Articles of Impeachment brought up from the House of Commons against him according to the former Order of this House of the 16. of this Instant Ianuary To the Gentleman Vsher c. On the 22. of Ianuary the Archbishop personally appearing at the Lords Barre according to the former Orders did then put in this following Answer both to the Commons Originall and Additionall Articles The Answer of the Archbishop of Cant. to the first and further Articles of the House of Commons dilivered in the 22th January 1643. The humble Answer of William Archbishop of Cant. to the first and farther Articles of Impeachment brought up by the Honourable House of Commons against him and by Order of the right honourable the Lords in Parliament of the 16. of this Instant directed to be put in As to the 13. Article of the said first Articles and the matters therein Charged allmatters or things in the same or any of the rest of the said Articles contained which concern any Act of Hostility whether between the King his Subjects or between Subject Subject or which may be conceived to arise upon the comming of any English Army against Scotland or the comming of the Scotish Army into England or upon any Action attempt assistance Councell or devise having relation thereunto and falling out by the occasion of the late troubles proceding the late Conclusion of the Treaty and returne of the Scottish Army into Scotland this Defendant saith that it is enacted by an Act made during the sitting of this present Parliament that the same and whatsoever hath ensued thereupon whether treuching upon the Lawes and Liberties of the Church and Kingdome or upon his Majesties Honour and Authority in no time hereafter may be called in Question or resented as a wrong Nationall or Personall and that no mention be made thereof in time comming neither in Judgement nor out of Judgement but that it be held and reputed as though never such things had beene thought or wrought as by the said Act may more at large appeare with this that this Defendant doth averre that he is none of the persons excepted by the said Act or the said offences charged upon this Defendant any of the offences excepted by the said Act. And as to all the rest of the said first and further Articles this Defendant saving to himselfe all advantages of exception to the said Articles humbly saith he is not Guilty of all or any the matters by the said Articles charged in such manner and forme us the same are by the said Articles charged against him VV. Cant. The same day I find this entry in the Commons Iournall to wit on the 22. Jan. 1643. The Lords by Sir Robert Rich and Mr. Page sent downe the Answer of William Archbishop of Cant. to the first and further Articles of impeachment brought up by this House against him which was read and ordered to be referred to the Commitmittee appointed to manage the evidence against the Arch-Bishop of Canterbury and accordingly delivered to Serjeant Wilde After this the House of Commons to expedite his Tryall on the 22. February 1643. ORdered that the Committee appointed to mannage the evidence at the Tryall of the Arch-bishop of Canterbury doe peremptorily meete this afternoone at three of the Clocke in the Court of Wards upon the distribution of the parts of the evidence The Commons and Lords being all ready for his Tryall and having given him as much convenient time to prepare himselfe and his witnesses as he could desire to prevent all clamours of the Prelaticall and Canterburian party began now to thinke of a peremptory day for his Tryall and thereupon I finde this Order entred in the Commons Journall 4. Marcii 1643. A Message to be sent to the Lords to desire them to appoint a day for the Tryall of the Bishop of Canterbury Master Serjeant Wilde went up to the Lords to appoint a day for the Tryall of the Arch-Bishop of Canterbury Serjeant Wilde brings answer that the Lords have appointed to morrow senight for the tryall of the Archbishop of Canterbury For which purpose the Lords made this following Order Die Lunae 4. Marcii 1644. Ordered that the Arch-Bishop of Canterbury shall appeare before their Lordships on Tuesday the 12th of this instant March at nine of the Clock in the morning At which time this House will proceed against the Arch-Bishop upon the first and further Articles of Impeachment brought up from the house of Commons against him for high Treason and high Crimes and misdemeanours whereof the said Arch-Bishop is hereby to take notice and provide himselfe accordingly After this the Arch-Bishop Petitioning the Commons House that Sir Henry Midmay a Member thereof might bee examined as a witnesse for him at his tryall this Order was thereupon conceived 9. Marcii 1644. The humble Petition of William Arch-Bishop of Canterbury desiring that Sir Henry Mildmay may be examined as a witnesse in his businesse he being to come to his tryal on Tuesday next was this day read And it is Ordered according to his Petition that he shall be examined as a witnesse at the tryall of the said Bishop accordingly It was likewise then ordered that diverse Members of the House of Commons shal be examined as witnesses against him And that the Lords be moved by Serjeant Wilde that some Members and Attendants of the Lords House be examined at the Arch-Bishops Tryall And that it be referred to the Committee of Sequestrations to consider of some convenient recompence for such Clerks Sollicitors and others as have been or shall bee imployed in the transscribing of breviats and other services done by them to the Committee for the Bishop of Canterbury his tryall On the 12. of March his Tryall according to the former Order was entred upon of which I shall give you this summary account Never was there in any age such a deliberate solemne patient impartiall hearing of any case in the High Court of Parliament nor in any Court of Justice else in our own or any other Kingdom whatsoever as there was of this Archbishops The first day of his Tryall began the twelfth of March 1643. wherein the whole time was spent in reading the Articles of Impeachment his answers to them and introductory Speeches to the charge and evidence against him made by Serjeant Wilde and the Arch-bishop himselfe The first part of the evidence upon the 1 2 3 4. Originall and 2 3 4 10. Additionall Articles was managed by Iohn Maynard Esquire one of the Commons House wherein foure whole dayes namely March 13. 16. 18. Anno 1643. and March 28. 1644. were spent the forenoons of them in the evidence and proofs the after-noons in the Arch-bishops Answers and Master Maynards replyes unto them The second part of the evidence was prosecuted by Robert Nicholas Esquire a Member of the House of Commons which took up three whole dayes viz. Aprill 16. and May 4. 16. morning and evening in
hallowed as they say with their conjured water Crossings Censings Processions c. But blessed be that God our Lord which by the light of his Word doth confound all such wicked and fond fantasies which they devise to fill their bellies and maintaine their Authority by Although these Ceremonies in the old Law were given by Moses for the hardnesse of the peoples hearts to keep thē exercised that they fall not to the Idolatry of the Gentiles yet is there no mention of them in the New Testament nor yet commanded now either to us or them but forbidden to be used of all both of us and them We be no longer under shaddowes but under the truth Christ hath fulfilled all and taken away all such darke kind of Ceremonies and hath placed the cleare light of his Gospell in the Church to continue to the end The Popes Church hath all things pleasant in it to delight the people but where the Gospell is preached they knowing that God is not pleased but onely with a pure heart they are content with an honest place appointed to resort together in though it were never hallowed by Bishops at all It is written that God dwels not in Temples made with hands nor is worshipped with any worke of mens hands but he is a spirit an invisible substance and will be worshipped in spirit and truth not in outward words onely of the lippes but with the deepe sighes and groanes of the heart and the whole power of the mind and earnest hearty calling on him in praier by faith And therefore he doth not so much require of us to build him an house of stone and timber but hath willed us to pray in all places and hath taken away the Iewish and Popish holynesse which is thought to be more in one place then another All the earth is the Lords and he is present in all places hearing the Petitions of them that call upon him in faith Therefore those Bishops which thinke with their conjured water to make one place more holy then the rest are no better then the Jewes deceiving the people and teaching that onely to be holy which they have censed crossed oyled and breathed upon for as Christ said to the woman thinking one place to be more holy to pray in then another Woman beleeve me the time is come when yee shall worship neither at Jerusalem nor in this Hill but the true worshippers shall worship God in spirit and truth So it is now said the place makes not the man holy but the man makes the place holy and ye shall not worship your Idols Stocks and Stones neither at Wilsingham Ipswich Canterbury nor Sheen for God chuses not the people for the places sake but the place for the people sake But if yee be in the midst of the field God is as ready to heare your faithfull praiers as in any Abbey or Priory yea a thousand times more for the one place he hates as defiled with Idolatry and the other he loves as undefiled and cleane If the good man lie in prison tyed in Chaines or at the stake burned for Gods cause That place is holy for the holynesse of the man and the presence of the holy Ghost in him as Tertullian saith yet there should be common places appointed for the people to Assemble and come together therein to praise our God c. Those who in the Apostles times were buried in no Church or Church-yard nor Christen-moldes as they be called when it is not better then other earth but rather worse for the conjuring that Bishops use about it It appeares in the Gospell by the Legion living in graves the Widdowes sonne going to buriall Christ buried without the Citty c. That they buried not in hallowed Churches by Bishops but in a severall place appointed for the same purpose without the Citty which custome remaineth to this day in many godly places c. A most expresse Authority against Bishops Popish consecrations of Churches and Church-yards to make them holyer then other places The second Authority they produced was Mathew Parker Archbishop of Canterbury in the beginning of Queene Elizabeths reigne who was of a quite contrary judgment to this his Popish Successor condemning this manner of consecrating Churches Altars c. as Superstitious Paganish childish ridiculous in his Antiquitates Ecclesiae Brittannicae p. 85. 86. 87. in these termes Legat enim qui volet recentiores et nostro praesertim avo editos Pontificales ac Missales libros reperiet eos et Caeremoniarū multitudine peragendi difficultate atque taedio et exorcisationis amentia priores illos longè superare Quibus enim non dicam verbis sed portentis has et ejus modi a Pontisiciis adhuc adjurantur c. Dedicatio recentis Ecclesiae Altaria vasa indumenta Linteamina et ornamenta Ecclesiastica Hac omnia quam solemni ritu sanctarum scripturarum sententiis ad suas decantationes perperā adhibitis Potificij peragunt paucis videamus c. In dedicatione Ecclesiae jam exstructae Episcopus ter ' circumiens ostium bacculo pastorali ferit hoc Psalmi carmine Attollite Portas c. Cui Diaconus intus existens respondet fere exanimatus Quis est iste Rex gloriae c. Deinde ingredicus Episcopus in fundamento Ecclesiae Cineribus sparso Alphabetum Gracum et Latinum bacculo describit tum variis multisque Episcopi Clerique incessibus rectis obliquis retrogradis transuersis parietes ac pavimenta aqua sparguntur cruces in parietibus chrismate cum dextro Episcopi pollice depinguntur infinitis penè completis caeremoniis ad extremum precatur ut populus in ea conveniens per sacerdotum libamina caelesti sanctificatione salvatus animae salutem perpetuam consequatur discedens portam his verbis Episcopus ungit chrismate porta sis benedicta sanctificata consecrata consignata Deo commendata c. Altaria autem innumeris hujus generis precibus consecrantur c. Et sane valde deflenda est hujus temporis conditio quod Ecclesiae Patres eadem mentis acie ab ecclesia resecare has hujusmodi caeremonias seu potius nugas aut nolunt aut non possunt qua priora illa Ordalii vitia cernebant atque corrigebant sed illis ut superstitiosis damnatis deletis hac quae mordicus retinent quamvis puerilia deliria sint ex illis tamen fabricantur atque struunt Quanto modernis Pontificibus aequior fuit Gregorius qui scribit Quomodo regulae sanctorum Patrum pro tempore loco persona negotio instante necessitate traditae sunt Hi autem nulla neque temporis neque loci neque negotii neque personae neque cujusquà m rei quà m suae voluntatis atque gloriolae rationem habentes ne pusillis in rebus veritate cedere volunt A very good character of the Prisoner at the bar and his proceedings in this kinde
Fisher page 176. Hee positively affirmes That ubi non est sacerdos non est Ecclesiae St. Hierom And in that place most manifest it is that by Sacerdos Saint Jerom meanes a Bishop Soe even with him NO BISHOP AND NOE CHVRCH Doctor Heylin in his Moderate Answer to Mr. Burton page 65. writes thus by the Archbishops appointment You are much offended with the Prelates that they will needs be Lord Bishops Iure Divino page 66. Your first exception is That the Episcopall Authority is claimed from Christ and that some of the Bishops said in the High Commission That if they could not prove it they would cast away their Rochetts this is no more then what had formerly beene said in the Conference at Hampton Court when on occasion of S. Hieroms saying that a Bishop was not divinae Ordinationis the Bishop of London Doctor Bancroft interposed that unlesse he could prove his ordination lawfull out of the Scriptures he would not be a Bishop foure houres page 67. 70. Who is it which of our Divines that holds Episcopall Authority to bee derived from any other fountaine then that of Christ and his Apostles If any such there be he is one of yours Traverse and Cartwright and the rest of your Prodecessors Men never owned for hers by the Church of England Geneva had their hearts wee their bodyes only This theame of Bishops superiority Iure Divino over other Ministers was professedly maintained by Bishop White in his Preface to his Treatise of the Sabbath against Braburne by Christopher Dow in his Innovations unjustly charged chap. 19. p. 170. c. by Iohn Swan in his Redde debitum Chap. 2. sect 2. p. 161. to 172. asserting peremtorily that the Hierarchy of the Bishops is Iure Divino with sundry others in their printed Bookes yea publikly affirmed with much confidence by both our Archbishops with other Prelates in the Star-Chamber and High-Commission maintained publikely in the Divinity Schooles in both our Vniversities and asserted almost in every Pulpit at leastwise in Cathedralls But this Erronious Position being satisfactorily refuted and palpably displayed to all the world by Doctor Bastwicke in his Flagellum Apologeticus ad Praesules Anglicano and by Master Prynne in his Vnbishoping of Timothy and Titus his Brevia and Catalogue of Writers in all ages refuting this position of theirs and by the Presbiterians in Scotland the Archbishop and his Confederate Prelaticall Brethren were so hardly put to it that they seriously mustred up all their policy learning power to maintaine their Episcopall Jurisdiction to be of divine right Whereupon having engaged his Majesty and his Privy Councell to maintaine it by the Sword in the Field he encouraged Doctor Hall bishop of Exeter very prone of himselfe to undertake such an enterprise to defend it with his smooth Rhetoricall penne in the Presse This Bishop upon his motion and request readily undertakes the designed service compiles his Booke intituled Episcopacy by divine Right the written Copy whereof he sent to the Archbishop submitting it wholy to his power to dispose of it at his pleasure or alter any thing therein which he or his Chaplaines should deeme meet This Treatisie was carefully read over by the Arch bishop himselfe and his Chaplaines line by line who altered it in some places and then authorized it for the Presse The particulars concerning the cause and grounds of compling it with the Bishops whole pretended Plot how to support their tottering Hierarchy is fully related in the ensuing Letters of Bishop Hall to the Archbishop and of the Archbishop to him all sound and seised on in his Study at Lambheth We shall transcribe all these Letters according to their severall dates the first of them extracted out of the very originall is this MOst Reverend Father in God and my most Honourable Lord I have received your Graces Answer in one to my three last humbly thanking your Grace for your noble favours to that well deserving Petitioner Master Edgcombe whom I recommended to your Graces notice For Ashbrenton I gave order for a speedy satisfaction and make account to receive it ere the closure of this letter Yesternight I had the view of the Acts of the late Scottish Assembly which I could not read without much indignation in seeing the only true and ancient Government of the Church so dispitefully trod upon by ignorant Factionists Vpon the perusall whereof I begin to think it were pity and shame they should carry it away so and that so publike an insolence could admit of none but a more publike remedy and may I be bold to impart unto your Grace what my thoughts were for some ease of this wrong and mittegation of the scandall under the hope of your Graces pardon I shall not sticke to discover them in this secret and fearelesse paper humbly leaving them to your Graces favourable censure although indeed I should have needed a larger Preface to so bould an attempt Since then for his Majesty to right the Church by the Sword as the case now stands is neither fit for our hopes nor our wishes which were no other in so desperate a Schisme then to reconquer his owne with much Charge danger and blood we thought it might be seasonable safe and happie to imploy the spirituall sword the remedy which the Church hath ever wont to make use of in such occasions with blessed successe I thought therefore if through your Graces mediation it might please his sacred Majesty to cause a Generall Synod of the whole three Kingdomes to be indicted wherein all the Reverend Bishops and chiefe of the learned and dignified Clergy and the professors and some other eminent Doctors of all the Vniversities in all the said Kingdomes may be assembled to passe their judgment after free and full expectation of these Schismaticall points determined thus proudly and rashly by our Northen Neighbours it could not but sort to excellent effect for so they might bee convinced of their absurd errours or at least publikely before all the world censured and condemned for what they are and if they have any Remainders of shame they shall be made to blush at their owne miserable transportation This would bee some comfort to those exiled Bishops who put Holy Iland as I heare to the same use whereto it was imployed at the first Plantation of the Gospell to be a receptacle of persecuted Prelates that they should see their cause taken to heart by the whole Church under his Majesties dominions and why should we not think that the presence and Authority of your Grace with that eminent and learned Primate of Armagh and so many other grave and renouned Prelates seconded by so irresistable powers of the learning and Judgment of so many assistant Divines of great note and worth cannot choose but certainly confound these heady and ignorant opposers of Government and good Order and give great satisfaction to the world who seeing the errours and groundlesse proceedings of these men
Imprisonment by them voted Illegall there being all this while no proceedings against him nor any crime objected to him in any Court of Justice By means of which Imprisonment he was much prejudiced and undone in his Estate and his wife with four small children exposed to Pennury and Beggery Such a spite did He bear this witnesse for his Activity in the businesse of Impropriations Mr William Kendall Mr Iohn Lane and Mr Tempest Miller severally deposed at the Lords Bar that the Archbishop in the presence of them and divers others speaking of the Feoffees of Impropriations said that they were the bane of the Church and then uttered these words in a vaunting manner I was the man that did set my self against them and then clapping his hand upon his brest said I thank God I have destroyed this work So as he did not only subvert this pious project to propagate the preaching of the Gospell but boasted of it and had so much shamelesse Impiety as to thanke God himselfe for effecting it who hath now in justice brought him into judgement for it and made it one part of that Charge and Evidence which we conceive will most justly destroy him The seventh and next stratagem he used to subvert the Protestant Religion which he had almost totally suppressed corrupted with Popish Errours Superstitions Innovations in our English Churches was his endeavours to undermine and suppresse it in these few Duth and French Churches planted here among us who enjoyed their owne Government Priviledges Discipline without any interruption by any of his Predecessors or other English Prelates in all our Protestant Princes reignes from King Edward the sixth his reigne till this Archprelates molestation of and attempts against them thus laid down in the twelfth Originall Article of his Impeachment He hath Traiterously endeavoured to cause division and discord between the Church of England and other Reformed Churches and to that end hath supprest and abrogated the Priviledges and Immunities which have been by his Majesty and his Royall Ancestors granted to the Dutch and French Churches in this Kingdom And divers other wayes hath expressed his malice and disaffection to these Churches that so by such dis-union the Papists might have more advantage for the overthrow and extirpation of both To make good this Article we could produce many Letters Papers Instructions Orders under the Archbishops own hand or indorsed by him found in his own study here ready at the Barre but for brevity sake we shall instance only in some few particulars of more speciall note The first is that this Arch-prelate though he beares so good an affection and honourable respect to the Church of Rome as to justifie her to be a true visible Apostolike Church which never erred in fundamentals and wherein men may be saved and that we and she are one and the same Church still no doubt of that both one as we have formerly proved Yet he is so maliciously despitefull to the Protestant Churches in forraign parts and at home that he reputes them not only no true Churches but even no Churches at all because they have no Lord-bishops different in Order and Degree from ordinary Ministers This opinion of his we shall manifest not only by his Divinity Questions when he was to proceed Batchelor and Doctor of Divinity for which Dr Holland publickly checkt and turned him out of the Schools with disgrace as a sower of discord between Brethren to wit the Church of England and other reformed Churches but by his own late reprinted Book An 1639. entituled A Relation of the Conference between William Laud then Lord Bishop of St. Davids now Lord Archbishop of Canterbury and Mr Fisher the Jesuite c. p. 175 176. where thus he writes in justification of his former Theses in the Divinity Schools For the calling and Authority of Bishops over the inferiour Clergy that was a thing of known use and benefit for preservation of Truth and Peace in the Church And so much St Ierom tels us though being none himselfe he was no great friend to Bishops And this was so setled in the mindes of men from the very infancy of the Christian Church as that it had not been till that time contradicted by any So that then there was no controversie about the calling all agreed upon it Then citing Jeroms words in the margin he thus comments upon them So even according to St. Ierom Bishops had a very ancient and honourable descent in the Church from St. Mark the Evangelist And about the end of the same Epistle he acknowledgeth it Traditionem esse Apostolicam Nay more then so he affirmes plainly That ubi non est Sacerdos NON EST ECCLESIA St. Ierom advers Luciferianos And in that place most manifest it is that St. Ierom by Sacerdos meanes a Bishop for he speaks de Sacerdote qui potestatem habet Ordinandi which in St. Ieroms owne judgement no meere Priest had but a Bishop only St. Ierom Epist. ad Evagrium so even with him NO BISHOP NO CHURCH Which being his own positive judgement the Dutch and French Protestant Churches both at home and abroad must needs be no Church at all in his opinion because they have no such Bishops and so are in farre worse condition then the Church of Rome in his repute To make this more apparent we shall desire you to take notice that in Decemb. 1639. there was a plot between this Archbishop and others of our Prelates to obtrude upon all our Ministers this subscription as the received Doctrine of the Church of England to wit that there could be no Church of Christ without Diocesan Lord Bishops which clearly appeares by the forementioned propositions of Bishop Hall which the Archbishop thought fit for the subscription of others but especially by the 1. 12. and 13. propositions viz. God had never any Church on earth that was ruled by a Parity There was NO CHVRCH OF CHRIST VPON EARTH ever since the times of the Apostles governed any otherwise then by Bishops This course of government thus set by the Apostles in their life time by the speciall direction of the holy Spirit is unalterable by any humane Authority but OVGHT to be perpetuated in the Church to the end of the world From whence it inevitably followes that the reformed forraign Churches having no such imparity of Governours nor Lordly Bishops in them are in this Arch-Prelates and his Confederates judgements No Churches of God or Christ at all and if the designe of subscribing these Propositions had succeeded as it did in the Etcetera Oath for a time he would have engaged the whole Church of England with all our Ministers by a publike subscription in this most unchristian and uncharitable opinion which not prevailing was yet soone after thus seconded in print by his grand Favourite Bishop Mountague whom he advanced to two Bishopricks in his Originum Ecclesiasticarum Tomi prioris Pars posterior p. 464 published with his approbation
answer all his Charge together not each dayes Evidence by Peece-meale To which Master Maynard in the behalfe of the Commons answered 1. That if the Archbishops memory were so bad as he pretended it would be far worse for him to charge it with answering many particulars and the whole evidence against him together then to answer every particular Charge each day as it should be given in against him whiles it was fresh in memory 2ly That it might and would be a great inconvenience to have witnesses crosse-examined upon other dayes then those whereon they gave in their testimony against the Prisoner 3ly That the Lords themselves would finde it difficult to passe their judgements upon all the Charge together without hearing his punctuall answer to every particular proof as it should be given in evidence whiles it was fresh in their memories 4ly Because else all the witnesses which were very many must of necessity attend and be kept in Town from the first to the last day of his Tryall which would be a very great Charge and inconvenience 5ly In the Earle of Straffords case this very Parliament he was put to answer every day to the particular Evidence given against him on the same day Upon which reasons the House of Peers ordered that the Archbishop should make his particular Answer to every particular Charge on the same day it was given in against him Then the Archbishop desired that the House of Commons would sever the Articles which were Treason from those other Articles which were matters of crime and Misdemeanour only but not Treason that so he might know which of them were Treason and which not To which Master Maynard answered That this they might not doe because they were now onely to try the matters of fact not Lavv and because all the Articles taken together not each or any particular Article by it self made up the Treason wherewith he was charged to wit his endeavours to subvert and destroy Religion the fundamentall Lawes of the Land and government of the Realme and to bring in Popery and an arbitrary tyrannicall Government against Law After which Master Serjeant Wilde by way of Introduction to the Archbishops charge with abundance of elegancy and zeale related the Heads of his Offences to the House of Peeres in these ensuing straines My LORDS THis great cause of the Archbishop of Canterbury after a long and painefull traâ—aise is now come to the Birth of which it may be truly said as it was in a like case Râ—pertum est hodierno die facinus quod nec Poeta fingere nec Histrio sonare nec Mimus imitare potuerit For if all the oppressions all the pernitious practises and machinations which have beene in each time to ruinate our Religion Lawes and Liberties were lost I thinke here they might bee found and drawne out againe to the life So that your Lordships who have beene the great Assertors of our Liberties and stood so fast to the rules and principles of your Noble Progenitors which others have ignobly deserted may after a long conflict with so many great and marchiesse difficulties say now as a great Commander once did upon an extraordinary danger Tandem par animo meo periculum video Here is a cause proportionable to your selves apt and proper for the justice and power of this honourable Court Had they beene faults of common frailty error or incogitancy which this man hath committed wee should gladly have stepped backe and cast a Cloake over them but being so wilfull so universall so distructive to the Lawes of God and man so comprehensive of all the evills and miseries which now we suffer the sin would lye upon our owne heads if wee should not call for justice which that it hath beene so long uncalled for not deferred or delayed I suppose no man will thinke strange who considers the present distractions the death and dispersion of our witnesses the losse of some of our Members who have beene imployed and taken paines in this businesse the multitude of diversions which we have had and have daily occasioned by the Acts and influences of this Meteor But the truth survives and matter enough survives so copious and so full of variety that if all the particulars should be examined for his three yeares imprisonment which he complaines off there would be three yeares time of tryall and hearing of the heavy charge that lyes against him A charge of High Treason Treason in all and every part Treason in the highest pitch and altitude for what greater Treason can there be then to betray the whole Realme and to subvert the very foundations leaving nothing for posterity but a curse upon him that shall goe about to build again That which of it selfe is so haynous is much more enhanced and aggravated by the quality of the person A Church-man a great Prelate a man in great trust place and Authority in Church and Common-wealth A man indued with so great guifts of nature and so many of grace and favour from His Majesty and for al these to be perverted to a contrary end even to the destruction of the publike and the ruine of the Wombe that bare him how deepe a dye doe these impose upon this foule crime How Church-men in all ages as hath beene often observed should come to be the Archest Seedsmen of mischiefe and principall Actors in all the great distractions and alterations that have hapned is a destinie that may seeme strange But the reason is ex bono Thealogo malus Medicus their intermedling with temporall things and matters hererogeneall to their calling wherein God is pleased to finite them with blindnesse and to infatuate their Councell whereof a perfect patterne wee have in this great Prelate who by abusing his profession and making the businesse of State the customary subject of all his endeavours became the Author of all the illegall and Tyrannicall proceedings in the Starre-Chamber High Commission Court and other Courts of all the Innovations in Doctrine and Discipline of the suppressing of godly Ministers and preaching of the advancing of others who were the promoters of Popery and Arbitrary power and indeed of all the concussions and distractions in Church and State whereby Religion hath beene jusâ—ed out Lawes and Parliaments trodden downe with contempt For matter of Religion surely those times were happy when by the magnanimity of Princes and the wisdome and piety of our Predecessors that Antichristian Yoke of Popery was shaken off And now after so many bloudy Massacres in France such fiery persecutions here in Queene Maries dayes so many treacherous conspiracies in time of Queen Elizabeth that execrable and horrid Powder-Plot in the late time of King James such streames and Rivers of bloud in Germany and Ireland and other parts of the Christian world ever since by those restlesse and cruell fire-brands of all mischiefe for any man now to goe about to rebuild these walls of Iericho and to reduce us to those rotten
penitents into the Church after they had done publike penance A solemn day was set a part for taking of publike penance for open faults by imposition of hands and sprinkling of ashes namely Ashwednesday by the Canon of the Councell of Agatha in Gratian This is the godly Discipline whereof our Church speaketh in the Commination of putting notorious sinners to open penance in the beginning of Lent and wisheth that it might bee restored againe And as Ashwednesday was appointed for putting notorious sinners to open penance so was MAUNDAY Thursday set a part for their absolutions P. 59. The godly discipline constantly practised in Churches and at Altars and the sad and malencholly mention of Penance Fasting and Prayer with other Austerities which the pietie of the times have but just cause to thinke of P. 63. This was done 40. dayes before Easter namely on Ashwednesday in Sack-Cloth and Ashes And for 8. dayes together before Easter they were to doe penance to fast to refraine all manner of pleasures though never so lawfull to stand bare foot upon Sack-cloth and to watch on Good-Friday all night or at least till two a Clock in the morning Shelfords five Treatises Pag. 71. Then they confessed their sinnes to God and their Minister for spirituall comfort and Councell then they endeavoured to make the best temporall satisfaction they could by Almes Prayer and Fastings and other workes of humiliation The Scots New Service Booke in the Commination against sinners with certaine prayers to bee used diverse times in the yeare and especially on the first day of Lent commonly called Ashwednesday To which there is this addition in justification of Popish penance made with the Arch-Bishops owne hand Brethren in the Primitive Church there was a godly discipline used that at the beginning of Lent notorious sinners were put to open Pennance and did humbly submit themselves to undergoe punishment in this world that their soules might be saved in the day of the Lord. All which is thus closed up by Bishop Mountague who after a long discourse in Justification of Confession and Penance concludes thus out of Pope Leo. Originum Ecclesiasticarum Tomi Prioris pars posterior Londini 1640. Pag. 467. Sect. 33. Christus enim ut cum B. Leone loquar Ecclesia Prapositis potestatem dedit ut Confitentibus actionem paenitentiae darent cosdem SALUBRI SATISFACTIONE PVRGARENT sic ad communionem Sacramentorum per januam reconciliationis admitterent 3. That we ought necessarily to give blinde Obedience to the Ecclesiasticall commands and directions of our Priests Confessors and spirituall Superiors THis desperate Popish Assertion was published and justified in these Authorized printed passages worthy our speciall observation Christs Epistle to a Devout Soule pag. 112. 113. 114. 116. Respect not the man who by my Ordinance is thy superior whether he be learned or unlearned but have regard to this only that he is thy superior by whom I will govern thee and in whom thou oughtest to obey me Wherefore I would have thee subject thy selfe unto him without any servile feare or scruple of thy Conscience and dispraising thine owne wisdome and Councell submit thy selfe to be governd by his judgment and opinion whatsoever he shall determine or appoint thee Walke in the path of Obedience and doe nothing at all without the Counsell of thy Pastor or Ghostly Father or Superiour esteeming that alwayes best which thy Superior shall thinke fittest doe all things according to the councell of thy Superior and submit thy selfe wholly to his will and discretion And Page 192. my inspirations never disagree from the Obedience that thou must carry to thy superiors therefore if thou submittest thy selfe to them and reliest in no respect upon thy owne selfe thou art sure to walke in simplicity and purity of heart Francis Sales his Introduction to a Devout Life pag. 334. 335. Obedience Charitie and Povertie are three excellent justruments unto perfection There are two sorts of Obedience the one necessary the other voluntary by necessary obedience thou must obey thy Ecclesiasticall Superiors as the supreame head c. Which is thus seconded by Christopher Dow in his Booke against Master Burton pag. 136. 137. Secondly I say that being done by the same Authority that first set them forth it is neither for him nor me nor any other of inferiour rancke to question them but with humble Reverence to submit to their judgments and to think them wiser and farre more fit to order those things that belong to their places than wee whom neither it concernes nor indeed can know the reasons that move them either to doe or alter any thing c. With whom Doctor Heylyn in his Coale from the Altar p. 2. Thus complyes in judgment Should we all be so affected as to demurre on the commands of our Superior in matters of exteriour Order and Publike Government till wee are satisfied in the grounds and reasons of their commandements or should we fly off from our duty at sight of every new devise that is offered to us we should finde a speedy dissolution in Church and State Which Doctor Pocklington thus closeth in his Altare Christianum pag. 180. What flood-gates this man sets wide open to let in a whole deluge of confusions impiety and Sacriledge into the Church if the Contents of his Letter in this particular might obtaine viz. That the Constitutions Orders Decrees appointed by Cannon or renewed by TRADITION of holy Church be not of absolute authority and require full obedience but are to be scanned and disputed 4. That Christians here must have Altars that these ought to be rayled in Altarwise at the East end of the Chancell and there bowed to and towards as to Gods mercy seate and the place of Christs chiefe reall presence upon earth and that there can be no true Sacrament or Consecration of it where there is no Altar THis is the Subject matter of many whole Bookes lately published authorized by the Archbishops Creatures and Chaplaines as Doctor Heylyns Coale from the Altar his Antidotum Lincolniense His Moderate answer to Master Henry Burton pag. 132. to 140. yea a thing expresly enjoyned by the Archbishop and others in the new Statutes for the Vniversity of Oxford in the new Statutes of diverse Cathedrals the new Cannons and by diverse Bishops in their Visitation Articles already mentioned We shall therefore insist only on some other authorized Bookes and passages to this purpose Wee shall begin with Doctor Iohn Pocklington his Sunday no Sabbath printed by the Arch-bishops approbation and his Chaplaines license p. 43. 44. 50. Habemus Altare we under the Gospell have an Altar Heb. 15. 10. and so is the Word Altar and Lords Table indifferently and alike anciently used these were some Tables or Altars of stone quia Christus est lapis angularis some were of Wood the better to expresse his death on the Tree these wooden Altars or Tables the furious Circumceflions brake downe in Saint
Nov. 11. 1639. This Letter was thus endorsed with the Archbishops owne hand My Answer of Novemb. 11. 1639. to the Heads of the Bishop of Exons Bookes intended for Episcopacie What Reply Bishop Hall returned to this his Graces Letter these following Lines of his will disclose My most Reverend and most Honourable good Lord. I Should be unthankefull if I did not acknowledge every one of these Lines of so long a Letter written with your Graces owne hand a new obligation to me who know the price of your time yet the matter of them binds mee more those Animadversions were so just that I had amended those passages divers of them voluntarily ere I received this Gracious Admonition for I did onely send your Grace the rude draught of what I meant to polish in the Expression your Grace observes truely some mitigation in stating the Cause which I confesse to have purposely used out of a desire to hold as good Termes with our neighbour Churches abroad as I safely might your Grace knowes well how Doctor Field and Doctor Downam have handled that point if we may make the Case sure for us with the least aspersion cast upon them who honour our Government and cannot obtaine it I conceived it the better especially since the Scottish case so palpably differs yet I would so determine it as that nothing but necessity can either excuse them or hold up the truth of their being In the Presbyterie I must fall foule with them howsoever That Clause of abdication was inserted with respect to the present occasion I shall willingly abdicate it Those many scruples which may arise and must be met with in this cause will bee avoyded if we doe plainly and shortly state the Question thus Whether the Majority of Bishops above Presbyters be by Divine Institution which if we make good I suppose is as much as can be reasonably desired for what Christian can thinke it life or lawfull to depart from that which Christ and his Apostles have set in his Church with an intent of perpetuall continuance I have noted in my discourse those two sorts of Adversaries and with respect to them put in these two words Lawfull against the first and against the second Divine though the latter in the tractation comprehendeth both We shall not much neede I hope in this way to come within the Ken of that Roman Rock of jus Divinum mediatum although it must fall into our mention Shortly I shall take carefull heede to those points which you Grace adviseth and when I have laid my last hand upon the first part whereof each clause must Bis ad Limam semel ad linguam I shall transcribe and send it to your Grace for your full and free Censure In the meane time with my best prayers I take leave and vow my selfe Your Graces in all faithfull observance to command Jos. Exon. Exon. Pal. Nov. 16. The Archbishop with his owne hand thus endorsed this Letter Received Nov. 18 1639. L. Exon. his Answer to those Animadversions I made upon the heads of his intended Booke for Episcopacie The Archbishop returning an Answer to this Letter thereupon Bishop Hall sent up his Treatise of Episcopacy by Divine Right accompanied with this Epistle and the ensuing Propositions which together with his Booke he wholly submitted to his Graces judgement and disposall Most Reverend and my ever most Honourable good Lord I Have received your Graces speedy and full answer to my last And now according to my promise I present to your Graces hands this Worke of mine the bulk whereof swelled under my hand beyond my purpose whiles I could think no passage of it unnecessary I humbly submit it to your Graces free Censure not personall for I could not be so weake as to thinke your Grace could lose so much time in perusall of it but Deputative The more and the more judicious eyes passe upon it the better Whether for haste or delay for impression or suppression or suppression I am altogether indifferent for my owne judgement I doe not think it werthy or capable of the attestation of others especially my betters for that I do both take my rise from a particular occasion and do often intersperse polemicall dissertations as with M. Parker Anti-Tilenus Vedelius and others without which me thought I could not satisfactorily clear those points which passages I have no reason to think others should take upon them either to own or justifie It was my second bold motion to your Grace That divers select Bishops and Divines should shortly and fully expresse their judgements in this subject Your Grace thought fitter to which I subscribed that it-should be done by one or two and allowed and seconded by more such a discourse should be only positive and short As for this I suppose the judicious perusers will thinke it may be of good use to settle and prepare the mindes of men towards an unanimity of Judgement in this point which perhaps may be otherwise varying And if I may have leave to shoot my bolt I should conceive if an attestation to our just Tenent be thought requisite from many and the best hands it would sort best that the substance of it should be drawn up into some short and full Propositions such as these which I have taken the boldnesse to inclose and sent or tendred to them for their subscription wherein I should hold a generality of expression the safest I beseech your Grace pardon this presumption of mine and for this my Labour if it be found that it may be of any profitable use in these way ward times let it flye otherwise it may this festivall be imployed in Thuris Piperisue Cucullos I shall be well content with either the light or the fire Your Grace will soon finde that I have been plain enough with our Genevians for the Forraign Churches I have taken the same course with our learned Bishop Andrews as pittying their alleadging necessity not approving their form in the mean time not thinking it best to make Enemies where we may have friends I do finde and shew the Scottish case utterly unlike theirs for our greater advantage I have driven the point further than some worthy Divines before me and especially have laboured in that part where the cause beares most viz. in matter of Scripture and the next following Antiquity What it is is wholly and absolutely at your Graces disposing to what ever purpose your Grace will think fit And so with the apprecation of an happy New year to your Grace and to this whole Church I take my humble leave and am Your Graces in all faithfull Observance to Command JOS. EXON Exon. Pal. S. Tho. Day This Letter was thus superscribed To the most Reverend and most honourable my singular good Lord my Lord Arch-bishop of Canterbury his Grace Primate of all England and Metropolitan Chancellor of Oxford and one of the Lords of his Majesties most Honourable Privy Councell present these And thus indorsed
dishonourable scandalous and offensive act which would scandalize and disgust all his wel-affected protestant Subjects dishonour his owne royall Father King James our Parliaments Church State who all authorized approved used this prayer for thirty yeeres space together encourage Papists Priests Jesuits to such like horrid treasons and exceedingly animate elevate the popish faction causing them to deride if not to insult over the Protestants and our Church which must now alter retract her own approved Collects to gratifie them and their Antichristian Religion But so farre is he from this that he readily obeyes the first command without the lest disswasion resistance without advising with or giving notice thereof to any other of his Brethren the Privy-Counsell Judges and other publike persons as much concerned in it as himselfe to whom he ought to have given notice and asked their leave at least opinions herein ere he obeyed the King though not Master Burtons and Master Prynnes being more ready to obey than his Majesty to command them Finally admit his Majesty had commanded him to make these alterations yet for him in his owne cause in an open Court of Justice where by Law he ought not to have been present or spoken as a Judge to lay all the Odium of these alterations with all his other Innovations in Religion only on his Majesty to render him odious to his people to cloke his own shame extenuate his own guilt and then to publish it in print to all the World to his perpetuall dishonour when there was no necessity and that by pretext of his Majesties speciall command was such a disloyalty and transcendent aggravation of his crime as no age can paralell no punishment expiate but that which the Gunpowder Traytors justly suffered Besides this after the publication of his â—peech in Star-chamber he specially imployed Doctor Heylin to iustifie these alterations to the world in print in his Moderate Answer to the seditious and scandalous chalenges of Henry Burton as he stiles them written by his * speciall command and licensed by his Chaplaine p. 150. to 157. and ordered Christopher Dowe to second him herein in his Innovations unjustly charged upon the present Church and State p. 136 to 14â— where thus he writes Secondly I say that the alteration of those Prayers being done by the same authority that first set them forth it is neither for him nor me nor anyother of inferiour ranke to question them but with humble reverence to submit to their judgements and to think them wiser and farre more fit to order those things that belong to then places than we whom it neither concernes nor indeed can know the reasons that move them either to doe or alter anything But more particularly that which he objecteth against the former is that they would not hereby have all Jesuits and Papists termed a Babylonish and Antichristian Sect but restraine it to some few of them and mentally transferre it to those Puritanes who cry downe with Babylon that is popery But what then what if out of a charitable respect to those which in that Religion are peaceable and honest men as no doubt but some of them whatsoever Master B. beleeves of them are such they are not willing nor think it fit to pray for the rooting up and confusion of all Papists indiscriminatim under those harsh termes surely charitably minded Christians cannot but approve such an alteration if there were no other ground than that for it As for any mans transferring it to Puritanes that is as meer a surmise as it is a false slander that any of those whom he intimates doe call Rome Jerurusalem or Popery the true Catholique Religion Yet I know not why such furious cryers downe of popery as Master B. hath shewed himselfe may not be accounted of a Baby lonish and Antichristian Sect as well as any Jesuit in the world nor why we may not pray and that with better reason than Master B. would have men to doe and under those titles against the Hierarchy of our church that God would root them out of the Land c. Wherein he makes zealous opposers of popery those the world then stiled Puritanes more dangerous persons and fitter to be rooted out of the Land as a Babylonish Antichristian Sect than papists or Jesuits Now thus to justifie this alteration in so daring impudent a manner in favour of popery priests Papists Jesuits what a transcendent crime it is and of what a rotten popish spirit it savours let all impartiall persons determine The third purgation made by himselfe discovering the hidden popery of his heart is his purging out this notable clause against popery in the first Collect of the publike book of prayers appointed at the generall Fast for ceasing the Plague in the yeere 1636. Thou hast delivered us from Superstition and Idolatry wherein we were utterly drowned and hast brought us into the most cleare and confortable light of thy blessed Word by which we are taught how to serve and honouor thee and how to live orderly with our Neighbours in truth and verity The King by his Proclamation Anno 1636. commanded that the Booke of prayers for the Fast formerly set forth by authority should be reprinted re-published and likewise used in all Churches and places at the publike meetings during this Fast The Arch-bishop instead of re-printing the book formerly set forth by authority purgeth this clause out of it in the new impression though used in the Fast-books upon like occasions in Queen Elizabeths and King James their severall reignes and in that of 1. Caroli and that upon these very grounds which should have moved him to retaine it still had his heart been upright or sincere to God and our Religion because it layes a just censure and blemish upon popery by stiling it superstition and idolatry and thankfully recites Gods goodnesse to us in delivering us from Popish superstition and idolatry wherein we were utterly drowned and bringing us into the most cleare and comfortable light of his holy Word by which we are taught how to serve and honour him c. A clause so pious so just and equitable that it is almost a miracle how any but a most inveterate Papist could except against it yet this Arch bishop is so irreconcileably angry with it that it must be wholy obliterated and quite omitted out of this new impression and that without any speciall order or command from his Majesty which he pleaded for the former alterations in the Gunpowder-treason book or any suggestion from Papists Priests or Jesuits who were scandalized with it for he doth not so much as pretend any such thing in his justification of this purge but by his owne papall authority contrary to his Majesties Proclamation out of his own metro popish genius which perswades us that the former alcerations in the book for the fift of Novem. proceeded originally from himself too as well as this however he would translate it to the
examine and how far their testimonies will sway with your Lordships I most humbly submit to your grave judgements they being formerly offended with me for pressing the examination of the many complaints against them in this kind Secondly to the particular testimonies I answer First that Saint Giles his residing and maintainance in Oxford was by the Kings speciall Warrant which hath been produced much against my will and I never heard he exercised his popish Function or seduced any there but onely studied metaphysicall learning according to his engagement Secondly For Sir Toby Matthew I did not know that he was either a Priest or Jesuit and utterly deny that he was ever with me in my Coach or Barge or usually repaired to me to Lambeth though being an eminent Archbishops Son I might in that regard have permitted him more free accesse unto me And my Secretary Master Dell remembers not that ever he told Newton that Sir Toby Matthewes was with me in the Garden at Lambeth Besides Newton is but a single witnesse and Master Dobson attests that he never saw Sir Toby Matthew with me at Lambeth As for his release when apprehended by the Lords Warrant it was only by the Earle of Straflords order not mine For Smith the Jesuit there is no proofe that ever he was with me at Lambeth but onely that he was seen there talking familiarly with my Secretary Master Dell neere my Study doore who denies and remembers not any such thing As for his words to Newton that he had done his errand to me they are but the reports of a Jesuit to slander me there being no proofe that ever he spake with me For my correspondence with the Bishop of Calcedon Doctor Smith there is no proofe but conjecturall from my Diary For Leander and Price their resorting to me it is but a report without proofe at all And for Sancta Clara I never saw him above three or four times according as I have truly related under my owne hand Fourthly Saint Giles and he were Aliens borne out of the Kings Dominions and no naturall born Subjects therefore admit I had harboured and maintained them it is no fellony nor treason by our Lawes and directly out of the Statute of 27. Elizabeth Fiftly Waddesworths testimony it is but a hearsay for my sending four pound to pay his Fees I think it is true and it was upon this occasion He pretended that he had been a Roman Catholick but was now really converted to our Religion and thereupon released but wanted money to pay his Fees whereupon I sent him four pound thinking him to be a new convert to us and it was upon his own sending to and acquainting me with his poverty and condition Sixtly for my releasing and refusing to meddle with Wilford the Priest it neede no other answer then what the Witnesse sweares that he had a protection and Letter of discharge from Secretary Windebanke and this was the cause I refused to meddle with him Seventhly for Gray he was committed by the Lords of the Counsell not by me he gave me very ill language and used approbrious scandalous speeches of me in my owne house for which he was committed As for my calling of him Priest-catching knave it is proved but by one Witnesse and indeed there were many complaints against him for abusing his authority in seizing and searching after Priests to the prejudice of those who were not such whereupon I commanded the rest of the Messengers belonging to the High Commission not to keep him company to avoid the like abuses and complaints Eightly for Egertons testimony it is but a report from Mottersheads mouth a single Witnesse formerly censured in the High Commission for his abuses in importing prohibited Books and therefore his testimony is to be suspected Master Jones is not produced to make good his testimony but his papers onely which are no evidence Ninthly for the liberty and freedome of Priests in their prisons it was unkowne to me and their Keepers fault not mine who would have restrained them Finally Mayo witnesseth thus much for me that I gave him command to watch the Embassadours and Popes Nuncioes houses to see who resorted thither to Masse which he did giving me an account thereof and Thatcher confesseth that I gave him a Warrant to apprehend Priests and Jesuits though I denied it to another whom I thought not fit to trust in such an imployment a cleer evidence I was no friend unto and held no correspondency with them Whereas it is objected that I confesse I never perswaded nor practized any persecution against popish Priests and Jesuits though I perswaded and practized it too against Puritans and those who opposed popery I answer that I hope it is no offence not to be a persecutor or not to give ill language to Jesuits and for my persecuting of orthodox Ministers and Puritans I never persecuted any though I prosecuted some for their schisme and misdemeanours Wherefore this heavy charge which hath made so great a noyse in your Lordships and the peoples eares is I hope quite wiped off and fallen to the ground To this was replyed in generall First that the Designe charged upon him is not his reconciling of ROME to us but of the Church of ENGLAND to the errours and corruptions of the Church of ROME and how active he was how farre he proceeded to accomplish this and how neer he had brought it to perfection both in point of Doctrine Ceremonies practise the premised evidences have abundantly manifested notwithstanding all flourishes to the contrary in his Book against Fisher published not out of any zeale against popery but meerly in policy upon other mens solicitations to stop the peoples clamours against his popish practises and proceedings as himselfe relates in his Epistle thereunto And his setting up ALTARS CRUCIFIXES IMAGES TAPERS introducing bowing to ALTARS COPES Consecration of Flagons Churches Chappels purging out all passages against popish Doctrines Popes Jesuits popish Priests c. his permitting all kind of ARMINIAN ERROURS and Popish Tenents to be Preached in our Pulpits and published in Print with his Chaplaines speciall approbations prefixed to them together with his countenancing advancing the Authors fomenters and persecuting the oppugners of them speak farre cleerer louder against him then all his empty writings and testimonies of himselfe can possibly plead for his justification being so palpably contradicted by the whole streame of his actions Secondly that his intimacy correspondency with popish Priests and Jesuits is sufficiently proved by our former evidence Sir Toby Matthew the most active pernicious Jesuited Priest in the Kingdome we have proved to be riding with him sometimes in his Barge sometimes in his Coach sometimes in private earnest discourse with him in his Garden and frequently with him at his Table what greater familiarity or intimacy could there be between them then this That he knew him to be a Priest and Jesuit is cleere by Habernfields plot found in his Study