Fellows and Equals All this great noise and clamour against the pride of the Bishops upon this score proceedeth as I said meerly from the ignorance of the true original cause and ground of that innocent and ancient usage and therefore cannot signify much to any reasonable and considering man when that ground is discovered which is this viz. that every Bishop is in construction of our Laws a Corporation For although the Bishop of himselfe and in his private and personal capacity be but a single person as other men are and accordingly in his letters concerning his own particular affairs and in all other his actings upon his own occasions and as a private person writeth of himselfe in the singular number as other private men do yet for as much as in his publike and politick capacity and as a Bishop in the Church of England he standeth in the eye of the Law as a Corporation the King not only alloweth him acting in that capacity to write of himselfe in the plural number but in all writs directed to him as Bishop as in Presentations and the like bespeaketh him in the plural number Vestrae Diocesis vobis praesentamus c. The Bishop then being a Corporation and that by the Kings authority as all other Corporations whether Simple or Aggregate whether by Charter or Prescription are it is meet he should hold his Courts and proceed therein in the same manner and form where there is no apparent reason to the contrary as other Corporations do And therefore as it would be a high presumption for the Chancellour and Scholars of one of the Universities being a Corporation to whom the King by his Charter hath granted a Court or for the Major and Aldermen of a City for the same reason to issue Writs or do other acts in their Courts in the Kings name not having any authority from the King or his grant or from the Laws and Customs of England so to do so doubtless it would for the same reason be esteemed a presumption no less intolerable for the Bishops to use the Kings name in their processes and judicial acts not having any sufficient legal warrant or authority for so doing IX Which if it were duly considered would induce any reasonable man to beleive and confesse that this manner of proceeding in their own names used by the Bishops in their Courts is so far from trenching upon the Regal power and authority which is the crime charged upon it by the Objectors that the contrary usage unless it were enjoyned by some Law of the Land as it was in the Raign of King Edward the Sixth might far more justly be charged therewithal For the true reason of using the Kings name in any Court is not thereby to acknowledge the emanation of the power or jurisdiction of that Court from or the subordination of that power unto the Kings power or authority as the Objectors seeme to suppose but rather to shew the same Court to be one of the Kings own immediate Courts wherein the King himselfe is supposed in the construction of the Law either by his personal or virtual power to be present And the not using of the Kings name in other Courts doth not infer as if the Iudges of the said Courts did not act by the Kings authority for who can imagine that they who hold a Court by virtue of the Kings grant only should pretend to act by any other then his authority but only that they are no immediate representatives of the Kings person in such their jurisdiction nor have consequently any allowance from him to use his name in the exercise or execution thereof X. Secondly there is another observable difference in this point between the Kings Common-law-Courts such as are most of those afore-mentioned and those Courts that proceed according to the way of the Civil Law If the King appoint a Constable or Earle-Marshal or Admiral of England for as much as all tryals in the Marshals Court commonly called the Court of Honour and in the Admiralty are according to the Civil Law all Processes therefore Sentences and Acts in those Courts go in the names of the Constable Earle-Marshal or Admiral and not in the Kings name Which manner of proceeding constantly used in those Courts sith no man hitherto hath been found to interpret as any diminution at all or dis-acknowledgement of the Kings Soveraignty over the said Courts it were not possible the same manner of proceeding in the Ecclesiastical Courts should be so confidently charged with so heinous a crime did not the intervention of some wicked lust or other prevail with men of corrupt minds to become partial judges of evil thoughts Especially considering that XI Thirdly there is yet a more special and peculiar reason to be given in the behalf of the Bishops for not using the Kings name in their Processes c. in the Ecclesiastical Courts then can be given for the Iudges of any other the above-mentioned Courts either of the Common or Civil Laws in the said respect arising as hath been already in part touched from the different nature of their several respective Iurisdictions Which is that the summons and other proceedings and acts in the Ecclesiastical Courts are for the most part in order to the Ecclesiastical censures and sentences of Excommunication c. The passing of which sentences and other of like kind being a part of the power of the Keyes which our Lord Iesus Christ thought fit to leave in the hands of his Apostles and their Successors and not in the hands of Lay-men the Kings of England never challenged to belong unto themselves but left the exercise of that Power entirely to the Bishops as the lawful Successors of the Apostles and inheritours of their Power The regulating and ordering of that power in sundry circumstances concerning the outward exercise thereof in foro externo the godly Kings of England have thought to belong unto them as in the right of their Crown and have accordingly made Laws concerning the same even as they have done also concerning other matters appertaining to Religion and the worship of God But the substance of that power and the function thereof as they saw it to be altogether improper to their office and calling so they never pretended or laid claim thereunto But on the contrary when by occasion of the title of Supream Head c. assumed by King Henry the Eighth they were charged by the Papists for challenging to themselves such power and authority spiritual they constantly and openly disavowed it to the whole world renouncing all claim to any such power or authority As is manifest not onely from the allowed writings of many godly Bishops eminent for their learning in their several respective times in vindication of the Church of England from that calumny of the Papists as Archbishop Whitgift Bishop Bilson Bishop Andrews Bishop Carleton and others but also by the Injunctions of Queen Elizabeth and the admonition prefixed thereunto
to be of divine right independently upon the other Let any man come up to the point and shew if he can how and wherein the Episcopal power is any thing at all diminished by affirming the Regal to be of divine right or how and wherein the Regal power is at all Prejudiced by affirming the Episcopal to be of divine right The opposition between those two Terms To be from Heaven and To be of Men which was objected cometh not home enough unless we should affirm them both of one and the same power in the same respect Which since we do not that opposition hindereth not but that the same power may be said to be of both in divers respects viz. to be from Heaven or of God in respect of the substance of the thing in the general and yet to be of Men in respect of the determination of sundry particularities requisite unto the lawful and laudable exercise thereof X. Secondly that the derivation of any power from God doth not necessarily infer the non-subjection of the persons in whom that power resideth to all other men For doubtless the power that Fathers have over their children husbands over their wives masters over their servants is from Heaven of God and not of Men. Yet are Parents Husbands Masters in the exercises of their several respective powers subject to the power jurisdiction and Laws of their lawful Soveraigns And I suppose it would be a very hard matter for any man to find out a clear and satisfactory reason of difference between the Ecclesiastical power and the Oeconomical why the one because it claimeth to be of Divine Right should be therefore thought to be injurious to Regal power and the other though claiming in the same manner not to be injurious XI Thirdly the Ministerial power in that which is common to Bishops with their fellow-Presbyters viz. the Preaching of the VVord and administration of the Sacraments c. is confessed to be from Heaven and of God and yet no prejudice at all conceived to be done thereby to the Regal Power because the Ministers who exercise that power are the Kings subjects and are also in the executing of those very acts that are proper to their Ministerial functions to be limited and ordered by the Kings Ecclesiastical Lawes A man might therefore justly wonder but that it is no new thing to find in the bag of such Merchants as we have now to deal with pondus pondus how it should come to pass that the Episcopal Power in that which is peculiar to Bishops above other their brethren in the Ministery viz. the Ordaining of Priests and Deacons and the managing of the Keyes cannot be said to be of God but it must be forthwith condemned to be highly derogatory to the Regal Power notwithstanding the Bishops acknowledge themselves as freely as any others whosoever to be the Kings subjects and submit themselves with as much willingness I dare say and some Presbyterians know I speak but the truth as the meanest of their fellow-Ministers do to be limited in exercising the proper Acts of their Episcopal Functions by such Lawes as have been by Regal Power established in this Realm The King doth no more challenge to himselfe as belonging to him by vertue of his Supremacy Ecclesiastical the power of Ordaining Ministers Excommunicating scandalous offenders or doing any other act of Episcopal Office in his own person then he doth the power of Preaching administring the Sacraments or doing any other act of Ministerial office in his own person but leaveth the performance of all such acts of either sort unto such persons as the said several respective powers do of divine right belong unto viz. of the one sort to the Bishops and of the other to all Preists Yet doth the King by virtue of that Supremacy challenge a power as belonging unto him in the right of his Crown to make Laws as well concerning Preaching administring the Sacraments and other acts belonging to the function of a Priest as concerning Ordination of Ministers proceedings in matters of Ecclesiastical cognisance in the Spiritual Courts and other acts belonging to the function of a Bishop To which Lawes as well the Priests as the Bishops are subject and ought to submit to be limited and regulated thereby in the exercise of those their several respective Powers their claim to a Ius divinum and that their said several powers are of God notwithstanding I demand then As to the Regal Power is not the case of the Bishops and of the Ministers every way alike Do they not both pretend their Powers to be of God And are they not yet for all that both bound in the exercise of those powers to obey the King and his Laws Is there not clearly the same reason of both How then cometh it to pass that these are pronounced innocent and those guilty Can any think God will wink at such foul partiality or account them pure with the bag of deceitful weights XII Fourthly that there can be no fear of any danger to arise to the prejudice of the Regal power from the opinion that Bishops are jure divino unless that opinion should be stretched to one of these two constructions viz. as if it were intended either 1. that all the Power which Bishops have legally exercised in Christian Kingdomes did belong to them as of divine right or 2. that Bishops living under Christian Kings might at least exercise so much of their power as is of divine right after their own pleasure without or even against the Kings leave or without respect to the Laws and Customes of the Realm Neither of which is any part of our meaning All power to the exercise whereof our Bishops have pretended cometh under one of the two heads of Order or of Iurisdiction The Power of Order consisteth partly in preaching the word and other offices of publique VVorship common to them with their fellow-Ministers partly in Ordaining Preists and Deacons admitting them to their Particular Cures and other things of like nature peculiar to them alone The power of Iurisdiction is either Internal in retaining and remitting sins in foro conscientiae common to them also for the substance of the authority though with some difference of degree with other Ministers or External for the outward government of the Church in some parts thereof peculiar to them alone For that external power is either Directive in prescribing rules and orders to those under their jurisdictions and making Canons and Constitutions to be observed by the Church wherein the inferior Clergy by their Representatives in Convocation have their votes as well as the Bishops and both dependently upon the King for they cannot either meet without his VVrit or treat without his Commission or establish without his Royal Assent or Iudiciary and Coercive in giving sentence in foro exteriori in matters of Ecclesiastical cognisance Excommunicating Fining Imprisoning offenders and the like Of these powers some branches not onely in
bring down the Regal Power and set up their own 3. That upon these very grounds the custome was altered by Act of Parliament and a Statute made 1. Ewd. VI. howsoever since repealed and discontinued that all Processes Ecclesiastical should be made in the Kings name and not in the Bishops V. As to the first point true it is that the manner used by the Bishops in the Ecclesiastical Courts viz. in issuing out Summons Citations Processes giving Iudgments c. in their own names and not in the Kings is different from the manner used in the Kings Bench Exchequer Chancery and sundry other Courts But that difference neither doth of necessity import an independency of the Ecclesiastical Courts upon the King nor did in all probability arise at the beginning from the opinion of any such independency nor ought in reason to be construed as a disacknowledgement of the Kings authority and Supremacy Ecclesiastical For VI. First there is between such Courts as are the Kings own immediate Courts and such Courts as are not a great difference in this point Of the former sort are especially the Kings Bench and Chancery as also the Court of Common Pleas Exchequer Iustices of Goal-delivery c. In the Kings Bench the Kings themselves in former times have often personally sate whence it came to have the name of the Kings Bench neither was it tyed to any particular place but followed the Kings Person At this day also all Writs returnable there run in this style Coram nobis and not as in some other Courts coram Iustitiariis nostris or the like and all judicial Records there are styled and the Pleas there holden entred Coram Rege and not coram Iustitiariis Domini Regis Appeals also are made from inferiour Iudges in other Courts to the King in Chancery because in the construction of the Lawes the Kings Personal Power and Presence is supposed to be there and therefore Sub-poena's granted out of that Court and all matters of Record passed there run in the same style Coram Rege c. Forasmuch as in the Iudges in these two Courts there is a more immediate representation of the Kings Personal power and presence then in the Iudges of those other Courts of Common Pleas Exchequer c. Which yet by reason of his immediate virtual power and presence are the Kings immediate Courts too In regard of which his immediate virtual power although the style of the Writs and Records there be not Coram nobis Coram Rege as in the former but onely Coram Iustitiariis Coram Baronibus nostris c. yet inasmuch as the Iudges in those Courts are the Kings immediate sworn Ministers to execute justice and to do equal right to all the Kings people in his name therefore all Processes Pleas Acts and Iudgements are made and done in those Courts as well as in the two former in the Kings name But in such Courts as do not suppose any such immediate Representation or presence of the Kings either personal or virtual Power as that thereby they may be holden and taken to be the Kings own immediate Courts the case is far otherwise For neither are the Iudges in those Courts sworn the Kings Iudges to administer Justice and do right to the Kings subjects in his name and stead nor do they take upon them the authority to cite any person or to give any sentence or to do any act of Jurisdiction in the Kings name having never been by him authorized so to do Of this sort are amongst others best known to them that are skilled in the Laws of this Realm all Courts-Baron held by the Lord of a Manner Customary Courts of Copyholders c and such Courts as are held by the Kings grant by Charter to some Corporation as to a City Borough or Vniversity or els by long usage and prescription of time In all which Courts and if there be any other of like nature Summons are issued out and Iudgements given and all other Acts and Proceedings made and done in the name of such persons as have chief authority in the said Courts and not in the name of the King So as the styles run thus A. B. Major civitatis Ebor. N. M. Cancellarius Vniversitatis Oxon. and the like and not Carolus Dei gratia c. VII Upon this ground it is that our Lawyers tell us out of Bracton that in case of Bastardy to be certified by the Bishop no inferiour Court as London Yorke Norwich or any other Incorporation can write to the Bishop to require him to certify but any of the Kings Courts at Westminister as Common Pleas Kings Bench c. may write to him to certify in that case The reason is Because Nullus alius praeter Regem potest Episcopo demandare inquisitionem faciendam Which maketh it plain that the Kings immediate powe either personal or virtual is by the Law supposed to be present in Courts of the one sort not of the other the one sort being his own immediate Courts and the other not VIII Now that the Ecclesiastical Courts wherein the Bishops exercise their Jurisdiction are of the latter sort I doubt not but our Law-books will afford plenty of arguments to prove it beyond all possibility of contradiction or cavil Which being little versed in those studies I leave for them to find out who have leisure to search the books and do better understand the nature constitution differences and bounds of the several Courts within this Realm One argument there is very obvious to every understanding which because I shall have fit occasion a little after to declare I will not now any longer insist upon taken from the nature of the Iurisdiction of these Courts so far distant from the Iurisdiction appertaining to those other Courts that these are notoriously separated and in Common and vulgar speach distinguished from all other by the peculiar name and appellation of the Spiritual Courts But another Argument which those books have suggested I am the more willing here to produce for that it not only sufficiently proveth the matter now in hand but is also very needful to be better known abroad in the world then it is for the removing of a very unjust censure which meerly for want of the knowledge of the true cause hath been laid upon the Bishops in one particular to their great wrong and prejudice It hath been much talked on not only by the Common sort of people but by some persons also of better rank and understanding and imputed to the Bishops as an act of very high insolency that in their Processes Patents Commissions Licences and other Instruments whereunto their Episcopal Seale is affixed so oft as they have occasion to mention themselves the Style runneth ever more in the Plural number Nos G. Cantuar-Archiepiscopus Coram nobis Salvo nobis c. just as it doth in his Majesties Letters Patents and Commissions thereby shewing themselves say they as if they were his
firmiter inhibendo quod sicut Baronias suas quas de Rege tenent diligunt nullo modo praesumant concilium tenere de aliquibus quae ad Coronam pertinent vel quae personam Regis vel Statum suum vel Statum concilii sui contingunt scituri pro certo quod si fecerint Rex inde capiet se ad Baronias suas c. By which Record together with other the premisses it may appear that the Kings by their Ancient right of Prerogative had sundry wayes power over the Bishops whereby to keep them in obedience and to secure their Supremacy from all peril of being prejudiced by the exercise of Episcopal Iurisdiction XXXV Yet in order to the utter abolishing of the Papal usurpations and of all pretended forraign power whatsoever in matters Ecclesiastical within these Realms divers Statutes have been made in the Raign of King Henry the Eighth and since for the further declaring and confirming of the Kings Supremacy Ecclesiastical Wherein the acknowledgement of that Supremacy is either so expresly contained or so abundantly provided for as that there can be no fear it should suffer for lack of further acknowledgement to be made by the Bishops in the style of their Courts Amongst other First by Statute made 25. H. 8. 19. upon the submission and petition of the Clergy it was enacted that no Canons or Constitutions should be made by the Clergy in their Convocation without the Kings licence first had in that behalfe and his royal assent after and likewise that no Canon c. should be put in execution within the Realm that should be contrariant or repugnant to the Kings Prerogative Royal or the Customes Lawes or Statutes of the Realm Then Secondly by the Statute of 1. Eliz. cap. 1. all such Ecclesiastical Iurisdictions Priviledges Superiorities and Pre-eminences as had been exercised or used or might be lawfully exercised or used by any Ecclesiastical power or authority was declared to be for ever united and annexed to the Imperial Crown of this Realm And Thirdly it was also in the same Statute provided that the Oath of Supremacy wherein there is contained as full an acknowledgement of the Kings Ecclesiastical Suprenacy as the wit of man can devise should be taken by every Archbishop and Bishop c. which hath been ever since duely and accordingly performed XXXVI Lastly from receiving any prejudice by the Bishops and their Iurisdiction the Regal power is yet farther secured by the subordination of the Ecclesiastical Laws and Courts to the Common Law of England and to the Kings own immediate Courts For although the Ecclesiastical Laws be allowed by the Laws of this Realm and the proceedings in the Ecclesiastical Courts be by the way of the Civil and not of the Common Law yet are those Laws and proceedings allowed with this limitation and condition that nothing be done against the Common Law whereof the Kings prerogative is a principal part nor against the Statutes and Customes of the Realm And therefore the Law alloweth Appeales to be made from the Ecclesiastical Courts to the King in Chancery and in sundry cases where a cause dependeth before a Spiritual Iudge the Kings prohibition lyeth to remove it into one of his Temporal Courts XXXVII Having so many several ties upon the Bishops to secure themselves and their Regal authority from all danger that might arise from the abuse of the Ecclesiastical Power and Iurisdiction exercised by the Bishops in their Courts by the ancient prerogative of their Crown by the provisions of so many Statutes and Oaths by the remedy of the Common Law the Kings of England had no cause to be so needlesly cautelous as to be afraid of a meere formality the Style of a Court. Especially considering the importance of the two Reasons expressed in the Statute of King Edward as the onely grounds of altering that Style not to be such as would countervaile the Inconvenience and Scandal that might ensue thereupon XXXVIII For whereas it was then thought convenient to change the Style used in the Ecclesiastical Courts because it was contrary to the form used in the Common-Law-Courts within this Realm which is one of the Reasons in the said Statute expressed it might very well upon further consideration be afterwards thought more convenient for the like reason to retain the accustomed Style because otherwise the forme of the Ecclesiastical Courts would be contrary to the form of other civil-law-Civil-Law-Courts within the Realm as the Admiralty and Earle-Marshals Court and of other Courts of the Kings grant made unto Corporations with either of which the Ecclesiastical Courts had a nearer affinity then with the Kings Courts of Record or other his own immediate Courts of Common Law Nor doth there yet appear any valuable reason of difference why Inconformity to the Common Law-Courts should be thought a sufficient ground for the altering of the forms used in the Ecclesiastical Courts and yet the like forms used in the Admiralty in the Earle-Marshals Court in Courts Baron in Corporation-Courts c. should notwithstanding the same inconformity continue as they had been formerly accustomed without alteration XXXIX If any shall alledge as some reason of such difference the other Reason given in the said Statute viz. that the form and manner used by the Bishops was such as was used in the time of the usurped power of the Bishop of Rome besides that therein is no difference at all for the like forms in those other aforesaid Courts were also in use in the same time there is further given thereby great occasion of Scandal to those of the Church of Rome And that two wayes First as it is made a Reason at all and Secondly as it is applyed to the particular now in hand First whereas the Papists unjustly charge the Protestant Churches with Schism for departing from their Communion it could not but be a great Scandal to them to confirm them in that their uncharitable opinion of us if we should utterly condemn any thing as unlawful or but even forbid the use of it as inexpedient upon this onely grouud or consideration that the same had been used in the times of Popery or that it had been abused by the Papists And truly the Puritanes have by this very means given a wonderful Scandal and advantage to our Adversaries which they ought to acknowledge and repent of when transported with an indiscreet zeal they have cryed down sundry harmeless Ceremonies and customes as superstitious and Antichristian onely for this that Papists use them Whereas godly and regular Protestants think it agreeable to Christian liberty charity and prudence that in appointing Ceremonies retaining ancient Customes and the use of all other indifferent things such course be held as that their moderation might be known to all men and that it might appear to their very Adversaries that wherein they did receed from them or any thing practised by them they were not thereunto carried by a Spirit of contradiction but either cast
the Objectors and then endeavour by a clear and satisfactory answer to discover the weakness and vanity of them both III. The former objection Whereas in the Oath of Supremacy the supreme power Ecclesistical is acknowledged to be in the King alone and by the Statute of 1. Eliz. All jurisdictions and preeminencies Spiritual and Ecclesiastical within the Realm of England are restored to the Crown as the ancient right thereof and forever united and annexed thereunto the Bishops claiming their power and jurisdiction to belong unto them as of divine right seemeth to be a manifest violation of the said Oath and Statute and a real diminution of the Regal power in and by the said Oath and Statute acknowledged and confirmed For whatsoever power is of divine right is immediatly derived from God and dependeth not upon any earthly King or Potentate whatsoever as superiour thereunto These two tearms to be from Heaven and to be of Men being used in the Scriptures as terms opposite and inconsistent and such as cannot be both truly affirmed of the same thing IV. The latter objection Setting aside the dispute of jus divinum and whatsoever might be said either for or against the same the very exercising of Episcopal jurisdiction in such a manner as it was with us the Bishops issuing out their Summens giving Censures and acting every other thing in the Ecclesiastical Courts in their own and not in the Kings name seemeth to derogate very much from the Regal power in the point of Ecclesiastical Soveraignty For whereas the Judges in the Kings Bench Common Plees and other Common-Law-Courts do issue out their Writts and make all their Iudgments Orders Decrees c. in the Kings name thereby acknowledging both their Power to be depending upon and derived from the Kings authority and themselves in the exercise of that Power to be but his Ministers sent and authorzied by him and so give him the just honour of his Supremacy temporal The Bishops on the other side exercise a spiritual power or jurisdiction in their own names and as it were by their own authority without any the least acknowledgment of the effluxe or emanation of that power or jurisdiction from the King Which custome as it had undoubtedly its first rise and after-growth from the exorbitant greatness of the Bishops of Rome who have usurped an unjust authority as well over Kings and Princes as over their Fellow-Bishops laboured all they could to lessen the authority of Kings especially in matters Ecclesiastical so is the continuance thereof no otherwise to be esteemed then as a rag or relique of that Anti-Christian tyranny which was retained as some other things also of evil consequence were in those imperfect beginnings of Reformation when the Popes power was first abrogated under King Henry the Eighth But it was afterwards in a more mature and perfect reformation taken in to consideration in the Raign of King Edward the Sixth and remedy provided there-against by an Act of Parliament made in the first year of his Raign Wherein it was enacted that all Summons Citations and other Processes Ecclesiastical should be made in the Kings name and with the style of the King as it is in Writts original and judicial at the Common Laws and that the Teste thereof only should be in the name of the Bishop V. It is true indeed that this Statute of King Edward was within a few years after repealed and so the old usage and form again restored primo Mariae and hath ever since so continued during the Raigns of the said Queen of Queen Elizabeth of K. Iames and of his Majesty that now is until this present Parliament without any alteration or interruption But the repealing of the Statute of primo Edw. 6. and the reception of the former usage insuing thereupon ought not to be alleaged by the Bishops or to sway with any Protestant inasmuch as that repeal was made by Queen Mary who was a professed Papist and who together with that form of proceeding in the Ecclesiastical Courts restored also the whole Popish Religion whereof that was a branch Neither ought the un-interrupted continuance of the said form under Queen Elizabeth and the succeeding Kings whether it happened through inadvertency in the State or through the incessant artifices and practises of the more active Bishops some or other whereof had alwayes a prevalent power with those Princes in their several Raigns to hinder but that as the said manner of proceeding was in the said first year of Edward 6. by the King and the three Estates in Parliament adjudged to favour the usurped power of the Bishops of Rome and to trench upon the Kings just and acknowledged authority in matters Ecclesiastical as by the preamble of the said Act doth sufficiently appear so it ought to be still no otherwise esteemed then as a branch of the Papal usurpation highly derogatory to the honour of the King and the rights of his Crown This is as I conceive the sum of all that hath been and the utmost of what I suppose can be said in this matter THE II. SECTION In answer to the former Objection I. WHereunto I make answer as followeth To the former Objection I say first that it is evidently of no force at all against those Divines who for the maintenance of Episcopacy lay their claim under another notion and not under that of Ius Divinum Which expression for that it is by reason of the ambiguity thereof subject to be mistaken and that captious men are so willing to mistake it for their own advantage might peradventure without loss of Truth or prejudice to the Cause bâ— with as much prudence laid aside aâ— used as in this so in sundry other disputes and controversies of these Times II. If it shall be replyed that then belike the Proctors for Episcopacy are not yet well agreed among themselves by what title they hold and that is a shrewd prejudice against them that they have no good title For it is ever supposed he that hath a good title knoweth what it is and we are to presume the power to be usurped when he that useth it cannot well tell how he came by it I say therefore secondly that the difference between the Advocates for Episcopacy is rather in the different manner of expressing the same thing then in their different judgement upon the substance of the matter The one sort making choise of an expression which he knoweth he is able to make good against all gainsayers if they will but understand him aright the other out of wariness or condescension forbearing an expression no necessity requiring the use of it which he seeth to have been subject to so much mis-construction III. For the truth is all this ado about Ius divinum is in the last result no more then a meer verbal nicety that term being not alwayes taken in one and the same latitude of signification Sometimes it importeth a divine precept which is indeed
difference is that in bodily diseases this course may be sometimes profitably experimented and with good success not onely out of necessity when there is no other way of cure left as they use to say Desperate diseases must have desperate remedies but also out of choice and in a rational way as Hippocrates adviseth in the case of some cold diseases to cast the patient into a burning feaver which he calleth 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 And I remember to have read somewhere to that purpose such an Aphorisme as this Vtile est innasci sebrem in spasmo But for the remedying of Moral or Politick distempers it is neither warrantable nor safe to try such experiments Not warrantable because we have no such rule given us in the Word of God whereby to operate nor safe because herein the Mean onely is commendable all Extreams whether in defect or excess vitious Now what defects or excesses there might be in the Reformation of Religion and the Church within these Realms during the Raigns of K. Henry the Eighth King Edward the Sixth and Queen Elizabeth it doth not become me neither is it needful to examine But sure it is they that had the managery of those affairs in their several respective times were 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 made of the same day with other men subject to infirmities and passions and to be byassed with partial affections and those affections capable to be enflamed with zeal cooled with delayes enraged by opposition and allayed by seasonable applications And therefore although we cannot say for certain with what affections those Reformers in the beginning of Edward's Raign were steered in the whole business yet it is very possible and in this particular of the Statutes from the weakness of the reasons therein expressed not improbable that the jealousies they had of the Papal power so lately ejected might make them more abundantly cautelous and sollicitous to secure themselves thereagainst then need required Verily the temper of those times and men and the Reformation made about those times in other countreys considered we have far greater cause to bless God that in their then Reformation in very many things they did not a great deal worse then to blame them that in some few things they did not a little better then they have done XXI It is further considerable Thirdly that where a Reformation is truly intended and the thing it self intended by that Reformation to be established is also within a tolerable compass of Mediocrity there may yet be such errour in the choice of the means to be used for the accomplishing of those intentions as may vitiate the whole work and render it blame-worthy For although it be a truth so expresly affirmed by the Apostle and so agreeable to the dictates of right reason That we may not do any evil thing for any good end as that I should scarce have believed it possible that any man that pretended to be Christian or but reasonable should hold the contrary had I not been advertised by very credible persons that some men of eminent place and power did so by distinguishing but beside the book and where the Law distinguisheth not between a publick and a private good end yet the eagerness of most men in the pursuance of such ends as they are fully bent upon and their pride of spirit disdaining to be crossed in their purposes and impatient of meeting with any opposition putteth them many times upon the use of such means as seem for the present best conducing to the ends they have proposed to themselves without any sufficient care to examine whether such means be lawful or not For either they run on headlong and are resolved not to stick at any niceties of conscience but being ingaged in a design to go through with it per fas nefas measuring honesty by utility or els they gather up any thin fig-leaves where they can meet with them to hide the deformity of their actions if it were possible even from their own eyes and are willing their affections should bribe and cheat their judgements with any weak reasons to pronounce that lawful to be done which they have a mind to do the secret checks and murmurings of their consciences to the contrary notwithstanding Hence it is that whereas men ought to conform all their wills and actions to the exact rule of Gods Word they do so often in stead thereof crooken the rule to make it comply with their actions and desires raising such doctrines and conclusions from the sacred Texts of Scripture by forced inferences as will best serve to give countenance to whatsoever they fancie to be or please to call Reformation and to whatsoever means they should use for the effecting of such Reformation though it were by popular tumults civil war despising Governours breaking Oaths open Rebellion or any other act how unjust soever and full of disloyalty Which made Learned Zanchy observing in his time how Anabaptists and all sorts of Sectaries that attempted to bring in any new and unheard of alteration in Religion into the Churches of Christ by any means though never so seditious and unlawful did yet justifie all their enterprises by this that they were done in order to a more perfect Reformation to cry out Ego non intelligo istam Reformatorum mundi â—â—elogiam Whether this observation be so sitly applyable to those times of King Edwards Reformation as the two former considerations were I know not I am sure it sitteth but too well to these evil times of ours wherein the pretence of a Thorow-Reformation serveth as a foile to set off the blackest crimes that ever the Christian world was guilty of XXII Lastly say there should be nothing amiss in any of the premisses but that the intentions were sincere the proceedings moderate and the means lawful yet since no wit of man is at the present able to foresee all the inconveniences that may ensue upon any great and suddain change of such Lawes and Customes as have been long and generally observed till time and experience discover them it may very well and not seldome doth come to pass that the Reformation intended for the remedying of some one abuse or the preventing of some present apparant inconvenience may open a gap to let in some other abuses or inconveniences which though yet undiscerned may in time prove to be more and greater then those that were sought to be remedyed Physicians tell us that all sudden changes in the body are dangerous and it is no otherwise in the Church and State Which is the ground of that Maxime well approved of all wise men if rightly understood Malum benè positum non movendum and of that other so famous in the Ancient Councels 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Let the old Customes be observed And therefore Aristotle gravely censureth that Law made by Hippodamus the Milesian Law-giver That whosoever should devise any new Law for the common good should be rewarded
by the State as a Law indeed foolish and pernicious how specious and plausible soever it seemed at the first appearance because saith he it would but encourage busie active spirits to be alwayes innovating some thing or other in the State which might finally tend to the subversion of all ancient Lawes and Customes and consequently of the whole Government it self Now that the Reformation in King Edwards dayes as to this particular in that Statute concerned was subject at least to this frailty we may very probably gather a posteriori from this that after it was once repealed they that had to do in the Reformation ever since thought it sit rather to let it lye under that repeal then to revive it XXIII There can be no doubt but that to an objection made from the force of a Statute it is a sufficient answer if it be true to say that the said Statute hath been repealed and so continueth Yet the adversaries of Episcopacy are so pertinaciously bent to hold their Conclusion in despite of all Premisses that they seem to be nothing satisfied there withal but dividing the answer turn the former part of it viz. that of the Repeal to their own advantage For say they that Repeal being made by Queen Mary who was a professed Papist and a Persecuter of the Protestant Religion was certainly an Act of hers done in favour of Popery and so is a strong confirmation that the form of proceeding formerly used by the Bishops in the Ecclesiastical Courts prohibited by the Statute of King Edward but restored by that her Repeal was a popish practice and more besitting Papists then Protestants to use XXIV To return a full answer hereunto first it shall be willingly granted that Queen Mary being a zealous Papist did cause that Statute made in the first of her Brothers Raign to be repealed out of pure zeal to the Romish Religion and in favour of the Pope and of his Iurisdiction Both bee use she conceived which was true that her late Brother being a Protestant had by that Statute prohibited the Bishops to do sundry things in their own names of purpose thereby to lessen the Popes authority within his Realms as also because their using of the Kings name in their Processes and Acts carried with it as we formerly granted a more express and evident acknowledgment of the Kings Supremacy Ecclesiastical then the contrary custome doth XXV But then secondly this being granted it will by no means follow either first that the repeal of that Statute is not to be valued by any Protestant or that secondly the custome of the Bishops prohibited by the Statute and restored by the Act of Repeal was Popish or thirdly that our former answer was unsufficient not the first because we are not to look upon the Statute and upon the Act of Repeal as they were made the one by a Protestant the other by a Papist for that were to judge 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and with respect of persons but to consider whether the reasons whereupon the Statute was grounded were in veritate rei such as that it ought not to have been repealed either by Papist or Protestant Which reasons how they have been valued appeareth upon the post-fact in this that a Papist Princess by the principles of her Religion could do no less then repeal that Statute and a Protestant Princess without prejudice to the principles of her Religion might continue that Repeal XXVI Not the second because that very Statute of I. Edward the Sixth by which it is ordained that all Summons Citations and other Processes Ecclesiastical be made in the name and with the style of the King doth it self sufficiently absolve the contrary custome formerly used by the Bishops acting in their own names from being either Popish or otherwise derogatory to the Kings Supremacy Inasmuch as by Proviso's in the said Statute the Bishops are still permitted in some cases to use their own names without any mention at all to be made of the King as namely the Archbishop of Canterbury to grant Faculties and Dispensations and every other Bishop to make Collations Presentations Institutions and Inductions of Benefices Letters of Orders and Dimissories c. under their own names and seals as by the words of the said Statute doth plainly appear Which sure would not have been permitted in any case had the thing it self been by them conceived to have been simply and de toto genere either Popish or prejudicial to the Regal Power XXVII Not the Third because they disjoynt our former answer that they might make their advantage of the one piece of it severed from the other For the strength of the answer it being copulative was not to lye in either part alone but in both together taken joyntly and indeed more principally in the later part which they slightly put off then in the former whereat they take advantage We do not say that the objecting of that Statute is of little moment against us because it was repealed by Queen Mary though that repeal alone is sufficient to make it void and invalid as to all effects in Law but because being then repealed it was never after revived in the Raigns either of Queen Elizabeth King Iames or his Majesty that now is which sheweth that the Act of Repeal as to the point now in dispute was by them approved of and intended to continue in force And it will thence follow further and most clearly that in the judgement of all these wise and religious Princes there was a great difference between the Papal and the Episcopal Iurisdiction as they had been either of them exercised within these Realms and that the Papal was prejudicial to the Regal Power and Supremacy but the Episcopal was not XXVIII Neither doth that suffice which is put in by way of Reply hereunto to alledge that the continuance of the old custome after the repeal made happened either through inadvertency of the State or by reason of the great power some or other of the Bishops ever had with those Princes For it cannot be doubted but that the State having before them a Precedent of so late and fresh memory as the Statute of 1. Edw. 6. would at some time or other within the space of fourscore years especially there being no want in those dayes of enough greedy Great-ones and factious Disciplinarians to remind them of it have taken a time to frame and pass a Bill for the reviving of that Statute if they had deemed the custome therein forbidden Popish or derogatory either to the Kings honour or power or had not rather found sufficient reason to perswade them that the said Statute was inconvenient or at leastwise useless And as for the Bishops they that understand the condition of those first times well know that under God and his good providence they stood in a manner by the immediate and sole favour of Queen Elizabeth The Papists on the one side hated them above all