SECT. XXII. 316 Further evidence of Kings' judging in person. PREFAT. whole system of Christianity, which hath not occasioned DISCOURSE, feuds and differences in the world from the same accidental cause, as well as that of the independent power, and more particularly, not only from the unbelief of pagan, but from the ambition and mere worldly politics of sovereign Christian princes and states, or their being misled into heresies or schisms, which I could shew by numerous instances against our author from the histories of the Church. I might also have shewed him the falseness of his assertion, that our princes can no more judge in person, than exercise the ecclesiastical function, from Bracton, lib. ii. cap. ix. x. fol. 107, 108P, which I desire him, as well as the reader, to consult. I have shewed in my Dissertation of the use of the ancient Septentrional Literature, that our Saxon kings have judged in person, and he may find a placitum in the time of the Conqueror Willielmo Rege tenente curiam, in cart. Antiq. E. B. in the Tower, n. 1. In the Cotton Library, Julius D. 6, he may find another mentioned in the time of Edward the Confessor. Sedente eo pro tribunali Die Festo in Aula Regia. Thus the king upon appeals made into chancery from the court military often recites, that because he could not be personally present, he therefore constitutes delegates, Pat. 51 Edw. III. m. 17 dors." and 36 dors. There are also instances of the king's determining causes in person, as Pat. 13 Ric. II. m. 8. in the case of Scroop and Grosvenor, printed by Prynne on the fourth Institutes', p. 62. As also in that of Grey and Hastings", Pat. 1 Hen. V. pl. 1. m. 30. P [c. ix. Cum autem de regimine sacerdotii nihil pertineat ad tractatum istum, ideo videndum erit de iis quæ pertineant ad regnum, quis primo et principaliter possit et debeat judicare. Et sciendum est quod ipse rex et non alius, si solus ad hoc sufficere possit, cum ad hoc per virtutem sacramenti teneatur astrictus, &c., and c. x. as quoted note e, p. 305.] [Dissertatio Epistolaris de Antiquæ Literaturæ Septentrionalis Utilitate, ix. p. 40. Oxon. 1703, in the first volume of the Thesaurus Ling. Septent. Oxon. 1705.] [De appellatione determinanda. Calendarium Rotulorum Patentium. p. 195.] 8 [Commissio de appellatione pro Roberto Knott. Ibid.] t [Brief Animadversions on, Amendments explanatory of, additional Records to the fourth part of the Institutes, &c. (Coke's), by William Prynne, Esq., keeper of his majesty's records in the Tower of London, 1669. At p. 62, on p. 125, 1. 43, he says "It is to be observed that after sentence pronounced in the court of chivalry in case of arms, the party grieved may appeal to the king, who by himself or his commissioners may give final judgment therein; whereof you may find a notable case Rot. Pat. 13 R. 2. I shall present the readers with the transcript of the record, to gratify heralds and those who delight in heraldry."] [Calend. Rot. Pat., p. 260.] OF THE CHURCH. Parliament enacted what Convocation had allowed. 317 And I perceive by the specimen of Mr. Madoxe's History RIGHTS and Antiquities of the Exchequer, there will be many more instances of our kings administering justice in person to their subjects. In answer to his question, Preface, p. xi., "how could the parliament, if the convocation had a Divine right to make ecclesiastical laws, enable both Henry VIII. and Edward VI. to authorize thirty-two persons, half of them laymen, to establish all such ecclesiastical laws, as should be thought by the king and them convenient," &c.? In answer, I say, to this question, and all he saith upon it, I thought to have shewed out of Dr. Atterbury's second edition of the Rights and Powers of an English Convocation", that from * [The work itself was published by subscription by Thomas Madoxe, Esq., London, 1711. See chap. i. § 3. vol. i. pp. 6, 7; chap. iv. § 8. ibid. p. 191; and chap. xx. § 6. vol. ii. p. 10. In each of the last two passages, speaking respectively of the periods prior to the reigns of Henry III. and Edward III., he says, "The king if he pleased sat and acted in his exchequer." The references are to the second edition, of 1769.] y [See note z, pp. 222, 223.] (See z [As respects this particular act of parliament, Atterbury's answer is direct and conclusive; "the petition of the clergy in convocation, wherein this review of the canons is by them desired, preceded this act. What was done in this matter was done at their instance, and therefore had their authority." Rights, Powers, &c., p. 188. above, p. 223, note a.) The portion of his work referred to by Hickes, is that in which he examines individually the instances alleged by Wake, "of several things relating to the Church, which have been done since the 25 Hen. VIII. by private commissions, or otherwise, out of convocation," in order to "shew upon each of them how far the ecclesiastical power concurred, and led the way to it ;" and to vindicate the Reformation, "the process of which," he says, "I am satisfied was very regular, and canonical in most cases; though in some, by reason of the loss of records it cannot easily be proved so. Of this we are in general assured by such as lived at the time when those records were in being, particularly by Sir Robert Cotton and Mr. Fuller. The first in his Posthuma, (p. 215,) has these words, SECT. XXII. 318 His objections derived from Roman Catholics. PREFAT. many other instances of the like nature it is highly probable, DISCOURSE, that those acts had their first rise and original in the convocation. I cannot transcribe those excellent remarks, of which I believe the author of the Rights is not ignorant, but am forced to refer the reader to the book itself, from p. 179 to p. 206, being cut short very much against my will. In particular I desire my reader to consult the whole passage in Dr. Fuller's Church History, whereof the Doctor cites part, p. 180, and then he may guess why the author of the Rights, who is now known", would take no notice of that book, which would have led his reader to so good an answer not only to himself, but the most malicious objection of the papists against the Church of England, which he has made so much use of in other terms, viz., 'that we have a parliament religion, a parliament faith, a parliament gospel, parliament bishops, and a parliament Church. It was good policy in a man, who turned, or was turning papist in the last of those twod, which he now calls the persecuting reigns, to conceal from whom he borrowed that way of arguing from acts of parliament against the Church of England, and the independent power to which she hath an indefeasible title and right, as a member of the Catholic Church. I also thought to have shewed howe his notion of natural freedom, and founding all government in consent of parties, contrary to the laws and practice of all nations, the laws of the theocracy itself not excepted, and the Scriptures of the New Testament, makes slavery, villanage, and all purely despotical 999 by the Church and this is what Chris- a Book v. cent. xvi. p. (188.) b [In the first and second editions the words were, "the supposed author of the Rights, who is generally believed to be the true author." See note d, p. 50.] [See Fuller as above quoted, p. (188.) "Here I wonder at the cavil of Answers to Bp. Burnet's Exposition. Conclusion. 319 governments, where the people are the prince's property, inhuman, unnatural, and unlawful; but I am confined, and must not transgress my bounds. I must also tell my reader, that variety of matter, and pursuit of thoughts, have made me forget some things. I forgot to name the answers written to the bishop of Sarum's Exposition on the twenty-third Article, to which I presumed to say, "I thought his lordship indebted for a just and full reply h;" the first is intituled, "A Vindication of the twentythird Article of the Church from a late Expositioni," &c. The other is in p. 202 of a book intituled, "The Reasonableness of a Toleration [of those of the episcopal persuasion] enquired into [purely upon Church principles]." And I am glad of this opportunity to recommend so excellent a book unto the world. RIGHTS OF THE CHURCH. remarks. Thus much I thought myself obliged to write in answer to SECT. XXIII. the book of the Rights1; without premising a confutation of Concluding which, the two following dissertations, which were in the press when that book was first published", could not, I thought, with any good grace or assurance, make their entrance into the world. I am satisfied there is nothing in that book of any seeming force, or contrary to the doctrines I have delivered in them, but what I have fairly and fully answered, without fallacies and sophisms, with which that book almost in every page abounds. But I have manifestly solved them all, at least the chiefest of them, and also shewed that the whole of it is nothing but bis cocta crambe, or a mere rhapsody of cavils and calumnies, picked and collected out of the vilest writers, not only against the Church of England, but against the Catholic Church, at which this enemy of Christianity, and of the Christian priesthood, strikes through her sides, I say against the Church of England, whose very misfortunes, which she could not prevent, this [See above, p. 286.] i London, printed for Thomas Bennet at the Half Moon in St. Paul's Church-yard, 1702. [See above, note f, p. 286.] London, printed in the year 1705. pp. 202-208. [It was written by Bp. Sage. See a part of the argument, note o, p. 290.] 1 [The whole of the remaining part of this Discourse (except the answer of Laud, p. 321; the address to the clergy, m [This statement seems to contra- SECT. XXIII. 320 'The Rights' the joint work of an Anti-Christian party. PREFAT. penman of the deists imputes to her as crimes; against the DISCOURSE, Church of England, whose ruin this Satanical sect of men seek above all other Churches, because she is so like the primitive Church; and therefore in this miscellaneous book of the Rights, they have drawn up in battle-array against her, not only the arguments of popish writers", but of the Epicureans out of Spinoza the apostate Jew's works, to disaffect men against all priests and all revealed religion; against the Old as well as the New Testament, and bring them to an utter contempt and disbelief of Moses and Jesus Christ. There is nothing relating to the Church and her constitution which their malice hath left unattacked: her truly Catholic doctrine; her Divine authority; her apostolical mission; her spiritual discipline, or power of censures; her priesthood; her holy Sacraments; her revenues, or rather the poor remainder of them; her primitive polity, and government by bishops; her independency on the powers of the world, or whatsoever else belongs to her as a society or a sect. All this have they done in this one masterpiece of their anti-christian heresy, which, before it was put to the press, passed through many of their hands to patch it up as neatly as they could together, and give it all the advantages that wit and malice could give it, to make it acceptable to a wicked world. In particular, it was perused by Mr. Locke before he died, as the great disperser and preconizer of it at home and abroad confessed to one of my friendsP. But, God be thanked, the antidotes have prevailed against the poison of it among all who have had the ingenuity impartially to read the answers to it: and as n [See above, pp. 223, 228.] P [For the alleged connection of the speaks of "those books and letters, for which, to his everlasting dishonour, the deists as it were canonize his memory," and says, 66 one of the deists or atheists told one of my friends that it was some time in Mr. Locke's hands before he died." This is not unlikely if we consider Collins' intimacy with Locke, see note y, p. 82, and Locke's letters to Collins; published in "a collection of several pieces of Mr. Locke," by Des Maiseaux, 1736. Locke died Oct. 28, 1704. The letters are contained in the last volume of the 8vo. editions of his collected works.] |