Church of England Lastly these Papall Oaths doe necessarily suppose a Voiage to Rome either to take the Oath there or if the Oath was sent them into England one Clause in the Oathâ—was that they should come to Rome in person to receive the Popes Commands within a prefixed time But this is directly contrary to the Lawes of England which allow no Subject Clergiman or other to goe to Rome without the Kings Leave Thus much both the Prelates and Peers of the Realm told Anselm when he had a miâ—d to visit the Pope Thus much wee find attested by the Generall Assembly of the Kingdome in the Statute or Assise of Clarendon where one of the Customes or Lawes of the Kingdome is That No Ecclesiasticall person might depart out of the Kingdome without the Kings License No not though he were expresly summoned by the Bishop of Rome And at a Parliament held at Northampton in the Reign of Henry the third it was enacted that if any persons departed out of the Kingdome un lesse they would return within a prefixed time and answer it in the Court of our Lord the King let them be outlawed This was the unanimous complaint of the whole Kingdome to the Pope That the English were drawn out of the Realm by his authority contrary to the Customes of the Kingdome No Clergy man may goe to Rome without the Kings License say the ancient Lawes of the Realm Every English Prelateâ— shall come to Rome upon my command saith the Pope What Oedipus can reconcile the English Lawes and Papall mandates Commonly good Lawes proceed from evill manners and abuses doe ordinarily precede their Remedies But by the Providence of our Ancestors our English Remedies were preexistent before their Vsurpations Non remittitur Peccaâ—um nisi restituatur ablatum Vntill they restore those rights whereof they have robbed the King and Kingdome Wee may pardon them but they can hope for no forgivenesse from God I will conclude this point with an ancient Fundamentall Law in the Britannick Island anotherâ—Prince â—Prince professing Fidelity and obedience to any one besides the King Let him lose his head I come now to the last Branch of the first Papall Vsurpation Tenths and First fruits If Christ be still crucifyed between two Thieves it is between an old overgrown Officer of the Roman Court and a Sacrilegious Precisian The one is so much for the Splendour of Religion and the other for the Purity of Religion that between themâ— thâ—y destroy Religion Their Faces like Samsons Foxes locke contrary wayes but both of them have Firebrands at their tailes both of them prate of Heaven altogether both of them have their hearts nailed to the Earth On the one side if it had not been for the Avaricious Practises of the Roman Court the Papacy might have beeÌ„ a great advantage to the ChristiaÌ„ world in point of Order and Vnity at least it had not been so intolerable a BurtheÌ„ It is feared these will not suffer an Eugenius an Adrian or an Alexander to be both honest and long-lived On the otherside these Counterfeit Zelots do but renew the Policy of the two old Sicilian Gluttons to blow their Noses in the dishes that they might devour the meate alone that is cry down Church Revenues as Superstitious and Dangerous because they gape after them themselves If it were not for these two factioÌ„s wee might hope to see a reconciliation Self interest and self profit are both the procreating and conserving cause of Disunion Who would Imagin that the large Patrimony of St. Peter should not conteÌ„t or suffice an old Bishop abundantly without preying upon the poore Clergy for Tenths and First fruits and God knowes how many other waies The Revennes of that See were infinite yet the Bishops of ten complained of Want Gods blessing did not goe along with these Ravenous Courses So Pharohs lean Kine devoured the fat yet were nothing the Fatter them selves The first Tenth which the Pope had from the English Clergy was onely a single Tenth of their moveable Goods not by way of Imposition but as a Benevolence or free gift out of Courtesy But the Roman Bishops having once tasted the sweet meant not to give over so Non missura cutem nisi plena cruoris â—irudo The next step was to impose Tenths upon the Clergy not in perpetuity or as a certain Revenue due to the Papacy but for a fixed number of yeares as a stock for the Defence of Christendome against the incursions of the Turke About the same time First fruits began to be exacted not generally but onely of the Popes own Clerkes as a Gratuity or in plain English as a handsome Cloak of Simony But he that perfected the Work and made both Tenths and First fruits a certain annuall Revenue to the See of Rome was Boniface the ninth or Iohn the two and twentieth his Successor so saith Platina And with him almost all other writers doe agree This Boniface lived about the year fourteen hundred whom Turselline maketh to have been the restorer of Papall Majesty whose prudence did transcend his Age for he was but thirty yeares old He was the Vsurper that tooke away from the Romans the free choise of their Magistrates Iohn the two and twentieth lived in the time of the Councell of Constance some thing above the fourteen hundreth yeare It was he that called the Councell and was him self deposed by the Councell for grievous Crimes and the payment of First fruits abolished For neither the paiment of Tenths nor First fruits did agree with the palate of the Councells of Constance and Basile Notwithstanding their gilded pretences The Councell of Constance decreed that it was not lawfull for the Bishop of Rome to impose any Indictions or Exactions upon the Church or upon Ecclesiasticall persons in the Nature of a Tenth or any other way Which Decree was passed in the nineteenth Session though it be related afterward According to this Decree Pope Martin issued out his Mandate Wee Command that the Lawes which prohibit Tenths and other Burthens to be imposed by the Pope upon Churches and Ecclesiasticall persons be observed more Strictly And the Councell of Baâ—ill Commandeth that as well in the Roman Court as elswhere c Nothing be exacted for Tenths or Firstfruits c. But for all this the Popes could not hold their Hands Leo the tenth made a new imposition for three yeares Ad triennium proxime futurum for the old ends And it should seem that their mind was that thence forward as the cause lasted so should the imposition But the Germane Nation were not of the same mind who made this their nineteenth Grievance for as much as concerneth Tenth which Ecclesiasticall Prelates paid yearely to the Pope which the Germane Princes some yeares since did consent unto that they should be paid to the See of Rome for a certain time upoÌ„ Condition that this money should be
as he calleth them do not baffle him and trip up his heeles I pleaded that Roman Catholicks did make the first separation He answers that this Plea doth equally acquit any Villain in the World who insists in the steps of his Forefather Villains Would no expression lower then this of Villains serve his turâ—e Who can help it If those Forefathers whom he intimates were Villains or any thing like Villains they were his Forefathers twenty times more then ours We inherit but one point in difference from them but he twenty The denomination ought to be from the greater part If any of them were deemed more propitious to us then the rest it was Henry the eighth or Archbishop Cranmer For both these we have their own confession that they were theirs First for Henry the eight We had a King who by his Lawes abolished the Authority of the Pope although in all other things he would follow the faith of his Ancestours And for Archbishop Cranmer heare another of them Cranmer the unworthy Archbishop of Canterbury was his the Earle of Hartfords right hand and chiefe Assistant in the work although but a few moneths before he was of King Harries Religion yea a great Patron and Prosecuter of the six Articles But to deale clearly with you there is not the same reason to imitate a notorious knave in his confessed knavery and to follow one who hath not onely a reasonable and just cause of contending but also the reputation of an honest man even in the judgement of his adverse party in all other things except onely therein wherein he is adverse to them Such were all the Actors in this cause by their Confession If we acknowledged that they who cast out Papall Vsurpations were Schismaticks for so doing he said something but we justify their Act as pious and virtuous and so his Comparison hath never a leg to run on I pleaded that it was a violent presumption of their Guilt and our Innocence when their best Friends and best able to Iudge who preached for them and writ for them who acted for them and suffered for theÌ„ who in all other things were great Zelots of the Roman Religion and persecuted the poore ProtestaÌ„ts with fire and fagot yet coÌ„demne theÌ„ and justify this seperarioÌ„ He minceth what I say according to his use and then excepteth The word best might have been left out They ever were accounted better Friends who remained in their former faith and the other Bishops looked upon as Schismaticks by the Obedient party Yet the Bishop of Chalcedon doubted not to call them the best of Bishops He should do well to tell us for his credits sake who those other Bishops were who looked upon these as Schismaticks Such is his ignorance in the State of these times that he dreameth of two parties an Obedient Party and a Rebellious Party whereas there were no Parties but all went one way There was not a Bishop nor an Abbot of Note in the Kingdome who did not vote the Kings Supremacy Four and twenty Bishops and five and twenty Abbots personally at one time There was not a Bishop nor any person of note in the Kingdome who did not take the Oath of the Kings Supremacy except Bishop Fisher and S. Thomas Moore who were imprisoned for treason either true or pretended before that Act was made for opposing the Succession of the Crown If he will not trust me let him trust the Veredict of our Vniversities A length we all agreed unanimously in this Sentencâ— and were of one accord that the Roman Bishop hath no greater Iurisdiction given him by God in holy Scripture in this Kingdome of England then any other Forrain Bishop The same Sentence was given by our Convocations or Synods The same Sentence was given by our Parliaments with the same concord and Vnanimity Nemine Dissentiente We had no parties but one and all Let him listen to his Friend Bishop Gardiner No Forrain Bishop hath any Authority among us all sorts of people are agreed with us upon this point with most stedfast consent that no manner of person bred or brought up in England hath ought to doe with Rome And Ireland was unanimoâ—s herein with England All the great Families as well of the Irish as of the English did acknowledge by their Indentures to S. Anthony St. Leger then chiefe Governour of Ireland the Kings Supremacy and utterly renounce the Iurisdiction of the Pope Yet it was not the meaning of our Ancestours then and though some of them had been so minded it is not our meaning now to meddle with the power of the Keys or abridge the Bishop of Rome of any Iurisdiction purely spirituall or any Legacy which was left him by Christ or his Apostles but onely to cast out his usurped Coactive power in the exteriour Court without the leave of the Soveraign Prince which Christ and his Apostles did never exercise or dispose of or meddle with and to vindicate to our Kings the Politicall or externall Regiment of the Church by themselves and by their Bishops and other fit delegates as a Right due to all Christian Princes by the Law of God and nature But he attributeth all this to the Feare of the Clergy and the people and the Kings violent Cruelty and for proofe of what he saith citeth half a passage out of Doctor Hammond but he doth Dr. Hammond notorious wrong Dr. Hammond speaketh onely of the first preparatory act which occasioned them to take the matter of right into a serious debate in a Synodicall way he applieth it to the subsequent act of Renunciation after debate Dr. Hammond said onely it is easy to be believed Mr. Serjeant maketh it a just Presumption or confest Evidence Dr. Hammond speaketh of no feare but the feare of the law the law of Premunire an ancient law made many ages before Henry the eighth was borne the Palladium of England to preserve it from the Vsurpations of the Court of Rome but he misapplieth it wholy to the feare of he Kings violent Cruelty Lastly he smothers Dr. Hammonds Sense expressed clearly by himself that there is no reason to doubt but that they did believe what they did professe the feare being the Occasion of their debates but the reasons or Arguments offered in debate the causes as in all Charity we are to Iudge of their decision He useth not to cite any thing ingenuously If he did he could have told his Reader that this answer was taken away by me before it was made by him For two whole Kingdomes the Vniversities the Convocations the Parliaments to betray their Consciences to renounce an Article which they esteem necessary to salvation onely for the feare of a Premunire or the losse of their goods to forswear themselves to deny the Essence of their faith to turn Schismaticks as if they did all value their Goods more then their soules without so much as one to oppose it is a vain uncharitable
after Eleuen hundred years were eâ—â—luxed a strange time to set up a divine right Gregory the seventh otherwise called Pope Hildebrand and after him Pope Calixtus did condemne all Investitures taken from a Lay hand aud prohibit the Arch Bishops to cousecrate any persons so invested Praesens audivi in Romano Concilio prohiberi saith Anselm I heard it with mine own eares prohibited in the Roman Court But what were their reasons I believe not overrigorous Demonstrations The first was frequent suspicion of Simony An unheard of piece of Iustice to take away an hereditary right for suspicion of a personall fault The second and third reasons are contained in the letter of Adrian the fourth to Frederick the first Apud Goldast Ab his qui Dii sunt filii excelsi omnes homagium requiâ—is Fidelitatem exigis manus eorum sacratas manibus tuis innectis Thou requirest homage of those who are Gods and all the Children of the most High thou exactest an Oath of Fidelity and knittest their sacred hands with in thy hands A strange presumtion in a Soveraign Prince if you marke it well to hold his subjects hands within his Hands whilest he was swearing his Allegiance But the maine exception was the Homage or Oath of Fidelity it self And was it not high time thinke you to except against their swearing of Fidelity to their Native Prince whom the Bishops of Rome intended to exempt from his Iurisdiction aud to make them turn Subjects to themselves as they did in a great part effect it very shortly after Then was the time where of Platina speaks that there was great Consultation about the Homage and Fealty and Oaths of Bishops which in former times were sworn to lay men Were they so indeed Here is an ingenuous Confession of the Popes own Library Keeper Indeed at the first whilest they were robbing the King of the Iewells of his Crown they preached up nothing but free Elections but after they had onte seised their prey they changed their once forthwith to Dei Apostolicae Sedis Graria By the Grace of God and the Apostolique See Or ex plenitudine Ecclefiasticae potestatis out of the Fulnesse of our Ecclesiasticall power And when this Bell had rung out a while Egypt never a bounded more with Caterpillars then our Native Country did with Provisions and reservations and Pensions with all theÌ„hellish arts of Sublimated Simony Then our best dignityes and Benefices were filled with Strangers who could not speak an English word nor did ever tread upon English ground dayly more and more untill these well chosen Pastors who knew how to sheare their Flocks though they did not know how to feed them received yearly out of the Kingdome more theu the revenues of the crown He were very simple who should thinke the Court of Rome did not lick their own Fingers There remaineth but one thing to be done to stick the Guilt of this intolerable Vsurpation undeniably upon the See of Rome that is to sâ—ew that the Investiture of Bishops was the undoubted right of the Crown This is as cleare as the Sun both in our most Authentick Historiographers and records if I had the meanes to producetheÌ„ and also in our ancient Lawes published long since to the world in print and these not enactive of new law but declarative of the fundamentall law of the land First for our Histories Gervasius Dorobernensis relateth that Lanfrank desired of William the conquerer the Patronage of the Abby of S. Austin but the King answered Se velle omnes baculos pastorales in manu tenere That he would keep all the Crosier staffes that is the Investitures in his own hand The same is testified Anselm himself by one whose Authority cannot be doubted of He Anselm after the manner and Example of his Predecessor was inducted according to the Custome of the Land and did Homage to the King homo Regis factus est as Lanfranke his Predecessor in the Archbishoprick of Canterbury in his time had done And the manner of his Investiture is related how the Bishops pulled him and haled him as it were by violence to the Kings bedside William Rufus where he lay sick and helped to thrust the Crosier staffe by force into his hand Yet all that time though Anselm had many other Pretenses he had no exception against Investiture by a Lay hand but shortly after it grew to such an height and Anselm was the chief Stickler in it that William the Agent of King Henry the First protested openly to Pope Paschall Whatsoever is said on this side or on that I would have all men here present to know that my Lord the King of England will not suffer the losse of his Investitures for the losse of his Kingdome To whom Pope Paschall answered as resolutely but not so justly Know thou I speake it before God that Paschall the Pope will not suffer him to keep them without punishment no not for the redemtion of his head Neither was this the case of Anselm or Lanfranke alone but the commoÌ„ case of all Bishops in those dayes Hear the confession of the same author To conclude the very cause of the difference between the King and Anselm seemed a new thing or innovation to this our age and unheard of to the English from the time that the Normans began to Reign that I say not sooner For from the time that William the Norman conquered that Land no Bishop or Abbat was made before Anselm who did not first doe Homage to the King and from his hand by the gift of a Crosier staffe receive the investiture to his Bishoprick or Abbacy except two Bishops of Rochester who were Surrogates to the Arch Bishop of Canterbury and inducted by him by the Kings Concession Yea by his Favour so did Anselm himself Though he sought afterwards to wave it And though he be loath to speak out That I say not sooner Yet he might have said sooner and others doe say sooner as Ingulph the Abbat of Crowland in the time of the Conquerer For many yeares past there hath been no free Election of Prelates but the Kings Court did conferre all dignities according to their pleasure by a Ring and by a Crosier And this Custome had held not onely for Many yeares but for many Ages king Edgar did grant to the monkes of Glastenbury the free Election of their Abbat for ever but he reserved to him self and to his Heirs the power to invest the Brother elected by the tradition of the Pastorall staffe Thus for our histories now for our Lawes where of I shall need to cite but three The First is the Statute or Assise or Memoriall of Clarendon containing part of the ancient Liberties and Customes of the Realme made in the Generall assembly of the Kingdome King Bishops Peers to which they gave both their oathes assertory for the truth of it and Promissory for performance of it The
which ought to have been done in a Legall Appeale But the successe was so contrary to the Popes Interest and the Resolution of the King Church and Kingdome of England so unanimous That they could not assent to the Popes Legation because it was against reason that a person twice condemned by the whole Councell of the English should be restored upon the Popes Letter that England was never troubled with any more appeales to Rome untill after the Conquest Neither Durst the Pope send any Bulls or Mandates then but a plain Letter The next Appellant was Anselm a Stranger who knew not the liberties of England in the Dayes of Henry the first as succeslesse as Wilfrid had bene Will you trust the Testimony of a King And I know not why a King should not be trusted for the Customes of his own Kingdome Hear King Henry the First the Sonne of the Conquerour It is a Custome of my Kingdome instituted by my Father instituted indeed but not first instituted for it was an old Saxon Custome that no Pope be appealed to without the License of the King Another Law of the same King was By all meanes wee discharge forrain Iudgements If you will not trust the King trust the whole Kingdome upon their Oaths in the Dayes of Henry his Grandchild The First English Custom recited in the Assise of Clarendon is this That all Appeales in England must proceed regularly froÌ„ the Archdeacon to the Bishop from the Bishop to the Arch Bishop and if the Arch Bishop failed to doe Iustice the last coÌ„plaint must be to the King to give order for redresse If wee will not trust the King and Kingdome Yet lâ—t us trust the Pope him self thus Paschal the secoÌ„d writeth to our Henry the first The Popes Nuncioes and Letters doe find no reception within thy Iurisdiction There are no Complaints from those parts no Appeales are destined to the Apostolick See The Abbat of Thorney found this true by experience who lay long in prison notwithstanding his Appeale to Rome The Case is so plaine that I shall not cite one Authority more in it but onely one of our Statute Lawes made not onely by the Assent as is usnall but upon the prayer and grievous and clamorous Complaints of the Peers and Commons That because People are Drawn out of the Realm to answer things the Cognisance whereof belongeth to the Kings Courts and the Iudgements of the Kings Courts are impeached in another Court the Court of Rome to the disinheriting of the king and his Crown and the undoing â—and destruction of the Common Law of the Land Therefore it is ordeined that whosoever shall draw a man out of the Realm in Plea if he doe not appeare upon Summons and conform to the sentence of the kings Court he shall forfeit Lands and Goods be outlawed and imprisoned Against such Fortifications grounded upon Prescription and Imperiall Lawes the Canon of the Councell of Sardica will make no great Battery Take the Councell of Sardica at the best waving all exceptions yet certainly it was no generall Councell If it were it had been one of the four first If it had been a generall Councell it self three succeeding Popes were much to blame to Father the Canons of it upon the first Generall Councell of Nice The Canons of the Councell of Sardica did not bind the Africans of old much lesse bind us now Secondly the Canon of Sardica doth onely give way to Appeales to Rome in cases between two Bishops but the Court of Rome admitteth Appeales from inferiour Clergy men from Lay men from all sorts of men in all sorts of Causes that are of Ecclesiasticall Cognisance Thirdly the Canon of Sardica is a meer permission no precept what may be done in discretion not what ought to be done of necessity it was proposed with a Si vobis placet If it please you and the ground of it is a Complement Let us honour the Memory of S. Peter Fourthly There is one great Circumstance in our Case which varieth it quite from that proposed by Osius to the Sardican Fathers that is that our King and the Lawes of the Realm do forbid Appeales to Rome If there had been such an Imperiall Law then doe wee thinke that the Fathers of Sardica would have been so disloyall or so simple to thinke to abrogate the Imperiall Lawes by their Canons which are no Lawes but by the Emperours Confirmation No the Fathers of that Age did know their duty too well to their Emperour and if they could have foreseen what avaricious practises and what grosse Oppressions would have sprung in time from this little seed of their Indulgence they would have abhominated them Lastly supposing the Sardican Councell had been of more Authority and the Canon thereof of more Extent then it was and more peremptory and that there had been no such intervening impediment why English Subjects could not make use of that Remedy yet the Councell of Sardica can give but humane right And a contrary Prescription for a thousand years is a sufficient Enfranchisement from all pretence of humane right The second branch of this Vsurpation is as cleare as the former concerning Papall Bulls and Excommunications That by our ancient Lawes they cannot be executed in England without the Kings Leave In the Assise of Clarendon this is found to be one of the ancient Customes of England That none of the Kings Servants or Tenents that held of him in Capite might be excommunicated or their Lands interdicted before the King was made acquainted There was a severe Lawe made in the Reign of the same King If any man be found bringing in the Popes Letter or Mandate Let him be apprehended and let justice passe upon him without delay as a Traitour to the King and Kingdome It seemeth that the first and second Henryes were no more propitious to Rome then Henry the eighth Take one Statute more it was enacted in full Parliament by Richard the secoÌ„d that if any did procure or pursue any such Processesâ—or excommunications in the Court of Rome as are there meÌ„tioned that is concerning presentatioÌ„s to benefices or dignities Ecclesiasticall and they who bring them into the realm or receive them or execute them shall be put out of the Kings protection their Lands Goods and Chattells be confiscated to the King and their Bodies attached They had the same respect for the Popes Bulls as often as they did not like them in Henry the fourths time as wee see by the Statute made against those who brought or prosecuted the Popes Bulls granted in favour of the Cystercians By the Law of England if any man denounced the Popes Excommunication without the assent of the King he forfeited al his Goods And it is recorded in particular how the Kings writ issued out against the Bishops of London and Norwich as being at the Kings Mercy because contrary to the Statute of