we cannot look for much knowledg in the Common people For if the light be darkness then ipsae tenebrae quantae as we know who said But the grand Quarrel of these times is about Episcopacy followed with more acrimony than the former was because there was something more to be gained by the fall of Bishops than by contending about Forms and Freedoms to be used in Prayer And in this point the Papists and the Presbyters differ not a little both in the end they aimed at and the motives to it The Papists quarrelled not the Calling the Episcopal function and much less the Revenues which belonged unto it but the persons rather offended chiefly that some Men of their own persuasions were not advanced to those great places and yet not quarrelling the persons neither for want of any fitness or abilities to discharge the Office but for defect of some Legalities in their Consecration And if they could possess the World that we had no Bishops it would be no hard matter to persuade them that we had no Ministery no lawful Dispensation of the Word and Sacraments by consequence that since we had withdrawn our selves from the See Apostolick we had left off to be a Church the gaining of which point was the matter aimed at in the Calumny Quid enim est Ecclesia nisi Plebs Sacerdoti adunata Pastori suo grex adhaerens Cypr. Epist 69. No Bishop no Church in St. Cyprians judgment for that by Pastor and Sacerdos he doth mean the Bishop is a thing past question In this respect as Harding in his Answer to Jewels Challenge would not acknowledg him to be Bishop of Salisbury and Bonner denied Horn in an open Sessions to be Bishop of Winchester so did they generally disclaim all the first Bishops of Queen Elizabeths Reign and consequently those also which descended from them as being consecrated in no other Chappel than the Nags-head in Cheapside nor by the imposition of any other Hands than their own nor finally by any lawful Ordinal either old or new But being beaten from these Holds partly by the inspection of the Publick Registers at Lambeth-house and partly by the Testimony of some honourable persons who were present at those Consecrations but partly by the pains and industry of Fr. Mason in his Book entituled Vindiâ—iae Ecclesiae Anglicanae they join themselves underhand to the other Faction for the subverting of the Calling as the easiest and most expedite way to their Journeys end With greater violence and impetuosity did the other Faction hurry on towards their Design spur'd on by Covetousness and Ambition the two principal Sticklers in all Distractions of the Church The Lay-brethren with unsatiable Covetousness gaped after the Possessions and Lands of the Bishops as the Presbyters and Ministers with as great Ambition did aspire unto their jurisdiction And as He in Plutarch seeing his own name unexpectedly amongst the Proscripts and consequently certain of nothing more than some sudden death cryed out aloud that it was his fine Gardens and his Countrey-house which drew that fatal end upon him so might the Bishops also say that it was their fair Houses and their goodly Mannors which exposed them to the common envy and sacrificed them in conclusion to Spoil and Rapine For though nothing else was pretended by them but a zeal to Gods glory the purity of the Ordinances and the Churches peace yet as my Author well observes Ecclesiarum opibus inhiabant it was the Churches goods which they most gaped after Camâ—d in Annal Eliz. not the Churches good In vain had the Presbyterian Ministers laboured in the pursuit of their Ambition and hopelesly endeavoured to change the Government that they might have it to themselves had they not been animated and supported in it by their Lay-patrons many of which as some of the Scottish Writers say of theirs would have crucified CHRIST himself to have had his garments Presuming on their power and favour some of the Ministers which had fled into Geneva in Queen Maries days brought with them at their coming back in the beginning of Queen Elizabeths Reign a strong affection and some secret instructions withal to settle the Presbyterian Discipline first fitted by Calvin for that City in the Church of England Incouraged thereunto no doubt both by Calvin and Beza the two great Patriarchs of the Sect who could not but be much agrieved that their Discipline which had found such welcome in the neighbouring Churches should find none in this And yet we do not hear of any open Declaration which they made herein till the year 1566. in which Genebrard placeth the beginning of the Puritan Faction more visibly appearing about two years after when Coleman Button Cambd. Annal. An. 1568. and some others spoken of before and Cartwright not long after them did openly undertake the Business And we may very well conceive that Beza would not be an idle Spectator when they once were at it having given order unto Knox for the Church of Scotland Ne pestem illam unquam admittat quantumvis unitatis retinendie specie blandiatur Beza in Epist that is to say not to admit the plague of Episcopal Government though it might seem of special use for preserving Unity Thus countenanced abroad and back'd at home they presently mustred up their forces betook themselves to the quarrel and whole Realm was on the sudden in an uproar The Parliaments continually troubled with their Supplications Admonitions and the like and when they found not there that favour which they looked for they denounced this dreadful Curse against them That there shall not be a man of their seed that shall prosper to be a Parliament man For this and that which follows see Bancrofts dangerous positions c. or bear Rule in England any more The Queen exclaimed upon in many of their Pamphlets her honourable Council scandalously censured as opposers of the Gospel The Prelates every where cryed down as Antichristian Petti-popes Bishops of the Devil cogging and cousening Knaves dumb Dogs Enemies of God c. and their Courts and Chanceries the Synagogues of Satan After this they erected privately their Presbyteries in divers places of the Land and cantoned the whole Kingdom into their several Classes and divisions and in a time when the Spaniards were expected they threaten to Petition the Queens Majesty with 100000 Hands Their Discipline they call'd the Scepter and Throne of Christ and their erecting of Presbyteries the setting of Christ upon his Throne Their quarrel not being raised as they gave it out about Caps and Surplices but whether Jesus Christ should be King or not Good ground for our Fifth monarchy-men and by them well followed Never did men so ply their Adversaries with the Hail-shot of Libels as Martin Mar-prelate and his followers plaid upon the Bishops but they had then no Ordinance on their side and did little hurt And all this while the Church might seem to he asleep till
miseries of his own May not both Factions see by this what a condition the poor Church of England is involved in by them The sight whereof althoug it justifie them not in their several courses as being not without example in their present practices yet it may serve to let you know that as the distractions and confusions under which we suffer are not the consequents of our translating of the Scriptures and publick Liturgies into the common vulgar Tongues so it is neither new nor strange that such confusionsand distractions should befal the Church 5. That the proceedings of this Church in setting out the English Liturgy were not meerly Regal and of the power of Soveraign Princes in Ecclesiastical affairs Having thus proved that nothing hath been done amiss by the Church of England with reference to Gods Word the testimonies of godly Fathes and the usage of the primitive times in leaving off the Latine Service and celebrating all Divine Offices in the English Tongue I am to justifie it next in order to the carrying on of that weighty business whether so Regular or not as we fain would have it I see you are not scrupled at the subject-matter of the Common-prayer-book which being translated into Greek Latine French and Spanish hath found a general applause in most parts of Christendom no where so little set by as it is at home All scruples in that kind have been already fully satisfied by our learned Hooker who hath examined it per partes and justified it in each part and particular Office But for the greater honour of it take this with you also which is alledged in the Conference of Hampton Court touching the Marquess of Rhosny after Duke of Sally and Lord High Treasurer of France who coming Ambassador to King James from Henry IV. and having seen the solemn celebration of our Service at Canterbury and in his Majesties Royal Chappels did often and publickly affirm that if the Reformed Churches in France had kept the same Orders as were here in England he was assured there would have been many thousand Protestants in that Kingdom more than were at that time That which you seem to stick at only is in the way and manner of proceeding in it which though you find by perusal of the Papers which I sent first unto you not to have been so Parliamentarian as the Papists made it yet still you doubt whether it were so Regular and Canonical as it might have been And this you stumble at the rather in regard that the whole Body of the Clergy in their Convocation had no hand therein either as to decree the doing of it or to approve it being done but that it was resolved on by the King or rather by the Lord Protector in the Kings Minority with some few of the Bishops by which Bishops and as small a number of Learned Church-men being framed and fashioned it was allowed of by the King confirmed or imposed rather by an Act of Parliament Your question hereupon is this Whether the King for his acting it by a Protector doth not change the Case consulting with a lesser part of his Bishops and Clergy and having their consent therein may conclude any thing in the way of a Reformation the residue and greatest part not advised withal nor yielding their consent unto it in a formal way This seems to have some reference to the Scottish Liturgie for by your Letter I perceive that one of the chief of your Objectors is a Divine of that Nation and therefore it concerns me to be very punctual in my Answer to it And that my Answer my be built on the surer Ground it is to be considered first whether the Reformation be in corruption of manners or abuses in Government whether in matters practical or in points of Doctrine 2. If in matters practical whether such practice have the character of Antiquity Universality and Consent imprinted on it or that it be the practice of particular Churches and of some times only And 3. If in points of Doctrine whether such points have been determined of before in a General Council or in particular Councils universally received and countenanced or are to be defined de novo on emergent controversies And these Distinctions being laid I shall answer briefly First If the things to be reformed be either corruptions in manners or neglect of publick duties to Almighty God abuses either in Government or the parties governing the King may do it of himself by his sole Authority The Clergy are beholden to him if he takes any of them along with him when he goeth about it And if the times should be so bad that either the whole body of the Clergy or any though the greatest part thereof should oppose him in it he may go forwards notwithstanding punishing such as shall gainsay him in so good a work and compelling others And this I look on as a Power annexed to the Regal Diadem and so inseparably annexed that Kings could be no longer Kings if it were denied them But hereof we have spoke already in the first of this Section and shall speak more hereof in the next that follows And on the other side if the Reformation be in points of Doctrin and in such points of doctrine as have not been before defined or not defined in form and manner as before laid down The King only with a few of his Bishops and Learned Clergy though never so well studied in the point disputed can do nothing in it That belongs only to the whole Body of the Clergy in their Convocation rightly called and constituted whose Acts being ratified by the King bind not alone the rest of the Clergy in whose names they Voted but all the residue of the subjects of what sort soever who are to acquiesce in their Resolutions The constant practice of the Church and that which we have said before touching the calling and authority of the Convocation makes this clear enough But if the thing to be Reformed be a matter practical we are to look into the usage of the Primitive times And if the practice prove to have been both ancient and universally received over all the Church though intermitted for a time and by time corrupted The King consulting with so many of his Bishops and others of his most able Clergy as he thinks fit to call unto him and having their consent and direction in it may in the case of intermission revive such practice and in the case of corruption and degeneration restore it to its Primitive and original lustre whether he do it of himself of his own meer motion or that he follow the advice of his Council in it whether he be of age to inform himself or that he doth relie on those to whom he hath committed the publick Government it comes all to one So they restrain themselves to the ancient patterns The Reformation which was made under josias though in his Minority and acting by the Counsel of the
continual Prevalency of a busie faction And I have carried it on no further because at this time Bishop Laud to whom the raising and promoting of the Arminian doctrines as they call them is of late ascribed was hardly able to promote and preserve himself opprest with a hard hand by Archbishop Abbot secretly traduced unto the King for the unfortunate business of Early of Devonshire attaining with great difficulty to the poor Bishoprick of St. Davids after ten years service and yet but green in favour with the Duke of Buckingham What happened afterwards towards the countenancing of these Doctrines by the appearing of King Charles in the behalf of Mountague the Letter of the three Bishops to the Duke in defence of the man and his Opinion his questioning and impeachment by the House of Commons and his preferment by the King to the See of Chichester are all of them beyond the bounds which I have prescribed unto my self in this Narration Nor shall I now take notice of his Majesties Proclamation of the 14. of June Anno 1626. For establishing the peace and quiet of the Church of England by which he interdicted all such preaching and printing as might create any fresh disturbance to the Church of England or for his smart Answer to that part of the Remonstrance of the House of Commons Anno 1628. which concerned the danger like to fall on this Church and Kingdom by the growth of Arminianism or of the Declaration prefixed before the book of Articles in the same year also for silencing the said Disputes or finally of his Majesties Instructions bearing date Decemb. 30. 1629. for causing the Contents of the Declaration to be put in execution and punctually observed for the time to come By means whereof and many fair encouragements from many of our Prelates and other great men of the Realm the Anti-Calvinist party became considerable both for power and number A POSTSCRIPT TO THE READER Concerning some particulars in a scurrilous Pamphlet intituled A Review of the Certamen Epistolare c. PRimâ dicta mihi summâ dicenda camaenâ with thee good Reader I began and with thee I must end I gave thee notice in the Preface of a scurrilous Libel the Author whereof had disgorged his foul stomach on me and seemed to glory in the shame But whether this Author be a Cerberus with three heads or a Smectymnuus with fire or but a single Shimei only for it is differently reported is all one to me who am as little troubled with the noise of Billings-gate as the cry of an Oyster-wife It is my confidence that none of the dirt which he most shamefully confesseth himself to have thrown in my face will be found upon it P. 175. notwithstanding that necesse est ut aliquid haereat may be sometimes true Omitting therefore the consideration of his many Obscenities which every where are intermingled for the flowers of his Rhetorick I cannot but do my self so much justice as to satisfie the Reader in the truth of some things which otherwise may be believed to my disadvantage I am content to suffer under as much obloquie as any foul-mouth'd Presbyterian can spit upon me but I am not willing to be thought a slanderer a profane person or ungrateful for the sinallest favours all which the Author of that scurrilous Pamphlet hath imposed upon me In the first place it is much laboured to make me guilty of ingratitude and disaffection to Magd. Coll. of which I had the honour to be once a member P. 22. and do retain so high an estimation of it that whensoever I shall write or speak any thing to the reproach of that foundation let my tongue cleave unto the roof of my mouth and my right hand forget its cunning But I am able to distinguish between the duty I own to the House it self and that which every member of it is to challenge from me quid civitati quid civibus debeam in the Orators Criticism And therefore I would not have the Libeller or his Partners think that his or their taking Sanctuary under the name of Magdalen Colledge shall so far priviledge them in their actings either against the Church in general or my own particular but that I shall as boldly venture to attacque them there without fear of sacriledge as Joab was smitten by Benaiah at the horns of the Altar But the best is that I am made to have some ground for my disaffection though there be no less falshood in the fundamentals than the superstructure And a fine tale is told of some endeavours by me used for bringing one of my own brood into that foundation the failing of which hopes must of necessity occasion such an undervaluing of that Colledge as to change it from a nest of Sparrows to a nest of Cucknes P. 22. But the truth is that the party for whom I was a suitor was so far from being one of my own brood as not to be within the compass of my Relations so much a stranger to my blood that he was no otherwise endeared unto me than by the extraordinary opinion which I had of his parts and industry And therefore I commended him no further unto Dr. Goodwin than that it was not my desire to have him chosen if any abler Scholar should appear for the place And it was well for the young man that I sped no better Periisset nisi periisset as we know who said For within less than two years after he was elected into the Society of Merton Colledge to their great honour be it spoken upon no other commendation than his own abilities In the next place I am made a slanderer for saying that the new Sabbath speculations of Dr. bound and his adherents had been embraced more passionately of late than any one Article of Religion here by Law established How so Because saith he or they 't is no matter which it is well known that they do more passionately embrace the great truths of Christs Divinity and the Divine Authority of Scripture c. than any opinion about the Sabbath What may be meant by the c. it is hard to say perhaps the Presbyterian Discipline or the Calvinian Doctrines of Predestination the two dear Helena's of the Sects as sacred and inviolable in their estimation as any of their new opinions about the Sabbath But whether the great truths of Christs Divinity the Divine Authority of Scripture or any Article of Religion here by Law established be embraced by them with the like passion as their new Saint Sabbath may be discerned by that impunity which is indulged by them to all Anabaptists Familists Ranters Quakers and all other Sectaries by whom the great Truths of Christs Divinity and the Divine Authority of holy Scripture and almost all the Articles of the Christian Faith have been called in question And yet we cannot choose but know with what severity they proceeded when they were in power against all persons whatsoever
whether the Arch-Bishop had moved him to draw up those exceptions against Pryns Book which he denied or at least was not bound to confess that as he was faithful to his Sovereign so he would never prove himself unfaithful to his chief Minister both in Church and State But now John Lord Bishop of Lincoln at this Session of Parliament returned from the Tower to the Church after so long a time of his Suspension and Indevotion to say his Prayers and hear his Brother Peter Heylyn Preach in his course at the Abby in Westminster where notwithstanding the Holiness of that place to which his Lordship had no regard or reverence but only to the Name and Thing of it he was resolved publickly to revenge himself for old-done deeds that ought to have been forgotten by disturbing the Doctor in his Sermon before all the Congregation contrary to the Laws of this Realm and with Reverence to his Lordship against all good manners and the common rules of civility Mala mens furorque vecors In tantam impulerit culpam Catull. Strange That a Bishop could not rule his passions for one hour when no provocation was given by the Doctor whose Sermon from the beginning to the end of it throughout the whole discourse was pacificatory exhorting Christians to Moderation Love and Charity among themselves for the preservation of the publique peace although they differed in some opinions For satisfaction of the Reader I will set down the Doctors own words viz. Is it not that we are so affected with our own Opinions that we condemn whosoever shall opine the contrary and so far wedded to our own wills that when we have espoused a quarrel neither the Love of God not the God of Love shall divorce us from it Instead of hearkning to the voice of the Church every man hearkens to himself and cares not if the whole miscarry so that himself may bravely carry out his own devices Vpon which stubborn height of Pride what quarrels have been rais'd what Schisms in every corner of this our Church to enquire no further some rather putting all into open tumult than that they would conform to a Lawful Government derived from Christ and his Apostles to these very Times At the speaking of which words the Bishop of Lincoln sitting in the great Pew which was before the Seat of Contention knocked aloud with his Staff upon the Pulpit saying No more of that point No more of that point Peter To whom the Doctor readily answered without haesitation or the least sign of being dashed out of countenance I have a little more to say my Lord and then I have done which was as followeth viz. Others combining into close and dangerous Factions because some points of speculative Divinity are otherwise maintained by some than they would have them Also regardless of the common peace that rather than be quiet we will quarrel with our blessed Peace-maker for seeking to compose the differences though to the prejudice of neither party Thus do we foolishly divide our Saviour and rent his Sacred Body on the least occasion vainly conceiving that a difference in point of Judgment must needs draw after it a dis-joyning of the affections also and that conclude at last in an open Schism Whereas diversity of opinions if wisely managed would rather tend to the discovery of the Truth than the disturbance of the Church and rather whet-our Industry than excite our passions It was St. Cyprians resolution Neminem licet aliter senserit à Communione amovere not to suspend any man from the Communion of the Church although the matter then debated was as I take it of more weight than any of the points now controverted which moderation if the present Age had attained unto we had not then so often torn the Church in pieces nor by our frequent broils offered that injury and inhumanity to our Saviours Body which which was not offered to his Garments At this and all the other part of his Sermon the Auditory was highly pleased but the Bishop in so great wrath that his voice and the noise of his Pastoral Staff if I may so call it had like to have frighted the whole Flock or Congregation out of the Fold Considering the ill posture of affairs in which the Nation then stood overflowing with Seditions and Schisms I think a more seasonable Sermon could not have been Preached than to move men of different persuasions unto Peace and Unity one with another which is a most Christian Doctrine After the Sermon was ended he took Sir Robert Filmore his Learned Friend with some Gentlemen of Quality that were his Auditors out of the Church along with him to his House where he immediately Sealed up the Book that contained this Sermon and other Notes to which they also set their Seals that so there might not be the least alteration made in the Sermon nor any ground to suspect it which was presently after sent to the Bishop who kept it in his hands for some days in which time his passions allayed being more calm at home than in Church he sent the Book untouched back again to Dr. Heylyn in whose Study it had lain dormant for the space of fifteen years when the danger of an old Sermon of being called in question must needs be over by my persuasion and his consent he was pleased to give me leave to open that Apocalyptical Book that I might read and see the mystery that lay hid under the Seals for so many years which indeed proved only a pious and practical Sermon for Edification to moderate the heats of those fiery spirits that were like to make a Combustion in the whole Kingdom The Bishop deserved a sharper rebuke for his own Sermon which about that time he Preached before the King when he made a strange Apostrophe from his Text to the Sabbath falling down upon his knees in the Pulpit at the middle of his Sermon beseeching his Majesty in most humble manner that greater care might be taken for the better observation of the Sabbath day which was looked upon by many as a piece of most grand Hypocrisie who knew his opinion well by his practice for he did ordinarily play at Bowls on Sundays after Evening Service shoot with Bow and Arrows and used other exercises and recreations according to his Lordships pleasure The Bishop restored to his Dignities by means of that unhappy Parhament with whom he was in high favour expected that the Doctor should have submitted himself to his Lordship and particularly acknowledge his error in putting out the Antidotum Lincolniense which he commanded him to call in to which Dr. Heylyn replied that he received his Majesties Royal Command for the Writing and Printing of that Book in which he had asserted nothing but what he was still ready to justifie and defend against the opposers of it No sooner was the Doctor out of the Pulpit but he must come again before the Chair of the old Committee to
or too much looked after in the Reformation And first you say it is cvomplained of by some Zelots of the Church of rome that the Pope was very hardly and unjustly dealt with in being deprived of the Supremacy so long enjoyed and exercised by his Predecessors and that it was an Innovation no less strange than dangerous to settle it upon the King 2. That the Church of England ought not to have proceeded to a Reformation without the Pope considered either as the Patriarch of the Weftern world or the Apostle in particular of the English Nation 3. That if a Reformation had been found so necessary it ought to have been done by a General Council at least with the consent and co-operation of the Sister-Churches especially of those who were engaged at the same time in the same designs 4. That in the carrying on of the Reformation the Church proceeded very unadvisedly in letting the people have the Scriptures and the publique Liturgy in the vulgar tongue the dangerous consequents whereof are now grown too visible 5. That the proceedings in the point of the Common-prayer Book were meerly Regal the body of the Clergy not consulted with or consenting to it and consequently not so Regular as we fain would have it And 6. That in the power of making Canons and determining matters of the Faith the Clergy have so fettered and intangled themselves by the Act of Submission that they can neither meet deliberate conclude nor execute but as they are enabled by the Kings Authority which is a Vassalage inconsistent with their native Liberties and not agreeable to the usage of the Primitive times These are the points in which you now desire to have satisfaction and you shall have it in the best way I am able to do it that so you may be freed hereafter from such troubles and Disputants as I perceive have laboured to perplex your thoughts and make you less affectionate than formerly to the Church your Mother 1. That the Church of England did not Innovate in the Ejection of the Pope and settling the Supremacy in the Royal Crown And in this point you are to know that it hath been and still is the general and constant judgment of the greatest Lawyers of this Kingdom that the vesting of the Supremacy in the Crown Imperial of this Realm was not Introductory of any new Right or Power which was not in the Crown before but Declaratory of an old which had been anciently and originally inherent in it though of late Times usurped by the Popes of Rome and in Abeyance at that time as our Lawyers phrase it And they have so resolved it upon very good reasons the principal managery of affairs which concern Religion being a flower inseparably annexed to the Regal Diadem not proper and peculiar only to the Kings of England but to all Kings and Princes in the Church of God and by them exercised and enjoyed accordingly in their times and places For who I pray you were the men in the Jewish Church who destroyed the Idols of that people cut down the Groves demolished the high places and brake in pieces the Brazen Serpent when abused to Idolatry Were they not the godly Kings and Princes only which sway'd the Scepter of that Kingdom And though 't is possible enough that they might do it by the counsel and advice of the High-Priests of that Nation or of some of the more godly Priests and Levites who had a zeal unto the Law of the most high God yet we find nothing of it in the holy Scripture the merit of these Reformations which were made occasionally in that faulty Church being ascribed unto their Kings and none but them Had they done any thing in this which belonged not to their place and calling or by so doing had intrenched on the Office of the Priests and Levits that God who punished Vzzab for attempting to support the Ark when he saw it tottering and smote Osias with a Leprosie for burning Incense in the Temple things which the Priests and Levites only were to meddle in would not have suffered those good Kings to have gone unpunished or at least uncensured how good soever their intentions and pretences were Nay on the contrary when any thing was amiss in the Church of Jewry the Kings and not the Priests were admonished of it and reproved for it by the Prophets which sheweth that they were trusted with the Reformation and none else but they Is it not also said of david that he distributed the Priests and Levites into several Classes allotted to them the particular times of their Ministration and designed them unto several Offices in the publick Service Josephus adding to these passages of the Holy Writ That he composed Hymns and Songs to the Lord his God and made them to be sung in the Congregation as an especial part of the publick Liturgy Of which although it may be said that he composed those Songs and Hymns by vertue of his Prophetical Spirit yet he imposed them on the Church appointed Singing-men to sing them and prescribed Vestments also to these Singing-men by no other power than the regal only None of the Priests consulted in it for ought yet appears The like Authority was exercised and enjoyed by the Christian Emperors not only in their calling Councils and many times assisting at them or presiding in them by themselves or their Deputies or Commissioners but also in confirming the Acts thereof He that consults the Code and Novelles in the Civil Laws will find the best Princes to have been most active in things which did concern Religion in regulating matters of the Church and setting out their Imperial Edicts for suppressing of Hereticks Quid Imperatori cum Ecclesia What hath the Emperor to do in matters which concern the Church is one of the chief Brand-marks which Optatus sets upon the Donatists And though some Christians of the East have in the way of scorn had the name of Melchites men of the Kings Religion as the word doth intimate because they adhered unto those Doctrines which the Emperors agreeable to former Councils had confirmed and ratified yet the best was that none but Sectaries and Hereticks put that name upon them Neither the men nor the Religion was a jot the worse Nor did they only deal in matters of Exterior Order but even in Doctrinals matters intrinsecal to the Faith for which their Enoticon set out by the Emperor Zeno for settling differences in Religion may be proof sufficient The like Authority was exercised and enjoyed by Charles the Great when he attained the Western Empire as the Capitulars published in his Name and in the names of his Successors do most clearly evidence and not much less enjoyed and practised by the Kings of England in the elder times though more obnoxious to the power of the Pope of Rome by reason of his Apostleship if I may so call it the Christian Faith being first preached unto the English
to the judgment of the Protestants before remembred 2. The Lords day and the other Holy days confessed by all this Kingdom in the Court of Parliament to have no other ground than the authority of the Church 3. The meaning and occasion of that clause in the Common-Prayer book Lord have mercy upon us c. repeated at the end of the fourth Commandment 4. That by the Queens Injunctions and the first Parliament of her Keign the Lords day was not meant for a Sabbath day 5. The doctrine in the Homilies delivered about the Lords day and the Sabbath 6. The sum and substance of that Homily and that it makes not any thing for a Lords day Sabbath 7. The first original of the New Sabbath Speculations in this Church of England by whom and for what cause invented 8. Strange and most monstrous Paradoxes preached on occasion of the former doctrines and of the other effects thereof 9. What care was taken of the Lords day in King James his Reign the spreading of the doctrines and of the Articles of Ireland 10. The Jewish Sabbath set on foot and of King James his declaration about lawful sports on the Lords day 11. What Tracts were writ and published in that Princes time in opposition to the doctrines before remembred 12. In what estate the Lords day and the other Holy days have stood in Scotland since the reformation of Religion in that Kingdom 13. Statutes about the Lords day made by our present Sovereign and the misconstruing of the same His Majesty reviveth and enlargeth the Declaration of King James 14. An exhortation to obedience unto his Majesties most Christian purpose concludes this History THUS are we safely come to these present times the times of Reformation wherein whatever had been taught or done in the former days was publickly brought unto the test and if not well approved of layed aside either as unprofitable or plainly hurtful So dealt the Reformators of the church of England as with other things with that which we have now in hand the Lords day and the other Holy days keeping the days as many of them as were thought convenient for the advancement of true godliness and increase of piety but paring off those superstitious conceits and matters of opinion which had been entertained about them But first before we come to this we will by way of preparation lay down the judgments of some men in the present point men of good quality in their times and such as were content to be made a sacrifice in the common Cause Of these I shall take notice of three particularly according to the several times in the which they lived And first we will begin with Master Frith who suffered in the year 1533. who in his declaration of Baptism thus declares himself Our forefathers saith he Page 96. which were in the beginning of the Church did abrogate the Sabbath to the intent that men might have an ensample of Christian liberty c. Howbeith because it was necessary that a day should be reserved in which the people should come together to hear the Word of God they ordained instead of the Sabbath which was Saturday the next day following which is Sunday And although they might have kept the Saturday with the Jew as a thing indifferent yet they did much better Some three years after him Anno 1536. being the 28. of Henry the eighth suffered Master Tyndall who in his answer to Sir Thomas More hath resolved it thus As for the Sabbath we be Lords over the Sabbath Page 287. and may yet change it into Monday or into any other day as we see need or may make every tenth day Holy day only if we see cause why Neither was there any cause to change it from the Saturday but to put a difference between us and the Jews neither reed we any Holy day at all if the people might be taught without it Last of all bishop Hooper sometimes Bishop of Gloucester who suffered in Queen Maries Reign doth in a Treatise by him written on the Ten Commandments and printed in the year 1550. go the self-same way age 103. We may not think saith he that God gave any more holiness to the Sabbath than to the other days For if ye consider Friday Pag. 103. Saturday or Sunday inasmuch as they be days and the work of God the one is no more holy than the other but that day is always most holy in the which we most apply and give our selves unto holy works To that end did he sanctifie the Sabbath day not that we should give our selves to illness or such Ethnical pastime as is now used amongst Ethnical people but being free that day from the travels of this World we might consider the works and benefits of God with thanksgiving hear the Word of God honour him and fear him then to learn who and where be the poor of Christ that want our help Thus they and they amongst them have resolved on these four conclusions First that one day is no more holy than another the Sunday than the Saturday or the Friday further than they are set apart for holy Uses Secondly that the Lords day hath no institution from divine authority but was ordained by our fore-fathers in the beginning of the Church that so the people might have a Day to come together and hear Gods Word Thirdly that still the Church hath power to change the day from Sunday unto Monday or what day she will And lastly that one day in seven is not the Moral part of the fourth Commandment for Mr. Tyndal saith expresly that by the Church of God each tenth day only may be kept holy if we see cause why So that the marvel is the greater that any man should now affirm as some men have done that they are willing to lay down both their Lives and Livings in maintenance of those contrary Opinions which in these latter days have been taken up Now that which was affirmed by them in their particulars was not long afterwards made good by the general Body of this Church and State the King the Lords Spiritual and Temporal and all the Commons met in Parliament Anno the fifth and sixth of King Edward the sixth 5 6 Edw. 6. cap. 3. where to the honour of Almighty God it was thus enacted For as much as men be not at all times so mindful to Iaud and praise God so ready to resort to hear Gods holy Word and to come to the holy Communion c. as their bounden duty doth require therefore to call men to remembrance of their duty and to help their infirmity it hath been wholsomly provided that there should be some certain times and days appointed wherein the Christians should cease from all kind of labour and apply themselves only and wholly unto the aforesaid holy works properly pertaining to true Keligion c. Which works as they may well be called Gods Service so the time
at Toledo by Ferdinand the Catholick 1479. for swearing to the succession of his Son Don John in which the Prelates the Nobility and almost all the Towns and Cities which sent Commissioners to the Assembly are expresly named Id. lib. Thus finally do we find a meeting of the Deputies of the three Estates of Navarre at the Town of Tasalla Anno 1481. for preserving the Kingdom in obedience to King Francis Phoebus being then a Minor under Age and that the Deputies of the Clergy Id. lib. 22. Nobility Provinces and good Towns and Portugal assembled at Tomara Anno 1581. to acknowledg Philip the second for their King and to settle the Government of that Kingdom for the times to come Id. lib. 30. Now let us take a view of the Northern Kingdoms and still we find the people ranked in the self-same manner and their great Councils to consist of the Clergy the Nobility and certain Deputies sent from the Provinces and Cities as in those before In Hungary before that Realm received the Gospel we read of none but Nobiles Plebeii Bonfinius in hist Hungar. Dec. l. 1. Id. ibid. Dec. 2. l. 2. Id. Decad. 2. l. 3. the Nobility and common people who did concur to the Election of their Kings but no sooner was the Faith of Christ admitted and a Clergy instituted but instantly we find a third Estate Episcopos Sacerdotum Collegia Bishops and others of the Clergy superadded to them for the Election of the Kings and the dispatch of other businesses which concerned the publick as it continueth to this day In Danemark we shall find the same if we mark it well For though Poutanus seem to count upon five Estates making the Regal Family to be the first and subdividing the Commons into two whereof the Yeomanry makes one and the Tradesman or Citizen the other Pontan in Doriae descript Id. in histor Rerum Danic l. 7. yet in the body of the History we find only three which are the Bishops the Nobility and Civitatum delegati the Deputies or Commissioners of Towns and Cities Take which of these Accounts you will and reckon either upon Five or on three Estates yet still the Ecclesiastick State or Ordo Ecclesiasticus as himself entituleth it is declared for one and hath been so declared as their stories tell us ever since the first admittance of the Faith amongst them the Bishops together with the Peers and Deputies making up the Comitia or Conventus Ordinum In Poland the chief sway and power of Government next to the King is in the Council of Estate Secundum Regem maxima Augustissima Senatus autoritas Thuan. hist sui temp l. 56. as Thuanus hath it And that consisteth of nine Bishops whereof the Archbishops of Guisna and Leopolis make always two of fifteen Palatines for by that name they call the greater sort of the Nobility and of sixty five Chastellans which are the better sort of the Polish Gentry who with the nine great Officers of the Kingdom or which the Clergy are as capable as any other sort or degree of Subjects do compleat that Council The Common people there are in no Authority à procuratione Reipub. omnino summota not having any Vote or suffrage in the great Comitia Thuan. hist sui temp l. 56. or general Assemblies of the Kingdom as in other places For Sweden it comes near the Government and Forms of Danemark and hath the same Estates and degrees of people as amongst the Danes that is to say Proceres Nobiles the greater and the less Nobility Episcopi Ecclesiastici the Bishops and inferiour Clergy Civitates universitates the Cities and Towns corporate for so I think he means by universitates as Thuanus mustereth them Id. lib. 131. And in this Realm the Bishops and Clergy enjoy the place and priviledges of the third Estate notwithstanding the alteration of Religion to this very day the Bishops in their own persons and a certain number of the Clergy out of every Sochen a division like our Rural Deanries in the name of the rest have a necessary Vote in all their Parliaments And as for Scotland their Parliament consisted anciently of three Estates as learned Cambden doth inform us that is to say the Lords spiritual as Bishops Abbots Priors the temporal Lords as Dukes Marquesses Earls Vicounts Barons Cambden in descript Scotiae and the Commissioners of the Cities and Burroughs To which were added by King James two Delegates or Commissioners out of every County to make it more conform to the English Parliaments And in some Acts the Prelates are by name declared to be the third Estate as in the Parliament Anno 1597. Anno 1606 c. for which I do refer you to the Book at large And now at last we are come to England where we shall find that from the first reception of the Christian Faith amongst the Saxons the Ecclesiasticks have been called to all publick Councils and their advice required in the weightiest matters touching the safety of the Kingdom No sooner had King Ethelbert received the Gospel but presently we read that as well the Clergy as the Laity were called unto the Common Council which the Saxons sometimes called Mysel Synoth the Great Assembly and sometimes Wittenagemots the Council or Assembly of the Wise men of the Realm Anno 605. Coke on Lit. l. 1.2 sect H. Spelman in Concil p. 126. Ethelbertus Rex in fide roboratus Catholica c. Cantuariae convocavit eommune concilium tam Cleri quam populi c King Ethelbert as my Author hath it being confirmed in the Faith in the year 605. which was but nine years after his conversion together with Bertha his Queen their son Eadbald the most Reverend Archbishop Augustine and all the rest of the Nobility did solemnize the Feast of Christs Nativity in the City of Canterbury and did there cause to be assembled on the ninth of January the Common-council of his Kingdom as well the Clergy as the Lay Subject by whose consent and approbation he caused the Monastery by him built to be dedicated to the honour of Almighty God by the hand of Augustine And though no question other Examples of this kind may be found amongst the Saxon Heptarchs yet being the West Saxon Kingdom did in fine prevail and united all the rest into one Monarchy we shall apply our selves unto that more punctually Where we shall find besides two Charters issued out by Athelston Consilio Wlfelmi Archiepiscopi mei aliorum Episcoporum meorum Ap. eund p. 402 403. by the advice of Wlfelm his Archbishop and his other Bishops that Ina in the year 702. caused the Great Council of his Realm to be assembled consisting ex Episcopis Principibus proceribus c. of Bishops Princes Nobles Earls and of all the Wise men Elders and people of the whole Kingdom and there enacted divers Laws for the weal of his
c. convenit ut per consilium testimonium ejus omne legis scitum Burgi mensura omne pondus sit secundum dictionem ejus institutum that is to say it belongeth of right unto the Bishop to promote Justifice in matters which concern both the Church and State and unto him it appertaineth that by his counsel and award all Laws and Weights and Measures be ordained throughout the Kingdom 2. Next we will have recourse to the old Record entituled Modus tenendi Parliamentum In which it is affirmed ad Parliamentum summoneri venire debere Archiepiscopos Episcopos Abbates Priores alios majores cleri qui tenent per Comitatum aut Baroniam ratione hujusmodi tenurae Modus tenendi Parliament that all the Archbishops Bishops Abbats Priors and other Prelates of the Church who hold their Lands either by an Earls fee or a Barons fee were to be summoned and to come to Parliament in regard of their Tenure 3. Next look we on the chartularies of King Henry the first recognized in full Parliament at Clarendon under Henry the 2d where they are called avitas consuetudines which declare it thus Archiepiscopi Episcopi universae personae qui de Rege tenent in Capite habeant possessiones suas de Rege sicut Baroniam c. sicut caeteri Barones debent interesse juditiis Curiae Regis cum Baronibus quousque perveniatur ad diminutionem membrorum vel ad mortem Matth. Paris in Hen. 2. The meaning is in brief that Archbishops Bishops and all other Ecclesiastical persons which hold in Capite of the King are to have and hold their Lands in Barony and that they ought as Barons to be present in all Judgments with the other Barons in the Court of Parliament until the very sentence of death or mutilation which was very common in those times was to be pronounced And then they commonly did use to withdraw themselves not out of any incapacity supposed to be in them by the Law of England but out of a restraint imposed upon them by the Canons of the Church of Rome 4. In the great Charter made by King John in the last of his Reign we have the Form of summoning a Parliament and calling those together who have Votes therein thus expressed at large Ad habendum commune consilium Regni de auxilio assidendo c. de scutagiis assidendis faciemus summoneri Archiepiscopos Episcopos Abbates Comites Majores Barones Regni sigillatim per literas nostras Et praeterea summoneri faciemus in generali per Vice Comites Ballivos nostros omnes alios qui in Capite tenent ad certum diem Id. in Joh. sc ad terminum 40. dierum ad minus ad certum locum c. In which we have not only a most evident proof that the Bishops are of right to be called to Parliament for granting Subsidies and Escuago and treating of the great Affairs which concern the Kingdom but that they are to be summoned by particular Letters as well as the Earls and Barons or either of them A Form or copy of which summons issued in the time of the said King John is extant on Record and put in print of late in the Titles of Honour Pr. 2. c. 5. And we have here I note this only by the way a brief intimation touching the Form of summoning the Commons to attend in Parliament and the time of 40 days expresly specified to intervene between the summons and the beginning of the Parliament Which Commons being such as anciently did hold in Capite and either having a Knights fee or the degree of Knighthood did first promiscuously attend in these publick meetings and after were reduced to four quatuor discretos milites de Comitatu tuo Id. ibid. as the Writ ran unto the Sheriff and at last to two as they continue to this day 5. We have it thus in the Magna Charta of King Henry the 3d. the birth-right of the English Subject according as it stands translated in the book of Statutes First we have granted to God and by this our present charter have confirmed for us and our heirs for ever that the Church of England shall be free Magna Charta ca. 1. and shall enjoy all her whole Rights and Liberties inviolable But it was a known Right and Liberty of the Church of England that all the Bishops and many of the greater Clergy and peradventure also the inferiour Clergy whereof more anon had their Votes in Parliament and therefore is to be preserved inviolable by the Kings of England their heirs and Successors for ever Which Charter as it was confirmed by a solemn Curse denounced on all the Infringers of it by Boniface Archbishop of Canterbury Matth. Paris in Henr. 3. and ratified in no fewer than 30 succeeding Parliaments so was it enacted in the reign of Edward the first that it should be sent under the great Seal of England to all the Cathedral Churches of the Kingdom to be read twice a year before the people 25 Edw. 1. c. 2. 28 Edw. 1. c. 1. 25 Edw. 1. c. 3. that they should be read four times every year in a full County-Court and finally that all judgments given against it should be void 6. We have the Protestation of John Stratford Archbishop of Canterbury in the time of King Edward the 3d. who being in disfavour with the King and denied entrance into the House of Peers â—â—llenged his place and suffrage there as the first Peer of the Realm and one that ought to have the first Voice in Parliament in right of his See But hear him speak his own words which are these that follow Amici for he spake to those who took witness of it Rex me ad hoc Parliamentum scripto suo vocavit ego tanquam major Par Regni post Regem primam vocem habere debens in Parliamento jura Ecclesiae meae Cantuariensis vendico Antiqu. Britan. in Joh. Stratford ideo ingressum in Parliamentum peto which is full and plain 7. And lastly there is the Protestation on Record of all the Bishops in the reign of King Richard the 2d at what time William Courtney was Arch-bishop of Canterbury who being to withdraw themselves from the House of Peers at the pronouncing of the sentence of death on some guilty Lords first made their Procurators to supply their rooms and then put up their Protestation to preserve their Rights the sum whereof for as much as doth concern this business in their own words thus De jure consuetudine regni Angliae ad Archiepiscopum Cantuariensem qui pro tempore fuerit necnon caeteros Suffraganeos confratres compatres Abbates Priores aliosque Prelatos quoscunque per Baroniam de domino Rege tenentes pertinet in Parliamentis Regis quibuscunque ut Pares regni praedicti personaliter interesse ibidemque de
the Jews or Christians Considering therefore they appeal'd to the ancient practice of the Jews and Christians I was resolved that to the ancient practice they should go for their justification and to that end drew down the Pedigree and Descent of Liturgies among the Jews from the time of Moses unto CHRIST carrying it on thorow the constant practice of the Greeks and Romans and finally thorow the whole state of the Christian Church from the time of CHRIST our Saviour till the death of Saint Augustin when Liturgies and Set Forms of Prayer were universally received in all parts of Christendom But hardly had I finished my Undertaking Plutarch in Mario when the War broke out and I knew well as Marius was once heard to say in another case That the voice of the Laws could not be heard for the noise of Weapons the Dispute being then like to be determin'd by stronger Arguments than could be urged on either side by pen and paper On which consideration the Work lay by me as it was till the Ordinance of the third of January 1644. did seem to put an end to the Disputation by abolishing the Book of Common Prayer and authorizing the Directory or New Form of Worship to be observed in the three Kingdoms But finding in that Directory that all set times of Publick Worship were reduced to One that one supposed to be commanded in the Scripture and that the Festival days vulgarly called Holy-days Direct pag. ult having no warrant in the Word of God were not to be continued longer I took that hint or opportunity to enlarge my self in laying down the ancient practice both of Jews and Christians in appointing Holy-days and recommending them to the pious practice of all men which did desire to live conformably to establisht Laws And finding afterwards that notwithstanding the Care taken by that Directory That Places of publick assembling for worship among us should be continued and employed to their former use Ibid. some Men began to threaten them with a speedy destruction and breathed out nothing but Down with them Down with them even unto the ground reproaching them in the mean time with the name of Steeple-houses I interserted also in convenient places the pious care of the Jewish Nation in erecting Synagogues and Oratories for Gods publick Worship and of the Primitive Christians not to say any thing of the like care in the ancient Gentiles in building consecrating and adorning Churches for the like employments And this I did to let the Reader understand that the accustomed times and places which were designed and set apart for Gods publick service had more authority to rest on than those Men gave out the Liturgy it self being apt enough to be beaten down without any such Ordinance if once those times and places should be discontinued By these degrees and on these several occasions the whole Work came to that perfection in which it is now presented to thee not to be now presented to thee neither if the necessity of doing my Duty unto God and the Church and offering something unto the consideration of the Higher Powers had not prevailed with me above all respects of my private interest Liturgies and Set Forms of Worship being thus asserted my next care was to vindicate the Church in that Form of Prayer which is prescribed to be used by Preachers before their Sermons Can. 55. For certainly the Church had not sufficiently provided for the Common peace if she had tied her Ministers to Set Forms in the Daily Office and left them to their own liberty in conceiving Prayers to be used by them in the Pulpit before their Sermons The inconvenience which that liberty hath brought upon us in these latter days being so apparent that it is very hard to say whether the Liberty of Prophesying or the Licenciousness in Praying what and how we list hath more conduced to these distractions which are now amongst us And if there were no such effect too visible of this licentiousness which I desire the present State to take notice of the scandal which is thereby given unto our Religion in speaking so irreverently with such vain repetitions and tautologies to Almighty God as in extemporary and unpremeditated Prayers is too frequently done seems a sufficient consideration to bring us back again to that ancient Form which the wisdom of the Church prescribed to prevent the Mischief Such was the care and providence of the elder times and happiest ages of the Church as to ordain that no unlearned person should make use of any of those Prayers which himself had framed nisi prius eas cum instructioribus fratribus contulerit Concil Carthag Can. 23. before he had conferred about them with more learned men The reason of which is thus given in the Council of Milevis Can. 12. Ne forte aliquid contra fidem vel per ignorantiam vel per minus studium sit compositum for fear lest any thing should escape them against faith and piety either through the ignorance of the Composer or carelesness in the Composition And if such care were taken of Mens private Prayers no question but a greater care is to be observed in ordering those publick Prayers which are to be offered unto God in the Congregation Never did Men so literally offer unto God the Calves of their lips as they have done of late since the extemporary way of Praying hath been taken up And if it were prohibited by the Law of Moses to offer any thing unto God in the way of the legal Sacrifices which was maim'd spotted or imperfect how can it rationally be conceived that God should be delighted with those Oblations or Spiritual Sacrifices which have nothing almost in them but maims spots and blemishes In which respect I have subjoyned to the Tract of Liturgies a brief Discourse about restraining Preachers to that Form of Prayer which is prescribed them by the Church and that not only in the Canon of 603. but in the Injunction of King Harry the 8th King Edward the 6th and Queen Elizabeth of famous memories till the predominating Humour of drawing all Gods publick Worship to the Pulpit-prayer carried all before it But here it is to be observed that one of the chief reasons for abolishing the publick Liturgy was that the Ministers might put forth themselves to exercise the Gift of Prayer with which our Lord Jesus Christ pleaseth to furnish all his servants whom he calls to that Office Pref. to the Direct p. 2 3. and that nothing was less effected than the end intended For first the Directory which prescribes not alone the Heads but the sense and scope which is the whole matter of the Prayers and other parts of publick Worship Ibid. p. 4. doth in effect leave nothing to the Ministers spirit but the wording of it which if it be not a restraining of the Gift of Prayer I am much to seek the Spirit being as much restrained and
the curiosity of the Ministers and mistakes of the people rather than for any other weighty cause As the Statutes 5 and 6 Ed. 6. cap. 1. it was thought expedient by the King with the assent of the Lords and Commons in Parliament Assembled that the said Order of Common Service should be faithfully and godly perused explained and made fully perfect Perused and explained by whom Why questionless by those who made it or else by those if they were not the same men who were appointed by the King to draw up and compose a Form of Ordination for the Use of the Church And this Assent of theirs for it was no more was the only part that was ever acted by the Parliament in matter of this present nature save that a Statute passed in the former Parliament 3 and 4 Ed. 6. c. 12. unto this effect that such form and manner of making and consecrating Arch-Bishops Bishops Priests Deacons and other Ministers of the Church which before I spake of as by six Prelates and six other men of this Realm learned in Gods Laws by the King to be appointed and assigned shall be devised to that purpose and set forth under the great Seal shall be lawfully used and exercised and none other Where note that the King only was to nominate and appoint the men the Bishops and other learned men were to make the Book and that the Parliament in a blind obedience or at the least upon a charitable confidence in the integrity of the men so nominated did confirm that Book before any of their Members had ever seen it though afterwards indeed in the following Parliament this Book together with the Book of Common-prayer so Printed and explained obtained a more formal confirmation as to the use thereof throughout the Kingdom but in no other respect for which see the Statute 5 and 6 Ed. 6. c. 1. As for the time of Q. Elizabeth when the Common-prayer book now in use being the same almost with the last of King Edward was to be brought again into the Church from whence it was cast out in Queen Maries Reign it was committed to the care of some learned men that is to say to M. Whitehead once Chaplain to Q. Anne Bullen Dr. Parker after Arch-Bishop of Canterbury Dr. Grindal after Bishop of London Dr. Cox after Bishop of Ely Dr. Pilkington after Bishop of Durham Dr. May Dean of Saint Pauls Dr. Bill Provost of Eaton after Dean of Westminster and Sir Tho. Smith By whom being altered in some few passages which the Statute points to 1 Eliz. c. 21. it was presented to the Parliament and by the Parliament received and established without more ado or troubling any Committee of both or either Houses to consider of it for ought appears in their Records All that the Parliament did in it being to put it into the condition in which it stood before in Kings Edwards Reign partly by repealing the Repeal of King Edw. Statutes made in the first of Q. Mary c. 2. and partly by the adding of some farther penalties on such as did deprave the Book or neglect to use it or wilfully did absent themselves from their Parish-Churches And for the Alterations made in King James his time being small in the Rubrick only and for the additions of the Thanksgivings at the end of the Letany the Prayer for the Queen and the Royal Issue and the Doctrine of the Sacraments at the end of the Catechisme which were not in the Book before they were never referred unto the Parliament but were done only by Authority of the Kings Commission and stand in force by virtue only of His Proclamation which you may find before the Book the charge of buying the said Book so explained and altered being laid upon the several and respective Parishes by no other Authority than that of the eightieth Canon made in Convocation Anno 1603. The like may also be affirmed of the Forms of Prayer for the Inauguration-day of our Kings and Queens the Prayer-books for the fifth of November and the fifth of August and those which have been used in all publick Fasts All which without the help of Parliaments have been composed by the Bishops and imposed by the King Now unto this discourse of the Forms of Worship I shall subjoyn a word or two of the times of Worship that is to say the Holy-days observed in the Church of England and so observed that they do owe that observation chiefly to the Churches power For whereas it was found in the former times that the number of the Holy-days was grown so great that they became a burthen to the common people and a great hinderance to the thrift and manufactures of the Kingdom there was a Canon made in the Convocation An. 1536. For cutting off of many superstitious and superfluous Holy-days and the reducing them into the number in which they now stand save that St. George's day and Mary Magdalens day and all the Festivals of the blessed Virgin had their place amongst them according to which Canon there went out a Monitory from the Arch-Bishop of Canterbury to all the Suffragans of his Province respectively to see the same observed in their several Diocesses which is still extant on Record But being the Authority of the Church was then in the wane it was thought necessary to confirm their Acts and see execution done upon it by the Kings Injunction which did accordingly come forth with this Form or preamble That the abolishing of the said Holy-days was decreed ordained and established by the Kings Highness Authority as Supream Head in Earth of the Church of England with the common consent and assent of the Prelates and Clergy of this his Realm in Convocation lawfully Assembled and Congregate Of which see Fox his Acts and Monuments fol. 1246 1247. Afterwards in the year 1541. the King perceiving with what difficulty the people were induced to leave off those Holy-days to which they had been so long accustomed published his Proclamation of the twenty-third of July for the abolishing of such Holy-days amongst other things as were prohibited before by his Injunctions both built upon the same foundation namely the resolution of the Clergy in their Convocation And so it stood until the Reign of King E. 6. at which time the Reformation of the publick Liturgie drew after it by consequence an alteration in the present business no days being to be kept or accounted Holy but those for which the Church had set apart a peculiar office and not all those neither For whereas there are several and peculiar offices for the day of the Conversion of St. Paul and the day of St. Barnabas the Apostles neither of these are kept as Holy-days nor reckoned or esteemed as such in the Act of Parliament wherein the names and number of the Holy-days is precisely specified which makes some think the Act of Parliament to have had an over-ruling power on the Common-prayer-Book but it is not so
Saxons by such as he employed in that Holy work The instances whereof dispersed in several places of our English Histories and other Monuments and Records which concern this Church are handsomely summed up together by Sir Edward Cook in the fifth part of his Reports if I well remember but I am sure in Cawdries Case entituled De Jure Regis Ecclesiastico And though Parsons the Jesuite in his Answer unto that Report hath took much pains to vindicate the Popes Supremacy in this Kingdom from the first planting of the Gospel among the Saxons yet all he hath effected by it proves no more than this That the Popes by permission of some weak Princes did exercise a kind of concurrent jurisdiction here with the Kings themselves but came not to the full and entire Supremacy till they had brought all other Kings and Princes of the Western Empire nay even the Emperors themselves under their command So that when the Supremacy was recognized by the Clergy in their Convocation to K. H. 8. it was only the restoring of him to his proper and original power invaded by the Popes of these latter Ages though possibly the Title of Supream Head seemed to have somewhat in it of an Innovation At which Title when the Papists generally and Calvin in his Comment on the Prophet Amos did seem to be much scandalized it was with much wisdom changed by Q. Elizabeth into that of Supream Governour which is still in use And when that also would not down with some queasie stomacks the Queen her self by her Injunctions published in the first year of her Reign and the Clergy in their book of Articles agreed upon in Convocation about five years after did declare and signifie That there was no Authority in sacred matters contained under that Title but that only Prerogative which had 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 to restrain with the Civil Sword the stubborn and evil doers as also to exclude thereby the Bishop of Rome from having any jurisdiction in the Realm of England Artic. 37. Lay this unto the rest before and tell me if you can what hath been acted by the Kings of England in the Reformation of Religion but what is warranted unto them by the practice and example of the most godly Kings of Jewry seconded by the most godly Emperours in the Christian Church and by the usage also of their own Predecessors in this Kingdom till Papal Usurpation carried all before it And being that all the Popes pretended to in this Realm was but Usurpation it was no Wrong to take that from him which he had no Right to and to restore it at the last to the proper Owner Neither prescription on the one side nor discontinuance on the other change the case at all that noted Maxim of our Lawyers that no prescription binds the King or Nullum tempus occurrit Regi as their own words are being as good against the Pope as against the Subject This leads me to the second part of this Dispute the dispossessing of the Pope of that Supream Power so long enjoyed and exercised in this Realm by his Predecessors To which we say that though the pretensions of the Pope were antient yet they were not primitive and therefore we may answer in our Saviours words Ab initio non fuit sic it was not so from the beginning For it is evident enough in the course of story that the Pope neither claimed nor exercised any such Supremacy within this Kingdom in the first Ages of this Church nor in many after till by gaining from the King the Investiture of Bishops under Henry the First the exemption of the Clergy from the Courts of Justice under Henry the Second and the submission of King John to the See of Rome they found themselves of strength sufficient to make good their Plea And though by the like artifices seconded by some Texts of Scripture which the ignorance of those times incouraged them to abuse as they pleased they had attained the like Supremacy in France Spain and Germany and all the Churches of the West Yet his Incroachments were opposed and his Authority disputed upon all occasions especially as the light of Letters did begin to shine Insomuch as it was not only determined essentially in the Council of Constance one of the Imperial Cities of High germany that the Council was above the Pope and his Authority much curbed by the Pragmatick Sanction which thence took beginning But Gerson the learned Chancellor of Paris wrote a full Discourse entituled De auferibilitate Papae touching the total abrogating of the Papal Office which certainly he had never done in case the Papal Office had been found essential and of intrinsecal concernment to the Church of Christ According to the Position of that learned man The greatest Princes in these times did look upon the Pope and the Papal power as an Excrescence at the best in the body mystical subject and fit to be pared off as occasion served though on self ends Reasons of State and to serve their several turns by him as their needs required they did and do permit him to continue in his former greatness For Lewis the 11th King of France in a Council of his own Bishops held at Lions cited Pope Julius the 2d to appear before him and Laustrech Governour of Millaine under Francis the 1st conceived the Popes Authority to be so unnecessary yea even in Italy it self that taking a displeasure against Leo the 10th he outed him of all his jurisdiction within that Dukedom anno 1528. and so disposed of all Ecclesiastical affairs ut praefecto sacris Bigorrano Episcopo omnia sine Romani Pontificis authoritate administrarentur as Thuanus hath it that the Church there was supreamly governed by the Bishop of Bigor a Bishop of the Church of France without the intermedling of the Pope at all The like we find to have been done about six years after by Charles the Fifth Emperor and King of Spain who being no less displeased with Pope Clement the 7th Abolished the Papal power and jurisdiction out of all the Churches of his Kingdoms in Spain Which though it held but for a while till the breach was closed yet left he an example by it as my Author noteth Ecclesiasticam disciplinam citra Romani nominis autoritatem posse conservari that there was no necessity of a Pope at all And when K. Henry the 8th following these examples had banished the Popes Authority out of his Dominions Religion still remaining here as before it did the Popes Supremacy not being at the time an Article of the Churistian Faith as it hath since been made by Pope Pius the 4th that Act of his was much commended by most knowing men in that without more alteration in the face of the Church
Elders as Josephus telleth us Antiqu. Jud. 1. cap. was no less pleasing unto God nor less valid in the eyes of all his Subjects than those of Jehosaphat and Hezekiah in their riper years and perhaps acting singly on the strength of their own judgments only without any advice Now that there should be Liturgies for the use of the Church that those Liturgies should be celebrated in a Language understood by the people That in those Liturgies there should be some prescribed Forms for giving the Communion in both kinds for Baptizing Infants for the reverent celebration of Marriage performing the last office to the sick and the decent burial of the Dead as also for set Feasts and appointed Festivals hath been a thing of primitive and general practice in the Christian Church And being such though intermitted or corrupted as before is said the King advising with his Bishops and other Church-men though not in a Synodical way may cause the same to be revised and revived and having fitted them to edification and increase of piety either commend them to the Church by his sole authority or else impose them on the people under certain penalties by his power in Parliament Saepe Coeleste Regnum per Terrenum proficit The Kingdom of Heaven said Reverend Isidore of Sevil doth many times receive increase from these earthly Kingdoms in nothing more than by the regulating and well ordering of Gods publick worship We saw before what David did in this particular allotting to the Priest the Courses of their Ministration appointing Hymns and Songs for the Jewish Festivals ordaining Singing-men to sing and finally prescribing Vestments for the Celebration Which what else was it but a Regulating of the Worship of God the putting it into a solemn course and order to be observed from time to time in succeeding Ages Sufficient ground for Christian Princes to proceed on in the like occasions especially when all they do is rathe the reviving of the Ancient Forms than the Introduction of a new Which as the King did here in England by his own Authority the Body of the Clergy not consulted in it so possibly there might be good reason why those who had the conduct of the Kings affairs thought it not safe to put the managing of the business to a Convocation The ignorance and superstition of the common people was at that time exceeding profitable to the Clergy who by their frequent Masses for the quick and dead raised as great advantage as Demetrius and the Silver-Smith by Dianas shrines It hapned also in a time when many of the inferiour Clergy had not much more learning than what was taught them in the Massals and other Rituals and well might fear that if the Service were once extant in the English tongue the Laity would prove in time as great Clerks as themselves So that as well in point of Reputation as in point of Profit besides the love which many of them had to their former Mumpsimus it was most probable that such an hard piece of Reformation would not easily down had it been put into the power of a Convocation especially under a Prince in Nonage and a state unsettled And yet it was not so carried without them neither but that the Bishops generally did concur to the Confirmation of the Book or the approbation of it rather when it passed in Parliament the Bishops in that time and after till the last vast and most improvident increase of the Lay-nobility making the most considerable if not the greatest part of the House of Peers and so the Book not likely to be there allowed of without their consent And I the rather am inclined unto that Opinion because I find that none but Tunstal Gardiner and Bonner were displaced from their Bishopricks for not submitting in this case to the Kings appointments which seems to me a very strong and convincing argument that none but they dissented or refused conformity Add here that though the whole body of the Clergy in their Convocation were nto consulted with at first for the Reasons formerly recited yet when they found the benefit and comfort which redounded by it to good Christian people and had by little and little weaned themselves from their private interesses they all confirmed it on the Post-fact passing an Article in the Convocation of the year 1552. with this Head or Title viz. Agendum esse in Ecclesiae linguae quae fit Populo nota which is the 25th Article in King Edwards Book Lay all that hath been said together and the result of all will be briefly this that being the setting out of the Liturgy in the English Tongue was a matter practical agreeable to the Word of God and the Primitive times that the King with so many of his Bishops and others of the Clergy as he pleased to call to Counsel in it resolved upon the doing of it that the Bishops generally confirmed it when it came before them and that the whole body of the Clergy in their Convocation the Book being then under a review did avow and justifie it The result of all I say is this that as the work it self I say was good so it was done not in a Regal but a Regular way Kings were not Kings if regulating the external parts of Gods publick worship according to the Platforms of the Primitive times should not be allowed them But yet the Kings of England had a further right as to this particular which is a power conferred upon them by the Clergy whether by way of Recognition or Concession I regard not here by which they did invest the King with a Supream Authority not only of confirming their Synodical Acts not to be put in execution without his consent but in effect to devolve on him all that power which formerly they enjoyed in their own capacity And to this we have a parallel Case in the Roman Empire in which there had been once a time when the Supream Majesty of the State was vested in the Senate and people of Rome till by the Law which they called Lex Regia they transferred all their Power on Caesar and the following Emperors Which Law being passed the Edicts of the Prince or Emperor were as strong and binding as the Senatus Consulta and the Plebiseita had been before Whence came that memorable Maxim in Justinians Institutes that is to say Quod Principi placuerit legis habet vigorem The like may be affirmed of the Church of England immediately before and in the Reign of K. Henry VIII The Clergy of this Realm had a Self-authority in all matters which concerned Religion and by their Canons and Determinations did bind all the Subjects of what rank soever till by acknowledging that King for their Supream Head and by the Act of Submission not long after following they transferred that power upon the King and on his Successors By doing whereof they did not only disable themselves upon concluding any thing in their Convocations
or putting their results into execution without his consent but put him into the actual possession of that Authority which properly belonged to the Supremacy or the Supream Head in as full manner as ever the Pope of Rome or any delegated by and under him did before enjoy it After which time whatsoever the King or his Successors did in the Reformation as it had virtually the power of the Convocations so was it as effectual and good in Law as if the Clergy in their Convocation particularly and in terminis had agreed upon it Not that the King or his Successors were hereby enabled to exercise the Keys and determine Heresies much less to preach the Word and administer the Sacraments as the Papists falsly gave it out but as the Heads of the Ecclesiastical Body of this Realm to see that all the members of that Body did perform their duties to rectifie what was found amiss amongst them to preserve peace between them on emergent differences to reform such errors and corruptions as are expresly contrary to the Word of God and finally to give strength and motions to their Councils and Determinations tending to Edification and increase of Piety And though in most of their proceedings towards Reformation the Kings advised with such Bishops as they had about them or could assemble without any great trouble or inconvenience to advise withal yet was there no necessity that all or the greater part of the Bishops should be drawn together for that purpose no more than it was anciently in the Primitive Times for the godly Emperors to call together the most part of the Bishops in the Roman Empire for the establishing of the matters which concerned the Church or for the godly Kings of Judah to call together the greatest part of the Priests and Levites before they acted any thing in the Reformation of those corruptions and abuses which were crept in amongst them Which being so and then withal considering as we ought to do that there was nothing altered here in the state of Religion till either the whole Clergy in their Convocaton or the Bishops and most eminent Church-men had resolved upon it our Religion is no more to be called a Regal than a Parliament-Gospel 6. That the Clergy lost not any of their just Rights by the Act of Submission and the power of calling and confirming Councils did anciently belong to the Christian Princes If you conceive that by ascribing to the King the Supream Authority taking him for their Supream Head and by the Act of Submission which ensued upon it the Clergy did unwittingly ensnare themselves and drew a Vassallage on these of the times succeeding inconsistent with their native Rights and contrary to the usage of the Primitive Church I hope it will be no hard matter to remove that scruple It 's true the Clergy in their Convocation can do nothing now but as their doings are confirmed by the Kings Authority and I conceive it stands with reason as well as point of State that it should be so For since the two Houses of Parliament though called by the Kings Writ can conclude nothing which may bind either King or Subject in their civil Rights until it be made good by the Royal Assent so neither is it fit nor safe that the Clergy should be able by their Constitutions and Synodical Acts to conclude both Prince and People in spiritual matters until the stamp of Royal Authority be imprinted on them The Kings concurrence in this case devesteth not the Clergy of any lawful power which they ought to have but restrains them only in the exercise of some part thereof to make it more agreeable to Monarchical Government and to accommodate it to the benefit both of Prince and People It 's true the Clergy of this Realm can neither meet in Convocation nor conclude any thing therein nor put in execution any thing which they have concluded but as they are enabled by the Kings Authority But then it is as true withal that this is neither inconsistent with their native Rights nor contrary unto the usage of the Primitive Times And first it is not inconsistent with their native Rights it being a peculiar happiness of the Church of England to be always under the protection of Christian Kings by whose encouragement and example the Gospel was received in all parts of this Kingdom And if you look into Sir Henry Spelman's Collection of the Saxon Councils I believe that you will hardly find any Ecclesiastical Canons for the Government of the Church of England which were not either originally promulgated or after approved and allowed o either by the Supream Monarch of all the Saxons or by some King or other of the several Heptarchies directing in their National or Provincial Synods And they enjoyed this Prerogative without any dispute after the Norman Conquest also till by degrees the Pope in grossed it to himself as before was shewn and then conferred it upon such as were to exercise the same under his Authority which plainly manifests that the Act of Submission so much spoke of was but a changing of their dependance from the Pope to the King from an usurped to a lawful power from one to whom they had made themselves a kind of voluntary Slaves to him who justly challenged a natural dominion over them And secondly that that submission of theirs to their natural Prince is not to be considered as a new Concession but as the Recognition only of a former power In the next place I do not find it to be contrary to the usage of the Primitive times I grant indeed that when the Church was under the command of the Heathen Emperors the Clergy did Assemble in their National and Provincial Synods of their own Authority which Councils being summoned by the Metropolitans and subscribed by the Clergy were of sufficient power to bind all good Christians who lived within the Verge of their jurisdiction They could not else Assemble upon any exigence of affairs but by such Authority But it was otherwise when the Church came under the protection of Christian Princes all Emperors and Kings from Constantine the Great till the Pope carried all before him in the darker times accompting it one of the principal flowers as indeed it was which adorned their Diadems I am not willing to beat on a common place But if you please to look into the Acts of ancient Councils you will find that all the General Councils all which deserve to be so called if any of them do deserve it to have been summoned and confirmed by the Christian Emperors that the Council of Arles was called and confirmed by the Emperor Constantine that of Sardis by Constans that of Lampsacus by Valentinian that of Aquileia by Theodosius that of Thessalonica National or Provincial all by the Emperor Gratian That when the Western Empire fell into the hands of the French the Councils of Akon Mentz Meldun Wormes and Colen received both life and
Apologet cap. 39. disciplinam nihilominus praeceptorum inculcationibus densamus We meet saith he in an Assembly or Congregation that we may besiege God in our prayers as with an Army Such violence is acceptable unto God We pray for Emperors and their Ministers and Potestates for the state of the whole world the quiet government of the affairs thereof and for the putting off of the last day We are assembled to commemorate or hear the holy Scriptures if the condition of our present state doth either need to be premonished or reviewed Assuredly by the repetition of those holy words our faith is nourished our hope assured our confidence confirmed yet so that the severity of discipline is strengthened by the frequent inculcating of Gods Commandments In which description of their meetings there is no mention of the Eucharist not that it was not Celebrated then in all publick Assemblies but because as Cassander well observeth ad Paganos nondum initiatos sermo haberetur he did address his whole discourse to Heathen-men such as were not yet initiated in the faith of Christ to whom the Christians of those times imparted not the knowledge of the holy Mysteries In other of his books especially in those entituled ad uxorem there 's enough of that Nor is it to be thought because Tertullian speaks not of the present place nor Justin Martyr in the passage produced before that they sung no Psalms nor gave that part of worship no convenient place in the performance of their Service We find that and the course of their publick worship thus pointed at unto us in another place Jam vero prout Scripturae leguntur aut Psalmi canuntur aut adlocutiones proferuntur Id. de Anima cap. 9. aut petitiones delegantur ita inde materae visionibus subministrantur Now saith he as the Scriptures are read or Psalms sung or Exhortations made or Prayers tendred so is matter ministred unto her visions Where we may see that singing of the Psalms was in use amongst them as well as any other part of publick worship of what sort soever Conceive by singing here as in other Books and Authors about this time such singing of the Psalms as is now in use in the Cathedrals of this Kingdom after a plain tune as it is directed in the Rubricks of the Common-prayer book and not the singing of the Psalms in Metre as hath been used and is still in Parochial Churches The singing in those times in use was little more than a melodious pronunciation though afterwards upon occasion of a Canon made in the Council of Laodicea it came to be more perfect and exact according to the rules of harmony and in St. Austins time was so full and absolute that he ascribes a great cause of his conversion to the powers thereof calling to mind those frequent tears quas fudi ad cantus Ecclesiae tuae which had been drawn from him by this sacred Musick by which his soul was humbled and his affections raised to the height of godliness But whatsoever was the Musick of these first times Musick assuredly they had in their publick service as Tertullian tells us whom we may credit in this point And if we please to look we may be also sure to find the same in that place of Pliny which before we touched at Which here take more at large in the Authors words The Christians on examination did acknowledge Plin. Ep. 97. l. 10. Euser hist Eccl. l. ◠c. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 quod soliti essent state die ante lucem convenire carmenque Christo tanquam Deo canere secum invicem seque sacramento non in scelus aliquod obstringere sed ne furta ne larocinia ne adulteria committerent ne fidem fallerent ne depositum appellati abnegarent His peractis morem sihi discedendi fuisse rursusque coeundi ad capiendum cibum promiscuum tamen innoxium They did confess saith he that they were accustomed to assemble on their appointed times before day-light and to sing Hymns or Songs of praise to Christ as to a god amongst themselves and to bind themselves by Oath or Sacrament not to the doing of any wickedness but not to commit Thefts Robberies or Adulteries demanded and this being done they used to depart and then meet again to eat together their meat being ordinary and the manner of their eating inoffensive Which last was added as I take it to clear them of the slander which was raised against them by their malicious Enemies who charged them with eating humane flesh and the blood of Infants as you may see in most of the Apologies which the Christians published in those times Note also that their meeting thus to eat together which is here last spoken of by Pliny was for their Love-feasts or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 described so fully by Tertullian in his Apologetick and by him also joyned to the description of their course or order at their publick meetings But here perhaps it will be said that the question is not at the present about a set order or Rubrick of Administrations but about set and imposed Forms of prayer Vindication of Smectymn p. 19 And that although Tertullian do describe a set course and order yet he is quite against a set From of prayer where he saith That the Christians of those times did in their publick Assemblies pray sine monitore quia de pectore without any prompter but their own hearts Smectym p. 7. And say they that it should be so the same Father as they call him proves in his Treatise de Oratione Sunt quae petuntur c. There are some things to be asked according to the occasions of every man the lawful and ordinary prayer that is the Lords prayer being laid as a foundation it is lawful to build upon that foundation other prayers according to every ones occasion So they and to them it may thus be answered that either those two passages of Tertullian are ill laid together or else they must be understood of private not of publick prayer For that the latter place is meant of those private prayers which every man may make for his own occasions is beyond all question And in their private Prayers it is not denied but men may use what words and what Forms they please so they consider as they ought what it is they ask and of whom they ask it And if this place be meant of private prayer as by the Authors drift and scope it appears to be then must the other passage be so understood or else they are ill laid together as before was said Now that the other place so insisted on is also meant of private not of publick Prayers will appear by this that there Tertullian speaks of the private carriage of the Christians and of their good affections to the Roman Emperors but medleth not with their behaviour as a publick body assembled and convened for a
at the end of every Psalm they should add these words Glory be to the Father and to the Son c. Which being thus ordained in the Churches of the Roman Patriarchate became forthwith admitted also into other Churches of the West as appears plainly by that Canon of the Council of Vaisons which you had before which I choose rather to refer with the Collector of the Councils to the time of Theodosius the 2d who lived after Damasus than with Baronius to the year 337. when no such Form to which that Canon doth relate had gotten any footing in the Western Liturgies Now the said Canon taking notice of a former usage of some other Churches where this Doxologie was added at the end of the Psalms ordains the like to be observed in the Churches of France quod nos in universis Ecclesiis nostris dicendum esse decrevimus Concil Valens Can. 5. as their words there are And to this purpose besides that of Cassian which we shall presently produce for another point we may add these words of Pope Vigilius he began his Popedom An. 535. who in his Epistle unto Eleutherius gives us this short note In fine Psalmorum ab omnibus Catholicis ex more dici Gloria Patri filio c. That is to say Ep. Vigilii in Concil Tom. 2. that Gloria Patri was subjoyned at the end of the Psalms according to the antient custom by all Catholick persons As for the gesture which was used both by Priest and People at the repeating of this Doxologie it was the same with that which is still retained They said it standing on their feet And this appears expresly by the words of Cassian who telleth us that in the Province of Gaul Narbonnoyse where he then lived it was the custom of the Church Cassian lib. 2. cap. 8. in clausula psalmi omnes astantes concinere cum clamore Gloria Patri c. That at the close of every Psalm the whole Congregation standing up did sing together with a loud voice Glory be to the Father c. Contrary to the custom of the Eastern Churches In which it is to be observed that the singularity noted by that Author to have been used in those Countreys at the pronouncing of the Gloria Patri was not in that the Congregation stood upon their feet at the repeating of the same which was most like to be the custom of the East Churches also but that it was subjoyned in Gaul Narbonnoyse as in all Churches of the West at the end of the Psalms whereas it was used only in the East at the end of the Anthems as before was shewn you from this Author Now Cassian was S. Chrysostoms Scholar if not his Convert and lived about the year 430. before the Church was overgrown with needless Ceremonies or that the native piety of the true Religion was overshadowed by the superstitions of the Church of Rome 'T is true we find not any Canon which enjoyned this gesture but that it was first taken up by the voluntary usage and consent of Christian people who might conceive that gesture to be fittest for it in regard that it contained not only a bare Form of giving glory to the Lord but also a profession of the Christian Faith in the great mystery of the holy undivided Trinity and therefore fit to be pronounced in that very posture in which from all Antiquity they rehearsed their Creed And being so taken up as before was said it hath been still retained in the general practice of the Church to this very day not by any Canon of the Church or decree of Pope or other Ecclesiastical Constitution but ex vi Catholicae consuetudinis by force of a continual Catholick custom which in such points as these hath the power of Law For though in Articles of the Faith which are the credenda of the Church we may say with Hierom Hieron advers Jovinian Non credimus quia non legimus We are not bound to submit our belief unto them but as they are expressed in the Word of God or else deduced from the same by plain and evident illation yet in the outward Forms of Worship which are the Agenda of the Church we must say with the good Fathers of the Nicene Council 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Concil Nicen. Can. Let antient customs be observed and prevail amongst us And this is that for which S. Basil pleadeth so heartily in the very case of this Doxologie Where first he lays it for a ground 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. That if we take away all unwritten usages from the Church of God as being of no efficacy in his publick service we shall do great detriment to the Gospel 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and in conclusion make the preaching of the Word but a powerless name Basil de Sp. S. c. 27. Of which kind he accounts and nameth the signing of the true Believers with the sign of the Cross 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 their turning towards the East when they said their prayers the Form of Consecrating the Bread and Wine in the blessed Sacrament of the Lords Supper the hallowing of the Water for the Sacrament of Baptism the trina immersio used of old 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and the renouncing of the Devil and his Angels still in use amongst us And of this kind was that particular gesture which is now in question not recommended to our observation by any particular Law or Canon but only by successional tradition and the continual practice of the Christian Church which is Authority sufficient for a greater matter And in this track the Church of England went at her Reformation when she ordained according to the antient Canons that at the end of every Psalm throughout the year and likewise at the end of Benedictus Benedicite Magnificat and Nunc dimittis shall be repeated Rubrick before Te Deum Glory be to the Father c. As it was in the beginning c. But for the gesture to be used referred it to the antient practice of the Church of Christ as formerly the Church had done in the self same case Which practice hath been constantly preserved since the Reformation in all the Cathedrals of this Kingdom in the Chappels Royal and in some Parish Churches also to which and to the usage of the primitive times it is more just and reasonable that all particular persons should conform themselves than that the antient and unblamable usages of the Church of God should be changed and varied according to the wild affections of particular men The Church is now as much in danger to be infected and destroyed by the Socinian Blasphemies as ever heretofore by the Arian Heresies and therefore this Doxologie as necessary in these present times and to be said with as great reverence and solemnity by all good Christian people as in those before We cannot better make profession of our faith in the
or exhorting but taking to themselves the liberty of their own expression for the phrase and stile according to the purpose and effect of the said Injunction And it is worth our noting too that presently upon the end of this exhortation or bidding of the Prayers used by Dr. Parker there followeth in the book these words Hic factae sunt tacitae preces By all which we may perceive most evidently that it was then the peoples practice and is now our duty immediately upon the bidding of the Prayers or on the Preachers moving of the people to joyn with them in Prayer as the Canon hath it to recollect the heads recommended to them and tacitly to represent them to the Lord in their devotions or otherwise to comprechend them in the Pater-noster with which the Preacher by the Canon is to close up all And now being come to the times of King Edward the sixth we will next look on Bishop Latimer the fourth of these five Prelates whom before I spake of who living in King Henry and King Edwards times and in their times using that Form of bidding Prayers which is prescribed both in the Canon and Injunctions shews plainly that the antient practice in this kind was every way conform to the present Canon and the old Injunctions And first to keep our selves to King Edwards Reign we have eight passages in his Sermons preached in that Kings time whereby we may perceive what the usage was six of them laid down in brief and two more at large the two last being as a comment on the former six of the six brief the first occurs in his 2d p. 33. Sermon before King Edward thus Hitherto goeth the Text That I may declare this the better to the edifying of your Souls and the glory of God I shall desire you to pray c. So in his third before the King p. 42. March the 22. Before I enter further into this matter I shall desire you to pray c. And in the fourth March 29. That I may have grace so to open the remnant of this Parable that it may be to the glory of God and edifying of your souls I shall desire you to pray in the which prayer c. And in the 5th Sermon before the King on the 6th of April p. 51. having entred on his matter he thus invites them to their Prayers And that I may have grace c. So in the sixth April the 13th This is the story and that I may declare this Text so as it may be to the honour of God and the edifying of your souls and mine both I shall desire you to help me with your prayers in the which c. The last is in a Sermon before that King p. 108. Preached at the Court in Westm An. 1550. where he doth it thus Here therefore I shall desire you to pray c. These instances compared with the other two make the matter plain whereof the first is in the seventh before King Edward April 19. 1549. Thus This day we have in memory Christs bitter passion and death the remedy of our Sin Therefore I intend to treat of a piece of the story of his passion I am not able to treat of all that I may do this the better and that it may be to the honour of God and the edification of your Souls and mine both I shall desire you to pray c. In this prayer I shall desire you to remember the Souls departed with laud and praise to Almighty God that he did vouchsafe to assist them at the hour of their death I shall desire you to pray c. And in the which c. What mean these caetera's That we shall see most manifestly in his Sermon Preached at Stamford p. 88. Octob. 9. 1550. which shews indeed most fully that the Form of bidding Prayers then used was every way conform to the Injunction of King Edward VI. and very near the same which was prescribed after by the Queens Injunction For having as before proposed his matter he thus bids the Prayers And that I may at this time so declare them as may be for Gods glory your edifying and my discharge I pray you to help me with your prayers in the which prayer c. For the Vniversal Church of Christ through the whole world c. for the preservation of our Sovereign Lord King Edward the Sixth sole Supreme Head under God and Christ of the Churches of England and Ireland c. Secondly for the Kings most honourable Council Thirdly I commend unto you the Souls departed this life in the Faith of Christ that ye remember to give laud praise and thanks to Almighty God for his great goodness and mercy shewed unto them in that great need and conflict against the Devil and Sin and that gave them in the hour of death faith in his Sons Death and Passion whereby they conquer and overcome and get the victory Give thanks I say for this adding prayers and supplications for your selves that it may please God to give you like faith and grace to trust only in the death of his dear Son as he gave unto them For as they be gone so must we and the Devil will be as ready to tempt us as he was them and our sins will light as heavy upon us as theirs did upon them and we were as weak and unable to resist as were they Pray therefore that we may have Grace to die in the same faith as they did and at the latter day to be raised with Abraham Isaac and Jacob and be partakers with Christ in the Kingdom of Heaven for this and all other graces let us say the Lords prayer Now unto Bishop Latimer we will joyn another of the same time and as high a calling which is Dr. Gardiner Bishop of Winchester of whom whatever may be said in other respects in this it cannot be objected but that he followed the Form and Order then prescribed for in a Sermon Preached before King Edward VI. Anno 1550. being the Fourth of that Kings Reign before the naming of his Text for ought appears he thus bids the Prayer Most honourable Audience I purpose by the grace of God to declare some part of the Gospel that is accustomably used to be read in the Church at this day and that because without the special grace of God neither I can speak any thing to your edifying nor ye receive the same accordingly I shall desire you all that we may joyntly pray all together for the assistance of his grace In which prayer I commend to Almighty God your most excellent Majesty our Sovereign Lord King of England France and Ireland and of the Church of England and Ireland next and immediately under God here on earth Supream Head Q. Katharine Dowager my L. Maries grace and my L. Elizabeths grace your Majesties most dear Sisters my L. Protectors grace with all others of your most honourable
the Baise-maine which consists of Offerings Churchings Burials Diriges and such other casualties amounteth to as much per annum as their standing rents Upon which ground Sir Edwin Sandys computeth their Revenue at six millions yearly In Italy besides the temporal Estate of the Popes of Rome the Clergy are conceived to have in some places a third part of the whole but in most a moiety In Spain the certain rents of the Archbishoprick of Toledo are said to be no less than 300000 Crowns per annum which is far more than all the Bishops Deans and Prebendaries do possess in England In Germany the Bishops for the most part are powerful Princes and the Canons of some Churches of so fair an Intrado and of such estimation amongst the people that the Emperours have thought it no disparagement to them to have a Canons place in some of their Churches And as for the Parochial Clergy in these three last Countreys especially in Spain and Italy where the people are more superstitious than they be in Germany there is no question but that the Vailes and Casualties are as beneficial to them as the Baise-main is to the French But here perhaps it will be said that this is nothing unto us of the Realm of England who have shook off the superstitions of the Church of Rome and that our pains is spent but to little purpose unless we can make good our Thesis in the Churches Protestant We must therefore cast about again and first beginning with France as before we did we shall find that those of the Reformed party there not only pay their Tithes to the Beneficiary who is presented by the Patron to the Cure or Title or to the Church or Monastery to which the Tithes are settled by Appropriations but over and above do raise a yearly maintenance for those that minister amongst them Just as the Irish Papists pay their Tithes and duties unto the Protestant Incumbent and yet maintain their own Priests too by their gifts and offerings or as the people in some places with us in England do pay their Tithes unto the Parson or Vicar whom the Law sets over them and raise a contribution also for their Lecturer whom they set over themselves In other Countreys where the Supream Governours are Reformed or Protestant the case is somewhat better with the common people although not generally so easie as with us in England For there the Tithes are taken up by the Prince or State and yearly pensions assigned out of them to maintain the Ministers which for the most part are so small and so far short of a Competency though by that name they love to call it that the Subject having paid his Tithes to the Prince or State is fain to add something out of his purse towards the mending of the Stipend Besides there being for the most part in every Church two distinct sorts of Ministers that is to say a Pastor who hath Cure of souls and performs all Ministerial offices in his Congregation and a Doctor like our English Lecturers which took hint from hence who only medleth with the Word The Pastor only hath his Stipend from the publick treasury the Doctor being maintained wholly as I am credibly informed at the charge of the people and that not only by the bounty or benevolence of Landed men but in the way of Contribution from which no sort of people of what rank soever but such as live on Alms or the poor Mans box is to be exempted But this is only in the Churches of Calvins platform those of the Lutheran party in Denmark Swethland and high Germany having their Tithes and Glebe as they had before and so much more in Offerings than with us in England by how much they come nearer to the Church of Rome both in their practice and opinions especially in the point of the holy Sacrament than the English do And as for our dear Brethren of the Kirk of Scotland who cannot be so soon forgotten by a true born English man the Tithes being setled for the most part on Religious houses came in their fall unto the Crown and out of them a third was granted to maintain their Minister but also ill paid while the Tithes remained in the Crown and worse than alienated to the use of private Gentlemen that the greatest part of the burden for support of the Ministry lay in the way of contribution on the backs of the people And as one ill example doth beget another such Lords and Gentlemen as had right to present to Churches following the steps of those who held the Tithes from the Crown soon made Lay-fees of all the Tithes of their own demesnes and left the Presentee such a sorry pittance as made him burthensome to his Neighbours for his better maintenance How it stands with them now since these late alterations those who have took the National Covenant and I presume are well acquainted with the Discipline and estate of the Scottish Kirk which they have bound themselves to defend and keep are better able to resolve us And so much for the proof of the first proposition namely That never any Clergy in in the Church of God hath been or is maintained with less charge of the Subject than the established Clergy of the Church of England And yet the proof hereof will be more convincing if we can bring good evidence for the second also which is II. That there is no man in the Kingdom of England who payeth any thing of his own towards the maintenance and support of his Parish Minister but his Easter-Offering And that is a Paradox indeed will the Reader say Is it not visible to the eye that the Clergy have the tenth part of our Corn and Cattel and of other the increase and fruits of the Earth Do not the people give them the tenth part of their Estates saith one of my Pamphlets Have they not all their livelihoods out of our purses saith another of them Assuredly neither so nor so All that the Clergy doth receive from the purse of the Subject for all the pains he takes amongst them is two pence at Easter He claims no more than this as due unless the custom of the place as I think in some parts it is bring it up to six pence If any thing be given him over this by some bountiful hand he takes it for a favour and is thankful for it Such profits as come in by Marriages Churchings and Funeral-Sermons as they are generally small and but accidental so he is bound unto some special service and attendance for it His constant standing fee which properly may be said to come out of the Subjects Purse for the administration of the Word and Sacraments is nothing but the Easter-offering The Tithes are legally his own not given unto him by the Subject as is now pretended but paid unto him as a Rent-charge laid upon the Land and that before the Subject either Lord or Tenant
had any thing to do in the Land at all For as I am informed by Sir Edward Coke in his Comment upon Littletons Tenures lib. 1. cap. 9. Sect. 73. fol. 58. It appeareth by the Laws and Ordinances of ancient Kings and especially of King Alfred that the first King of this Realm had all the lands of England in Demesne and les grands manours royalties they reserved to themselves and with the remnant they for the defence of the Realm enfeoffed the Barons of the Realm with such jurisdiction as the Court Baron now hath So he the professed Champion of the Common Laws And at this time it was when all the Lands in England were the Kings Demesne that Ethelwolph the second Monarch of the Saxon race his father Egbert being the first which brought the former Heptarchie under one sole Prince conferred the Tithes of all the Kingdom upon the Church by his royal Charter Of which thus Ingulph Abbot of Crowland an old Saxon Writer a Anno 855. Rex Ethelwulfus omnium Praelatorum Principum suorum qui sub ipso variis Provinciis totius Angliae praeerant gratuito Consensu tunc primo cum decimis terrarum bonorum aliorum sive catallorum universam dotavit Ecclesiam per suum Regium Chirographum Ingulph Anno 855. which was the 18. of his Reign King Ethelwulph with the consent of his Prelates and Princes which ruled in England under him in their several Provinces did first enrich the Church of England with the Tithes of all his Lands and Goods by his Charter Royal. Ethelward an old Saxon and of the blood Royal doth express it thus b Decimavit de omni possessione sua in partem Domini in universo regimine Principatus sui sic constituit Ethelward He gave the Tithe of his possessions for the Lords own portion and ordered it to be so in all the parts of the Kingdom under his command Florence of Worcester in these words c Aethelwulphus Rex decimam totius Regni sui partem ab omni Regali servitio tributo liberavit in sempiterno Graphio in Cruce Christi pro Redemptione Animae suae Praedecessorum suorum uni trino Deo immolavit Florent Wigorn. King Ethelwolfe for the Redemption of his own soul and the souls of his Predecessors discharged the tenth part of his Realm of all Tributes and Services due unto the Crown and by his perpetual Charter signed with the sign of the Cross offered it to the three-one God Roger of Hovenden hath it in the self same words and Huntingdon more briefly thus d Totam terram suam propter amorem Dei Redemptionem ad opes Ecclesiarum decimavit Henr. Huntingd. That for the love of God and the redemption of his soul he tithed his whole Dominions to the use of the Church But what need search be made into so many Authors when the Charter it self is extant in old Abbot Ingulph and in Matthew of Westminster and in the Leiger Book of the Abbey of Abingdon which Charter being offered by the King on the Altar at Winchester in the presence of his Barons was received by the Bishops and by them sent to be published in all the Churches of their several Diocesses a clause being added by the King saith the Book of Abingdon That whosoever added to the gift e Qui augere voluerit nostram donationem augeat omnipotens Deus dies ejus prosperos siquis vero mutare vel minuere praesumpserit noscat se ad Tribunal Christi redditurum rationem nisi prius satisfactione emendaverit God would please to prosper and increase his days but that if any did presume to diminish the same he should be called to an account for it at Christs Judgment-seat unless he made amends by full satisfaction In which as in some other of the former passages as there is somewhat savouring of the errour of those darker times touching the merit of good works yet the authorities are strong and most convincing for confirmation of the point which we have in hand Now that the King charged all the Lands of the Kingdom with the payment of Tithes and not that only which he held in his own possession is evident both by that which was said before from Sir Edward Coke and by the several passages of the former Authors For if all the Lands in the Kingdom were the Kings Demesnes and the King conferred the Tithes of all his Lands on the Church of God it must follow thereupon that all the Lands of the Realm were charged with Tithes before they were distributed amongst the Barons for defence of the Kingdom And that the Lands of the whole Realm were thus charged with Tithes as well that which was parted in the hands of Tenants as that which was in the occupancy of the King himself the words before alledged do most plainly evidence where it is said that he gave the tenth of all his Lands as Ingulph the Tithe of his whole Land as Henry of Huntingdon the tenth part of his whole Kingdom as in Florence of Worcester the tenth part of the Lands throughout the Kingdom in the Charter it self And finally in the Book of Abingdon the Charter is ushered in with this following Title viz. Quomodo Ethelwolfus Rex dedit decimam partem regni sui Ecclesiis that is to say how Ethelwolf gave unto the Church the tenth part of his Kingdom This makes it evident that the King did not only give de facto the Tithe or the tenth part of his whole Realm to the use of the Clergy but that he had a right and a power to do it as being not only the Lord Paramount but the Proprietary of the whole Lands the Lords and great Men of the Realm not having then a property or estates of permanency but as accomptants to the King whose the whole land was And though it seems by Ingulph their consents were asked and that they gave a free consent to the Kings Donation yet was this but a matter of Form and not simply necessary their approbation and consent being only asked either because the King was not willing to do any thing to the disherison of his Crown without the liking and consent of the Peers or that having their consent and approbation they should be barred from pleading any Tenant-right and be obliged to stand in maintenance and defence thereof against all pretenders And this appears yet further by a Law of King Athelstanes made in the year 930 about which time not only the Prelates of the Church as formerly but the great Men of the Realm began to be setled in Estates of permanency and to claim a property in those Lands which they held of the Crown and claiming so begun it seems to make bold to subduct their Tithes For remedy whereof the King made this Law commanding all his Ministers throughout the Kingdom that in the first place they should pay the Tithes
the City Provinces As for the Church of Antiochia it spread its bounds and jurisdiction over those goodly Countries of the Roman Empire from the Mediterranean on the West unto the furthest border of that large dominion where it confined upon the Persian or the Parthian Kingdom together with Cilicia and Isauria in the lesser Asia But whether at this time it was so extended I am not able to determine Certain I am that in the very first beginning of this Age all Syria at the least was under the jurisdiction of this Bishop Ignatius in his said Epistle to those of Rome Ignat. ad Rom. stiling himself 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 not a Bishop in Syria but the Bishop of Syria which sheweth that there being many Bishops in that large Province he had a power and superiority over all the rest Indeed the Bishops of Hierusalem were hedged within a narrower compass being both now and long time after subject unto the Metropolitan of Caesarea as appears plainly by the Nicene Canon though after they enlarged their border and gained the title of a Patriarch as we may see hereafter in convenient time Only I add that howsoever other of the greater Metropolitan Churches such as were absolute and independent as Carthage Cyprus Millain the Church of Britain Concil Ni. c. 7◠and the rest had and enjoyed all manner of Patriarchal rights which these three enjoyed yet only the three Bishops of Rome Antioch and Alexandria had in the Primitive times the names of Patriarches by reason of the greatness of the Cities themselves being the principal both for power and riches in the Roman Empire the one for Europe the other for Asia and the third for Africk This ground thus laid we will behold what use is made of this Episcopal succession by the ancient writers And first Saint Irenaeus a Bishop and a Martyr both derives an argument from hence to convince those Hereticks which broached strange Doctrines in the Church Iren. contr haer lib. 3. cap. 3. Habemus annumerari eos qui ab Apostolis instituti sunt Episcopi in Ecclesiis c. we are able to produce those men which were ordained Bishops by the Apostles in their several Churches and their successors till our times qui nihil tale docuerunt neque cognoverunt quale ab hiis deliratur who neither knew nor taught any such absurdities as these men dream of Which said in general he instanceth in the particular Churches of Rome Ephesus and Smyrna being all founded by the Apostles and all of them hac ordinatione successione by this Episcopal ordination and succession deriving from the Apostles the Preaching and tradition of Gods holy truth till those very times The like we find also in another place where speaking of those Presbyteri so he calleth the Bishops which claimed a succession from the Apostles He tells us this quod cum Episcopatus successione charisma veritatis certum secundum placitum Patris acceperunt that together with the Episcopal succession Ir. adv haeres l. 4. cap. 43. they had received a certain pledge of truth according to the good pleasure of the Father See to this purpose also cap. 63. where the same point is pressed most fully and indeed much unto the honour of this Episcopal succession Where because Irenaeus called Bishops in the former place by the name of Presbyters I would have no man gather Smectym p. 23. as some men have done that he doth use the name of Bishops and Presbyters 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in a promiscuous sense much less conclude that therefore Presbyters and Bishops were then the same For although Irenaeus doth here call the Bishops either by reason of their age or of that common Ordination which they once received by the name of Presbyters yet he doth no where call the Presbyters by the name of Bishops as he must needs have done if he did use the names 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in a promiscuous sense as it is supposed And besides Irenaeus being at this time Bishop if not Archbishop of the Church of Lyons could not but know that he was otherwise advanced both in power and title as well in Dignity as Jurisdiction than when he was a Presbyter of that very Church under Pothinus his Predecessor in that See and therefore not the same man meerly which he was before But to let pass as well the observation as the inference certain I am that by this argument the holy Father did conceive himself to be armed sufficiently against the Hereticks of his time and so much he expresseth plainly saying that by this weapon he was able to confound all those qui quoquo modo vel per sui placentiam malam vel vanam gloriam vel per coecitatem malam sententiam praeter quam oportet Ire adv haeres l. 3. c. 3. colligunt Who any way either out of an evil self complacency or vain-glorious humour or blindness of the mind or a depraved understanding did raise such Doctrins as they ought not So much for blessed Irenaeus a man of peace as well in disposition and affection as he was in name Next let us look upon Tertullian who lived in the same time with Irenaeus beginning first to be of credit about the latter end of this second Century Baron ann eccl anno 196. Pamel in vita Tertull. as Baronius calculates it and being at the height of reputation an 210. as Pamelius noteth about which time Saint Irenaeus suffered Martyrdom And if we look upon him well we find him pressing the same point with greater efficacy than Irenaeus did before him For undertaking to convince the Hereticks of his time as well of falshood as of novelties and to make known the new upstartedness of their Assemblies which they called the Church he doth thus proceed Tertull. de praes adv haeres c. 32. Edant ergo origines ecclesiarum suarum evolvant ordinem Episcoporum suorum c. Let them saith he declare the original of their Churches let them unfold the course or order of their Bishops succeeding so to one another from the first beginning that their first Bishop whosoever he was had some of the Apostles or of the Apostolical men at least who did converse with the Apostles to be their founder and Predecessor For thus the Apostolical Churches do derive their Pedegree Thus doth the Church of Smyrna shew their Polycarpus placed there amongst them by Saint John and Rome her Clement Consecrated or Ordained by Peter even as all other Churches also do exhibit to us the names of those who being Ordained Bishops by the Apostles did sow the Apostolical seed in the field of God This was the challenge that he made And this he had not done assuredly had he not thought that the Episcopal succession in the Church of Christ had been an evident demonstration of the truth thereof which since the Hereticks could not shew in their Congregations or Assemblies it
burdensome there being many casus reservati wherein they could dispense with the fourth Commandment though not with any of the other Had they been all alike equally natural and moral as it is conceived they had been all alike observed all alike immutable no jot or syllable of that Law which was ingraft by nature in the soul of man being to fall unto the ground till Heaven and Earth shall pass away and decay together till the whole frame of Nature Luk. 16.17 for preservation of the which the Law was given be dissolved for ever The Abrogation of the Sabbath which before we spake of shews plainly that it was no part of the Moral Law or Law of Nature there being no Law natural which is not perpetual Tertullian takes it for confest or at least makes it plain and evident Contr. Mare l. 2. Temporale fuisse mandatum quod quandoque cessaret that it was only a temporary constitution which was in time to have an end And after him Procopius Gazaeus in his notes on Exodus e. 16. lays down two several sorts of Laws whereof some were to be perpetual and some were not of which last sort were Circumcision and the Sabbath Quae duraverunt usque in adventum Christi which lasted till our Saviours coming and he being come went out insensibly of themselves For as S. Ambrose rightly tells us In Col. 2.16 Absent imperatore imago ejus habet autoritatem praesente non habet c. What time the Emperour is absent we give some honour to his State or representation but none at all when he is present And so saith he the Sabbaths and New-moons and the other Festivals before our Saviours coming had a time of honour during the which they were observed but he being present once they became neglected But hereof we have spoke more fully in our former Book Neglected not at once and upon the sudden but leisurely and by degrees There were preparatives unto the Sabbath as before we shewed before it was proclaimed as a Law by Moses and there were some preparatives required before that Law of Moses was to be repealed These we shall easiliest discover if we shall please to look on our Saviours actions who gave the first hint unto his Disciples for the abolishing of the Sabbath amongst other ceremonies It 's true that he did frequently repair unto the Synagogues on the Sabbath days and on those days did frequently both read and expound the Law unto the People And he came to Nazareth saith the Text where be had been brought up and as his custom was he went into the Synagogue on the Sabbath day Luk. 4.16 and stood up to read It was his custom so to do both when he lived a private life to frequent the Synagogue that other men might do the like by his good example and after when he undertook the Ministery to expound the Law unto them there that they might be the better by his good instructions Yet did not he conceive that teaching or expounding the Word of God was annexed only to the Synagogue or to the Sabbath That most divine and heavenly Sermon which takes up three whole Chapters of S. Matthew's Gospel was questionless a weak days work and so were most of those delivered to us in S. John as also that which he did preach unto them from the Ship side and divers others Nay the Text tells us that he went through every City and Village Preaching and shewing the glad tydings of God Luk. 8.1 Too great a task to be performed only on the Sabbath days and therefore doubt we not but that all days equally were taken up for so great a business So when he sent out his Apostles to Preach the Kingdom of God he bound them not to days and times but left all at liberty that they might take their best advantages as occasion was and lose no time in the advancing of their Masters service Now as in this he seemed to give all days the like prerogative with the Sabbath so many other ways did he abate that estimation which generally the People had conceived of the Sabbath day And howsoever the opinion which the People generally had conceived thereof was grounded as the times then were on superstition rather than true sense of piety yet that opinion once abated it was more easily prepared for a dissolution and went away at last with less noise and clamour Particulars of this nature we will take along as they lie in order His casting out the unclean spirit out of a man in the Synagogue of Caperndum on the Sabbath day his curing of Peters Wives Mother and healing many which were sick of divers diseases on the self same day being all works of marvellous mercy and effected only by his word brought no clamour with them But when he cured the impotent man at the Pool of Bethesda and had commanded him to take up his Bed and walk Joh. 5. then did the Jews begin to Persecute him and seek to slay him And how did he excuse the matter My Father worketh bitherto saith he and I also work Hom. 23. in Numer Ostendens per hac in nullo seculi bujus Sabbato requiescere Deum à dispensationibus mundi provisionibus generis humani Whereby saith Origen he let them understand that there was never any Sabbath wherein God rested or left off from having a due care of man-kind and therefore neither would he intermit such a weighty business in any reference to the Sabbath Joh. 7. Which answer when it pleased them not but that they sought their times to kill him he then remembreth them how they upon the Sabbath used to Circumcise a man and that as lawfully he might do the one as they the other This precedent made his Disciples a little bolder than otherwise perhaps they would have been Pulling the ears of Corn Matth. 12. and rubbing them with their hands and eating them to satisfie and allay their hunger Li. 1. haeres 30. n. 32. which Epiphanius thinks they would not have done though they were an hungred had they not found both by his doctrine and example that the Sabbath did begin to be in its declination For which when he and they were joyntly questioned by the Pharisees he choaks them with the instances of what David did in the same extremity when he ate the Shew-bread and what the Priests did every Sabbath when they slew the Sacrifices In which it is to be considered that in these several defences our Saviour goes no higher than the legal Ceremonies the Sacrifice the Shew-bread and the Circumcision No argument or parallel case drawn for his justification from the moral Law or any such neglect thereof on the like occasions Which plainly shews that he conceived the Sabbath to be no part or member of the moral Law Luk. 6.6 Hom. de Semente but only to be ranked amongst the Mosaical Ordinances It happened
Kingdom So great is their delight therein and with such eagerness they pursue it when they are at leisure from their business that as it seems they do neglect the Church on the Holy-days that they may have the more time to attend their Dancing Upon which ground it was 〈…〉 and not that Dancing was conceived to be no lawful sport for the Lords day that in the Council of Sens Anno 1524. in that of Paris Anno 1557. in those of Rhemes and Tours Anno 1583. and finally in that of Bourges Anno 1584. dancing on Sundays and the other Holy-days hath been prohibited prohibited indeed but practised by the People notwithstanding all their Canons But this concerns the French and their Churches only our Northern Nations not being so bent upon the sport as to need restraint Only the Polish Churches did conclude in the Synod of Petricow before remembred that Tavern-meetings Drinking-matches Dice Cards and such like pastimes as also Musical Instruments and Dances should on the Lords day be forbidden But then it followeth with this clause Praesertim eo temporis momento quo concio cultus divinus in temple peragitur especially at that instant time when men should be at Church to hear the Sermon and attend Gods worship Which clearly shews that they prohibited dancing and the other pastimes then recited no otherwise than as they were a means to keep men from Church Probably also they might be induced unto it by such French Protestants as came into that Countrey with the Duke of Anjou when he was chosen King of Poland Anno. 1574. which was four years before this Council As for the Churches of the East being now heavily oppressed with Turkish bondage we have not very much to say Yet by that little which we find thereof it seems the Lords day keeps that honour which before it had and that the Saturday continues in the same regard wherein once it was both of them counted days of Feasting and both retained for the Assemblies of the Church First that they are both days of Feasting or at the least exempted from their publick Fasts appears by that which is related by Christopher Angelo a Graecian whom I knew in Oxford De institut Graec. c. 16. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that on the Saturday and Sunday which we call the Lords day they do both eat Oyl and drink Wine even in Lent it self whereas on other days they feed on Pulse and drink only water Then that they both are still retained for the Assemblies of the Church with other Holy-days he tells us in another place where it is said Id. c. 17. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. that for the Lords days and the Saturday and the other Festivals they use to go unto the Church on the Eve before and almost at midnight where they continue till the breaking up of the Congregation For the Egyptian Christians or Cophties as we call them now it is related by G. Sandys Travels l. 2. That on the Saturday presently after midnight they repair unto their Churches where they remain well nigh until Sunday at noon during which time they neither sit nor kneel but support themselves on Crutches and that they sing over the most part of Davids Psalms at every meeting with divers parcels of the Old and New Testament He hath informed us also of the Armenians another sort of Eastern Christians that coming into the place of the Assembly on Sunday in the afternoon he found one sitting in the middest of the Congregation in habit not differing from the rest reading on a Bible in the Chaldean tongue that anon after came the Bishop in an Hood or Vest of black with a staff in his hand that first he prayed and then sung certain Psalms assisted by two or three after all of them singing joyntly at interims praying to themselves the Bishop all this while with his hands erected and face towards the Altar That service being ended they all kissed his hand and bestowed their Alms he laying his other hand on their heads and blessing them finally that bidding the succeeding Fasts and Festivals he dismissed the Assembly The Muscovites being near unto the Greeks once within the jurisdiction of the Patriarch of Constantinople partake much also of their customs They count it an unlawful thing to fast the Saturday Gagvinus de Moscovit which shews that somewhat is remaining of that esteem in which once they had it and for the Holy-days Sundays as well as any other they do not hold themselves so strictly to them but that the Citizens and Artificers immediately after Divine Service betake themselves unto their labour and domestick businesses And this most probably is the custom also of all the Churches of the East as holding a Communion with the Church of Greece though not subordinate thereunto From the which Church of Greece the faith was first derived unto these Muscovites as before was said and with the faith the observation of this day and all the other Holy-days at that time in use As for the Country people as Gagvinus tells us they seldom celebrate or observe any day at all at least not with that care and order as they ought to do saying that it belongs only unto Lords and Gentlemen to keep Holy-days Last of all for the Habassines or Ethiopian Christians though further off in situation they come as near unto the fashions of the ancient Grecians Enquiries c. 23 Of them we are informed by Master Brerewood out of Damiani that they reverence the Sabbath keeping it solemn equally with the Lords day Emend Temp. lib. 7. Scaliger tells us that they call both of them by the name of Sabbaths the one the first the other the later Sabbath or in their own language the one Sanbath Sachristos that is Christs Sabbath the other Sanbath Judi or the Jews Sabbath Bellarmine thinks that they derived this observation of the Saturday or Sabbath from the Constitutions ascribed to Clemens which indeed frequently do press the observation of that day with no less fervour than the Sunday â—e Script Ecclin Clem. Of this we have already spoken And to this Bellarmine was induced the rather because that in the Country they had found authority and were esteemed as Apostolical Audio Ethiopes his Constitutionibus uti ut vere Apostolocis ea de causa in erroâ—ibus versari circa cultum Sabbati diei Dominicae But if this be an errour in them they have many partners and those of ancient standing in the Church of God as before was shewn As for their service on the Sunday they celebrate the Sacrament in the morning early except it be in the time of Lent when fasting all the day they discharge that duty in the Evening and then fall to meat as the same Scaliger hath recorded So having looked over all the residue of the Christian World and found no Sabbath in the same except only nominal and that
King c. hath ordained and established that no Cordwainer or Cobler within the City of London or within three miles of any part of the said City c. do upon any Sunday in the year or on the Feasts of the Ascension or Nativity of our Lord or on the Feasi of Corpus Christi sell or command to be sold any Shwe Huseans i. e. Bootes or Galoches or upon the Sunday or any other of the said Feasts shall set or put upon the feet or legs of any person any Shwes Huseans or Galoches upon pain of forfeiture and loss of O shillings as often as any person shall do contrary to this Ordinance Where note that this restraint was only for the City of London and the parts about it which shews that it was counted lawful in all places clse And therefore there must be some particular motive why this restraint was laid on those of London only either their insolencies or some notorious neglect of Gods publick service the Gentle craft had otherwise been ungently handled that they of all the Tradesmen in that populous City should be so restrained Note also that in this very Act there is a reservation or indulgence for the Inhabitants of S. Martins le Grand to do as formerly they were accustomed the said Act or Statute not withstanding 14 15 of H. 8. cap. 9. Which very clause did after move King Henry VIII to repeal this Statute that so all others of that trade might be free as they or as the very words of the Statute are That to the Honour of Almighty God all the Kings Subjects might be hereafter at their liberty as well as the Inbabitants of S. Martins le Grand Now where it seemeth by the Proeme of the Statute 17. of this King Edward IV. c. 3. that many in that time did spend their Holy-days in dice Quoits Tennis bowling and the like unlawful Games forbidden as is there affirmed by the Laws of the Realm which said unlawful Games are thereupon prohibited under a certain penalty in the Statute mentioned It is most manisest that the Prohibition was not in reference to the time Sundays or any other Holy-days but only to the Games themselves which were unlawful at all times For publick actions in the times of these two last Princes the greatest were the battels of Towton and Barnet one on Palm-Sunday and the other on Easter-day the greatest Fields that ever were fought in England And in this State things stood till King Henry VIII Now for the doctrine and the practice of these times before King Henry the VIII and the Reformation we cannot take a better view than in John de Burgo Chancellor of the University of Cambridg I pitta Oâ—â—i Pl. 12. 11. D. about the latter end of King Henry the sixth First Doctrinally he determincth as before was said that the Lords day was instituted by the authority of the Church and that it is no otherwise to be observed than by the Canons of the Church we are bound to keep it Then for the name of Sabbath that the Lords day quaelibet dies statuta ad divinam culturam Id. lb. E. and every day appointed for Gods publick service may be so entituled because in them we are to rest from all servile works such as are Arts Mechanick Husbandry Law-days and going to Markets with other things quae ab Ecclesia determinantur I l ply 5.9 cap. 7. H. which are determined by the Church Lastly that on those days insistendum est orationibus c. We must be busied at our prayers the publick service of the Church in Hymns and in spiritual Songs and in hearing Sermons Next practically for such things as were then allowed of he doth sort them thus First generally Non tamen prohibentur his diebus faccre quae pertinent ad providentiam necessariorum c. We are not those days restrained from doing such things as conduce to the providing of necessaries either for our selves or for our Neighbours as in preserving of our persons or of our substance or in avoiding any loss that might happen to us Id. ib. J. Particularly next si jacentibus c. In case our Corn and Hay in the Fields abroad be in danger of a Tempest we may bring it in yea though it be upon the Sabbath Butchers and Victualers if they make ready on the Holy days what they must sell the morrow after either in open Market or in their shops in case they cannot dress it on the day before or being dressed they cannot keep it Id. ib. L. non peccant mortaliter they fall not by so doing into mortal sin vectores mercium c. Carriers of Wares or Men or Victuals unto distant places in case they cannot do it upon other days without inconvenience are to be excused Barbers and Chirurgions Smiths or Farriers if on the Holy days they do the works of their daily labour Id. ib. M. especially propter necessitatem eorum quibus serviunt for the necessities of those who want their help are excusable also but not in case they do it chiefly for desire of gain Id. ib. N. Messengers Posts and Travellers that travel if some special occasion be on the Holy days whether they do it for reward or not non audeo condemnare are not at all to be condemned As neither Millers which do grind either with Water-mils or Wind-mils and so can do their Work without much labour but they may keep the custom of the place in the which they live not being otherwise commanded by their Ordinaries Id. ib. O. secus si traciu jumentorum multuram faciunt but if it be an Horse-mill then the case is altered So buying and selling on those days in some present exigent as the providing necessary Victuals for the day was not held unlawful dum tamen exercentes ea non subtrabunt se divinis officiis in case they did not thereby keep themselves from Gods publick Service Lastly Id. ib. Q. for Recreations for dancing on those days he determins thus that they which dance on any of the Holy days either to stir themselves or others unto carnal lusts commit mortal sin and so they do saith he in case they do it any day But it is otherwise if they dance upon honest causes and no naughty purpose and that the persons be not by Law restrained Choreas ducentes maxime in diebus sestis causa incitanda se vel alios ad peccatum mortale peccant mortaliter similiter si in profestis diebus hoc fiat secus si hoc fiat ex causa honesta intentione non corrupta à persona cui talia non sunt probibita With which determination I conclude this Chapter CHAP. VIII The story of the Lords Day from the Reformation of Religion in this Kingdom till this present time 1. The doctrine of the Sabbath and the Lords day delivered by three several Martyrs conformably
entertained in the Christian Church as also to have mercy on them for the neglect thereof in those Holy days which by the wisdom and authority of the Church had been set apart for Gods publick Service Besides this Prayer was then conceived when there was no suspition that any would make use thereof to introduce a Jewish Sabbath but when men rather were inclined to the contrary errour to take away those certain and appointed times Lords days and other Holy days which by the wisdom of the Church had been retained in the Reformation The Anabaptists were strongly bent that way as before we shewed and if we look into the Articles of our Church See Art 26.37 38 39. we shall then find what special care was taken to suppress their errours in other points which had taken footing as it seems in this Church and Kingdom Therefore the more likely it is that this Cluse was added to crush their furious fancies in this particular of not hallowing certain days and times to Gods publick Service Yet I conceive withal that had those Reverend Prelates foreseen how much their pious purpose would have been abused by wresting it to introduce a Sabbath which they never meant they would have cast their meaning in another mould Proceed we to the Reign of Queen Elizabeth that so much celebrated Princess and in the first place we shall meet with her Injunctions published the first year of her Empire in which the Sunday is not only counted with the other Holy days but labour at some times permitted and which is more enjoyn'd upon it For thus it pleased her to declare her will and pleasure Injunct 20. All the Queens faithful and loving Subjects shall from henceforth celebrate and keep their holy day according to Gods holy will and pleasure that is in hearing the Word of God read and taught in private and publick Prayers in knowledging their offences unto God and amendment of the same in reconciling of themselves charitably to their Neighbours where displeasure hath been in oftentimes receiving the Communion of the Body and Blood of Christ in bistting the Poor and Sick using all soberness and godly conversation This seems to be severe enough but what followeth next Yet notwithstanding all Parsons Vicars and Curats shall teach and declare to their Parishioners that they may with a safe and quiet conscience after their Common Prayer in the time of Harvest labour upon the boly and Festival days and save that thing which God hath sent And if for any scrupulosity or grudg of Conscience men should superstitiously abstain from working on these days that then they should grievously offend and displease God This makes it evident that Qu. Elizabeth in her own particular took not the Lords day for a Sabbath or to be of a different nature from the other Holy days nor was it taken so by the whole Body of our Church and State in the first Parliament of her Reign 1 Eliz. c. 2. what time it was enacted That all and every person and persons inhabiting within this Realm and any other the Queens Dominious shall diligently and faithfully having no lawful or reasonable excuse to be absent endeavour themselves to resort to their Parish Church or Chappel accustomed or upon reasonable let thereof to some usual place where Common Prayer shall be used in such time of let upon every Sunday and other days ordained and used to be kept as Holy day and then and there to abide orderly and soverly During the time of Common Prayer Preaching or other Service of God upon pain of punishment c. This Law is still in force and still like to be and by this Law the Sundays and the Holy days are alike regarded Nor by the Law only but by the purpose and intent of holy Church who in her publick Liturgy is as full and large for every one of the Holy days as for the Sunday the Letany excepted only For otherwise by the rule and prescript thereof the same Religious Offices are designed for both the same devout attendance required for both and whatsoever else may make both equal And therefore by this Statute and the Common Prayer-Book we are to keep more Sabbaths than the Lords Day Sabbath or else none at all Next look we on the Homilies part of the publick Monuments of the Church of England set forth and authorized Anno 1562. being the fourth of that Queens Reign In that entituled Of the place and time of Prayer we shall find it thus As concerning the Time in which God hath appointed his people to assemble together solemnly it doth appear by the fourth Commandment c. And Albeit this Commandment of God doth noâ— hind Christian people so straitly to observe and keep the utter ceremonies of the Sabbath day as it did the Jews as touching the forbearing of work and labour in the time of great necessity and as thouching the precise keeping of the seventh Day after the manner of the Jews for we keep now the first day which is our Sunday and make that our Sabbath that is our day of rest in honour of our Saviour Christ who as upon that day he rose from death conquering the same most triumphantly Yet notwithstanding whatsoever is found in the Comandment appertaining to the Law of Nature as a thing most godly most just and needful for the setting forth of Gods glory ought to be retained and kept of all good Christian people And therefore by this Commandment we ought to have a time as one day in the week wherein we ought to rest yea from our lawful and needful words For like as it appeareth by this Commandment that no man in the six days ought to be slothful and idle but diligently to labour in that state wherein God hath set him even so God hath given express charge to all men that upon the Sabbath day which is now our Sunday they should cease from all weekly and work-day labour to the intent that like as God 〈◊〉 wrought six days and rested the seventh and blessed and sanctified it and consecrated it to quietness and rest from labour even so Gods obedient people should use the Sunday Holily and rest from their common and daily business and aisa give themselves wholly to Heavenly exercises of Gods true religion and service â—o that God doth not only command the observation of this holy day but also by his own example doth stir and provoke us to the diligent keeping of the same c. Thus it may plainly appear that Gods will and Commandment was to have a solemn time and standing day in the week Wherein the people should come together and have in remembrance his wonderful benefits and to render him thank 's for them an appertaineth to loving kind and obedient people This example and Commandment of God the godly Christian people began to follow imâ—ediately after the Ascension of our Lord Christ and began to choose them a standing day of
prescribed by the Church of England shewed plainly their dislike of those Sabbath Doctrines which had been lately set on foot to the dithonour of the Church and diminution of her authority in destinating other days to the service of God than their new Saint-Sabbath Yet did not this the Churches care either so satisfie their desires or restrain the follies of those men who had embraced the New Sabbath Doctrines but that they still went forwards to advance that business which was now made a part of the common cause no book being published by that party either by way of Catechism or Comment on the Ten Commandments or moral Piety or systematical Divinity of all which these last times have produced too many wherein the Sabbath was not pressed upon the consciences of Gods people with as much violence as formerly with authority upon the Jews And hereunto they were encouraged a great deal the rather because in Ireland what time his Majesties Commissioners were employed about the setling of that Church Anno 1615. there passed an Article which much confirmed them in their Courses and hath been often since alledged to justifie both them and their proceedings Art 56. The Article is this The first day of the week which is the Lords day is wholly to be dedicated to the service of God and therefore we are bound therein to rest from our common and daily business and to bestow that leisure upon holy Exercises both private and publick What moved his Majesties Commissioners to this strict austcrity that I cannot say but sure I am that till that time the Lords day never had attained such credit as to be thought an Article of the Faith though of some mens fancies Nor was it like to be of long continuance it was so violently followed the whole Book being now called in and in the place thereof the Articles of the Church of England confirmed by Parliament in that Kingdom Anno 1634. Nor was this all the fruit neither of such dangerous Doctrines that the Lords day was grown into the reputation of the Jewish Sabbath but some that built on their foundations and ploughed with no other than their Heifers endeavoured to bring back again the Jewish Sabbath as that which is expresly mentioned in the fourth Commandment and abrogate the Lords day for altogether as having no foundation in it nor warrant by it Of these one Thraske declared himself for such in King James his time and therewithal took up another Jewish Doctrine about Meats and Drinks as in the time of our dread Soveraign now being Theophilus Braborne grounding himself on the so much applauded Doctrine of the morality of the Sabbath maintained that the Jewish Sabbath ought to be observed and wrote a large Book in defence thereof which came into the World 1632. For which their Jewish doctrines the first received his censure in the Star-Chamber and what became of him I know not the other had his doom in the High-Commission and hath since altered his opinion being misguided only by the principles of some noted men to which he thought he might have trusted Of these I have here spoken together because the ground of their opinions so far as it concerned the Sabbath were the very same they only make the conclusions which of necessity must follow from the former premisses just as the Brownists did befoe when they abominated on the Communion of the Church of England on the Puritan principles But to proceed This of it self had been sufficient to bring all to ruin but this was not all Not only Judaism did begin but Popery took great occasion of increase by the preciseness of some Magistrates and Ministers in several places of this Kingdom in bindring people from their Recreations on the Sunday the Papists in this Realm being thereby persuaded that no honest Mirth or Recreation was tolerable in our Religion Which being noted by King James in his progress through Lancashire King James's Declarat it pleased his Majesty to set out his Declaration May 24. Anno 1618. the Court being then at Greenwich to this effect that for his good peoples lawful Recreations his pleasure was that after the end of Divine Service they should not be disturbed letted or discouraged from any lawful Recreations such as Dancing either Men or Women Archery for Men Leaping Vaulting or any other such harmless Recreations nor from having of May-games Whitsun-Ales or Morrice-dances and setting up of May-poles or other sports therewith used so as the same be had in due and cenvenient time without impediment or let of Divine Service and that Women should have leave to carry Rushes to the Church for the decoring of it atcording to their old custom withal prohibiting all unlawful Games to be used on the Sundays only as Bear-baiting Bull-baiting Enterludes and at all times in the meaner sort of people by Law prohibited Bowling A Declaration which occasioned much noise and clamour and many scandals spread abroad as if these Counsels had been put into that Princes head by some great Prelates which were then of most power about him But in that point they might have satisfied themselves that this was no Court-doctrine no New-divinity which that learned Prince had been taught in England He had declared himself before when he was King of the Scots only to the self-same purpose as may appear in his Basilicon Doron published Anno 1598. This was the first Blow in effect which had been given in all his time to the new Lords day Sabbath then so much applauded For howsoever as I said those who had entertained these Sabbatarian Principles spared neither care nor pains to advance the business by being instant in season and out of season by publick Writings private Preachings and clandestine insinuations or whatsoever other means might tend to the promotion of this Catholick Cause yet find we none that did oppose it in a publick way though there were many that disliked it only one Mr. Loe of the Church of Exeter declared himself in his Effigiatio veri Sabbatismi Anno 1606. to be of different judgment from them and did lay down indeed the truest and most justifiable Doctrine of the Sabbath of any Writer in that time But being written in the Latin Tongue it came not to the peoples hands many of those which understood it never meaning to let the people know the Contents thereof And whereas in the year 1603 at the Commencement held in Cambridg this Thesis or Proposition Dies Dominicus nititur Verbo Dei was publickly maintained by a Doctor there and by the then Vice-Chancellour so determined neither the following Doctors there or any in the other University that I can hear of did ever put up any Antithesis in opposition thereunto At last some four years after his Majesties Declaration before remembred Anno 1622. Doctor Prideaux his Majesties Professour for the University of Oxon did in the publick Act declare his judgment in this point de Sabbato
of Trinity Colledge in Cambridge in a Letter to the late Archbishop Cont. Dom. p. 167. bearing date Decemb. 15. 1630. in which he writes that their Doctrines of Predestination is the root of Puritanism and Puritanism is the root of all Rebellions and disobedient untractableness in Parliaments c. and of all Schism and saweiness in the Countrey nay in the Church it self making many thousands of our People and too great a part of the Gentlemen of the Land very Leightons in their hearts which Leighton had published not long before a most pestilent and seditious Book against the Bishops called Sions Plea in which he excited the People to strike the Bishops under the fifth rib reviling the Queen by the name of a Daughter of Heth and for the same was after censured in the Star-Chamber to Pillory loss of Ears c. But because perhaps it may be said that this is but a new device excogitated by the malice of these later times to defame this doctrine Answer to a certain Lett. p. 38. let us behold what Campneys hath delivered of it in the first or second year of Queen Eliz. at the first peeping of it out to disturb this Church Where saith he who seeth not the distraction of England to follow this Doctrine Who seeth not the confusion of all Common-wealths to depend hereupon What Prince may sit safely in the seat of his Kingdom What subject may live quietly possessing his own What man shall be ruled by the right of Law If these Opinions may be perfectly placed in the hearts of the People Which Corollary he brings in in the end of a discourse touching the Rebellion raised by Martin Cyrnel and seconded by the Earl of Lincoln Martin Swarth and others against Hen. VII For building on the Culvinian Maxim that as God doth appoint the end so he appointeth also the means and causes which lead unto it he thereupon inferreth that Martin Swarth and his men according to that Doctrine were destined by God to be slain at the Batrel of Stoke In order whereunto first Sir Richard Simon the Priest must be appointed and predestinate of God to pour in the pestilent poyson of privy Conspiracy and trayterous mischief of vain glory into the heart of Lambert his Scholar as a cause leading to the same end Secondly Ibid. p. 38. That he the said Lambert was appointed and predestinate of God to consent and agree unto the pestiferous persuasion of his Master S. Richard in the pride of Lucifer to aspire unto the Royal Throne as another cause leading to the same end which God ordained Thirdly That the Irish men were appointed of God to be Rebellious Traytors against their Soveraign Lord the King of England and to maintain the false and filthy quarrel of Lambert as another cause leading to the same end Fourthly That in order to the said end the Lady Margaret Sister to K. Edw. IV. was appointed and predestinate of God to be a Traytoress to England and to imploy all her wits forces and power to the utter destruction of her natural Countrey And fifthly in particular that the said Lady Margaret was appointed of God to hire the said Martin Swarth and his men to invade the Realm of England Sixthly and finally that the said Martin Swarth the Earl of Lincoln the Lord Lorel the Lord Gerrard and divers others Captains of the Rebels were appointed and predestinate of God to be of such valiant courage in maintaining the false quarrel of trayterous Lambert that they were slain and on the other side many a brave English mans blood was shed at the Battel of Stoke which was the end of this woful Tragedy Let them say therefore what they can or will this meer necessity which our men teach is the very same which the Stoicks did hold which opinion because it destroyed the state of a Common-wealth was banished out of Rome as St. Augustine declareth in lib. Quaest Vet. Nov. Testam And thus the different judgments of all the other Western Churches and the several Subdivisions of them in the five controverted Points being laid together with such discourses and disputes as have occasionally been made and raised about them we will next shew to which of the said differing parties the Church of England seems most inclinable and afterwards proceed in the story of it Historia Quinqu-Articularis OR A DECLARATION Of the Judgment of the WESTERN-CHVRCHES And more particularly of the CHURCH of ENGLAND In the Five Controverted Points PART II. Containing the Judgment of the Church of England and the most Eminent Divines thereof in the Reign of King Henry VIII and King Edward VI. CHAP. VII An Introduction to the Doctrine of the Church of England in the Points disputed with the Removal of some rubs which are laid in the way 1. The Doctrine of the Homilies concerning the Endowments of man at his first Creation 2. His miserable fall 3. And the promised hopes of his Restitution in the Lord Christ Jesus 4. A general Declaration of the judgment of the Church of England in the points disputed exemplified in the story of Agilmond and Lamistus Kings of Lombardy 5. The contrary judgment of Wicklif objected answered and applied to all modern Heresies 6. A general answer to the like Argument pretended to be drawn from the Writings of Frith Tyndal and Barns But more particularly 7. The judgment of Dr. Barns in the present points and the grounds on which he builded the same 8. Small comfort to be found from the works of Tyndal in favour of the Calvinian Doctrines 9. The falsifyings of John Frith and others in the Doctrine of Predestination reproved by Tyndal 10. A parallel between some of our first Martyrs and the blind man restored to sight in the eighth of Saint Mark. BEing therefore in the next place to declare the Judgment of the Church of England I shall prepare the way by laying down her publick Doctrine touching the Fall of Adam and the Restitution of man-kind in Jesus Christ that having cleared God from being the Author of sin and having laid a sure foundation for the Restitution of Mankind to Gods grace and favour and consequently to the hopes of Eternal Life we may proceed with more assurance to the rest that followeth Hom. of the Nativity fol. 167. And this we cannot better do than by laying down the words of the Homily concerning the Nativity and Birth of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ where we find it thus Among all the Creatures saith the Homily that God made in the beginning of the world most excellent and wonderful in their kind there was none as the Scripture beareth witness to be compared almost in any point unto man who as well in body as soul exceedeth all other no less than the Sun in brightness and light exceedeth every bright and little Star in the Firmament He was made according to the similitude and Image of God he was endued with all kind
which was built upon it first taking in my way some necessary preparations made unto it by H. 8. by whom it had been ordered in the year 1536. That the Creed the Lords Prayer and the Ten Commandments should be recited publickly by the Parish Priest in the English Tongue and all the Sundays and other Holidays throughout the year And that the people might the better understand the duties contained in them it pleased him to assemble his Bishops and Clergy in the year next following requiring them Vpon the diligent search and perusing of Holy Scripture to set forth a plain and sincere Doctrine concerning the whole sum of all those things which appertain unto the Profession of a Christian man Which work being finished with very great care and moderation they published by the name of an Institution of a Christian man containing the Exposition or Interpretation of the common Creed the seven Sacraments the Ten Commandments Epls Dedit the Lords Prayer c. and dedicated to the Kings Majesty Submitting to his most excellent Wisdom and exact Judgment to be by him recognized overseen and corrected if he found any word or sentence in it amiss to be qualified changed or further expounded in the plain setting forth of his most vertuous desire and purpose in that behalf A Dedication publickly subscribed in the name of the rest by all the Bishops then being eight Archdeacons and seventeen Doctors of chief note in their several faculties Amongst which I find seven by name who had a hand in drawing up the first Liturgy of King Edward VI. that is to say Cranmer Archbishop of Canterbury Goodrich Bishop of Ely Hebeach then Bishop of Rochester and of Lincoln afterwards Skip then Archdeacon of Dorset after Bishop of Hereford Roberson afterwards Dean of Durham as Mayo was afterwards of S. Pauls and Cox of Westminster And I find many others amongst them also who had a principal hand in making the first Book of Homilies and passing the Articles of Religion in the Convocation of the year 1552. and so it rested till the year 1643. when the King making use of the submission of the Book which was tendred to him corrected it in many places with his own hand as appeareth by the Book it self remaining in the famous Library of Sir Robert Cotton Which having done he sends it so corrected to Archbishop Cranmer who causing it to be reviewed by the Bishops and Clergy in Convocation drew up some Annotations on it And that he did for this intent as I find exprest in one of his Letters bearing date June 25. of this present year because the Book being to be set forth by his Graces censure and judgment he would have nothing therein that Momos himself could reprehend referring notwithstanding all his Annotations to his Majesties exacter judgment Nor staid it here but being committed by the King to both Houses of Parliament and by them very well approved of as appears by the Statutes of this year Cap. 1. concerning the advancing of true Religion and the abolition of the contrary it was published again by the Kings command under the title of Necessary Doctrine and Erudition for any Christian man And it was published with an Epistle of the Kings before it directed to all his faithful and loving Subjects wherein it is affirmed To be a true Declaration of the true knowledge of God and his Word with the principal Articles of Religion whereby men may uniformly be led and taught the true understanding of that which is necessary for every Christian man to know for the ordering of himself in this life agreeable unto the will and pleasure of Almighty God Now from these Books the Doctrine of Predestination may be gathered into these particulars which I desire the Reader to take notice of Institut of a Christian that he may judge the better of the Conformity which it hath with the established Doctrine of the Church of England 1. That man by his own nature was born in sin and in the indignation and displeasure of God and was the very child of Wrath condemned to everlasting death subject and thrall to the power of the Devil and sin having all the principal parts or portions of his soul as reason and understanding and free-will and all other powers of his soul and body not only so destituted and deprived of the gifts of God wherewith they were first endued but also so blinded corrupted and poysoned with errour ignorance and carnal concupiscence that neither his said powers could exercise the natural function and office for which they were ordained by God at the first Creation nor could he by them do any thing which might be acceptable to God 2. That Jesus Christ the only begotten Son of God the Father was eternally preordained and appointed by the Decree of the Holy Trinity to be our Lord that is to say to be the only Redeemer and Saviour of Man-kind and to reduce and bring the same from under the Dominion of the Devil and sin unto his only Dominion Kingdom Lordship and Governance 3. That when the time was come in the which it was before ordained and appointed by the Decree of the Holy Trinity That Man-kind should be saved and redeemed Necessary prayer than the Son of God the second Person in the Trinity and very God descended from Heaven into the world to take upon him the very habit form and nature of man and in the same nature of suffer his glorious Passion for the Redemption and Salvation of all Man-kind 4. That by this Passion and Death of our Saviour Jesus Christ not only Corporal death is so destroyed that it shall never hurt us but rather that it is made wholesome and profitable unto us but also that all our sins and the sins also of all them that do believe in him and follow him be mortified and dead that is to say all the guilt and offence thereof as also the damnation and pains due for the same is clearly extincted abolished and washed away so that the same shall never afterwards be imputed and inflicted on us 5. That this Redemption and Justification of Man-kind could not have been wrought or brought to pass by any other means in the world but by the means of this Jesus Christ Gods only Son and that never man could yet nor never shall be able to come unto God the Father or to believe in him or to attain his favour by his own wit and reason or by his own science and learning or by any of his own works or by whatsoever may be named in Heaven or Earth but by faith in the Name and Power of Jesus Christ and by the gifts and graces of his Holy Spirit But to proceed the way to the ensuing Reformation being thus laid open The first great work which was accomplished in pursuance of it was the compiling of that famous Liturgy of the year 1549 commanded by King Edward VI. that is to
being thus discharged he shews in the next place Ibid. 48. that as God desireth not the death of man without relation to his sin so he desireth not the death of the sinful man or of the wicked sinful man but rather that they shoudl turn from their wickedness and live And he observes it is said unto the Goats in St. Matthews Gospel Ite malidicti in ignem paratum he doth not say Maledicti patris Go ye cursed of the Father as it is Benedicti patris when he speaks of the sheep God intituling himself to the blessing only and that the fire is prepared but for whom Non vobis sed Diabolo Angelis ejus not for you but for the Devil and his Angels So that God delighteth to prepare neither Death nor Hell for damned men The last branch of his Discourse he resolves into six consequences as links depending on his Chain 1. Gods absolute Will is not the cause of Reprobation but sin 2. No man is of an absolute necessity the child of Hell so as by Gods grace he may not avoid it 3. God simply willeth every living soul to be saved and to come to the Kingdom of Heaven 4. God sent his Son to save every soul and to bring it to the Kingdom of Heaven 5. God offereth Grace effectually to save every one and to direct him to the Kingdom of Heaven 6. The nelgect and contempt of this Grace is the cause why every one doth not come to Heaven and not any privative Decree Council and Determination of God The stating and canvasing of which points so plainly curtly to the Doctrines of che old Zuinglian Gospellers and the modern Calvinians as they take up the rest of the Sermon so to the Sermon I refer the Reader for his furtehr satisfaction in them I note this only in the close that there is none of the five Arminian Articles as they commonly call them which is not contained in terms express or may not easily be found by way of Deduction in one or more of the six consequences before recited Now in this Sermon there are sundry things to be considered as namely first That the Zuinglian or Calvinian Gospel in these points was grown so strong that the Preacher calls it their Goliah so huge and monstrous that many quaked and trembled at it but none that is to say but few or none vel duo vel nemo in the words of Persius durst take up Davids sling to throw it down Secondly That in canvasing the absolute Decree of Reprobation the Preacher spared none of those odious aggravations which have been charged upon the Doctrines of the modern Calvinists by the Remonstrants and their party in these latter times Thirdly That the Sermon was preached at St. Pauls Cross the greatest Auditory of the Kingdom consisting not only of the Lord Mayor the Aldermen and the rest of the chief men in the City but in those times of such Bishops and other learned men as lived occasionally in London and the City of Westminster as also of the Judges and most learned Lawyers some of the Lords of the Council being for the most part present also Fourthly That for all this we cannot find that any offence was taken at it or any Recantation enjoyned upon it either by the high Commission or Bishop of London or any other having Authority in the Church of England nor any complaint made of it to the Queen or the Council-Table as certainly there would have been if the matter of the Sermon had been contrary to the Rules of the Church and the appointments of the same And finally we may observe that though he was made Archbiship of York in the Reign of King Charles 1628. when the times are thought to have been inclinable to those of the Arminian Doctrines yet he was made Master of Pembrook Hill Bishop of Chichester and from thence translated unto Norwich in the time of King James And thereupon we may conclude that King James neither thought this Doctrine to be against the Articles of Religion here by Law established nor was so great an Enemy to them or the men that held them as some of our Calvinians have lately made him But against this it is objected by Mr. Prin in his book of Perpetuity c. printed at London in the year 1627. 1. That the said Mr. Harsnet was convented for this Sermon and forced to recant it as Heretical 2. That upon this Sermon Perpetulty c. 304. and the Controversies that arose upon it in Cambridg between Baroe and Whitacres not only the Articles of Lambeth were composed of which more hereafter but Mr. Wotton was appointed by the University to confute the same 3. That the siad Sermon was so far from being published or printed that it was injoyned by Authority to be recanted For Answer whereunto it would first be known where the said Sermon was recanted and by whose Authority Not in or by the University of Cambridg where Mr. Harsnet lived both then and a long time after for the Sermon was preached at St. Pauls Cross and so the University could take no cognisance of it nor proceed against him for the same And if the Recantation was madea t St. Pauls Cross where the supposed offence was given it would be known by whose Authority it was enjoyned Not by the Bishop of London in whose Diocess the Sermon was preached for his Authority did not reach so far as Cambridg whither the Preacher had retited after he had performed the service he was called unto and if it were injoyned by the High Commission and performed accordingly there is no question to be made but that we should have heard of in the Anti-Arminianism where there are no less than eight leaves spend in relating the story of a like Recantation pretended to be made by one Mr. Barret on the tenth of May 1595. and where it is affirmed that the said Mr. Harsnet held and maintained the same errors for which Barret was to make his Recantation But as it will be proved hereafter that no such Recantation wass made by Barret so we have reason to believe that no such Recantation was imposed on Harsnet Nor secondly can it be made good that the Controversies between Doctor Whitacres and Dr. Baroe were first occasioned by this Sermon or that Mr. Wotton was appointed by the University to confute the same For it appears by a Letter written from the heads of that University to their Chancellor the Lord Treasurer Burleigh dated March 18. 1595. that Baroe had maintained the same Doctrines and his Lectures and Determinations above 14 years before by their own account for which see Chap. 21. Numb 80. which must be three years at the least before the preaching of that Sermon by Mr. Harsnet And though it is probable enopugh that Mr. Wotton might give himself the trouble of confuting the Sermon yet it is more than probable that he was not required so to do by that
Assistants whom I reverence do purpose to proceed in disquieting and traducing me as you have done by the space of three quarters of this year and so in the end mean to drive me out of the University I must take it patiently because I know not how to redress it but let God be judg between you and me These things I leave to your Worships favourable consideration for this I must needs say and peradventure it may tend to your credit when I shall report it that above the rest hitherto I have found you most courteous and most just I leave your Worship to Gods Direction and holy tuition expecting a gracious Answer Your daily Beadsman WILLIAM BARRET But here perhaps it may be said that though Barret might be as obstinate in refusing to publish the Recantation as this Letter makes him yet it appears by the whole course of those proceedings that his Doctrines were condemned by the heads of the University as being contrary to that which was received and established in the Church of England And that it was so in the Judgment of those men who either concurred in his Censure or subscribed the Letter to the Lord Treasurer Burleigh above-mentioned is a thing past question But this can be no Argument that Barrets Doctrines were repugnant to the Church of England because these Heads either in favour of Dr. Whitacres or in respect to Mr. Perkins were pleased to think no otherwise of them for if it be we may conclude by the same Argument that the Church of Rome was in the right even in the darkest times of ignorance and superstition because all those who publickly opposed her Doctrines were solemnly enjoyned by the then prevailing party to a Recantation and which is more it may be also thence concluded that the Doctrine maintained by Athanasius touching Christs Divinity was contrary to that which had been taught by the Apostles and men of Apostolical spirits because it was condemned for such by some Arrian Bishops in the Council or rather Conventicle of Tyre which was held against him 2. It cannot be made apparent that either Dr. Duport the Vice-Chancellor who was most concerned or Dr. Baroe the Lady Margarets Professour for Divinity there had any hand in sentencing this Recantation Not Dr. Baroe because by concurring to this Sentence he was to have condemned himself Nor Dr. Duport for I find his place to be supplyed and the whole action govern'd by Dr. Some which shews him to be absent at that time from the University according to the stile whereof the Title of Procancellarius is given to Dr. Some in the Acts of the Court as appears by the Extract of them in the Anti-Arminianisin p. 64. compared with p. 63. But thirdly admitting that the Heads were generally thus enclined yet probably the whole body of the University might not be of the same Opinion with them those Heads not daring to affirm otherwise of Barrets Doctrine in their Letter to the Lord Treasurer Burleigh than that it gave just offence to many And if it gave offence unto many only it may be thought that it gave no offence to the Major part or much less to all for if it had the writers of the Letter would not have been so sparing in their expressions as to limit the offence to many if they could have said it of the most But of this we shall speak more in the following Chapter when we shall come to feel the pulse of the University in the great competition between Wotton and Overald after Whitacres death Of which Opinion Harsnet was we have seen before And we have seen before that Baroe had many Disciples and Adherents which stood fast unto him And thereupon we may conclude that when Dr. Baroe had for fourteen or fifteen years maintained these Opinions in the Schools as before was shewed which are now novelized by the name of Arminianism and such an able man as Harsnet had preached them without any Controul when the greatest audience of the Kingdom did stand to him in it There must be many more Barrets who concurred with the same Opinions with them in the University though their names through the Envy of those times are not come unto us CHAP. XXI Of the proceedings against Baroe the Articles of Lambeth and the general calm which was in Oxon touching these Disputes 1. The differences between Baroe and Doctor Whitacres the addresses of Whitacres and others to Archbishop Whitgift which drew on the Articles at Lambeth 2. The Articles agreed on at Lambeth presented both in English and Latin 3. The Articles of no authority in themselves Archbishop Whitgift questioned for them together with the Queens command to have them utterly supprest 4. That Baroe neither was deprived of his Professorship nor compelled to leave it the Anti-Calvinian party being strong enough to have kept him in if he had defired it 5. A Copy of the Letter from the Heads in Cambridg to the Lord Treasurer Burleigh occasioned as they said by Barret and Baroe 6. Dr. Overalds encounters with the Calvinists in the point of falling from the Grace received his own private judgment in the point neither for total nor for final and the concurrence of some other learned men in the same Opinion 7. The general calm which was at Oxon at that time touching these Disputes and the Reasons of it 8. An answer to that Objection out of the Writings of judicious Hooker of the total and final falling 9. The disaffections of Dr. Bukeridge and Dr. Houson to Calvins doctrines an Answer to the Objection touching the paucity of those who opposed the same 10. Possession of a Truth maintained but by one or two preserves it sacred and inviolable for more fortunate times the case of Liberius Pope of Rome and that the testimonies of this kind are rather to be valued by weight than tale FROM Barret pass we on to Baroe betwixt whom and Dr. Whitacres there had been some clashings touching Predestination and Reprobation the certainty of Salvation and the possibility of falling from the Grace received And the heats grew so high at last that the Calvinians thought it necessary in point of prudence to effect that by power and favour which they were not able to obtain by force of Argument To which end they first addressed themselves to the Lord Treasurer Burleigh then being their Chancellor acquainting him by Dr. Some then Deputy Vice-Chancellor with the disturbances made by Barret thereby preparing him to hearken to such further motions as should be made unto him in pursuit of that Quarrel But finding little comfort there they resolved to steer their course by another compass And having prepossest the most Reverend Archbishop Whitgift with the turbulent carriage of those men the affronts given to Dr. Whitacres whom for his learned and laborious Writings against Cardinal Bellarmine he most highly favoured and the great inconveniences like to grow by that publick discord they gave themselves good hopes of
Kings than of the Thief that steals thy goods or the Adulterer that defiles thy marriage-bed or the Murderer that seeks thy life all which are reckoned for Gods curses in the holy Scripture The point we purpose to make proof of goeth not down so easily that is to say That in the vilest men and most unworthy of all honour if they be once advanced to the publick Government there doth reside that excellent and divine Authority which God hath given in holy Scripture to those who are the Ministers of his heavenly Justice who therefore are to be reverenced by the Subject for as much as doth concern them in the way of their publick duties with as much honour and obedience as they would reverence the best King were he given unto them And first the Reader must take notice of the especial Act and Providence of Almighty God SECT 26. not without cause so oft remembred in the Scriptures in disposing Kingdoms Dan. 2 21 37. and segging up such Kings as to him seems best The Lord saith Danicl changeth the times and the seasons he removeth Kings and setteth up Kings And in another place That the living may know that the most High ruleth in the Kingdoms of men and giveth them to whomsoever he will Which kind of sentences as they are very frequent in the Scriptures so is that Prophesie most plentiful and abundant in them No man is ignorant that Nebuchadnezzar who destroyed Hierusalem was a great spoiler and oppressor yet the Lord tells us by Ezechicl that he had given unto him the land of Egypt for the good service he had done in laying it waste on his Commandment Dan. 2.37 And Daniel said unto him thus Thou O King art a King of Kings for the God of Heaven hath given thee a Kingdom power and strength and glory And wheresoever the children of men dwell the beasts of the field and the fowls of heaven hath he given into thy hand and hath made thee Ruler over them all Again to Belshazzer his son Dan. 5.18 The most high God gave unto Nebuchadnezzar thy father a Kingdom and majesty and glory and honour and for the majesty that he gave him all people nations and languages trembled and feared before him Now when we hear that Kings are placed over us by God let us be pleased to call to mind those several precepts to fear and honour them which God hath given us in his Book holding the vilest Tyrant in as high account as God hath graciously vouchsafed to estate him in When Samuel told the people of the house of Israel what they should suffer from their King 1 Sam. 8.11 he expressed it thus This will be the manner of the King which shall reign over you he will take your sons and appoint them for himself for his Chariots and to be his Horsemen and some shall run before his Chariots And he will appoint him Captains over thousands and Captains over fifties and will set them to ear his ground and to reap his harvest and to make his instruments of War and instruments of his Chariots And he will take your daughters to be his Confectionaries and to be Cooks and to be Bakers And he will take your fields and your Vineyards and your Olive-yards even the best of them and give them to his servants And he will take the tenth of your seed and of your Vineyards and give to his Officers and to his Servants And he will take your men-servants and your maid-servants and your goodliest young men and your Asses and put them to his work He will take the tenth of your sheep and ye shall be his Servants Assuredly their Kings could not do this lawfully whom God had otherwise instructed in the Book of the Law but it is therefore called Jus Regis the right of Kings upon the Subject which of necessity the Subjects were to submit unto and not to make the least resistance As if the Prophet had thus said So far shall the licentiousness of your Kings extend it self which you shall have no power to restrain or remedy to whom there shall be nothing left but to receive the intimation of their pleasures and fulfil the same But most remarkable is that place in the Prophet Jeremy SECT 27. which though it be somewhat of the longest I will here put down because it doth so plainly state the present question Jer. 27. â— I have made the earth saith the Lord the man and the beast that are upon the ground by my great power and by my out-stretched Arm and have given it unto whom it seemed meet unto me And now have I given all these Lands into the hand of Nebuchadnezzar King of Babylon my Servant and the Beasts of the field have I given him also to serve him and all Nations shall serve him and his Son and his Sons Son until the very time of his Land come and it shall come to pass that the Nation and Kingdom which will not serve the same Nebuchadnezzar King of Babylon and that will not put their neck under the yoke of the King of Babylon that Nation will I punish saith the Lord with the sword and with the famine and with the pestilence wherefore serve the King of Babylong and live We see by this how great a measure of obedience was required by God towards that fierce and cruel Tyrant only because he was advanced to the Kingly Throne and did by consequence participate of that Regal Majesty which is not to be violated without grievous sin Let us therefore have this always in our mind and before our eyes that by the same decree of God on which the power of Kings is constituted the very wickedest Princes are established and let not such seditious thoughts be admitted by us that is to say that we must deal with Kings no otherwise than they do deserve and that it is no right nor reason that we should shew our selves obedient subjects unto him who doth not mutually perform the duty of a King to us It is a poor objection which some men have made viz. that that command was only proper to the Israelites for mark upon what grounds the command was given SECT 28. I have given saith the the Kingdom unto Nebuchadnezzar wherefore serve him and ye shall live and thereupon it needs must follow that upon whomsoever God bestows a Kingdom to him we must address our service and that assoon as God hath raised any to the Regal Throne he doth sufficiently declare his will to be that he would have that man to reign over us Some general testimonies of this truth are in holy Scripture For thus saith solomon For the transgression of a Land many are the Princes thereof Prov. 24.2 and job He looseth the band of Kings and girdeth their loins with a girdly Job 12.18 Which if confessed there is no remedy at all but we must serve those Kings if we mean to
darling Doctrine of this present time so is it very eagerly pursued by Buchannan who affirms expresly Quicquid juris populus alicui dederit Buchann de jure Regni idem justis de causis posse reposcere that whatsoever power the people give unto their King or Supream Magistrate they may resume again upon just occasions Their Power they make so small and inconsiderable that they afford them very little even in matters of Temporal and no Authority at all in things Spiritual Calvin professeth for himself that he was very much agrieved to hear that King Henry the eighth had took unto himself the Title of Supream Head of the Church of England accuseth them of inconsiderate zeal nay blasphemy who conferred it on him and though he be content at last to allow Kings a Ministerial power in matters which concern the Reformation of Gods Publick Worship yet he condemns them as before of great inconsiderateness Calvin in Amos cap. 7. Qui facerent eos nimis spirituales who did ascribe unto them any great authority in spiritual matters The designation of all those who bear publick Office in the Church the calling of Councils or Assemblies the Presidency in those Councils Ordaining publick Fasts and appointing Festivals which anciently belonged unto Christian Princes as the chief branches of the Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction which is vested in them are utterly denied to Kings and Princes in their Books of Discipline Insomuch that when the Citizens of Embden did expel their Earl they did it chiefly for this reason Thuan. hist l. 114. Quod se negotiis Ecclesiasticis Consistorialibus praeter jus aequitatem immisceret that he had intermedled more than they thought fit in Ecclesiastical causes and intrenched too much upon their Consistory As for their power in Temporal or civil Causes by that time Knoxes Peers and Buchannans Judges Paraeus his inferiour Magistrates and Calvins popular Officers have performed their parts in keeping them within the compass of the Laws arraigning them for their offences if they should transgress opposing them by force of Arms if any thing be done unto the prejudice of the Church or State and finally in regulating their Authority after the manner of the Spartan Ephori and the Roman Tribunes all that is left will be by much too little for a Royd'Ivitot or for a King of Clouts as we English phrase it Last of all for their persons which God held so sacred that he gave it for a Law to his people Israel not to speak evil of their Princes saying Thou shalt not speak evil of the Ruler of thy people Let us but look upon these men and we shall find the basest attributes too good for the greatest Kings Calvin calls Mary Queen of England by the name of Proserpine Calvin in Amos cap. 7. and saith that she did superare omnes Diabolos that all the Devils of Hell were not half so mischievous Beza affords Queen Mary of Scotland no better Titles than those of Medea and Athaliah Beza in Epist ad Jo. of which the last was most infamous in divine the other no less scandalous in humane stories the one a Sorceress and a Witch the other a Tyrant and Usurper The Author of the Altare Damascenum whosoever he was can find no better attribute for King James of most blessed memory than infensissimus Evangelii hostis Didoclaviuâ— in Epistola ad â—â—ctor the greatest and deadly Enemy of the Gospel of Christ And Queen Elizabeth her self did not scape so clear but that the zealous Brethren were too bold sometimes with her Name and Honour though some of them paid dearly for it and were hanged for their labour How that seditious Hugonot the Author of the lewd and unworthy Dialogue entituled Eusebius Philadelphus hath dealt with three great Princes of the House of France and what reproachful names he gives them I had rather you should look for in the Author than expect from me being loath to wade too far in these dirty puddles save that I shall be bold to add this general Character which Didoclavius gives to all Kings in general viz. Naturâ insitum est in omnibus Regibus Christi odium that all Kings naturally hate Christ which may serve for all This is enough to let us see how irreconcileable an hatred these of the Calvinian faction bear against Kings and Princes how well they play the part of the very Antichrist in exalting themselves against whatsoever is called God and that the special reason why they affect so much to be called the Saints is out of a strong probable hope to see the day in which they shall bind Kings in chains and all the Princes of the earth in fetters of iron Finally such is their disaffection unto sacred Monarchy which they have sucked out of the grounds and principles here laid down by Calvin that we may justly say of them what was most truely said of the ancient Romans quasi nefas esset Regem aliquem prope eorum terminos esse Jâ—stin hist l. 29. they have bestirred themselves so bravely in defiance of the Regal Government as if they did account it an unpardonable sin to suffer any King though most good and gracious to border near them Which lest they should not be of power to compass by their popular Magistrates or by the Judges or the Peers or the People severally which make the main Battel for this Combat let us next look on the Reserve and see what hopes they have to effect the business by the three Estates conjoyned in Parliament or by what other name soever we shall call their meeting which Calvin in the last place doth reflect upon but cautiously with a qua forte or a peradventure as in that before CHAP. V. What are the three Estates in each several Kingdom in which CALVIN speaks and what particularly in the Realm of England 1. Of the division of a People into three Estates and that the Priests or Clergy have been always one 2. The Priests employed in Civil matters and affairs of State by the Egyptians and the Persians the Greeks Gauls and Romans 3. The Priests and Levites exercised in affairs of Civil Government by Gods own appointment 4. The Prelates versed in Civil matters and affairs of State in the best and happiest times of Christianity 5. The Clergy make the third Estate in Germany France Spain and the Northern Kingdoms 6. That antiently in the Saxon times the Ecclesiasticks of this Realm were called to all publick Councils 7. The Prelates an essential fundamental part of the English Parliament 8. Objections answered and that the word Clerus in the Legal notion doth not extend unto the Prelates 9. That the inferior Clergy of the Realm of England had anciently their Votes in Parliament to all intents and purposes as the Commons had 10. Objections answered and that the calling of the Clergy to Parliaments and Convocations were after different maners and by several Writs
intermitting their own studies to ingage themselves in the determining of such secular causes as were brought before them for the contentation of the People and the diseharge of their own duty both to God and man And this is that which both S. Ambrose and S. Austin tell us in their several writings viz. that they did undergoe this trouble for no other reason than out of a conformity and obedience to the words and imitation of S. Paul 1 Cor. cap. 6. touching the ending of such suits and differences as did arise amongst the Faithful S. Austin saying Constituisse Apostolum talibus causis Ecclesiasticos cognitores Id. in Psal 110. serm 174. Id. de opere Monach. 29. Amb. Epist 24. and iisdem molestiis eos affixisse Apostolos S. Ambrose that he had undertook the businesses which were brought before him Secundum sacrae formam praeceptionis qua eum Apostolus induebat which did impose such a necessity upon him that he was not able to decline it Both of them do agree in this and Posidonius doth agree with both in the same particular that they were not only warranted but obliged by S. Pauls injunction Posidon in vita August c. 19. to undertake the cognizance of such secular causes as were from time to time committed to their care and trust and that they had not done their duty had they made any scruple of the undertaking But these being only private matters let us next see whether their service was not used in affairs of State and we shall find that Constantine did always take some Bishops with him when he went to War not only for their ghostly counsel in spiritual matters but for advise in matters which concerned the occasion the prosecution of the War which was then in hand Euseb in vita Constant l. 4. c. 54. that Ambrose was twice sent Ambassador from Valentinian the younger to the Tyrant Maximus which he performed to the great contentment of his Prince and the preservation of the Empire whereof he gives us an accompt in an express unto the Emperor that when Firmus had rebelled in Africk Amb. Epist 27. lib. 5. and saw himself too weak to resist the Forces which were raised against him under Theodosius Antistites ritus Christiani pacem oraturos misit he sent the African Prelates his Ambassadors to treat of peace Ammian Marcel hist l. 29. Socrat. Eccles hist l. 7. c. 8. that Marutha Bishop of Mesapotamia was in like nature sent to the Court of Persia in the time of the Emperour Honorius I. as after that Epiphanius Bishop of Ticinum which we now call Pavie employed from the Ligurians to Athalaricus King of the Gothes in Italy from him unto the Court of Burgundy as Cassiodorus and Ennodius do describe at large that James the godly Bishop of Nisibis a frontier Town against the Persians was also 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 both Governour of the place and Captain of the Souldiers which were there in Garrison Theodoret. hist Eccl. l. 2. c. 30. and did most manfully defend it against all the force and fury of the Persian Armies An. 338. or thereabouts and finally which was an argument of great power and trust that the Bishops in Justinians time were by him appointed to oversee the Civil Magistrates and to give notice to the Emperour if they failed in any thing which did concern the Government of the Estate in their several places Novel 56. in Append. ad Novel 8. of which the very Edicts are still extant in the Book of Novels The Prelates being grown into this esteem for their integrity and wisdom with the Roman Emperours it is no wonder if they were imployed in the greatest Offices of trust and counsel after the Empire was dismembred and shared betwixt such several Princes as grew up in the place of those mighty Monarchs And this they did on so good motives and with such success that in short time the Prelates were not only used for advice and counsel but the inferiour Clergy also were called unto imployments of the highest nature and in conclusion with the Prelates made up the third Estate in most Christian Kingdoms For being that the study of Divinity is diffused and large and that the knowledge of Philosophy and the Art and Histories is but attendant on the same and subservient to it there was no question made at all in the times we speak of but that a Church-man so accomplished might be as useful in the service of the Common-wealth as those who wanted many opportunities to be so versed in Books the best guides to business especially when to those helps in poin of Learning were joyned a suddenness of apprehension a perspicacity of judgment and which swayed most of all integrity of life and conversation These when they met together as they often did in men admitted by the Church unto holy Orders it was not either thought or found and indeed how could it that their admittance into Orders did take off from any of those natural or acquired indowments of which before they were possessed or that it was a disabling to them to make use thereof in any matter of debate or action which concerned the publick And that it hath been so of old in all Christian Kingdoms besides that it is intimated by our Author here we shall clearly see by looking over such particulars as have most influence and power in the affairs of Christendom And first beginning as of right with the German Empire August Thuan. hist lib. 2. Thuanus gives this note in general Imperium in tria omnino membra dividi that that Emire is divided into three Estates over all which the Emperour is the Head or the Supream Prince Of these the first Estate is ex sacro Ordine of the holy Hierarchy composed of the three spiritual Electors together with the residue of the Archbishops and Bishops and many Abbots Priors and other Prelates The second is of the Nobility consisting of the three temporal Electors the Dukes Marquesses Lantgraves Burgraves Earls and Barons of which there is no determinate number the Emperour having power to add daily to them as he sees occasion The third Estate is of the free or Imperial Cities in number 60. or thereabouts who represent themselves at the General Diets by such Commissioners or Deputies as are authorized to that purpose Now for these Diets for by that name they call their Conventus Ordinum or Assembly of the three Estates they are summoned at the will and pleasure of the Emperour only and at such place and time as to him seems meetest Id. ibid. Where being met as all the three Estates must meet either in person or by their Ambassadors they use to treat of Peace and War of raising Subsidies and Taxes to support the State of leagues and confederacies of raising and decrying moneys of making abrogating and expounding laws and of such other points and matters as do pertain unto the
Realm Apud eund p. 219. Thus do we read that Egbert who first united the seven Kingdoms of the Saxons under the name of England did cause to be convened at London his Bishops and the Peers of the highest rank pro consilio capiendo adversus Danicos Piratas Charta Whitlafii Merciorum Regis ap Ingulf to advise upon some course against the Danish Pirates who infested the Sea coasts of England Another Parliament or Council call it which you will called at Kingsbury Anno 855. in the time of Ethelwolph the Son of Egbert pro negotiis regni to treat of the affairs of the Kingdom Chart. Bertulfi Merc. Regis ap Ingulf Ingulfi Croyland hist the Acts whereof are ratified and subscribed by the Bishops Abbots and other great men of the Realm The same King Ethelwolph in a Parliament or Assembly of his States at Winchester Anno 855. Cum consilio Episcoporum principum by the advice and counsel of the Bishops and Nobility confirmed unto the Clergy the tenth part of all mens goods and ordered that the Tithe so confirmed unto them should be free ab omnibus secularibus servitutibus from all secular services and impositions In the Reign of Edred we find this Anno 948. In Festo igitur nativitatis B. Mariae cum universi Magnates regni per Regium edictum summoniti tam Archiepiscopi Episcopi ac Abbates quam caeteri totius Regni proceres optimates Londoniis convenissent ad tractandum de negotiis publicis totius Regni Id ibid. p. 49. edit Lond. viz. That in the Feast of the Nativity of the blessed Virgin the great men of the Realm that is to say Archbishops Bishops Abbots Nobles Peers were summoned by the Kings Writ to appear at London to handle and conclude about the publick affairs of the Kingdom Mention of this Assembly is made again at the foundation and endowment of the Abbie of Crowland Id. p. 500. and afterwards a confirmation of the same by Edgar Anno 966. praesentibus Archiepiscopis Espiscopi Abbatibus Optimatibus Regni in the presence of the Archbishops Bishops Id. pag. 501. 502. Abbots and Peers of the Kingdom Like convention of Estates we find to have been called by Canutus after the death of Edmund Ironside for the setling of the Crown on his own head of which thus the Author Rog. Hoveden Annal. pars prior p. 250. Cujus post mortem Rex Canutus omnes Episcopos Duces necnon principes cunctosque optimates gentis Angliae Londoniae congregari jussit Where still we find the Bishops to be called to Parliament as well as the Dukes Princes and the rest of the Nobility and to be ranked and marshalled first which clearly shews that they were always reckoned for the first Estate before the greatest and most eminent of the secular Peers And so we find it also in a Charter of King Edward the Confessor the last King of the Saxon race by which he granted certain Lands and priviledges to the Church of Westminster Anno 1066. Cum consilio decreto Archiepiscoporum Episcoporum Comitum aliorumque Optimatum Ap. H. Spelman in Concil p. 630. with the Council and decree of the Archbishops Bishops Earls and others of his Nobles And all this while the Bishops and other Prelates of the Church did hold their Lands by no other Tenure than in pura perpetua eleemosyna or Frank almoigne Cambden in Brit. as our Lawyers call it and therefore sat in Parliament in no other capacity than as spiritual persons meerly who by their extraordinary knowledg in the Word of God and in such other parts of Learning as the World then knew were thought best able to direct and advise their Princes in points of judgment In which capacity and no other the Priors of the Cathedral Churches of Canterbury Ely Winchester Coventry Bath Worcester Norwich and Durham the Deans of Exeter York Wells Salisbury and Lincoln the Official of the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Dean of the Arches the Guardian of the Spiritualties of any Bishoprick when the See was vacant Selden Titles of hon part 2. c. 5. and the Vicars general of such Bishops as were absent beyond the Seas had sometimes place and suffrage in the house of Lords in the Ages following But when the Norman Conqueror had possest the State then the case was altered the Prelates of the Church were no longer suffered to hold their Lands in Frankalmoigne as before they did or to be free from secular services and commands as before they were Although they kept their Lands yet they changed their Tenure and by the Conqueror Mat. Paris in Will 1. Auno 1.70 were ordained to hold their Lands sub militari servitute either in Capite or by Baronage or some such military hold and thereby were compâ—â—lable to aid the Kings in all times of War with Men Arms and Horses as the Lay subjects of the same Tenures were required to do Which though it were conceived to be a great Disfranchisement at the first and an heavy burden to the Prelacy yet it conduced at last to their greater honour in giving them a further Title to their place in Parliament than that which formerly they could pretend to Before they claimed a place therein ratione Officii only by reason of their Offices or spiritual Dignities but after this by reason also of those ancient Baronies which were annexed unto their Dignities Stamfords Pleas l. 3. c. 1. en respect de lour possessions l'antient Baronies annexes a lour dignities as our Lawyers have it From this time forwards we must look upon them in the House of Parliament not as Bishops only but as Peers and Barons of the Realm also and so themselves affirmed to the Temporal Lords in the Parliament holden at Northamptâ—n under Henry 2. Non sedimus hic Episcopi sed Barones nos Barones vos Barones Ap. Selden Titles of hon p. 2. c. 5. Pares hic sumus We fit not here say they as Bishops only but as Barons We are Barons and you are Barons here we sit as Peers Which last is also verified in terminis by the words of a Statute or Act of Parliament wherein the Bishops are acknowledged to be Peers of the Land Stat. 25 Edw. 3. c. 5. Now that the Bishops are a fundamental and essential part of the Parliament of England I shall endeavour to make good by two manner of proofs whereof the one shall be de jure and the other de facto And first we shall begin with the proofs de jure and therein first with that which doth occur in the Laws of King Athelstan amongst the which there is a Chapter it is Cap. 11. entituled De officio Episcopi quid pertinet ad officium ejus and therein it is thus declared Spelm. concil p. 402. Episcopo jure pertinet omnem rectitudinem promovere Dei scilicet seculi
expresly and in terminis to represent the three Estates of the Realm of England did recognize the Queens Majesty to be their true lawful and undoubted Sovereign Liege Lady and Queen This makes it evident that the King was not accounted in the times before for one of the three Estates of Parliament nor can be so accounted the present times For considering that the Lords and Commons do most confessedly make two of the three Estates and that the Clergy in another Act of Parliament of the said Queens time are confessed to be one of the greatest States of the Realm which Statute being still in force Statut. 8. Eliz. cap. 1. doth clearly make the Clergy to be the third either there must be more than three Estates in this Kingdom which is against the Doctrine of the present times or else the King is none of the Estates as indeed he is not which was the matter to be proved But I spend too much time in confuting that which hath so little ground to stand on more than the dangerous consequences which are covered under it For if the King be granted once to be no more than one of the three Estates how can it choose but follow from so sad a principle that he is of no more power and consideration in the time of Parliament than the House of Peers which sometimes hath consisted of three Lords no more or than the House of Commons only which hath many times consisted of no more than eighty or an hundred Gentlemen but of far less consideration to all intents and purposes in the Law whatever than both the Houses joyned together What else can follow hereupon but that the King must be co-ordinate with his two Honses of Parliament and if co-ordinate then to be over-ruled by their joynt concurrence bound to conform unto their Acts and confirm their Ordinances or upon case of inconformity and non-compliance to see them put in execution against his liking and consent to his foul reproach And what at last will be the issue of this dangerous consequence but that the Lords content themselves to come down to the Commons and the King be no otherwise esteemed of than the chief of the Lords the Princeps Senatus if you will or the Duke of Venice at the best no more which if Sir Edward Dering may be credited as I think he may in this particular seems to have been the main design of some of the most popular and powerful Members then sitting with him for which I do refer the Reader to his book of Speeches Which dangerous consequents whether they were observed at first by these who first ventured on the expression or were improvidently looked over I can hardly say Certain I am it gave too manifest an advantage to the Antimonarchical party in this Kingdom and hardned them in their proceeding against their King whom they were taught to look on and esteem no otherwise than as a Joint-tenant of the Sovereignty with the Lords and Commons And if Kings have partners in the Sovereignty they are then no King such being the nature and Law of Monarchy that si divisionem capiat interitum capiat necesse est Laciant Institut Div. l. 1. c. if it be once divided and the authorities thereof imparted it is soon destroyed Such is the dangerous consequence of this new Expression that it seemeth utterly to deprive the Bishops and in them the Clergy of this Land of all future hopes of being restored again to their place in Parliament For being the Parliament can consist but of three Estates if the King fall so low as to pass for one either the Bishops or the Commons or the Temporal Lords must desert their claim the better to make way for this new pretension and in all probability the Commons being grown so potent and the Nobility so numerous and united in bloud and marriages will not quit their interesse and therefore the poor Clergy must be no Estate because less able as the World now goeth with them to maintain their Title I have often read that Constantine did use to call himself 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Bishop or superintendent of his Bishops Euseb de vita Constant and I have often heard our Lawyers say that the King is the general Ordinary of the Kingdom but never heard nor read till within these few years that ever any King did possess himself of the Bishops place or Vote in Parliament or sat there as the first of the three Estates as anciently the Bishops did to supply their absence By which device whether the Clergy or the King be the greater losers though it be partly seen already future times will shew This Rub removed we next proceed to the examination of that power which by our Author is conferred on the three Estates which we shall find on search and tryal to be very different according to the constitution of the Kingdom in which they are For where the Kings are absolute Monarchs as in England Scotland France and Spain Bod in de Repuô l. 1. c. the three Estates have properly and legally little more Authority than to advise their King as they see occasion to present unto his view their common grievances and to propose such remedies for redress thereof as to them seem meetest to canvass and review such erroneous judgments as formerly have passed in inferiour Courts and finally to consult about and prepare such Laws as are expedient for the publick In other Countreys where the Kings are more conditional and hold their Crowns by compact and agreement between them and their Subjects the reputation and authority of the three Estates is more high and eminent as in Polonia Denmark and some others of the Northern Kingdoms where the Estates lay claim to more than a directive power and think it not enough to advise their King unless they may dispose of the Kingdom also or at least make their King no better than a Royal Slave Thus and no otherwise it is with the German Emperors who are obnoxious to the Laws Thuan. hist sui temp l. 2. and for their Government accomptable to the Estates of the Empire insomuch that if the Princes of the Empire be persuaded in their consciences that he is likely by his mal-administration to destroy the Empire and that he will not hearken to advice and counsel ab Electorum Collegio Caesaria potestate privari potest Anonym Script ap Philip. Paraeum in Append ad Rom. 13. he may be deprived by the Electors and a more fit and able man elected to supply the place And to this purpose in a Constitution made by the Emperor Jodocus about the year 1410. there is a clause that if he or any of his Successors do any thing unto the contrary thereof the Electors and other States of the Empire sine rebellionis vel infidelitatis crimine libertatem babeant Goldast Constit Imperial Tom. 3. p. 424. should be at liberty
without incurring the crimes of Treason or Disloyalty not only to oppose but resist them in it The like to which occurrs for the Realm of Hungary wherein K. Andrew gives Authority to his Bishops Lords Bonfinius de Edict publ p. 37. and other Nobles sine nota alicujus infidelitatis that without any imputation of Disloyalty they may contradict oppose and resist their Kings if they do any thing in violation of some Laws and sanctions In Poland the King takes a solemn Oath at his Coronation to confirm all the Priviledges Rights and Liberties which have been granted to his Subjects of all ranks and Orders by any of his Predecessors and then adds this clause quod si Sacramentum meum violavero incolae Regni nullam nobis obedientiam praestare tenebuntur which if he violates his Subjects shall no longer be obliged to yield him Obedience Which Oath as Bodin well observeth Bodin de Rep. lib. 2. cap. 8. doth savour rather of the condition of the Prince of the Senate than of the Majesty of a King The like may be affirmed of Frederick the first King of Danemark who being called unto that Crown on the ejection of K. Christian the 2d An. 1523. was so conditioned with by the Lords of the Kingdom that at his Coronation or before he was fain to swear that he would put none of the Nobility to death or banishment but by the judgment of the Senate that the great men should have power of life or death over their Tenants and Vassals and that no Appeal should lie from them to the Kings Tribunal nor the King be partaker of the confiscations nec item honores aut imperia privatis daturum Id. ibid. c. nor advance any private person to Commands or Honours but by Authority of his great Council Which Oath being also taken by Frederick the second made Bodinus say that the Kings of Danemark non tam reipsa quam appellatione Reges sunt were only titular Kings but not Kings indeed Which Character he also gives of the King of Bobemia Id. ibid. p. 88. But in an absolute Monarchy the case is otherwise all the prerogatives and rights of Sovereignty being so vested in the Kings person ut nec singulis civibus nec universis fas est c. that it is neither lawful to particular men nor to the whole body of the Subjects generally to call the Prince in question for Life Fame or Fortunes Id. ibid. p. 210. and amongst these he reckoneth the Kingdoms of France Spain England Scotland the Tartars Muscovites omnium pene Africae Asiae imperiorum and of almost all the Kingdoms of Africk and Asia But this we shall the better see by looking over the particulars as they lie before us But first before we come unto those particulars we will look backwards on the condition and Authority of the Jewish Sanbedrim which being instituted and ordained by the Lord himself may serve to be a leading Case in the present business For being that the Jews were the Lords own people and their King honoured with the Title of the Lords Anointed it will be thought that if the Sanhedrim or the great Council of the seventy had any Authority and power over the Kings of Judah of whose jus Regni such a larger description is made by God himself in the first of Sam. cap. 8. the three Estates may reasonably expect the like in these parts of Christendom Now for the Authority of the Sanhedrim it is said by Cardinal Baronius that they had power of Judicature over the Law the Prophets and the Kings themselves Baron Annai Eccl. An. 31. sect 10. Erat horum summa autoritas ut qui de lege cognoscerent Prophetis simul de Regibus judicarent Which false position he confirms by as false an instance affirming in the very next words horum judicio Herodem Regem postulatum esse that King Herod was convented and convicted by them for which he cites Josphus with the like integrity I should have wondred very much what should occasion such a gross mistake in the learned Cardinal had I not shewn before that as he makes the Sanhedrim to rule the King so he hath made the high Priest to rule the Sanhedrim which to what purpose it was done every man can tell who knoweth the Cardinal endeavoureth nothing more in his large Collections than to advance the dignity and supremacy of the Popes of Rom. But for the power pretended to be in the Sanhedrim Id. in Epist dedicator and their proceedings against Herod as their actual King Josephus whom he cites is so far from saying it that he doth expresly say the contrary For as Josephus tells the story Hyrcanus was then King not Herod and Herod of so little hopes to enjoy the Kingdom that he could not possibly pretend any Title to it But having a command in Galilee procured by Antipater his Father of the good King Hyrcanus he had played the wanton Governor amongst them and put some of them to death against Law and Justice For which the Mothers of the slain 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 did often call upon the King and people in the open Temple 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. that Herod might answer for the murther before the Sanhedrim Joseph Antiq. Judic l. 14. cap. 17. Which being granted by the King he was accordingly convented by them and had been questionless condemned had not the King who loved him dearly given him notice of it on whose advertisement he went out of the Town and so escaped the danger This is the substance of that story and this gives no Authority to the Court of Sanhedrim over the persons or the actions of the Kings of Judah Others there are who make them equal to the Kings though not superiour Magnam fuisse Senatus autoritatem Regiae velut parem saith the Learned Grotius Grotius in Matth. cap. 5. v. 22. And for the proof thereof allege those words of Sedechias in the Book of Jeremy who when the Princes of his Realm required of him to put the Prophet to death Jerem. 38.5 returned this Answer Behold he is in your hand Rex enim contra vos nihil potest for the King is not he that can do any thing against you Which words are also cited by Mr. Prynne to prove that the King of England hath no Negative Voice but by neither rightly For Calvin who as one observeth composed his Expositions on the book of God according to the Doctrine of his Institutions would not have lost so fair an evidence for the advancing of the power of his three Estates Prynne of Parl. pt 2. p. 73. Hookers Preface had he conceived he could have made it serviceable to his end and purpose But he upon the contrary finds fault with them who do so expound it or think the King did speak so honourably of his Princes ac si nihil iis sit
negandum as if it were not fit to deny them any thing Calvin in Jerem. c. 38. ver 5. Not so saith he it rather is amarulenta Regis querimonia a sad and bitter complaint of the poor captivated King against his Counsellors by whom he was so over-ruled ut velit nolit cedere iis cogitur that he was forced to yield to them whether he would or not which he expresly calls inexcusabilem arrogantiam an intolerable piece of sawciness in those Princes and an exclusion of the King from his legal Rights Let us next take a view of such Christian Kingdoms as are under the command of absolute Monarchs And first we will begin with the Realm of France the Government whereof is meerly Regal if not despotical such as that of a Master over his Servants which Aristotle defineth to be a Form of Government 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 wherein the King may do whatsoever he list Aristot Politic. l. 3. according to the counsel of his own mind For in his Arbitrary Edicts which he sendeth abroad he never mentioneth the cosent of the People or the approbation of the Council or the advice of his Judges which might be thought to derogate too much from his absolute power but concludes all of them in this Regal Form Car tel est nostre plaisir for such is our pleasure And though the Court of Parliament in Paris do use to take upon them to peruse his Edicts View of France by Dallington before they pass abroad for Laws and sometime to demur on his Grants and Patents and to petition him to reverse the same as they see occasion yet their perusal is a matter but of meer formality and their demurs more dilatory than effectual It is the Car tel est nostre plaisir that concludes the business and the Kings pleasure is the Law which that Court is ruled by As for the Assemblie des Estats or Conventus Ordinum it was reputed anciently the Supream Court for Government and Justice of all the Kingdom and had the cognizance of the greatest and most weighty affairs of State But these meetings have been long since discontinued and almost forgotten there being no such Assembly from the time of King Charles the eighth to the beginning of the reign of King Charles the ninth Thuanus hist sui temp which was 70 years and not many since And to say truth they could be but of little use as the World now goeth were the meetings oftner For whereas there are three Principal if not sole occasions of calling this Assembly or Conventus Ordinum that is to say the disposing of the Regency during the nonage or sickness of the King the granting Aids and Subsidies and the redress of the grievances there is now another course taken to dispatch their business The Parliament of Paris which speaks most commonly as it is prompted by power and greatness appointeth the Regent Contin Thuani An. 1610. View of France the Kings themselves together with their Treasurers and Under-Officers determine of the Taxes and they that do complain of Grievances may either have recourse to the Courts of Justice or else petition to the King for redress thereof And for the making new Laws or repealing the old the naturalization of the Alien and the regulating of his Sales or Grants of the Crown-Lands the publick patrimony of the Kingdom which were wont to be the proper Subject and debates of these Grand Assemblies they also have been so disposed of that Conventus Ordinum is neither troubled with them nor called about them The Chamber of Accompts in Paris which hath some resemblance to our Court of Exchequer doth absolutely dispose of Naturalizations Andr. Du Chesn and superficially surveyeth the Kings Grants and Sales which they seldom cross The Kings Car tel est nostre plaisir is the Subjects Law and is as binding as any Act or Ordinance of the three Estates and for repealing of such Laws as upon long experience are conceived to be unprofitable the Kings sole Edict is as powerful as any Act of Parliament Of which Bodinus doth not only say in these general terms Bodin de Rep. lib. 1. cap. 8. Saepe vidimus sine Ordinum convocatione consensu leges à Principe abrogatas that many times these Kings did abrogate some ancient Laws without the calling and consent of the three Estates but saith that it was neither new nor strange that they should so do and gives us some particular instances not only of the later times but the former Ages Nay when the power of this Assemblie des Estats was most great and eminent neither so curtailed nor neglected as it hath been lately yet then they carried themselves with the greatest reverence and respect before their King that could be possibly imagined For in the Assembly held at Tours under Charles the 8. though the King was then no more than 14 years of age and the Authority of that Court so great and awful that it was never at so high an eminence for power and reputation quanta illis temporibus as it was at that time yet when they came before the King Monsieur de Rell being then Speaker for the Commons or the third Estate did in the name of all the rest and with as much humility and reverence as he could devise promise such duty and obedience such a conformity of his will and pleasure such readiness to supply his wants and such alacrity in hearking unto his Commandments that as Bodinus well observes his whole Oration was nothing else quam perpetua voluntatis omnium erga Regem testificatio but a constant testimony and expression of the good affections of the Subject to their Lord and Sovereign Id. ibid. But whatsoever power they had in former times is not now material King Lewis the thirteenth having on good reason of State discharged those Conventions for the time ensuing Instead whereof he instituted an Assembly of another temper and such as should be more obnoxious to his will and pleasure consisting of a certain number of persons out of each Estate but all of his own nomination and appointment which join'd with certain of his Council and principal Officers he caused to be called L' Assembly des Notables assigning to them all the power and privileges which the later Conventions of the three Estates did pretend unto right well assured that men so nominated and intrusted would never use their powers to his detriment and disturbance of his heirs successors But to proceed Bodinus having shewn what dutiful respects the Convention of Estates in France shewed unto their King adds this Note nec aliter Hispanorum conventus habentur that the Assembly of the three Estates in the Realms of Spain carry themselves with the like reverence and submission to their Lord the King Nay major etiam obedientia majus obsequium Regi exhibetur the King of Spain hath more obedience and observance
we that the Majesty of this Kingdom was first originally in the people and by them devolved upon the King by their joynt consent yet having given away that power by their said consent and setled it upon the King by an Act of State confirmed by Oaths and all Solemnities which that Act requires they cannot so retract that grant or make void that gift as to pass a new conveyance of it and settle it upon their Representees in the House of Commons Or if they could yet this would utterly exclude all the Lords from having the least share or portion in this new found Sovereignty in that they represent not the common people but sit there only in their own personal capacities and therefore must submit at last to these new made Sovereigns who carry both the Purse and Sword at their own girdles So then the people cannot give the Sovereignty and if they have no power to give it the Lords and Commons have no claim thereunto de jure See we next therefore how much of this Sovereignty they or their Predecessors rather have enjoyed de facto in peaceable and regular times fit to be drawn into example in the Ages following The chief particulars in which the Sovereignty consists we have seen before and will now see whether that any of them have been exercised and injoyed in peaceable and regular times by both or either of the two Houses of Parliament And first for calling and dissolving Parliaments making of Peers granting of liberty to Towns and Cities to make choice of Burgesses which antiently had no such liberty treating with forein States denouncing War or making Leagues or Peace after War commenced granting safe conduct and protection indenizing of Aliens giving of honours unto eminent and deserving persons Rewarding Pardoning Coyning Printing making of Corporations and dispensing with the Laws in force they are such points which never Parliament did pretend to till these later times wherein every thing almost is lawful I am sure more lawful than to fear God and honour the King Nor do I find that Mr. Prynn hath laboured to entitle them to these particulars For levying of Arms and the command of the Militia besides that the Kings of England have ever been in possession of it and that possession never disturbed or interrupted by any claim of right made in the behalf of the two Houses which is as sure a title as the Law can make the Houses have declared by an Act of Parliament Stat. 7. Ed. 1. Cap. 1. that of right it belongs unto the King streightly to defend that is prohibit all force of Arms and that the Parliament is bound to aid him in that prohibition Touching the Royal Navy and the Ports and Forts the Kings prescription to them is so strong and binding 3. Edw. 3. that in the 3d. of Edward III. the House of Commons did disclaim the having cognisance of such matters as the guarding of the Seas and marches of the Kingdom which certainly they had not done had they pretended any title to the Ports and Navy As for suppressing tumults and providing for the safety of the Kingdom against sudden danger the Law commits it solely to the care of the King 11 Henr. 7. c. 18. obliging every Subject by the duty of his allegeance to aid and assist him at all seasons when need shall require And for their power of declaring Law in the House of Peers wherein they deliver their opinion in the point before them in true propriety of speech they have none at all Case of our Affairs p. 4. And this is that which was affirmed by his Majesty at the end of the Parliament Anno 1628. saying that it belonged only to the Judges under him to interpret Laws and that none of the Houses of Parliament joynt or separate what new Doctrine soever might be raised had any power either to make or declare Law without his consent 3 Car. And if it be done with his consent it is not so properly the declaring and interpreting of an old Law as the making rather of a new saith a learned Gentleman Case of our Affairs p. 5. Others have found out a new way to invest the Parliament with the Robes of Sovereignty not as superior to the King but co-ordinate with him and this say they appears sufficiently in that the two Houses of Parliament have not only a power of consulting but of consenting and that too in the highest office of the Monarchy whereof they are a Co-ordinative part the making of Laws Fuller Answer to D.F. p. 2. Which dangerous doctrine as it was built at first on that former error which makes the King to be one of the three Estates in Parliament so it is super-structed with some necessary consequents whether more treasonable or ridiculous it is hard to say For on these grounds the Author of the Fuller Answers hath presented us with these trim devises Id. pag. 1. viz. that England is not a simple subordinate and absolute but a co-ordinative and mixt Monarchy that this mixt Monarchy is compounded of three co-ordinate Estates a King and two Houses of Parliament that these three make but one supream but that one is a mixt one or else the Monarchy were not mixt and finally which needs must follow from the premises that although every Member of the Houses seorsim taken severally may be called a Subject yet all collective in their Houses are no Subjects Auditum admissi risum teneatis Can any man hear these serious follies and abstain from laughter or think a fellow who pretends both to wit and learning should talk thus of a Monarchy which every one that knoweth any thing in Greek know to imply the supream government of one compounded of three to-ordinate Estates and those co-ordinate Estates consisting of no fewer than 600 persons Or that a man who can pretend but to so much use of reason as to distinguish him from a beast cauld fall on such a senseless dotage as to make the same man at the same time to be a Subject and no Subject a Subject in the Streets and in his private House no Subject when he sits in Haberdashers Hall for advance of moneys or in either of the two Houses of Parliament And yet this senseless doctrine is become so dangerous because so universally admired and hearkened to that the beginning and continuance of our long disturbances may chiefly be ascribed unto this opinion to which they have seduced the poor ignorant people The rather in regard that some who have undertaken the confutation of these brainless follies have most improvidently granted not only that the two Houses of Parliament are in a sort co-ordinate with the King ad aliquid to some Act or exercising of the supream power As in the book called Conscience satisfied that is to the making of Laws but that this co-ordination of the three Estates of which the King is yielded every where for
Courts Coke Institutes part 4 p. 45. out of the Records of Parliament and in his Margent pointing to the 13th of King Edward the third doth instruct us thus viz. Abbates Priores aliosque Praelatos quoscunque per Baroniam de Domino Rege tenentes pertinet in Parliamentis Regni quibuscunq ut pates Regni praedicti personaliter interesse ibique de Regni negotiis ac aliis tractari consuetis cum caeteris dicti Regni Paribus aliis ibidem jus interessendi habentibus consulere tractare ordinare statuere definire ac caetera facere quae Parliamenti tempore imminent facienda Which if it be the same with that which we had before differing only in some words as perhaps it is yet we have gained the Testimony of that Learned Lawyer whose judgment in this Case must be worth the having For hear him speaking in his own words and he tells us this viz. Coke Institut fol. 4. That every Lord of Parliament either Spiritual as Arch-bishops and Bishops or Temporal as Dukes Marquesses Earls Viscounts and Barons Peers of the Realm and Lords of Parliament ought to have several Writs of Summons where plainly these words Peers and Lords of Parliament relate as well to Spiritual as to the Temporal Lords And therefore if the Arch-bishops and the Bishops may be granted to be Lords of Parliament they must be also granted to be Peers of the Realm Now to the Testimony and Authority of particular persons we shall next add the sentence and determination of our Courts of Law in which the Bishops are declared to be Peers of the Realm and to be capable of all the priviledges which belong to the Peerage For first in the aforesaid Case of the Bishop of Winchester when he was brought upon his Trial for departing from the service of the Parliament without leave of the King and pleaded sor himself quod esset unus è Paribus Regni c. The priviledg of Barony It was supposed clearly both by Court and Council that he was a Peer that part of his defence being not gainsayed or so much as questioned So in the Year-Books of the Reign of King Edward the 3d in whose Reign the Bishop of Winchester's Case was agitated as before is said a Writ of Wards was brought by the Bishop of London and by him pleaded to an Issue and the Defendant could not be Essoyned or have day of Grace for it was said that a Bishop was a Peer of the Land haec erat causa saith the Book which reports the Case In the like Case upon an Action of Trespass against the Abbot of Abbingdon who was one of the Lords Spiritual day of Grace was denied against him because he was a Peere de la Terre So also it is said expresly that when question was made about the returning of a Knight to be of a Jury where a Bishop was Defendant in a Quare impedit the Rule of the Court was that it ought to be so because the Bishop was a Peer of the Realm And in the Judgment given against the Bishop of Norwich in the time of Richard the 2d he is in the Roll expresly allowed to be a Peer for he had taken exceptions that some things had passed against him without the Assent or knowledg of his Peers of the Realm To which Exception it was Answered that it behoved him not at all to plead that he was a Prelate for traversing such Errors and misprisions as in the quality of a Souldier who had taken wages of the King were committed by him Thus also in the Assignment of the Errors under Henry the fifth for the Reversal of the Attainder of the Earl of Salisbury one Error is assigned that Judgment was given without the consent of the Prelates which were Peers in Parliament And although that was adjudged to be no Error yet was it clearly allowed both in the Roll and the Petitions that the Bishops were Peers Finally in the Government of the Realm of France the Bishops did not only pass in the Ranks of Peers but six of them were taken into the number of the Douze-pairs or twelve Peers of that Kingdom highly esteemed and celebrated in the times of Charlemayne that is to say the Arch-bishop and Duke of Rhemes the Bishop and Duke of Laon the Bishop and Duke of Langres the Bishop and Earl of Beuvois the Bishop and Earl of Noyon the Bishop and Earl of Chalons And therefore it may be inferred that in the Government established by the Anjovin and Norman Kings the English Bishops might be ranked with the Peers at large considering their place in Parliament and their great Revenues and the strong influence which they had on the Church and State But there is little need for Inferences and book-Cases and the Authorities of particular men to come in for Evidence when we are able to produce an Act of Parliament to make good the point For in the Statute made the 4th year of King Henry the fifth it was repeated and confirmed That no man of the Irish Nation should be chosen by Election to be an Arch-bishop Bishop Abbot or Frior nor in no other manner received or accepted to any dignity and benefice within the said Land c. The Reason of which inhibition is there said to be this viz. because being Peers of the Parliament of the said Land they brought with them to the Parliaments and Councils holden there some Irish servants whereby the privities of the Englishmen within the same Land have been and be daily discovered to the Irish people Rebels to the King to the great peril and mischief of the Kings lawful Liege people in the said Land And if the Bishops and Arch-bishops of Ireland had the name of Peers there is no question to be made but the name of Peers and the right of Peerage may properly be assumed or challenged by them Now as this Statute gives them the name of Peers so in an Act of Parliament in the 25th year of King Henry the 8th they are called the Nobles of your Realm as well Spiritual as Temporal as all your other Subjects now living c. Which Term we find again repeated by the Parliament following the Nobles Spiritual and Temporal and that twice for failing so that we find no Title given to Earls and Barons Nobles and Peers and Lords as the Statutes call them but what is given to the Bishops in our Acts of Parliament and certainly had not been given them in the stile of that Court had any question then been made of their Right of Peerage And that their calling had not raised them to a state of Nobility concerning which take this from the Lord Chief Justice Coke for our more assurance and he will tell us that the general division of persons by the Law of England is either one that is Noble and in respect of his nobility of the Lords House of Parliament or one of the Commons of the
Clergy in the Church of of God hath been or is maintained with less charge to the Subject than the established Clergy of the Church of England Page 167 2. That there is no man in the Kingdom of England who payeth any thing of his own towards the maintenance and support of his Parish-Minister but by his Easter-Offering Page 171 3. That the change of Tithes into Stipends will bring greater trouble to the Clergy than is yet considered and far less profit to the Countrey than is now pretended Page 174 The History of Episcopacy PART I. CHAP. I. The Christian Church first founded by our Lord and Saviour in an imparity of Ministers 1. THE several Offices of Christ our Saviour in the Administration of his Church Page 187 2. The aggregating of Disciples to him Page 188 3. The calling of the Apostles out of them and why twelve in number ibid. 4. Of the Name and Office of an Apostle Page 189 5. What things were specially required unto the making of an Apostle Page 190 6. All the Apostles equal in Authority amongst themselves ibid. 7. The calling and approinting of the 70 Disciples Page 191 8. A reconciliation of some different Opinions about the number Page 192 9. The twelve Apostles superiour to the Seventy by our Saviours Ordinance ibid. 10. What kind of superiority it was that Christ interdicted his Apostles Page 193 11. The several powers faculties and preheminences given to the Apostles by our Saviour Christ Page 194 12. That the Apostles were Bishops averred by the ancient Fathers ibid. 13. And by the text of holy Scripture Page 195 CHAP. II. The foundation of the Church of Hierusalem under the Government of Saint James the Apostle and Simeon one of the Disciples the two first Bishops of the same 1. Matthias chosen in the place of Judas Page 196 2. The coming of the Holy Ghost and on whom it fell Page 197 3. The greatest measure of the Spirit fell on the Apostles and therewithal the greatest power ibid. 4. The several Ministrations in the Church then given and that in ranking of the same the Bishops are intended in the name of Pastors Page 198 5. The sudden growth of the Church of Hierusalem and making Saint James the first Bishop there ibid. 6. The former point deduced from Scripture Page 199 7. And proved by the general consent of Fathers ib. 8. Of the Episcopal Chair or throne of James and his Successors in Hierusalem Page 200 9. Simeon elected by the Apostles to succeed Saint James Page 201 10. The meaning of the word Episcopus and from whence borrowed by the Church ibid. 11. The institution of the Presbyters Page 202 12. What interest they had in the common business of the Church whilst St. James was Bishop ib. 13. The Council of Jerusalem and what the Presbyters had to do therein Page 203 14. The institution of the Seven and to what Office they were called ibid. 15. The names of Ecclesiastical Functions promiscuously used in holy Scripture Page 204 CHAP. III. The Churches planted by Saint Peter and his Disciples originally founded in Episcopacy 1. The founding of the Church of Antioch and that Saint Peter was the first Bishop there Page 205 2. A reconciliation of the difference about his next Successors in the same Page 206 3. A List of Bishops planted by him in the Churches of the Circumcision Page 207 4. Proofs thereof from St. Peters general Epistle to the Jews dispersed according to the exposition of the Ancient Writers ibid. 5. And from Saint Pauls unto the Hebrews Page 208 6. Saint Pauls Praepositus no other than a Bishop in the Opinion of the Fathers ibid. 7. Saint Peter the first Bishop of the Church of Rome Page 209 8. The difference about his next Successors there reconciled also ibid. 9. An Answer unto such Objections as have been made against Saint Peter's being Bishop there Page 210 10. Saint Mark the first Bishop of Alexandria and of his Successors Page 221 11. Notes on the observations of Epiphanius and Saint Hierom about the Church of Alexandria Page 212 12. An observation of Saint Ambrose applyed unto the former business ibid. 13. Of Churches founded by Saint Peter and his Disciples in Italy France Spain Germany and the Isle of Britain and of the Bishops in them instituted Page 213 CHAP. IV. The Bishoping of Timothy and Titus and other of Saint Pauls Disciples 1. The Conversion of Saint Paul and his ordaining to the place of an Apostle Page 214 2. The Presbyters created by Saint Paul Acts 14. of what sort they were Page 215 3. Whether the Presbyters or Presbytery did lay on hands with Paul in any of his Ordinations Page 216 4. The people had no voice in the Election of those Presbyters by Saint Paul ordained Page 217 5. Bishops not founded by Saint Paul at first in the particular Churches by him planted and upon what reasons ibid. 6. The short time that the Churches of Saint Pauls Plantation continued without Bishops over them Page 218 7. Timothy made Bishop of Ephesus by Saint Paul according to the general consent of Fathers Page 219 8. The time when Timothy was made Bishop according to the holy Scripture Page 220 9. Titus made Bishop of Cretans and the truth verified herein by the antient Writers Page 221 10. An Answer unto some Objections against the subscription of the Epistle unto Titus ibid. 11. The Bishoping of Dionysius the Areopagite Aristarchus Gaius Epaphroditus Epaphras and Archippus Page 222 12. As also of Silas Sosthenes Sosipater Crescens and Aristobulus Page 223 13. The Office of a Bishop not incompetible with that of an Evangelist ibid. CHAP. V. Of the Authority and Jurisdiction given unto Timothy and Titus and in them to all other Bishops by the Word of God 1. The authority committed unto Timothy and Titus was to be perpetual and not personal only Page 224 2. The power of Ordination intrusted only unto Bishops by the Word of God according to the exposition of the Fathers Page 225 3. Bishops alone both might and did ordain without their Presbyters Page 226 4. That Presbyters might not ordain without a Bishop proved by the memorable case of Colluthus and Ischyras ibid. 5. As by those also of Maximus and a Spanish Bishop Page 227 6. In what respects the joint assistance of the Presbyters was required herein Page 228 7. The case of the Reformed Churches beyond the Seas objected and declared ibid. 8. The care of ordering Gods Divine Service a work peculiar to the Bishop Page 229 9. To whom the Ministration of the Sacraments also doth in chief belong Page 230 10. Bishops to have a care that Gods Word be preached and to encourage those that take pains therein ibid. 11. Bishops to silence and reprove such Presbyters as preach other Doctrines Page 231 12. As also to correct and reject the Heretick ibid. 13. The censure and correction of inferiour Presbyters in point of life and conversation doth
Page 477 6. The prosecution of the former story and ill success therein of the undertakers ibid. 7. Restraint of worldly business on the Lords day and the other Holy-days admitted in those times in Scotland Page 478 8. Restraint of certain servile works on Sundays Holy-days and the Wakes concluded in the Council of Oxon under Henry III. ibid. 9. Husbandry and Legal process prohibited on the Lords day first in the Reign of Edward III. Page 479 10. Selling of Wools on the Lords day and the solemn Feasts forbidden first by the said King Edward as after Fairs and Markets generally by King Henry VI. Page 480 11. The Cordwainers of London restrained from selling their Wares on the Lords day and some other Festivals by King Edward IV. and the repealing of that Act by King Henry VIII Page 481 12. In what estate the Lords day stood both for the doctrine and the practice in the beginning of the Reign of the said King Henry ibid. CHAP. VIII The story of the Lords day from the Reformation of Religion in this Kingdom till this present time 1. The doctrine of the Sabbath and the Lords day delivered by three several Martyrs conformably to the judgment of the Protestants before remembred Page 483 2. The Lords day and the other Holy-days confessed by all this Kingdom in the Court of Parliament to have no other ground than the Authority of the Church Page 484 3. The meaning and occasion of that clause in the Common-Prayer-book Lord have mercy upon us c. repeated at the end of the fourth Commandment Page 485 4. That by the Queens Injunctions and the first Parliament of her Reign the Lords day was not meant for a Sabbath day Page 486 5. The doctrine in the Homilies delivered about the Lords day and the Sabbath ibid. 6. The sum and substance of that Homily and that it makes not any thing for a Lords day Sabbath Page 487 7. The first original of the New Sabbath Speculations in this Church of England by whom and for what cause invented Page 489 8. Strange and most monstrous Paradoxes preached on occasion of the former doctrines and of the other effects thereof Page 490 9. What care was taken of the Lords day in King James his Reign the spreading of the doctrines and of the Articles of Ireland Page 491 10. The Jewish Sabbath set on foot and of King James his Declaration about Lawful sports on the Lords day Page 493 11. What Tracts were writ and published in that Princes time in opposition to the doctrines before remembred ibid. 12. In what estate the Lords day and the other Holy-days have stood in Scotland since the Reformation of Religion in that Kingdom Page 494 13. Statutes about the Lords day made by our present Sovereign and the misconstruing of the same His Majesty reviveth and enlargeth the Declaration of King James Page 496 14. An exortation to obedience unto his Majesties most Christian purpose concludes this History Page 497 Historia Quinqu-Articularis Or a Declaration of the Judgment of the Western Churches and more particularly of the Church of England in the five Controverted Points c. CHAP. I. The several Heresies of those who make God to be the Author of Sin or attribute too much to the Natural freedom of Man's Will in the Works of Piety 1. God affirmed by Florinus to be the Author of sin the Blasphemy encountred by Irenaeus and the foul Consequents thereof Page 505 2. Revived in the last Ages by the Libertines said by the Papists to proceed from the Schools of Calvin and by the Calvinists to proceed from the Schools of Rome Page 506 3. Disguised by the Maniches in another dress and the necessity thereby imposed on the Wills of men ibid. 4. The like by Bardesanes and the Priscilianists the dangerous consequents thereof exemplified out of Homer and the words of St. Augustine Page 507 5. The Error of the Maniches touching the servitude of the Will revived by Luther and continued by the rigid Lutherans ibid. 6. As those of Bardesanes and Priscilian by that of Calvin touching the Absolute Decree the dangers which lie hidden under the Decree and the incompatibleness thereof with Christs coming to Judgment ibid. 7. The large expressions of the Ancient Fathers touching the freedom of the Will abused by Pelagius and his followers Page 508 8. The Heresie of Pelagius in what it did consist especially as to this particular and the dangers of it ibid. 9. The Pelagian Heresie condemned and recalled the temper of S. Augustine touching the freedom of the Will in spiritual matters ibid. 10. Pelagianism falsly charged on the Moderate Lutherans How far all parties do agree about the freedom of the Will and in what they differ Page 509 CHAP. II. Of the Debates amongst the Divines in the Council of Trent touching Predestination and Original Sin 1. The Articles drawn from the Writings of the Zuinglians touching Predestination and Reprobation Page 510 2. The Doctrine of Predestination according to the Dominican way ibid. 3. As also the old Franciscans with Reasons for their own and against the other Page 511 4. The Historians judgment interposed between the Parties ibid. 5. The middle way of Catarinus to compose the differences ibid. 6. The newness of St. Augustines Opinion and the dislike thereof by the most Learned men in the Ages following Page 512 7. The perplexities amongst the Theologues touching the absoluteness of the Decrees ibid. 8. The judgment of the said Divines touching the possibility of falling from Grace ibid. 9. The Debates about the nature and transmitting of Original Sin ibid. 10. The Doctrine of the Council in it Page 513 CHAP. III. The like Debates about Free-will with the Conclusions of the Council in the five Controverted Points 1. The Articles against the Freedom of the Will extracted out of Luther's Writings Page 314 2. The exclamation of the Divines against Luther's Doctrine in the Point and the absurdities thereof ibid. 3. The several judgments of Marinarus Catarinus and Andreas Vega ibid. 4. The different judgment of the Dominicans and Franciscans whether it lay in mans power to believe or not to believe and whether the freedom of the Will were lost in Adam ibid. 5. As also of the Point of the co-operation of mans Will with the Grace of God Page 515 6. The opinion of Frier Catanca in the point of irresistibility ibid. 7. Faintly maintained by Soto a Dominican Fryer and more cordially approved by others but in time rejected ibid. 8. The great care taken by the Legates in having the Articles so framed as to please all parties Page 516 9. The Doctrine of the Council in the five Controverted Points ibid. 10. A Transition from the Council of Trent to the Protestant and Reformed Churches Page 517 CHAP. IV. The judgment of the Lutherans and Calvinians in these five Points with some Objections made against the Conclusions of the Council of Dort 1. No difference in Five Points betwixt the
luck in making choice of three such instances which if true would not serve his turn Page 681 8. The danger which lyeth hidden under the disguise of such popular Magistrates as are here instanced in by Calvin Page 682 9. What moved Calvin to lay these dangerous stumbling-blocks in the Subjects way Page 683 10. The dangerous positions and practices which have hence ensued in most parts of Europe Page 684 11. The sect of Calvin professed Enemies to Monarchy and the power of Princes Page 685 CHAP. V. What are the three Estates in each several Kingdom of which Calvin speaks and what particularly in the Realm of England 1. Of the division of a People into three Estates and that the Priests or Clergy have been always one Page 687 2. The Priests employed in Civil matters and affairs of State by the Egyptians and the Persians the Greeks Gauls and Romans Page 688 3. The Priests and Levites exercised in affairs of Civil Government by Gods own appointment Page 680 4. The Prelates versed in Civil matters and affairs of State in the best and happiest times of Christianity Page 690 5. The Clergy make the third Estate in Germany France Spain and the Northern Kingdoms Page 692 6. That anciently in the Saxon times the Ecclesiasticks of this Realm were called to all publick Councils Page 694 7. The Prelates an essential fundamental part of the English Parliament ibid. 8. Objections answered and that the word Clerus in the Legal notion doth not extend unto the Prelates Page 698 9. That the inferior Clergie of the Realm of England had anciently their Votes in Parliament to all intents and purposes as the Commons had Page 700 10. Objections answered and that the calling of the Clergie to Parliaments and Convocations were after different manners and by several Writs Page 703 11. The great Disfranchisement and Slavery obtruded on the English Clergy by the depriving of the Bishops of their Votes in Parliament Page 705 12. A brief discussion of the question whether any two of the three Estates conspiring or agreeing together can conclude any thing unto the prejudice of the third Page 706 CHAP. VI. That the three Estates of every Kingdom whereof Calvin speaks have no Authority either to regulate the power or controll the Actions of the Sovereign Prince 1. The Bishops and Clergy of England not the King make the third Estate and of the dangerous consequences which may follow on the contrary Tenet Page 708 2. The different influence of the three Estates upon conditional Princes and an absolute Monarch Page 710 3. The Sanhedrim of no Authority over the Persons or the actions of the Kings of Judah Page 711 4. The three Estates in France of how small Authority over the actions of that King Page 712 5. The King of Spain not over-ruled or regulated by the three Estates Page 713 6. Of what Authority they have been antiently in the Parliaments of Scotland Page 714 7. The King of England always accounted heretofore for an absolute Monarch Page 715 8. No part of Sovereignty invested Legally in the English Parliaments Page 716 9. The three Estates assembled in the Parliament of England subordinate unto the King not co-ordinate with him Page 719 10. The Legislative power of Parliaments is properly and legally in the King alone Page 720 11. In what particulars the power of the English Parliament doth consist especially Page 723 12. The Kings of England ordinarily over-rule their Parliaments by themselves their Council and their Judges Page 724 13. Objections answered touching the power and practice of some former Parliaments and the testimonies given unto them Page 726 14. No such Authority given by God in Holy Scripture to any such Popular Magistrates as Calvin dreams of and pretends Page 727 15. The Application and Conclusion of the whole Discourse Page 728 De jure Paritatis Episcoporum The Right of Peerage vindicated to the Bishops of England Page 739. FINIS
and Ministers shall move the people to joyn with them in Prayer in this Form or to this effect as briefly as conveniently they may Ye shall pray for Christs holy Catholick Church that is for the whole Congregation of Christian people dispersed through the whole world and especially for the Churches of England Scotland and Ireland And herein I require you most especially to pray for the Kings most excellent Majesty our Sovereign Lord James King of England Scotland France and Ireland Defender of the Faith and Supreme Governour in these his Realms and all other his Dominions and Countreys over all Persons in all causes as well Ecclesiastical as Temporal Ye shall also pray for our gracious Queen Ann the noble Prince Henry and the rest of the Kings and Queens Royal Issue Ye shall also pray for the Ministers of Gods holy Word and Sacraments as well Archbishops and Bishops as other Pastors and Curats Ye shall also pray for the Kings most honourable Council and for all the Nobility and Magistrates of this Realm that all and every of those in their several callings may serve truly and painfully to the Glory of God and the edifying and well-governing of his people remembring the accompt they must make Also ye shall pray for the whole Commons of this Realm that they may live in true Faith and fear of God and humble obedience to the King and Brotherly Charity one to another Finally let us praise God for all those that are already departed out of this life in the Faith of Christ and pray unto God that we may have grace to direct our lives after their good examples that this life ended we may be made partakers with them of the glorious Resurrection in the life everlasting Always concluding with the Lords Prayer So far the Letter of the Canon in which there was not any purpose nor in the makers of the same to introduce into the Church any Form of Prayer or Invocation save those which were laid down in the Common prayer Book nor indeed could they if they would the Statute 1 Eliz. being still in force but to reduce her Ministers to the antient usage of this Church which had been much neglected if not laid aside The Canons then established were no late Invention as some give it out but a Collection of such Ordinances and pious Customs as had been formerly in use since the Reformation which being scattered and diffused in several Injunctions Orders and Advertisements published by K. Henry VIII K. Edward VI. and Q. Eliz. or in the Canons of particular Convocations in those times assembled or otherwise retained in continual practice was by the care and wisdom of the Clergy in the Synod at London An. 1603. drawn up together into one body and by his Majesty then being Authorized in due form of Law And being so Authorized by his Majesty the Canons then made had the force of Laws and were of power to bind the Subjects of all sorts according to their several and respective concernments as fully and effectually as any Statute or Act of Parliament can bind the Subject of this Realm in their goods and properties For which consult the Statute 25. H. 8. cap. 19. and the practice since Which as it may be said of all so more particularly of the Canon now in question of which it is to be considered that the main body of the same had been delivered formerly almost verbatim in the Queens Injunctions published by her Royal and Supream Authority in the first year of her Reign Anno 1559. which I will therefore here put down that by comparing both together we may the better see the true intention of that Canon and what is further to be said in the present business The Queens Injunction is as followeth The title this The Form of bidding the Prayers to be used generally in this uniform sort and then the body of it is this Ye shall pray for Christs holy Catholick Church that is for the whole Congregation of Christian people dispersed throughout the whole world and especially for the Churches of England and Ireland and herein I require you most especially to pray for the Queens most excellent Majesty our Soveraign Lady Eliz. Queen of England France and Ireland Defender of the Faith and supream Governour of this Realm as well in causes Ecclesiastical as Temporal You shall also pray for the Ministers of Gods holy Word and Sacraments as well Archbishops and Bishops as other Pastors and Curats Ye shall also pray for the Queens most honourable Council and for all the Nobility of this Realm That all and every of these in their callings may serve truly and painfully to the glory of God and edifying of his people remembring the accompt they must make Also you shall pray for the whole Commons of this Realm that they may live in true faith and fear of God in humble Obedience and brotherly Charity one to another Finally let us praise God for all those that are departed out of this life in the faith of Christ and pray unto God that we may have grace to direct our lives after their good example that after this life we may be made partakers of the glorious resurrection in the life everlasting These are the very words of the Injunction wherein it is to be observed that as the Canon hath relation to this Injunction so neither this Injunction nor any thing therein enjoyned was of new erection but a Reviver only of the usual Form which had been formerly enjoyned and constantly observed in King Edwards days as we shall see by looking over the Injunction published and the practice following thereupon in the said Kings Reign Now the Injunction of King Edward the 6. is in this Form following The Title thus The Form of bidding the Common prayers and then the Form it self You shall pray for the whole Congregation of Christs Church and especially for this Congregation of England and Ireland wherein first I commend to your devout prayers the Kings most excellent Majesty supreme Head immediately under God of the Spiritualty and Temporalty of the same Church And for Queen Katharine Dowager and also for my Lady Mary and my Lady Elizabeth the Kings Sisters Secondly you shall pray for my Lord Protectors grace with all the rest of the Kings Majesties Council for all the Lords of this Realm and for the Clergy and Commons of the same Beseeching Almighty God to give every one of them in his degree Grace to use themselves in such wise as may be to Gods glory the Kings honour and the weal of this Realm Thirdly you shall pray for all them that be departed out of this world in the faith of Christ that they with us and we with them at the day of Judgment may rest both Body and Soul with Abraham Isaac and Jacob in the Kingdom of Heaven This was the Form first published in the beginning of the Reign of King Edward VI. and it continued all
his time save that the latter clause was altered and that for praising God for Saints departed put instead thereof as we may see in Bishop Latimers Sermon preached at Stanford whereof more anon Hitherto are we clear for King Edwards time and no less clear are we for King Henries also especially for the latter part thereof in which the use of Bidding prayers or moving the people unto prayer had by him been imposed upon the Clergy before this time the people had been trained up in a very gross ignorance not knowing explicitely the Articles of their belief accustomed to a Latin service in their publick Churches and to a daily stint of Pater-nosters and Ave-Maries in the Latin tongue which few or none of them understood But that King having taken on himself the Title of supreme Head of the Church of England and adding of the same to the stile Imperial viz. Anno 1535 there issued out an order by his Authority in this Form that followeth This is an Order taken for Preaching and Bidding of Beads in all Sermons to be made within this Realm First Whosoever shall Preach in the presence of the Kings Highness and the Queen's Grace shall in the bidding of Beads pray for the whole Catholick Church of Christ as well quick as dead and especially for the Catholick Church of this Realm and first as we be most bounden for our Soveraign Lord King Henry the VIII being immediatly next under God the only supreme Head of this Catholick Church of England And for the most gracious Lady Qu. Anne his Wife and for the Lady Elizabeth Daughter and Heir to them both And no further Item the Preacher in all other places of this Realm not in the presence of the Kings said Highness and the Queens Grace shall in the bidding of the Beads pray first in manner and Form and word for word as is above ordained and limited Adding thereto in the second part For all Archbishops and Bishops and for the whole Clergy of this Realm And specially such as the Preacher shall name of his devotion And thirdly for all Dukes Earls Marquess's and for all the whole Temporalty of this Realm and specially for such as the Preacher shall name of devotion And finally for the souls of all them that be dead and specially for such as it shall please the Preacher to name So far the very words of the Injunction as it relates unto the business now in hand which differs very little if at all in Form and fashion though there be some difference in the matter from those which followed in the Reign of K. Edward VI. and Q. Eliz. both of which out of question took their hint from hence Besides it is to be observed that the said King having assumed unto himself the stile and Title of supreme Head of the Church of England as before is said did before this by Proclamation dated June 9. An. 1534. declare and signifie his Royal pleasure that all and all manner of Ecclesiastical persons should teach preach publish and declare in all manner of Churches the said his just Title Stile and Jurisdiction on every Sunday and high Feast throughout the year which after was enjoyned in the Injunction of the year Anno 1536 set out by the Lord Cromwell being then Vicar General with the Kings authority As also in the Injunctions of King Edward the 6. An. 1547. which again was revived in the Queens Injunctions Anno 1559. As after in the first Convocation of King James in the year 1603. And besides this it was appointed in the said Injunctions of King Henry the 8. that the Preacher or Parochial Priest should every Sunday in the Pulpit rehearse distinctly the Lords prayer the Articles of the Creed and the ten Commandments in the English Tongue for the better instructing of the people in their duties both to God and Man which being ordered at the same time as the bidding of the Beads in the Forni spoken of before was first enjoyned shews plainly the intention and effect of both to be no other than to instruct the people in the principles of faith and piety So that as well to teach the people how to pray and what things they chiefly were to pray for in the publick meeting as to make known unto them the Kings just Title by which they were to recommend him in their devotions the Form before remembred of Bidding prayers or Beads was prescribed the Priests by them to be proposed unto the people in their several Sermons For instance of the which in point of practice in the said Kings time we need but look upon a Sermon of Bishop Latimers being that before the Convocation Anno 1536. which was the 28. of King Henries Reign In which being entred on his matter as the use then was he thus bids the prayers That all that I say shall may turn to the glory of God your Souls health and the edifying of Christs Body I pray you all to pray with me unto God and that also in your Petitions you desire that these two things he vouchsase to grant us First a mouth for me to speak rightly next Ears for you that in hearing me you may take profit at my hands and that this may come to effect you shall desire him unto whom our Master Christ bad we should pray saying even the same prayer which Christ himself did Institute Wherein we shall pray for our Sovereign Lord the King chief and supreme Head of the Church of England under Christ and for the most excellent gracious and vertuous Lady Queen Jane his most lawful Wife and for all his whether they be of the Clergy or Laity whether they be of the Nobility or else other his Grace's Subjects humbly beseeching Almighty God that every one of us even from the highest to the lowest may in his degree and Calling earnestly endeavour to set forth the glory of God and the Gospel of his Son Christ Jesus that so living in his fear and love we may in the end of our days depart out of this life in his friendship and favour For these graces and what else his wisdom knoweth more needful for us let us pray as we are taught saying Our Father c. Put all that hath been said together and the sum is this That if we do interpret the Canon of the year 1603. by the Queens Injunctions and construe both of them according to the Injunctions in King Edwards and King Henries days we shall see plainly that the Form of prayer appointed by the Canon is no new Invention neither obtruded on the Church by the Bishops of these times on a design to stint the Spirit as some now give out or on a like design of Archbishop Bancroft and the Prelates of his time as is said by others but carried and transmitted from hand to hand since the very first beginning of the Reformation nor did it stand thus only in point of Law not being reduced unto practice
no appeal but only to the whole body of that Court the King Case of our Assairs p. 7 8. and both the Houses the Head and Members But this they do not as the upper House of Parliament but as the distinct Court of the Kings Barons of Parliament of a particular and ministerial jurisdiction to some intents and purposes and to some alone which though it doth invest them with a power of judicature confers not any thing upon them which belongs to Sovereignty Then for the Commons all which the Writ doth call them to is facere consentire to do and consent unto such things which are ordained by the Lords and Common Council of the Kingdom of England and sure conformity and consent which is all the Writ requireth from them are no marks of Sovereignty nor can an Argument be drawn from thence by the subtlest Sophister to shew that they are called to be partakers of the Sovereign power or that the King intends to denude himself of any branch or leaf thereof to hide their nakedness And being met together in a body collective they are so far from having any share in Sovereignty that they cannot properly be called a Court of Judicature as neither having any power to minister an Oath Id. p. 9. or to imprison any body except it be some of their own Members if they see occasion which are things incident to all Courts of Justice and to every Steward of a Leet insomuch that the House of Commons is compared by some and not incongruously unto the Grand Inquest at a general Sessions whose principal work it is to receive Bills and prepare businesses Review of the Observat p. 22. and make them fit and ready for my Lords the Judges Nay so far were they heretofore from the thoughts of Sovereignty that they were lyable to sutes and punishments for things done in Parliament though only to the prejudice of a private Subject until King Henry VIII most graciously passed a Law for their indemnity For whereas Richard Strode one of the company of Tinners in the County of Cornwall being a Member of the Commons House had spoken somewhat to the prejudice of that Society and contrary to the Ordinances of the Stanneries at his return into the Country he was Arrested Fined Imprisoned Complaint whereof being made in Parliament the King passed a Law to this effect viz. That all suites condemnations 4 Hen. 8. c. 8. executions charges and impositions put or hereafter to be put upon Richard Strode and every of his Complices that be of this Parliament or any other hereafter for any Bill speaking or reasoning of any thing concerning the Parliament to be communed and treated of shall be void and null But neither any reparation was allowed to Strode nor any punishment inflicted upon those that sued him for ought appears upon Record And for the Houses joyned together which is the last capacity they can claim it in they are so far from having the supream Authority that as it is observed by a learned Gentleman they cannot so unite or conjoyn as to be an entire Court either of Sovereign or Ministerial jurisdiction no otherwise co-operating than by concurrence of Votes in their several Houses for preparing matters in order to an Act of Parliament Case of our Affairs p. 9. Which when they have done they are so far from having any legal Authority in the State as that in Law there is no stile nor form of their joynt Acts nor doth the Law so much as take notice of them until they have the Royal Assent So that considering that the two Houses alone do no way make an entire Body or Court and that there is no known stile nor form of any Law or Edict by the Votes of the two Houses only nor any notice taken of them by the Law it is apparent that there is no Sovereignty in their two Votes alone How far the practice of the Lords and Commons which remain'd at Westminster after so many of both Houses had repaired to the King c. may create Precedents unto Posterity I am not able to determine but sure I am they have no Precedent to shew from the former Ages But let us go a little further and suppose for granted that the Houses either joynt or separate be capable of the Sovereignty were it given unto them I would fain know whether they claim it from the King or the People only Not from the King for he confers upon them no further power than to debate and treat of his great Affairs to have access unto his person freedom of speech as long as they contain themselves within the bounds of Loyalty authority over their own Members Hakewell of passing Bills in Parliament which being customarily desired and of course obtained as it relates unto the Commons shews plainly that these vulgar priviledges are nothing more the rights of Parliament than the favours of Princes but yet such favours as impart not the least power of Sovereignty Nor doth the calling of a Parliament ex opere operato as you know who phrase it either denude the King of the poorest robe of all his Royalty or confer the same upon the Houses or on either of them whether the King intend so by his call or otherwise For Bodin whom Mr. Prynn hath honoured with the title of a grand Politician Prynn of Parliament par 2. p. 45. Bodin de Repub doth affirm expresly Principis majestatem nec Comitorum convocatione nec Senatus populique praesentia minui that the Majesty or Sovereignty of the King is not a jot diminished either by the calling of a Parliament or Conventus Ordinum or by the frequency and presence of his Lords and Commons Nay to say truth the Majesty of Sovereign Princes is never so transcendent and conspicuous as when they sit in Parliament with their States about them the King then standing in his highest Estate as was once said by Henry VIII who knew as well as any of the Kings of England how to keep up the Majesty of the Crown Imperial Nor can they claim it from the People who have none to give for nemo dat quod non habet as the saying is The King as hath been proved before doth hold his Royal Crown immediately from God himself not from the contract of the People He writes not populi clementia but Dei gratia not by the favour of the People but by the grace of God The consent and approbation of the People used and not used before the day of Coronation is reckoned only as a part of the solemn pomps which are then accustomably used The King is actually King to all intents and purposes in the Law whatever immediatly on the death of his Predecessor Nor ever was it otherwise objected in the Realm of England till Clark and Watson pleaded it at their Arraignment in the first year of King James Speeds History in K James Or grant