the lawfulnes or unlawfulnes of every action nay though there be never so many curses or imprecations added to the donation nor do I herein ground my opinion barely upon the frequent practise of former times not only by Acts of Parliament in the times of Queen Eliz and King James and King Charles if you have not forgotten the exchange of Durham house aswell as Henry the eighth but even by the Bishops themselves and Deanes and Chapters insomuch that if the wisdome of the State after Clergy men were permitted to marry had not prohibited their alienations and restrained their Leases to 21. yeares or 3. lives their Revenues at this day would not have been subject to envy But to deale clearely with you Doctor I do not yet understand how there can be any Sacriledge properly so called which is not a theft and more viz. a theft of something dedicated to holy use a Communion-Cup for instance or the like theft you know must

And it cannot therefore be remitted but by them alone for whose sake the Oath was taken So that when in the second Paragraph of the first clause and more plainly in the fift he sweares a benefit to the Bishops alone in the behalfe of them and their Churches t is apparent that this Oath must perpetually bind except a remission can be obtained from the Bishops themselves and their Churches he was sworne to This then must be confessed to be the sense of the oath that when the King hath first sworn in generall to grant keepe and confirme the Lawes and Customes of the people of England he farther yet particularly sweares unto the Clergy to preserve their Lawes and Priviledges and Customes because since they are not able to make a negative in Parliament so that the Clergy may easily be swallowed up by the People and the Lords Therefore in a more particular manner they have obtained an oath to be made unto them by the King which being for their particular benefit it cannot be remitted without their expresse consent so that although an Act of Parliament being once passed by the Votes of the King and both Houses it doth Sir as you have told me bind the whole People of England yea the whole People as it includes the Clergy too yet it concernes the King by vertue of his Oath to give his Vote unto no such Act as shall prejudice what he hath formerly sworne unto them except he can first obtain their expresse consent that he may be thereby freed from his juratory obligation It may be said perhaps that in the consent given by both Houses of Parliament the consent of the Clergy is tacitely implyed and so it is say our Lawyers as you have told me Sir in respect of the power obligatory which an Act so passed obtaines upon them for they affirme that it shall as strongly bind the Clergy as if they themselves had in expresse termes consented to it Although Bishops being men barred from their Votes in Parliament And neither they nor their inferiour Clergy having made choice of any to represent them in that great Councell their consents can in no faire sense be said to be involved in such Acts as are done as well without their representative presence as they once without their personall But the Question is whether a tacite consent though it be indeed against their expresse wils can have a power remissory to absolve the King from his Oath he that affirmes it hath must resolve to meet with this great absurdity that although besides his Generall Oath unto the whole People of England His Majesty be in particular sworne unto the Rights of the Clergy yet they obtaine no more benefit by this then if he had sworn onely in generall which is as much as to say that in this little draught Oathes are multiplyed without necessity nay without signification at all and that the greater part of the first and the whole fourth clause are nothing else but a meere painfull draught of superfluous tautologies For his yeelding to the two first lines swears him to keep and confirme the Lawes and customes of the whole people of England which word People includes those of the Clergy too and therefore in generall their Lawes and Customes are confirmed no doubt in those words and so confirmed that they cannot be shaken but at least by their tacite consent in a Parliamentary way But since the King condescends to afford to their Rights a more particular juratory tye there is no doubt but it binds in a way too that is more particular so that His Majesty cannot expect a remission of this oath without their consents clearely expressed For as when the King sweares to keep the Lawes of the People in general he cannot be acquitted but by the expresse consent of the people or by a body that represents the People quatenus the people so that when in particular he sweares unto the Lawes and Customes of the Clergy this Oath must needs bind until it be remitted in an expresse forme either by the whole Clergy themselves or by some Body of men at least that represents the Clergy quatenus the Clergy and not only as they are involved in the great body of the People so that he that shall presume to perswade His Majesty to passe an Act in prejudice of this ecclesiastical Body to whom he is thus sworn without their expresse consent first obtained councels him to that which is both grosly injurious unto his fellow Subjects nay which is indeed a most damnable wickednesse against the very soule of the King Sir as I conceive t is now plaine enough that if the Parliament should destroy the Episcopall Order and take away the Lands of the Church the Houses in that Act would runne themselves into two sinnes and His Majesty into three and upon this supposition the Epistler and I are agreed I do not thinke saith he Conveniency or Necessity will excuse Conscience in a thing in it selfe unlawfull and before that he calls the contrary the Tenet of the Romanist or Jesuited Puritan Onely I would beseech him for his own soules sake to consider how great a scandall he hath given to mankind in defence of such sinnes as these For I conceive that Durand offended more in holding Fornication was no sinne against the Law naturall then Shechem did who was onely under that Law in his Lust upon old Jacobs Daughter Fraudem legi facere saith the Civilian is worse then Legem violare it argues a more un-Subject-like disposition for a man to put tricks and quirks upon his Prince his Lawes then to runne himselfe into a down-right violation And God we know is King I am a great King saith the Lord of Hosts and a King in whose hand is vengeance Malach. 1. 14. T is true Sir we are thus put into a very sad condition when the only Option that seemes left us now is either to choose sinne or ruine but yet if well used t is a condition glorious a condition wherein all that noble Army of Martyrs stood before they could come at Martyrdome and if in preparation of mind we thus lay our lives downe at the feet of Christ I am undoubtedly perswaded t is our only way to preserve them FINIS 25. H. 8. c. 19. Epist. Ans. Epist Ans. Epist. Ans. 2 Sam. 7. Act. 27. 8. Mal. 3. 8. Aquin. 2. 2. qu. 39. Art 1. Ibid. Art 3. 〈◊〉 verum de Furto Gel. l. 11. c. ●lt L. verum

feare that if I should perhaps dissent in opinion from this Epistler I might be thought at least in his conceite to incurre a sharpe censure both in point of reason and honesty Which I confesse at first somewhat troubled me untill I remembred you were wont to say that when vessels do once make such noises as these t is a very shrewd signe they are empty He who wrote the Letter seemes most desirous of Peace and truly Sir so am I besides we agree in this that we must not commit sinne for a good end so that if Peace it selfe cannot be attained without that guilt we must be content with a worse estate But you very well know with how many severall deceipts our affections can mislead our reason you remember who it was that said it unto the very face of a Prophet I have kept the commandement of the Lord and yet his sin remained still a great sinne and much the worse because he excused it For his guilt is lesse that commits a crime then his that undertakes to defend it because this cuts off all repentance nay it makes a sin to grow up into that more wicked heighth of a scandall and so t is not only a snare to the sinner himselfe but it warrants many more to be sinfull Whether this Oxford Londoner for so I take the Epistler to be hath not defended or made apologies for sinne and hath not in that sense done evil that good may come thereof I am now to make an enquiry and I shall follow him in his two generals 1. The delivering up the Kings friends whom they above call evil counsellors And 2. The businesse of the Church 1. For the Kings friends He sayes I know not how you can with reason gainsay the bringing offenders to justice indeed nor I neither but what if they be not offenders What if they must be brought to injustice I know no man that will refuse to be judged by a Parliament whose undoubted Head is the King and the King sitting there with an unquestioned Negative nay for his Majesty to referre Delinquents to be judged by the House of Peers sitting in a free Parliament and judging according to the known Lawes of the Realme is that at least which in my opinion would not be stucke at But the Parliament prerogative which this Letter speakes of being now so extended as we have cause to thinke it is I doubt in this case whether not only in point of honour but in point of justice and conscience the King for his own Peace can leave his friends to such men whom he is clearely bound by so many grand ties to protect But this Sir I shall commit to you to determine and if you returne me a negative I shall not presume to question your reason or honesty nor shall I perswade the Kings friends that they would banish themselves unlesse it were only to do that great favour to the two Houses now at Westminster as to keep them from some future foule acts of oppression and bloud because they shall have none left to act upon 2. For the busines of the Church which he againe divides into two parts first that of Episcopacy secondly of Sacriledge And in these Sir I shall speake with lesse hesitation I shall clearely tell you the Epistler is cleane out and though you very well know me a great honourer of your profession yet I cannot hold it fit to decide cases of conscience or in humane actions to tell us what is sinne or no sinne and I am confident Sir you will not take this ill at my hands First for Episcopacy his words are if I mistake not and if I do I pray reforme me The opinion that the government by Bishops is jure divino hath but lately been countenanced in England and that by some few of the more Lordly Cleargy These last words make me suspect some passion in the Writer as being in scorne heretofore taken up by men who for a long time were Schismatiques in their hearts and are now Rebels in their actions And since the Lawes of this Land makes some Church men Lords I do the more marvaile that the Epistler lookes awry upon it so that though his profession be that he has undergone labours and hazards for the Episcopall Government yet truly Sir I must thinke that t is then only fit for the Church to give him thankes when she has done all her other busines But grant that Tenet to be but of late countenanced it thence followes not that t is any whit the lesse true For in respect of the many hundred yeares of abuse the reformation it selfe was but of late countenanced here yet I take it for an unquestionable truth that the Laity ought to have the cuppe And though I was not desired to reforme this Epistlers errour yet in charity I shall tell him that he is out when he affirmes that this opinion was but of late countenanced in this Church as I could shew him out of Archbishop Whitgift and Bishop Bilson and others and since perhaps he may thinke these to be but men of the more Lordly Clergy I shall name one more who may stand for many and who wrote forty yeares since that most excellent man M. Hooker a person of most incomparable learning and of as much modesty who I dare be bold to say did not once dreame of a Rotchet he averres in cleare tearmes There are at this day in the Church of England no other then the same degrees of Ecclesiasticall order namely Bishops Presbyters and Deacons which had their beginning from Christ and his blessed Apostles themselves or as he expounds himselfe Bishops and Presbyters ordained by Christ himselfe in the Apostles and the seventy and then Deacons by his Apostles I may adde Bucer too no man I am sure of the Lordly Clergy who though he were not English born yet he was professor here in King Edwards time and he wrote and dyed in this Kingdome Bishops saith he are Ex perpetua ecclesiarum ordinatione ab ipsis jam Apostolis and more Usum hoc est spiritui sancto and sure if Bishops be from the Apostles and from the holy Spirit himselfe they are of divine institution Nay what thinke you if this Tenet be approved by a plaine act of Parliament I hope then it wants no countenance which England can give it and it needs not fly for shelter under the wings of the Lordly Cleargy you have these words in the booke of Consecration of Archbishops and Bishops which is confirmed by Parliament It is evident to all men reading holy Scriptures and ancient Authors that from the Apostles times there have been these orders of Ministers in Christs Church Bishops Presbyters and Deacons And againe the prayer in the forme of consecration of Bishops Almighty God giver of all good things which by thy holy Spirit hast appointed divers orders of Ministers in thy Church mercifully behold this thy servant now called to

the worke and ministery of a Bishop and in questions to the person to be consecrated a Bishop Are you perswaded that you be truly called to this Ministration according to the will of our Lord Jesus c. I beseech you Sir consider whether these words or this prayer could fall from any man not possessed with this Tenet that Episcopacy was of divine right For if the three orders may be found by reading the holy Scriptures together with ancient Authors if men are taught to pray that God by his Spirit has appointed divers orders in his Church and this made the ground of praying for the present Bishop if the person to be consecrated must professe that he conceives he is called according to the will of our Lord Jesus Christ either all this must be nothing else but pure pagentry and then the Parliament mocked God by their Confirmation or else Episcopacy is grounded in Scripture is appointed by the Spirit of God is according to the will of our Lord Jesus and all this hath not been said of late nor countenanced only by some few of the more Lordly Cleargy And we have the lesse reason to doubt that this Tenet was countenanced in this Church of ours because we find it in those parts that have lost Episcopacy for we are told by Doctor Carlton after Bishop of Chichester and that wrote against the Arminians more then twenty five yeares since that sitting at Dort he then protested in open Synod That Christ instituted no parity but made twelve Apostles the chiefe and under them seventy Disciples That Bishops succeeded to the twelve and to the seventy Presbyters of an inferiour ranke he affirmed this order had been still maintained in the Church and then challenged the judgement of any learnned man that could speake to the contrary Their answer was silence which was approbation enough but after saith he discoursing with diverse of the best learned in the Synod he told them how necessary Bishops were to suppresse their then risen Schismes their answer was That they did much honour and reverence the good order and Discipline of the Church of England and with all their hearts would be glad to have it established among them but that could not be hoped for in their State Their hope was that seeing they could not do what they desired God would be mercifull unto them if they did but what they could If they hoped for mercy that might pardon what they did sure they must suppose that what they then did was sinfull Nay they thought their necessity it selfe could not totally excuse their sinne for then in that particular there had been no need to hope for Gods mercy nor could they well thinke otherwise since being pressed they denyed not but that Episcopacy was of Christs own institution and yet they were no Lordly Clergy nor do I well see how either by charitable or civil men they can at all be taxed either for want of reason or honesty 1. Indeed some seem to startle at this Tenet that Episcopacy is of Divine right as if because Divine it might therefore seem to endanger Monarchal power But under favour I conceive this fear to be among us very groundlesse for since the Tenents of our Church are in this particular the very self same with the ancient times as that the Bishops have no power but what is meerely directive only that all power co-active either in them or in others is derived meerly from the Royal authority that they cannot legally make use no not so much as of this directive power but only by the Kings leave So that if the temporall Lawes should forbid them to preach that which in point of salvation is necessary to be spoken yet they cannot preach but upon the forfeiture of their Heads and those being demanded by the Kings Lawes they must submit to a Martyrdome though t were sinne in them that demand it so that in the execution of all ecclesiastical power the supremacy is in the King alone these I say being so much the Tenets of our Church that I conceive there is no learned man amongst us who would not readily subscribe to them I cannot see at all where in the opinion we defend any danger lies to this Monarchy But examine the Presbyterian principles and you will clearely find Kings and they cannot stand together for either you consider that new government in the Scotish sence which allowes no appeale to any other power and then t is plaine that where men admit this they admit of a supremacy which doth not reside in the King and by consequent of two severall supremacies within the bounds of the selfe same Kingdome which can no more stand with Monarchy then it can with Monogamy to be maried to two severall wives And though t is said that this Presbyterian government meddles only with spirituall things which concerne the good of the soule and so it cannot hurt Regall power yet this is but onely said and no more for it is well known that in ordine ad spiritualia and all things may by an ordinary wit be drawn into this ranke as they have been by the Church of Rome this government intrudes upon what things it pleaseth and indeed where a supremacy is once acknowledged no wise man can thinke that it will carry it selfe otherwise So that King James his maxime was undoubtedly most true upon this same ground we are on No Bishop no King For that most prudent Prince did soone discerne that if a power were once set up which at least in the legall execution of it did not derive it selfe from the King there was no doubt to be made but it would ere long destroy the very King himselfe Or consider Presbyterian government in the English sense as it is now set up by the Two Houses at Westminster which is a government limited by an appeale to the Parliament for either by Parliament here they meane the Two Houses excluding the King and then t is as plain as before they set up two supremacies his Majesties and their owne or else by Parliament they meane the King with both Houses and then it will follow that either there must be a perpetuall Parliament which sure neither King nor Kingdome can have cause to like or else the supremacy will be for the most part in the Presbytery because when ever a Parliament sits not there will be no Judge to appeale to or if it be said the Parliament may leave a standing Committee to receive appeales in such ecclesiasticall causes then either in this Committee the King hath no negative and in that case t is clear that the ecclesiasticall supremacy will be not at all in the King or else the King hath a negative but yet is joyned with persons whom he himself chooses not and so most probably will be check'd and affronted in any sentence he intends to give and this clearely overthrowes that which is already declared by Parliament to