the Temple was consecrated by Salomon and the Tabernacle and Altar by Moses the one a King the other a temporall Magistrate who consecrated Aaron alsó and bis sonnes and ordained them Priestes neither of them a Bishop or High-Priest therefore if any such consecrations are to be made the King and temporall Magistrats ought to make them not their Lordships as Hospinian prooves at large de Origine Obedirationum c. 1. fol. 104. where hee concluds thus Hoc autem authoritas antiquitus semper fuit Politici Magistratus and that as well among the Pagans as Christians Secondly They had a commaund from God for the one but their Lordships have none for the other Thirdly These Consecrations and purifyings were part of the Ceremoniall Law and so quite abolished by Christ Acts 10. 14. 15. Iohn 4. 20. to 26. 1. Tim. 2. 8. Col. 2. 13. to the end Heb. 8. and 9. therefore not now to be used Fourthly The Temple Tabernacle and Iewish Altars were consecrated and hallowed because Types of Christ of which our Churches Chappell 's and Church-yards are no Types Fiftly The Iewes never consecrated their Synagogues in which they had no Altars nor yet their Burying-places in lieu of which our Churches and Church-yards succeed Therefore if their Lordships will imitate them they must not consecrate Churches Chapples or Altars nor yet have any Altars in our Churches much lesse take 20. 30. or 40. p. for consecrating them as some of them have done it being Simony in the highest degree and nothing due by the Cannon Law but a dinner III. By what Law of the Land can our Bishops Arch-Deacons and their visitors in their visitations take money for procurations of those Churches which they visite not in persone or more money for procurations then will defray their dyet and horse-meat there being no more due by their owne Canon Law and that onely for the Churches they personally visite Or by what Law or Canon can they take money of Ministers or Scholemasters for shewing their letters of order or lycenses to preach or teach schoole or of Church-wardens and others for presentments There being not one penny due by Law or Canon to them much lesse by Patent or graunt from the King And whether may not his Majestie lawfully call all our Arch-Bishops Bishops Arch-Deacons and their visitors to an account for all the money and extorted Fees thus taken by them in their visitations and likewise in their Consistories for probate of wills and Letters of administrations where they take twice thrice yea 4. or 5. times as much as the Statute of 21. H. 8. c. 5. allowes them which is but 5. s. at the highest where the goods amount to 40. p. or vpwards and punish them all in Starre-Chamber for extortion as hee hath lately done many Officers in his temporall Courts since these their execrable extortions taken duering his Highnes raygne will amount at least to 100000. p. as much as the Cleargie gave to King Henry the 8. to exempt themselves from that premunire they had incurred by submitting themselves to Cardinall Woollseyds power legatine IV. Quo Iure Can any D. of the civill Law or other Chancelor Vicar generall Officiall or Commissarie to any Prelate or Arch-Deacon exercise any Ecclesiasticall Iurisdiction vnder them without speciall lycense and Patent from his Majestie or his predecessors Royall it being directly contrary to the expres Statute of 37. H. 8. c. 17. which ordaines that the Kings Majestie his Heires and Successors shall ordaine constitute and depute all Bishops and Arch-Deacons Chauncellors Vicars generall Commissaries Officialls Scribes and Registers or els it gives them no power to execute any Ecclesiasticall Iurisdiction and that by speciall letters Patents as appeares by 1. Eliz. c. 1. and 8. Eliz. c. 1. which Patents they all now wanting cannot exercise any such Iurisdiction and so all their proceedings are meerely voyd and their places in his Majesties disposall to whom they ought to be accountable for all the proffits they have already unjustly received in these their usurped offices V. Whether is it not now meete and convenient for his Majestie to appoint one of his Nobles or some other learned Layman to be his Vice-gerent generall for good and due ministration of Iustice to be bad in all causes and cases touching the Ecclesiasticall jurisdiction and for the godly Reformation and redresse of all errors heresies and abuses in our Church to take place of and sit aboue the Arch-Bishop of Canterbury and all other Lord Bishops in all places according to the Statute of 31. H. 8. c. 10. yet in full force to bridle the pride curbe the insolencies redresse the usurpations Extravagances Innovations and take away the pretended Ius Divinum of our Lordly Prelates directly repugnant to this Act and to 26. H. 8. c. 1. 28. H. 8. c. 10. 31. H. 8. c. 9. 31. H. 8. c. 31. 34. and 35. H. 8. c. 17. 35. H. 8. c. 1. 37. H. 8. c. 17. 1. Ed. 6. c. 2. 1. Eliz. c. 1. 8. Eliz. c. 1. On which I would desire their Lordships to chew the cudd to abate their favour VI. By the Statute of 37. H. 8. c. 6. Every person or persons that shall cut out or maliciously cause to be cut out the tongue of any person or shall maliciously cut off or cause to be cut of the eare or eares of any his Majesties Subjects is to render trible damages to the partie and so forfeite 10. p. sterling for every such an offence to the Kings Majesty and his Heires And 5. H. 4. c. 5. makes it felony for any man maliciously to cut off any mans tongue or put out his eye Whether then our Lord Prelates and their Officers for cutting out our faithfull Ministers tongues and closing up their mouthes that they may not preach Gods word to their people and cutting of some Laymens eares and threatning to have the eares of more that they may not heare Gods word and that maliciously against the Lawes and Statutes of the Realme are not fellons within the latter of these two Acts and Malefactors in the first to render ireble damages to the parties greeved and maymed by them and to make a fine to his Majestie is a question worthy resolution VII Whether these Lordly Prelates that have stood mute for one two or three yeares space and more and never preached nor given answer to these Quaeligres refusing to put themselves to the tryall of God and their Countrey for their Episcopall pretended Ius Divinum and other their fore-mentioned usurpations and exactions upon his Majestie and his Subjects are not by the Common Law of the Land to be pressed for Mutes as other malefactors that stand mute and silent are in like cases VIII Whether if the Apostles were now in England and should preach Jesus Christ dayly in our Temples and from house to house without ceasing as they did Acts 5 42. our Lord Prelates would not presently
silence suspend and pursevant them into the high Commission and there fine and imprison them for Convinticleers And if they should preach notwithstanding their Lordships inhibitions as they did notwithstanding the chiefe Priests commaund to doe it whether their Lordships would not therevpon be filed with indignation and put them in the Common-prison and there keepe them fast and beat them too as their predecessors the High Priests did Acts 5. 17. 18. 40. 41. since they thus serve our Godly faithfull Ministers for the same causes IX Whether if our Saviour Christ himself were now on earth and should be convented before our High Priests as hee was once before the Iewes High Priest and they should offer to put him to an Ex officio oath and examine him concerning his Disciples and Doctrine and Christ should refuse to take such an oath and answer them as hee did the High Priest I spake openly to the world I ever taught in the Synagogue and in the Temple whether the Iewes and people alwayes resort and in secreet have I sayd nothing Why askest thou mee Aske them that heare me what I sayd unto them Behold they know what I sayd refusing to bring in a coppie of his Sermons or to accuse himself would not their Lordships Pursevants Officers upon such an answer as this stricke Iesus with the palme of their hands as the High Priests Officer did Saying Answerest thou the High Priest our Lord Arch-Bishop and Bishops so Iohn 18. 19. 20. 21. 22. And would not their Lordships for such an answer which satisfied the High Priest commit our Saviour forthwith to prison to the Clinke the Gate-house Fleete New-prison Kings Bench or Counter as they committed Mr. Bambridg and M r. Johnson of old and many of Christs Ministers since for the same answer X. Whether if S t. Paul were now alive and should preach so diligently in England as he did amongst the Iewes our High Priests the Prelates would not lay the selfsame accusation against him before the Kings Majestie as Ananias the Iewes High Priest did by Tertullus his Orator before Felix and informe his Majestie that they had found this man a pestilent fellow and a moover of sedition among all the Iewes now English men throughout the world or Kingdome and a Ringleader of the sect of the Nazarens the Puritanes as they terme them Acts 24. 5. since they lay the selfsame accusations to the chardge of most Godly Ministers as many late instances evidence XI Whether if Christ himself should preach dayly in some of our Prelates Diocoese as he did in the Temple Jewish Synagogues and S t. Paul preach night and day morning and evening in our Churches as he did at Ephesus against our Prelates inhibitions and the people flocke from all parts and Parishes to heare them as they did to them our Prelates would not forthwith suspend them from preaching and clapp them by the heeles and likewise present and punish all their hearers for goeing out of their owne Parishes where they had no sermons to heare them since they thus use our painefullest Preachers and hearers who imitate their examples contrary to the very doctrine of our Homilies of the right of the Church p. 3. 4. which themselves have subscribed too but refuse to practise XII Whether if our Saviour should now descend in person from heaven and give his precept to our Lord Prelates which once he gave to his Apostles Luke 22. 25. 26. Mat. 20. 25. 26. 27. yee know that the Princes of the Gentiles exercise dominion over them and they that are great exercise authority upon them But it shall not be so among you but whosoever will be great among you let him be your Minister and whosoever will be chiefe among you let him be your servant c. they would presently convent and arraigne him for it as an open oppugner of their Lordly Iurisdiction and temporall Offices and power and censure him as severely as ever they did D r. Bastwick or any other that hath writt against their pretended Divine right to their Lordly Hierarchie XIII Whether these severall actions and writs at Common Law mentioned in the Register will not lye against the Prelates Namely The write intituled Ad Iura Regia for violating the Kings Lawes and prerogative Royall by their owne extravagant Lawes Articles Decretalls and Canons to reduce them to the Kings Lawes in Ad quod damnum to inquire what great dammages they have done to his Majesties Subjects soules bodies estats and to informe his Majestie what Nusances they are An Apostata capiendo to imprison them for their Apostatie from the doctrines and faith of the Church of England to the faith and Ceremonies of the Church of Rome and casting off their spirituall cares and functions to follow temporall affaires and manage offices like so many temporall Lords An assisa de nocumento for the great musances they have lately done to our Religion Church State Ministers and people A writt of Association to ranke Ministers and temporall Lords in aeligquipage with them over whom they now so much Lord it like Lords paramount over all other people An Attachment on a prohibition That Lay-men shall not be cited before them to take any oath or make any recognition unlesse in matters of Testament and Marriage usuall in former ages and necessary now An Attachment against them for refusing to admit prohibitions in cases whereby Law they lie and stopping the current of this write An Audita Quarela to heare the Ministers and peoples severall complaints against them An Acquiet ando de Servitijs to free the Ministers and people from their late imposed Ceremonies services vassaladge A Cautione admittenda to make people more warie of them and to procure absolutions for their vniust Censures A Cercierari to remoove them from their temporall offices and imployments and have spirituall and temporall causes out of their unlawfull Consistories and visitations kept in their owne name without Patent or Commission from his Majestie into the Kings owne temporall Courts A Cessavit de cantaria Servitijs per biennium for not preaching in their Diocoese to their people by two yeares space and more the case of divers of them De Clerico admittendo to inforce them to admite our suspended silenced Ministers to preach againe freely as in former times De Clerico infra sacros ordines constituto non eligendo in officium to hinder them from being chosen and being thrust into temporall offices and affaires incompitable with their functions De Cognitionibus admittendis to hinder them from medling with all causes and affaires of which they have no cognisance A writt of Collution and deceipt for their hypocrisie and jugling both with God his Majestie and his Subjects and for seeming holy pious just religious yea Fathers and Pillars of our Church our faith and being nothing lesse An Action of the case for vexing excommunicating suspending and silencing Ministers and others against
Administration Probat of wills c. in the Kings name and stiâ—e alone and under his Seale according to 1. Ed. 6. c. 2. 1. Eliz. c. 1. A non molestando to hinder them from molesting good Ministers Preachers people and other his Majesties Subjects without just cause A moderata misericordia to moderate their illegall and excessive fines and teach these holy Fathers more mercy A writt of false imprisonment for pursevanting and imprisoning men against Law which they have no power at all to doe A writt de odia atia to examine their malicious unjust accusations imprisonments and proceedings of and against his Majesties Subjects A parco fracto for breaking the pales and hedges both of the Lawes of God and the Realme and ruling onely by their meere lusts and wills A perambulatione facienda to bound out the true limites of their Ecclesiasticall and Episcopall Iurisdiction Courts and power and to cause them to give those prisoners they have a long time shut vp and the common Law and course of Prohibitions which they have pent up of late to walke freely abroad A ponendo in Ballyam to enforce them to dischardge and bayle those they have unjustly imprisoned A praeligcipe in capite to render to God and the King those their severall rights Iurisdictions and prerogatives they have a long time unjustly detayned from them as their owne A Prohibition to hinder all their Innovations Oathes Visitations Articles extravagant proceedings fines imprisonments extortions excommunications suspentions encroachments on the Common Law and the like A Pro rata portione to give them onely that power and authority and such competent maintenance as Gods Lawes allowes them and no more A Quale jus to examine their Divine title of their Bishopprickes what right it is A Quare impedit to force them to shew good cause why they hinder Ministers from preaching to their people and prohibit those to heare Sermons abroad who have none at home A Quare incumbravit to shew cause why they have lately incombred our Churches Ministers people with so many innovations Alterations Injunctions Articles Oathes Fees Taxes Rayles Ceremonies Erronious and licentious Bookes and false doctrines and to censure them severely for doeing it A Quare non admisit to shew cause why they permit not Ministers to preach on Lords dayes afternoone on lecture dayes and other occasions or so osten as heretofore and why they resuse to admit those into the ministry or to livings who will not subscribe to their new Innovations and those Articles they secretly tender to them under hand A Quod permittat To permit the Lords table to stand quietly in the midst of the Church or Chauncell without being rayled in and remooved Altar-wise against the wall and to suffer Ministers to preach and people to heare and receive the Sacrament in such manner as they have formerly used A Querela coram Rege consilio discusiendo terminando to bring all these Quaeligres and the complaints of the Subjects against the Bishops and their Officers before the King and his Counsell to be there heard and determined by them A Quo Iure To examine by what Law they have turned Communion Tables into Altars set up Crucifixes silenced our Ministers put downe Lectures and preaching made and printed new Oathes Articles and Injunctions in their owne names c. and by what Law and in what Court they may be punished for them A Restitutione abstracti ab Ecclesia To restore our silenced Ministers and Preachers to their Chruches A salva conductus to suffer his Majesties Subjects to goe peaceably and safely about their busines and Ministers without danger of their Pursevants and Catch-poles A Securitate pacis to bind them to the peace and good behaviour that they may no longer disturbe the peace both of our Church State and people A supersedeas to stay all their Innovations and proceedings in their Consistories and visitations till they have a Patent and Commission under the Kings great Seale to keepe them in his name and right alone A writt of trespase against them and their Pursevants for rifling and breaking vp mens Howses Clossets Trunckes Chests and carrying away their Bookes and Papers violently against Law and Iustice as if they were Felons and Traytors An Action upon the Statute of vagarant Rogues and Vagabonds for wandering abroad from their owne callings Ecclesiasticall Imployments and Diocoeligse into temporall carnall worldly State affaires and following the Court like a company of flattering fawning Beggers hunting after greater preferments and revenues and being seldome resident at their Cures A writt of ventre inspiciendo To inquire after and inspect how many great Bellyes their Lordships with their Officers and servants have impregnated of late yeares and to take the full measure of their Lordships pampered bellyes which they onely feed and take care of which must needs be monstrous great when as their very tayles are so vaste as to require an whole Cathedrall Church to make a seat for them Pauls it self being litle enough to make a Lord Prelates Chayre and two or three sheires scarce able to make up one Diocoeligse or Parish bigge enough for his oversight A vi laica removenda To remoove all lay force and violence out of the Church and take away the temporall power of fining imprisoning pursevating breaking open mens houses c. from their Lordships with all other lay power and Iurisdiction now crept into the Church And A fieri facias For their Lordships to shew cause why they with their oppressing Arch-Deacons Commissaries Registers and other Officers should not forthwith be indicted and convicted in a Premunire and that Ex officio by his Majesties Atourney generall and his Iudges or deepely fined in Starre-chamber for all their severall misdemeners specified in the premises XIV Whether those bloudy Prelates who out of their desperate malice to our Saviour to evacuate the use of this his last Supper instituted purposely by himself to shew forth his death till he come 1. Cor. 11. 25. 26. Coll. 3. 1. which now these Crucifixes must doe as if this Sacrament were not sufficient to doe it no not when it is administred unlesse there be a Crucifixe then standing on or over the Altar and to reduce us backe againe to Rome now crucify him dayly in their new erected Crosses and Crucifixes both in Cathedralls private Chapples and elsewhere and that in the direct opposition to the 35. Article of our Church and the Homilie of the perill of Idolatry which they have prescribed ost times too expresly prohibiting the very making and setting up of Crucifixes and other Images in Churches or Chappell 's as unlawfull and Idolatrous Yea to his Majesties Declarations prohibiting all Innovations and backesliding unto Popery in the least degree To be guilty of perjury to God and disobedience to his Majestie in the highest degree and to be deprived of their Bishopprickes for it by the Statute of 13. Eliz. c. 12. confirming the sayd
XVI NEW QVÆRES Proposed to our Lord PRÆLATES Printed in the Yeare M. D. CXXXVII To our Holy Ghostly Fathers the Lord Praeliglates of England M. E. sendeth greeting MY Lords temporall farre more then spirituall I have heard you oft cracke exceedingly on your owne dung-hills both of your great learning and likewise of your arch-love and loyaltie yet invisible to his Majestie and his prerogatives Royall as if hee could not be a King unlesse you were Lord Bishops I shall therefore not challendge but beseech your Holynes to give a reall demonstration to the world both of your profound learning and pretended peerlesse zeale and duetifullnes to his Majestie in publishing a speedy full and satisfactory answer to these fewe Questions here propounded to you of purpose to resolve them Your Lordlynesses have had above halfe a yeares time allmost half as much space as most of you take to penn or conne your annuall or bieniall Sermons and yet cannot get them perfect into your heads or hearts into which they seldome sinke but onely into your Bookes and yet have given no resolution to them as people exspected you should or would have done which makes many suspect they have put you to a Non plus either therefore answer them now at this second Somony and publication or els I and thousands more shall proclaime to all the world you cannot doe it and so are open enemies to his Majestie his Imperiall Crowne Lawes Subjects and in severall premunires for all you beare your heads so high like petty Kings and Popes Yea I dare pronounce you perjured to his Majestie in the highest degree by infringing your oathes of Supremacie so oft reiterated And as you are the first men inioyned to take this oath by the Statute of 1. Eliz. c. 1. because the likelyest of all others to violate it so you are more guilty of the frequent open and professed violation thereof then all other his Majesties subjects put together who seldome infringe this oath but either by your coaction or occasioning of them by force or flatery to breake it be sure you now give a fatherly satisfactory compleat answer to them with speed at your utmost perills and lay all other worldly imployments and affaires aside as you have layed preaching by long agoe till you have done it els these Quaeligres will proove fatall to your Popedomes Episcopalities Consistories Visitations and elegall Ecclesiasticall Iurisdictions and proceedings and so I commit you to your studies for the present as you no doubt in imitation of your Saviour Christ and his Apostles who had not any Pursevaunts Iaylors Messengers and Catch-poales attending at their heeles upon every occasion and many Jaoles and Prisons to commit poore Christians and Ministers too at their pleasure as your Lordships their Successors now have though wee read not of them in any Author commit others to your prisons and dungeons and would doe me no doubt if you could catch me napping as Mose did his Mare even for presuming to propound these questions to you in the behalf of my Soveraigne and Countrey M. E. 16. New Quaeligres proposed to our Lord Praeliglates I. QUO IURE Can our Arch-Bishops Bishops and their Officialls graunt Lycenses for money to any of his Majesties Subjects to marry without asking Banes it being directly contrary to the Statutes of 2. 3. Ed. 6. c. 21. 5. 6. Ed. 6. c. 12. And to the Rubricke before the forme of solemnization of Matrimony in the Common-prayer booke confirmed by Parliament 1. Eliz. c. 2. which prescribes thus First that the Banes must be asked three severall Sundayes or Holy-dayes in the time of service the people being present after the accustomed manner and if the persons that should be marryed dwell in divers Parishes the Banes must be asked in both Parishes and the Curate of the one Parish shall not solemnize Matrimony betweene them without a Certificate of the Banes being thrice asked from the Curate of the other Parish Whether if Marriage be a Sacrament as the Papists hold who yet deny it as an unholy-thing to all their holy Cleargie-men and religious persons a strange contradiction or an Ecclesiasticall thing as our Praeliglates deeme it though common to pagans and some kind of fowles and beasts and so truely civill and naturall rather then Ecclesiasticall if it be not Symony in them to sell Licenses and take money for Marriages and whether his Majestie who can onely dispence with Lawes and this Rubricke in the Common-prayer Booke it being a chiefe branch of his Prerogative Royall may not justly call all our Praeliglates and their Officers to an account for all the money taken for such Licenses and also for Lycenses to marry in prohibited times as they terme them as meere oppressions and device to get money there being no Law of the Realme nor Canon of our Church prohibiting marriages in those or any other seasons whatsoever which are alwayes free and lawfull for marriages aswel as for Christnings and Burialls c. from 21. Iacob till now which money amounts at least to 40000. p. or more they having no right or title to it by any Law or Patent extant II. By what Law can our Praeliglates as now they begin to doe consecrate Churches Chapples or Church-yards as if they were unholy and common places before unfit to be prayed in contrary to Acts 10. 14. 15. 1. Tim. 2. 8. Iohn 4. 20. to 25. contrary to the practise of Christ and his Apostles who consecrated no Churches or Church-yards and gave no such commission to Bishops or any others to doe it but men together in private houses and unconsecrated places to receive the Sacraments and preach Gods word Acts 2. 46. c. 5. 42. c. 20. 7. 8. 9. c. 18. 7. 11. c. 19. 9. 10. c. 28. 30. 31. Rom. 16. 5. 1. Cor. 16. 19. Col. 4. 15. Philem. 2. Marke 14. 12. to 27. Luke 22. 16. to 24. contrary to the practise of the primitive Christians for above 300. yeares after Christ as the third part of the Homilie against the perill of Idolatry p. 66. 67. resolves Contrary to the Statute of 15. R. 2. c. 5. which adjudgeth it Mortmaine and contrary to the Statute of 3. and 4. Ed. 6. c. 10. 1. Eliz. c. 2. 8. Eliz. c. 1. which abolisheth and inhibites all other Rites Ceremonies and formes of consecration with all Popish Ceremonies and Pontificalls wherein the manner of consecrating Churches Chappell 's and Church-yards is prescribed but such as are onely prescribed in the Bookes of Common-prayer and ordination in which there is not one syllable of consecrating Churches Chappell 's or Church-yards or any one Statute of the Realme or Canon of our Church since the beginning of Reformation prescribing or allowing it If they say that the Temple at Jerusalem was dedicated and that the Tabernacle and Altar among the Jewes was also consecrated Ergo our Churches Chappell 's and Church-yards must be consecrated by their Lordships I answer First That