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ID Title Author Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication) STC Words Pages
A44187 A letter of a gentleman to his friend, shewing that the bishops are not to be judges in Parliament in cases capital Holles, Denzil Holles, Baron, 1599-1680. 1679 (1679) Wing H2461; ESTC R204379 41,325 145

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should be done in derogation or restriction of the power of their Holy Father the Pope saying they were sworn to his Holiness and to the Court of Rome These were likely to make a good Third Estate of an English Parliament And is it not then a wonder that any Engiish man should desire to bring Popery in again for Bishops to controule both King and Parliament Would it not set even Monarchy it self one degree lower Sure it would But this is by the way Consider further that if they had had such a power of being a Third Estate in the days of Queen Elizabeth those good Acts for a Reformation in Religion had never pased and the Reformation had never been 1 Eliz. The Bill for restoring the first Fruits and Tenths to the Imperial Crown of England which passed February 4. The Bill for restoring the Supremacy to the Crown and repealing divers Acts made to the contrary which passed March 18. The Bill giving authority to the Queen upon avoidance of a Bishoprick to take some part of the Temporalties into her hands recompensing the same with Impropriate Parsonages which passed April 7. All the Bishops present were against the passing of these Bills And before that in Edward the Sixths time they were against the Bill for Priests to marry which passed Feb. 19. 2 E. 6. So the Bill for ordering Ecclesiastical Ministers giving power to Six Prelates and Six other men learned in the Laws to set down the form and manner of their Consecration which passed Ian. 25.3 E. 6. The Bill for nominating thirty two Persons to peruse the Ecclesiastical Laws which passed Ian. 31. The Bill for abolishing and putting away divers superstitious Books as Legends Missals Processionals and the like and taking away Images out of Churches and Chappels which passed also that Parliament All these good Bills the Bishops were against yet they passed into Laws and were the foundation of our Reformation which had they been a Third Estate had never been laid for those Bills had not passed But you will say perhaps that we need not fear such mischiefs and inconvenience from our Protestant Bishops and I grant it nor do I urge these things with any such apprehension I only shew you what the Popish Bishops did then and that if they had been a Third Estate such mischiefs would have followed upon it and thence to infer That they were not in those times so accounted and that our Protestant Bishops cannot then pretend to it now They then and These now having Place and Vote in Parliament upon the same terms But then we have good Authority to inform us which are truly the Three Estates King Iames seems to make it clear in a Speech he made at the Prorogation of the Parliament in the year 1605. the words are these As for the thing it self that is the Parliament it is composed of a Head and a Body The Head is the King the Body are the Members of the Parliament This Body again is subdivided into two parts the Vpper and the Lower House The Vpper House compounded partly of Nobility Temporal men who are Heritable Counsellours to the High Court of Parliament by the honour of their Creation and Lands And partly of Bishops Spiritual men who are likewise by the virtue of their Place and Dignity Counsellours Life Renters or Advitam of this Court. The other House is composed of Knights for the Shires and Gentry and Burgesses for the Towns But because the number would be infinite for all the Gentlemen and Burgesses to be present at every Parliament therefore a certain number is selected and chosen out of the great Body serving only for that Parliament where their Persons are the Representation of that Body You see that wise King makes the Body to consist of Two Parts the Upper House or the House of Lords to be one of those parts consisting of Lords Temporal and Lords Spiritual who together make one part And the House of Commons another part It is true he calls neither of them an Estate but most certain he cannot be thought to understand the Spiritual Lords to be an Estate by themselves making them to be but a Part of one of the Parts of that Body For by the same reason he may be said to make the House of Commons consist of two Estates saying it is composed of Knights of the Shires and Burgesses for the Towns But King Charles the First is plainer in his expressions in his Answer to the Nineteen Propositions sent to him from the two Houses Iune 2. 1642. He tells them That neither one Estate should transact what is proper for two nor two what is proper for three And in that same Answer he saith a little after It is most unreasonable that two Estates proposing something to the Third the Third should be bound to take no advice whether it were fit to pass but from those two who did propose it Nothing can be clearer than this to shew what the opinion of that good King was concerning the three Estates in Parliament And 2 H. 4. n. 32. It is so declared by the House of Commons even to the King himself and to the Lords That the three Estates of Parliament are the King the Lords Spiritual and Temporal and the Commons who should all be at an Vnity among themselves and therefore hearing there were some differences between the Lords they humbly prayed the King to compose them And Stephen Gardiner Bishop of Winchester sometime Lord Chancellor an ancient Parliament-man in Henry the Eighths time who well understood the constitution of Parliaments in his Letter to the Lord Protector in Edward the Sixths time which Letter is in the second Volume of the Book of Martyrs Printed in 1641. p. 7. doth acknowledge it and saith That the three Estates make a Law and compares the three Estates in Parliament to the three Christian Vertues Faith Hope and Charity and saith That it were the same absurdity and untruth to say the Higher House and the Lower House exclude the King in the Office of making Laws as it would be in Religion to say that Faith excludeth Charity in the Office of Justification Here you have the Testimony of a Bishop I confess a Popish Bishop as you may see by his application of this Simile to make Charity that is works of Charity to have a part in Justification But I meddle not with his Divinity As to that which he saith of the Estates in Parliament he is in the right and he was one that knew well enough what was due to the Order of Bishops even to the full extent of it and would not have shortned it the breadth of one hair yet he makes them not an Estate by themselves but as joyned with the Lords Temporal Then for the Common Law you have Finch in his Book of Law dedicated to King Iames the first Chapter of the second Book p. 21. who saith the very same thing in very plain terms His