made so bold with my Master's Enemies and mine own as to be dutifully Loyal without their Leave I was loth to ask of them by whom I was sure to be denied And did Presume I might as pardonably assert the King's and the Churches Rights now that the King is on His Throne and the Church less Militant as I did safely and with Success before the Great Year of their Restauration Sect. 1. First I was of an Opinion before I had it from a most excellent and most Noble Lord Commissioner That 't is the Duty of every Subject and especially of the King's Chaplains to discover all they know of His Majesties Prerogative tho' not Commanded by Authority as I had been Which saying of a Judicious and a most Honourable Lord in the Council Chamber and elsewhere is agreeable to another of two Lord Chancellors in their times whereof the first was the Lord Bacon from whom 't was borrowed by the Second who used it in his Speech to Sir Edward Thurland when made a Baron of the Exchequer To wit That the Subjects of England in General as well as the Iudges in particular and particularly the Judges of Ecclesiastical Courts such as is the Dean of Sarum are bound to maintain the Prerogative and not distinguish it from the Law The King's Prerogative being Law and in the words of Chief Justice Coke The Principal part of the Common Law as That from which all other Laws are derived and on which they do depend With these I compared that famous Saying of a full Parliament which I found cited by my Lord Coke too That no King or Kingdom can be safe but where the King has Three Abilities 1. To live of his own and defend his Kingdom 2. To assist his Confederates and 3 To reward his deserving Subjects From whence I thought it would follow that to take from the great Number of Ecclesiastical Promotions in the Kings Gift is to act against the safety of King and Kingdom 'T is reckoned one of those things which even a King cannot do Lawfully and which a Parliament cannot consent to Besides I thought it most unworthy that he who had not been afraid in the worst of Times and without a Warrant and under none but God's Protection to defend the King 's Rights and the whole Church of England by many Arguments in Print when some New Royalists durst not join in a Petition for the Kings wished Return for fear as they then said of setting their Hands to their own Ruine as having reason to suspect the Restauration would be General that All Usurpers must be Ejected and all Ejected for their Loyalty would have their own which passed with some for an heavy Iudgement should now descend unto the Meanness of hiding himself behind Another and behind such another as he knew to be Unqualified for such service as I was irrationally suspected and most maliciously reported to have engaged Another in No the Pretenders to that Suspicion and the Inventers of that Report did only design by such Baseness to lessen the merit of my Obedience to the Lords Commissioners Injunction and of my Dutiful Regard to the King himself towards whose Service it was my fault as 't is my Apology and Excuse with a sort of men that I did not go till I was sent nor mend my Pace till I was driven Sect. 2. Next I had learned by my perusal of Keble's Statutes at large and of Chief Justice Coke's Institutes to name no more in this Place That the Gift of all Bishopricks and Nomination of Bishops did ever belong to our Monarchs both before and since the Conquest as in Right of the Crown My Lord Coke gives the Reason from this trite Maxime in the Law That all our Archbishopricks and Bishopricks were and are of the King's Foundation That at first they were therefore all meerly Donative meerly by the Delivery of a Staff and a Ring Never Elective till King Iohn who Reigned not without the Murdering of Arthur of Britain the Rightful Heir That it was again taken away by Hen. 8. and Ed. 6. in whose Reigns all the Bishops were required to take out New Commissions for their Bishopricks and so to hold them onely as Delegates in the King's Name and not for Life Absolute but During Pleasure And Archbishop Cranmer gave an Example to the Rest. That Elections by Deans and Chapters are declared by Law to be No Elections but by a writ of Conge d' Eslire have only Colours and Shadows or Pretenses of Elections serving to no Purpose and seeming derogatory and Prejudicial to the King's Prerogative Royal c. That Bishop Bonner declared under his hand He held his Bishoprick of London of the King's Bounty alone during the King's Pleasure only and that he would again deliver it up when it should please the King to call for it That all the Temporalities of Archbishopricks and Bishopricks in all Uacancies which our Kings made when it pleased them ever came to the King as Founder He being Patronus and Protector Ecclesiae in so high a Prerogative incident to his Crown that he cannot part with it no Subject can have claim to it either by Grant or by Prescription That the Lands of the Church were all at first given by gracious Princes as may appear from the first Book of Iustinian's Code where Laws are recorded for the conferring and also for the Conserving of them Which is also the Affirmation of the most excellent Paulus Sarpius That if the King and a Common Person have joyned in a Foundation the King is the Founder because it is an Entire Thing For the Truth of which Maxime that renowed Judge cited 44 Ed. 3. c. 24. from when I inferred within myself that King Hen. 8. rather than Wolsey was Founder of Christ Church in Oxford tho' its well enough known that Wolsey was a Co-Founder Or Founder Subordinate to the Supreme So William the Conqueror rather than Osmund was the Supreme and Sovereign Founder of the Cathedral Church of Old Sarum tho' by the King's Bounty as well as Leave St. Osmund built and greatly indow'd it with such Revenues as he held of his Lord and Master during Pleasure and by Knights Service For the Conqueror's Soldiers whereof Osmund of Say was one held all the Lands which he gave them under military Service not as properly Freeholders but as Lords in Trust only and according to the King's Pleasure thereby hoping to engage them to a close Dependance upon the Crown as the learned Selden relates of Matthew Paris and his learned Annotator does give the Reason I do not say our Monarchs have had the same Power ever since but the same Right by Law which ever any King had Nor do I say they have a Right to any Saecular Possessions whereof the Subject hath a Feesimple But a Right to confer on Ecclesiastical Persons such Ecclesiastical Dignities and Revenues as
are in Law of the King's Foundation Which all are affirmed to be by Keble referring to the Statute of 25 Ed. 3. p. 121. Where the Holy Church of England is said to have been Founded by Ed. 1. and his Progenitors c. as the Lords and Advowers of it And then by vertue of that other Maxime in my Lord Coke who was never more an Oracle than when he spake for the King's Prerogative to which he had never a Partiality That Successors are included under the Name of King 'T is plain that what Right soever was in William the First and his next immediate Successors especially Hen. 1. and Hen. 3. from whom the Church of Sarum had vast Additions of Endowment Our King hath now Hence it is that All our Kings have been not only owned as the Founders but as Patrons of our Cathedral For which I cited the Address of the Dean and Chapter to Hen. 7. in whom the two contending Houses were united wherein they called him their Founder seven times at least Their Numerical Expressions in their Prayer to God for him to whom they could not intend to lye was Fundator Ecclesiae Sarum And Hen. 8. was so stiled by the famously Learned and Prudent Longland after Bishop of Lincoln and Lord Chancellor of the University of Oxford for which I might cite the Exact Register of Harward the Authenticalness of which was never questioned So 't is Notorious that all Members of Christ-Church in Oxford in their Prayers before their Sermons do Commemorate Hen. 8. not naming Wolsey as their Founder From whence it is that the Dean of Christ-Church is the Sole Governour of that Cathedral and the Bishop of Oxford not As the Dean of Westminster had the Sole Jurisdiction within the Precincts of that Cathedral when there was Created a Bishop of it And the Dean there hath more than Episcopal Jurisdiction Archiepiscopal saith Dr. Heylin within all the Liberties as the Abbots had heretofore Ever since Sebert King of Essex Kings and Queens have been Successively and in the Eye of the Law the Founders of the Church and of all within it As it is now a Collegiate Church Queen Elizabeth was the Foundress and our King at this day whom God preserve is in Law the Founder of it As for all the same Reasons He is the Founder of our Colledge and Church of Sarum as well by several Acts of Parliament as in our own Books Our Norman Kings did say of it as Will. 1. of Battle Abby Libera sit sicut mea Basilica Capella and as that was exempted from the Power and Visitation of the Bishops of Chichester so was ours from the Bishops of Sarum as shall be shewn in its proper Place I end this Section with that Old Distich in Spondanus of our Salisbury Cathedral and with a Verse made in those very times Rex largitur opes fert Praesul opem Lapicidae Dant operam tribus his est opus ut stet opus Regis enim Virtus Templo spectabitur isto Sect. 3. Thirdly Altho' I do not say with that incomparable Civilian Sir Thomas Ridley That the King himself is instead of the whole Law yea he is the Law it self and the only Interpreter thereof in as much as all those who govern under him govern by him and for him Yet I will and do say with our Acts of Parliament That the Kingdom of England is an Empire and the King Supreme Head of it and his Crown an Imperial Crown He is not a Precarious but an Absolute Monarch saith the Learned Camden in his Britannia Supremam Potestatem merum Imperium habet apud nos Rex And his Sovereign Dominion over all Ecclesiastical Persons and in all Causes without exception is confessed to be de Iure by All our Clergy Men in their Pulpits as well as by All in England who pay him Firsts-fruits and Tenths Not excepting those very Persons who cannot yet Pardon my most necessary Distinction on which doth lye the whole stress of Ours and all Other Cathedrals between an Original and Derivative Right a Right Supreme and one Suburdinate thereunto Our Proprietaries in the Chief of the Church of Saerum and so it is with the strictest Propriety of speaking that in all their Royal Mandates they use that Stile Our Church of Sarum For as Proprietaries in Chief bonae fidei Possessores and Founders of the Bishoprick as well as of All belonging to it I find and can prove against the naked and cheap Denials of such as can easily deny what they cannot Disprove by any Artifices or Strengths that our Monarchs have Acted as Despotically in and over the Church of Sarum as in any their Mansion Houses Who but our Monarchs did take away the Fourteen Prebends I reckon'd up in my Collections and the Archdeaconry of Dorset and all the Dorsetshire Iurisdiction from the Bishops of Sarum not so much as One Parish remaining there unto the Bishop though about Forty to the Dean and conferred them upon others according to their Wills and Pleasures To begin with the first Times were to write a Volume Let it suffice that Hen. 8. gave Four of them at once to the Dean and Chapter of Windsor as that of Okeborn St. Andrew that of Okeborn St. George that of Hungerford and that of Sherbourn but did not take from the Dean of Sarum the Episcopal Iurisdiction in any one of them Nor in that which was given by Hen. 8. or Ed. 6. to the Earls of Pembroke to wit the Great Prebend of Axford supposed to have been given by Q. Elizabeth to her Secretary of State Sir Francis Walsingham from whom I know it came by Purchase to Sir Francis Pyle's Grandfather the like to which he has also in the Prebend of Sherbourn in Dorset which hath been variously disposed of to and fro by our several Monarchs for about Five Hundred Years together from King Stephen to King Iames. And tho' Sherbourn was the Seat of so vast a Bishoprick that no fewer than Four Bishopricks were taken out of it yet the whole Jurisdiction of That and many round about it have still been saved intirely by All our Monarchs since the Conquest to Him who was then and ever since the Dean of their Majesties free Chappel and Church of Sarum Then Formaliter and ever since Virtualiter in Respect of the Franchises belonging to him Indeed in the Prebend of Bedwin given away by Ed. 6. to the Earl of Hertford and his Heirs the Dean of Sarum has but Episcopal Iurisdiction and a Triennial Visitation the like to which he has in the Prebend of Faringdon which is now in Sir Robert Pye to whom it descended from his Father by whom it was bought of the Lady Umpton and given for ever from the Bishop and Church of Sarum by Ed. 6. to Wm. Hening Esq. A. D. 1550. The Three good Prebends of Uphaven Loders and Horton were Alienated from us I
Fees a great Fine for Entrance Finis pro Introitu to be paid in ready Money or well secured by Obligation And though at first no more was paid than Forty shillings to the Fabrick A. D. 1319. yet by the Statute of Dean Sydenham and his then Chapter 1428. Authorized at Florence by the said Titular Pope 1442. each Resident with Dignity is to pay for his Entrance 105 l. and each without Dignity is to pay for the same 71 l. 13s 4d besides a greater Sum required by a much younger Statute of which hereafter This Statute is bad enough but the Custom is worse For besides that the Fines for Entrance are diverted from the Fabrick and divided among the Residents of the Chapter the Custom hath violated the Statute in exacting no more from men with Dignity than without it so that the latter pay too much though less than the Statute does require and the former too little because much less than is due by Statute which yet they pretend and that with Contention to be in force Only the Dean of all four Dignities must be excepted who pay by Custom to the heighth of what the Statute does enjoyn and by Custom much more Nor is this all For Tyrant Custom which keeps up that Statute does beat it down at the same time in five remarkable degrees for which no Creature was ever yet able to give a Reason Yet these are Customs and Statutes which they who take to be Obliging do Swear to keep But as if this were not enough for a Learned poor man to be beggared by in his Advancement as how many the most deserving have the least Portion of Mony and none to spare and often dye without Re-imbursement there was another Statute made by a Bishop Dean and Chapter as well without the King 's as the Pope's concurrence and without the concurrence of Common Sense For by force of that Statute another effect of the Composition every Resident who is living must fast a Year from all Commons and every Resident when he is dead must eat a Years Commons in his Grave At least in Aristotle's sense 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 for what he does by his Executor he interpretatively does and accordingly 't is said with as much Pithiness as Impropriety to be the Dead Resident his Annus post Mortem that is his Unius anni proficua undecunque Provenientia 'T was not the Christian Self-denial of those Usurping Legislators who first invented this Law in their own behalf A Law resented very deeply by some Publick-spirited Bishops of other Churches who have expressed their Resentments to the now Dean of Sarum with a great deal of holy Indignation and heartily wished for a Remedy of this and other Impositions N. IX But hardly can a Remedy be brought about but by the long and mighty Arm of Sacred Majesty which in a Royal Visitation can abolish Old Statutes and make us New Ones Statutes suitable to our Religion by Law established Statutes not repugnant to the King's Honour and Prerogative Statutes agreeable with themselves and to be sworn to the safety of all mens Consciences and Souls Lastly Statutes not expiring with the Breath of them that make them like those Royal Statutes which were made heretofore for the Church of Sarum For those of Edw. 6. and Q. Elizab. were never yet so much as entred into the Statute Book insomuch that the former and present Dean could never get a sight of them And those of King Hen. 8. by one of his Masters of Requests Sir Iohn Tregonwell Commissioned under the Great Seal of England were only enter'd like an Old Almanack and stand as a Monument of Contempt which for many years past have been put upon them no more regarded than the Great Charter both of the Sovereign and Subordinate Founders Notwithstanding our Monarchs are declared by Acts of Parliament to have all such Iurisdictions Privileges Superiorities and Preeminences Spiritual and Ecclesiastical as by any Spiritual or Ecclesiastical Power or Authority hath heretofore been c. And have full Power by Law to Commission whom they please and for so long time as they please to Visit Reform Redress Order Correct and Amend whatsoever is amiss in any Ecclesiastical State or Persons and over All to exercise all manner of Iurisdictions Privileges and Preeminences which by any manner of Spiritual or Ecclesiastical Power Authority or Iurisdiction can or may lawfully be Reformed Redressed Corrected Restrained or Amended Which Right and Power being united and annexed to the Imperial Crown of this Realm and that for ever may be extended unto the Visiting even the Visitors themselves and that with an endless Visitation and by any mean Subject commission'd under the Great Seal of England especially such as take upon them to Visit the Ordinaries themselves and that within the Iurisdictions which are exempt and peculiar to them which none can Visit by Law in a Protestant Kingdom who is not a King or a Metropolitan N. X. Now because the Dean of Sarum's Ecclesiastical Court and Jurisdiction over the Close of New Sarum and the Liberties thereof and elsewhere in four Counties is for ever united and annexed to the Imperial Crown of this Realm even as firmly and as fully as the Courts and Jurisdictions of any Bishops those of Sarum Exeter and Bristol in particular it concerns the Bishop of Sarum as much as all he hath in the World is worth not to usurp the King's Authority nor to invade the Metropolitan's Right by invading the Dean's nor to attempt a New Dominion from Pope Boniface the Ninth without a new Act of Parliament which none were ever yet able in almost 600 years to prevail with any King or any Parliament to endure N. XI upon the whole matter All the Premisses being consider'd there can be nothing more desirable if 't is not absolutely necessary than that His MAJESTY now in being will be graciously pleased with the Assistance and Advice of the Archbishop of the Province if His Majesty thinks fit to make and Authenticate such a Body of Statutes for His Majesties Free Chappel and Cathedral Church of Sarum as King CHARLES the First of Glorious Memory did make and constitute for the Cathedral Church of Canterbury with the Assistance and Advice of Archbishop Laud. The Church of Sarum having as much if not a much greater need For The Statutes there at present are partly Popish partly Injurious to the King's Prerogative and Supremacy partly inconsistent with the Laws of the Land and common Honesty partly Repugnant to one another and so a snare to their Souls who are Sworn to keep them partly impertinent and impracticable as the state of the Church now stands partly impossible to be observed without a very great detriment to the Service of God and the credit of the Choir or else without a most grievous and most scandalous Violation of the Kings Ecclesiastical Laws to wit the Canons of the Church Besides that
know not when or by which of our English Monarchs The Prebend of Shipton which was no more in our Monarchs to dispose of than All the rest was given away by King Iames I. as to the Patronage and Advowson unto the Chancellor and Scholars of the University of Oxford for the use of a Lay-man the King's Professor of Law there and to his Successors for ever with an Etiamsi Laicus sit sacros ordines non susceperit and this the King gave under the Great Seal of England wherein the Habendum and the Tenendum is not of the Bishop of Sarum of whom there is not the least Notice taken but of Him the said King and his Successors for ever Which Gift and way of giving it was afterwards confirmed by an Act of Parliament which I wonder to find alledged by the Right Reverend the Bishop in Derogation to the King 's Right of giving Prebends as if a King's Act were the less Regal or Legal for being done by the King twice First without a Parliament and a Second time in it Or as if the King of England had not Acted as the Proprietor because the Three Estates of Parliament did so esteem Him Nor hath any Reason been given that I have ever read or heard of why King Iames might not as easily have given away any other Prebend which had been founded in that Church that of Netherbury in Terra for Example which he really had given to his Divinity-Professor and to his Successors but that His Majesty found it too little and rather chose to give them a Greater Thing Nor is the King's Act in Parliament which we may no more distinguish from the King than we may distinguish the King's Prerogative from the Law more or less the King's Act than his Act in Council although perhaps of more force For the Three States which make the Body of a Parliament whereof the King is the Head tho a most Honourable Body and a whole Kingdom in Epitomy can but prepare Matter for Law and humbly propose it to the Sovereign to be ratified or rejected as his Majesty thinks sit But the Ratio Formalis of Legislation is fully and solely in the King whose Fiat or Le veult is the very Soul and Life of every Law made or to be made And really if the King of England is not the Founder the Sovereign Patron and Proprietary in Chief as well of the Prebends as of the Bishopricks the Bishop of Sarum can have no Right to his Prebend of Potern tho Installed and Admitted by the Dean and Chapter as other Prebendaries are much less can he have Right unto his other Prebend of Blewbery into which he was never so Installed or Admitted and which is reckoned in the Choir among the Alienated Prebends because transferred from the whole Chapter to the Bishop of Sarum who is indeed one of the Chapter as he is Prebendary of Potern but not at all as Prebendary of Blewbery And so his Lordship cannot have a Right to it tho he has Possession of it unless he hath it from the King which is Right enough and yet it is not enough in case the King is not de jure the Sovereign Patron and Proprietary in Chief 'T was never once held by any Bishop of Sarum but was a distinct and good Provision for one of the Simplices Canonici until the Reign of Hen. 8. by whom 't is pretended to have been pressed upon Bishop Salcot alias Capon and that in Exchange for the Mannor of Godalming in Surrey which could not possibly be de jure if indeed 't was so de facto in case the King had no Right to dispose of that Prebend as he thought fit I say if it was indeed so de facto because the Mannor of Godalming in Surrey with the Rectory and the three Copices and the perpetual Advowson of the Vicaridge was the Gift of King Hen. III. and is the Dean of Sarum's Corps and held of him by Lease to this very day Nor could such an Exchange be made if it ever were without the King's Fiat as Proprietary in chief And I hope 't will not be said that the King has only Right to Alienate what he will to the Bishop from any other but no right to give what Prebend he will to any other It is against Law and Reason that one Man in the same Church should have two Prebends at once And therefore when Hen. II. of England gave two to one Person Pope Alexander the Third complained of it Not at all questioning his Royal Right to give Prebends but the Evil Use of it Hence it follows that the Right of any Bishop of Sarum to bestow Prebends which I shall ever assert as the only sure Foot it can stand upon must needs be Subordinate to the King 's from whose Supream Right it was derived For the King if he would cannot legally confer a Sovereign Right upon any Subject much less upon a Bishop Dean and Chapter who cannot hold what they have for Term Life Absolute being many ways subject to Deprivations Amongst many other Examples which might be easily given of that Judge Coke tells us of one Bishop of Exeter who fell into a Praemunire for not admitting one immediately who was presented by the King to the Church of Southwell And this was done in the prevailing Times of Popery 24 Ed. 3. much more easily may it be done by a Protestant King and hath been often who hath of Right an Ecclesiastical Supremacy and doth assert it without a Sacriledge or an Encroachment upon the Church and that by the Confession of all Loyal Church-Men I am sure I can name Many who once allowed much more to Cromwell And yet by two Statutes in force 't is downright Treason for any Subject of England either to Promise or Pay Obedience to any other than to the King his Heirs and Successors 'T would be as endless as it is easy to Muster up Instances of the Regale over Churches and Church-men and their Revenues even when they were as Great as the Pope could make them and at as high a pitch of Pride as that Usurper of Supremacy could raise them to The most Assuming Bishop of Rome that ever was was Pope Hildebrand against whose Tyrannies and Encroachments William the Conqueror was a Protestant yet he apparently so dreaded the growing Power of the then Bishops within this Kingdom that he Confirmed his own Power as well as shewed it by lessening Theirs Our Kings in a word are de jure Kings of France And the French King's Prerogative or Propriety cannot be greater in the Gallican Church than our Kings is in the Church of England Nor indeed near so great 'T is a little thing to say in the Church of Sarum only And yet the whole Clergy of the Gallican Church have lately declared their Opinion by the Mouth of the Arch-Bishop of Rheims notwithstanding their Popes Pretensions That the King hath a
Grace's Corrections also such as the Bishop of Sarum is And I do sometimes ask my self what Inconvenience could there be if the Bishop of Sarum or any other who is Subordinate to the Archbishop as the Archbishop to the King had no more Prebends to dispose of than the Archbishop hath Or if His Majesty now and then although but rarely only Fourteen or Fifteen in above 500 years should give a Prebend at large of Sarum to a Priest every way qualified with Want and Worth as well as he gives All the Prebends in All the Churches recited without Exception The Church and State might stand firmly as now they do and Christian Souls might be as salvable as now they are tho' the King's Power and Right were as much owned by All as it is by me The Bishops of London and of Lincoln and several others have a most undoubted Right to dispose of Prebends such at least as the Bishop of Sarum hath and that Right the more unquestionable by being held of the Supream and derived from it and Subordinate thereunto A Sole and Sovereign Right wholly exclusive of the King 's which is all I contend against and which my Lord Bishop of Sarum seems to aim at and effect or else his Lordship and I agree I am verily perswaded none of those Bishops will pretend to It cannot be said with any Truth that All the Bishopricks I have named wherein the King gives All the Prebends the Bishops none are not of Old but New Foundation For Worcester and Norwich are very Old Canterbury and Rochester two of the Oldest we have in England Besides that the King's Power and Right in the Church of Sarum is greater than in many others not only because of his Old Free Chappel which I shall prove in the next Chapter and cannot be disproved by some Negatives from some Interested and Passionate Opposers of the Prerogative but also because the Kings of England were the Co-Founders of that Cathedral in a Literal Sence as well as Founders in the Sence of our Common and Statute Law The Co-Founders at least because Osmund had his All from the Bounty of Will 1. and held his All of that King's Favour under Knights Service during Pleasure for which I cited Mr. Selden and Matth. Paris in the first Sect. of this Chapter King Hen. 1 in one day gave 20 Churches to that of Sarum besides the Tithes of New Forrest if the Record which was read by Sir Tho. Ridley said true which he mentions in his View of the Civil Law And passing by the lesser Bounties of Steph. and K. Hen. 2. it is confessed that Hen. 3. gave no fewer than 20 or 21 Prebends and other things even All the Tithes of all the Kings Forrests within Three Counties Wilts Berks and Dorset and the Removal of the Cathedral from Old to New Sarum is owned by Bishop Spondanus as well as others to have been at the King 's cost chiefly Next our Kings were Sole Founders in the Eye and Sence of the Law according to the Maxim cited before from Iudge Coke Instit. Cart 2. Chap. 33. upon Magna Charta p. 68. 44 Ed. 3 cap. 24. And our King at this day according to that other Maxim in Coke 2 Inst. in Statute of Employments p. 742. Whatever Right our Former Kings had our King hath now It seemeth strange to most men who have considered the matter throughly that the King who gets the Right of giving every Ecclesiastical Possession in England not only where Church men but where Saecular men are Patrons by promoting an Incumbent unto a Bishoprick should immediately loose All even in That very Church where he makes the Bishop Or that the King who hath All in his own Disposal during the Vacancy of All the Bishopricks in England should have nothing to dispose of without the Bishop's good leave as soon as the Vacancies are filled tho' filled up freely by himself They are Betrayers of the Churches Rights who go about to undermine and betray the King's And they tempt the King and his Royal Successors to let their Bishopricks lye void as Q. Eliz. and her Ancestors thought fit to do even as far as for 20 or 30 yea for 40 years together Signal Instances of which in the most of our Churches if not in All 't were too easy for me to give if it would not occasion too great a Length Alas we may judge of the King's Regale within the Cathedral Church of Sarum supposing there had been never a Royal Chappel in the Old Castle which yet I shall shortly make apparent by the Exercises of it in other Churches They having in their Pleasures and Displeasures Created some Bishopricks and Supprest them soon after whereof Westminster is an Example Dissolved and Restored whereof Durham is an Example United two into one and again Divided into Two an Instance of which we have in Worcester and Gloucester Taken three out of one as Hen. 1. took Ely out of Lincoln Hen. 8. Oxford and Peterborough out of the same Tho' the Diocess of Lincoln is still the greatest ' its Parishes being no fewer than 1255. Ordered one Bishoprick to be held with Another in Commendam as that of Bristol with that of Gloucester for 23 years together Gave the Bishoprick of Hexam in Augmentation to the Archbishoprick of York from which it was taken again in the 37. of Hen. 8. Converted Canons Saecular into Regular vice versa made the Prior and Convent of Westminster a distinct Corporation from the Abbot Conferred the Patronage of a Bishoprick upon a Subject as Hen. 4. that of Man upon the Family of the Stanleys Gave Temporalities and Reassumed them as in 14 Ed. 3. cap. 3. deprived Bishops for very small Failings Examples of which are elsewhere given Subjected them to the Statute of Praemunire and to the Judgments of Saecular Men As All at once to the Lord Cromwel and Sir Io. Tregonwel to that of Sarum Made Inferiour Clergymen to be the Judges of their Superiors as the Dean of St. Pauls over Bonner Bishop of London Translated Bishops in Displeasure from the Greater Bishopricks to the lesser As Nevil from York to St. Andrews in Scotland and Iohn Buckingham from Lincoln to Litchfield which was not then half so good Made a Saecular Man a Dean as the Lord Cromwel Dean of Wells In a word the same Authority which took four Bishopricks out of Sherburn and added Sherburn with about 40 Parishes about it to the Dean of Sarum's Iurisdiction And gave away the Jurisdiction of the Rest of all Dorsetshire from the Bishop of Sarum to that of Bristol but never gave away one from the Dean of Sarum can give a Prebend of Sarum or a Residentiaries Place to any man in full Orders and that de Iure for to a Lay-man and de facto it has frequently been done And if the Corporation of Dean and Chapter is not of the King's Foundation when the Bishoprick is
or in the Prebendary both being at most for Term of Life and both Subject to Deprivations for less then Treason or Felony therefore 't is in the King as Original Founder whose Royal Right can never dye King Hen. 8. and Ed. 6. did act accordingly and the same Authority which was made use of by Hen. 8. and Ed. 6. was declared by Parliament to be in Q. Eliz. her Heirs and Successors Nor can any Discontinuance be any prejudice to a King 's Right who therein hath this Prerogative Quod nullum Tempus occurrit Regi And when a King ordains any thing for the Honour of God and the Church he Wills not saith my Lord Coke that it turn to the Prejudice of Him or his Crown but that his Right should be saved in all Points Besides the Church is for ever in Law a Minor as I observed before semper in Custodia Domini Regis And 't is unnatural that the Guardian should have nothing to dispose of not so much as a Prebend in the Minority of his Pupil to which he is a Nursing Father The King's Possession and Rights saith the same Oracle of the Law are called Sacra Patrimonia Dominica Corona Regis So that 't is Sacriledge to invade them Nor can he so make them away but that at one time or other they will revert unto the Crown He is in Law Summus Dominus supra Omnes still the words of Chief Justice Coke of whom are held either mediately or immediately All the Free Lands of England much more all Ecclesiasticals for term of Life onely or Quam diu bene se gesserint Possessores Lastly The King is not only the Legal Founder and Patron of all the Bishopricks in England and of all contained in them as Causa Causae is ever Causa Causati But he is himself in Person the Supreme and Sovereign Bishop of every Diocess in England It being the true and known saying of Constantine the Great an Englishman born and King of Britain as well as Emperour of Rome and Constantinople in his Speech unto the Fathers of the first Nicene General Council 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 And every body knows that the perpetual Advocation or right Patronage of is a Lay Fee as peculiar to many Lay Subjects much more to the Sovereign qui intra Ecclesiam potestatis Culmen habet say the Canonists themselves as Institution to a Subordinate Bishop or other Ordinary and Induction to an Archdeacon Especially when the thing presented to is without Cure of Souls as Prebends are For where a Parsonage is the Corps of any Prebendary at large and demised for three Lives to a Secular man as most commonly it is the cure of Souls is wholly devolved and incumbent upon the Vicar if at least there is a Vicaridge endowed and if not upon the Curate But the Rector and his Tenent are both Exempt Briefly our Monarch has a Right as well by Common as Statute Law and the Deans of Sarum have ever been largely Partakers of it by Royal Bounty to Exempt what Place he will from every Bishop's Jurisdiction and when he will from the Arch-Bishops such as Pool and other places in the possession of Sir Iohn Webb Every Ordinary in England such as is the Dean of Sarum in the Close is an immediate Officer to the King's Courts And to the King Appeals lye even from the Court of Arches His Majesty being in Law Le dernier Resort de la Iustice yea in Places exempt no Archbishop may intermeddle according to 25 Hen. 8. c. 19. 6. and c. 21. § 20. And all Iurisdiction Ecclesiastical being both derived from and inseparably annexed to the Imperial Crown of this Realm and that for ever by Acts of Parliament from thence it is that a Convocation cannot meet without the King 's Writ nor treat at their meeting without his Commission nor Establish any thing when Commissioned without his Royal Assent and Fiat They who say less than this Do make Episcopacy Prejudicial to Monarchy which Bishop Sanderson could not endure and set up a Papal like Supremacy in a Protestant Kingdom A Loyal Subject and Son of the Church of England will conscientiously distinguish with Padre Paul and the Canonists between Dominion and Dispensation and then he will dutifully concede That where the Bishop is Dispensator the King is Dominus CHAP. II. WHat I said in my unprinted Narrative of the King's Castle at Old Sarum and of the King 's Free Chappel in it before the Cathedral Church was built All which is gain-said by the present Lord Bishop of Sarum in his Answer to the said Narrative I take upon me to prove and to place beyond Dispute by not a few of the best Historians who have written of those Times whose printed Writings are extant and do confirm what was produced out of the Dean of Sarum's Register which was extracted out of the Registers for the most important Part of it of the Ancient Bishops of Sarum and which I thought had been Sufficient without the Confirmations of it which now ensue Sect. 1. First 'T is plain from William of Malmsbury that the said Castle was the Peculium of the King and stood upon the King's Soil Castellum Salesberiae Regij Iuris Proprium erat Sect. 2. Next 't is Evident from the same and from other old Authors of greatest Note such as Eadmerus Florentius Wigorniensis Roger Hoveden Simeon Dunelmensis All elder than Matthew Paris and Matthew Paris himself and several others that the said Castle was a Place of Usual Resort for the Kings of England and sometimes for Extraordinary Meetings As for Example A. D. 1086. Aug. 1. William the Conqueror pointed his Bishops Barons Sheriffs and their Milites to meet him at Saresbury where and when the said Milites took their Oaths of Fidelity to him So saith Florentius of Worcester the Ancientest Writer who hath mentioned the Church of Old Sarum and Roger Hoveden This precisely was the Year wherein was compiled the Doomsday-Book as the same Authors and the Book it self Witness A. D. 1096. W. Rufus held a Council in his Castle at old Sarum as the same Authors testify when Osmund was present and took the Confession of William de Alvery before he went to Execution A. D. 1100. Henry I. le Beauclerc newly Crowned held his Court in the same Castle Arch-Bishop Anselm repairing thither to His Majesty among the rest So saith Eadmer p. 55 He also held an Assembly of the Three Estates at Old Sarum which had from that Time the Name of Parliament A. D. 1116. The same King called a Meeting of the Bishops and Great Men of the whole Kingdom at the same Place there to do their Homage to his Son William So saith Eadmer pag. 117. Florentius and Hoveden Hitherto is no mention of City Town or Village but of the King's Castle only Which W. Malmsb. thus describes
therefore is it for men to lessen that Monarch in his Prerogative who did not only make them but does still keep them Great How often had the Hierarchy been trodden utterly under foot if the King singly had not Sustained them How many Parliaments may be convened who will Vote down All Bishops and Deans and Chapters ab Actu ad potentiam optime valet Argumentum if the King will prompt them to it or but Consent when it is done They who look downwards upon themselves but neither backwards nor forwards on the years that are passed and the years to come do not consider what Protections they have received from the King at the King 's great cost or what Protections for the future they may have a sad Occasion to wish and pray for And here I should have ended this 2d Chapter but for a Passage out of the Annals of Burton Abby MS. 1245. Which shews that even then in the Time of Hen. 3. long enough after Osmund and Will 1. the King of England had Many Free Chappels and was resolved to keep them Free Indeed so many that diverse Parish Churches which did but Neighbour on the King's Castles were apt to pretend to that Priviledge Yea the Chappels in the King's Castles were Confirmed in their Immunities Exemptions and Liberties by Popes themselves As appears by that Kings Proclamation Dated at Westminster March the 3d. in the 30. Year of His Reign Wherein he strictly Commanded that the said Freedom of his Chappels should be Perpetual Et ne Aliquis contra praedictum Privilegium aliquid audeat attemptare Nor hath any of our Monarchs taken away or surrendered that glorious Branch of their Prerogative whatever Subjects have attempted by joining with Boniface the 9th CHAP. III. WHereas 't was affirmed by the Bishop of Sarum to the Lords That there never was a Time when either the Dean and Canons were exempt from all Iurisdiction of the Bishop of Sarum The contrary to it is confessed and strongly proved by his Lordship himself in the very next Words following wherein his Lordship cites The Composition that was made between Bishop Waltham Dean Montacute and the Then Chapter of the said Church which was no longer since than in the Year 1391. whereas the Absolute Exemption of the Dean and All the Canons from the Bishops Jurisdiction was in the Year 1095. Between which two Dates there was an Interval of almost 300 Years Which Composition so called was indeed a Conspiracy of the said Bishop Dean and Chapter with Pope Boniface the Ninth by whom it was confirmed and for which by the Laws of England even c Then in force they did incur a Praemunire Which All the Bishops ever since are humbly conceived to have incurred who have presumed to Act according to That Conspiracy I. Against the Supremacy and Prerogative of the King II. Against the Common and Statute Law of the Land III. Against the Fundamental Statute of our Subordinate Founder Osmund IV. Against their own Souls in two respects first in respect of the Several Oaths which have severally been Sworn by all the Bishops Deans and Chapters That they would keep and cause to be kept as much as in them lay that Fundamental Statute of Osmund with all the Priviledges Dignities Immunities and Exemptions therein contained of which Oaths the said Conspiracy or Composition is a Professed Violation as shall be shewn in its proper place Secondly in respect of the heavy Curse which Osmund denounced against All those who should dare to pervert the said Fundamental Constitutions in any kind V. Against its own Being by reason of its several Inconsistences with it self and of the several Nullities contained in it Lastly Against the Well-being if not against the very Being of the whole College within the Cathedral Church of Sarum by reason of its most scandalous and most mischievous Effects But of each in its Order § 1. First It was a Conspiracy against the King of England and his Prerogative who is in Law declared to be the Founder as well as Patron of all the Archibishopricks and Bishopricks in England but took care in his Original Charter granted to his Favourite Osmund sealed first with the Seal of Will I. and then with the Seal of Will II. to exempt his Dean and All his Prebendaries or Canons from the Bishops Jurisdiction in as full and as plain a manner as Latin words could express an Exemption by In words so carefully contrived against all possible Affectation of Jurisdiction over the College of Dean and Chapter in any succeeding Bishop of Sarum that what the present Lord Bishop of Sarum would make an Argument for himself and his Affected Jurisdiction makes quite against him For the Voice and the Place which the Bishop has in Chapter common to him with all the 52 Canons he has as Prebendary of Pottern not as Bishop of Sarum nor has he so much as a Second Voice as he is Prebendary of Blewbery because he was never admitted to it by Installation nor lawfully could be For when Hen. 2. had given two Prebends to One man in one Church Pope Alexander the Third complained of it in his Letter as Unlawful and Uncanonical Not denying the King 's Right of conferring Prebends but the Evil use of it So that the Bishop in Capitulo has but one single Vote and the liberty to propose what he thinks may tend to the good of the Church or to complain of what he takes to be amiss as every other Prebendary has as free liberty to do and to be punished or amended by the Authority of Dean and Chapter Nor is it said to be the Duty but the Dignity of the Dean and of all the Canons ut Episcopo in nullo respondeant nisi in Capitulo To which 't is added in the next words what his Lordship does not mention judicio Tantùm Capituli pareant where the word Tantum excludes the Bishops Iudgment or definitive Sentence of any matter limits it wholly to the Body of the Great Chapter consisting of All the Canons Non-Resident and Resident whereof the Dean is the Head and the Prebendary of Pottern a worthy Member but the Bishop as Bishop is neither of them Nor was this Signal Exemption only in the Foundation of the Cathedral made at once by the Supreme and the Subordinate Founder but it was Repeated and Confirmed by Hen. III. and Bishop Poor in the Removal of the same from Old to New Sarum in the years 1220. And the same Oaths for the due observance of it have been ever since Sworn by all the Bishops Deans and Chapters without Exception All which was alledged with effect in the Chapters Accusation of Bishop Erghum to Archbishop Sudbury 1375 whom they charged before his Grace at once with Perjury and Usurpation for affecting a Jurisdiction over the Canons when the Dean was Dead and the Deanry Vacant at a Time wherein the Bishop had a little colour for it
which might excuse his Sin a Tanto Much more might they have done whilst the Dean was yet Living if such an Incroachment had been attempted Besides it was against the Imperial Crown of this Realm by being against the Decanal Jurisdiction which is for ever and inseparably thereto annexed and granted unto the Dean under the Great Seal of England § II. Next it was against the Common and Statute Law of the Land Against the first because the King's Prerogative is Law and the Principal part of the Common Law as that from which our Statute Laws are derived and 't is a Principle with my Lord Coke The Common Law disallows Acts done to the prejudice of any Subject of this Realm much more of the Sovereign by any Foreign Power out of the Realm as things not Authentick Such was the Power of Boniface the Ninth meerly Foreign and Prohibited as such by several Statutes then in force and ever since Against the second because there were ab Antiquo before the Petition made to the Pope by the then Bishop Dean and Chapter for the Papal Confirmation of the Conspiracy aforesaid Acts of Parliament in force against Appealing to or Petitioning the Bishop of Rome or any other foreign Power either for Grants or Confirmations of any Acts or Combinations or Associations whatsoever within these Realms and therefore one Abbot Moris in the 46 of Ed. 3. incurr'd the Pain of Praemunire for sending to Rome to be confirmed by the Pope in his Election to his Abby which the Pope forsooth gave him of his Spiritual Grace and at the Request of the King of England as he fictitiously pretended The Bull was considered of in Council before all the Judges of England and by them All it was resolved that this Bull of the Pope was against the Laws of England and that the Abbot for obtaining it was faln into the King's Mercy whereupon All his Possessions were seiz'd into the King's Hands The same Penalty was deserved by them who made the Composition we are upon and petitioned the Pope for his Confirmation And though 't is pretended to have been done at Rich. 2. his Intercession yet it is but pretended according to the Usual Trick the Practise and Policy of the Popes to feign Requests from the Kings of England who scorned to make them as they did often pretend to Give what they could not deny or durst not offer to withold and knew they had not either a Right to confer or a Power to hinder Choice Examples of which are given by the Learned and Reverend Archdeacon Fullwood in his Subversion of the Romanists Pleas for the Pope's Supremacy in England and though Rich. 2. was so incomparably careless of his every thing that was his even to his Kingdom Crown and Dignity which brought upon him his Deposition as Historians are wont to call it And although such an Act of Intercession to the Pope as is pretended had had an absolute Nullity in it self had it been True yet hardly any man can believe it who shall consider the Statute made in the same Kings Time against all Papal Usurpations which to own and to use as things of Right is to incur a Praemunire Besides that Rich. 2. had acted against other Parliaments also as well as against his own and against his Declaration in case he had done as is pretended But that the Trick I now mentioned was often used by the Popes we cannot prove by a better Testimony than that of the most Learned and most sincere Padre Paul who speaking of the Times of Paul the Fourth in giving that to Queen Mary which was her own long before and inherited from her Father King Hen. 8. concludes with this signal Observation Cosi spesso i Papi hanno donato quello che non hanno potuto levare a possessori questi per suggire le contentioni parte hanno ricevuto le Cose proprie in dono parte hanno dissimulate di saper ' il dono la pretensione del Donatore Add to all this that the said Conspiracy was expresly against Magna Charta by which the Deans and Chapters Liberties Exemptions and Jurisdictions were confirmed and secured and that by no fewer than 32 Acts of Parliament And Magna Charta is not only a Statute Law as old as since the 17th year of King Iohn though made more full and with more Solemnity in the 9th Year of Hen. 3. But moreover by the Act of 25 Ed. 1. 't was adjudged in Parliament to be taken and held as The Common Law They are the Words of Chief Iustice Coke in the Preface to his Comment on Magna Charta In a word The Application made to the Pope at that Time against the Laws of this Realm was a strong proof of its Corruption For 't was the Observation of the most wise Padre Paolo that None went to Rome out of Devotion but only out of some Design against the Canons and Customs of the Church which being unable to get approved in their own Country they fled to Rome where Dispensations were vendible for every thing and the Avarice or Ambition covered over with an Apostolical Dispensation or Confirmation So he in his Treatise of the Almes of the Faithful in the Primitive Church § III. Thirdly The foresaid Composition was even knowingly and professedly against The great Fundamental Statute commonly called in our Books Magna Charta Osmundi of the Subordinate Founder Osmund and by a Consequence unavoidable against the Sovereign Founder also whose Royal Seal alone was affixed to it That 't was against the said Charter and Fundamental Statute and against the Exemption of the Dean and Canons and all Inferior Members also belonging to the Kings Free Chappel which any man may deny whose Tongue is his own but no Man living can disprove hath already been evinced and shall be further as Occasion shall be offered But that 't was knowingly and professedly against the same is moreover to be proved from the Conclusion of the Conspiracy For as there is a Contradiction to the Fundamental Statute and Charter both Legal and Episcopal fol. 76. so in the next page of that Leaf there are these bold and unexcusable Words Non obstante Statuto Chartapraedicta The King himself in Parliament could not have spoken in a more Imperial strain Archbishop Boniface on the contrary A. D. 1262. had most tenderly provided for the Liberties of all in the Church of Sarum according to the Tenor of Osmund's Statute though he was in all his time the most assuming Archbishop of Canterbury even from that to this day Whereas in the Conspiracy of the aforesaid Pope Boniface with the then Bishop Dean and Chapters there is this aggravation of the astonishing design against the King that it hath a special Salvo for the Popes and his Cardinals and the Dean of Sarums Rights but none at all for the Kings Yea as if that were not enough to
affront the King by it takes upon it to decree the whole Revenue of the Deanry Decanatu vacante to the Chapter which as well as the Revenues of all the void Bishopricks in England belong by Law to The King alone Lastly The Goods of the Church as the Chapter words it which Osmund gave to the Dean and Canons he gave them even so as he had received them of the King with a Libere prout Ipse obtinueram meaning his Master Will. I. and adds a little after in his repeated Exemption of all the Prebendaries or Canons from all Intermedlings of any Bishop who should succeed him Habeant etiam Curiam suam in omnibus Praebendis suis Dignitatem Archidiaconalem ita ut nulla omnino Exigentia vel in Dono vel in Assisa aut aliqua alia Consuetudine ab Episcopo vel aliquo alio fiat c. Sed â— contra omnes Dignitates omnes Libertates plenarie pacifice habeant quas Ego Osmundus Episcopus in iisdem Praebendis habui aut aliquis alius cum â—as in Nostro Dominio haberemus 'T was in contempt and relation to this Emphatical Exemption as well as that which was instanced in before That the Bishop Dean and Chapter conspired with Boniface the Ninth against the Statute they were sworn to keep inviolate with a prodigious Non obstante Statuto and Charta pradicta And therefore § IV. Fourthly It was against their own Souls For it follows in the same Charter or the great Fundamental Statute wherewith all after Statutes must stand or fall that every one of the Foundation must take an Oath at his Admission Se Dignitates Consuetudines Ecclesiae Sarum inviolabiliter observaturum And if any one shall presume to violate or pervert the said Statute of the Foundation perpetuo Anathematizetur is the Form of the Curse used by the King and Bishop Osmund on the Transgressor Nor is it meant of the Lesser but Greater Cursing which the Old English Festival and the Articles found in St. Paul's Church at Canterbury A. D. 1562. do define to be Such a Cursing or Vengeance-taking that it departeth a Man from the Bliss of Heaven from Housel Christ and all the Sacraments of Holy Church and betaketh him to the Devil and to the Pains of Hell without end Such was the force of the word Perpetuo when such Cursings were in use In a due fear and for the prevention of such a Curse upon such a Perjury the Chapter of Sarum in their Complaint to Archbishop Sudbury against Bishop Erghum for violating his Oath by usurping a Jurisdiction and by presuming to visit certain Prebends whilst the Deanry lay void did present how All the Privileges which had been settled in the Foundation were continued and confirmed in the Removal of the Cathedral and that by a Bull from Pope Honorius cum hac clausula in Literis Apostolicis inserta Salvis ipsius Ecclesiae Sarum Privilegiis Dignitatibus Consuetudinibus Ad dictas etiam Ordinationes Consuetudines Libertates Dignitates fideliter tenendas inviolabiliter observandas Episcopi Decani Canonici Sarum Praebendarii eorum temporibus successivis omnes singuli juramentis Corporalibus ad Sancta Dei Evangelia praestitis realiter fuerunt sunt astricti Whereupon they prayed the Archbishop of the Province so to interpose his Metropolitical Power as that the said Bishop of Sarum for the salvation of his Soul might revoke and retract the Visitation he had begun and the Chapter enjoy their own without disturbance Place at igitur Paternitati Vestrae taliter interponere Partes Vestras ut dictus D. Episcopus Sarum omnia praemissa illicite attentata praecipue Visitationem sicut praemittitur Decanatu vacante de facto inchoatam pro Salute animae suae revocet praefatum Capitulum Prebendarii omnes singulos commodo Fundationis c. libere gaudere in solidum exercere quoad omnia praemissa in Pace permittat in futurum Lastly The Fundamental Statutes and Customs of our Church were so confirmed By Hen. 8. in his Regal Visitation of it An. Dom. 1535 that the Bishops of Sarum for ever are as much subject to them as any other The Bishop there by Name is the first bound up and bound up to the observance of no other Statutes and Customs than do agree with the Word of God and with the Laws of the Land with which the said Papal Composition hath been proved to disagree and as it professedly does oppose the Royal Charter and the Fundamental Statute on which our whole Endowment stands so I set This against That the Fundamental Charter and Statute against the Novel Composition or Combination § V. Add to this that the Composition hath several other Nullities in it arising from its several Inconsistences with it self 'T is inconsistent with an Episcopal Jurisdiction 1. Not to be impowered to Visit Triennially and 2. To be interdicted a Procuration 3. Only once in Seven years 4. And then without any Regard 5. And in the Chapter House only not where he will excepting the Archdeacons whom 't is said he may Visit elsewhere 6. A fault or default in a Prebendary at large to be corrected not by the Bishop but by Dean and Chapter or by the Dean alone as is usual without a Visitation fol. 66. b. 7. A Power is pretended to inquire what is amiss among all the Secular Inhabitants of the Close and to reform or correct if the Dean does not f. 66. which hath an absolute Inconsistence with the Salvo made before for the Rights of the Dean in these words Visitatione Iurisdictione Decanali in omnibus per omnia Decano Successoribus suis semper salvis Now when it shall be made to appear not only by immemorial Practise but by Decisions of Authority and by the Confessions of this present Bishop yes and by his earnest Contentions for the Dean against himself that the Close is the Dean's Peculiar and not the Bishops that the Dean has All the Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction and the Bishop none at all that all Persons and Causes of Ecclesiastical cognizance within the Close yea within the Bishops own Palace are to be Tried and adjudged in the Deans Court alone not at all in the Bishops Then I trow 't will be granted to be a monstrous Absurdity and Inconsistence for One Ordinary to be the Visitor of Another who hath a Co-ordinate Jurisdiction with himself in many other places of Wilts and Berks and a Superior to him in One and a sole Jurisdiction in that very Close wherein the Bishop pretends to be the Deans Visitor which is to take upon him a Regal or Metropolitical Authority to which two alone the Dean of Sarum is subordinate in his Peculiars as all others are who have Episcopal Jurisdiction within the Province even abstracting from the Relation the Deans of Sarum ever had to the King 's Free Chappel whereof the
such as they they are Tumultuary and Immethodical according to the different Times wherein the different Occasions whereupon and the different Authorities whereby they were made Some are antiquated and grown out of use by the Deans and Chapters ceasing to live together as in a College to eat and drink together upon the Common Revenue in one common Refectory or Hall as in Oxford and Cambridge those of Colleges do still and by converting Meat and Drink into Mony whereof all have their Proportions and wherewith they keep their Families apart The like Change is made in the Corporations of Vicars Choral All occasioned as I suppose by Marriage permitted to the Clergy None of our Statutes can be obliging to any beyond the Contriver's Time unless as made or confirmed by the Law of the Land or the Kings of England But our Royal Statutes which alone are Authentick are most despised as hath been shew'd N. XII Without a Body of Authentick and Reasonable Statutes such as may be agreeable to the Word of God the King 's Right of Prerogative the Law of the Land the Church of England as it is by Law Established and our present Metropolitans Provincial Letter Aug. 23. 1678 the Vindication of which hath cost the present Dean great Pains and Trouble to say no more it will be hard if not impossible to break the Old Popish Custom of thrusting the most unqualified and most scandalous Singing-men not so much into Holy as unholy Orders because unlawfully conferred and sacrilegiously received The mischievous consequences of which are too many and too great within these last Twenty years to be expressed without a Volume Whereas our Two Universities can furnish us with men of very good Learning and Degrees who have much better Voices and greater Skill in Musick than our Illiterate and Ungraduated Songsters And it is but too evident how sadly the Church is overstocked with men of Learning and Degrees the Universities sending out yearly many more of such Men than the Church hath Employments I do not say Preferments to entertain N. XIII We need say no worse of the Composition made on purpose to overthrow the Fundamental Charter and Statute than what was said by Paolo Sarpi of the Concordat purposely made by Leo the Tenth to overthrow the Pragmatic Sanction If the Bishop of Sarum had no Jurisdiction within the Close without or before that Composition why was it not Invented almost 300 years sooner And if he had it from the Foundation or at any time after before and without that Composition to what purpose was the Invention and why was it ever made at all and why with a Salvo to the Dean's Right whereof it is a Violation And why with no Salvo to the King 's Right to which it is an Opposition and why with a Non obstante Statuto Charta Praedicta These were evident Confessions that what it sought to legitimate was illegitimate till then and utterly unlawful for almost 300 Years Lastly Why was it called a Composition or a Compromise a Concord made between Parties Litigant A Superior having a clear Right of Jurisdiction treats his Inferiors as a Iudge by executing Law not as a Party Compounding for a Law and a Jurisdiction which before he had not The very word Composition confesses Novelty and Guilt and Usurpation from which according to his Oath his bounden Duty and Allegiance appellat Caesarem Decanus in imitation of St. Paul and a Case like his the Dean appealeth unto Caesar and immediately after Caesar to the Archbishop of the Province whose Metropolitical Prerogative and Jurisdiction as well as that of the King himself the Bishop of Sarum whilst I am writing is Now presuming to Usurp which I can prove he does wilfully and against his own Light because he knows he hath earnestly and to my Face disclaimed all Pretences of Jurisdiction in the Close and cast it wholly upon Me as on the Ordinary of it and as having within it solely the Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction when he refused perseveringly to punish a Fornication committed in his own Palace the Correction of which I sought to cast upon his Lordship His Lordship knows the Determination of my Lord Chancellor Hyde Earl of Clarendon and of Archbishop Sheldon for Dean Baily against the then Lord Bishop of Sarum He knows that none but the Deans Court could ever Try or Condemn any One Person within the Close in any one Case or Cause of Ecclesiastical cognizance He knows an Oath of Obedience to the Dean is ever Sworn and to be Sworn by every Prebendary or Canon at his Admission and this according to the Statute not only of the King and Bishop Osmund but even of Bishop Roger Himself But no such Oath unto the Bishop throughout the whole Statute-Book is to be taken by any Member of our Cathedral His Lordship knows that All are liable to the Corrections of the Dean within the Church but not One unto the Bishop Decanus omnibus Canonicis Vicaries praeest quoad Regimen Animarum Correctionem Morum His Lordship knows that at Morning and Evening Prayers after the Tolling of the Bell no Person is to be staid for ne Episcopus quidem Ipse except the Dean His Lordship knows in defect of Residence the Canons were to be Mulct or Fined secundum Consilium Decani not Episcopi and that by a Statute which was confirmed 't is an Argument ad hominem Autoritate Apostolica His Lordship knows that the Dean as Petrus de Subaudia made Statutes of himself aproved of and ratified by the Bishop and the Chapter ex Parte Post. But never any Bishop presumed to make any Statute without the Concurrence of Dean and Chapter His Lordship knows the Dean's Power to give leave of Absence or to deny it without the least notice ever taken of the Bishop His Lordship knows or should know that the Dean was acknowledged by Bishop Iewel to be Totius Collegii Pater Sanctae Societatis vinculum that the Dean not the Bishop has Power by Statute to admit the Clergy of the Church of the higher and lower Degree to Possession and Commons suo Iure in one place and in another sua sola Autoritate and to receive an ounce of Gold from every Canon whom he Installs though now 't is dwindled into a Mark and to challenge for Himself and his Retinue de Iure Dignitate sua from every Prebendary or Canon by whose Corps he shall pass in any Journey one days plentiful Entertainment with a laute percipiet ad Libitum Briefly Our Statutes give more respect unto the Dean than the Dean can desire or look for and such as I am loath to mention But it appears by the Old Statute-Book lent by Dean Brideoak to the present Lord Bishop Iuly 10. 1672 by whom it is not yet restored as D. Brideoak left it under his hand when he
se ipsam militare gravissime propriis perire Pennis si Homerico Hemestichio hic uti liceat 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 § 11. In the Statute of 25 Edw. 1. A. D. 1296 in Confirmation of Magna Charta All things done and Judgments given contrary to the Points of the said Charter shall be undone and holden for nought Cap. 2. The said Charter is to be sent under the King's Seal to Cathedral Churches throughout the Realm there to remain and is to be read before the People two times by the Year Cap. 3. with which compare Coke Inst. 2. Parag. 527. All Archbishops and Bishops shall pronounce the Sentence of Excommunication against all Those that by Word Deed or Counsel do contrary to the aforesaid Charter or in any Point break or undo it And the said Curses twice a year are to be Denounced and Published by the Prelates aforesaid And if the same Prelates or any of them be remiss in the Denuntiation of the said Sentences the Archbishops of Canterbury and York for the Time being shall compel and distrain them to the Execution of their Duties in Form aforesaid Cap. 4. This is over and above the Curse of Osmund § 12. In the Statute of 16 Rich. 2. Cap. 5. The Pope's Assumings then in England are said to have a Tendency to the open Disherison of the Crown and Destruction of our Lord the King his Law and all his Realm if Remedy be not provided For want of which Remedy then made 't is there added that the Laws and Statutes of the Realm would be avoided at the Pope's Will in perpetual Destruction of the Soveraignty of the King our Lord his Crown his Regality and of All his Realm which God defend This repeated Assertion of the Then House of Commons § 1. was assented to and repeated twice by the Then House of Lord § 2. and All in Reference to Pope Boniface the 9th who then presumed to intermeddle in the Cathedral Church of Sarum and took upon him to Authorize the Composition there made even the very same Year wherein the said Statute was made against him Unto which Papal Authorization King Richard II. did either consent or he did not If he did not the Pope hely'd him If he did he therein acted to the open Disherison of his Crown and contributed too much to his Deposition The Sum and Upshot of the Difference between the Bishop and Dean of Sarum is briefly This if there is Any THE Dean is of Opinion That the King and the Bishop have both a Right to give Prebends with this Distinction The King 's Right to give them is Original and Supreme the Bishop's Right to give them is Derivative and Subordinate Of this Distinction his Lordship does or does not allow If he does his Lordship is of the Dean's Mind and the Difference is at an End If he does not the Dean wonders at it and the more because the Greatest of Lawyers and the Greatest of Divines do all agree in the said Distinction Which is proved in the First Chapter of the Dean's Vindication of the King 's Sovereign Rights And all besides that may stand or fall with that Distinction or be as if it had never been AN INDEX To this BOOK AAron Page 304 Abbendone Edmund de Page 291 Abendon Richard de Page 331 William de Page 285 326 Abingdon John de Page 311 William de Page 298 Abney John Page 244 Abbot Robert Page 276 Abraham Page 291 Abyndon John de Page 327 Adam Page 288 304 Addison Lancelot Page 332 Adelelmus Page 304 Aermyn Richard de Page 289 Aiscough William Page 274 Akkeburne Lawrence de Page 273 St. Albano Elias de Page 289 Alchmund Page 270 Alcock John Page 310 Alchorn Edward Page 236 Aldhelm Page 269 Alexander Page 294 Alfar Page 271 Alfius Page 270 Allfftan Page 271 Alfred Page 270 Alfrick Page 271 Alfwold Page 270 Allix Peter Page 294 Alleston Robert de Page 301 Alnewyke William Page 294 Albert Joseph Page 138 Andrews Nicholas Page 328 Andrew Ric. Page 296 321 Arche Richard Page 293 Arena Andreas Ammonius de Page 322 Arundel Francis Page 258 ... John Page 312 314 Ashley Anne Page 57 ... Francis Page ibid. ... Gabriel Page ibid. ... Gertrude Page 54 ... Margaret Page 55 58 Asser .... Page 270 Atwater William Page 281 Atwood Thomas Page 186 Aubrey Thomas Page 332 St. Aubyn Anne Page 213 Audley Edmund Page 274 ... Richard Page 287 ... Robert Page 303 Axford John Page 203 ... Margery Page 203 ... Mary Page 203 204 Ayleston Robert Page 298 316 330 Ayscough Robert Page 305 318 319 ... William Page ibid. B. BAber Benjamin Page 245 ... Elizabeth Page ibid. Babyngton Henry Page 329 Backs Peter Page 223 224 Bailul Josceline de Page 272 Bainbridge Christopher Page 317 324 327 Balgay Nicholas Page 307 333 Baldock Robert de Page 298 Baldwin ... Page 288 Banqueto William Raymond Page 314 Barbo Peter Page 296 Bardus Adrian de Page 327 Barford Tho. Page 151 Barkesdale William Page 324 Barlow William Page 297 Barnaby Jeremy Page 333 ... John Page 315 Barne John Page 299 Barnes Bartholomew Page 210 ... Hesther Page 191 ... Robert Page 332 Barnston J. Page 91 ... Mary Page 90 Basing Richards Page 322 Bassingborne Humphrey de Page 294 Bates Roger Page 329 Bath Abbey Church of Page 162 ... Library Page 199 200 Bave Hesther Page 196 ... John Page 202 Bauf Samuel Page 194 195 Baylie Richard Page 282 283 Beach Edmund de la Page 301 Beard William Page 206 Beauchamp Richard Page 274 Beaufort Henry Page 326 Beaumont Robert Page 314 Beck Thomas de Page 304 Belingham Edmund Page 311 ... John Page 201 Bello Richard de Page 301 Bellomont Lewis de Page 291 Bellot Renatus Page 227 ... Thomas Page 217 Bennet Patience Page 46 .... William Page 305 .... Walter Page 287 300 .... William Page 305 Bere John de la Page 327 Berghes William de Page 305 Bertrard .... Page 305 Bevile Elizabeth Page 227 Bicovil William Page 321 Bigge John Page 206 Billesdon Nicholas Page 280 Bilson Leonard Page 339 Bingham Robert de Page 272 Bird Elizabeth Page 58 Birkhead Daniel Page 314 Bisse Robert Page 317 Bishopston Henry de Page 279 Blackborow Frances Page 24 Blanchard James Page 183 185 Blithe Daniel Page 328 Bluntesdon Henry Page 304 305 .... Robert Page 306 Blythe Godfrey Page 292 296 .... John Page 110 274 Bocton Thomas de Page 307 Bone Robert Page 329 Bosco William de Page 288 Boteler Thomas Page 312 Bottiler Thomas Page 295 Bourchier James Page 337 .... Thomas Page 337 Bowles John Page 282 Bowre Robert Page 330 Bowsheld Thomas Page 324 Boxall John Page 322 Boxton Thomas de Page 331 Boy Bishop of the Choristers Page 70 71 72 73 c. Bradbridge Augustin Page 322 .... William Page 281 329 Brandeston Henry de Page 273 279 304 Braybrooke Robert Page 280 Bremsgrove John Page 314 Brent Thomas Page 27 Brereworth Stephen
by all Confessions and by the frequent Declarations of the Law why have our Kings disposed oftener of the Residentiaries places than of the Canonries at large without Residence Why should any man dispute against his Kings being his Founder Can he pretend to have a better Or will he pretend to have none at all 'T is true that Osmund was a Secondary and Subordinate Founder of many Prebends But His Founder and Royal Master was worthily reckoned as the Supreme with which Distinction it is as true the Dean and Chapter have a Right to choose their Bishops as well as Residents But both in a subserviency and subordination to the Supreme wherewith their own must stand or fall The Reverend Arch-Deacon Fulwood hath enough whereby to clear the King's Patronage of the whole English Church and he cites Archbishop Bramhall producing several Laws for it The Assize of Clarendon the Statute of Carlile the Statute of Provisors All asserting the Power and Patronage to be de jure in the King which was de facto in the Pope and by Usurpation The Parliament told the King plainly That the Right of the Crown is such and the Law of the Land too that the King is bound to make Remedies and Laws against Incroachment on his Prerogative Sect. 6. Lastly I must in my Narrative in imitation of the most Learned and most Judicious Bishop Sanderson assert the Bishops Right as well as the Chapter 's and mine Own both as jointly with them and as Separate from them upon what I think the surest and safest Ground Only I could not find in my heart to take down that Scaffold or to invalidate those stairs unto which we all owe our own Advancement I was really afraid to betray the Church by asserting the Churchmen's Right with an Exclusion of the Kings as I am sorry some do to the endangering of the whole Body For 't is to Expose her as an Orphan to a very unkind world sadly stripped of the Patronage and so the Protection of the King who is her Guardian and Nursing Father to whom the Church owes her Safety if not her Being and without whose Royal Patronage she cannot comfortably subsist The Church in our Laws being evermore a Minor ever a Pupil under Age as utterly destitute of help as ever any Expositious and Forsaken Child was without that Guardianship and Patronage that Royal Right and Prerogative which some who live by it have lately attempted to Undermine In this my Sentiment if I have erred it is with the Great Man I just now mentioned as my Exemplar in that Book which he composed by the special Command of King Charles the First of Glorious Memory proving Episcopacy in England not at all Prejudicial to Regal Power which some would make Destructive of it by the same way of arguing which I have used The shortest Accompt which I can render of it is this All Episcopal Power is either of Order or Iurisdiction hereof the latter is either Internal or External and this last is either Directive or Coercive the first is from God the Second wholly from the King as is declared by our Laws and acknowledged by the whole Loyal Clergy Yea that Power which is from God as that of Preaching Ordaining Absolving and the like is so subject to be Inhibited Limited and otherwise Regulated in the outward Exercise of that Power by the Customs of the Land as that the whole Execution of that Power does still depend upon the Regal Now All Iurisdiction being Confessedly from the King it seem's to follow that all Prebends as well as Residentiaries places of the Old Foundation which have a Iurisdiction belonging to them as those of Sarum are known to have are disposable by the King when and as often as His Majesty sees Good Pope Nicholas could not deny it and therefore Granted it very cunningly to Edward the Confessor with a Vobis Posteris committimus Advocationem c. We commit the Advowson of all the Churches of England to you and your Successors Kings of England So that if the Popes Grants are of any value before the Statutes of Provisors and Praemunire by which the Composition in it self Evil was made much worse as having been when those Statutes had made it Criminal for the Subjects of England to petition a Bishop of Rome for a Confirmation the Regal Right I plead for has a double Title and is not questionable by the Papalins much less by the men of the Church of England Now whereas I did distinguish with the Judicious Bishop Sanderson between an Original and Derivative Power of Jurisdiction wherewith I have been twitted in derogation to the Kings Honour to whom it seems I ascribed more than Malignity will allow tho' no more than Bishop Sanderson whose Loyal performance justifies mine And after shewed the Great Extent with the greater Intensiveness of my Derivative Jurisdiction as Dean of Sarum which had been a most Extravagant and Unaccountable Iurisdiction if the first Deans of Sarum had not been Deans of the Kings Free Chappel before the Cathedral Church was built and before Bishop Herman was the first Bishop of it as well as during all his time which I shall prove to be as clear as the Sun at Noon in a fair day I will justify my self in my so magnifying my Office out of mere Gratitude to the King and to show his Royal Bounty as well as Power in the words of the said meek and most Learned Prelate The more a Derived Power is extended and inlarged in the Exercise thereof so as to be Regular the more it serveth to set forth the Honour and Greatness of that Original Power which granted it Since the vertue of the Efficient Cause is best known by the Greatness of it's Effect For Propter quod unumquodque est Tale Illud ipsum est magis Tale as the warmth of the Room doth not lessen the Heat of the fire upon the Hearth but is a sign of it's Greatness c. From all which it follows that the Dean who does as modestly as he does thankfully distinguish between his own but derivative and Subordinate Rights and the Rights of the King which are Original and Supreme cannot magnify his Office or defend his Jurisdiction according to his Oath and bounden Duty with too much Zeal whilst they who hate that Distinction as by me it hath been used and will have the Sole Right to dispose of this or That Exclusively of the Kings are neither so modest nor so thankful as I sincerely wish they were They maligning their Maker's Power whereby they are what they are I will add ex abundanti what may conduce to Their Conviction in this great Article of our Religion who would be thought of the Church of England It is a Principle in Law that of every Land there is a Fee simple in some body But the Fee simple of the Land of a Prebend cannot be in the Bishop