framed to the Visitation viz. Whither in all Churches and Chappels all Images Shrines Tables Candlesticks Trindals and Rolls of Wax Pictures Paintings and other Monuments of feigned and false Miracles Pilgrimages Idolatry and Superstition were removed abolished and destroyed Numb 2. But these objections carried their own answers in them it being manifest by the words both of the Articles and Injunctions that it never was the meaning of the Queen her Councel or Commissioners to condemn abolish or deface all Images either of Christ himself or of any of the Prophets Apostles Martyrs Confessors and other godly Fathers in the Church of Christ the abuse whereof is ordered to be reformed by the first Injunction but only to remove such Pictures of false and feigned Miracles as had no truth of being or existence in Nature and therefore were the more abused to Superstition and Idolatry in the times of Popery In answer to such passages as are alledged out the said Homilies it is replyed first that is confessed in the beginning of the last of the said three Homilies that Images in Churches are not simply forbidden by the New Testament Hom. Fol. 39. And therefore no offence committed against the Gospel if they be used only for History Example and stirring up of pure Devotion in the souls of men in which respect called not unfitly by Pope Gregory The Lay-mans Books Secondly The Compilers of those Homilies were the more earnest in point of removing or excluding Images the better to wean the People from the sin of Idolatry in which they had been trained up from their very infancy and were not otherwise to be weaned from it then by taking away the occasions of it And thirdly All that vehemence is used against them not as intollerable in themselves but as they might be made in those broken and unsettled times an occasion of falling before men could be fully instructed in the right use of them as appears plainly by these passages viz. Our Images also have been and be and if they be publickly suffered in Churches and Chappels ever will be also worshipped and so Idolatry committed to them p. 13. So hard it is and indeed impossible any long time to have Images publickly in Churches and Temples without Idolatry fol. 33. And finally by the passage which before we touched at where after much vehemency not only against Idolatry and Worshipping of Images but also against Idols and Images themselves the heats thereof are qualified by this expression viz I mean alwayes thus herein in that we be stirred and provoked by them to worship them and not as though they were simply forbidden by the New Testament without such occasion and danger ibid. fol. 39. And thereupon it is first alledged by those of contrary judgment that all such as lived in times of Popery being long since dead and the people of this last age sufficiently instructed in the unlawfulness of worshipping such painted Images they may be lawfully used in Churches without fear of Idolatry which seems to have been the main inducement for their first defacing Secondly Many of the Eastern Churches which notwithstanding do abominate the Superstitions of the Church of Rome retained the use of painted Images though they reject those which were cut and carved Thirdly That Images are still used in the Lutheran Churches upon which our first Reformers had a special eye and that Luther much reproved Carolostadius for taking them out of such Churches where before they had been suffered to stand letting him know Ex mentibus hominum potius removendas that the worship of Images was rather to be taken out of mens mindes by diligent and painful preaching then the Images themselves to be so rashly and unadvisedly cast out of the Churches That painted Images were not only retained in the Chappels of the Queen and of many great men of the Realm in most of the Cathedral Churches and in some private Churches and Chappels also without any defacing witness the curious painted Glass in the Cathedral Church of Canterbury the Parish Church of Faireford in the County of Glocester and the Chappel of the Holy Ghost near Basingstoke but a rich and massy Crucifix was kept for many years together on the Table or Altar of the Chappel Royal in Whitehal as appears by Saunders and Du Chesne till it was broke in pieces by Pach the Queens Fool when no wiser man could be got to do it upon the secret instigation of Sir Francis Knollis and finally it appears by the Queens Injunctions that the Priests being commanded not to extol the dignity of any Images Relicks c. and the people diligently to teach that all Goodness Health and Grace ought to be asked and looked for only at the hands of God whereby all Superstition might be taken out of their hearts the Images might lawfully remain as well in publick Churches as in private Houses as they had done formerly 16. As for the times of publick Worship we must behold them in their Institution and their Observation And first as for their Institution it is agreed on of all hands that the Annual Feasts Saints Dayes or Holy Dayes as now commonly called do stand on no other ground then the Authority of the Church which at first ordained them some in one age and some in another till they grow unto so great a number that it was thought fit by King Henry viii and afterwards by King Edward vi to abolish such of them as might best be spared Nor stands the Sunday or Lords Day according to the Doctrine of the Church of England on any other ground then the rest of the Holy dayes for in the Homily touching the time and place of Prayer it is thus doctrinally resolved viz. As concerning the time in which God hath appointed his people to assemble together solemnly it doth appear by the fourth Commandment c. Which Example and Commandment of God the godly Christian people began to follow after the Ascension of our Lord Christ and began to chuse them a standing day in the week to come together in yet not the seventh day which the Jews kept but the Lords day the day of the Lords Resurrection the day after the seventh day which is the first day of the week c. This makes the matter clear enough and yet the Statute 5 and 6 of Edw. vi in which all the Prelates did concur with the other Estates makes it clearer then the Homily doth Forasmuch saith the Statute as men be not at all times so mindeful to laud and praise God so ready to resort to hear Gods holy Word and come to the holy Communion c. as their bounden duty doth require therefore to call men to remembrance of their duty and to help their infirmities it hath been wholesomely provided that there should be some certain dayes and times appointed wherein Christians should cease from all kindes of labour and apply themselves only and wholly unto the aforesaid holy works properly
and Apollo's watering do receive increase For being thus resolved upon the point it was not long before he had an opportunity to set it forwards He had before attained unto an high esteem for Arts and Oratory and was conceived to have made so good a proficiency in the Studies of Divinity also that in the year 1602. he was admitted to read the Lecture of Mrs. May's Foundation with the general liking of that Colledge With the like general consent and approbation he was chosen out of all the rest of that Society to be a Candidate for the Proctorship in the University into which Office he was chosen on the fourth of May 1603. which was as soon as he was capable of it by the University Statutes which Office he discharged with great applause as to himself and general satisfaction unto others Doctor George Abbot Master of Vniversity Colledge who afterwards attained to the See of Canterbury was at that time Vice-chancellor of the University whom with the rest of the Doctors and Heads of Houses he accompanied to Woodstock Manor to present themselves and tender their most humble service to the most Mighty Prince King Iames succeeding on the 24th of March before to the Crown of England And in this year it was but whether in reading of the Lecture of Mrs. May's Foundation or some other Chappel Exercise I am not able to say he maintained the constant and perpetual visibility of the Church of Christ derived from the Apostles to the Church of Rome continued in that Church as in others of the East and South till the Reformation Dr. Abbot Master of Vniversity Colledg and Vice-chancellor was of a different opinion and could not finde any such visibility of the Christian Church but by tracing it as well as he could from the Berengarians to the Albigenses from the Albigenses to the Wickliffists from the Wickliffists unto the Hussites and from the Hussites unto Luther and Calvin for proof whereof we may consult a Book of his entituled The Visibility of the Church published in those busie Times when this impertinent Question viz. Where Was your Church before Luther was as impertinently insisted on by the Priests and Jesuites This being his opinion also when he lived in Oxon he thought it a great derogation to his Parts and Credit that any man should dare to maintain the contrary and thereupon conceived a strong grudge against him which no tract of time could either abolish or diminish In the next year viz. 1604. he peformed his Exercise for Batchelor of Divinity in which he maintained these two Points First The necessity of Baptism Secondly That there could be no true Church without Diocesan Bishops For which last he was shrewdly ratled by Doctor Holland above-mentioned as one that did endeavour to cast a bone of Discord betwixt the Church of England and the Reformed Churches beyond the Seas and for the first it was objected That he had taken the greatest part of his Supposition out of Bellarmines Works as if the Doctrine of the Incarnation of the Son of God or any necessary Truths were to be renounced because they are defended by that Learned Cardinal But misfortunes seldom come alone if at the least it may be counted a misfortune to be reproach'd for standing up in defence of truth For not long after viz. Anno 1606. he was questioned by Dr. Airy being Vice-chancellor for that year for a Sermon preached in St. Maries Church on the 26th of October as containing in it sundry scandalous and Popish passages the good man taking all things to be matter of Popery which were not held forth unto him in Calvins Institutes conceiving that there was as much Idolatry in bowing at the Name of IESVS as in worshipping the brasen Serpent and as undoubtedly believing that Antichrist was begotten on the Whore of Babylon as that Pharez and Zara were begotten on the body of Tamar Which advantage being taken by Doctor Abbot he so violently persecuted the poor man and so openly branded him for a Papist or at least very Popishly enclined that it was almost made an Heresie as I have heard from his own mouth for any one to be seen in his company and a misprision of Heresie to give him a civil Salutation as he walked the Streets But there will one day come a time when Doctor Abbot may be made more sensible of these Oppressions when he shall see this poor despised man standing upon the higher ground and more above him in respect of Power than beneath in Place So unsafe a thing it is for them that be in Authority to abuse their Power and carry matters on to the last extremities as if they had Fortune in a string and could be sure to lead her with them whithersoever they went This scandal being raised at Oxon it was not long before it flew to Cambridge also at what time Mr. Ioseph Hall who died Bishop of Norwich about the year 1657. was exercising his Pen in the way of Epistles in one of which inscribed to Mr. W. L. the two first Letters of his Name it was generally supposed that he aimed at him and was this that followeth I would saith he I knew where to finde you then I could tell how to take direct aims whereas now I must pore and conjecture To day you are in the Tents of the Romanists to morrow in ours the next day between both against both Our Adversaries think you ours we theirs your Conscience findes you with both and neither I flatter you not This of yours is the worst of all tempers Heat and Cold have their uses Lukewarmness is good for nothing but to trouble the stomack Those that are spiritually hot find acceptation those that are stark cold have a lesser reckoning the mean between both is so much worse as it comes neerer to good and attains it not How long will you halt in this indifferency Resolve one way and know at last what you do hold what you should Cast off either your wings or your teeth and loathing this Bat-like Nature be either a Bird or a Beast To die wavering and uncertain your self will grant fearful If you must settle when begin you If you must begin why not now It is dangerous deferring that whose want is deadly and whose opportunity is doubtful God cryeth with Iehu Who is on my side who Look at last out of your window to him and in a resolute courage cast down the Iezebel that hath bewitched you Is there any impediment which delay will abate Is there any which a just answer cannot remove If you had rather waver who can settle you But if you love not inconstancy tell us why you stagger Be plain or else you will never be firm c. But notwithstanding these false bruits and this smart Epistle Doctor Buckridge who had been his Tutor and from whom he received his Principles had better assurance of his unfeigned sincerity in the true
by which the proceedings in those Courts were to be regulated and directed so as it doth appear most clearly that it was not the purpose of that King either to diminish the Authority or to interrupt the Succession of Bishops which had continued in this Church from the first Plantation of the Gospel to that very time but only to discharge them from depending on the Popes of Rome or owing any thing at all to their Bulls and Faculties which had been so chargeable to themselves and exhausted so great a part of the Treasure of the Kingdom from one year to another 3. Upon this ground he past an Act of Parliament in the 25. year of his Reign for the Electing and Consecrating of Archbishops and Bishops In which it was Enacted that on the Vacancy of every Bishoprick within his Realm his Majesty should issue out his Writ of Conge d' eslire to the Dean and Chapter of the Church so Vacant thereby enabling them to proceed to the Election of another Bishop that the Election being returned by the Dean and Chapter and ratified by the Royal Assent his Majesty should issue out his Writ to the Metropolitan of the Province to proceed unto the Confirmation of the Party Elected and that if the Party so Confirmed had not before been Consecrated Bishop of some other Church that then the Metropolitan taking to himself two other Bishops at the least should proceed unto the Consecration in such form and manner as was then practised by the Church so that as to the Rites and Ceremonies of the Consecration there was no alteration made at all Those which were Consecrated after the passing of this Statute were generally acknowledged for true and lawful Bishops by the Papists themselves or otherwise Dr. Thomas Thurlby Bishop of Westminster had never been admitted to have been one of those who assisted at the Consecrating of Cardinal Pool when he was made Arch-Bishop of Canterbury on the death of Cranmer All which recited Statutes with every thing depending on them being abrogated by Act of Parliament in the time of Queen Mary were revived in the first Year of Queen Elizabeth and so still continue But so it was not with another alteration made in the form of exercising their jurisdiction by King Edw. 6. In the first Parliament of whose Reign it was enacted that all process out of the Ecclesiastical Courts should from thence forth be issued in the Kings Name only and under the Kings Seal of Arms contrary to the usage of the former times Which Statute being repealed by Queen Mary and not revived by Queen Elizabeth the Bishops and their subordinate Ministers have ever since exercised all manner of Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction in their own Names and under the distinct Seals of their several Offices 4. In Doctrinals and forms of Worship there was no alteration made in the Reign of K. Hen. 8. though there were many preparations and previous dispositions to it the edge of Ecclesiastical Affairs being somewhat blunted and the people indulged a greater Liberty in consulting with the Holy Scriptures and reading many Books of Evangelical Piety then they had been formerly which having left the way more open to Arch-Bishop Cranmer and divers other learned and Religious Prelates in K. Edwards time seconded by the Lord Protector and other great ones of the Court who had their ends apart by themselves they proceeded carefully and vigorously to a Reformation In the managing of which great business they took the Scripture for their ground according to the general explication of the ancient Fathers the practise of the Primitive times for their Rule and Pattern as it was expressed to them in approved Authors No regard had to Luther or Calvin in the procedure of their work but only to the Writings of the Prophets and Apostles Christ Iesus being the Corner-stone of that excellent Structure Melancthons coming was expected Regiis Literis in Angliam vocatus as he affirms in an Epistle to Camerarius but he came not over And Calvin made an offer of his service to Arch-Bishop Cranmer Si quis mei usus esset if any use might be made of him to promote the work but the Arch-Bishop knew the man and refused the other so that it cannot be affirmed that the Reformation of this Church was either Lutheran or Calvinian in its first original And yet it cannot be denied but that the first Reformers of it did look with more respectful eyes upon the Doctrinals Government and Forms of Worship in the Lutheran Churches then upon those of Calvins platform because the Lutherans in their Doctrines Government and Forms of Worship approach't more near the Primitive Patterns than the other did and working according to this rule they retain'd many of those ancient Rites and Ceremonies which had been practised and almost all the Holy Dayes or Annual Feasts which had been generally observed in the Church of Rome Nothing that was Apostolick or accounted Primitive did fare the worse for being Popish I mean for having been made use of in times of Popery it being none of their designs to create a new Church but reform the old Such Superstitions and Corruptions as had been contracted in that Church by long tract of time being pared away that which was good and commendable did remain as formerly It was not their intent to dig up a foundation of such precious stones because some superstructures of Straw and Stubble had been raised upon it A moderation much applauded by King Iames in the Conference at Hampton-Court whose golden Aphorisme it was That no Church ought further to separate it self from the Church of Rome either in Doctrine or Ceremony then she had departed from her self when she was in her flourishing and best estate p. 77. 5. The succession of Bishops continued as it did before but fitted in the form and manner of their Consecrations according to the Rules laid down with the fourth Council of Carthage celebrated Anno 407. or thereabouts and generally received in all the Provinces of the Western Church as appears by the Book of Consecrating Arch-Bishops and Bishops c. Approved first by the Book of Articles and confirmed in Parliament Anno 5.6 Edw. VI. as afterwards justified by the Articles of Religion agreed upon in Convocation in Queen Elizabeths time Anno 1562. And by an Act of Parliament in the 8th Year of her Reign accounted of as part of our Publick Liturgies And by that book it will appear that Bishops were then looked upon as a distinct Order of themselves and not as a different degree only amongst the rest of the Presbyters For in the Preface to that Book it is said expresly That it is evident to all men diligently reading Holy Scripture and Ancient Authors that from the Apostles time there have been these Orders of Ministers in the Church of Christ Bishops Priests and Deacons Not long after which it followeth thus viz. And therefore to the intent these Orders should be continued
that every man that could pronounce well was not found able to endite and every man that could endite not being to be trusted in a business of such weight and moment it seemed good in the Wisdom of the first Reformers to compile some good and profitable Sermons called by the name of Homilies to be read carefully and distinctly on the Sundayes and Holy dayes for the instruction of the people 11. Such course was taken for the peace and edification of the Church by the first Reformers not only in the choice of the men to whom they gave Licences to preach but in supplying the defect and want of such preaching by the Book of Homilies and they had as great a care too for the keeping the people in good stomach not cloying them with continual Preaching or Homilizing but limiting them to once a day as appears by the Rubrick after the Nicene or rather the Constantinopolitan Creed One Sermon or Homily in the mornings of Sundayes and other Holy dayes for the edification of the â—lder and Catechizing by way of question and answer in the afternoon for the instruction of the younger was esteemed sufficient Lectures upon the week dayes were not raised upon this foundation but were brought in afterwards borrowed by Travers and the â—est toward the latter end of Queen Elizabeths Reign from the new fashions of Geneva the Lecturer being super-added to the Parson or Vicar as the Doctor was unto the Pastor in some forreign Churches Nor were they raised so much out of care and conscience for training up the people in the wayes of Faith and Piety as to advance a Faction and to alienate the peoples mindes from the Government and Forms of Worship here by Law established For these Lecturers having no dependance upon the Bishops nor taking the Oath of Canonical Obedience to them nor subscribing to the doctrine and establisht Ceremonies made it their work to please those Patrons on whose arbitrary maintenance they were planted and consequently to carry on the Puritan interest which their Patron drove at A generation of men neither Lay nor Clergy having no place at all in the Prayers of the Church where we finde mention only of Bishops Pastors and Curates nor being taken notice of in the terms of Law as being neither Parsons nor Vicars or to speak them in the vulgar proverb neither flesh nor fish nor good red herring No creature in the world so like them as the Bats or Reremice being neither Birds nor Beasts and yet both together Had these men been looked upon in time before their numbers were increased and their power grown formidable before the people went a madding after new inventions most of the mischiefs which have thence ensued might have been prevented And had there been more reading of Homilies in which the Reader speaks the sense of the Church and not so much of Sermonizing in which the Preacher many times speaks his own factious and erronâ—ous sense the people might have been trained up in no less knowledge but in much more obedience then they have been in these latrer times 12. As for the Sacraments which were advanced to the number of seven in the Church of Rome this Church hath brought them back to two as generally necessary to salvation Baptisme and the Holy Supper Four of the rest that is to say Marriage Orders Confirmation and the Visitation though not the Extream Vnction of the Sick being retained under the name of Sacramentals in our publick Liturgy Of which the Book of Consecrating Arch-Bishops and Bishops c. is by the Act of Parliament 8 Eliz. c. 1. affirmed to be a Supplement or Additional only added put to and annexed as the words do vary to the said Book of Common-Prayer And of these four two are reserved unto the Bishop that is to say Confirmation and the giving of Orders the other two viz. Marriage and the Visitation of the Sick being common to both alike though executed in the most part by the Presbyter only Of those reserved unto the Bishop the one is so reserved ad necessitatem operis because it cannot be done without him the other ad honorem sacerdotii as the Schools distinguish because it cannot be well done but by him Touching the first we have the general consent of all ancient Writers and the example of Coluthus who took upon him the ordaining of Presbyters contrary to the Rules of the Church and the Canons of thâ— most famous Councils But when the business came to be examined his Ordinations were declared to be null and void because he was a Presbyter only and not a Bishop as is affirmed by Athanasius in Apol. 2. The other grounded on the 8th Chapter of the Acts as St Cyprian in his 73. Epistle tells us where Peter and Iohn are said to have laid hands on them in Samaria which had been before Baptized in the Name of the Lord Iesus that they might receive the Holy Ghost and that by laying on of their hands they did receive the Holy Ghost accordingly verse 16 17. Quod nunc quoque apud nos geritur c. Which is also done saith St. Cyprian and Cyprian flourisht in the middle of the third Century amongst our selves when they which be already Baptized are brought unto the Prelates of the Church Praepositis Ecclesiae offeruntur that by our Prayer and Imposition of our hands they may receive the Holy Ghost and be strengthened by the Seal of the Lord. Upon which grounds beâ—iâ—â—â—â—he great antiquity of it it was retained by the first Reformers as in the Rubrick before Confirmation in the Common-Prayer-Book And â—ad it been as diligently practised by the Bishops in the declining times of this Church as it was piously and religiously retained by them it would have much conduced to their saâ—e standing in the Church and procured a greater veneration to their Persons also The other two viz. Marriage and the Visitation of the Sick together with the Burial of the Dead and the Churching of Women after Child-birth are left to the officiating of the Priest or Parochial Minister unless the Bishop please to take that work upon himself in some certain cases 13. But as for Penance one of the seven Sacraments in the Church of Rome we must look upon in a double capacity First As it was solemnly performed on Ashwednesday as a preparative to the approaching Feast of Easter the people humbling themselves before the Lord in Sackcloth and Ashes whence it had the name And secondly As imposed on such particular persons as lay under the censures of the Church Touching the first it is related in the beginning of the Commination that in the Primitive Church there was a godly Discipline That at the beginning of Lent such persons as were notorious sinners were put to open Penance and punished in this world that their Souls might be saved in the day of the Lord and that others admonished by their example might be the more afraid to
leave to Worship God as your selves do For if it be Gods Worship I ought to do it as well as you and if it be Idolatry you ought not to do it more then I. 19. This duty being performed at their first entrance into the Church it was next required by the Rubrick that they should reverently kneel at the reading of the publick Prayers and in the receiving of the Holy Sacrament of the Lords Supper that they should stand up at the reading of the Apostles Creed and consequently at the Athanasian and Nicene also which are as Commentaries on that Text as also at the frequent Repetitions of the Gloria Patri which is an Abridgement of the same And in the next place it was required by the Queens Injunctions That whensoever the Name of Iesus shall be in any Lesson Sermon or otherwise in the Church pronounced that due reverence be made of all persons young and old with lowness of courtesie and uncovering the heads of the mankinde as thereunto doth necessarily belong and heretofore hath been accustomed In which it is to be observed that though this Injunction was published in the first year of the Queen yet then this bowing at the Name of Iesus was lookt on as an ancient custom not only used in Queen Maries Reign but also in King Edwards time and in those before And in this case and in that before and in all others of that nature it is a good and certain rule that all such Rites as had been practised in the Church of Rome and not abolisht nor disclaimed by any Doctrine Law or Canon of the first Reformers were to continue in the same state in which they found them But this commendable custom together with all other outward reverence in Gods publick Service being every day more and more discontinued as the Puritan Faction got ground amongst us it seemed good to the Prelates and Clergy assembled in Convocation Anno 1603. to revive the same with some enlargement as to the uncovering of the Head in all the acts and parts of publick worship For thus we have it in the 18. Canon of that year viz. No man shall cover his head in the Church or Chappel in time of Divine Service except he have some Infirmity in which case let him wear a night Cap or Coife And likewise when the Name of Iesus shall be mentioned due and lowly reverence shall be done by all persons present as it hath been accustomed testifying by this outward Ceremony and Gesture their inward Humility Christian Resolution and due acknowledgement that the Lord Iesus Christ the true and eternal Son of God is the only Saviour of the world in whom alone all Graces Mercies and Promises of Gods love to mankinde for this life and the life to come are wholly comprised In which Canon we have not only the Doctrine that bowing is to be used to the Name of Iesus but the uses also and not alone the custom but the reasons of it both grounded on that Text of Scripture Phil. 2.10 that at the Name of IESVS every knee should bow according to such expositions as were made thereof by St. Ambrose and others of the ancient Writers 20. In matters which were meerly doctrinal and not practical also so the first Reformers carried on the work with the same equal temper as they did those which were either mixt or meerly practical And first beginning with the Pope having discharged themselves from the Supremacy which in the times foregoing he had exercised over them in this Kingdom I finde no Declaration in any publick Monument or Records of the Church of England that the Pope was Antichrist whatsoever some of them might say in their private Writings some hard expressions there are of him in the Book of Homilies but none more hard then those in the publick Litany first published by King Hen. viii at his going to Bolongue and afterwards retained in both Liturgies of King Edward vi In which the people were to pray for their deliverance from the tyranny of the Bishop of Rome and his detestable enormities c. This was conceived to be as indeed it was a very great scandal and offence to all those in the Realm of England who were well affected to the Church of Rome and therefore in the Liturgy of Queen Elizabeth it was quite left out the better to allure them to the Divine Service of the Church as at first it did And for the Church of Rome it self they beheld it with no other eyes then as a Member of the visible Church which had for many hundred years maintained the Fundamentals of the Christian Faith though both unsound in Doctrine and corrupt in Manners Just as a man distempered in his Brain Diseased in all the parts of his Body and languishing under many putrified Sores doth still retain the being of a natural man as long as he hath sense and motion and in his lucid intervals some use of Reason They tell us in the 19. Article that the Church of Rome hath erred not only in their living and manner of Ceremonies but in matters of Faith But then they lookt upon her as a Member of the Visible Church as well as those of Ierusalem Antioch and Alexandria which are there affirmed to have erred also Erre then she might and erre she did indeed too grosly and yet might notwithstanding serve as a conduit-pipe to convey to us many of those Primitive Truths and many of those godly Rites and Ceremonies which she had superstitiously defiled In which last place it was a very pious rule that in the Reformation of a Church abuses being taken away the primitive Institution should be left remaining Tollatur abusus maneat usus as the saying is and in the first as piously observed by King Iames in the Conference at Hampton-Court that in all Reformations he would not have any such departure from the Papists in all things that because we in some points agree with them therefore we should be accounted to be in an error Let us then see how near the first Reformers did and might come unto the Papists and yet not joyn with them in their Errors to the betraying of the Truth 21. The Pope they deprived of that unlimitted Supremacy and the Church of Rome of that exorbitant power which they formerly challenged over them yet did they neither think it fit to leave the Church without her lawful and just Authority nor saâ—e to put her out of the protection of the Supream Governour Touching the first it was resolved in the 20. Article That the Church hath power not only to decree Rites and Ceremonies but also in Controversies of Faith as the English Ecclesia habet Ritus Ceremonias Statuendi jus in fidei controversiis Authoritatem as it is in the Latine And so it stands in the Original Acts of the Convocation Anno 1562. and publisht in the self same words both in Latine and English Afterwards in the year
understood no otherwise then as it is before laid down appears by this Gloss of Bishop Hooper on that Text of St. Iohn viz. No man cometh to me except my Father draw him chap. 6.44 Many saith he understand the words in a wrong sense as if God required no more in a reasonable man than in a dead post and marke not the words which follow Every man that heareth and learneth of my Father cometh to me God draweth with his word and the Holy Ghost but mans duty is to hear and learn that is to say to receive the grace offered consent to the promise and not repugn the God that calleth The like occurs in Bishop Latimers Sermon on the Sunday commonly called Septuagesima in which we find That seeing the preaching of the Gospel is universal it appeareth that God would have all mankinde saved and that the fault is not in him if they be damned for it is written thus Deus vult omnes homines salvos fieri God would have all men be saved but we are so wicked of our selves that we refuse the same and will not take notice when it is offered to us It cannot be denyed but that the same Doctrine is maintained by the Arminians as they call them and that it is the very same with that of the Church of Rome as appears by the Council of Trent cap. De fructu justificationis merito bonorum operum Can. 3.4 But then it must be granted also that it is the Doctrine of the Melanctonian Divines or Moderate Lutherans as was confessed by Andreas vega one of the chief sticklers in the Council of Trent who on the agitating of the point did confess ingenuously that there was no difference betwixt the Lutherans and that Church touching that particular And then it must be granted also that it was the Doctrine of St. Augustine according to that divine saying of his Sine gratia Dei praeveniente ut volimus subsequente ne frustra volimus ad pietatis opera nil valemus so that if the Church of England must be Arminian and the Arminians must be Papist because they agree together in this particular the Melanctonian Divines among the Protestants yea and St. Augustine himself must be Papist also 37. Such being the freedom of the will in laying or not laying hold upon those means which are offered by Almighty God for our Salvation 〈◊〉 cannot be denyed but that there is a freedom also of the will in standing unto Grace received or departing from it Certain I am that it is so resolved by the Church of England in the 16th Article for Confession in which it is declared That after we have received the Holy Ghost we may depart from Grace given and fall into sin and by the grace of God we may arise again and amend our lives which is the very same with that of the 14th Article in King Edward's Book of the year 1557. where plainly the Church teacheth a possibility of falling or departing from the grace of the Holy Ghost which is given unto us and that our rising again and the amending of our lives upon such a rising is a matter of contingency only and no way necessary on Gods part to assure us of Conform to which we finde Bishop Hooper thus discoursing in the said Preface to his exposition of the Ten Commandments The cause of Rejection or Damnation saith he is sin in man which will not hear neither receive the promise of the Gospel or else after he hath received it by accustomed doing of ill falleth either into a contempt of the Gospel and will not study to live thereafter or else hateth the Gospel because it condemneth his ungodly life And we finde Bishop Latimer discoursing thus in his eighth Sermon in Lincolnshire Those persons saith he that be not come yet to Christ or if they were come to Christ be fallen again from him and so lost their Iustification as there be many of us when we fall willingly into sin against Conscience we lose the favour of God our Salvation and finally the Holy Ghost And before c. 6. thus But you will say saith he How shall I know that I am in the Book of Life How shall I try my self to be the Elect of God to everlasting life I answer First We may know that we may be one time in the Book and another time come out again as it appeareth by David who was written in the Book of Life but when he sinned he at that time was out of the Book of the favour of God until he repented and was sorry for his faults so that we may be in the Book one time and afterwards when we forget God and his Word and do wickedly we come out of the Book that is out of Christ who is the Book Which makes the point so clear and evident on the Churches part that when it was moved by Doctor Reynolds at Hampton-Court that the words Nec tolaliter nec finaliter might be added into the Clause of that Article the motion was generally rejected and the Article left standing in the same terms in which it then stood By which we may the better judge of some strange expressions amongst the most Rigid sort of the Contra-Remonstrants especially of that of Roger Dontelock by whom it is affirmed that if it were possible for any one man to commit all the sins over again which have been acted in the world it would neither frustrate his Election nor alienate him from the love and favour of Almighty God for which consult the Appendix to the Presseor Declaratio Sententiae Remonstrantium Printed at Leyden Anno 1616. 38. Such is the Doctrine of this Church and such the Judgement of those Reverend Bishops and right godly Martyrs in the Predestinarian Controversies before remembred And though I have insisted on those two alone yet in theirs I include the Judgement of Cranmer Ridley and the rest of those learned men who laboured in the great work of the Reformation Some difference there had been betwixt Cranmer and Ridley on the one side and Hooper only on the other in matter of Ceremony in which Hooper at the last submitted to the other two But in all the Doctrinal truths of their Religion there was a full consent between them which appears plainly in this passage of a Letter sent from Ridley to Hooper when they were both prisoners for the same cause though in several places But now my dear Brother saith he for as much as I understand by your works which I have but superâ—icially seen that we throughly agree and wholly consent together in those things which are the grounds and substantial points of our Religion against which the world so rageth in these our dayes Howsoever in times past in certain by-matters and circumstances of Religion your Wisdom and my simplicity I grant have a little jarred each of us following the aboundance of his own sense and Iudgement Now I say be you
Wolsey's exorbitant Power or Cromwel's contempt of the Nobility under Henry viii or Leicesters Tyranny and Oppressions under Queen Elizabeth were ever suffered to be canvased or condemned in Parliament That the King got nothing by that unhappy condescension but the laying himself open to all disadvantages which a Prince abandoning his Ministers or abandoned by them might have just reason to expect That when Princes begin to fall so much beneath themselves as to manage Pen-Combate with their Subjects they put themselves as it were upon equal ground and stand on the same Level with their Vassals and by the loss of their Authority get nothing but the Reputation of an able Writer And then the Reason of these his yieldings being brought in Question they were by some imputed to a natural timidity or want of Courage which rendred him unable to hold out long when he encountred those who would put him to it Others ascribed it to his wants and his wants unto his prodigality which made his Exchequer always empty and Money must be had whatever it cost him But those who thought they came most neer unto the mark discoursed of him as a man that loved not business and loved no business less than that of Parliaments That it was usual with him when he called a Parliament and had given them their Errand as he thought to retire to Theobalds Hampton-Court or Windsor and sometimes further off to Royston or New-Market as his pleasure carried him That by this means the Commons not having opportunity of Access to his Person were forced upon a plausible necessity of making their Addresses to him by Messages Remonstrances and Petitions That those Remonstrances and Petitions did beget their Answers and their Answers did beget Replies which ended commonly in Exasperations on either side But nothing was so much admired at as the encreasing of the Priviledges of the House of Commons as well in nature as in number And thereupon it was observed that the Commons had mistook themselves in the very ground on which they built their Protestation That the known Priviledges of the Commons were only liberty of speech in Debate and Conference Freedom from all Arrests for themselves and their Servants and opportunity of access to his Majesties Person as their occasions did require That even those Priviledges could not be called the undoubted Birth-Right and Inheritance of the Subjects of England because they were no otherwise exercised and enjoyed than from one Parliament to another by the grace and goodness of their Kings That were it otherwise it must needs be a great impertinency in their Speaker at the first opening of every Parliament to put himself upon his knees and humbly to beseech his Majesty in behalf of the House of Commons to indulge them the continuance of those Priviledges which were of right their own before That they had been as much mistaken in making the House of Commons by involving both Houses in the name of Parliament to be of equall Power and Priviledge with the House of Peers the contrary whereof being so well known That the Peers and People being summoned to Parliament by several Writs the Peers were called only ad consulendum to counsell and advise the King in matters of most concernment to the Church and State And that the People were called only ad consentiendum faciendum to give consent and yield obedience to such things as were ordained in the Great Council of the Peers That even the Peers themselves had no general warrant to meddle in all Affairs of State but in such only as his Majesty commend and propound to them And therefore that these words in the Writ Super arduis regni negotiis are not left at large but limited and restrained by the word quibusdam to such particulars and such only in which the King required their Counsels But nothing seemed so new or strange as that no Member of the said House should be impeached imprisoned and molested other than by Censure of the House it self for or concerning any speaking reasoning or declaring of any matter or matters touching the Parliament or Parliament business A Priviledge not heard of in Queen Elizabeths time when in the 35. of her Reign She imprisoned no less than five of the Members at a clap not only without their leave but against their liking And held them in so strict a durance that the Commons did not think it safe to move her Majesty to restore them to their former liberty And therefore that they were to shew under what rust and rubbish of Antiquity this Priviledge had so long been hidden and how it came to be found out at last when no body heard of it or looked after it The like discoursed also of the following Priviledge which had been long buried in the same grave and never came till now to a resurrection viz. That the King is to take no private information of any complaint concerning matters said or done in that House till it be shewn unto him by the House it self of which it was affirmed that it was as contrary to the Presidents and Practise of former times as the other was That when the Queen had laid an Imposition upon Currans and that this Imposition had been complained of by some Merchants to the House of Commons she had present notice given her of it by some of her Servants in that House that shewing her dislike thereof to Sir Robert Cicill principal Secretary of State he signified the same unto the House telling them it was a Noli me tangere a point not fit for them to touch at and that if they desisted not from entertaining that complaint he must acquaint her Majesty with it as in duty bound Nor was there any better ground for that other branch touching their Liberty and Freedom in breaking of all matters which came under their Cognizance in such method and order as to them seemed fittest but that they did intend to lay it as a foundation for preferring their own business before the Kings in all times to come I had not dwelt so long upon these Discourses nor on the former passages between his Majesty and the House of Commons as being Exotical to my business but that they were the chief occurrences of this first Parliament of which our new Bishop was a Member And though the sitting was but short not above a Month yet it afforded him a liberal prospect into the Humours and Affections the Counsels and Designs of the House of Commons of which he was not to be taught how to make such use as should prove most to the advantage of the Church and State But that which chiefly did concern him to take notice of was the interposing and embracements of that House in the cause of Religion which if it were so much in danger by the extraordinary encrease of Popery as they gave it out it must be much to the Reproach both of himself and the rest of the Bishops
that none of them had neither perspicuity enough to see it or Zeal enough to give warning of it And therefore he must needs conceive that Religion was made use of only for a blind or Curtain to screen some dark design from the publick view which had not yet attained to so ripe a confidence as to shew it self abroad in the open light The Mystery of iniquity had long been working in this Church not so much in the Popish as the Puritan Faction Who seeing they had no more prevailed against it by their open batteries than the Roman Emperours had done on the Primitive Church by their persecutions resolved upon more secret and consequently more dangerous practises to attain their ends In order whereunto they had perpetually alarm'd this King from his first coming to the Crown with continual dangers from the Papists for which the Gun-powder-treason gave them too much ground Nor would they suffer any Session of Parliament pass from that time forward in which the dangerous practises of Priests Iesuits c. did not sound in his ears And this they did not so much because they saw any such visible increase of Popery as was by them pretended from time to time but that they thought it the best way to carry on their other projects which they were in hand with For well they knew that when the thoughts both of King and People were totally taken up with the apprehension of the dangers which were feared from the Papists the Puritan Party in the mean time might gather strength without being noted or observed But because these interposings of the Commons in the cause of Religion became to be more eagerly pursued in some following Parliaments we shall refer the further consideration of them to another time The Parliament being ended we must follow our new Bishop to his Diocess whom we will wait upon to St. Davids a poor City God wot scituate on the Promontory in Pembroke-shire by the Ancients called Ortopitae in a safe place and far enough from the Saxons whom the Welsh most feared but incommodious enough for all the rest of the Clergy to repair unto Nor did it prove so safe for the Bishop and other Inhabitants of it as had been presumed in respect of sundry other Nations who have often spoyled and defaced it For standing near the Sea it had been frequently visited and spoyled by the Danes Norwegians and other Pyrates insomuch that the Bishops were inforced to remove their dwelling to Caermarthen a fair Market Town and beautified with a goodly Collegiate Church not far from which in a Village called Aberguilly the Bishop hath his ordinary place of Residence This brought the City of St. Davids small enough before to the condition of a Village there being nothing almost remaining of it but the Church the ruines of the Bishops Palace and some Houses appertaining to the Canons of it The Church as now it stands if any of it be now left standing was the work of Bishop Peter the forty eighth Bishop of this Diocess and by him dedicated by the name of St. Andrew and St. David though now St. Andrew be left out and St David bears the name as before it did in reference to St. David who first removed the Archiepiscopal See from Caer-leon thither The place at that time by the Welsh called Menew whence the Latines borrow their Menevenses by which name these Bishops are entituled From this removal of the See which hapned in 519. the Bishops hereof were for some time the Metropolitans and for a long time the supreme Ordinaries of the Welsh or Brittish For although Archbishop Samson the twenty sixth from St. David in the year 910. or thereabouts had carried the Archiepiscopal Pall and therewithall the Archiepiscopal dignity to Dole in Bretagne by reason of an extreme Pestilence then raging amongst the Welsh yet his Successors though they lost the name reserved the power of an Archbishop Nor did the residue of the Welsh Bishops receive their Consecration from any other hand than his till the Reign of Hen. I. At what time Bernard the forty sixth Bishop of this See was forced to submit himself to the Church of Canterbury But our Bishops Journey into Wales was not so much to visit S. Davids in which Church he had been before installed by Proxie as to bestow a visitation upon his Diocess and therein to take order for the rectifying of such things as he found amiss A Diocess containing the whole Counties of Pembroke Cardigan Caermarthen Radnor and Brecknock with some small parts of Monmouth Hereford Montgâ—mery and Glamorgan Shires For managing whereof the Bishop hath under him four Archdeacons that is to say of Cardigan Caermarthen Brecknock and St. Davids distributing amongst them all the Parishes which belong to this Diocess amounting to no more in so great a quantity of ground than 308. of which 120. are accounted for Impropriations But then we are to understand this number of Parochial Churches not taking into the Account such subordinate Chappels as had been built in several Parishes for the case of the People which might very much increase the reckoning And yet he added one more to them of his own foundation and such a one as for the elegancy of the building and richness of the Furniture exceeded all the rest together Chappels he found none at his Episcopal house of Aberguilly and one he was resolved to bestow upon it proportionably to such a Family as was fit for a Bishop of St. Davids to have about him which being finished he provided it of Rich Furniture and Costly Utensils and whatsoever else was necessary or convenient for the Service of God the very Plate designed for the celebrating of the holy Supper amounting to one hundred fifty five pounds eighteen shillings four pence Insomuch that if Felix the Proconsul had been still alive he might have cried out now as he did in the time of Iulian the Apostate viz. Behold in what rich Vessels they administer to the Son of Mary But this unhapy Age hath given us Felix's enough to reckon this amongst his crimes and so they do his solemn Consecration of it performed by himself in person according to an order firmly drawn up by the most learned Bishop Andrews then whom there could not be a greater enemy to the Errours Superstitions and Corruptions of the See of Rome I know it was objected that neither Gratian nor the Roman Pontificall conceive such Consecrations necessary to a Private Chappel but then they are to be understood of such Chappels only as are meant for prayers and in propriety of speech are no more than Oratories and not of such as are intended for Preaching Ministring the Sacraments and other acts of Divine Worship as this Chappel was And this appears so plainly by the Authentick Instrument of the Dedication that no man who hath seen the same can make question of it I have laid all these things together from his
purpose to discourage such a pious work which good men rejoyced at But greater was the clamour of the Puritan Faction who in a meeting held that night conceived no punishment great enough to inflict upon him which either Law Malice or Revenge could expose him to Being thus alarmed on the one side and threatned by the other he sent a Copy of his Sermon to the Bishop of London not long before made Chancellour of that University and signified in a Letter therewith sent that he was both able and ready to make good his charge whensoever it should be required This information came opportunely to his Lordship with whom the King had used some Speech as appears by his Breviate p. 12. about restoring Impropriations to the Church which this new project seemed to frustrate And thereupon he entred it in the Memorandum at the end of his Breviate viz. To overthrow the Feoffment dangerous both to Church and State going under the specious pretence of buying in Impropriations The Preacher in the mean time making a further search into the business observed these particulars first That no Impropriation by them bought was laid unto the Parish Church and settled upon the present Incumbent as was first expected that being utterly destructive of their design Secondly That a great part of that Revenue was spent in maintaining a dayly Lecture in the Church of St. Antholins at six a clock in the Morning to serve for a Seminary for the training up of such Novices as were to be sent into the Country Thirdly That another part of it was laid out not only for the support of silenced Ministers during their own lives but of their Wives and Children also after their decease than which there could not be a greater tye to unite men to them and make them sticklers in the Cause Fourthly These Pensions neither were so settled nor their Lectures so well established in their several places but that the one might be withdrawn and the other removed at the will and pleasure of their Patrons if they grew slack and negligent in the holy cause which fastened a dependence on them to the very last It was not long before Noy that Renowned Lawyer was made his Majesties Atturney General to whom the Preacher was commanded to deliver a particular of all such passages as he had observed in the carrying on of this design the Feoffees thereupon being called into the Court of Exchequer the Feoffment damned the Impropriations by them bought confiscated to his Majesties use and the merit of the cause reâ—erred to a further censure And though the Sentence past not on them in the Court of Exchequer Anno 1632. yet I have laid all here together that so I might proceed to the rest of my business with the less disturbance For whilest the business of these Feoffees was under a more strict enquiry some things were acted by this Bishop which brought him into the like danger of an Inquisition St. Catherine Creed Church in London being ruinous and in great decay had in some places been taken almost down to the ground and rebuilt again by the Parishioners at such time as Mountain was their Bishop who suffered it to be made use of for Religious Offices without any new consecration of it which coming to the knowledge of Bishop Laud he caused it for a time to be suspended from all Divine Service Sermons and Sacraments till it was reconsecrated by himself Which Office he solemnly performed on Sunday Ianuary 16. An infinite number of people of all sorts drawing together to behold that Ceremony to which they had so long been strangers ignorant altogether of the Antiquity and the necessity of it The like done also at the Church of St. Giles in the Fields on the Sunday after which had been generally repaired and for the greatest part new built in the time of his Predecessor also Divine Service Preaching and Administration of the Sacraments being used therein without any such dedication of it contrary to the practice of the Primitive times and the Ancient Canons And that we may lay these things together the next year after Iune the seventh he consecrated a new Church at Hammersmith built at the charges of that Village and the next â—ear after that Iuly the seventeenth a new Church built at Stanmore magna in the County of Middlesex erected at the sole cost and charges of Sir Iohn Wolstenholm one of the Farmers of the Customs who made that day a sumptuous and magnificent Feast for the entertainment of all such persons of quality as resorted thither to behold the Consecration It was my chance to bestow a visit on his Lordship at his house in Fulham as he was preparing to set forwards to this last Consecration and being one of his Chaplains was at that time absent and that he was of ordinary course to make use of two he took me along with him to perform the Office of the Priest in the solemnity in which his Chaplain Bray was to Act the Deacons I observed all the Circumstances and religious Ceremonies which were used by him in that sacred Action from his first coming into the Church till his going out but could see nothing in it savouring of that Superstition which had raised so much talk amongst ignorant People and afterwards was certified by Willingham at the time of his trial in reference to the consecration of St. Katherine Creed Church The Antiquity of which Consecrations hath been shown in our Introduction performed by the Fathers at such times when the Church hated nothing more than superstitious vanities or the accumulating of unnecessary and fruitless Ceremonies The form and manner of it left by our first Reformers to the care and discretion of the Bishops whom it most concerned Presuming that nothing would be done by them which would not be consistent with the Rules of Piety and the ancient practise of the Church in the times foregoing And such a Form was that which this Bishop now made use of digested first by the learned Andrews for his own particular use but afterwards copied out approved and followed though possibly not without some alterations by most Bishops else Nor did he take care only of the Fabrick the material Church to make it fit and ready for Gods publick Service but that Gods publick Service should be so done in it as might most tend to the edification of the Mystical Church the body aggregate of Gods People His Majesty had took special care as well by his Proclamation of the fourteenth of Iune 1626. as by his Declaration before the Articles 1628. for the silencing of all disputes touching Predestination and the points depending thereupon which had begun to threaten such a general disturbance to the peace of the Church But neither Proclamation nor Declaration could perswade the Calvinian Party unto any such silence which they interpreted to be a plain betraying of Gods Cause into the hands of his enemies Somewhat is to be done to
the Ministers there might by degrees prepare the People to such impressions of Conformity as his Majesty by the Council and Consent of the rest of the Bishops should graciously be pleased to imprint upon them But such ill luck his Majesty had with that stubborn Nation that this was look'd upon also as a general Grievance and must be thought to aim at no other end than Tyranny and Popery and what else they pleased We have almost done our work in Scotland and yet hear nothing all this while of the Bishop of London not that he did not go the Journey but that there was little to be done at his being there but to see and be seen And yet it was a Journey which brought him some access of Honour and gave him opportunity of making himself known to those of best Quality of that Kingdom He had been in Scotland with King Iames but then he waited only as a private Chaplain He is now looked upon as the third Bishop of England in Place and the greatest in Power a Counsellor of State and the Kings great Favorite He entred Scotland as a Privy-Counsellor of England only but returned thence as a Counsellor for that Kingdom also to which Office he was sworn on the fifteenth of Iune Nor did he shew himself less able in that Church than in the Council-Chamber being appointed by his Majesty to Preach before him on the last of that Month in which some question may be made how he pleased the Scots although it be out of question that he pleased the King The greatest part of the following Iuly was spent in visiting the Country and taking a view of the chief Cities and most remarkable Parts and Places of it Which having seen he made a Posting Journey to the Queen at Greenwich whither he came on Saturday the twentieth of Iuly crossing the Water at Blackwall and looking towards London from no nearer distance But in this Act he laid aside the Majesty of his Predecessors especially of Queen Elizabeth of Famous Memory of whom it was observed That she did very seldom end any of her Summer Progresses but she would wheel about to some end of London to make her passage to Whitehall thorow some part of the City not only requiring the Lord Mayor and Aldermen in their Scarlet Robes and Chains of Gold to come forth to meet her but the several Companies of the City to attend solemnly in their Formalities as she went along By means whereof she did not only preserve that Majesty which did belong to a Queen of England but kept the Citizens and consequently all the Subjects in a reverent Estimation and Opinion of her She used the like Arts also in keeping up the Majesty of the Crown and Service of the City in the Reception and bringing in of Foreign Embassadors who if they came to London by Water were met at Gravesend by the Lord Mayor the Aldermen and Companies in their several Barges and in that Solemn manner conducted unto such Stairs by the Water side as were nearest to the Lodgings provided for them But if they were to come by Land they were met in the like sort at Shooters-Hill by the Mayor and Aldermen and thence conducted to their Lodgings the Companies waiting in the Streets in their several Habits The like she used also in celebrating the Obsequies of all Christian Kings whether Popish or Protestant with whom she was in Correspondence performed in such a Solemn and Magnificent manner that it preserved her in the estimation of all Foreign Princes though differing in Religion from her besides the great contentment which the People took in those Royal Pomps Some other Arts she had of preserving Majesty and keeping distance with her People yet was so popular withal when she saw her time that never Majesty and Popularity were so matched together But these being laid aside by King Iames who brooked neither of them and not resumed by King Charles who loved them not much more than his Father did there followed first a neglect of their Persons which Majesty would have made more Sacred and afterwards a mislike of their Government which a little Popularity would have made more grateful Laud having no such cause of hastning homewards returned not to his House at Fulham till the twenty sixth of the same Month But he came time enough to hear the news of Abbot's Sickness and within few days after of his Death which hapned on Sunday morning the fourth of August and was presently signified to the King being â—hen at Greenwich A man he was that had tasted both of good and ill Fortune in extremes affirmed by the Church Historian for I shall only speak him in the words of others to be a grave man in his Conversation and unblameable in his Life but said withal to have been carried with non amavit gentem nostram forsaking the Birds of his own feather to fly with others and generally favouring the Laity above the Clergie in all Cases which were brought before him Conceived by one of our State Historians to be too facil and yielding in the exercising of his Function by whom it also affirmed That his extraordinary remisness in not exacting strict Conformity to the prescribed Orders of the Church in point of Ceremony seemed to resolve those legal Determinations to their first Principle of Indifferency and to lead in such an habit of Inconformity as the future reduction of those tender-conscienc'd men to long discontinued Obedience was interpreted an Innovation By the first Character we find what made him acceptable amongst the Gentry by the last what made him grateful to the Puritan in favour of which men he took so little care of the great Trust committed to him and gave them so many opportunities of increasing both in Power and Numbers that to stop tâ—em in their full career it was found necessary to suspend him from his Metropolitical Jurisdiction as before was noted It is reported That as Prince Henry his Majesty then Duke of Yorke Archbishop Abbot with many of the Nobility were waiting in the Privy Chamber for the coming out of King Iames the Prince to put a jest on the Duke his Brother took the Archbishops Square Cap out of his hands and put it on his Brothers head telling him that if he continued a good Boy and followed his Book he would one day make him Archbishop of Canterbury Which the Child took in such disdain that he threw the Cap upon the ground and trampled it under his feet not being without much difficulty and some force taken off from that eagerness This though first it was not otherwise beheld than as an Act of Childish Passion yet when his Brother Prince Henry died and that he was Heir apparent to the Crown it was taken up by many zealous Church-men for some ill presage unto the Hierarchy of Bishops the overthrow whereof by his Act and Power did seem to be fore-signified by it But as
and not Absolved before he make a publick Revocation of his Error Such was the Canon passed in this Convocation for the approbation and reception of the Articles of the Church of England Which Canon was no sooner passed confirmed and published but the Primate and his Party saw the danger which they had cast themselves into by their inadvertency and found too late That by receiving and approving the English Articles they had abrogated and repealed the Irish. To salve this sore it concerned them to bestir themselves with their utmost diligence and so accordingly they did For first the Primate and some Bishops of his opinions required subscription to the Articles of both Churches of all such as came to be ordained at the next Ordination But it went no further than the next for if the Papists made it a matter of Derision to have three Confessions in the three Churches of his Majesties Kingdoms How much more matter must it give them of scorn and laughter that there should be two different Confessions in the same Church and both subscribed unto but as one and the same The Primate next applies himself to the Lord Deputy beseeching him that the former Articles might receive a new Ratification by Act of Parliament for preventing all innovations in the Religion there established But he found but little comfort there the Lord Deputy threatning to cause the said Confession to be burnt by the hand of the hangman if at the least the Scots Commissioners may be believed amongst whose Articles against him I find this for one Finding no better hopes on that side of the Sea he dispatcheth his Letters of Advice to his Friends in England one to an Honourable Person amongst the rest assuring them that though by a Canon passed in that Convocation they had received and approved the Articles of England yet that the Articlers of Ireland were ever called in might well be reckoned for a fancy The like affirmed in a Certificate made by Bernard and Pullen two Members of the Lower House in this Convocation where it is said That whosoever do aver that the said Articles were abolished are grosly mistaken and have abused the said Convocation in delivering so manifest an untruth And to back this another Certificate must be gained from one who comes commended to us under the Title of a most eminent judicious and learned person who having considered of the matter Conceives that both Confessions were consistent and that the Act of the Synod was not a Revocation of the Irish Articles but an approbation of the English as agreeing with them But all this would not serve the turn or save those Articles from being brought under a Repeal by the present Canon For first it appeareth by the Canon That they did not only approve but receive the Articles of the Church of England Their approbation of them had they gone no further had been a sufficient manifestation of their agreement with the Church of England in the Confession of the same Protestant Religion But their receiving of the same doth intimate a superinducing of them upon the other and is equivalent both in Fact and Law to the Repealing of the old For otherwise St. Paul must needs be out in the Rules of Logick when he proved the Abrogating of the old Covenant by the superinduction of a new For having affirmed that God by speaking of a New Covenant had antiquated and made void the first or made the first old as our English read it he adds immediatly That that which is old decayeth and is ready to vanish away that is to say as Diodati descants on it The old being disanulled by the new there must necessarily follow the abolishment of its use and practice Nor find they any other abrogation of the Iewish Sabbath then by the superinducing of the Lords day for the day of worship By means whereof the Sabbath was lessened in authority and reputation by little and little and in short time was absolutely laid aside in the Church of Christ the fourth Commandement by which it was at first ordained being still in force So then according to these grounds the Articles of Ireland were virtually though not formally abrogated or else it must be granted that there were two Confessions in the same one Church different both in form and matter and contrary in some points unto one another which would have been so far from creating an uniformity between the Churches in the concernments of Religion that it would have raised a greater disagreement within Ireland it self than was before between the Churches of both Kingdoms And certainly the gaining of this point did much advantage the Archbishop conducing visibly to the promotion of his ends and Counsels in making the Irish Clergy subject to the two Declarations and accountable for their breaking and neglect thereof that is to say his Majesties Declaration about Lawful Sports and that prefixt before the book of Articles for appeasing Controversies Take for a farewell this acknowledgment of a late Historian speaking as well the sense of others as his own A Convocation concurrent with a Parliament was called saith he and kept at Dublin in Ireland wherein the thirty nine Articles of the Church of England were received in Ireland for all to subscribe unto It was adjudged fit seeing that Kingdom complies with England in the Civil Government it should also conform thereunto in matters of Religion And thereupon he thus concludes That in the mean time the Irish Articles concluded formerly in a Synod 1616. mistaken for 1615. wherein Arminianism was condemned in terminis terminantibus and the observation of the Lords day resolved Iure divino were utterly excluded But leaving Ireland to the care of the Lord Deputy and the Bishop of Derry who under him had the chief managing of the affairs of that Church let us see how the new Archbishop proceeds in England where he had so many plows going at once too many as it after proved to work well together For not thinking he had done enough in order to the peace and uniformity of the Church of England by taking care for it here at home his thoughts transported him with the like affection to preserve it from neglect abroad To which end he had offered some considerations to the Lords of the Council as before was said Anno 1622. relating to the regulation of Gods publick Worship amongst the English Factories and Regiments beyond the Seas and the reducing of the French and Dutch Churches settled in divers parts of this Realm unto some conformity In reference to the first he had not sate long in the Chaire of Canterbury when he procured an Order from the Lords of the Council bearing date Octob. 1. 1633. By which their English Churches and Regiments in Holland and afterwards by degrees in all other Foreign parts and plantations were required strictly to observe the English Liturgie with all the Rites and Ceremonies prescribed in it
but slight of substance counterfeit stuff most of it and wrought with so much fraud and falshood that there is hardly one true stitch in all that work from the very beginning to the end Hardly one testimony or authority in the whole Discourse which is any way material to the point in hand but is as true and truly cited as that the book it self was writ long ago in answer unto D. Coale of Queen Maries daies The King he tacitely upbraides with the unfortunacies of his Reign by Deaths and Plagues the Governours of the Church with carrying all things by strong hand rather by Canon-shot than by Canon Law The Bishop of Norwich he compares as before was noted to a Wren mounted on the feathers of an Eagle and fall upon his Adversary with as foule a mouth as Burton doth upon the Prelates the Parable betwixt him and Burton being very well fitted as appears by the Preface to the Ministers of Lincoln Diocess in the Answer to him Obliquely and upon the by he hath some glancings against bowing at the name of Iesus Adoring toward the East and Praying according to the Canon and makes the transposing of the Table to the place where the Altar stood to be an Introduction for ushering in the whole body or Popery Which Eleusinian Doctrine for so he calleth it though these new Reformers for fear of so many Laws and Canons dare not apparently profess yet saith he they prepare and lay grounds for it that the out-works of Religion being taken in they may in time have a bout with the Fort it self To these two Books his Majesty thought fit that some present Answer should be made appointing the same hand for both which had writ the History of the Sabbath The one being absolutely destructive of the uniformity in placing the Communion Table which was then in hand The other labouring to create a general hatred unto all the Bishops branding their persons blasting their Counsels and decrying the Function And hard it was to say whether of the two would have proved more mischievous if they were not seasonably prevented The Answer unto Burton was first commanded and prepared That to the Lincoln Minister though afterwards enjoyned was the first that was published This of the two the subtler and more curious piece exceedingly cried up when it first came out the disaffection of the times and subject matter of the Book and the Religious estimation which was had of the Author concurring altogether to advance the Reputation of it to the very highest sold for four shillings at the first when conceived unanswerable but within one month after the coming out of the Answer which was upon the twentieth of May brought to less than one The Answer published by the name of Antidotum Lincolniense with reference to the Licencer and Author of the Holy Table The publishing of the other was delayed upon this occasion A Resolution had been taken by command of his Majesty to proceed against the Triumvirate of Libellers as one fitly calls them to a publick Censure which was like to make much noise amongst the ignorant People It was thought fit by the Prudent Council of Queen Elizabeth upon the execution of some Priests and Jesuits that an Apology should be published by the name of Iustitia Britannica to vindicate the publick Justice of the State from such aspersions as by the Tongues and Pens of malicious persons should be laid upon it And on the like prudential grounds it was thought expedient that an answer should be made to the book which seemed most material and being so made should be kept in readiness till the execution of the Sentence to the end that the people might be satisfied as well in the greatness of the Crimes as the necessity and justice of the Punishment inflicted upon one of the Principals by whom a judgment might be made of all the rest But the Censure being deferred from Easter until Midsummer Term the Answer lay dormant all the while at Lambeth in the hands of the Licencer and was then published by the name of A briefe and moderate Answer to the seditious and scandalous challenges of H. B. c. Two other Books were also published about that time the one about the name and situation of the Communion Table which was called Altare Christianum writ by one Pâ—cklington then beneficed in Bedfordshire and seconded by a Chappel Determination of the well studied Ioseph Mede The other against Burton by name published by Dow of Basell in Sussex under the Title of Innovations unjustly charged c. And so much for the Pen Combates managed on both sides in the present Controversies But whilst these things were in agitation there hapned toward the end of this year such an Alteration in the Court as began to make no less noise than the rest before It had been an ancient custome in the Court of England to have three Sermons every week in the time of Lent Two of them preached on Wednesdaies and Fridaies the third in the open preaching place near the Council Chamber on Sundaies in the Afternoon And so it continued till King Iames came to this Crown Who having upon Tuesday the fifth of August escapt the hands and treasons of the Earl of Gowrie took up a pious resolution not only of keeping the Anniversary of that day for a publick Festival in all his Dominions but of having a Sermon and other divine Offices every Tuesday throughout the year This custome he began in Scotland and brought it with him into the Court of England and thereupon translated one of the Lent Sermons from Wednesday to Tuesday This Innovation in the Court where before there were no Sermons out of Lent but on Sundaies only came in short time to have a very strong Influence upon the Country giving example and defence to such Lectures and Sermons on the working daies as frequently were appointed and continued in most Corporations and many other Market Towns in all parts of the Kingdom In which respect it was upon the point of being laid aside at the Court on the death of that King in reference to whose particular concernments it was taken up and therefore his Successor not obliged to the observation But then withall it was considered that the new King had married with a Lady of the Roman Religion that he was ingaged in a War with Spain which could not be carried on without help from the Parliament wherein the Puritan Party had appeared to be very powerful The discontinuing of that Sermon in this conjuncture might have been looked on in the King as the want of zeal toward the preaching of the Gospel and a strong tendency in him to the Religion of the Church of Rome and a betraying of the Court to Ignorance and Superstition by depriving them of such necessary means of their Instruction Upon these grounds it stood as before it did as well in the holy time of Lent as in other Weeks
also with higher promises that he might corrupt his sincere mind yet a fitting occasion was never offered whereby he might insinuate himself into the Lord Archbishop to whom free access was to be impetrated by the Earl and Countess of Arundel as also by Secretary Windebank all whose intercessions he neglected and did shun as it were the Plague the company or Familiarity of Con. He was also sollicited by others of no mean Rank well known to him and yet he continued unmovable And whereas some found a way to help at last by making Windebank the Internuncio betwixt him and them that only serves to make the matter rather worse than better there being a great strangeness grown betwixt him and Windebank not only before Con's coming into the Realm but before Panzani had settled any course of intelligence in the Court of England As for his favours towards those of the Catholick Party and his connivence of their Practices which is next objected as he had good reason for the one so there could be no reason to object the other He had good reason for the one viz. That by shewing favours to the Papists here they might obtain the like favours for such Protestants as lived in the Dominion of Popish Princes Upon which ground King Iames extended many favours to them in his time as opinions as that Writer makes them appears first by the Testimony of the Archbishop of Spalato declaring in the High Commission a little beâ—ore â—iâ—â—oing hence that he acknowledged the Articles of the Church to be true or profitable at the least and none of them to be Heretical It appears secondly by a Tractate of Franciscus a Sancta Clara as he calls himself in which he pâ—tteth such a gloss upon the 39 Articles of the Church of England as rendreth them not inconsistent with the Doctrines of the Church of Rome And iâ— without prejudice to the truth the controversies might have been composed it is most probable that other Protestant Churches would have suâ—d by their Agents to be included in the Peace if not the Church of England had lost nothing by it as being hated by the Calvinists and not loved by the Lutherans Admitting then that such a Reconciliation was endeavoured betwixt the Agents for both Churches Let us next see what our great States-men have discoursed upon that particular upon what terms the Agreement was to have been made and how far they proceeded in it And first the book entituled the Popes Nuncio affirmed to have been written by a Venetian Ambassador at his being in England doth discourse it tâ—us As to a Reconciliation saith he between the Churches of England and Rome there were made some general Propositions and overtures by the Archbishops Agents they assuring that his Grace was very much disposed thereunto and that if it was not accomplisht in his life time it would prove a work of more difficulty after his death that in very truth for the last three years the Archbishop had introduced some Innovations approaching â—ear the Rites and Forms of Rome that the Bishop of Chichester a great Confident of his Grace the Lord Treasurer and eight other Bishops of his Graces party did most passionately desire a Reconciliation with the Church of Rome that they did day by day receed from their Ancient Tenents to accommodate with the Church of Rome that therefore the Pope on his part ought to make some steps to meet them and the Court of Romeâ—â—mit â—â—mit something of its Rigor in Doctrine or otherwise no accord would be The composition on both sides in so good a forwardness before Panzam leâ—t the Kingdom that the Archbishop and and Bishop of Chichester had often said that there were but two sorts of People likely to impede and hinder the Reconciliation to wit the Puritans amongst the Protestants and the Iesuites amongst the Catholicks Let us next see the judgement and Relation of another Author in a gloss or Comment on the Former intituled the English Pope Printed at London in the same year 1643. And he will tells us that after Con had undertook the managing of the affairs matters began to grow toward some agreement The King required saith he such a dispensation from the then Pope as that his Catholick Subjects might resort to the Protestant Churches and to take the oaths of Supremacy and Fidelity and that the Popes Jurisdiction here should be declared to be but of humane Right And so far had the Pope consented that whatsoever did concern the King therein should have been really performed so far forth as other Catholick Princes usually enjoy and expect as their due and so far as the Bishops were to be Independent both from King and Pope there was no fear of breach on the Popes part So that upon the point the Pope was to content himself amongst us in England with a Priority instead of a Superiority over other Bishops and with a Primacy in stead of a Supremacy in thâ—se parts of Christendom which I conceive no man of Learning and Sobriety would have grudged to grant him It was also condescended to in the name of the Pope that marriage might be permitted to Priests that the Communion might be Administred sub utraque specie and that the Liturgy might be officiated in the English tongue And though the Author adds not long after that it was to be suspected That so far as the inferiour Clergy and the people were concerned the after-performance was to be leâ—t to the Popes Discretion yet this was but his own suspicion without ground at all And to obtain a Reconciliation upon these Advantages the Archbishop had all the Reason in the world to do as he did in ordering the Lords Table to be placed where the Altar stood and making the accustomed Reverence in all approaches towards it and accesses to it in beautifying and adorning Churches and celebrating the Divine Service with all due Solemnities in taking care that all offensive and exasperating passages should be expunged out of such Books as were brought to the Press and for reducing the extravagancy of some opinions to an evener temper His Majesty had the like Reason also for tolerating Lawful Recreations on the Sundays and Holy-days The rigorous Restraint whereof made some Papists think those most especially of the vulgar sort whom it most concerned that all honest Pastime were incompetible with our Religion And if he approved Auricular Confession and shewed himself willing to introduce it into the use of the Church as both our Authors say he did it is no more then what the Liturgy Commends to the care of the Penitent though we find not the word Auricular in it or what the Canons have provided for in the point of security for such as shall be willing to confess themselves But whereas we are told by one of our Authors that the King should say he would use force to make it be received were it not for fear of Sedition
Lords as double in number to the Bishops But whatsoever his fears were they were soon removed that Meeting being scattered about the middle of May upon the bringing in of a Bill against Deans and Chapters which so divided the Convenors both in their persons and affections that they never after met together Concerning which we are to know that not only most of the Lords of the Lower House and many Lower-House Lords in the Upper House resolving to pull up Episcopacy by the very roots thought it convenient to begin with lopping the Branches as laying no pretence to Divine Institution The voting of which Bill exceedingly amazed all those of the Prelatical Clergy as knowing at what Root it struck though none seemed presently concerned in it but such as had some benefit or subsistance in those foundations To still the great noise which was raised about it the Commons seemed not unwilling that some of the Cathedral Clergy should advocate for the continuance of those Capitular Bodies and others of the contrary Party to present their Reasons for their Dissolution The time appointed being come Hacket Archdeacon of Bedford and one of the Prebends of St. Pauls pleaded both learnedly and stoutly in behalf of those Churches and Burges of Watford who not long before brought down his Myrmidons to cry for Justice against Strafford to the Parliament doors was all for down with them down with them to the very ground But though they differed in their Doctrine yet they agreed well enough in their applications Burges declaring it unlawful as well as Hacket that the Revenues of those Churches should otherwise be imployed than to pious uses This seemed to put the business to a stand for the present time but Canterbury knowing with what case it might be resumed advised the drawing of a Petition to both Houses of Parliament in the name of the University of Oxon. which had a great stock going in the Ship of the Church not only for the preservation of the Episcopal Government but of those Foundations as being both the Encouragements and Rewards of Learning In which Petâ—tion having spoken in few words of the Antiquity and Succession of Bishops from the Apostles themselves they insist more at large upon such Suggestions as might best justifie and endear the cause of Cathedral Churches which being the most material of all those motives which were laid before them to that purpose we shall â—â—re subjoyn And we become further suiters saith that Vniversity for the continuance of the Pious Foundations of Cathedral Churches with their Lands and Revenues As Dedicate to the Service and Honour of God soon after the Plantation of Christianity in the English Nation As thought fit and usefully to be preserved for that end when the Nursâ—â—â—â— of Superstition were demolished and so continued in the last and 〈◊〉 times since the Blessed Reformation under King Edward the sixth Queen Elizabeth and King James Princes Renowned through the world for their Piety and Wisdom As approved and confirmed by the Law◠〈◊〉 this Land Ancient and Modern As the Principal and outwâ—rd 〈◊〉 and encouragements of all Students especially in Diviâ—â—â—â— and the fâ—ttest Reward of some deep and Eminent Scholars As 〈…〉 in all Ages many Godly and Learned men 〈…〉 strongly asserted the truth of the Religion we Profess 〈◊〉 the many fierce oppositions of our Adversaries of Rome As 〈…〉 a competent Portion in an Ingenious way to many younger brothers of good Parentage who devote themselves to the Ministery of the Gospel As the only means of subsistance to a multitude of Officers and other Ministers who with their families depend upon them and are wholly maintained by them As the main Authors or upholders of 〈…〉 Schools Hospitals High-ways Bridges and other Pious works 〈◊〉 special causes of much Profit and advantages to those Cities where 〈◊〉 are situate Not only by Relieving the Poor and keeping conve 〈◊〉 Hâ—â—pitality but by occasioning a frequent Resort of strangers 〈◊〉 other parts to the great benefit of all trades-men and inhabi 〈◊〉 in those places As the goodly Monuments of our Predecessors 〈◊〉 and present Honour of this Kingdom in the Eye of Foreign Na 〈◊〉 As the Chief support of many thousand families of the Layety who enjoy fair Estates under them in a free way As yielding a con 〈◊〉 and ample Revenue to the Crown And as by which many of the 〈…〉 Proâ—essors in our Vniversities are maintained The subver 〈…〉 whereof must as we conceive not only be attended 〈…〉 consequences as will redound to the Scandal of many well 〈…〉 our Religion but open the mouths of our Adversaries and if 〈…〉 against us and as likely in time to draw after it harder condi 〈…〉 in a considerable part of the Layety and Vniversal cheapness 〈…〉 upon the Clergy a lamentable drooping and defection of 〈…〉 knowledge in the Vniversities which is easie to firesee but will be hard to Remedy The like petition came from Cambridge as much concerned in this â—â—mmon cause as their sister of Oxon. But neither of them could 〈◊〉 so far as take off the edge of the ax which had been thus 〈◊〉 at the Root of the tree though it did blunt it at the present 〈◊〉 they which had the managing of the Design finding that the 〈◊〉 Churches were two strongly Cemented to be demolished at an Instant considered seasonably for themselves that the furthest way about did many times prove the nearest way to the journeys end A Bill was therefore passed in the House of Commons and sent up to the Lords by which it was to be Enacted if their Vote had carried it First that the Bishops should have no Voices in Parliament Secondly that they should not be Commissioners for the Peace or Judges in any Temporal Courts And that they should not fit in the Star-chamber nor be Privy Counsellors Which Bill being Voted part by part The two last parts were passed by a general consent not above one or two dissenting But the first branch was carried in the Negative by such an Unison consent in the Lords then present that if the Bishops had not Voted in defence of themselves the Temporal Lords alone who appeared for them had carried it by sixteen Voices The point being still upon debate those Lords which had shewed themselves against the Bishops resolved to put it to the Fortune of another day protesting that the Former manner of Voting the said Bill by Branches was both Vnparliamentary and Illegal and therefore that the Bill was either wholly to be passed or ejected wholly which being condescended to the whole Bill was utterly cast out of the House by so many voices that the Bishops might have spared their own till another time And though according to the Rules of all former Parliaments that a Bill which had been once cast out of the House should never be prest again the same Session yet this Bill found a way to it within few moneths after and almost
signed with the same Penful of Ink for the continuance of the present Parliament during the pleasure of the Houses The Act thus past on Munday Morning the Earl was brought unto the Scaffold on the Wednesday following desiring earnestly but in vain to Exchange some words with the Archbishop before his Death Which gave occasion to a report that a little before his Death he had charged his misfortunes oversights and misdemeanours upon the Archbishop of Canterbury as the Prime Author of the same and had bitterly Curst the day of their first acquaintance Which being so scandalous and dishonourable to this great Prelate I shall lay down the whole truth in this particular as it came from the Archbishops own mouth in the presence of Balfore a Scot and then Lieutenant of the Tower who was required to attest to each period of it The Lord Strafford the night before the Execution sent for the Lieutenant of the Tower and asked him whether it were possible he might speak with the Archbishop The Lieutenant told him he might not do it without Order from the Parliament Whereupon the Earl replied You shall hear what passeth between us for it is not a time now either for him to plot Heresie or me to plot Treason The Lieutenant answered That he was limited and therefore desired his Lordship would Petition the Parliament for that Favour No said he I have gotten my dispatch from them and will trouble them no more I am now Petitioning an Higher Court wâ—ere neither partiality can be expected nor Error â—eared But my Lord said he turning to the Primate of Ireland whose company he had procured of the Houses in that fatal Exigent I will tell you what I should have spoken to my Lords Grace of Canterbury You shall desire the Archbishop to lend me his Prayers this night and to give me his Blessing when I do go abroad to morrow and to be in his Window that by my last Farewell I may give him thanks for this and all other his former Favours The Primate having delivered the Message without delay the Archbishop replied That in conscience he was bound to the first and in duty and obligation to the second but he feared his weakness and passion would not lend him eyes to behold his last Departure The next morning at his coming forth he drew near to the Archbishops Lodging and said to the Lieutenant Though I do not see the Archbishop yet give me leave I pray you to do my last observance towards his Rooms In the mean time the Archbishop advertised of his approach came out to the Window Then the Earl bowing himself to the ground My Lord said he your Prayers and your Blessing The Archbishop lift up his hands and bestowed both but overcome with grief fell to the ground in Animi deliquio The Earl bowing the second time said Farewell my Lord God protect your Innocency And because he feared that it might perhaps be thought an effeminacy or vnbecoming weakness in him to sink down in that manner he addâ—d That he hoped by Gods Assistance and his own Innocency that when he came to his own Execution which he daily longed for the World should perceive he had been more sensible of the Lord Strafford's Loss than of his own And good reason it should be so said he for the Gentleman was more serviceable to the Church he would not mention the State than either himself or any of all the Church-men had ever been A gallant Farewell to so eminent and beloved a Friend Thus march'd this Great Man to the Scaffold more like a General in the Head of an Army to breath out Victory than like a Condemned Man to undergo the Sentence of death The Lieutenant of the Tower desired him to take Coach for fear the People should rush in upon him and tear him in pieces No said he to the Lieutenant I dare look Death in the face and I hope the People too Have you a care that I do not escape and I care not how I die whether by the hand of the Executioner or the madness and fury of the People If that may give them better content it is all one to me In his last Speech upon the Scaâ—fold he declared That in all his Imployments since he had the honour to serve his Majesty he never had any thing in the purpose of his heart but what tended to the joynt and individual prosperity both of King and People That he was so far from being an Enemy to Parliaments which had been charged amongst his Crimes that he did always think the Parliaments of England to be the most happy Constitution that aâ—y Kingdom or Nation lived under and the best means under God to make the King and People happy That he acquitted all the World for his death heartily beseeching the God of Heaven to forgive all them that contrived it though in the intentions and purposes of his heart he was not guilty of the Oâ—fences which he was to die for That it was a great comfort to him that his Majesty conceived him not meriting so severe and heavy a Punishment as the utmost execution of this Sentence And finally after many other Expressions That he died a true Son of the Church of England in which he had been born and bred for the Peace and Prosperity whereof he most heartily prayed Turning his eyes unto his Brother Sir George Wentworth he desired him to charge his Son to fear God to continue an obedient Son to the Church of England and not to meddle with Church-Livings as that which would prove a Moth or Canker to him in his Estate And having several times recommended his prepared Soul to the Mercies of God he submiâ—ted his Neck with most Christian Magnanimity to the stroke of the 〈◊〉 which took his Head from him at one blow before he had filled up the number of fifty years A man on whom his Majesty looked as one whose great Abilities might rather make a Prince afraid than ashamed to employ him in the greatest Affairs of State â—or those were proâ—e to create in him great confidence of Undertakings and this was like enough to betray him to great Errors and many Enemies whereof he could not but contract good store while moving in so high a Sphere and with so vigorous a Lustre he must needs as the Sun raise many envious Exhalations which condensed by a Popular Odium were capable to cast a Cloud upon the highest Merit and Integrity So far he stood commended by the Pen of his sorrowful Sovereign who never could sufficiently â—â—waâ—l his own Infelicity in giving way unto an Act of such 〈…〉 justice as he calls it there of which he gives this Testimony in his Meditation on the Death of this unfortunate Earl That he wa◠〈◊〉 far from excusing or denying that Compliance on his part for plenary consent it was not to his destruction whom in his own judgment he thought not by any clear
it is affirmed That the ground of this Government by Episcopacy is so ancient and so general so uncontradicted in the first and best times that our most laborious Antiquaries can find no Nation no City no Church no Houses under any other that our first Ecclesiastical Authors tell us of That the Apostles not only allowed but founded Bishops so that the Tradition for some Books of Scripture which we receive as Canonical is both less ancient less general and less uncontradicted than that is So he when he was come again to his former temper and not yet entred nor initiated into Court preferments Nor was the point only canvased within those walls but managed in a more publick way by the Pens of some than there it had been tossed on the Tongues of others The Bishop of Exon. leads the way presenting An humble Remonstrance to the High Court of Parliament in behalf of Liturgie and Episcopacy which presently was encountred with an answer to it wâ—erein the Original of Liturgy and Episcopacy is pretended to be discussed c. This Answer framed by a Juncto of five Presbyterian Ministers in or about the City of London the first Letters of whose names being laid together made up the word Smectymnuus which appears only for the Author The Bishop hereunto replies in a Vindication by which name he called it which Vindication had an Answer or Rejoynder to it by the same Smectymnuus During which Interfeats of Arms and exchange of Pens a Discourse was published by Sir Thomas Ashton Knight and Baronet In the first part whereof he gives us A survey of the Inconveniences of the Presbyterian Discipline and the inconsistences thereof with the constitution of this State And in the second The original Institution Succession and Iurisdiction of the ancient and venerable order of Bishops This last part seconded within the compass of this year by the History of Episcopacy first published as the work of Theophilus Churchman and not till many years after owned by the Authors name The next year bringing forth a book of Dr. Taylors called Episcopacy asserted and the Acriomastix of Iohn Theyer c. All of them backt and the two last encouraged by many Petitions to his Majesty and both Houses of Parliament not only from the two Universities whom it most concerned but from several Counties of the Kingdom of which more hereafter I shall conclude this year with a remembrance of some change of Officers in the Court but of more in the Church Windebanke Secretary of State being questioned for releasing divers Priests and Jesuites contrary to the established Laws conveyed himself over into France and Finch Lord Keeper on some distrust which he had of his safety for acting too zealously in the Forrest-business and the 〈◊〉 of Shipmoney withdrew at the same time into Holland Pembroke Lord Chamberlain of the houshold was discharged of his Office by the King upon just displeasures before his late going into Scotland The Earl of Newcastle for the Reasons before remembred had relinquished his charge of the Princes Person and Cottington his Offices in the Exchequer and Court of Wards Neile Archbishop of York died some few daies before the beginning of the Parliament Mountague of Chichester Bancroft of Oxon. Davenant of Salisbury Potter of Carlisle and Thornborough of Worcester within few months after Nature abhorreth nothing more than Vacuity and it proved to be very agreeable to the Rules of Polity not to suâ—fer their preferments to lye longer in a state of Vacancy To fill these Places the Earl of Hertford about that time advanced to the Title of Marquiss was made and sworn Governour of the Prince Essex Lord Chamberlain of the Houshold Say Master of the Court of Wards and Liveries Littleton Chief Justice of the Common-Pleas preferred to the honour of Lord Keeper Faulkland made Secretary of Estate and Culpepper Chancellour of the Exchequer Which two last being Members of the House of Commons and well acquainted with such designs as were then in Project and men of good parts withall were thought worth the gaining and fastned to the Court by these great Preferments Next for the Vacancies in the Church they were supplied by preferring Williams Bishop of Lincoln to the See of York and Winiff Dean of St. Pauls to the See of Lincoln Duppa of Chichester to Salisbury and King then Dean of Rochester to succeed at Chichester Hall Bishop of Exon. translated to Norwich and Brownrigg Master of Catharine Hall in Cambridge preferred to Exon. Skinner of Bristol removed to Oxon. and Westfield Archdeacon of St. Albons advanced to Bristol the Bishoprick of Carlisle was given in Commendam to the Primate of Ireland during the troubles in that Kingdom and Worcester by the power of Hamilton conferred on Prideaux who formerly had been his Tutoâ— all of them of good parts and merit and under some especial Character of esteem and favour in the eyes of the People though some of them declined afterwards from their former height Nor were there more Changes after these till the suppressing of Episcopacy by the Ordinance of the Lords and Commons bearing date October 9. anno 1646. but that Frewen Dean of Glocester and President of Magdalen Colledge in Oxon. was consecrated Bishop of Coventry and Lichfield on the death of Wright in the beginning of the year 1644. and Howel one of the Prebends of Windsor and Chaplain in Ordinary to his Majesty was preferred to the Bishoprick of Bristol on the death of Westfield before the end of the same year The passing of this Act forementioned put the imprisoned Bishops in some hope of a speedy deliverance though it proved not so quick as they expected For though on Munday February 14. an Order came that they might put in bail if they would that they should have their hearing on the Friday following and that some of them went out of the Tower the morrow after as appears by Breviate fol. 25. yet the Commons took it so indignly that either that Order was revoked or the Bishops had some private Advertisement to return and continue where they were The Bishops being deprived of their right of Peerage must be supposed to stand on the same ground with the rest of the People and consequently to be accountable for their Actions to the House of Commons whose Priviledges if the Peers invade they must look to hear of it as well as the poor Bishops had done before And on these terms the business stood till May 5. being just eighteen weeks from their first Imprisonment at which time without making suite to the House of Commons the Peers releast them upon baile and dismist them to their several dwellings There they continued all of them at their own disposing till the War forced them to provide themselves of safer quarters except the Bishop of Ely only who within few months after he was discharged from the Tower was seised on by a party of Souldiers at his house of Douwham and brought
provide them Necessaries before they would budge toward the Tweed And yet all these Temptations were not of such prevalency with the Principal Covenanters as an Assurance which was given them of calling Canterbury their supposed old Enemy to a present Tryal Who having been imprisoned upon their complaint almost three years since seems to have been preserved all this while for no other purpose than for a bait to hook them in for some new Imployments The Walls of some Confederacies like that of Catiline are never thought to be sufficiently well built but when they are cemented with bloud All matters thus resolved on the Covenant agreed on betwixt them and the Scots was solemnly taken by both Houses in St. Margarets Church and generally imposed upon all such as were obnoxious to their power and lived under the command of their Forts and Garrisons the taking whereof conduced as visibly to the destruction of this most reverend and renowned Prelate as to the present subversion of the Government and Liturgy here by Law established In the first branch it was to be covenanted and agreed between the Nations that is to say between the Puritan or Presbyterian Factions in either Kingdom That all endeavours should be used for the preservation of the Reformed Religion in the Church of Scotland both in Doctrine Worship Liturgy and Government and for bringing the three Kingdoms to the nearest Conjunction and Uniformity in Religion Confession of Faith Form of Church-Government Directory for Worship and Catechising And in the second That in like manner they endeavour without any respect of Persons the extirpation of Popery Prelacy that is Church-Government by Archbishops and Bishops their Chancellors or Commissaries Deans Deans and Chapters Archdeacons and all other Ecclesiastical Officers depending on the Hierarchy Superstition Heresie Schism Profaneness and what soever should be found contrary to sound Doctrine and the power of Godliness But all this might have been pursued to the end of the Chace without danger to the life of any whether they endeavoured it or not whether their lives might be an hindrance or their deaths give a spur to put on the work And therefore in the fourth place it was also Covenanted That they should with all diligence and faithfulness discover all such as have been or shall be Incendiaries Malignants or evil Instruments by hindring the Reformation of Religion dividing the King from his People or one of the Kingdoms from one another or making any Faction or Parties amongst the People contrary to this League and Covenant that they may be brought to publick trial and receive condign punishment as the degree of their offences shall require or deserve or the supream Judicatories of both Kingdoms respectively or others having power from them for that effect shall judge convenient Which Article seems to have been made to no other purpose but to bring the Archbishop to the Block as the like clause was thrust into the Protestation of the third of May Anno 1641. to make sure work with the Earl of Strafford whom they had then designed to the said sad end And this may be the rather thought because the Covenant was contrived and framed in Scotland where none but his sworn Enemies could be supposed to have had any hand in it and being by them so contrived was swallowed without much enewing by the Houses of Parliament who were not then in a con 〈◊〉 to deny them any thing But by whomsoever it was framed his Majesty saw well enough that it aimed at the subversion of the present Government and the diminution of his Power if not the destruction of his Person the preservation and safety whereof was to be endeavoured no further than in defence of the true Religion and Liberties of the Kingdom Which how great or little it might be or what was meant by true Religion and the publick Liberties was left wholly unto their construction who would be sure not to interpret any thing to his best advantage His Majesty therefore looking on it as a dangerous Combination against himself the established Religion and the Laws of this Kingdom for the bringing in of Foreign Forces to subvert them all interdicted all his Subjects from imposing or taking the same as they would answer the contrary at their utmost Perils Which Proclamation bearing date on the ninth of October came out too late to hinder the taking and enjoyning of this Covenant where the restraint thereof might have been most necessary For the Commons were so quick at their work that on Munday September 25. it had been solemnly taken by all the Members of that House and the Assembly of Divines at St. Margarets in Westminster in the same Church within two daies after it was administred with no less solemnity to divers Lords Knights Gentlemen Colonels Officers Souldiers and others residing in and about the City of London a Sermon being preached by Coleman though otherwise a principal Erastian in point of Government to justifie the Piety and Legality of it and finally enjoyned to be taken on the Sunday following in all Churches and Chappels of London within the Lines of Communication by all and every the Inhabitants within the same as afterward by all the Kingdom in convenient time Prosecuted in all places with such cursed rigour that all such who refused to subscribe the same and to lift up their hands to God in testimony that they called him to witness to it were turned both out of house and home as they use to say not suffered to compound for their Goods or Lands till they had submitted thereunto A terrible and wofull time in which men were not suffered to enjoy their Estates without betraying themselves to the Kings displeasure and making shipwrack of a good conscience in the sight of God Upon which ground considering it consisted of six Principal branches it was compared by some to the six knotted whip or the Statute of the six Articles in the time of King Henry viii this Covenant drawing in the Scots and thereby giving an occasion of shedding infinitely much more bloud than those Articles did Certain I am that if all such as died in the War upon that account may not go for Martyrs all such as irrecoverably lost their Estates and Livings for refusal of it may be called Confessors Others with no unhappy curiosity observing the number of the words which make up this Covenant abstracted from the Preface and Conclusion of it found them amounting in the total to 666. neither more nor less which being the number of the Beast in the Revelation pursued with such an open persecution and prosecuted to the loss of so many lives the undoing of so many Families and the subverting of the Government both of Church and State may very justly intitle it to so much of Antichrist as others have endeavoured to confer on the Popes of Rome For if the Pope shewed any thing of the Spirit of Antichrist by bringing Cranmer the first Protestant