ever was who setting his feet on two of Gods Kingdoms the one upon the Sea the other upon the Earth lifting up his hand to Heaven as you are to do this day and so Swearing Rev. 10. c. and consider how he there makes this Oath to be the most effectual means for the ruining Popery and Prelacy and leaves it to be consider'd whether seeing the preservation of Popery hath been by Leagues and Covenants God may not make a League and Covenant to be its Destruction after he had before-mention'd the Associations of the Religious Orders and Fraternities and the Combination by the la Sainte Ligue for the muniting of Popery as incentives to this League and how he doth again go to the Magazine of the Apocalypse for some Weapons for this Covenant and hath other artillery for it from the Iewish State citing the words of the Prophet Let us joyn our selves to the Lord in a perpetual Covenant that shall not be forgotten how according to the ratio nominis of Superstition viz. of mens over-importunate Prayers that their Children might out-live them he concludes with a devout Prayer that this Covenant may out-live their Childrens Children and let any one behold in Mr. Henderson's Speech the like flame of Enthusiastick Zeal or of the Superstition quam vulgo bonam intentionem vocant against Superstition and Idolatry in Worship c. and concluding it with his belief that the weight of that Covenant would cast the balance in our English Wars I say let any one consider all this and tell me if ever he saw a more pompous Scene of Superstition and more magnificent Procession bestow'd on it and contrived as Bishop Sanderson's words are in his Lecture De bonâ intentione and having his eye on that Covenant viz. Obtentu gloriae Dei reformandae Religionis propagandi Evangelii extirpandae superstitionis exaltandi regni Domini nostri Iesu Christi and if ever he saw what the Bishop in that Lecture calls The Iesuites Theology viz. Omnia metiri ex Commodo Sanctae matris Ecclesiae more strongly asserted then in the Contexture and Imposition of that Covenant But those two Divines lived to recover their Allegiance and a due sense of their Oaths for it and to see that foetus of their Brain that at its solemn Christning they wish'd immortality to renounced publickly as a spurious Birth and to the Scandal of that Age a race of other Oaths in England as infamously born intercept its inheritance Nay let me tell you that in the Nation of Scotland Loyalty hath been a growing Plant of Renown since the year 1660. and the Idol of their former Covenanted Presbytery been by the Loyal Nobility and Gentry and Populace there generally abhorr'd And tho Sir George Wharton in his Gesta Britannorum relates it as a strange thing that on the 21st of August A. 1663. the Parliament of Scotland Passâ—…d an Act for a National Synod the first that ever was in that Kingdom under the Government of Bishops yet I can tell you of an Act of Parliament that pass'd there afterward that declared the right of the Crown to dispense in the external Government of the Church I shall entertain you with it out of the Scotch Statutes viz. In the first Session of the Second Parliament of King Charles the Second there pass'd an Act asserting His Majesty s Supremacy over all Persons and in all Causes Ecclesiastical Edenburgh November 16 th 1669. THe Estates of Parliament having seriously considered how necessary it is for the Good and Peace of the Church and State That His Majesty's Power and Authority in relation to Matters and Persons Ecclesiastical be more clearly asserted by an Act of Parliament Have therefore thought fit it be Enacted Asserted and Declared Like as his Majesty with Advice and Consent of his Estates of Parliament doth hereby Enact Assert and Declare That his Majesty hath the Supreme Authority and Supremacy over all Persons and in all Causes Ecclesiastical within this his Kingdom and that by virtue thereof the Ordering and Disposal of the External Government and Policy of the Church doth properly belong to his Majesty and his Successors as an inherent Right to the Crown And that his Majesty and his Successors may Setle Enact and Emit such Constitutions Acts and Orders concerning the Administration of the External Government of the Church and the Persons employed in the same and concerning all Ecclesiastical Meetings and Matters to be proposed and determined therein as they in their Royal Wisdom shall think fit Which Acts Orders and Constitutions being recorded in the Books of Councel and duly published are to be observed and obeyed by all his Majesty's Subjects any Law Act or Custom to the contrary notwithstanding Like as his Majesty with Advice and Consent aforesaid doth Rescind and Annul all Laws Acts and Clauses thereof and all Customs and Constitutions Civil or Ecclesiastick which are contrary to or inconsistent with his Majesty's Supremacy as it is hereby asserted and declares the same void and null in all time coming A. You told me before how the King dispens'd with the five Articles of Perth setled by Act of Parliament but this Act yields so great a territory to the Dispensative Power that my thoughts cannot suddenly travel through it It acknowledgeth in the Crown a more sublime Power then of dispensing with Presbyterians or Independents or of suspending the Penal Laws against them namely of abolishing Episcopacy and of making Presbytery or Independency the National Church-Government Car tel est notre plaisir now for the external Form of Church-Government is allow'd to make the Pattern in the Mount. And 〈◊〉 accordingly as Mr. Baxter in his Book call'd a Search for the Schismaticks represents Archbishop Bramhal's new way of asserting the Church of England in his Book against him 1. To abhor Popery 2. That we all come under a foreign spiritual Iurisdiction obeying the Pope as the Western Patriarch and also as the Principium Unitatis to the Universal Church governing by the Canons c. may not the King by this Act make the external Government of the Church of Scotland Patriarchal and the Pope Patriarch B. The Act needs no Comment and if you will tell me that the Scots shew'd themselves Erastians or Latitudinarians when they made it I shall acquaint you that that Archbishop in his Schism guarded p. 319. asserts That a Sovereign Prince hath Power within his own Dominions for the Publick good to change any thing in the external Regiment of the Church which is not of divâ—…ne Institution and that he had in p. 4. of that Book allow'd the Pope his Principium unitatis and his Preheminence among Patriarchs as S. Peter had among the Apostles and that in p. 78. of his Iust Vindication of the Church of England he takes notice that by the Statute of Carlisle made in the days of Edward the First it was declared That the Holy Church of England was founded in the
request them to consider that a Private Interpretation of a Publick Act can give no satisfaction unless it be either expresly or virtually allow'd by the highest Authority that doth impose it and then it is made Publick c. But the Authority of Interpretation of any doubt in such a Publick Act belongs properly not to private but publick Persons c. For private Men tho Learn'd if they take upon them the Interpretation of publick Dictates may be more like to light on mutual Contradictions of each other then on the true and proper Construction of the Text they interpret So did Vega and Soto Soto and Catherinus who wrote against each other contrary Comments on the Council of Trent In which respect it was a wise advice given to the Pope by the Bishop of Bestice viz. to appoint a Congregation for the expounding of the Councel and well follow'd by him when he forbade all sorts of Persons Clerks or Laicks being private Men to make any Commentaries Glosses Annotations or any Interpretation whatsoever on the Decrees of that Councel Dr. Burgesse indeed made an Interpretation of his own Subscription but there had been no validity in it as we conceive unless it had been allow'd by the Superior Powers And so it was for as he saith It was accepted by King James and the Archbishop of Canterbury affirm'd it to be the true sense and meaning of the Church of England He refers there to Dr. Burgesse in his Answer to a much applauded Pamphlet Praefat. p. 26. A. Your mentioning that of Dr. Burgesse his Interpretation of his Subscription minds me of what I have read at the end of his Book call'd No Sacrilege nor Sin to alienate or purchase Cathedral Lands viz. in his Postscript to Dr. Pearson and his No Necessity of Reformation of the Publick Doctrine of the Church of England Printed A. 1660. where he saith As touching the Regal Supremacy we own and will assert it as far as you do or dare Only we had reason to take notice of the improper Expression in the 37th Article that the Queen's Majesty hath the Supreme Power For if the Declaration father'd on the late King and prefix'd to the Articles had so much Power with his Printer that he durst not alter the word Queen into King even in the year 1642 and those Articles must be read Verbatim without Alteration or Explanation then we say again there is a Necessity of Reforming that Article in the expression of it and not to talk at random what was indeed the meaning unless we may have leave when we read it Regiâ declaratione non-obstante to declare the sense which the Declaration alloweth us not to do But the truth is that exception of the Doctor to the Articles may well pass for a Scruple or rather a Cavil and at this rate we should be put to it to say O King interpret for ever B. You say right Dr. Pierson in that Judicious Book of his call'd No Necessity of Reforming the Doctrine of the Church of England well observes that the 37th Article hath express reference to the Queen's Injunctions set forth in the year 1559. and those Injunctions take particular care that no other Duty Allegiance or Bond should be required to the Queen then was acknowledged to be due to the most noble Kings of famous Memory King Henry the 8th her Majesty's Father or King Edward the 6th her Majesty's Brother The words of the Article declare that the Doctrine contained in it concerneth all the Kings as Kings The title in General is of the Civil Magistrates and the words run thus where we attribute to the Queen's Majesty the chief Government we give not to our Princes c. shewing that what they gave to her they gave to all the Kings of England Which will appear more plainly out of the first Latine Copy Printed in the time of Queen Eliz. in the year 1563. read and approved by the Queen the words whereâ—…f are these Cum Regiae Majestati summam gubernationem tribuimus quibus titulis intelligimus animos quorundam Calumniatorum offendi non damus Regibus nostris aut verbi Dei aut Sacramentorum administrationem c. Being therefore the Article expresly mentioneth and concerneth the Kings of England as they are the Kings of England the mention of the Queen's Majesty in the Article can make the Doctrine no more doubtful then it doth our Allegiance in that Oath which was made 1 o Eliz. where the Heirs and Successors of the Queen are to appoint who shall accept the Oath the words of which are that the Queen's Highness is the only Supreme Governor of this Realm But I hope the Heirs and Successors of Queen Elizabeth did never appoint that Oath to be taken in the Name of the Queen's Highness but in their own It may be supposed that some such like Cavilling or Scrupling humour possess'd the fancies of some in the beginning of the Reign of King Iames the First and that some occasion was thereby given to that Prince in those his Canons expresly therein maintaining the 39 Articles and the Subscription thereunto and particularly in the 36th Canon there to enjoyn a Subscription to three Articles in such manner and sort as is there appointed and of which the first is That the King's Majesty under God is the only Supreme Governor of this Realm and of all other his Highness Dominions c. and that no foreign Prince Person Prelate HAUE or OUGHT to have any Iurisdiction Power Superiority Preheminence or Authority Ecclesiastical or Spiritual c. and in which the words have or OUGHT to have might possibly be inserted out of a Royal Complaisance with the Desires of some Scruplers in whose behalf the Famous Dr. Rainolds moved the King at the Hampton-Court Conference that to the Position in the 37th Article viz. The Bishop of Rome hath no Iurisdiction in this Realm of England might be added nor OUGHT to have but which motion the King then rejected as a thing superfluous and saying Habemus quod jure habemus You may find an Account of this twoâ—…old Subscription in Coke 4. Inst. c. 74. and where he saith Subscription required by the Clergy is twofold One by force both of an Act of Parliament CONFIRMING and Establishing the 39 Articles of Religion agreed upon at a Convocation of the Church of England and ratify'd by Queen Eliz. 13. Eliz. c. 12. Another by Canens made at a Convocation of the Church of England and ratify'd by King James A. I had thought you told me that the 39 Articles owed no Confirmation nor Authority to that Act of the 13th of Eliz. B. I did tell you so and do think that when my Lord Coke used the word Confirming he spake cum vulgo or as the word is taken minus propriè and as it is taken in declarative Acts of Parliament sometime to mean declared and as I and others may in Discourse sometimes use the word But speaking properly to
way of Painting to have come But as I have now represented Iustice and Mercy to you to be the same thing so at some other meeting I shall shew you that Dispensation and Mercy are the same And in the mean while I shall tell you that there was a time namely throughout the Reign of Queen Elizabeth and in part of the Reign of King Iames the First when the Learning about Dispensations was not in England Dark learning but generally understood and that not only by the Writers of the Church of England but by the Puritan Writers and I shall shew you when this learning went to sleep and which I account not to have been again awaken'd till in the Conjuncture of Thomas and Sorrel's Case But when I come to entertain you with the learned Notions about it out of some of our Church of England Writers I believe you will not in the least startle at the thoughts of your Prince's dispensing with disability One of those Writers writ of the Subject before Suarez and whose Book I suppose that our Excellent Bishop Taylor happen'd not to have read because I met with no references to it in his Ductor dubitantium and where probably there had been many had the Bishop read it The Book speaks the Author to have been profoundly knowing in the Civil and Canon Law and not unacquainted with the Lex terrae and one who I think made a great figure in the Administration of the Discipline of the Church of England and whose great talents might probably cause our great Church-men then to engage him for their Champion against some of the Puritan Writers who look'd with an evil eye on the Regal dispensing with disability or incapacity in many of our Clergy-men And as when of old some of the English-understandings were employ'd in the writing of School-Divinity they penetrated as far into the Subtleties of it as those of any Nation so I may tell you that in my poor opinion that Author hath writ of the Learning of Dispensations both with all the subtlety and solidity requisite and more substantially then Suarez I shall lay the Book before you at our next meeting but shall now tell you that as to some Points we have been discoursing he observes that There is a Dispensation call'd of Iustice as it were an Interpretation or Declaration of the true meaning of the Law juxta aequum bonum and he cites the Canon Law to prove that Dispensation is a due for that the Precept of Mercy is common to all And I may tell you here that if you will look on your Durand's Speculum in his first Volume where he writes so copiously of Dispensing his style is Dispensatio sive misericordia A. You have taken care enough to make my entertainment in this meeting end with an appetite for another and the rather for that nothing is more pleasant to me then to find an Historical account of the Progress of any Controverted Point of any learning that hath made a ferment in Church or State. And tho as the course of Providence hath made the knowledge of this learning to be the opus diei and so the Ignorance of some and Malice of others hath made it look'd on as angry work and as frightful as a Comet and as odious as if it were to bring us under a torrid Zone yet I think your having surrounded the Nature of Dispensation with such mild and gentle Rays as to represent it to be of the nature of the Sol justitiae with healing in its wings must needs engage the knowing to bid it welcom with a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and make all their animosities and ferments about it to be soon over B. Truly I do not suppose that any knowing man can have an aversion against it and that this Learning non habet inimicum nisi ignorantem And that you may continue in your judgment of any ferment about the Dispensative Power being soon over I can refer you to another Iudgment of Parliament wherein a great tenderness for this branch of Prerogative is shewn namely in the Statute of Octavo Elizabethae c. 6. and to which that Excellent and Learned Person and great Ornament of the Law Sir Robert Atkins as you will find it in Keble Vol. 3. referring in his Argument in Chomas and Sortell's Case saith 8. Eliz. cap. 6. takes notice of Licence to dispense with such Laws as were pro bono publico yet doth not forbid it but rather compounds the matter It hath been the luck of Dispensation to meet with an ill name from some of our famous Writers who tell us that there were no such things as Dispensation or Non-obstante heard of till they came from Rome here in the year of our Lord 1240. and that afterward Kings learn'd from Popes to dispense with their Laws whereas before they caus'd their Laws to be observ'd like those of the Medes and Persians as the Irish Reports tell you in the Case of Commendams and whereupon Mr. Prynne on the Fourth Part of the Institutes c. 22. treating largely of Non-obstantes calls them Papal Engines And our old Monkish Writers have been quoted for bestowing the terms of legum vulnera infames nuncii and repagalum c. on Dispensations and Non-obstantes But I shall at our meeting again shew you that the practice of Dispensing may easily be traced to the Imperial Laws and this you may soon find if you will look on Dr. Donne's Pseudo-Martyr that you have by you and where you may guess at the age of Dispensations by his referring you in p. 40. to the Divinae Indulgentiae in the Digests and his telling you out of the Code that Theodosius and Valentinian making a Law with a Non-obstante did praeclude all Dispensations which the Emperors themselves might grant in these words Si coeleste proferatur oraculum aut divina pragmatica Sanctio And if you will look on Gothofred's Notes on the L. Iubemus C. De Sacrosanctis Ecclefiis de rebus Privilegiis earum cited by the Doctor there you will thus find it in those Notes Caeleste oraculum quid est Principis dispensatio There is another thing I have not had time now to Discourse with you about and that is of the Nature of Laws in terrorem as I intended and which suitably to the Wisdom of a Father in menacing a Child with cutting off his Head if he doth this or that thing are by the Pater Patriae and the Estates of the Realm sometimes lawfully made to intimidate men grown childish and vain by Sanctions of Punishments not intended to be executed according to the general tenour of such Laws But as what may make for my purpose of shewing you how worthy it is of the Majesty of Princes to incorporate Mercy with Iustice in dispensing with many particular Persons and even to the freeing them from the terror of those Laws in some angry Conjunctures when others were to be affrighted with them
Thomas and Sorrell tell you that by one of the great Councel who argued in it it was asserted with great Learning That the Non-obstante in that Case remain'd good after the King's death That tho Acts the King doth in his Natural Capacity determine by his death as making of Iudges c. for those referr to his Natural Will yet things done in his Royal Capacity as King do not determine by his death as a License to alien in Mortmâ—…in in one King's time serves in anothers and the Reason is when the Subject is once exempt out of the Restraint of the Act he is ever exempt unless the Exemption be limited Coke 1. Inst. 52. 6. If the Lessor licence his Lessee that is restrain'd by Condition not to Alien tho the Lessor die the licence shall serve the Lessee to alien and is not determin'd by the Lessor's death And in this Point he cited Trin. 2. Jac. C. B. Rot. 2835. Wright versùs Radcliffe and Trin. 2. Jac. Norris v. Mason C. B. as Cases adjudged in this point And I shall then shew you how the same thing was then by others asserted but you may now for this purpose remember how the instances I have given you of Queen Elizabeth's Parliaments approving and declaring to be good what she did of this kind and the instances of what others of our Princes did by their own Authority and out of Parliament being valid and being afterward approved in Parliament have supported the extent of the Regal Authority of this kind as to point of time But because according to the Rule of Unumquodque dissolvitur eo modo quo colligatur many Indulgences and Injunctions and Dispensations being revocable by Kings themselves and by their Successors and because declaratory Acts of Parliament cannot be repeal'd but by other Acts common Prudence doth suggest it to all to endeavour the perpetuating to themselves by the Legislative Power what they account beneficial And if you will you may use the term of having it confirm'd by that Power that is if you will allow it to have been firm before you may call it confirm'd by the Prince and the three Estates afterward enacting it and making its firmness perpetual And this is the thing I aim'd at in what you might take for a Criticism when I said that the 39 Articles owed no Confirmation nor Authority to the Act of the 13th of Eliz. A. I know the reason of your cautious speaking here about a tender Point You accounting even every Declaratory Judgment of Parliament for our Religion to be a Treasure and having often said that you would allow some Roman-Catholicks to mock on in calling our Religion a Parliamentary Religion did I judge design to do honour to our Religion as well as to our Prince's in shewing that it was here orderly establish'd by God's Vicegerents before it was by the Deputies of the People or the Magnates Regni B. You guess right at my meaning in this way to salve Phaenomena And if you will look on a Book Printed in Oxford A. 1645. entituled Parliaments Power in Laws for Religion or an Answer to that old and groundless Calumny of the Papists nick-naming the Religion of the Church of England by the name of a Parliamentary Religion c. you will find the Fact in this Point clearly deduced through the course of our Laws and Constitutions in a long series temporum from the Reign of Harry the 8th downward and for the honour of our Kings and of the Church and the Reformation and the measures I have taken in our discourse have been suitable to those of the judicious and learned Author of that Book A. Well Sir we have had a great deal of frank Discourse and I will now take the freedom to put one Question more to you You have entertain'd me with the several Interpretations of our Oath and have shew'd me how the obligatoriness of them all hath been perpetuated and you have likewise salved the Phaenomena in the Iustice of the Government as to the Laws in terrorem But you know the Story of one who being Lord of a place did leave a Pit long open too near the High-way and who at Night erected Lights about it to prevent its being mischievous and he afterward hearing that sometimes poor Blind men who were Travellers fell into it and that at other times by various accidents the Lights were not helpful to other Passengers as being took away or going out too soon and he therefore at last very fairly removed both his Nuisance and Lights together And now may it hot be wish'd that the Prince and the three Estates would remove the Laws about our Oaths and the Interpretations too and so likewise all the Laws in terrorem among which I suppose you reckon the Test-Acts at which so many have taken offence B. You may easily guess that till we have both of us at another meeting discours'd of the Obligation resulting from the Promissory part of the Oath I will not engage your thoughts in any matter of Controverfie that may in the least perplex them But as soon as we have fully discours'd that I shall frankly give you my thoughts at large relating to the question about Repealing of the Test-Acts in a Parliamentary manner but do at present wholly forbear to mention what I think thereof And I have before told you my judgment of the likelihood of the continuance of our great Oath as a great luminary that may perhaps enlighten our English World in the measures of Loyalty to the end of time and as I have told you the Oath giveth no offence to the Considerate so I will hope none will be taken at it But I must here tell you that I have a greater veneration for the Oath because I look on the serious Consideration of the assertory part of it as likely to be very Instrumental in allaying the ferment we have been speaking of A. God grant it may be so B. You remember what I hinted to you about the Clause whereby you testify'd and declared that the King is the only Supreme Governor of this Realm as well in all Spiritual or Ecclesiastical things or Causes as Temporal and from whence it follow'd by way of natural Consequence that no foreign Prince c. hath any Iurisdiction within this Realm being the Corner-stone on which the great And therefore I mean your forsaking foreign Iurisdiction was built And I assure you that the same first Declaration doth bind you to the like AND THEREFORE to renounce the belief of any Power on Earth being able to dissolve your King 's right of Commanding your Obedience and your Obligation to obey him And indeed if I had produced to you no Iudgment of Parliament for the purpose I have done but that which is contain'd in the assertory part of the Oath and which is unanimously interpreted by Divines and Lawyers as expressive of the King 's right jure naturae to Command the Obedience of
publickly or privately 〈◊〉 he should be lawfully restored and releas'd of his said Suspension But shortly after the beginning of the Reign of the Royal Martyr he was again restored and was afterward again silenced and so continued till August 2. A. 1631. and then he was again restored And Mr. Dod's Life represents his Case as parallel with this before-mention'd He was in King Iames his time suspended and restored and again by the King 's particular Command disabled from Preaching and was by King Charles the First re-ennabled or restored Thus as fortis fortem amat one tender Conscienced man too loves another such and the Executive Power of the Law in re-ennabling after temporary Disability was tenderly administred by these our Princes to these Conscientious Men with respect to their real Capacity of Favour to be shew'd them A. You have here given me a taste en passant of part of the Dispensative Power as exercised in the three Realms during some Conjunctures in the Reign of King Charles the First and for which I thank you and particularly for what you told me of the Act of Parliament dispens'd with in Scotland of which I never heard before and am apt to suppose a thing of that Nature was never done before in that Realm B. I can assure you to those who know the Publick Transactions of that Kingdom the thing will not in the least seem new I can tell you that on the 26th of November A. 1593. King Iames the 6th of Scotland made an Act of State in favour of three Roman-Catholick Earls Huntly Arroll and Angus by which Act he allow'd them several Priviledges contrary to Acts of Parliament made against Roman-Catholicks And His Majesty in his Act of State expresly dispenseth with those Acts of Parliament and which Dispensation tho Queen Elizabeth importuned him to revoke and for that purpose sent the Lord Zouch as her Embassador to him he still adhered to the Act of State he had made and continued his Dispensation A. Have you this Matter of Fact out of any of the Records in England or Scotland B. I have it out of the Original Papers under the hand of Queen Elizabeth and her great Minister Burghly and the Original Instructions of the Lord Zouch when sent by her to expostulate with the King about it that were lately in my Custody and by me sent to our gracious Sovereign and I shall some other time give you a more particular account of that Dispensation A. But I beseech you did not the Protestant Divines of the Church of Scotland then cry out of the unlawfulness or inexpedience of that Dispensation B. I have read it in a learned Book of Dr. Maxwell a Scotch-man Printed A. 1644. and who was then Bishop of Killally in Ireland and had formerly been Bishop of Rosse that Mr. Robert Bruce one of the Ministers of Edenburgh and who had a great sway in the Church of Scotland was pleas'd with the King 's extending his Favour to Angus and Arroll but out of a factious Complyance with the Earl of Arguile was displeas'd at its being shewn to Huntly But that Loyal Bishop there acquiesceth in the reason of State that inclined the King to Pardon the three Earls and his thereby hindering the growth of Faction in Scotland and providing for his more easie and secure access to the Throne of England on the Death of Queen Elizabeth And so you may easily guess what sort of men in Scotland look'd with an evil eye on that Act of the Royal goodness and who did not The Bishop there had applauded the great depth of the King's Wisdom and his transcendent Goodness in the Pardoning the three Earls and mention'd that there was nothing of Religion in the Case of Bruce's Aversion against the Pardon of Huntly for that Angus and Arroll were as bigot Papists if not more then Huntly I can likewise direct you to my Lord Primate Bramhal's celebrated Book call'd A Fair warning to take heed of the Scotish Discipline where in Chap. 6. thus entituled viz. That it robs the Magistrate of his Dispensative Power he saith by way of instance When the Popish Earls of Angus Huntly and Arroll were excommunicated by the Church and forfeited for Treasonable Practices against the King it is admirable to read with what Wisdom Charity and Sweetness his Majesty did seek from time to time to reclaim them from their Errors c. and on the other side to see with what bitterness and radicated Malice they were prosecuted by the Presbyteries and their Commissioners c. sometimes threatning that they were resolv'd to pursue them to the uttermost tho it should be with the loss of all their Lives in one day c. sometimes pressing to have their Estates confiscated c. He refers there in his Margin to Ass. Edinb 1594. But any one who shall consult D'Ossat's Letters and there in the Second Book carefully read over the 37th Letter that was writ to Villeroy in the year 1596 and three years after the Date of King Iames his Act of State and observe what that great Sagacious Cardinal there refers to concerning the Circumstances of those three Earls and how all the Prudence that could be shewn by man was but little enough for the Conduct of that King in that Conjuncture in order to his removing what Impediments either from Rome or Spain or his Native Country might obstruct his Succession to the Crown of England will not wonder at his having dispens'd and continued his Dispensation as aforesaid A. I have not yet ask'd you whether the Divines of the Church of England did not lift up their voices like a Trumpet against the Dispensative Power thus exercised by their Prince as you have mention'd B. They discharged their Duties in Preaching occasionally against all growing Errors but they wanted none to mind them of the Saying Impium esse qui Regi dixerit Inique agis The Pious and Learned Author of Certain Considerations tending to Peace c. mentions how the Bishop of St. Davids in King Iames's Reign A. 1604. did in a set Speech in Convocation shew that Ministers were not in the late Archbishop's time disabled from their Ministry on the Account of Non-conformity to the Ceremonies by Law enjoyn'd and concluded his Speech with the motion of Petitioning the King That if the removal of some of the Ceremonies enjoyn'd could not be obtain'd nor yet a Coleration for them of more stay'd and temperate Carriage yet at least there might be procured a mitigation of the Penalty c. And as the Suspension or Disabling of Hildersham and Dod from their Ministerial Functions so the Restoring of them to the same without all such things done by them as the strictness of the Lawes required was in both those Princes Reigns executed by the Bishops Nor do I remember to have read of any Divine of the Church of England to have in the least look'd with an evil eye on the goodness of the
Harvey who open'd such great Springs of real Learning as refresh'd that noble thirst so it seems before the Date of His late Majesty's Declaration of Indulgence in the 24th year of his Reign and of the Act about the Test in the 25th year of it and both which were likely to produce among the Learned so many Inquiries into the Legality of the Dispensative Power inherent in the Crown and even among the unlearned an Epidemical Disease of talking about the same it came to pass in the course of Providence that by as Learned Iudges as ever sate on the English Bench and as Learned Councel as ever appear'd at its Bar the Learning about the Dispensative Power was ventilated and discuss'd in a Series of several years in the Case of Thomas and Sorrell For the Cause began in the King's Bench 18. Car. 2. and was there argued by some of the Great Councel of the Kingdom and there again argued on both sides by other Councel in Michaelmas-Term in the 19th year of his Reign And in Hilary-Term in 25. and 26. Car. 2. this Cause for the weight and difficulty of it was adjourn'd out of the King's-Bench into the Exchequer Chamber and there argued by others of the Greatest Councel of the Kingdom and many law-Law-Books quoted And the Case was afterward argued by all the Iudges of England at six several Days in Easter Trinity Michaelmas and Hilary Terms viz. by two Iudges each day and the Iudges differ'd in several Points and even about the definition or meaning of Dispensation For so that learned Chief Iustice tells you and saith That some of his Brothers defined it to be liberatio à poenâ and others to be Provida relaxatio Juris which saith he is defining an ignotum per ignotius and liberare à poenâ is the effect of a Pardon not of a Dispensation c. Thus as I may say there was a Circumvallation by the Learning which concern'd Dispensing that encompass'd some time preceding that Declaration of Indulgence in the 24th year of his Reign and some time following both it and the Act of the Test. I shall some other time perhaps entertain you with the Learned Manuscript Report of the whole Case but shall now tell you that during that Series of years there was no angry motion in the Sea of the Populace occasion'd by any thing said in any of the Arguments that propp'd up the Dispensative Power no not by that mention'd in Keeble's Reports about Thomas and Sorrell's Case to have been said in the Exchequer Chamber by Ellis the King's Serjeant and whose Opinion was as Currant for Sterling-Law as any Man 's of the long Robe Viz. That the King may SUSPEND an Act of Parliament till next Session And now since it hath thus appear'd out of that Chief Iustice his Report that at least a sixth part of the Sworn Iudges of the Realm as he thought were unacquainted with the meaning of Dispensing I think it may pass for a Miracle if any great number of the mobile did understand it But without their troubling their heads with Law-Books if they would but mind their English Bibles and there consult the 12th of S. Mathew they would soon forbear calling the lawful Dispensing with the Laws establish'd a Contradiction Our learned Ames on the Priests in the Temple Prophaning the Sabbath and being blameless observes very well in his Cases of Conscience 1. 3. c. 17. That Praecepta Deiex suâ naturâ nunquam ita Concurrent at necesse sit alterum eorum propriè violare per peccatum Quum enim praeceptum aliquod minus negligendum est ut majus observetur minus illud cessat pro illo tempore obligare that is to say is dispens'd with ita ut qui ex tali occasione illud negligunt sint planè inculpabiles id est non peccent Matth. 12. 5 7. And as to that in the Chapter of David's entring into the House of God and eating the Shew-bread which was not lawful for him to eat c. the Lord Bishop of London in his Second Letter to his Clergy Printed A. 1680. in the Paragraph about The half Communion occasionally thus observes with great Judgment That a positive Command of God cannot be disobey'd without guilt unless on some one or more of these grounds either 1. That God dispenses with it as he did with Circumcision in the Wilderness Or 2. That some Evil greater then the Consequence of the Non-Performance of it will certainly follow as when David ate the Shew-bread and they that were with him which depends on that rule of our Saviour which tho apply'd to the Sabbath yet extends to all other positive Commands that man was not made for them but they for man Or lastly in case of incapacity as the Children of Israels not going up to Ierusalem in the time of Captivity And there are other words in a foregoing Chapter of S. Matthew that are still applicable to the Pharisaical ignorance of such as reproach DISPENSING as unlawful Go and learn what that means I will have mercy and not sacrifice But according to the Example of our Blessed Lord in Having Compassion on the multitude I think you have taken a just occasion for the pitying so many of your Countrymen who in the present Conjuncture presume to exercise themselves in great Matters or in things too high for them relating to Law and State and who without enquiring about the modus of Dispensing with the Laws establish'd wherein Lawyers differ cry down the thing it self wholly and absolutely as a Contradiction to the lex terrae and in which not being so all Lawyers agree My Lord Primate Bramhal in his Book of A fair Warning to take heed of the Scottish Discipline shewing in Chap. 6. that I have before referred to That it robs the King of his Dispensative Power doth wish any one averse to that Power no greater Censure then that the Penal Laws might be duly executed on him till he recant his error And how Penal a thing by the Laws of Nations it is to alienate the hearts of People from the Prince's Government all the great Writers of those Laws and of the Iura Majestatis have enough shewn Moreover how Criminal a thing of that Nature is in the Court of Conscience our two great Writers of it Ames and Sanderson have enough taught us The Moral offices of Subjects toward their Princes are well set forth in Ames his Cases of Conscience 1. 5. c. 25. and where he saith Debent ex singulari reverentiâ cavere ne temerarium judicium ferant de ipsorum administrationes Exod. 21. 28. Eccles. 10. 20. 2 Pet. 2. 10. Jud. 8. Fundamentum hujus cautionis est 1. Candor ille qui cum erga omnes debet adhiberi tum singulariter erga Superiores 2. Difficultas explorandi fontes causas negotiorum Publicorum 3. Moderatio illa quâ leves infirmitates offensiones tolerare debemus communi tranquillitati
while or since that Statute of the 25th of his Reign committed the exercise of Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction to Lay-men did or might give occasion to some Evil-dispos'd persons to think and little regard the Proceedings and Censures Ecclesiastical made by his HIGHNESSE and his Uice-gerent Officials Commissaries Iudges and Uisitors being also Lay and Married men to be of little or none effect whereby the people gathereth heart and presumption to do evil and not to have such reverence to your most Godly Injunctions and Proceedings as becometh them c. So I leave it to you to consider how the disabling of any subjects by reason of Religionary Heterodoxy to serve their Prince did or might give occasion to some evil-disposed Persons to attempt the disabling of their Prince on the same account as I bâ—…fore hinted it to you and as the popular incogitancy of the Power given by God extending to all such Persons as should be employâ—…d under the King producing the irreverence of their surmises of the incapacity of the Officials and Visitors employ'd by the Vicegerent and consequently of the incapacity of the Vicegerent himself did naturally terminate in their gathering heart and presumption to do evil and to surmise the King 's being disabled to exercise all manner of Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction and to do that which was directly repugnant to his Majesty as Supreme Head of the Church and to his Prerogative Royal his Grace being a Lay-man how you ought still to preserve a tenderness in your thoughts for that Prerogative Royal given him by God's Word of Commanding the Services of all his Subjects by what Laws or Constitutions soever de facto incapacitated And by the gradual Proceedings I have now mention'd you ought with horror to think of the incapacitating any one Subject to serve his Prince as of the first step from a Precipice A. You have provided variety of Entertainment for my Consideration and have my thanks for it But suppose I should be so Curious and Inquisitive as to ask where in God's Word that Power is given to Princes to employ such Persons as they shall think fit in their service according to the purport of that Statute B. You may likewise suppose that you would then find my Genius so inquisitive as to ask you where you have been at Church of late years For you could then go to no Church in England Scotland or Ireland without hearing St. Paul's Omnis anima spoken of Let every soul be subject to the higher Powers whether he be Apostle or Evangelist Prophet Priest Clergy or Layety whether he be of the People diffusive or representative and the like And as the well-drawn Effigies of a man seems to look on every one in the Room so hath the Picture of the Regal Power drawn by the Divines of the Church of England appear'd to cast its Eye on every one and been made as it were Vocal and saying to every one For he is the Minister of God to thee for good And the good old Book call'd God and the King that you have read over and over hath told you that the Bond of the King's Subjects Obedience to his Majesty is inviolable and cannot be dissolv'd And indeed the thing being so plain by the Law of Nature which being written in man's heart is the very same so far forth as it is yet undefaced with the Law of God reveal'd in the Word it is not tanti to raise Moot-Points about this relating to Scripture I doubt not but you remember it in my Lord Herbert's Harry the 8th that there being a Rebellion of many of the Commonalty A. 1536. and the Rebels sending the King their Grievances and one whereof was That his Grace had ill Councellors and of mean Birth among which Cromwel was not forgotten and the King sending an Answer penn'd by himself as to their Grievances he did therein upbraid them for medling in the choice of his Counsellors and command their acquiescence therein on the grounds of Nature and of his being their Natural Liege-lord A. Well Sir Let it for the present pass as a datum or concessum as you will have it that the Obedience of Subjects in serving their Prince is founded on the grounds both of Nature and Scripture And I shall moreover allow it to you that if you had an Enthusiast to deal with and such who as you said do outrage the 13th of the Romans out of the Apocalypse you might out of Brightman's Revelation of the Apocalypse shew him out of that part of Holy Scripture sufficient Authority for the King 's particularly making Cromwel his Vicegerent For he there on the 14th Chapter and the 17th and following Verses saith This Angel is Thomas Cromwel who lived in the days of Harry the 8th that most mighty King and was a man of great renown and place in our Kingdoms being the Earl of Essex and Lord Keeper of the Privy Seal who came out of the Temple and being a sincere favourer of pure Religion He had a Sickle in his hand being made the King's Deputy in all Ecclesiastical Matters and it was a sharp one as with which he sets stoutly and deliberately to his work and yet he had no Crown or Diadem to grace his head withal being a Minister rather to put another Man's Power in Ure then any that wrought by his own Power and Authority And he on Verse the 18th makes the other Angel to be a Martyr viz. Tho. Cranmer and refers the meaning of the words He cryed with a great voice to him that had the Sickle to Cranmer because saith he in the days of Harry the 8th he inflamed the mind of Tho. Cromwel by his words with a desire to make a Vintage B. I thank you for diverting me with that passage of Brightman but I can refer you to another Writer of our Church whose Authority will go further with us then Brightman's and who hath recorded it that the great figure that Cromwel made both in the Church and State and his and Cranmer's acting together in concert and by joynt Councels both in Church and at the Helm of State was so highly fortunate to the Reformation You may find this observed by Archbishop Parker in his De Antiquitate Ecclesiâ—… Britannicoe p. 530. where he saith Namque profligato Papa susceptâ Ecclesioe Anglicanoe defensione curâ tutelâ Rex excelsiâ—…ing â—…ii multarum rerum usu peritum Thomam Cromwellum Vicarium suum in spiritualibus generalem designavit Hic cum Thoma Cranmero Archiepiscopo tanquam in puppi sedit clavumque Ecclesioe Anglicanoe tenuit proramque à papali littore avertit in Christianum portum reduxit A. Was Vicar-general to the King in Spirituals Cromwel's style for his Office as the Archbishop there termed it B. I am apt to think it was not I never saw any Copy of his Patent or Commission for it The Acts of Parliament in H. the 8â—…h's time style him The King's Vicegerent c. And
o Eliz. beforemention'd B. I can easily direct you to such a Writer of our Church who hath done the thing to the universal Satisfaction of the Inquisitive as to this Point and that is the Lord Primate Bramhal in his Book of Schism Guarded He saith there in p. 330 and 331. As our Grievances so our Reformation was only of the abuses of the Roman Court. Their bestowing of Prelacies and Dignities in England to the Prejudice of the right Patrons Their Convocating Synods in England without the King's leave Their Prohibiting English Prelates to make their old feudal Oaths to the King and obliging them to take new Oaths of Fidelity to the Pope Their imposing and receiving Tenths and first Fruits and other Arbitrary Pensions upon the English Clergy and lastly their Usurping a Legislative Iudiciary and Dispensative Power in the exterior Court by Political Coaction these are all the branches of Papal Power which we have rejected This Reformation is all the Separation that we have made in point of Discipline And for Doctrine we have no difference with them about the old Essentials of Christian Religion and their new Essentials which they have patch'd to the Creed are but their erroneous or at the best probable Opinions no Articles of Faith. Thus then according to these measures you see how much the hinge of the Reformation turns on the Usurpation of the Papacy in Dispensing for in all these particulars enumerated the Pope dispens'd with the King's Laws And he had before in p. 26. said This Primacy neither the Ancients nor we deny to St. Peter of Order of Place of Preheminence If this first movership would serve his turn the Controversie were at an end for our parts But this Primacy is over-lean the Court of Rome have no gusto to it They thirst after a visible Monarchy on Earth an absolute Ecclesiastical Soveraignty a Power to make Canons to abolish Canons to dispense with Canons to impose Pensions to dispose of Dignities to decide Controversies by a single Authority This was that which made the breach not the Innocent Primacy of St. Peter And afterward in p. 149. he saith But I must contract my Discourse to those Dispensations that are intended in the Laws of Henry the 8th that is the Power to dispense with English Laws in the exterior Court Let him bind or loose inwardly whom he will whether his Key erre or not we are not concern'd Secondly As he is a Prince in his own Territories he that hath Power to bind hath Power to loose He that hath Power to make Laws hath Power to dispense with his own Laws Laws are made of Common Events Those benign Circumstances that happen rarely are left to the Dispensative Grace of the Prince Thirdly As he is a Bishop whatever Dispensative Power the ancient Ecclesiastical Canons or Edicts of Christian Emperors give to the Bishop of Rome within those Territories that were subject to his Iurisdiction by Humane right we do not envy him so he suffer us to enjoy our ancient Privileges and Immunities freed from his Encroachments and Usurpations The Chief ground of the ancient Ecclesiastical Canon was let the old Customs prevail A possession or Prescription of Eleven hundred years is a good ward both in Law and Conscience against an Human Right and much more against a New pretence of Divine Right For Eleven hundred years our Kings and Bishops enjoy'd the sole Dispensative Power with all English Laws Civil and Ecclesiastical In all which time he is not able to give one instance of a Papal Dispensation in England nor any shadow of it when the Church was formed Where the Bishops of Rome had no Legislative Power no Iudiciary Power in the exteriour Court by necessary Consequence they could have no Dispensative Power He then in p. 169. mentions the said Statute of 25. H. 8th and having referr'd to the Proviso there to shew that its intent was not to vary from the Church of Christ in any other things declared by the Holy Scripture and the Word of God necessary to Salvation he saith then followeth the scope of our Reformation only to make an Ordinance by Policies necessary and convenient to repress Vice and for good Conservation of the Realm in Peace Unity and Tranquillity from ravine and spoil ensuing much the ancient Customs of this Realm in that behalf not minding to seek for any relief succours or remedies for any worldly things and Humane Laws in any cause of necessity but within this Realm at the hands of your Highness your Heirs and Successors Kings of this Realm which have and ought to have an Imperial Power and Authority in the same and not obliged in worldly Causes to any other Superior Thus then you see this Prelates sense of how much the taking away the Pope's Dispensative Power here and restoring that Power to the Crown was the Soul of the Reformation and tota in toto of it And this Act you see revived by the First of Elizabeth without garbling it in the least and the Dispensative Power thereby restored to her her Heirs and Successors and a Declaration that no Subjects of the Realm need for any worldly things and Humane Laws in any Cause of Necessity seek for any relief but within this Realm at the hands of our Soveraign as aforesaid And I shall tell you that the Bishop in the next Page refers to the Statute of the First of Eliz. and saith on his view of both Statutes Whatsoever Power our Laws did devest the Pope of they invested the King with it And of this the Power of Rehabilitating any of his Lay or Clerical Subjects is a part as was beforesaid A. You have cited somewhat out of this Great Champion for the King's Supremacy and for the Church of England and reputed to be the most clear Vindicator of it from Schism our Church hath had which hath created more anxiety in my mind about the Assertory part of the Oath then any thing hath done For the words in the Oath are I do utterly testify and declare c that no Foreign Prelate or Person hath or ought to have any Iurisdiction Power Ecclesiastical or Spiritual within this Realm and you have brought in the Primate granting that the Pope hath Power here to bind or loose inwardly and asserting that he hath here a Spiritual Power B. You judge right of the Bishop's Opinion and which is indeed express'd throughout his whole Book He tells us in p. 25. That St. Cyprian made all the Bishopricks in the World to be but one Masse whereof every Bishop had an entire part And he saith in p. 60 and 61. That neither King Harry the 8th nor any of our Legislators did ever endeavour to deprive the Bishop of Rome of the Power of the Keys or any part thereof either the Key of Order or the Key of Iurisdiction I mean Iurisdiction purely Spiritual which hath place only in the inner Court of Conscience and over such Persons as
kind B. Why then I can tell you if you will at any time turn to your Collection of Proclamations in the time of King Iames the First you will find that in his Proclamation of March the 5th the first year of his Reign he intimates that with the Consent of the Bishops present in the Hampton-Court Conference he thought meet that some small things might rather be explain'd then changed in the Book of Common Prayer and for that end gave forth his Commission under the Great Seal of England according to the Form which the Laws of this Realm in like Case prescribed to be used to make the said Explanation and to cause the whole Book of Common Prayer with the same Explanation to be newly Printed which being done and establish'd anew after so serious a Deliberation c. we have thought it necessary to make known by Proclamation our authorizing of the same and to require and enjoyn all men as well Ecclesiastical as Temporal to Conform themselves to it as the only publick Form of serving God establish'd and allow'd to be in this Realm And the rather for that all the Learned Men who were there present as well of the Bishops as others promised their Conformity in the practice of it only making sute to us that some few might be born with for a time Wherefore we require all Archbishops Bishops and all other publick Ministers as well Ecclesiastical as Civil to do their Duties in causing the same to be obey'd and in punishing the Offenders according to the Laws of the Realm heretofore establish'd for the Authorizing the said Book of Common Prayer You see there that all the Bishops and the great Parade of the literati present at that famous Conference did implore the King for the exercise of his Dispensative Power for a while to some few But what is more considerable is that the King here doth make a general relaxation of the Bond of Queen Elizabeth's Act of Uniformity in some things and instead of inserting an express Clause of discharging from the Penalties of that Act all that use the Common Prayer Book with the King's Alterations or Explanations as Queen Elizabeth's Admonition did in relation to those who took the Oath of Supremacy in the sense of her Interpretation a thing indeed not necessary for either of them to have done when they had loosen'd the bond of the Observance of the Law he enjoyns the uniform usage of the Book of Common Prayer as by him interpreted or explain'd the title of the Proclamation being A Proclamation for the authorizing an Uniformity of the Book of Common Prayer to be used throughout the Realm under the disabling Punishments of Queen Elizabeth's Act of Uniformity the Bishops all this while being ministerial to the King in his Power of thus interpreting and explaining an Act of Parliament and the loosening of its Obligation both as to themselves and others I am to tell you that in that Proclamation of March the fifth the King refers to a Proclamation he had before Publish'd on the 24th of October then last past wherein he gave the Puritan Divines an intimation of the Conference he intended to have and in which he reflects on the heat of their Spirits as tending rather to Combustion then Reformation which saith he if there be Cause to make is more in our hearts then theirs c. and afterwards saith we are not ignorant that time may have brought in some Corruptions which may deserve a review and amendment which if by the Assembly intended by us we shall find to be so indeed we will therein procéed according to the Laws and Customs of this Realm by Advice of our Councel or in our High Court of Parliament or by Convocation of our Clergy as we shall find reason to lead us not doubting but that in such an orderly proceeding we shall have the Prelates others of our Clergy no less willing and far more able to afford us their Duty and Service then any other whose zeal doth go so fast before their discretion And the Proclamation in March following shew'd you how the King's reason lead him in his Proceeding in the Affair according to the Laws and Customs of this Realm and how loyally his Bishops and Clergy acquiesced therein A. I remember I have read both these Proclamations and I doubt not but that Hampton-Court Conference made a great ferment in the Body of the People tho none in the Orthodox Clergy But I should be glad to know whether it made any fermentation in the Body of the People Representative and what was the Result of it Did the Parliament acquiesce in what the King had done as aforesaid For if so they had done as Queen Elizabeth's Parliament in publickly approving what she by her own Ecclesiastical Supremacy did in discharging the disabling Penalties in her first Act of Parliament and in relaxing by her interpretation the vinculum for its observance in that sense that many had before put on it B. King Iames his Parliament did in effect the very self-same thing And I shall give you the account of it out of his Proclamation of the 16th of Iuly A. 1604. in the Second year of his Reign for there having spoke of that Conference and of his having Publish'd by Proclamation what was the issue of it and his hoping that when the same should be made known all reasonable Men would have rested satisfy'd with that which had been done and not have moved further trouble of Speech of Matters whereof so solemn and advised deliberation had been made His Majesty's following words are Notwithstanding at the late Assembly of our Parliament there wanted not many who renew'd with no little earnestness the Questions before determin'd and many more as well about the Book of Common Prayer as other Matters of Church Government and importuned us for our assent to many Alterations therein but yet with such Success as when they heard both our own Speeches made to them at sundry times shewing the Reasons of our former Proceedings in those Matters and likewise had had Conference with some Bishops and other Lords of the Upper House about the same they desisted from further Prosecution thereof finding that of all things that might any way tend to the furtherance of Religion and of Establishment of a Ministry fit for the same we had before with the Advice of our Councel had such Consideration as the present state of things would bear and taken order how the same should be prosecuted by such means as might be used without any publick disturbance or innovation And in how vigorous a State the Dispensative Power as to the Nonconformists afterward continued in the Reign of that Prince appears by what I have before cited of an Application made to him by the House of Commons for the exercise of the same to the Non-conformists in the 10th year of his Reign Moreover how by Tacit Dispensation he dispens'd with the Disabilities that
Dispensative Power in the Reign of King Charles the First being extended to particular Persons but the hated Sibthorpe who in his Sermon of Apostolick Obedience as he call'd it doth speak of Mens being bound to observe the Lawes of the Land where they live except they will suffer as busie bodies or except they will have that inconvenience granted that the general Lawes or Government of a Nation must be dispens's withal according to the particular Conceit and Apprehension of every private Person whereout what Coleration of Heresy what Connivence at Errors what danger of Schisms in the Church and Factions in the State must necessarily follow c. and having mentioned the Liberty of a few erroneous Consciences bringing the Bondage of many regulated Commands he saith We must prefer the general before the particular and not let every one be loose to their List and Affection but all must be kept within the Lists of their Duty and Subjection And I but just now told you of that Prince's avowing that the Bishops advised him to the tenderness he shewed in dispensing with his Lawes to gratifie the pretended tenderness of the Consciences of some of his Scotish Subjects in that Conjunctâ—… â—…eand by which Dispensing one would have thought they might have been sufficiently antidoted against the strong Delusions of entring into War for Religion Oh that such thoughts had been then impress'd on their Minds as are contain'd in the General Demands of the Ministers and Professors of Aberdene p. 29. as I find them cited in the Book of Mr. Ley before-mention'd viz. There be other means more effectual for holding out of Popery and so of any unlawful innovation in which we ought to Confide more then in all the Vowes and Promises of Men yea also more then in all the United Forces of all the Subjects of this Land to wit diligent Preaching and Teaching of the Word frequent Prayer to God humbling of our selves before him and Amendment of our Lives and Conversations and Arming our selves against our Adversaries by diligent searching of the Scriptures whereby we may encrease in the knowledge of the Truth and in ability to defend it against the Enemies of it Oh that the Demagogues of those times had caus'd such words then to have been writ in our Churches or I might rather wish that those Heads of Parties had had themselves then hearts of flesh and that such tender words had been like a Law written there But the Urgentia imperii fata were upon us and that delicate use of Conscience that is in 2. Cor. 13. 5. call'd examen vel probatio nostrum ipsorum and whereby it resembled the best property of a beam in Scales namely its tenderness and turning with the least part of a grain was among the great Actors in that Rebellion quite laid aside and all the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 i. e. the weightier Matters of the Law did not stir their Consciences and the great Obligation of their Oaths of Allegiance and Supremacy signify'd no more then the dust of the balance Tho they pretended to so nice a Tenderness about any thing that look'd like an Oath in familiar discourse and was not one as at the Saying in faith or in troth and so would seem to come under Solomon's Character of him that feareth an Oath but as to which words of in faith or by my faith our Judicious Sanderson de Iuramento makes them amount to no more then a meer Asseveration or at the most an Obtestation and saith that the genuine interpretation of the words by my faith whether in an assertory or promissory matter is this I speak from my heart I pawn my faith to you that the thing is so yet they at the same time would ridicule or seize on any one who had told them of what they were Sworn to in the Oath of Allegiance and of the recognition they made there as the words of that Oath are heartily willingly and truly upon the true faith of a Christian. A. There was a Solemn League and Covenant afterward took by those who had so apparently outraged the Oath of Allegiance and it was taken generally by all the Layety and Clergy of the Parliaments Party and was there not a general Tenderness of Conscience express'd then in the observance of that Covenant B. In the course of my Observation of Men and Things some things have more particularly occurred to me to shew you that the great Takers and imposers of that Covenant did as plainly and without any seeming remorfe outrage their Oath in that Covenant as they did their Oaths of Allegiance and Supremacy For after they had first sworn to endeavour to preserve the Reformed Religion in the Church of Scotland in Doctrine Worship Discipline and Government and then sworn to endeavour to reform Religion in these Kingdoms of England and Ireland in all Points according to the Examples of the best Reformed Churches and so were bound to reform us according to the Pattern of Scotland for that Church must necessarily pass for the best Reform'd Church that stands in need of no Resormation being to be preserv'd by them in the State it was the Parliament instead of setling in England the Presbyterian Government which then in Scotland had within its Verge four Judicatories and all pretended to be founded on Divine Right 1. A Parochial Session 2. A Presbyterian Consistory 3. A Provincial Synod 4. A General Assembly as they were bound to did in effect settle ERASTIANISM a Tenet or hypothesis of Church-Government that the Scotch and English Presbyterian Divines avowed as great an hatred of as of Popery it self Erastianism giving the Supreme Power in Ecclesiasticals to the Civil Magistrate and in their Printed Votes and Orders reproved the Presbyterian Divines for challenging an Arbitrary Power and which they would not grant nor set up ten Thousand Iudicatories within the Kingdom as the Parliaments words were referring to the Scots Parechial Session where a competent number of Lay-Elders whom they call Presbyteri non docentes and Deacons proportionable to the Precinct and Extent of the Parish are conjoyn'd and which associate Body thus compacted is the Spiritual Parochial Sanhedrim But this very first Point of that Church-Government the Parliament hinder'd Presbytery from gaining here and opposed its moving in that lowest Sphere of the Parochial Session of setling so many Thousand Ecclesiastical Courts of Pye-Powder in England and whereby it could never hope to climb up to the Primum mobile of a General Assembly which in reality was the Sphere the Parliament it self moved in Mr. Prynne who was one of the greatest Champions for that Covenant was yet an Eminent profess'd Erastian and Mr. Coleman a Member of the Assembly of Divines another of those Champions for the Covenant was likewise a declared Erastian and a great Favourite of the Parliaments and whose frequent Sermons before them for Erastianism were Printed by their Order and which Sermons of his and likewise his Books
writ for it were with great heat impugned in Print by Mr. Gillespy a Divine of Scotland and one of the Commissioners in England for that Kingdom and who in a Printed Sermon of his Preach'd before the House of Lords doth call Erastus the great Adversary and in one of his Pamphlets against Mr. Coleman call'd Nihil Respondes mentions how the Presbyterians and Independents were both equally interessed against the Erastian Principles And as to the greatness of the number of the Covenanters out of Parliament that rejected the Iure-divinity of the Scots ruling Elders Mr. Coleman gives us his Judgment in p. 12. of his Reply to Nihil Respondes viz. that 9 10 of the Assembly and 900 1000 of the Kingdom denyed a Ruling Elder to be an instituted Officer jure divino But Heylin having told us in his History of Presbytery That Presbytery did never setle its Lay-Eldership in any one Parish in England we may easily thence suppose the National Violation of that National Covenant without any apparent regret of Conscience on that account How all the Independent Clergy and Layety who had took the Covenant did in a manner simul semel most notoriously violate it in setting up the model of their Church-Government is not unknown But indeed as the very sagacious Author of the Book call'd The main Points of Church-Government c. Printed in London A. 1649. hath observ'd The known sense of the Scotish Nation which framed the Covenant and for whose Satisfaction the Covenant was here taken doth include Independency under the name of Schism or at least under those words contrary to sound Doctrine and our Independent Divines could not but know this to be their sense of it and yet we know of none that did protest against it or explain themselves otherwise at the first taking of the Covenant if they have done it since And I might further tell you that after the Engagement was set up of being true and faithful to the Common-wealth of England as it is now Establish'd without a King or House of Lords tho several of the Presbyterian Divines out of a sense of their Oaths and Allegiance and their Covenant were so Loyal as to refuse it I have not heard of any of those Independent ones who did But such was the Inundation of Practical Atheism in the Kingdom that our Civil Wars had caus'd that when the Engagement was set up almost the whole Body of the Lawyers in England took it rather then they would lose their Practice These men knew the meaning of the Acts of Parliament containing the Oaths of Allegiance and Supremacy and yet were abandon'd by a disloyal Sophistical Principle of the want of Power in a lawful Sovereign to protect them absolving them from their Obedience to cancel their Oaths in the Court of Conscience And in a word further to shew you how the tender Regard of publick Promises was here grown one of Pancirol's lost things I shall tell you that tho in the Parliament of Richard Cromwell none was allowed to sit but he who had first took a Recognition of engaging to be true and faithful to the Lord Protector c. and not to propose or give any Consent to alter the Government as 't is setled in one single Person and a Parliament yet the Republicans in that Parliament were not in the least diverted by that Recognition from endeavouring there to alter the Government and it was there avowed by them that a Promise or Oath took without Doors did not bind within And at last to bring up the Rear of mens Perjury after all the Oaths legal and illegal had been so much confounded when the late King's Restauration was almost in sight on the then General Monk with his Army coming to London a new Oath of Abjuration of the Royal Line was at that time set on foot in Councel and which some there would have had imposed on the General himself A. Good God! What a Concatenation of Perjuries was our Land so long enslaved with you have referr'd to the Solemn League and Covenant for extirpating Popery and Superstition and while a General Assembly and Parliaments were planting here the Doctrine of the Council of Lateran namely the Absolving Subjects from their Oaths of Allegiance B. And while they were planting a Discipline that Archbishop Whitgift in his Reply to T. C. p. 299. 559. and Bishop Hall in his Book of Episcopacy Part 3. p. 34. and Bishop Downham in his Defence of his Sermon l. 1. c. 8. p. 139. And Archbishop Bramhal in his Fair warning to take heed of the Scotish Discipline almost throughout do charge with POPERY and where the last Archbishop doth represent the Covenant with the terms of Baal Baal berith and Baalims and saith It were worth the enquiring whether the marks of Anti-Christ do not agree as eminently to the Assembly general of Scotland as either to the Pope or to the Turk This we see plainly that they spring out of the Ruines of the Civil Magistrate they sit upon the Temple of God and they advance themselves above those whom the Scripture calls Gods. A. That Archbishop's saying It were worth the enquiring thus concerning that general Assembly as then used is the only thing wherein I differ from him for I think there is no doubt in the case B. To this you may add the thoughts of their being associated against Superstition while they were planting the grossest Superstition that any Age hath known if we may take our measures of Superstition from that definition of it in the Reformatio legum Ecclesiasticarum viz. Superstitio cultus est ad Deum relatus immenso quodam proficiscens humano Studio vel animi certâ propensione quam vulgò bonam intentionem vocant c. Let any one consider how after the beginning of the Parliament of Forty they had obtain'd in the very Act that took away the Ship-money that all the Particulars prayed or desired in the Petition of Right should be enacted one whereof was That no Oath should be imposed on the Subjects that was not establish'd by Act of Parliament and how in despite of that Law they without any such Act out of a blind Zeal for Religion imposed this dreadful Oath on the People Let any one but read over The Covenant with a Narrative and the Speeches of Mr. Nye and Mr. Hendersham at the time of the Solemn Reading Swearing and Subscribing of the Covenant by the House of Commons and Assembly of Divines in St. Margaret's Church and observe in Mr. Nye's Speech his Saying that ASSOCIATION is of Divine offspring and his resembling of this Covenant to the Covenant of Grace and the matter of it there represented by him as worthy to be sworn by all the Kingdoms of the World as a giving up of all those Kingdoms to Christ and where it followeth yea we find this very thing in the utmost accomplishment of it to have been the Oath of the greatest Angel that