publickly or privately 〈◊〉 he should be lawfully restored and releas'd of his said Suspension But shortly after the beginning of the Reign of the Royal Martyr he was again restored and was afterward again silenced and so continued till August 2. A. 1631. and then he was again restored And Mr. Dod's Life represents his Case as parallel with this before-mention'd He was in King Iames his time suspended and restored and again by the King 's particular Command disabled from Preaching and was by King Charles the First re-ennabled or restored Thus as fortis fortem amat one tender Conscienced man too loves another such and the Executive Power of the Law in re-ennabling after temporary Disability was tenderly administred by these our Princes to these Conscientious Men with respect to their real Capacity of Favour to be shew'd them A. You have here given me a taste en passant of part of the Dispensative Power as exercised in the three Realms during some Conjunctures in the Reign of King Charles the First and for which I thank you and particularly for what you told me of the Act of Parliament dispens'd with in Scotland of which I never heard before and am apt to suppose a thing of that Nature was never done before in that Realm B. I can assure you to those who know the Publick Transactions of that Kingdom the thing will not in the least seem new I can tell you that on the 26th of November A. 1593. King Iames the 6th of Scotland made an Act of State in favour of three Roman-Catholick Earls Huntly Arroll and Angus by which Act he allow'd them several Priviledges contrary to Acts of Parliament made against Roman-Catholicks And His Majesty in his Act of State expresly dispenseth with those Acts of Parliament and which Dispensation tho Queen Elizabeth importuned him to revoke and for that purpose sent the Lord Zouch as her Embassador to him he still adhered to the Act of State he had made and continued his Dispensation A. Have you this Matter of Fact out of any of the Records in England or Scotland B. I have it out of the Original Papers under the hand of Queen Elizabeth and her great Minister Burghly and the Original Instructions of the Lord Zouch when sent by her to expostulate with the King about it that were lately in my Custody and by me sent to our gracious Sovereign and I shall some other time give you a more particular account of that Dispensation A. But I beseech you did not the Protestant Divines of the Church of Scotland then cry out of the unlawfulness or inexpedience of that Dispensation B. I have read it in a learned Book of Dr. Maxwell a Scotch-man Printed A. 1644. and who was then Bishop of Killally in Ireland and had formerly been Bishop of Rosse that Mr. Robert Bruce one of the Ministers of Edenburgh and who had a great sway in the Church of Scotland was pleas'd with the King 's extending his Favour to Angus and Arroll but out of a factious Complyance with the Earl of Arguile was displeas'd at its being shewn to Huntly But that Loyal Bishop there acquiesceth in the reason of State that inclined the King to Pardon the three Earls and his thereby hindering the growth of Faction in Scotland and providing for his more easie and secure access to the Throne of England on the Death of Queen Elizabeth And so you may easily guess what sort of men in Scotland look'd with an evil eye on that Act of the Royal goodness and who did not The Bishop there had applauded the great depth of the King's Wisdom and his transcendent Goodness in the Pardoning the three Earls and mention'd that there was nothing of Religion in the Case of Bruce's Aversion against the Pardon of Huntly for that Angus and Arroll were as bigot Papists if not more then Huntly I can likewise direct you to my Lord Primate Bramhal's celebrated Book call'd A Fair warning to take heed of the Scotish Discipline where in Chap. 6. thus entituled viz. That it robs the Magistrate of his Dispensative Power he saith by way of instance When the Popish Earls of Angus Huntly and Arroll were excommunicated by the Church and forfeited for Treasonable Practices against the King it is admirable to read with what Wisdom Charity and Sweetness his Majesty did seek from time to time to reclaim them from their Errors c. and on the other side to see with what bitterness and radicated Malice they were prosecuted by the Presbyteries and their Commissioners c. sometimes threatning that they were resolv'd to pursue them to the uttermost tho it should be with the loss of all their Lives in one day c. sometimes pressing to have their Estates confiscated c. He refers there in his Margin to Ass. Edinb 1594. But any one who shall consult D'Ossat's Letters and there in the Second Book carefully read over the 37th Letter that was writ to Villeroy in the year 1596 and three years after the Date of King Iames his Act of State and observe what that great Sagacious Cardinal there refers to concerning the Circumstances of those three Earls and how all the Prudence that could be shewn by man was but little enough for the Conduct of that King in that Conjuncture in order to his removing what Impediments either from Rome or Spain or his Native Country might obstruct his Succession to the Crown of England will not wonder at his having dispens'd and continued his Dispensation as aforesaid A. I have not yet ask'd you whether the Divines of the Church of England did not lift up their voices like a Trumpet against the Dispensative Power thus exercised by their Prince as you have mention'd B. They discharged their Duties in Preaching occasionally against all growing Errors but they wanted none to mind them of the Saying Impium esse qui Regi dixerit Inique agis The Pious and Learned Author of Certain Considerations tending to Peace c. mentions how the Bishop of St. Davids in King Iames's Reign A. 1604. did in a set Speech in Convocation shew that Ministers were not in the late Archbishop's time disabled from their Ministry on the Account of Non-conformity to the Ceremonies by Law enjoyn'd and concluded his Speech with the motion of Petitioning the King That if the removal of some of the Ceremonies enjoyn'd could not be obtain'd nor yet a Coleration for them of more stay'd and temperate Carriage yet at least there might be procured a mitigation of the Penalty c. And as the Suspension or Disabling of Hildersham and Dod from their Ministerial Functions so the Restoring of them to the same without all such things done by them as the strictness of the Lawes required was in both those Princes Reigns executed by the Bishops Nor do I remember to have read of any Divine of the Church of England to have in the least look'd with an evil eye on the goodness of the
writ for it were with great heat impugned in Print by Mr. Gillespy a Divine of Scotland and one of the Commissioners in England for that Kingdom and who in a Printed Sermon of his Preach'd before the House of Lords doth call Erastus the great Adversary and in one of his Pamphlets against Mr. Coleman call'd Nihil Respondes mentions how the Presbyterians and Independents were both equally interessed against the Erastian Principles And as to the greatness of the number of the Covenanters out of Parliament that rejected the Iure-divinity of the Scots ruling Elders Mr. Coleman gives us his Judgment in p. 12. of his Reply to Nihil Respondes viz. that 9 10 of the Assembly and 900 1000 of the Kingdom denyed a Ruling Elder to be an instituted Officer jure divino But Heylin having told us in his History of Presbytery That Presbytery did never setle its Lay-Eldership in any one Parish in England we may easily thence suppose the National Violation of that National Covenant without any apparent regret of Conscience on that account How all the Independent Clergy and Layety who had took the Covenant did in a manner simul semel most notoriously violate it in setting up the model of their Church-Government is not unknown But indeed as the very sagacious Author of the Book call'd The main Points of Church-Government c. Printed in London A. 1649. hath observ'd The known sense of the Scotish Nation which framed the Covenant and for whose Satisfaction the Covenant was here taken doth include Independency under the name of Schism or at least under those words contrary to sound Doctrine and our Independent Divines could not but know this to be their sense of it and yet we know of none that did protest against it or explain themselves otherwise at the first taking of the Covenant if they have done it since And I might further tell you that after the Engagement was set up of being true and faithful to the Common-wealth of England as it is now Establish'd without a King or House of Lords tho several of the Presbyterian Divines out of a sense of their Oaths and Allegiance and their Covenant were so Loyal as to refuse it I have not heard of any of those Independent ones who did But such was the Inundation of Practical Atheism in the Kingdom that our Civil Wars had caus'd that when the Engagement was set up almost the whole Body of the Lawyers in England took it rather then they would lose their Practice These men knew the meaning of the Acts of Parliament containing the Oaths of Allegiance and Supremacy and yet were abandon'd by a disloyal Sophistical Principle of the want of Power in a lawful Sovereign to protect them absolving them from their Obedience to cancel their Oaths in the Court of Conscience And in a word further to shew you how the tender Regard of publick Promises was here grown one of Pancirol's lost things I shall tell you that tho in the Parliament of Richard Cromwell none was allowed to sit but he who had first took a Recognition of engaging to be true and faithful to the Lord Protector c. and not to propose or give any Consent to alter the Government as 't is setled in one single Person and a Parliament yet the Republicans in that Parliament were not in the least diverted by that Recognition from endeavouring there to alter the Government and it was there avowed by them that a Promise or Oath took without Doors did not bind within And at last to bring up the Rear of mens Perjury after all the Oaths legal and illegal had been so much confounded when the late King's Restauration was almost in sight on the then General Monk with his Army coming to London a new Oath of Abjuration of the Royal Line was at that time set on foot in Councel and which some there would have had imposed on the General himself A. Good God! What a Concatenation of Perjuries was our Land so long enslaved with you have referr'd to the Solemn League and Covenant for extirpating Popery and Superstition and while a General Assembly and Parliaments were planting here the Doctrine of the Council of Lateran namely the Absolving Subjects from their Oaths of Allegiance B. And while they were planting a Discipline that Archbishop Whitgift in his Reply to T. C. p. 299. 559. and Bishop Hall in his Book of Episcopacy Part 3. p. 34. and Bishop Downham in his Defence of his Sermon l. 1. c. 8. p. 139. And Archbishop Bramhal in his Fair warning to take heed of the Scotish Discipline almost throughout do charge with POPERY and where the last Archbishop doth represent the Covenant with the terms of Baal Baal berith and Baalims and saith It were worth the enquiring whether the marks of Anti-Christ do not agree as eminently to the Assembly general of Scotland as either to the Pope or to the Turk This we see plainly that they spring out of the Ruines of the Civil Magistrate they sit upon the Temple of God and they advance themselves above those whom the Scripture calls Gods. A. That Archbishop's saying It were worth the enquiring thus concerning that general Assembly as then used is the only thing wherein I differ from him for I think there is no doubt in the case B. To this you may add the thoughts of their being associated against Superstition while they were planting the grossest Superstition that any Age hath known if we may take our measures of Superstition from that definition of it in the Reformatio legum Ecclesiasticarum viz. Superstitio cultus est ad Deum relatus immenso quodam proficiscens humano Studio vel animi certâ propensione quam vulgò bonam intentionem vocant c. Let any one consider how after the beginning of the Parliament of Forty they had obtain'd in the very Act that took away the Ship-money that all the Particulars prayed or desired in the Petition of Right should be enacted one whereof was That no Oath should be imposed on the Subjects that was not establish'd by Act of Parliament and how in despite of that Law they without any such Act out of a blind Zeal for Religion imposed this dreadful Oath on the People Let any one but read over The Covenant with a Narrative and the Speeches of Mr. Nye and Mr. Hendersham at the time of the Solemn Reading Swearing and Subscribing of the Covenant by the House of Commons and Assembly of Divines in St. Margaret's Church and observe in Mr. Nye's Speech his Saying that ASSOCIATION is of Divine offspring and his resembling of this Covenant to the Covenant of Grace and the matter of it there represented by him as worthy to be sworn by all the Kingdoms of the World as a giving up of all those Kingdoms to Christ and where it followeth yea we find this very thing in the utmost accomplishment of it to have been the Oath of the greatest Angel that
Estate of Prelacy by the Kings and Peers thereof But now further to entertain your thoughts with the great Scene of the New Heaven and the New Earth in that Kingdom and of Men there walking at liberty as the words in the Psalms are or at large as 't is in the Maâ—…gin and as in the Latin indesinenterque ambulabo in ipsa LATITUDINE quia mandata tua quaero whose measures were before staked down to the Narrow tedder of Presbytery and whose Souls were once enslaved to a blind Zeal for that Church-Government as what they then fancy'd to be the putting the Scepter into Christ's hand and the only efficacious means to keep out Popery I shall tell you that they have now put the Scepter into their Prince's hand to rule the Church with what external Government he will who were formâ—…rly so ready to enslave both Kingdoms by designing to put the Royal Scepter of Scotland into the French King's hands and to bring a Popish French Army into Scotland to enforce the setlement of Presbytery A. One would hardly think it possible that they should then design any such thing B. As the Civil Law rangeth things that wound mens Piety Reputation or good Manners among Impossibles so one would think those of the Scots then designing a thing of that Nature to be an Impossibility And any one would thus think it impossible who consider'd that the Crown of England A. 1560. sent Forces into Scotland whereby the French were driven out of that Kingdom and that thereupon in the Publick printed Prayer prefixt to the Scots Psalm-Book it is said viz. And seeing that when we by our own Power were altogether unable to have freed our selves from the tyranny of Strangers thou of thine especial goodness didst move the hearts of our Neighbors of whom we had deserv'd no such favour to take upon them the common burden with us and for our deliverance not only to spend the lives of many but also to hazard the Estate and Tranquillity of their Realm grant unto us O Lord that with such reverence we may remember thy benefits receiv'd that after this in our default we never enter into hostility against the Realm and Nation of England Suffer us never O Lord to fall to that ingratitude and detestable unthankfulness that we shall seek the Destruction and Death of those whom thou hast made Instruments to deliver us from the tyranny of merciless Strangers c. But he who shall read Kâ—…ng Charles the First 's Declaration concerning his Proceedings with his Subjects of Scotland since the Pacification in the Camp near Berwick Printed A. 1640. will find this Fact too true and the Letter there likewise Printed which was under the hands of the Leading men of the Presbyterian Faction in Scotland writ to the French King and wherein his assistance is implored A. But by that Act about the Supremacy in Scotland A. 1669. that you read to me I see that the old Leaven of Presbytery is there sufficiently purged out and that the very mass of Blood in mens Principles relating to the Regal Power is universally sweeten'd B. You have great reason to judge so and if you had read the Scotch Statutes since the year 1660 you would find the Body of that Nation having the temperamentum ad pondus for Loyalty And your having mention'd the old Leaven there purged away minds me of minding you that that Nation having so nobly discharged its moral offices in that Case ought to be absolv'd in the thoughts of all the Loyal from the Fact of its former deflection from Loyalty and that the great measures of Christian Charity ought to extend beyond that Judgment of Seneca that poenitens est fere innocens and even as far as S. Paul's generous discharge of the Corinthians on their having purged out that ferment viz. For behold what carefulness it wrought in you what clearing of your selves yea what indignation yea what fear yea what vehement desire yea what zeal c. In all things ye have approved your selves to be clear in this Matter Look on their Acts of Parliament in the time of K. Charles the Second by one of which it is declared That his Majesty his Heirs and Successors by Uirtue of the Royal Power which they hold from God Almighty over this Kingdom shall have the sole Choice and Appointment of Officers of State and Councellors and Iudges and by another That the Estates of Parliament considering that the Kings of this Realm deriving their Power from God Almighty do succeed Lineally thereunto And I can direct you to another that contains in it so strange a Resignation to the King's measures as may make you again wonder at the possibility of such a temper and not to be equall'd by any thing I have read of but that pang of Zeal wherewith so many once at Cambridge were affected for Edward the Senior when they swore to will what he willed I mean that Act of Parliament in Scotland An. 1661. Concerning the League and Covenant and discharging the renewing thereof without his Majesties Warrant and Approbation The Act concludes with an Inhibition That none presume to renew that Covenant or any other League or Covenant without his Majesties special Warrant so to do Thus then that Covenant tho by them so much nauseated they shew'd themselves ready again to swallow if his Majesty for any such reasons of State as they could not foresee should enjoyn them so to do A. You do indeed make me wonder at this great example of the tenderness and extent of loyal Obedience in Scotland B. I can tell you of another Act of Parliament viz. the 5th Act of the second Session of the second Parliament of K. Charles the 2d Edenburgh 13. August The Act against Conventicles where their very Zeal against them is a Wall of Fire to guard the Dispensative Power The Act runns thus Forasmuch as the Assembling and Convocating his Majesties Subjects without his Majesties Warrant and Authority is a most dangerous and unlawful Practice prohibited and discharged by several Laws and Acts of Parliament under high and great Pains c. for the suppressing and preventing of which for the time to come his Majesty with Advice and Consent of his Estates of Parliament hath thought sit to Statute and Enact c. That no outed Ministers who are not LICENSED by the Councel Persons not Authorized or TOLERATED by the Bishop of the Diocess presume to Preach expound Scripture or pray in any Meeting c. and that none be present at any Meeting without the Family to which they belong where any not licensed authorized nor tolerated as said is shall Preach expound Scripture or Pray c. A. The Act for Uniformity here 16 Car. 2. doth justice to the Prerogative of the Crown in dispensing by taking care that the Penalties in it shall not extend to the Foreigners or Aliens of the forriegn Reform'd Churches allow'd or to be allow'd by the King's
they judged that the Character of that Earl's great Wisdom and Courage and Activity and of universality in his Correspondencies had gain'd such an Ascendant over the Genius of the Irish that if he had continued Lord Lieutenant of that Kingdom in his former Power they would not have ventured to rebel A. You have instanced in Uncontroverted Privileges of the Crown that that Parliament did offend and resist by their putting such incessant hardships on their King as your words are and it was folly as well as breach of their Oath for them thus to strike at the Pardoning Power of the Crown that is the Privilege both of King and People Yet let me ask you whether you account that he who in any case shall endeavour that by the Legislative Power any uncontroverted Iurisdiction Privilege Preheminence or Authority granted or belonging to the Crown may be alter'd or restrain'd in its exercise breaks his Oath Did that Parliament do so who made the famous Act for barring the known Privilege of Nullum tempus Occurrit Regi I mean that glorious Act of 21 o of King Iames the First C. 2. of which the Title is Conceald Lands shall not be Recover'd unless it may be proved that the King had title to them within 60 years i. e. 60 years before the 19th of February in the 21st year of King Iames the First which was the day of the beginning of that Parliament and on which Statute my Lord Coke hath an excellent Comment in Instit. 3. C. 87. against Concealors turbidum genus hominum and all pretences of Concealments whatsoever and on occasion of which Act it is yet acknowledg'd in the Book call'd The Court and Character of King James written by Sir A. W. and Printed A. 1650. that that King loved good Laws and had many made in his time and in his lâ—…st Parliament for the good of his Subjects and suppress'd Promoters and Progging Fellows gave way to the Nullum tempus c. to be confined to Sixty years which was more beneficial to the Subjects in respect of their quiets then all that Parliaments had given him during his whole Reign Or did the late Kings Loyal long Parliament do so in their obtaining the Act for the Habeas Corpus and others that might be named B. Having premised it to you that those words in the Oath of assisting and defending ALL Iurisdictions ALL Privileges c. are operative words and of strict Interpretation and whereby we stake our Eternities to assist the King 's Temporal Rights and invoke God so to help or assist us as we shall assist all those Privileges and that the Prince and the Church being look'd on as Minors the breach of an Oath to defend the Privileges of the King must appear to common sense as odious as if any Guardian of a Minor did break an Oath to defend his Person and Interest or did take part with any to destroy the Minor's Rights I shall yet be so fair as to tell you that I do not so account it provided that he who shall do so shall have a moral certainty that the Prince being sensible that the alteration or restraint of such Privilege will be very beneficial to the Subjects both in the present and future times and necessary to the enabling them the better to support the Crown hath signified his desire of the same and doth so desire it or if he knoweth not his Princes so desiring it believes that the Cogency of the Reasons he hath humbly to offer for such alteration being made is such as may Incline others to supplicate the Prince to consent to it and the Prince so to do Yet in this latter case if afterward the Sovereign notifies his desire of the continuance of such known Privilege I am then by my Oath to assist and defend the same and am not to the Cogency of my Reasons to add that of Importunity For there is a par or proportion between importunity and force whence we see that according to the King 's Ecclesiastical Laws in case of a former will a latter gain'd by importunoe preces in the time of the Testator's Sickness is often adjudged void And as I am not by importunity when my Princes Affairs are in a Sickly state or that the Die of War hath ran against him abroad to press and tire him then into a parting with his known Privileges so neither with a Salvo to my Oath which binds me to assist and defend them can I if I find his Judgment or Mind sickly lay Temptations before him to buy him as it were out of a Privilege that is just and adviseable for him to keep I am neither to starve nor pamper my Prince out of such a Privilege Nay more if my Prince did by any Error part with any such Privilege as not knowing the same to be inherent in the Crown as in the Case of an Answer of the Royal Martyr drawn by one of his Ministers not deeply vers'd in the Law to some of the Parliaments Propositions by which Answer he is acknowledg'd to be one of the three Estates I who know that the Privilege and Preheminence inherent in his Crown is to be above them all and have in the Oath of Supremacy Sworn that the King is the only Supream Governour and so none Co-ordinate or equal to him I am to take no advantage of that error but am still to assist and defend such his Preheminence And if ever a Prince did by fear part with such Privilege or Preheminence there being a par between fear and force according to that Law of the Proetor in the Digests Quod vi aut metu factum est ratum non habebo and in which Law as Baldus saith the Proetor was inspired by the Spirit of God I am not only not to take any advantage of such act of the Prince done by fear or force or to upbraid him therewith but am still to assist and defend such Privilege so derelinquish'd by him and am to account the same belonging to him as the word is in my Promissory Oath and to account him still in Law possess'd of the same according to the rule of Possessio etiam animo retinetur and which is justly apply'd in the Case of any one who in a Storm at Sea throws his Goods over-board to lighten the Ship. His late Majesty therefore did but right to himself when in his Declaration of the 25th of October 1660. Concerning Ecclesiastical Affairs he took notice how some had caused to be Printed and Publish'd in England a Declaration before Printed in his Name when he was in Scotland i. e. referring to the Declaration Printed at Edenburgh 1650. and saith thus of it vizâ—… Of which we shall say no more then that the Circumstances by which we were enforced to sign that Declaration are enough known to the World And that the worthiest and greatest part of that Nation did even then detest and abhor the ill usage of us
in that particular when the same tyranny was exercised there by the Power of a few ill men which at that time had spread it self over this Kingdom and therefore we had no reason to expect that we should at this season when we are doing all we can to wipe cut the memor of all that hath been done amiss by other men and we thank God have wiped it out of our own Remembrance have been our self assaulted with those rep oaches which we will likewise forget And it was goodness worthy the great Soul of a King to forget the Outrages of such who did strip their Political Father of his Power and then reproach him with his nakedness I may here likewise tell you and not mal a propos how much the patience and long-suffering of the same Prince was exercised in a late Conjuncture that so much eclipsed his Prerogative in the Case of the Earl of Danby's Pardon and when the Commons did set up against it somewhat in his Father's Answer to the 19 Propositions before mention'd that nothing but the tempest of the Age in the Parliament of 40 could have occasion'd viz. Since therefore the Power legally placed in both Houses of Parliament is more then sufficient to restrain the Power of Tyranny c. But because a Parliament so perpetuated as that was did prove more then sufficient to restrain pretended Tyranny and real just Government will a considerate man say any such thing now when the breath of Prerogative can dissolve them in a moment and in that moment all their thoughts perish and all the high-flying thoughts that would soare above Imperial Power be found dead in the Nest And I may here tell you that in the Answer of some Nonconformists to Dr. Stillingfleet's Sermon an Answer Printed in London in the year 1680. during the ferment about the Plot and wherein they desire Indulgence I think their attacquing the Service on the Gun-Powder Treason Plot in thanking God for Preserving the King and the Three Estates of the Realm assembled by saying That the late King made no scruple in his Answer to the 19 Propositions to reckon himself one of the three Estates was a thing that on recollection they will judge ought not to have been done But I am here further to tell you that though it may be consistent with our Oath in some such case as was mention'd to endeavour the altering by the Legislative Power some uncontroverted Privileges of the Crown and in such a way as I have mention'd I likewise wish you in your thoughts to make a distinction of those Privileges or Preheminences belonging to the Crown that are absolutely Essential to its Preservation and to that of the whole Realm and which are by God and the Law put as a Depositum into the hands of Kings and the removing of one of which would have the effect of taking a Stone out of an Arched Building and such as no Sovereign Princes can be without and such as our Princes have in their flourishing Reigns to the great content and happiness of their People always exercised and Rights as the late Earl of Shaftsbury said of that of the Flagg that our Princes cannot part with and Privileges that are not such and two of which former sort of Privileges and which are parts of the Fundamental Laws of the Kingdom I account we are expresly in the Promissory Clause of that Oath Sworn to defend and assist namely of the lineal Succession to the Crown and of the King's Prerogative and of which Prerogative we have this Description in Blount's Law-Dictionary That the Prerogative of the King is generally that Power Preheminence or PRIVILEGE which the King hath over and above other Persons and above the ordinary Course of the Law in the Right of his Crown And then adds Potest Rex ei lege suae dignitatis condonare si velit etiam mortem promeritam LL. Edw. Confess cap. 18. and then saith that Spelman calls it the Lâ—…x Regiae dignitatis The Author of the Law-Dictionary had there his eye on the Law of Edward the Confessor where under the title of Misericordia Regis Pardonatio it is declared that si quispiam forisfactus which the Margin interprets rei Capitalis Reus poposcerit Regiam misericordiam pro forisfacto suo timidus mortis vel membrorum perdendorum potest Rex ei lege suae dignitatis condonare si velit etiam mortem promeritam ipse tamen malefactor rectum faciat in â—…quantumcunque poterit quibus forisfecit tradat fidejussores de pace legalitate tenenda si vero fidejussores defecerint exula bitur à Patria And I remember there is a famous Act relating to the old Privileges and Prerogatives of the Crown and to their resumption by the Crown viz. The Act of 27. H. 8. c. 24. call'd The Recontinuing of certain Liberties taken from the Crown and it begins with saying that whereas divers of the most ancient Prerogatives and Authorities of Iustice appertaining to the Imperial Crown of this Realm have been severed and taken from the same by sundry Gifts of the King 's most Noble Progenitors to the great diminution and detriment of the Royal Estate of the same and to the hinderance and great delay of Iustice and thereupon saith for Reformation whereof be it Enacted by Authority of this present Parliament that no Person or Persons c. shall have any Power or Authority to pardon or remit any Treasons Murders Man-slaughters or any kinds of Felonies nor any Accessaries to any Treasons Murders c. or any Out-laries for any such Offences aforesaid committed perpetrated done or hereafter to be committed done or divulged by or against any Person in any part of this Realm c. but that the King's Highness his Heirs and Successors shall have the whole and sole Power and Authority thereof united and knit to the Imperial Crown of this Realm as of good RIGHT and Equity it appertaineth c. and then orders all Writs in a County Palatine to be made in the King's Name c. That Statute doth give you a Prospect of great variety and use in order to the Settlement of your thoughts about some things in your Oath You there see the Natural recourse of the Royal Rivers of Prerogative to the Ocean from whence they came and when you there find that the Crown could communicate to Subjects the exercise of the Prerogative of Pardoning Murder however restrain'd by ACT of Parliament and all the dreadful Disabilities incurr'd by Out-laries for Felony and Treason you are not to wonder at any ones telling you that the King himself hath the Privilege of Pardoning a Disability incurr'd by Law for Heterodoxy in Religion and especially when you shall see the whole and sole Power of Pardoning the same united and knit to the Imperial Crown of this Realm as of GOOD RIGHT and EQUITT appertaineth And according to those words in your Oath about your defending all the
shall further But I conceive it here necessary for me to acquaint your Lordship that I have been often put to it as speaking cum vulgo grosso modo and for brevity's sake to use the aforesaid Expression of Dispensing with Disability and with Disability incurr'd by Act of Parliament that is with what is generally enacted to be incurr'd and SEEMS to be alike incurr'd by all Persons who perform not what the Act enjoins and which Dispensing with Disability is frequently used in popular discourse for the pardoning it and for the liberatio à poenâ and as the Lord Chief Iustice Vaughan's Report by me so much cited mentions dispensing to have been defined by some of the Iudges But to a judgment so vastly comprehensive and profoundly penetrating as your Lordships the dispensing with Disability must easily appear to be properly meant of the preventing it and the dispensing with what might Cause it according to the style of Queen Elizabeth's Letters Patents or effect the actual incurring of what will reverâ be incurr'd by the Persons not exempted by Dispensation from the doing what the Law enjoins and which will be made to appear obvious to every man's understanding in one of the following Parts and wherein I shall have occasion to speak less cum vulgo and more closely and accurately of the Nature of Dispensing and of its effects in either forum then yet I have had And now having Named that Great Queen I shall not doubt but since the Members of the Church of England do now under our most puissant and most just Monarch find themselves as secure in the Profession of the Religion by Law establish'd as they did in her great and glorious Reign it will upon recollection of thought appear as natural to them to hold themselves obliged to shew the same tenderness for every branch of Prerogative and particularly for that of the Dispensative Power that was then so remarkable in Parliament and throughout the Realm My Lord Your Lordship 's most Obedient Servant P. P. PART II. B. I again bid you welcome and am ready to go on where we last left off and do not in the least doubt of your welcoming any thing I can say to you that may import you to know in order to your sworn assistance and defence of every Privilege belonging to the Crown And I shall frankly tell you that you and other Protestants who in a late Conjuncture did shew a more then ordinary zeal against Popery or Papal Usurpations ought to consider that you have thereby put your selves under an especial Obligation of tenderness â—…for all the rights of your Prince and of hating all popular Usurpations or diminutions thereof with an exemplary and most perfect hatred and of thereby avoiding the being judged hypocrites and factious A. I do herein most fully agree with you and that the late zeal of the same Persons against papal Usurpations and for popular ones was a scandal to the Age. I remember you once observ'd to me how tender the Protestants in the times of Queen Elizabeth and King Iames the first were of every Right and Privilege of the Crown with the most perfect tenderness while the Attaques from the Court of Rome against those Princes had made the highest Ferment in the minds of the Populace But I think there never was any Conjuncture of time here when so many of the declaimers against Popery and so many of the fautors of Plot-witnesses were so much at the same time for a Plot and no Plot and for a King and no King that is to say did so much make a stalking-horse of Popery whereby to strike at Prerogative B. But you know that the talk of Plots and Popery was before apply'd to that use You know Archbishop Laud in his Star-chamber Speech A 1637. mentions it p. 11. as the scope of the Libellers of the Faction to kindle a jealousy in Mens minds that there were some great Plots in hand to change the Religion established and to bring in I know not what Romish Superstition And the history of those times sheweth you how the Men that cry'd up Plots then did decry Prerogative And in the Conjuncture of 41. the famous Protestation of May the 5th that year begins with Out-cries of Designs of Popish Priests and Iesuits and other Papists and their PLOTS and CONSPIRACIES and the Preface of the Covenant runs on in the style of â—…loody Plots and Conspiracies But you likewise know the dismal state of Prerogative in those times then occasion'd by raising of those false Alarms of Plots And I may account it as a beneficial Providence to the Age that shortly after our last Plot-Epoche M r. Hobbs his History of the Civil-Wars coming first out in print through the License of the Press and having been reserved to the detecting then the artifices of the Demagogues that produced the Usurpations between the Years 1640. and 1660. the Book notwithstanding all the prejudice against the Author whether just or unjust being writ with so much strength and beauty of Wit as to make it fly like lightning round the Kingdom in so many Impressions did then prove to many ingenious and thinking Men an effectual Antidote against the poysons of those old Artifices then again scatter'din the Press being so destructive to Loyalty as heretofore Sir Iohn Davis in his Report of the Case of praemunire Hil. 4. Iacobi doth but right to the loyalty of Roman Catholicks and to the genius of the People of England when he saith there That the Commons of England may be an example to all other Subjects in the World in this that they have ever been TENDER and sensible of the wrongs and dishonours offer'd to their Kings and have ever contended to upheld and maintain their Honour and Soveraignty And their Faith and Loyalty hath been generally such tho every Age hath brought forth some particular Mâ—…nsters of disloyalâ—…y as no pretence of Zeal of Religion could ever withdraw the greater part of the Subjects of submit themselves to a foreign yoke no not when Popery was in its height and exaltation It is therefore no marvel that toward the latter end of the Reign of the late King the very Mobile who had been so zealous against papal usurpations and so fiery in charging ALL Papists with disloyalty did upon their discovery of the artifices of republican deluders to put an inglorious domestic yoke on the Monarchy then think themselves obliged by the universality of their loyal addresses to shew the more extraordinary zeal against any Popular Usurpations And so I account it but natural to you who are made è meliore luto to be ready to shew your most consummate zeal for every Privilege of the Crown A. It is not possible for any Man to wish me more sensible of my obligation in this point then I really am and the rather for that I find so many mens loyalty to be but a kind of loud noisy nothing or a
doth appertain and is not nor ought to be subject to any foreign Iurisdiction Where we attribute to her Majesty the Chief Government by which Title we understand the minds of some slanderous Folks to be offended we give not to our Princes the ministring either of Gods Word or of the Sacraments the which thing the Injunctions also lately set forth by Elizabeth our Queen do most plainly testify but that only Prerogative which we see to have been given always to all Godly Princes in holy Scriptures by God himself that is that they should rule all Estates and Degrees committed to their charge by God whether they be Ecclesiastical or Temporal and restrain with the Civil Sword the stubborn and evil doers The Bishop of Rome hath no jurisdiction in the Realm of England The Laws of the Realm may punish Christian Men with death for hâ—…inous and grievous Offences It is lawful for Christian Men at the Commandment of the Magistrate to wear Weapons and serve in the Wars Now after the Oath of Supremacy had been enjoyn'd in the first year of her Reign and the Admonition annexed to her Injunctions was then likewise publish'd viz. A. D. 1559. and after the Parliament had by proviso 〈◊〉 the interpretation of the Oath which Parliament began the 12th of Ianuary in the 5th year of her reign and from which day all things dâ—…ne in that Session are to bear date the Articles of Religion agreed on by the Archbishops and Bishops of both Provinces and the whole Clergy in the Convocation holden at London in the 5th year of her reign and A. D. 1562. were by the Archbishops and Bishops of both Provinces subscribed the 29th of Ianuary in that year and by the Clergy of the lower House of Convocation on the 5th of February following and to all which the Queen gave her Royal Assent And in the Articles there was by the Queens Royal Prerogative an additional Interpretation probably at the instance of the Clergy given to the interpretation in the Admonition and in the Parliaments Proviso and the which additional interpretation had in it no respect to nor mention of what being in several places of the former one might amuse the Clergy with some Fears and Iealousies namely the Duty Allegiance and Bond that were acknowledged due to Harry the 8th and Edward the 6th and the Authority that was challenged and lately used by those Princes however yet that latter Clause is qualify'd in the Admonition But for the 37th Article before-mentioned allowing the measures of the Royal Supremacy from the Prerogatives given by God in Scripture to holy Princes whereby our Clergy might seem to have brought the Prerogative into its own proper Element and theirs too the knowledge of the Scriptures being their profession our Clergy no doubt were always thankful to the Crowns Dispensative power and so exercised out of Parliament and whereby they were secured from penal disabilities either by suspension or deprivation for not taking the Oath in the sense of the Admonition Thus as things in their proper place are at rest the Queens Dispensative power and the Consciences of the Clergy by this interpretation of the Oath were so much at rest that about eight or nine years afterward the same 39 Articles that had been by the Archbishops and Bishops and Clergy of both Provinces agreed on in the year 1562. were by the said Archbishops Bishops and Clergy again agreed upon and again ratify'd by the Queen in the year 1571. the 13th year of her reign and when care was taken by the Government that that interpretation being incorporated in the body of the 39 Articles should be deem'd good in Parliament by the Statute of 13 o Eliz. c. 12. as the other interpretation in the Admonition had been by the proviso in the Act of the 5th of that Queen and probably for the same reason and as her dispensing with disability expresly in the 8th year of her reign was In the Act of the 13th of Eliz. reference was made to those Articles as agreed on by the Archbishops and Clergy and set forth by the Queens authority Anno 1562. and the Act is entituled Reformation of Disorders in the Ministers of the Church and in which it was enacted That all such as were to be ordained or permitted to preach or to be instituted into any Benefice with cure of Souls should publickly subscribe to the said Articles which shews if you mind it that tho the Parliament did well allow and approve of the said Articles yet the said Book oweth neither Confâ—…rmation nor Authority to the Act of Parliament And that Act concerning only Clergy-men tho the interpretation in the 37th Article is left to oblige the Clergy yet that in the Admonition might concern you to stick to if nothing had since happen'd whereby the dispensative power inherent in the Crown may have given your Conscience the benefit of the interpretation thus afforded to the Clergy But therefore I shall here tell you that the Canons of King Iames the â—…st Anno 1603 being confirmed for him and his Heirs and Successors are binding now however it hath been objected as the unhappiness of Queen Elizabeths Canonâ—… viz. A. 1571. A. 1584. A. 1597. wanting those formal words of Heirs and Successors to expire with her And as those words are in King Iames's Canons so are the words of enjoyning their being observ'd fuâ—…fill'd and kept not only by the Clergy but by all other Persons within this Realm as far as lawfully being Members of the Church it may concern them and tho in the first Canon there entituled The King's Supremacy over the Church of England in Causes Ecclesiastical to be maintain'd 't is order'd That all Ecclesiastical Persons shall keep and observe and as much as in them lyeth all and singular Laws and Statutes made for the restoring to the Crown of this Kingdom its ancient Iurisdiction over the state Ecclâ—…siastical yet in the next Canon entitled Impugners of the King's Supremacy censurâ—…d the measures of the King 's ecclesiastical Authority being taken from the Godly Kings among the Iews according to the 37th of the 39 Articles was an extending to the Layety the ben fit of the Interpretation obtain'd by the Clergy the which was in effect a judgment of the Convocations that the pursuance of that Interpretation of the King 's Ecclesiastical Power and the avoiding of the punishment of Disability by the use of that Power was not agaâ—…st the Law of the Land but the 5th Canon viz. Impugners of the Artiâ—…les of Religion establish'd in the Church of England censured and in which the establishment of the 39 Articles is solely referr'd to them as agreed on in Convocation in the year 1562. without any notice of the Parliament of the 13th of Eliz. having done any thing about them doth more clearly secure to you the benefit of the Interpretation the Clergy had A. You have mention'd so many things to me relating to the interpretation
some mens Minds are involv'd in they can no more alter their beliefs about Transubstantiation then they can transubstantiate themselves into other Creatures and are under a Moral incapacity of preventing another incurred by Law. And therefore as it would be Injustice in a Judge to Punish a man for the Errors of the mind that he knoweth not to be voluntary and for a man 's not putting himself into a Capacity to serve the King by the Professing of the truth in Problematical Points when the King of Kings hath by the not sufficient promulgating of such truth to his understanding render'd him innocent in his disbelief thereof and so long morally uncapable to profess it so by one man's after another appearing thus unable to qualifie himself to serve the King he may be totally unserved I have often heard you complain of the narrow Idea's of the King's Supremacy in some of the Non-Conformists but if you will read the Protestation of the King's Supremacy made by the Nâ—…n-conforming Ministers and Printed A D. 1605. you will find that they have there given in sufficient caution for tâ—…eir Principles not allowing any of the King's Subjects being disabled from serving him For they having said in § 1. We hold and maintain the same Authority and Supremâ—…cy in all Causes and over all Persons Civil and Ecclesiastical granted by Statute to Queen Elizabeth and expressed and declared in the Book of Advertisements and Injunctions and in Mr. Bilson against the Iesuites to be due in full and ample manner without any limitation or qualification to the King and his Heirs and Successors for ever they add in § 2. We are so far from judging the said Supâ—…emacy to be unlawful that we are persâ—… aded that the King should sin highly against God if he should not assume the same to himself and that the Churches within his Dominions should sin damnably if they should deny to yield the same to him yea tho the STATUTES of the Kingdom should deâ—…y it to him And they tell you in Sect. 6. that the height of the King 's Royal Dignity consists in his Supremacy It is thus likewise a kind of familiar or Vulgar Error among Protestants to think that in the â—…ncient times this Fundamental Assertory part of your Oath tâ—…at the King is the only Supreme Governor of this Râ—…alm was not allow'd Long before the Rescript of the University of Oxford to Henry the 8th A. 1534. mention'd that he was next under God their happy and Supreme Moderator and Governor and on which being brought into the Parliament House an Act passed whereby the King was declared Supreme Head and Governor of the Church and long before it was declared by the Parliament 16. R. 2. c. 5. that the Crown â—…t England hath been so free at all times that it hath been in no earthly subjection but immediately subject to God in all things touching the Regality of the same Crown and to none other and long before Bracton's writing in the Reign of H. 3. Omnis quidem sub Rege ipse sub nullo sed tantum sub Deo and ipse autem Rex non debet esse sub homine sed sub Deo. c. you will find if you look into Coke's 4th Instit. c. 74. that in the Law before the Conquest the style runs Rex autem quia Uicarius summâ—… Regis est ad hoc est constitutus ut Regnum terâ—…enum populum Domini super omnia sanctam veneretuâ—… Ecclesiam ejus regat c. and where he tells you of the style of King Edwin in his Charters viz. of Angâ—…orum Rex totius Britannicae telâ—…uris Gubeâ—…nator Rector And he there refers likewise to several Grants made by Abâ—…ots and Priors to King E. 4. wherein they style him by these very words Supremus Dominus noster But that he might perimere litem as to the point of the ancientness of the King's Supremacy he there referreth to the judgment of Parliament declared in the Statute of 24 o. H. 8. c. 12. viz. That by divers authentick Histories and Chronicles it is manifestly declared and expressed that this Realm of England is an Empire and so hath been accepted in the World governâ—…d by one Supreme Head and King c. unto whom a Body-Politick compact of all sorts and degrees of People divided in terms and by names of Spiritualty and Temporalty been bounden and owen to beat next unto God a natural and humble Obedience c. And here I am led to tell you that as it is on this Foundation of the King 's being the Supreme Governor and Ruler of all sorts and degrees of men thus anciently acknowledged by our Roman Catholick forefathers that the Regal Power of Dispensing with the Laws that were Penal by Incapacity and particularly in order to the Crown 's being enabled to command the Obedience and Service of all Estates and Degrees of men was built so it is on the same that the Usurpations of the Papal Dispensative Power of that kind were opposed I shall before we part give you instances hereof A. I thank you but shall here tell you that the Expression you used just now about the King being disabled by his Subjects being so hath overcast my thoughts with some kind of horror B. I cannot help it but if you will have me speak with the frankness of a Philosopher concerning the Nature of things the disabling of the Subjects must have that effect in Nature and of the disabling of their Country too And I think too you gave me a hint for some such thought at our last meeting If you do but consider the Services done to Monarchs by that abject Nation of the Iews and who by Tacitus were call'd the Vilissima pars servientium and how in our Saviour's time they were serviceable to the Roman Empire in the Collection of the Customs and how much they have been since and still are useful to the Grand Signior and to many Christian Princes by gathering in their Imposts you will easily imagine the loss that would redound to Princes by Religionary Heterodoxy disabling any to serve them It is but natural to men of the most inquisitive and penetrating thoughts to differ from many Points of Theology receiv'd by Princes and their People and since such heterodoxy doth difficult their access to Preferment it is but Natural to them by their working Thoughts and Industry to arrive at the excelling the duller Orthodox in whatever course of life they take and by that means to try to push on their way into their Prince's favour and consequently to have very sharp regrets against any Methods that would incapacitate them for it And as if this Civil Death were to Men of great Thoughts the terrible of terribles and what as hindring them from serving their Prince and Country were like Burying them alive I shall shew you how a Man of great Abilities and who had made a great Figure in the Church
and State resented it in the Conjuncture of A. 1640. I mean Archbishop Williams who in his famous Speech in Parliament that year against the Bill that afterward passed into a Law to Disable Persons in Holy Orders from exercising any Temporal Jurisdiction doth thereupon represent it that under a CAIN ' s mark an eternal kind of disability or incapacity is laid on them from enjoying hereafter any of those Rights Favours or Charters of former Princes and which is the heaviest Point of all without killing of Abel or any Crime laid to their charge more then that in the beginning of the Bill 't is said roundly and in the style of Lacedaemon that they ought not to intermeddle c. And what his thoughts were of the Injustice of such incapacity put on the Clergy and of the odiousness of that Punishment of incapacity appears by what he afterward saith viz. I come to the 4th part of this Bill which is the manner of the inhibition every way heavy in the Penalty heavier a great deal in the incapacity In the weighing the Penalty will you consider the small wyers that is poor Causes that are to induce the same and then the heavy load that hangs upon these wyers It is thus If a Natural Subject of England interessed in the Magna Charta and Petition of Right as well as any other yet being a Person in Holy Orders shall happen unfortunately to Vote in Parliament to obey his Prince by way of Councel or by way of a Commissioner be required thereunto then is he presently to lose and forfeit for his first offence all his Means and Livelyhood c. This Peradventure may move others most but it doth not me It is not the Penalty but the Incapacity aâ—…d as the Philosophers would call it the Natural impotency imposed by this Bill on men in holy Orders to SERVE the KING or the STATE in this kind be they otherwise never so able or never so willing or never so vertuous which makes me draw a kind of Timanthe ' s veil over this Point and leave it without any amplification at all to your Lordships wise and inward Thoughts and Considerations But if with so much thunder of Passion as well as lightning of reason that learned Speech from the Bishops Bench did so much resent the punishing the Clergy with disability to execute secular Offices and to have the honour of serving their Prince and Country therein and for the imposing of which disability that known place of Scripture 2 Tim. 2. 4. No man that wars entangles himself with the Affairs of this life was alledged in the House as thus disabling them by the Law Divine and as to which the Bishop in his Speech gives a learned Answer we may well imagine how Lay-men of good Births and Educations and whose Diligence employ'd in Courts and Cities and Camps abroad may have qualify'd them here to stand before Kings must necessarily aggravate in their thoughts the dishonour of incapacity to serve their Prince in secular Employments A. Was that Speech of the Archbishop ever printed B. You will find it in the Apology for the Bishops to sit and Vote in Parliament printed in London A. 1661. And he hath in that Speech some other Expressions which corroborate that obvious natural notion of the King and Kingdom being disabled by disabling of Clergy-men from secular Employments For having reflected on the Bill for disabling them from sitting in the Star-chamber and at the Council-table sitting in Commissions of the Peace and other Commâ—…ssions of secular Affairs he afterward saith But my noble Lords this is the Case Our King hath by the Statute restored to him the Headship of the Church of England And by the word of God he is custos utriusque tabulae And will your Lordships allow this ecclesiastical Head no ecclesiastical Senses No Ecclesiastical Persons to be censulted with at all No not in any Circumstances of time and place If Cramner had been thus dealt with in the Minority of our young Jâ—…sias King Edward the 6th what had become of that great work of our Reformation in this flourishing Church of England A. The truth is it being a kind of a Rule that all Men of Parts who have been liberally educated and even those excelling in mechanical professions do naturally desire to serve the King and standing before Kings having been annext in Scripture as a reward to diligence in ones calling a Mark of disability put on Lay-men to serve their Prince cannot but tempt them to passion on that account more then it ought to have troubled the Bishop when he call'd it a Caiâ—…'s Mark in regard you have mention'd it that Clergy-men to some did seem by the Law-Divine disabled from secular Employments B. According to the Opinion of Iudge Vaughan in his Reports who in Hill and Good 's Case there makes a lawful Canon to be the Law of the Kingdom as well as an Act of Parliament and whatever is the Law is as much the Law as any thing else that is so for what is Law doth not suscipere magis aut minus they were by the Canon Law disabled from intermedling in secular Affairs And according to his description of malum prohibitum in Thomas Sorreâ—…'s case p. 358. you may say they were by the Statute so disabled from intermedling For he there saith malum prohibitum is that which is prohibited per le statute Per le statute is not intended only an Act of Parliament but any obliging Law or Constitution as appears by the Case for it is said the King may dispense with a Bastard to take Holy Orders or with a Clerk to have two Benefices with Cure which were mala prohibita by the Canon-Law and by the Council of Lateran not by Act of Parliament The Lateran Council his Lordship there means is that held under Alexander the 3d A. 1180 and which Council hath it in these words viz. neque servi neque spurii sunt ordinandi And uni plura ecclesiastica beneficia non sunt committenda And therefore the Bishop in that Speech saith That this Doctrine of debarring Persons in Holy Orders from secular Employments is the Doctrine of the Popish Church and first brought into this Kingdom by the Popâ—…s of Rome and Lanfrank Anselm Stephen Langthon and Othobone and with an intent to withdraw the Clergy from tâ—…eir receiving Obligations from either King or Lords and make them wholly dependants on the Popacy But Bishop Iewel tells us in his Apology p. 122. that Veteres Canones Apostolorum illum Episcopum qui simul Civilem magistratum ecclesiasticam functionem obire velit jubent ab officio summoveri A. Yet notwithstanding their being disabled by the antient Canons and the Nemo militans c. 2 Tim. 2. as often alledged against them by the Canons and Canonists I think they were frequently employ'd by our Princes in the greatest Offices of the State. B. They were so and the
Disability of a whole third estate as to bearing secular Offices did not stand in the way of Prerogative I have read it in Fuller's Church-History that in the year 1350. the Lords and Commons in Parliament did find themselves aggrieved that the Clergy-men engrossed all secular Offices and thereupon presented the ensuing Petition to the King according to this effect insisting only in the substance thereof viz. And because that in this present Parliament it was declared to our Lord the King by all the Earls Barons and Commons of England that the Government of the Kingdâ—…m hath been performed a long time by the Men of Holy Church which are not justifyable in all Cases whereby great mischiefs and damages have happen'd in times past and more may happen in time to come in disheriting of the Crown and great prejudice of the Kingdom c. that it will please our said Lord the King that the Lay-men of the said Kingdom which are sufficient and able of Estates may be chosen for these and that no other Person be hereafter made Chancellor Treasurer Clark of the Privy-Seal Barons of the Exchequer Chamberlain of the Exchequer Comptroller and all other great Officers and Governors of the said Kingdom and that these things be now in such manner establish'd in form aforesaid that by no way it may be defeated or any thing done to the contrary in any time to come saving to our Lord the King the Election and removing of such Officers but that always they be Lay-men such as is abovesaid To this Petition the King return'd that he would ordain upon this point as it should best seem to him by the advice of his good Council In fine you see that tho the Clergy-men were thus disabled by the general Customs and Usage of the Realm and by lawful Canons and provincial Constitutions accounted by that Iudge beforemention'd to be tanta-mount to Acts of Parliament yet you â—…ee our Kings did frequently dispense with these Customs lawful Canons and Constitutions And tho the Office of Bishops renders them guardians of the Canons yet you see how tender they have been of the Regal power of Dispensing therein And as that saying of Wicliffe however censured in the Council of Constance may perhaps with a little help be reduced to Orthodoxy viz. That â—…ne should be Excommunicated by any Prelate unless he know him Excommunicated by God so with parity of reason it may be said that none should be totally disabled by any Prince from serving him unless he knew him really disabled by God and especially when he knew the contrary and that the Services of the great men of the Clergy had so often been successfully employ'd at the Helm of State and when for the honour of Clergy-mens Councel some of the most profound pieces of State-Policy our English Story hath in it are to be attributed to Clergy-mens officiating in their Princes Councels and as for Example when by the figure that Bishop Morton made at the Helm he did make up the dismal breach and united the two Houses of York and Lancaster in the Happy Marriage between Henry the 7th and the Lady Elizabeth aâ—… when Bishop Fox who was Lord Privy Seal did by his Advice lay the Foundation of a more happy Union between the Kingdoms of England and Scotland by the eldest Daughter of Henâ—…y marrying Iames of Scotland and the younger matching into France that so on their ever coming to inherit Scotland might be annex'd to the Imperial Crown of England and England not be annex'd as a Province to France and for the Consequences of which Advice both Englishmen and English and French Protestants have so much cause to say We Praise thee O God c. And I am here minded of what Fuller tells us on A. 14. H. 4. viz. It was moved in Parliament that no Weishman Bishop or other shall be Iustice Chamberlain Chancellor Treasurer Sheriff Constable of a a Castle or Keeper of Records or Lieutenant in the said Office in any part of Wales or of Councel to any English Lord notwithstanding any Patent made to the contrary Cum clausulâ non obstante licet Wallicus natus and that it was answered that the King willeth it except the Bishops and for them and others which he hath found good loyal Lieges toward him out said Lord the King will be advised by the Advice of his Councel Ex Rot. Parliamentariis in turri Lond. in hoc Anno which Citation Fuller professeth to be taken out of the Authentick Records in the Tower. There passed an Act of Parliament in the 4th year of Henry the 4th by which it is Enacted That no Welshman shall be Iustice Chamberlain Sheriff Coroner nor other Officer in any part of Wales notwithstanding any Patent to the contrary with the Clause of Non-obstante and yet without Question saith my Lord Coke 12th Rep. the King might dispense with this Statute but you see how on the Parliaments resenting the Dispensations the Act had met with and particularly in Bishops having contrary to the tenor of the Act served the Crown in Secular Employments the King particularly adhered to the exercise of his Dispensative Power in their Case It was upon the ground of this Assertion viz. Of the Crown 's being entitled to Command the Services of all Subjects that some Papists were employ'd by Queen Elizabeth in Affairs of the State notwithstanding any disability incurr'd by not taking the Oath of Supremacy And Viscount Montacute tho a Roman Catholick was as Cambden tells you sent by her as her Embassadour to the King of Spain and employ'd too about the Business of the Scots and to do right to the Protestant Religion Sir Edward Carne likewise a Roman Catholick was sent by her as her Embassador to the Pope And as to the sense of many of that Queen's most renowned Ministers of State about the Deprivation of the Nonconformist Divines disabled eo Nomine from their Ministry being Penal to the People the Author of certain Considerations tending to promote peace and good will among Protestants hath mention'd it that Eight of that Queens Privy Councellors writ a Letter in their favour to the Bishops of Canterbury and London in the close whereof 't is said viz. Now therefore we for the Discharge of our Duties being by our Vocation under her Majesty bound to be careful that the Universal Realm may be well govern'd according to the Honor and Glory of God and to the discharge of her Majesty being the Principal GOVERNOR of ALL her SUBIECTS under Almighty God do most earnestly desire your Lordships to take some charitable Considerations of these Causes that the PEOPLE of THIS Realm may not be DEPRIVED of their Pastors being Diligent Learned and Zealous tho in some Points Ceremonial they may seem doubtful only of Conscience and not of wilfulness c. Tour Lordships loving Friends William Burghly George Shrewsbury A. â—…rwick R. Leicâ—…ster C. Howard J. Crofts Chr. Hatton
commonly call'd Ecclesiastical Court c. as by the said Councils and Constitutions Provincial appeareth which standing and remaining in their effect not abolish'd by your Grace's Laws did sound to appear to make greatly for the said usurp'd Power of the Bishop of Rome and to be directly repugnant to your Majesty as Supreme Head of the Church and Prerogative royal your GRACE being a LAY-MAN and albeit the said Decrees Ordinances and Constitutions by a Statute made in the 25th year of your Reign be utterly abolish'd c. But forasmuch as your Majesty is the only and undoubted Supreme Head of the Church of England and also of Ireland to whom BY HOLY SCRIPTURE all Authority and Power is wholly given to hear and determine all manner of Causes Ecclesiastical and to correct Uice and Sin whatsoever and TO ALL SUCH PERSONS AS YOUR MAIESTY SHALL APPOINT THEREUNED that in Consideration thereof as well for the Instruction of Ignorant Persons c. and setting forth of your Prerogative Royal and Supremacy It may therefore please your Highness that it may be Ordain'd and Enacted that all and singular Persons as well LAY as those that be now Married or hereafter shall be Married c. which shall be made ordain'd constituted and deputed to be any Chancellor Uicar General c. Scribe or Register by your Majesty or any of your Heirs and Successors or by any Archbishop Bishop c. may lawfully execute and execute all manner of Iurisdiction commonly call'd Ecclesiastical c. Here you see the enacting clause founded on the previous solemn acknowledgment of the King's supremacy and on his having the power given him not by Parliaments or People but by SCRIPTURE to appoint such to be ecclesiastical Judges who were by Custom and by the Laws of Councils and Provincial Synods formerly equivalent to Acts of Parliament incapacitated so to be And from whence it is consequently apparent that no positive humane Laws whatsoever inflictive of Penal incapacity could against the Right inherent in him by the positive Law of God oblige him not to dispense with the others by his supreme Power when he found it necessary so to do For 't is on all hands confessedly true that Parliaments can no more then the Bishop of Rome delete such Power as is given by God to the Princes of the Earth A. But because a Parliament declared that such a supreme Power is given by the Scripture to Princes you know it doth not follow that it is so And moreover you know that was a Popish Parliament that so declared it B. But I likewise know that as 't is in my Lord Chief Iustice Vaughan ' s Reports in Hill and Good ' s Case that if a Marriage be declared by Act of Parliament to be against Gods Law we must admit it to be so for by a Law that is an Act of Parliament it is so declared so that Act of Parliament having declared it that by Holy Scripture all Authority and Power is wholly given to the King and to all such Persons as he shall appoint to hear and determine c. tho such Persons were by a lawful Canon incapacitated so to do a Canon that that Iudge in the words immediately following the other makes to be the Law of the Kingdom as well as an Act of Parliament we must admit such Power and Authority inherent in the King's Supremacy by the Word of God thus to supersede incapacity And whether the incapacitating Canons were lawful ones or no it is not tanti to enquire since as we know a Power inherent in Kings by the Word of God cannot be either by lawful Canon or Act of Parliament taken away and much more ought such Power to be construed and admitted as inherent in him by the Scripture while the Act of Parliament continues in being But I shall yet bring the acknowledgment of your Prince's Supremacy in this point as thus founded on Scripture closâ—…r to your Conscience by letting you see that you have not only the Judgment of a Popish Parliament in the Case but of that very Statute of Queen Elizabeth that enjoyns your Oath of Supremacy for it revives that Statute oâ—… Harry the 8th and all and every branches and Articles in it as you will find it in your Statute-book A. You have mention'd one thing in that Statute of Harry the 8th that doth a little startle me and that is that he and the three Estates apply'd there the design of keeping up those Canons of Councils and provincial Constitutions that incapacitated LAYMEN as level'd at the exclusion of the King himself not only from his Prerogative but from being in a capacity to exercise ecclesiastical Jurisdiction as supreme head of the Church as I find by those remarkable words YOUR GRACE BEING A LAY-MAN B. You do well to take notice of that and are therefore not to wonder at it if you should hear your Prince who was a Dissenter to the Church of England and others concern'd for him to have apprehensions of what prejudice might be meant him by some subtle Projectors of Laws to incapacitate all Papists and Presbyterians from acting in any Office in Church or State however many loyal Persons might be far from intending such prejudice thereby his Grace being a Papist or Presbyterian A. I must confess that if the Kings Power of commanding the Services of all his Subjects be inherent in him by the Word of God and as such declared by Parliament any Mens endeavours to take away that Power may well be imputed to great incogitancy B. You say right and I was hence induced to wonder that after the Act and Acknowledgment of his Majesty's Prerogative in the Choice of his Officers of State-Councellors and Iudges had thus passed in the first Parliament of Scotland in the late King's reign viz. The Estates of Parliament considering the great Obligations that lie upon them from the Law of God the Law of Nations the Municipal Laws of the Land and their Oathes of Allegiance to maintain and defend the Soveraign Power and Authority of the King's Majesty and the sad Consequences that do accompany an encrochment upon or diminution thereof do therefore from their sense of humble duty declare that it is an inherent privilege of the Crown and an undoubted part of the Royal Prerogative of the Kings of this Kingdom to have the sole Choice and Appointment of the Officers of States and Privy Councellors and Nomination of the Lords of Session as in former times and that the King 's sacred Majesty and his Heirs and Successors are by virtue of that Royal Power which they hold from God Almighty over this Kingdom to have the full exercise of that Right c. any Men could by a following Act of Parliament there be incapacitated to serve their Prince in those Stations I shall here tell you that the incapacitating a few Papists or Quakers Presbyterians or Anabaptists to serve their Prince may to some seem materia
Vice-gerent for ecclesiastical Causes and however incapacitated by some positive humane Laws to make that figure he did but uti Iure suo And I shall tell you as to the subject of the weight of one Man or the consequences of disabling one Man that we were upon if you consider how much the excesses of the Papal Usurpations and the over-ballance of the Monastic Revenue in the Nation were removed by the parts and endowments of Cromwel the Vice-gerent in Matters Ecclesiastical you may easily imagine that if the measures of the Canon-Law and Canonists and the long receiv'd customs or any humane Law had then prevail'd for the disabling of Cromwel cum effectu from bearing Office or intermedling in Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction as the Kings Vice-gerent what a Church of England we should have at this time enjoy'd You may well imagine how much the Disabling of Lay-men from intermedling in ecclesiastical Iurisdiction had passed for a general Custom here when Bishop Downham in the Defence of his Consecration Sermon p. 185. saith that as for lay-Chancellors or Commissaries the Bishops in the times of S. Austin and S. Ambrose had none and that not so much as the Steward of a Church might be a Lay-man and when the Puritan Writers did still upbraid our Discipline on the account of the incapacity of Lay-men to be Bishops Chancellors as adjudged by the ancient Canons and with the Canon of indecorum est laicum esse vicarium episcopi c. and by which Canon the Bishop who made a Lay-man his Vicar was declared to be contemptor Canonum But it was the Regal Power of Dispensing with the Canons and Customs that disabled Lay-men from intermedling in ecclesiastical Jurisdiction that laid the foundation of the Reformation in Harry the 8th's time as it was the same Power of dispensing with the Canons and Customs that disabled Clergy-men from intermedling in saecular Employments that perfected the superstructure of it in the reign of Edward the 6th that young Iosias as was before mention'd Fuller tells us in his Church-history that Harry the 8th's making a Lay-man his Vicar-general was the greatest instance of his ecclesiastical Power that ever was given And my Lord Herbert in his Harry the 8th doth seem to reflect on Cromwel's not being thought capable of that Office for his words on his being made the King's Vicegerent are It was thought strange by the People because there was no Example of any Kings of Israel the lawfully in their own Persons enjoying the mixt Power of the Temporal and Spiritual or of the Pope's having deputed Ecclesiastical Power to a Lay-man But as to his saying that there was no Example of the Pope's deputing Ecclesiastical Power to Lay-men I shall observe that his Lordship had not consider'd that according to the Glosse in C. bene quidem Distin. 96. Laicus potest excommunicare ex Papae delegatione and that tho a Bishop cannot by the Canon-Law delegate his Power to a Lay-man for that a Bishop is not above the Ius Commune Positivum of the Pope yet the Canonists hold that the Pope by the Plenitude of his Power may dispense with his own Laws and by so doing delegate the Power of Excommunicating to Abbesses altho jure Communi as not having the Power of the Keys they are disabled from so doing and that Pope Urban the Second constituted a Lay-man Roger Earl of Sicily and his Heirs his Legates a latere in that Kingdom by way of Inheritance for ever and that our Henry the Second writing to the Pope to recall Beâ—…ket's Legatine Power and to confer it on the Archbishop of York the Pope refused so to do but offer'd the Legatine Power to the King himself and sent Letters to the King for that purpose but which the King in scorn threw away The Legatine Powers are de jure Communi as the Canonists tell us very great and allow the Legates to visit or cause to be visited by such as they shall think fit all Churches Monasteries Colleges Universities Hospitals and do authorize them to make new Statutes and Orders and not only to receive Appeals from ordinary Judges and Delegates but to judge and decide all Ecclesiastical Civil and Criminal Causes and that summarily and sine formâ figurâ Iudicii to make Prisoners of Bishops and send them in Custody to the Pope to bestow Benefices that were vacant to unite Churches to interpret the Mandates of the Pope and if the Pope hath entrusted any thing to be done by them yet to entrust the doing thereof to others to execute all their Jurisdiction in Places exempt as well as not exempt and to dispense in all Cases wherein they are not Prohibited and to exercise the Iurisdiction of granting Indulgences and to dispense with pluralists and with the incapacity of Sons immediately succeeding their Fathers in Church-Livings and to give Absolution to the Excommunicate in many Cases reserv'd to the Apostolick See and likewise in many Causes inflictive of Excommunication ipso jure and in many Cases to restore such as are deposed and degraded and to rehabilitate them even by restoring them to Fame All these Branches of Authority with many others not named here were it seems offer'd by the Pope to our King but which he holding as Vicegerent to the King of Kings and by his Word might well refuse their tenure from the servus servorum and by his Bulls All our Roman-Catholick Princes having made an inroad on the Papal incapacitating Canons by way of Dispensation when they made their Lay-Judges Super-Intendents over their Bishops and who were by Lay-men required to Absolve such who were disabled by Excommunication and to receive their bounds and measures in Ecclesiastical Proceedings by Writs of Prohibition and Consultation and Attachment issued out by Lay-men the exercise of the Regal Power in Ecclesiasticks distributed and dispers'd among so many Lay hands did not seem so powerful nor invidious as when the united Beams of Ecclesiastical Vice-gerence met in the Ministry of one Lay Person and dazled the Eyes of the whole Kingdom and when according to the Power that was 37 o. H. 8. declared by the Parliament to be given to the King by Holy Scripture he made Cromwel his Vice-gerent for the Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction But as that Statute intimating that the Councils and Constitutions Provincial that ordain'd that no Lay-man should exercise or occupy any Iurisdiction Ecclesiastical did stand and remain in their effect not abolish'd by his Grace's Laws and did sound to appear to make greatly for the usurped Power of the Bishop of Rome and to he directly repugnant to his Majesty as Supreme Head of the Church and Pretogative Royal his Grace being a Lay-man altho such Decrees Ordinances and Constitutions were by the Statute made in the 25th year of his Reign intended to be utterly abolish'd frustrate c. but yet that the contrary thereunto being not used by Archbishops Bishops c. i. e. that they had not all that
while or since that Statute of the 25th of his Reign committed the exercise of Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction to Lay-men did or might give occasion to some Evil-dispos'd persons to think and little regard the Proceedings and Censures Ecclesiastical made by his HIGHNESSE and his Uice-gerent Officials Commissaries Iudges and Uisitors being also Lay and Married men to be of little or none effect whereby the people gathereth heart and presumption to do evil and not to have such reverence to your most Godly Injunctions and Proceedings as becometh them c. So I leave it to you to consider how the disabling of any subjects by reason of Religionary Heterodoxy to serve their Prince did or might give occasion to some evil-disposed Persons to attempt the disabling of their Prince on the same account as I bâ—…fore hinted it to you and as the popular incogitancy of the Power given by God extending to all such Persons as should be employâ—…d under the King producing the irreverence of their surmises of the incapacity of the Officials and Visitors employ'd by the Vicegerent and consequently of the incapacity of the Vicegerent himself did naturally terminate in their gathering heart and presumption to do evil and to surmise the King 's being disabled to exercise all manner of Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction and to do that which was directly repugnant to his Majesty as Supreme Head of the Church and to his Prerogative Royal his Grace being a Lay-man how you ought still to preserve a tenderness in your thoughts for that Prerogative Royal given him by God's Word of Commanding the Services of all his Subjects by what Laws or Constitutions soever de facto incapacitated And by the gradual Proceedings I have now mention'd you ought with horror to think of the incapacitating any one Subject to serve his Prince as of the first step from a Precipice A. You have provided variety of Entertainment for my Consideration and have my thanks for it But suppose I should be so Curious and Inquisitive as to ask where in God's Word that Power is given to Princes to employ such Persons as they shall think fit in their service according to the purport of that Statute B. You may likewise suppose that you would then find my Genius so inquisitive as to ask you where you have been at Church of late years For you could then go to no Church in England Scotland or Ireland without hearing St. Paul's Omnis anima spoken of Let every soul be subject to the higher Powers whether he be Apostle or Evangelist Prophet Priest Clergy or Layety whether he be of the People diffusive or representative and the like And as the well-drawn Effigies of a man seems to look on every one in the Room so hath the Picture of the Regal Power drawn by the Divines of the Church of England appear'd to cast its Eye on every one and been made as it were Vocal and saying to every one For he is the Minister of God to thee for good And the good old Book call'd God and the King that you have read over and over hath told you that the Bond of the King's Subjects Obedience to his Majesty is inviolable and cannot be dissolv'd And indeed the thing being so plain by the Law of Nature which being written in man's heart is the very same so far forth as it is yet undefaced with the Law of God reveal'd in the Word it is not tanti to raise Moot-Points about this relating to Scripture I doubt not but you remember it in my Lord Herbert's Harry the 8th that there being a Rebellion of many of the Commonalty A. 1536. and the Rebels sending the King their Grievances and one whereof was That his Grace had ill Councellors and of mean Birth among which Cromwel was not forgotten and the King sending an Answer penn'd by himself as to their Grievances he did therein upbraid them for medling in the choice of his Counsellors and command their acquiescence therein on the grounds of Nature and of his being their Natural Liege-lord A. Well Sir Let it for the present pass as a datum or concessum as you will have it that the Obedience of Subjects in serving their Prince is founded on the grounds both of Nature and Scripture And I shall moreover allow it to you that if you had an Enthusiast to deal with and such who as you said do outrage the 13th of the Romans out of the Apocalypse you might out of Brightman's Revelation of the Apocalypse shew him out of that part of Holy Scripture sufficient Authority for the King 's particularly making Cromwel his Vicegerent For he there on the 14th Chapter and the 17th and following Verses saith This Angel is Thomas Cromwel who lived in the days of Harry the 8th that most mighty King and was a man of great renown and place in our Kingdoms being the Earl of Essex and Lord Keeper of the Privy Seal who came out of the Temple and being a sincere favourer of pure Religion He had a Sickle in his hand being made the King's Deputy in all Ecclesiastical Matters and it was a sharp one as with which he sets stoutly and deliberately to his work and yet he had no Crown or Diadem to grace his head withal being a Minister rather to put another Man's Power in Ure then any that wrought by his own Power and Authority And he on Verse the 18th makes the other Angel to be a Martyr viz. Tho. Cranmer and refers the meaning of the words He cryed with a great voice to him that had the Sickle to Cranmer because saith he in the days of Harry the 8th he inflamed the mind of Tho. Cromwel by his words with a desire to make a Vintage B. I thank you for diverting me with that passage of Brightman but I can refer you to another Writer of our Church whose Authority will go further with us then Brightman's and who hath recorded it that the great figure that Cromwel made both in the Church and State and his and Cranmer's acting together in concert and by joynt Councels both in Church and at the Helm of State was so highly fortunate to the Reformation You may find this observed by Archbishop Parker in his De Antiquitate Ecclesiâ—… Britannicoe p. 530. where he saith Namque profligato Papa susceptâ Ecclesioe Anglicanoe defensione curâ tutelâ Rex excelsiâ—…ing â—…ii multarum rerum usu peritum Thomam Cromwellum Vicarium suum in spiritualibus generalem designavit Hic cum Thoma Cranmero Archiepiscopo tanquam in puppi sedit clavumque Ecclesioe Anglicanoe tenuit proramque à papali littore avertit in Christianum portum reduxit A. Was Vicar-general to the King in Spirituals Cromwel's style for his Office as the Archbishop there termed it B. I am apt to think it was not I never saw any Copy of his Patent or Commission for it The Acts of Parliament in H. the 8â—…h's time style him The King's Vicegerent c. And
Religion being the same almost Verbatim with those formerly agreed on in the Spanish Treaty And he there refers to Rot. Tractationis Ratificationis Matrimonâ—… inter Dom. Carolum Regem Dom. Henret Mariam Sororem Regis Franc. 1 o Cat. in the Rolls and then in p. 71. saith Besides these general Articles of the Match these particular ones were concluded and agreed on in favour of the Roman-Catholicks the same in Substance with those of Spain and where he saith the Second is to this effect that the English Catholicks should be no more searched after or molested for their Religion But Mr. Prynne there particularly sets down only three short Articles and those comprised in about six lines and the words or molâ—…ted in the second Article are Printed in a different Character from the others as if he thereby intended them as his own Explication of the word searched A. You just now mention'd King Iames his having in the year 1622. order'd all the Popish Recusants who were in Prison on the account of their Religion to be set at liberty and you told me how he tacitly dispens'd with the Disability that Popish Physicians and Lawyers had incurr'd by Act of Parliament Was that all the favour he shew'd Roman-Catholicks B. No He allow'd them to make a very Considerable figure in the Government as you may find if you consult the Iournals of Parliament as referr'd to by Mr. Prynne p. 66. Seq of that Book For he there mentions that in the year 1624. The Commons sent a Petition to the Lords desiring their Concurrence with them in presenting it to His Majesty for removing Popish Recusants and those whose Wives were Papists from Offices of Trust which by Law they were DISABLED to execute which the Lords took into their Consideration and which Mr. Prynne saith was enter'd in their Iournal in this manner Die Jovis viz. Vicessimo die Maii 1624. The Lord Archbishop of Canterbury reported that at the meeting this Day with the Commons they Presented an humble Petition to the King desiring this House to joyn therein with them The which Petition was read in haec verba c. In short the Commons in their Petition take notice of the Growth of the Number of Popish Recusants in this Kingdom and of their insolency in all the Parts thereof and that many of them contrary to the Laws were gâ—…t into Offices and Places of Government and Authority under the King And the Prayer of the Petition is That the Lords and Gentlemen there undernamed may be removed from all His Majesty's Commissions of great Charge and Trust Commissions of Lieutenancy Oyer and Terminer and of the Peace and from all other Offices and Places of Trust. And they in their first Schedâ—…le there name 11 Lords and 18 Knights And in their second they name many Persons of Quality who were in Places of Charge and Trust in their several Counties and had marry'd Popish Wives and whose Children and Servants were bred up to Popery A. Doth any Act of Parliament disable a man from bearing Office because his Wife is a Papist or because his Children or Servants are bred up to be Papists B. Yes the Act of the Third of King Iames the First cap. 5. doth it as you will see if you consult it for 't is there Enacted That no Popish Recusant Convict nor any having a Wife being a Popish Recusant Convict shall at any time after this Session of Parliament or any Popish Recusant hereafter to be Convict or having a Wife which hereafter shall be a Recusant Convict at any time after his or her Conviction shall exercise any publick Office or Charge in the Common-wealth but shall be utterly DISABLED to exercise the same by himself or his Deputy except such Husband himself and his Children which shall be above the age of Nine years abiding with him and his Servants in Houshold shall once every Month in the least repair to some Church usual for Divine Service and there hear Divine Service and the said Husband and such his Children and Servants as are of meet Age receive the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper and do bring up his said Children in true Religion A. Now have you set me a longing to know what the House of Lords did in the Case of that Petition about removing those disabled Persons from serving the King in those great Stations And since the Judgment of Parliament was always had in such great veneration I think if the result of the desire of the House of Commons was that the Lords had joyn'd with them in the Petition and had urged that the King could not dispense with that Act of Parliament and Pardon Disability it may make a notable President in the Case we have been discussing B. You will find that the Commons urged nothing to the prejudice of Prerogative in the Prayer of their Petition Their style there was We humbly beseech your Majesty graciously to vouchsafe that the said Lords and Gentlemen here under-named for this important Reason and for the greater Safety of your Majesty and of your Realm may be removed from all your Majesty's Commissions of great Charge and Trust Commissions of Lieutenancy c. And the important reason did refer to the great Countenance hereby given to Popery the great grief and offence to all his best affected and true loving Subjects by putting the Power of Arms into such mens hands as by former Acts of His Majesty's Councel are adjudged Persons justly to be suspected c. But to let you see what the House of Lords did hereupon Mr. Prynne tells you p. 69. That this Petition being read the House did defer the Debate thereof at this time for that the day was far spent And answer was given to the Commons who attended for the same in the Painted Chamber that the Lords will send them an Answer of this Petition hereafter when they are resolv'd thereof Whereupon Mr. Prynne concludes his account of this Transaction thus Whether any of these were displaced upon this Petition I find not in any Memorials it being certain some of them were not but continued still in these Offices of Trust. A. How have you here disappointed my Curiosity in making that ferment then in the Government about the Disability of the Papists being dispens'd with thus silently to go off through the House of Lords forbearing to joyn with the House of Commons in their Petition B. I shall here afford your Curiosity a recompence by observing it to you with allusion to some of the words of the Royal Martyr in his Answer to the 19 Propositions That the ancient equal happy well poysed and never enough commended Constitution of the Government of this Kingdom having made this Nation so famous and happy to a great degree of Envy c. and the Lords being trusted with a Iudicatory Power are an excellent Screen and Bank between the Prince and the People to assist each against any Encroachment of
Dispensative Power in the Reign of King Charles the First being extended to particular Persons but the hated Sibthorpe who in his Sermon of Apostolick Obedience as he call'd it doth speak of Mens being bound to observe the Lawes of the Land where they live except they will suffer as busie bodies or except they will have that inconvenience granted that the general Lawes or Government of a Nation must be dispens's withal according to the particular Conceit and Apprehension of every private Person whereout what Coleration of Heresy what Connivence at Errors what danger of Schisms in the Church and Factions in the State must necessarily follow c. and having mentioned the Liberty of a few erroneous Consciences bringing the Bondage of many regulated Commands he saith We must prefer the general before the particular and not let every one be loose to their List and Affection but all must be kept within the Lists of their Duty and Subjection And I but just now told you of that Prince's avowing that the Bishops advised him to the tenderness he shewed in dispensing with his Lawes to gratifie the pretended tenderness of the Consciences of some of his Scotish Subjects in that Conjunctâ—… â—…eand by which Dispensing one would have thought they might have been sufficiently antidoted against the strong Delusions of entring into War for Religion Oh that such thoughts had been then impress'd on their Minds as are contain'd in the General Demands of the Ministers and Professors of Aberdene p. 29. as I find them cited in the Book of Mr. Ley before-mention'd viz. There be other means more effectual for holding out of Popery and so of any unlawful innovation in which we ought to Confide more then in all the Vowes and Promises of Men yea also more then in all the United Forces of all the Subjects of this Land to wit diligent Preaching and Teaching of the Word frequent Prayer to God humbling of our selves before him and Amendment of our Lives and Conversations and Arming our selves against our Adversaries by diligent searching of the Scriptures whereby we may encrease in the knowledge of the Truth and in ability to defend it against the Enemies of it Oh that the Demagogues of those times had caus'd such words then to have been writ in our Churches or I might rather wish that those Heads of Parties had had themselves then hearts of flesh and that such tender words had been like a Law written there But the Urgentia imperii fata were upon us and that delicate use of Conscience that is in 2. Cor. 13. 5. call'd examen vel probatio nostrum ipsorum and whereby it resembled the best property of a beam in Scales namely its tenderness and turning with the least part of a grain was among the great Actors in that Rebellion quite laid aside and all the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 i. e. the weightier Matters of the Law did not stir their Consciences and the great Obligation of their Oaths of Allegiance and Supremacy signify'd no more then the dust of the balance Tho they pretended to so nice a Tenderness about any thing that look'd like an Oath in familiar discourse and was not one as at the Saying in faith or in troth and so would seem to come under Solomon's Character of him that feareth an Oath but as to which words of in faith or by my faith our Judicious Sanderson de Iuramento makes them amount to no more then a meer Asseveration or at the most an Obtestation and saith that the genuine interpretation of the words by my faith whether in an assertory or promissory matter is this I speak from my heart I pawn my faith to you that the thing is so yet they at the same time would ridicule or seize on any one who had told them of what they were Sworn to in the Oath of Allegiance and of the recognition they made there as the words of that Oath are heartily willingly and truly upon the true faith of a Christian. A. There was a Solemn League and Covenant afterward took by those who had so apparently outraged the Oath of Allegiance and it was taken generally by all the Layety and Clergy of the Parliaments Party and was there not a general Tenderness of Conscience express'd then in the observance of that Covenant B. In the course of my Observation of Men and Things some things have more particularly occurred to me to shew you that the great Takers and imposers of that Covenant did as plainly and without any seeming remorfe outrage their Oath in that Covenant as they did their Oaths of Allegiance and Supremacy For after they had first sworn to endeavour to preserve the Reformed Religion in the Church of Scotland in Doctrine Worship Discipline and Government and then sworn to endeavour to reform Religion in these Kingdoms of England and Ireland in all Points according to the Examples of the best Reformed Churches and so were bound to reform us according to the Pattern of Scotland for that Church must necessarily pass for the best Reform'd Church that stands in need of no Resormation being to be preserv'd by them in the State it was the Parliament instead of setling in England the Presbyterian Government which then in Scotland had within its Verge four Judicatories and all pretended to be founded on Divine Right 1. A Parochial Session 2. A Presbyterian Consistory 3. A Provincial Synod 4. A General Assembly as they were bound to did in effect settle ERASTIANISM a Tenet or hypothesis of Church-Government that the Scotch and English Presbyterian Divines avowed as great an hatred of as of Popery it self Erastianism giving the Supreme Power in Ecclesiasticals to the Civil Magistrate and in their Printed Votes and Orders reproved the Presbyterian Divines for challenging an Arbitrary Power and which they would not grant nor set up ten Thousand Iudicatories within the Kingdom as the Parliaments words were referring to the Scots Parechial Session where a competent number of Lay-Elders whom they call Presbyteri non docentes and Deacons proportionable to the Precinct and Extent of the Parish are conjoyn'd and which associate Body thus compacted is the Spiritual Parochial Sanhedrim But this very first Point of that Church-Government the Parliament hinder'd Presbytery from gaining here and opposed its moving in that lowest Sphere of the Parochial Session of setling so many Thousand Ecclesiastical Courts of Pye-Powder in England and whereby it could never hope to climb up to the Primum mobile of a General Assembly which in reality was the Sphere the Parliament it self moved in Mr. Prynne who was one of the greatest Champions for that Covenant was yet an Eminent profess'd Erastian and Mr. Coleman a Member of the Assembly of Divines another of those Champions for the Covenant was likewise a declared Erastian and a great Favourite of the Parliaments and whose frequent Sermons before them for Erastianism were Printed by their Order and which Sermons of his and likewise his Books