Of the Prelates Intolerable Usurpations

Their Encroachments upon the Subjects Liberties.

[ 1] THe Statute of Magna Charta (39. times confirmed in Parliament) cap. 29. enacts; that no freeman shall be taken, imprissoned or disseissed of his freehold, or liberties, or free customs, or out-lawed, or exiled, or any otherwise destroyed, neither shall we pass upon him, nor condemn him, but by lawful Judgment of his Peers, OR BY THE LAW OF THE LAND.

The Statute of 5. Ed. 3. c. 9. ordains, that no man from henceforth, shall be attached for any accusation, nor forejudged of life, nor limb, nor his lands, tenements, goods, nor cattels, seised into the Kings hands, against the form of the great Charter, and the Law of the Land.

The 5. Statute of 25. Ed. 3. c. 4. prescribes; that from henceforth, none shall be taken by Petition or suggestion made to our Sovereign Lord the King, or to his Counsel, unless it be by indictement, or presentment of good and lawful men, where such deeds be done, in due manner, or by process, made by writ original at the Common Law; nor that none be put out of his Fraunchises, nor of his freehold • , unless he be duly brought into answer, and forejudged of the same, by way of Law. And if anything be done against the same, it shall be redressed, and holden for none.

The Statute of 28. Edw. 3. c. 3. Provides, that no man of what estate or condition that he be, shall he put out of Land or Tenement, or taken, or imprisoned, or disherited, or put to death, without being brought into answer by due process of the Law.

The Statute of 37. Edw. 3. c. 18. complains, That though it be contained in the great Charter, that no man be taken, imprissoned, or put out of his freehold, without process of the Law, nevertheless, divers people make half suggestion to the King himself, as well for malice, as otherwise; whereby the King is often grieved, and divers of the Realm put to great damage, and loss against the form of the great Charter, wherefore it orders, that all they, that make such suggestions, be sent with their suggestions, before the Chancellor Treasurer, and his great Counsel, and that they find surety to pursue their suggestions, and to incur the same pain, that the other should have had, if he were attained, in case that his suggestion were found evil, and that the process of the Law be made against them without being taken or imprissoned against the form of the said Charter.

The Statute of 38. Edw. 3. c. 9. thus seconds the former Statute, As to the Article made at the last Parliament of those that make grievous complaints to the King himself; It is assented, that if he, that maketh the complaint, cannot proof his intent against the Defendant, by the process limmited in the said Article, he shall be commanded to prison, there to abide, till he hath made good to the party of his damages and of the slander, or that he hath suffered by such occasion, and after shall make fine, and ransom to the King, and the point contained in the same Article, that the plaintiff shall incur the same pain, which the other should have, if he were attained, (in case that his suggestion be found untrue) shall be taken away.

The Statute of 42. Edw. 3. c. 3. concludes thus; To eschew the mischiefs and damage, done to divers of the Commons, by false accusers, which oftentimes have made their accusations, more for vengeance and singular profit, then for the profit of the King, or of his people; of which accused persons, some have been imprisoned, and others caused to come before the Kings Counsel by writ, and otherwise, upon grievous pain against the Law. It is assented and accorded for the good governance of the Commons, that no man • e put to answer without presentment before Justices, or thing of record, or by due process, or by some writ original, according to the old Law of the Land, and if anything from henceforth be done to the contrary, it shall be void in the Law, and holden for E • ror.

All these recited Statutes, are mentioned and ratified, as the undoubted Laws and Liberties of the Land, by the late Petition of right 3. Caroli. The famous Parliament held at Clarendon, An. 1164. under King Hen. the second, subscribed and sworn to by Becket himself, and all the Prelates, Abbots, Clergy, Nobles, Barons, and Commons of England, as the undoubted Law, and the custom of the Land, to be inviolably observed, enacted among other things, that Lay-men ought not t • be accused in the presence of the Bishop, unless it be per certos & legitimos accusators & Testes: by certain and lawful accusers and witnesses. And that excommunicate person ought not to give caution to remain, nor yet to give an Oath, when they are absolved, &c.

The Statute of 25. H. 8. c. 14. recites: That it standeth not with the right Order of Justice, nor good equity, that any person should be convict, and put to the loss of his life, name, or goods, unless it be by DUE ACCUSATION AND WITNES, or by presentment, verdict, confession, or process of out Lawry; since by the Laws of the Realm, for treason committed to the peril of the Kings most Royal Majesty, upon whose safe • y dependeth the whole Wealth of this Realm, no person can no way be put to death, but by presentment, verdict, confession, or process of out lawry, wherefore it is not reasonable, that any Ordinary, by any suspection, conceived of his own fantasie, without due accusation or presentment, (to wit, by a full Jury upon Oath) should put any subject of the Realm, to the infamy or slander of heresy, to the peril of his life, loss of name, or goods; in consideration whereof it enacts, That every person or persons, being detected thereof, BY TWO LAVFVLL WITNESSES AT THE LEAST to any Ordinaries of this Realm, having power to examine heresies, shall and may after every such accusation and presentment, AND NOT OTHERWISE, NOR BY ANY OTHER MEANES, be cited, convented, arrested, taken or apprehended by the said Ordinaries, or any other the Kings Ministers, and subjects whosoever. And the Statute of 1. Eliz. c. 1. (which erects the High-Commission,) enacts, that no man shall be indicted, or arraigned for any offense against that Law, but by TWO SUFFICIENT WITNESSES at the least, and that viva voice, face to face, if they be alive, or within the Realm.

The Statute of 2. H. 5. c. 3. enacts: That forasmuch as divers of the Kings leige people, be daily cited to appear in the spiritual Court, before spiritual Judges, there to answer to divers persons, as well of things as touch freehold, debt, trespass, covenants and other things, whereof the connsans pertaineeth to the Court of our Sovereign Lord the King, as of matrimony and testament, and when such persons so cited, appear, and demand a lible of that, that against them is surmised, TO BE INFORMED TO GIVE THEIR ANSWER THERE, or otherwise purchase a writ of our Sovereign Lord the King, of Prohibition, according to their case, which lible is to them denied by the said spiritual Judges, to the Intent, that such persons should not be aided by any such writ, against the Law, to the great damage of the persons so impleaded: That therefore from thenceforth the Lible should be granted and delivered to the party, WITHOUT DIFFICULTY, (and that before any Oath given to answer it) and in case it be refused, a Prohibition lies upon this Statute, as hath been oft adjudged. By all these Statutes it is clearly re • olved.

1. First; That no man ought to be cited, prosecuted, or proceeded against merely Ex officio, without a sufficient prosecutor assigned, able to render sufficient damages to the Party prosecuted, in case he be acquitted.

2. Secondly, That no man ought to be cited, convented, arrested, or apprehended for heresy (much more then inferior and petty Ecclesiastical crimes) upon suspection, or malice only: nor unless he be first either presented and indicted thereof upon Oath, by a verdict of 12. sufficient men, or lawfully accused and detected thereof by two lawful witnesses at the least.

3 Thirdly, That no man ought by Law to be forced by Oath or answer to Articles to accuse himself, in any criminal causes, which concern either his life, liberty, loss of goods, or freehold; but ought to be convicted by witnesses, presentment, or the verdict of 12. men upon Oath; or by his own voluntary confession, without Oath or coaction.

4. Fourthly, That no mon ought to be cited, or brought into answer, but by due Proces of Law, and according to the old Law of the Land; therefore not by Pursevants, or intimations.

5. Fifthly, That no man ought to be put to answer, or take any Oath to answer in any Ecclesiastical Court, before he hath a copy of the lible; or Articles against him; and that this lible ought to be granted and delivered to him, without any difficulty, that so he may either demure, answer, or bring a Prohibition, as his cause shall require and advise with his Council, how to frame his answer, or demur legally for his best advantage, and security as he doth in all Courts of Law and equity.

6. Sixthly, That no man ought to be outed, or deprived of his freehold, goods, chattles, or exiled, outlawed or excommunicated (for every excommunication is an outlary, because it disables a man to sue, and may be pleaded in bar of his action at the Common Law, yea and an exile to, from the Church and society of the faithful; ) nor otherwise destroyed or condemned, nor yet fined, or imprisoned, but by the Law of the Land; that is, by the Common and Statute Law, of the Realm; not by any Ecclesiastical Laws, Canons or Constitutions, not ratified by the King and Parliament; and that by the lawful judgment of his Peers, not by Ecclesiastical Judges or Commissioners; which can neither impose a fine on any man, nor deprive him of his freehold, nor yet imprison, or lay any pecuniary mulct upon him, as the marginal statutes and Lawbookes resolve; but only in case of heresy and incontinency of Priests; in which two cases, and no other, they are enabled to imprison by two late statutes; whereas at Common Law, they could imprison in no case; neither can they now impose a fine in any case, either by the Common or any statute Law.

7. Seventhly, That all proceedings, censures, excommunications, oaths, fines, imprisonments, contrary to these statutes, are merely erroneous, and void in Law, and ought to be redressed and holden for none.

Yet notwithstanding all these just and equal statutes for the Subjects ease and benefit, our usurping domineering Prelates, both in their Consistories and Visitations, (but especially in the High-Commissions,) oppress and grieve his Majesty's good Subjects, in all and every of these particulars, contrary to the express Letter and provision of these reiterated Laws.

1. First, In citing, prosecuting, and proceeding against men, merely ex officio, upon bare superstitions, rumors, fames, (and ofttimes out of mere malice,) without any sufficient accuser, or prosecutor assigned to satisfy damages to the parties unjustly vexed. And if any prosecutor be assigned (as many times there is not, neither in the High-Commission, nor their Consistories, it is commonly some apparitor, proctor, or proctors man, only pro forma; or some officer, or well-willer to the Court; so that if the parties be accquitted, yet they shall either have no costs at all allowed them, or very small, as experience witnesseth; and that because (as a Bishop lately told a friend of his, that was acquitted in the High-Commission, and then dismissed without costs,) they must not discourage prosecutors, else they should have no work, and no griest would come unto their mils.

2 Secondly, They not only cite and convent men upo • bare surmises, fames and suspicions, without any proceeding presentment or accusation by two sufficient witnesses, or more upon Oath, both in their Consistories, Visitations and elsewhere, b •• likewise in their High-Commissions, arrest, apprehend, and imprison them too, nay break open, search, and ransack their houses, studies, books, chests, truncks, shops, warehowses cabinets, writings by their pursevants and officers, as if the • were traitors to the King and State; and commit men close prisoners now and then, before any Articles, inditement, presentment, or accusation upon oath against them; and that for the most part merely out of malice; of purpose for vexation; A tyrannical grievance, and an exorbitancy so excessive, so intolerable, so diametrally, contrary to all Law, equity, justice, and the forecited statutes, that the Parliament of 7. Jacob's in their Petition of grievances, exhibited to King James, (of which there are many printed copies extant) and sundry Parliaments since, have complained against it, as an insufferable outrage, burglary, and oppression, desiring a speedy reformation: upon which they received Royal promises, that these exorbitances should be redressed; though they be now more frequently practiced, then in any former ages: as the late transacting of Doctor Stautons, Master Whites, and other men's studies, and their imprisonment upon idle surmises, with sundry other presidents of this nature, witness. Such proceedings, neither Christ, nor his Apostles, nor any godly Fathers of the Church, have ever used or approved against the most infamous heretics; unparalleled by any, but the Spanish or Romish Inquisitors, whose violent footsteps our merciful, pitiful, fatherly, harmless Prelates now follow to an hairs breadth; exceeding all temporal Magistrates in violence, injustice, cruelty, extortion and oppression; none being so merciless, cruel, furious, despiteful or pittiles, as many of our Prelates; who as Anthony Parson wittily answered some of them of old in the Book of Martyrs, are rather become BITESHEEPES, then true Bishops, biting and devouring the poor sheep of Christ, like ravening Wolves: Which consideration caused the godly Martyr Master William Tyndale at his death, to Petition King Henry the eight, (a suit not unseasonable to our present Sovereign) to have compassion on his poor Subjects, that the Realm utterly perish not with the wicked Counsaile and proceedings of our Pestilent Prelates; who have ever been so prone to degenerate into cruel wolves, towards Christ's poor flock. That the very Book of consecration of Bishops, ratified by Act of Parliament, subscribed to by our Prelates, and lately reprinted by the Archbishop of Canterburies, command, prescribes this exhortation to all Bishops and Archbishops, at their consecration. Be to the flock of Christ, a shepherd, not a wolf; feed them, devour them not: Which if they did well remember, they would no doubt correct these their extravagant excesses, which all men cry shame on, but themselves; and they would not allow, nor practice, were it not to support their own usurped Episcopal Jurisdiction, state, and power, the only object, about whose Patronage this violent injustice is exercised; dignum patello operculum.

3. Thirdly, They enforce men by Ex officio Oaths, and Articles to accuse themselves, even in criminal causes, which concern both their credits, in respect of scandal; their liberty • ; in regard of imprisonment: their freeholds and goods, in relation; to those deprivations, suspentions, and fines, which they inflict for the most part in their Commission Courts upon the defendants self detection and answers. A proceeding, contrary to the Common and statute Law of the Realm; which in no criminal case whatsoever, puts any delinquents upon any information, action, or inditement, to answer upon Oath, or to accuse themselves (no not in case of Treason, or felony, the most transcendent offenses; nor yet in trespass, or other petty misdemeanors, the argument used in the statute of 25. H. 8. c. 14. to condemn and abolish, Ex officio, oaths and proceedings, in case of heresy, and Ecclesiastical offenses) but puts the accuser to prove his information, plaint, inditement, or presentment by witnesses, and not by the defendants Oath or confession; the Common Law being so curious in this; that it will not so much as put a Juror to a voyre-dire, upon any challenge, which toucheth him in his reputation, or savors of a crime (as for taking money, or giving up his verdict beforehand) though it forceth him to tell the truth upon his Oath, in other challenges of affinity, consanguinity and the like, which are neither scandalous, nor criminal; The reason whereof is given in our Lawbookes, because no man is bound to bewray himself, in things, which concern his credit, liberty, life, or forfeiture of his estate, in which cases any man may lawful refuse to take an Oath, or give any answer at all; as the marginal Law Authorities conclude and resolve. And for express authority in point. March. 18. Eliz. one Hind was convented before the High-Commissioners for Simony, and committed for refusing to answer upon Oath, to accuse himself, and upon a Haberes Corpus brought by him in the Common pleas, he was delivered, after solemn debate, the Court adjudging the imprisonment unlawful in this case, because no man is bound by Law, in a case of crime, or scandal to accuse himself. Neither are those Ex officio, Oaths and Articles, contrary to the Common-Law: But to the Canon Law it self, which requires witnesses and accusers face to face, to convict any man (especially a Minister) of any crime, without forcing men, to accuse themselves, either upon Oath, or answer to Articles: And if witnesses fail, and accusers, the party by the Canon Law is acquitted. Which Law, though it prescribe sometimes an Oath of Purgation to the accused party, where there are strong Presumptions and Circumstances, but no full legal proof of guiltiness, yet this is only after full hearing of the cause and sentence given; not before it, (as our Ex officio Oaths now are, which precede the sight of the Articles) and that to purge and clear the party, acquitted by sentence, not to detect and accuse him, that he may be sentensed, yet this purgation, as Gratian and the Popes there quoted by him, resolve, is only voluntary, not coactive; as the Parties not the Judges election, and that in case of Bishops and Ministers, not of Laymen, when their people shall earnestly require it; so that it hath no affinity with the Oath and Articles, Ex officio, (which are not arbitrary, but enforced under pain of imprisonment; not to purge, but to accuse and ensnare; and that not at the people's request, but against their vote and clamors) the main argument produced for their Justification. Nay these Oaths and Articles, Ex officio, are contrary to the Law of God himself, which requires that everything should be established, by the mouth of two or three witnesses: that no accusation should be received against an Elder, (much less then no Elder condemned) but under two or three witnesses: ^o that every man should love, cherish, defend, and protect his own fame, life, liberty, estate, and not destroy or ruin himself, contrary to our Savior's, and the Apostles own practice, who would not accuse themselves, nor answer to captious Interrogatories and questions propounded to them, by the High-Priests and Pilate, but put them to their proofs and witnesses; Contrary to the Jews, yea Romans Law and proceedings, who condemned no man, before they had brought the accusers witnesses, and dilinquents, face to face, and bear their accusations, testimonies, and defense. Contrary to the note, Doctrine, and practice of many of our godly Martyrs, who affirmed it a thing contrary to Charity, to the Law of God, of nature, equity, common reason, and to the Canon and Civil Law it self, for men to bewray and accuse themselves, and therefore refused to take any Oath, or to answer to any Articles, to accuse themselves, declaiming against Ex officio, Oaths and proceedings, as Antichristian, blowdy, tyrannical, unnatural, uncharitable, unreasonable, unjust, yea execrable, and Diabolical, (though our Prelates still uphold them, plead for them, imprisoning, and using such as even out of conscience refuse to take them, rather like dogs then Christians, which shows, whose offspring they are) as is evident by Master William Tyndale in his works, p. 122. 179. 208. 289. by the Brethren's Letter to Thomas Philip Martyr; by that excellent passage of Master John Lambert Martyr, to this purpose in his answer, to his first and 41. Articles: by Master John Philpot Martyr, and his fellow prisoners, who would neither accuse nor detect themselves, nor one another, and petitioned to the Parliament against these proceedings and Oaths: by some of the fellows of Kings College in Cambridge, by Richard Woodman, and Reginald Eastland Martyr. (who alleged that he knew that to end a strife and Oath was lawful, but to begin a strife, an Oath is unlawful, and therefore he now refuseth to take his Oath in the beginning of this matter against him:) by Elizabeth Younge, Thomas Hitton, and Cuthbert Simpson Martyrs, and by Master John Fox himself; whom Doctor Andrew W • llet, Master Whethenhall, Master Nicholas Fuller, and M • ster Parker, since have largely seconded, all of them passing a joint sentence of condemnation against these Oaths and proceedings, which, say they, the very Fathers (as Athanasius, Ambrose, Chrysostom, and many others quoted by Sixtus Sennisis ) have excceedingly declaimed against, as the High rode to perjury, and the very Devils precipise to tumble men headlong into hell, as Sir Edward Cook hath long since styled them in his Reports; yea these Ex officio Oaths and Articles, are contrary to Archbishop Whitguifts own confession and protestation before King James, and his Council in the Conference at Hampton Court, p. 90. (set out by the Prelates themselves) where he is brought in averring. That if any Article before the High-Comissioners, (much more then in their Consistories and Visitations) did touch the party any way, either for life, liberty or scandal, HEE MIGHT REFUSE TO ANSWER, NEITHER WAS HEE URGED THEREUNTO.

But now the course is clean contrary to what it was then, for if any man refuse to take the Oath, even before he see whether his Articles touch him in point of liberty, or scandal, (as all now do, since they have made imprisonment, a censure of course, in all causes there sentensed,) or else refuse to answer, fully to their Articles which touch his reputation, liberty, and lively-hood, or the loss of his living and Ministry, he shall be forthwith laid up in a filthy Dungeon, or nasty prison, as many of late and heretofore have been; and their Articles taken as confessed. Such is their strange degenerate Justice now, from what it was even in Bishop Whatguifts days. Finally, as these Ex officio Oaths and proceedings were founded on the Statute of 2. H. 4. c. 15. (which Master Fox in his Acts and Monuments therefore stiles the Statute Ex officio, p. 481. 482.) which was for mercy abandoned by the Statutes of 25. H. 8. c. 14. & 10. Eliz. c. 1. (which erects the High-Commission,) which expressly repeal the Statute of 2. H. 4. c. 17. (and by consequence these oaths and proceedings granted on it) which our High-Commissioners should be ashamed to use, since that Statute, which erects their Commission, thus precisely discordes them, & t • e A •• ion which t • ey were founded: So they are contrary to the resolution of the Commons-house of Parliament, which hath oft complained against these Ex officio Oaths and proceedings, as intolerable grievances, pressures, contrary to all Law, and Justice; and by name in the printed Petition of grievances, 7. Jacobi; yea contrary to the late Petition of right it self 3. Caroly, which condemns these Ex officio Oaths, in case of the late love, (though prescribed by a special Commission,) as directly contrary to the Laws, Statutes, Customs, and Fraunchise of the Realm; and enacts: that no man shall from thenceforth be called to take such Oaths, or confined, imprisoned, or any way molested for refusing to take the same: Of which more anon. I shall therefore close up this particular, with the express resolution of Judge Dyer, Catlyn, Saunders, and Whiddon, Pasc. 12. Eliz. where the case was this: A will of perjury was sued in Chancery, for perjury there committed, against the form of the Statute of 5. Eliz. and the question was, whether if the Defendent pleaded not guilty, whether he shall swear his plea, and answer to Interrogatories upon Oath; It was resolved by all the Judges, that he should nor, (for this would enforce him to accuse and defame himself in such a criminal cause,) and that the proceeding there should be by Latin will and answer, which upon issue joined, should be tried by witnesses and a Jury in the Kings-Bench. A full resolution, that all Ex officio Oaths and proceedings in criminal causes, are directly against the very Common Law and Statutes of the Realm. Therefore to be abandoned and exploded; neither can any Commission whatsoever warrant them; since neither the King himself, nor the Pope and Prelates, have any power to alter or change the Law of the Land, but the whole Parliament only, which so lately condemned both these Oaths and Commissions to administer them in the Petition of right.

4. Fourthly, They are so far from bringing men into answer, by due process of Law, to wit, first by a Citation, then by an excommunication for default of appearing on the Citation; and lastly by a Capias Excommunic • tum, directed to the Sheriff, (the only Ecclesiastical process and legal proceeding, that the High-Commissioners can or ought to use,) that many times at the first dash they break open men's houses violently, as if they were Traitors and fellons, and attach them by their Pursevants, under whose hands they likewise oft detain them many days together, without bail or maineprize; putting the poor Subjects hereby to an intolerable expense to their great oppression and undoing; contrary to the course of all other Courts. If any man be brought into the Starchamber, for never so heinous offenses, he is not forthwith send for by a Pursuivant, nor clapt up prisoner at the first boute, (which is to begin with execution, and quite contrary to all forecited Statutes,) but first of all a Sub poena is directed to him, the serving whereof costs him nothing, being ever done at the Plantiffes charge: If he appear not upon the Sub poena, then an Attachment issues to the Sheriff, at the Plaintiffe cost too, till his contempt appears; and then himself must bear the charge; which is not above 10. s. of course; if he stand out an Attachment, then a Proclamation of rebellion issues, and then in the last place a Pursuivant or Sergeant at arms is sent to bring him in. But in the High-Commission, a Pursuivant is oft times the first process, or a Citation served by a Pursuivant; which costs every Defendant that lives 40. or 50. miles of the Court, sometimes 3. 4. 5. or 6. p. a piece; whereas in all other Courts the first process costs them nothing. After which Citation follows an Attachment, and that saved or executed by a special Pursuivant at the like rate. Then they send out Intimation, upon Intimation, of 20. 30. 40. 50. or a 100. s. a piece to appear by such a day, which upon default they estreet into the Exchequer. A new kind of Proces, never heard of, till of late, to fine men before app • rance, and for not appearing, contrary to the course of all other Courts, and to the Common Law and Statutes, which expressly resolves, that Ecclesiast • call Judges, and Commissioners, can impose no fine, or pecuniary mulct, on any, person by way of Censure, for any Ecclesiastical offense, much less then by way of process. All these their process and proceedings are irregular, contrary to all the forecited statutes; and intolerable grievances, oppressions to the Subjects, as the Commons house of Parliament, in their Petition of grievances, 1. Jacob, and in most Parliaments, since have resolved, and our Judges long since determined: yet our Prelates are now more exorbitant, in this violent oppressive course of proceeding then ever, especially against godly co • scionable Ministers and people; and that for mere toys and triffles; upon the information of every Drunkard, or base idle wretched companion; who out of malice and spite alone shall attempt to prosecute them. In 42 of Queen Elizabeth, the High-Commissioners directed a warrant, to one Richard Butler, Constable of Aldrington in the Country of Northampton, for attaching and arresting the body of J • b, Simpson of that Parish, and the bringing of him before them, for committing adultery with the wife of Edward Fust, the Constable hereupon with one William Johnson, Fusts servant, came to a widows house in Aldrington, where Simpson was; at eight a clock at night, and the doors being open, would have arrested Simpson, by virtue of the High Commissioners warrant, which he there read unto him. Simpson notwithstanding resisted, and in his own defense shot Johnson, who came in aide of the Constable, with a Pistol, so as he fell down dead, for which being arraigned at Northampton, assizes following, the question grew, whether this were willful murder, or manslaughter only? for if the Co • stable had lawful authority to arrest him, then it was w llfull murder, otherwise but manslaughter se defendendo. The matter being of great weight, was deferred till next assizes, and upon conference with all the Judges of England, it was resolved; that it was only manslaughter se defendendo, because though the Commissioners had power given them to attach, and arrest offenders by Pursuivant, or warrant, by the words of their Commission, yet the statute of 1. Eliz. c. 11. on which the Commission is grounded, gives the • no such authority, and so their Commission as to that particul • void in Law, and the Statute giving them no power to arr • Simpson, but to proceed against h m by Citation only, and oath • Ecclesiastical process, the Constables warrant was merely voyed. And hereupon Simpson being indicted of willful murder, was by the Jury found not guilty, by the direction of the Court, and so acquitted. A full and most pregnant resolution in a point by all the Judges; that the High-Commissioners cannot lawfully arrest any man by Pursuivant or warrant, (as now they daily do) no though his doors be open, and the words of their Commission authorize them so to do; and that the killing of their Pursevants and officers in such cases (much more then where they ransack and violently break up men's houses, which are their Castles in all cases, except fellony or Treason, ) is no murder in point of Law, wherefore all their Attachments, arrests by Pursevants or others, and their new invented Intimations, are mere extravagant oppressions, grievances, and innovations, contrary to the forecited Laws; And so was it agreed by the Court in Lucas his case, hill 30. Car in the Kings Bench.

5. Fifthly, Whereas in all other Courts of Justice in the Kingdom, the defendants upon their appearance may freely take a copy of the information, bill, plaint, or Articles exhibited, against them, to repair therewith to Council, to crave advise, whether to answer or demure thereto in Law, as the case shall require; and to direct them how to answer legally, and cauteously for their best advantage, without taking any Oath to answer upon their appearance; before they see the bill, information, plaint, or Articles; taking only an Oath upon the putting in of their answer, (after it is perused, engrossed, and subscribed by their Council) That it is a true answer; yet our Prelates in their High-Commission and Consistories, are grown so strangely, exorbitant and unreasonable, as upon men's appearance, before any sight or knowledge of the Articles exhibited against them, yea oft times before any Articles drawn, to force men, to take an Oath, to make full and true answer to all such Articles, as are or shall be exhibited against them: which must needs be a mere rash, brutish inconsiderate Oath; void both of righteousness and Judgment, (two essential properties of every Christian Oath ) fitter for beasts then men, and very prejudicial to the parties. I read in Victor U •• censis, that when King Hunerichus his Commissioners urged the orthodoxal Bishops and Ministers of Afric, assembled together before them, to swear to a certain shedule tendered to them, before they had read and perused it; Hortulanus and Florentianus with all the others replied to them, Nunquid Bruta nos irrationalia, sumus, ut nescientes quid Charta contineat facile aut temere juremus, What are we unreasonable brute Beasts, that we should easily or rashly swear, not knowing what the Charter contains? Yet such brute beasts will our Prelates make men, that they must either swear to answer Articles, before they know whether there are any Articles at all drawn up against them; or if exhibited, what it is they contain, or whether they are fit to be answered or no; or whether the Court hath Jurisdiction in the things objected; or whether they shall live or be forced to answer them or no; or else they must forthwith be dragged to prison. Alas, what is Barbarism and inhumanity in the one; or rash unadvised swearing without Judgment and righteousness, in the other, if this be not? yet this is the Fatherly Charity, mercy and Justice of our Prelates in their High-Commission withi • parralell, or president among Turks and Infidels themselve • If Sant Chrysostom were so much against swearing in any c • before Ecclesiastical Judges (as Master Miles Cover d • B • shop of Exeter records of him ) that he thus rebukes Clearg • men for administering an Oath to others to swear men: Audit • Clerici, &c. Hear this, O ye Clerks, or Clergy-men who reach out the holy Evangelists to them that swear; how can • be secure from that Oath, or this precept of our Savior's, swe • not at all, who give an occasion of perjury? Can he who carrieth fire, whence burning is occasioned, be free from that burning? or he who holds out a sword by which murder is committed, is not he a sharer in that homicide? So he who gives an occasion of perjury to another, is a partaker of his perjury. Let the fire cease and there will be no burning; take away the sword, and murder will not be committed; take away an Oath, & there will be no perjury. If it were just to swear well, ye might justly excuse yourselves, by saying, we have given them the Gospel that they might swear, not that they might forswear; but now since ye know THAT EVEN, TO SWEARE WELL IS A SIN, (and so resolve most of the Fathers on that Text of Math. 5.) how can ye be free, who give an occasion of sinning against God? If this Father thus declaimed against the Oaths administered by Clergy men in his time, what would he say of these rash inconsiderate Ex officio Oaths in our days, and of those Prelates, who force men to them, and imprison those who make conscience of them? doubtless he would have filled the world with Rhetorical invectives against them both, and condemn them as infringers of the third Commandment, with other texts of Scripture; and of the 39. Article of our Church, which condemns all vain and rash swearing, (and what can be more vain or rash, then to swear to answer Articles, not yet drawn, or such as we have neither seen nor know what matters they contain?) and all swearing before a Magistrate, unless it be in a cause of faith and Charity; (and what Charity is it to enforce a man, to accuse, detect, defame himself, or others to his or their ruin?) and done according to the Prophets teaching in justice, judgment, and truth; as these rash oaths are not; for what justice can there be in this, to violate all these rules of justice? to make a man his own accuser, betrayer? and to force him to swear to answer such Articles, which the Law perchance allows him to demure to, without Oath, or to take of by a Prohibition without answer, or to refuse to give answer to? what judgment can there be, to swear, to give a true full answer to Articles which we neither know as yet to be, or if they be, yet are utterly ignorant what they do or may comprise? Or what truth can there be, to swear to answer Articles, which perchance by reason of sickness, death, friends, composition, demure, or a Prohibition, we shall never give an answer to; and by reason of our own particular engagements to secure, favor, help ourselves, we are in all legal probability more likely to answer falsely or fraudulently then fully and truly (as the most usually do) the cause why no Law permits any man to be a witness, Judge, or Juror in his own cause? well, when this rash Oath is thus enforced and taken before sight of Articles; which the party may justly refuse, and if they be committed for not taking it; the Judges on a Habes corpus, ought to bail them (as hath been expressly judged in Leighs case, M. 9. & 10. Eliz. and in Hinds case M. 18. and 19. Eliz. in the C. B. and 3. Jacobi, in Berries case in the Kings Bench, ) shall the party have a Copy of his Articles forthwith, to go to Council or men skillful in the Laws to advise him, (being ignorant perchance himself in Law affairs) how to answer, as is usual in all Courts of Justice else? No, his Majesty's poor Subjects (being purposely for the most part brought before them to ensnare and intrapp themselves,) must have no copy at all of their Articles given them, whereby to put in their answers by advice of Council to captious and gross interrogatories, able to entangle the most intelligent; or to advise with their friends and Council whether the Atticles be fit to be answered, or rather demurred unto; or to move for a prohibition before answer given, if there be just cause; but like sheep appointed for the slaughter, and destined to ruin, must answer their Articles and put in their answers, before they shall have a Copy of them; and this answer must be dictated Ex tempore, by the parties to the Register, who must write it from their own mouths, and they then answer as he thinks fit, else he will not write nor repeat their answers; and the defendants or their Council, must neither draw nor engross their own answers, neither may they have liberty to carry their answers to their Council to peruse after the Register hath written them, before they be put into Court, past all alteration and amendment. And if the party will make a defense or justification in his answer, by showing the reasons, either why he doth, or refuseth to do this, or that he is charged with; The Register either will not or may not write it; and the answer written must be purged and corrected in such cases, as the Register and Commissioners think fit; witness Master Snellings late case, for not reading the Declaration; with others, whose answers and Justifications would by no means be received, and were rased and purged after they were received and put in. Our reverend Martyr Archbishop Cramner, in his appeal from the Pope to the next general Council, makes these two chief causes of his Appeale: The right reverend Father James Brookes, Bishop of Gloucester, Judge and Deputy, under the most reverend Cardinal Poole caused me to be cited at Oxford (where I was then kept in prison) to answer to certain Articles, concerning the danger of my state and life, and when I being unlearned and ignorant in the Laws, desired council of the learned in the Law, that thing was MOST UNRIGHTEOUSLY DENIED ME, CONTRARY TO THE EQUITY OF ALL LAWES, BOTH OF GOD AND MAN. Wherein again I feel me MOST WRONGFULLY GREIVED. And when he had required of me answers to certain Articles, I refused to make him any answer; I said I would yet gladly make answer to the most renowned Kings and Queens Deputies or Atturnies then present, with this condition notwithstanding, that my answer should be extrajudiciall, and that was permitted me. And with this my Protestation made and admitted, I made answer: but mine answer was sudden and unprovided for, and therefore I desired to have a Copy of mine Answeres, that I might put to, take away, change and amend them; an • this was also permitted to me. (which yet is now denied men in the High-Commission, who can neither have Copy of Articles, or Answer out of Court, to advise which Counsel or amend what is amiss by direction of Counsel, till the answer be in past all alteration) Nevertheless, contrary to this promise made to me, no respect had of my Protestation nor license given me to amend mine answer, the second reverend Father Bishop of Gloucester commanded mine answers to be enacted, CONTRARY TO THE EQUITY OF THE LAW. In wich thing again I feel myself much grieved. This denying therefore of men, the Liberty of making their Answers by their Counsels advise learned in the Law, and to have Copies of their Articles, and Answers before their answers be in, to mend their answers by advise of Lawyers, is in this Archbishops and Martyrs judgment, a most unrighteous thing, contrary to the equity of all Laws both of God and man, and a most wrongful gravance to the Subjects, giving them just cause of Appeale. Yet forsooth, it is the cause and custom of this most unrighteous Court, and must not be altered upon any terms. Moreover, whereas in all other Courts of justice every man ought to have all his charges together at first, in one Bill, Plaint, or Information, to which nothing can be added or inserted afterward, especially after appearance or answer given; yet in these vexations extravagant Courts of Ill-justice, you shall have additional Articles, exhibited and propounded after the original given out and answered, of purpose to vex and ensnare the parties, and to gain the Register a double Fee for their answer, and sometimes additionals upon additionals, containing new matter or captious cross interrogatories, to the end, you shall not escape Scot free, all which you must answer by virtue of your first Oath, before any coppy given you to advise with Council: By means whereof and of some general words (as Conventicles, Schismatics, Sedition, non-conformity, and the like inserted into Articles) many ignorant, innocent people are entangled at unawares, and made guilty of that they are altogether guiltless, being quite deprived of the benefit of Law and Lawyers; who are chiefly necessary to direct them in their answers, which either acquit or condemn them for the most part. And as Doctor Barns in his Supplication to King Henry the eight p. 183. writ of the Prelates Courts in those days; So by these insnaring tricks and devices, we may say of the High-Commission and Bishops Consistories now: In the Bishops Court no man (especially no good man, that opposeth their tyranny and proceedings) can be found innocent. Is not this a marvelous Court, that they have, wherein there was never any man accused of heresy or schism, were be learned or unlearned, but they found him gulty? Is not that a marvelous Court, that never hath innocents? What Court within this Realm may say this again? Now whether these practices and proceedings of our Prelates, both in their Consistories and High-Commission Courts, complained of longe ago, in 2. H. 5. c. 3. in 7. Jacobi, and every Parliament since, as an intolerable grievance, be not the very extremity of oppression, tyranny, and injustice, as bad or worse, then any in the Spanish or Romish Inquisition, from whence they are derived, and more exorbitant, then any of our Popish Bishops proceedings heretofore against our Martyrs, recorded by Master Fox, let the indifferent and intelligent judge, yet our holy, just, and merciful ghostly Fathers, who condemn the Presbyterians for not being merciful as their heavenly Father is merciful, not walking in love towards their brethren, not loving their enemies, and blessing those that curse them, (as Bishop White hath lately done, in his Epistle to the Archbishop of Canterbury, before his Doctrine of the Sabbath, ) where he shows himself most uncharitable, and far more guilty of this sin, then any of those he censures for it, whom he dismisseth with this Episcopal benediction, well be fitting his fatherly Candor, piety, and pity, ABEANT IN MALAM CRUCEM, such a blessing, as never from any Christians pen before,) justify, and defend these unchristian, I had almost said Antichristian practices and proceedings, with blushlesse faces, though all men else are ashamed of them, exclaim, pass sentence against them; inflicting nothing but fines, imprisonments, execrations, excommunications, suspentions, deprivations, with the extremity of all miseries (the weapons of their Christian warfare ) upon all • who dare oppose them, or refuse to submit unto them, as if they gloried in nothing more then in tyranny, oppression, inhumanity, injustice, the chief props to support their usurped hierarchicall domineering power over the poor flock o • Christ, which they thus miserable fleece, slay, devour, like so many ravening evening Wolves.

Sixthly, They fine, imprison, suspend, deprive, outlaw, exile, condemn, destroy his Majesty's Subjects, and put them from their free-holds, callings, not only without, and besides, but directly against the Law (to wit, the Common Law, of the Land, upon Articles, Canons, Constitutions, Ceremonies of their own making, (which are no Law of the Land unless confirmed by Act of Parliament ) and for matters no way criminal by any Law or Canon. To instance in some particulars, by what Law of the Land, I pray, was Master Peter Smart, a reverend Prebend and Minister of Durham, fined, imprisoned, and deprived, An. 1629. by the High-Commissioners of York, both of his Prebendary and living only, for preaching against the setting up of Images, Altars, bowing to them, and placing them at the East end of the Church; directly contrary to the book of Common Prayer, and the Homily against the Perill of Idolatry, confirmed by Act of Parliament, to which all Ministers and Bishops subscribe? By what Law of the Land was Master George Huntly, not longe since fined, imprisoned, deprived of his living, and degraded of his Ministry, for refusing to preach a Visitation Sermon upon the Archdeacons warning, though he were then sickly and unable t • preach, and sent xxs to him to procure another to preach for him; • ere being no Canon Law or Statute extant, enjoining Mi • isters to preach at Visitations; but many prescribing the • shops and Archdeacons, who visit to preach themselves in person. • y what Law of the Land was one Master Crowder, Vicar of Vell, near None such about 6. years since, committed close • risoner to New-gate, 16. weeks together, by the now Arch • ishops of Canterbury and York, under pretence of some • reasonable words, delivered in the Pulpit; (but in truth, be • ause he preached conscionably twice a day near the Court, • nd would not resign his Vicarage;) and after that deprived, • oth of his Vicarage and Ministry in the High-Commission, without any Articles at all exhibited, or witnesses examined against him, or any proof, confession or conviction of any • rime, under this pretext, that the matters against him were so foul, as they wear not fit to be Articled or proved in Court against him, nor yet to be notified to himself, that he might either defend or justify himself if innocent, or confess • nd amend if peccarit? A proceeding so desperately, trascendent • y injust, and yet most true, that no age, no Court of justice whatsoever can parralell it, in the most barbarous tyrannical places or ages of the world? By what Law of the Land, I pray, was Master John Hayden, a poor Devonshire Minister, about 7. years since, for preaching a Sermon at Norwich, wherein he let fall some passages against setting up of Images in Churches (contrary to the Homily of the peril of the Idolatry ) and bowing at the name of Jesus, apprehended like a traitor, with Constables, Bills, Halberts, by Doctor Harsnet, then Bishop of Norwich, and brought manacled to him like a fellon; and for this offense only committed by him close prisoner to the Common-goal at Norwich for 13. weeks space or more; where he was like to starve, the Bishop taking away from him both his money, papers, horse; and when the Justices of peace at their quarter-sessions upon his petition would have bayld him; By what Law did the Bishop, to prevent his bayling, tell them, that he would lay high-treason to his charge; and after that send him up to London by an High-Commission Pursuivant, under whose custody he was kept without bail or mainprise for two whole Termes or more, till his cause came to hearing before the High-Commissioners in the Consistory of Paul's, only upon these two points? or by what Law did the High-Commissioners then & there censure him to be imprisoned, deprived of his Ministry, orders, and to pay a fine besides, merely for preaching against Images, and this superstitious Ceremony? Or by what Law did the Commissioners since that time, imprison him in the Gatehouse Common Dungeon, and the now Archbishop of Canterbury send him from thence to Bride-well to be whipped, and there keep him all the last extreme cold winter in a cold dark Dungeon, without fire or candle-light, chained to a post in the midst of a room, with heavy Irons on his hands and feet, allowing him only bread and water, and a Pad of straw to lie on: and since upon his releafe, cause him to take an Oath, and give bond to preach no more, and to depart the Kingdom within 3. weeks or a months space, and not to return; and all this only for preaching again after his first unjust deprivation, though no exception was taken against his Doctrine?

A tyranny and barbarous cruelty transcending, at leastwise paralelling, the very worst of Boners and Spanish Inquisitors proceedings. By what Law of the Land was Master Hugh Peter, Lecturer of Sepulchers in London, deprived of his lecture, and committed close prisoner about 7. years since; for 6. weakes space together; (and Master Jerome another Minister too at that season) by the Commissioners, before any Articles exhibited against him: though some Noble men interceded for him, and tendered to bail him; and all for this capital offense, that he was a zealous powerful preacher, and too much followed after by the people? By what Law of the Land was Master John Vicars of Stamford, first sent for by a Pursuivant, and clapt up prisoner upon a Papists, and drunken Inkeepers bare accusation, for many weeks together, before any Articles exhibited against him; and afterwards when he was let out upon bail, enforced to give bond, not to go 10. miles from London, nor yet to go down to Stamford, no not to examine and prepare his witnesses (which at first he was denied,) and after this imprisoned, fined, and deprived of his living, upon mere frivolous allegations, disprooved by many sufficient witnesses, and proved but by two or three dissolute and mean persons only; and yet those no crimes at all against any Statute, Canon, or Articles of our Church? By what Law of the Land was Butter the Bookeseller, committed to the Fleet, by the Archbishop of Canterbury (then of London) as an High-Commissioner, only for printing a passage against the Arminians, in Justification of Bishop Hall, the Synod of Dort, and Doctrine of the Church of England, in a Letter of Doctor Davenates, then Bishop of Salisbury to Bishop Hall, the omission whereof would have mangled both the letter and sense, because Martin his Chaplain (who licensed the letter for the Press) to please the Arminians, and betray the truth, had given direction that this passage (the main part and scope of the letter) should be left out? By what Law of the Land can the High-Commissioners proceed against Printers and Stationers; (yea and Authors too) for breach of a Decree of Starchamber, made for their better ordering, (a thing merely Civil, not Ecclesiastical, punishable only in that Court which made it, and untransferrible to any other, being no Act of Parliament, and binding none but such as are parties to it, ) and thereupon burn their Letters, Books, Presses, yea fine, imprison, and put them from their trades, for printing, writing, and venting orthodox Books against Papists and Arminians, in defense of the Doctrine of the Church of England, as they have done in the case of Butter, Sparkes, Jones, and others of late years? By what Law of the Land did they convent Doctor Souge, Doctor Sibbs, Doctor Taylor, and Master Davenport, as notorious delinquents, only for setting their hands to a Certificate (upon entreaty testifying the distressed condition of some poor Ministers of the Palatinate, and furthering a private Contribution among charitable Christians for their relief, when public Collections failed. By what Law of God, or of the Realm, did they lately send for the Major, Town Clarke, and some Aldermen of Gloucester, as gross delinquents, only for granting a small anuity to their painful and faithful Minister, Master Workman, so longe as he should continue among them, towards the better maintenance of himself and his Children, and cause them to revoke their grant? as if charity it self to distressed faithful godly Ministers, were a notorious offense, as these uncharitable Prelates make it; who will neither suffer such Ministers to enjoy their livings or Ministry; nor permit others to relief them, when themselves have stripped them of both; and all their means besides, only for their diligence and profitableness in their places. By what Law of the Land was Sir Giles Allington Knight, about 6. years since, fined no less then 10. thousand pounds by the High-Commissioners, and more over imprisoned and excommunicated, only for marrying his half sisters daughter by the fathers side with license, it being lawful though not usual, in the judgment of many Divines and Canonists, whose opinions he had under their hands before the marriage, and clearly out of the words of the Levitical Degrees, and so lawful and dispunishable in point of Law, by the express Statutes of 32. H. 8. c. 38. yet in force, at leastwise not fineable and punishable in this manner? By what Law of the Land was the Major of Arundell, not long since, fined and censured by the Commission at Lambeth, only for doing justice according to his Oath, his duty, and the Law of the Land, in imprisoning a notorious drunken Clergy man, for his drunkenness, his misbehaviour, both in words and deeds to himself and the Constables (in affront of Justice, and breaking of the peace,) and that but for one nights space, and the releasing him upon his submission, before he needed, without any further punishment? (And all for sooth because he was a Clergyman, whom our Prelates now strife to exempt from his Majesty's Laws and all temporal Jurisdiction, for which they are in a Premunire. ) And yet not censure, nor deprive the Clergyman for his beastly drunkenness and disorders, as he deserved? Alas, what a strange age is this wherein we live; that the very doing of justice, and the punishment of notorious malefactors, according to Law and Oath, must even by Prelates themselves be censured as a crime, and the malefactor justified and acquitted? What is this, but to call evil good, and good evil, to put darkness for light, and light for darkness; to put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter? to justify the wicked for reward, and take away the righteousness of the righteous from him? By what Law of the Land have at least 20. Ministers been questioned, fined, censured, imprisoned, and put by their livings of late, merely for refusing to bow at the naming of Jesus, or for preach • ng against it? The Book of Common prayer, and OTHER RITES AND CEREMONIES OF THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND, (wherein all rites and Ceremonies enforce, or by Law established in our Church are comprised) doth not so much as mention it; and many learned writers of our Church, as Bishop Alley, Bishop Babington, Doctor Whitaker, Doctor Fulke, Doctor Willet, Doctor Airay, and others of late have written against it, as superstitious and Pop • sh, if not Idolatrous, and Master Richard Hooker, and Archbishop Whitguift, confessed it, merely arbitrary, & that no man ought to be urged to it; yet the bare omission, or disallowing of this ceremony, is now a commō Article in our Prelates Visitations Consistories, and Commission Courts, though no Law of the Land require it, much less prescribe any penalty to such as refuse to use or preach against it? By what Law of the Land, have many Ministers and others been prosecuted, sentenced, imprisoned, suspended, and put from their livings, only for preaching, writing in Defense of the Articles and Doctrine of the Church of England against Arminians and Papists? and yet not so much as one Minister or Writer questioned, censured, fined, or imprisoned by them for writing and preaching in defense of Popery and Arminianism, against the Doctrine and Articles of the Church of England, as Bishop Mountagus, Bishop Wren, Master Cozens, Master Shelford, Chouney, Bishop White, Doctor Heylin, Doctor Pocklington, in their Books and Sermons, and many others in their Sermons, at Court at Paul's, in both Universities, and elsewhere have lately done? By what Law of the Land have many of the best and painefullest Ministers, been now of late suspended, silenced, excommunicated, and put from their livings only, for refusing out of conscience to read the late Declaration for sports in their Churches, in time of Divine Service as his Majesty's, though it came not to them under his Seal; though there be no Law, Canon, nor any one syllable in the Declaration, prescribing it to be read in Churches, or that Ministers should read or publish it; yea no penalty threatened to any that refuse to read it, and no Authority given to Bishops, or others to question or punish such who refuse to read it? And when as Doctor John White himself, in his way to the true Church, 5. times printed by Authority, and justified, and defended by Doctor Francis White, now Bishop of Eli, severely censures Papists for profaning the Sabbath, by Greenes, Ales, Dauncing, and other heathenish customs; branding this Position of Cardinal Tolet, justified by the Declaration; Th • it is lawful on the Sabbath-day to follow suites, travel, hu • DAUNCE, and such like; as a point of Popish Religion, which directly tends to the maintenance of open sin and liberty of life; that a Doctrine of the Papists, which not only infers, but expressly allows most palpable wickedness, directly tending to the desolation of public government, and private honesty; which hath made the Papists the most notorious Sabbath-breakers that live: And so altogether unfit both in point of conscience, piety, and policy, to be published by any Protestant Minister in the Church and presence of God himself, to damn both their own and their people's souls; and much more unfit for any Bishops to urge so far as to silence, suspend, and excommunicate Ministers, for not reading it out of conscience, as many Bishops have done to their eternal infamy, and yet proceed to do, as if they were the very Devils Bishops, rather then God's; and Atheists rather then Christians, Papists rather then Protestants, as some fear they are. By what Law of the Land was Master Chaunsie, a reverend learned Minister, very lately suspended, fined, imprisoned, until he should make his submission; only for opposing the railing in of the Communion Table at ware (for which there is neither Law nor Canon) before any order under Seal given for that purpose? By what Law of the Land were the Churchwardens of Ipswitch and Beckington, newly excommunicated, and threatened the High-Commission, for refusing to remove their Communion-Tables out of the body of the Church or Chancel, where they stood ever since the beginning of reformation, and to place them Altar-wise at the East end of the Church, and there to rail them in close prisoners against the wall; contrary to the very Rubric of the Common Prayer book, to Queen Elizabeth's Injunctions, the practice of the Primitive, and all Protestant Churches, as Bishop Jewell proves at large out of Eusebius, Augustine, the Acts of the 5. Council of Constantinople, Durand, Gentianus Zervettus, the moderne Greek Church and others; and the constant usage of the Church of England ever since reformation; yea contrary to the express words of the Bishops own Canons 1603. Canon 82. all which prescribe, that the Table at the Celebration of the Communion (at least if not at other times) shall stand or then be placed in the body of the Church or Chancel, in so good sort as there by the Minister may be more conveniently heard of the Communicants in his prayer and administration (which he cannot be at the upper end of the Chancel, being most remote from the people, where the Mass priests used to consecrate in a low dumb voice) and the Communicants also more conveniently, and in more number may communicate, with the said Minister, who is enjoyed to stand at the North-side (not end) of the Table, which must therefore stand Table not Altar-wise, as these our Popish Innovators would place it; who teaching men to bow to Communion-Tables and Altars, because they are the place of Christ's especially presence, and pleading so much for their Quires, (which they now Jewishly style their Sanctum Sanctorum, and make more holy then the other parts of their Church, ) should for these very grounds and reasons place their Communion-Tables and Altars (as they will have them called) in the midst, not at the East-end of their Quires, because Christ hath promised, that were two or three are gathered together in his name, there he will be, and is in the midst (not at the East-end or one side) of them, because God is said to be in the midst of his people and holy Temple (not at the East-end, where no seats, no people must be suffered) for fear of sitting above Christ, and taking the wall of God Almighty, fine frierlike, ridiculous reasons, fitter for School-boys then Prelates, or grave Divines, and because the Choir or Sanctum Sanctorum (as Isidor Hispalensis, Rabanus Maurus, with others testify, hath its very name from the situation of the Altar, in the midst of it, and the Priests and people standing round about it: Chorus (say they) est multitudo in sacris Collectus, & dictus Chorus quod injicio in modum Coronae CIRCA ( not juxta) ARAS starent, (therefore certainly they stood in the midst of the quire, not at the East-end against the Wall,) Et ita psallerent; which is further evident by these ancient verses of Virgil:

And by Alexander ab Alexandro, who assures us, that those who sacrificed to the God's, wear accustomed to sing praises • ito them, pedibusque circum Aras psallere ad mu • erum, and to dance round about their Altars singing; and that it was observed, that the sacrificers Aras circum-cur • ent, would run round about the Altars, beginning their Course from the left hand to the right, which they esteemed more religious, and afterwards from the right hand to the left: All which • s seconded and confirmed by Strabo Geogr. l. 10. and by Plato, Legum Dialog. 7. Hence Eusebius writes, that the Altar both in the ancient Temple of the Jews, and in his days, was placed in the midst of the Choir; not at the East-end; and Sant Augustine after him, Christ feeedeth us daily, Mensa ipsius est • lla in medio constituta: This is his Table here set in the midst; and hence it is recorded in the 1. Action of the 5. Council of Constantinople, that when the Chapter was reading: currit omnes multitudo cum magno silentio circum circa Al • are & audiebant; all the people with great silence drew near round about the Altar, and gave ear. From which authorities and sundry others, as Bishop Jewell, B • shop Babington, Docto • Farrar, Doctor Fulke, Doctor Raynoldes, with others, and our Common prayer Book, Canons and Injunctions prescribe and conclude, that the Communion-Table ought to stand in the midst of the Church or Choir; where our Novellors must now place their Altars, or Lord's Tables, else they will overthrow their Quires, and Sanctum Sanctorums, which they so much contend, for which had their very names, Originals, and essence, even from the situation of the Altar in the midst of them.

By what Law of the Land have Master John Cloberry, Master Brooke, Master Stanely, and many others been imprisoned, if not fined by our Prelates, in matters of Allemony, for refusing to humor and maintain their disobedient undutiful domineering, if not whorish wives, departing away from them, either upon small occasions, or without any just cause at all, contrary to all Law? A grievance, against Scripture, so by name complained of in Parliamnt, 7. Jacobi, and other Parliaments since, and for which Prohibitions have usually been granted, till now of late. By what Law of the Land have many of late, for refusing to kneel at the Sacrament; and others only for administering the Sacrament to such as kneel not, been imprisoned, fined, suspended, and put from their livings, by the High-Commissioners, who have no conusans of these causes, nor of any offenses against the Statute of 1. Eliz. c. 2. which Statute being made the same Parliament, with that which erects the High-Commission, particularly, and precisely limiting, what penalty every transgressor of it, shall suffer, who is made a delinquent by it alone; and expressly defining, that the Justices of Oyer and Terminer, or of Assise, and the Majors and Baliefes of every chief Town, shall inquire, hear, and determine all and all manner of offenses that shall be committed, contrary to any Article of that Act, with such temporal and corporal penalties only as therein are prescribed; and that no person or persons shall at any time hereafter be impeached, or otherwise molested, of or for any the offenses therein mentioned, unless he or they so offending, be there of indicted at the next General Sessions, holden before the Justices of Oyer and Determiner of Assise; And then authorizing all Archbishops, Bishops, Archdeacons, with their Chauncellors, Commissaries, Officials, and other Ordinaries, having peculiars to inquire in their Visitations, Synods, and elsewhere, within their Jurisdiction of all offenses against that Act, and to punish the same by admonition, excommunication, Sequestration, Deprivation, and other Ecclesiastical Censures, only according to the Queens Ecclesiastical Laws; and providing that he who is punished by the Ordinary, by Ecclesiastical Censures shall not be convicted for the same offense before the Justices, and punished with temporal penalties and so e converso; And giving the Ecclesiastical Commissioners no power at all to punish any offense against this Act, though it names them in the last proviso upon another occasion; how the High-Commissioners can lawfully question, fine, imprison, suspend, or punish any Ministers or Laymen (as they daily do) for offenses against this Law, of which they are excluded the Conusans, and that one, two, three, four or 5. years after the offense committed: or how they can inflict both emporall and Ecclesiastical Censures at once for the same offenses, or impose greater or other fines, or penalties, on delinquents then this Statute limits, I cannot possibly discern, neither could any man as yet inform me. True it is that offenses against this Act, are fit to be duly punished, yet only in such manner and form, and by such Judges, such persons, as the Law it self prescribes. But that the High-Commissioners should punish them, and that in such manner, as themselves think meet at what time soever they please, is neither reasonable nor agreeable to this Law of the Land. Moreover, what Law of the Land, authorizeth our Bishops and Ordinaries, in their Visitations and Consistories, to excommunicate, or the High-Commissions to punish and imprison his Majesty's Subjects, who resort to divine Service, and Sermons, and are no heretics nor Anabaptists from, but conformable members of our Church, only for repeating their Ministers Sermons with their families, friends, and neighbors, or for reading Chapters, singing of Psalms, (and sometimes upon occasion for praying & keeping private Fasts together,) after they have been at Church on Lord's-days, holy days, or Lecture-days, under pretence forsooth, that these their Christian meetings for these private commendable exercises of Religion (approved and practiced by Christians in all ages) are unlawful Conventicles, and these conformable persons, Conventiclers? which yet none can be in Law or truth, but heretics, or Anabaptists, severing themselves from our public Congregations, and erecting a new form of Discipline and Service of God in private corners, different from that of our present Church. Certainly there is no Law of the Land, nay no Canon of the Church, by which our Prelates or Commissioners can judge these private Christian meetings and exercises, Conventicles, or punish these conformable members of our Church, who out of Conscience, and piety use them, as Conventiclers, much less can they produce any Scripture, Divinity, religion, good reason, or ancient Presidenrs for it. What Law of the Land authorizeth Bishops to be both informers, accusers, witnesses, and Judges, and that in their own cases; contrary to the statute of Magna Charta, requiting, that men shall be judged by the lawful Judgment of their Peers, that is, by lawful and indifferent Judges, not such as are our parties, prosecutors, or enemies, contrary to the Common and Statute Law, yea all common sense and reason, & the very Canon Law? yet such are they in their officio proceedings, and Commissions for the most part, where they are both prosecutors, accusers, witnesses and Judges, and that in their own cases. I might run through infinite other particulars, for which the High-Commissioners daily fine and imprison his Majesty's Subjects, and thrust many Godly Ministers both from their livings, lectures and ministry; If I should demand of them, by what Law of the Land they do it? or what Law or Canon makes those very things, for which they are censured, criminal offenses? it would put them to A non-plus, and upon diligent inquiry made after such Laws or Canons, they must return, either an Ignoramus, or Non est inventus. For example, what Law of the Land, what Canon or Article of our Church, makes the bare affirmation? That Bishops and Ministers are one and the same in office and Authority Iure Divino, and that the difference in Jurisdiction, power, and superiority, now between them is by the grant and favor of Princes only (the professed Doctrine of the Fathers, of all foreign Protestant Churches, writers of our own Church and Authors, and the express resolution of the Statutes of 25. H. 8. c. 19. 26. H. 8. c. 1. 37. H. 8. c. 17. 1. E. 6. c. 2. 1. Eliz. c. 1. and 8. Eliz. c. 1.) either an error or an offense; yet Doctor Bastwicke for this orthodox Doctrine (confessed to be an undoubted truth by Archbishop Whitguift Bishop Bridges, and all other our Bishops in their writings against the Popes supremacy, and urged by them and all other Protestant writers whatsoever of that subject, as a principal unanswerable argument against the Popes pretended Sovereignty over all other Bishops and Ministers by divine institution (though our Prelates, in the Controversies between them and the Puritans, as they call them playing the turn coats, directly deny it, and brand it as an Arian heresy, because it utterly overthrows their Episcopal Superintendency, and domineering Lordship over their fellow Ministers ) brought in only by way of Argument, in a Latin Book, printed beyond the Seas, in defense of the Kings Prerogative Royal, and other Ministers and Bishops liberties against the Popes and Italian Prelates usurpations, without any the least relation to our Bishops, who are not so much as named nor intimated therein, must be excommunicated, imprisoned, fined no less then one thousand (and by the now Archbishop of Canterbury two thousand pounds) to his Majesty, and debarred, his practice of Physic. (So dangerous an offense is it now for any man to show himself a true loyal Subject to his Majesty, in defending his Crown and dignity, against the Popes & Prelates encroachments, according to their Oath of Supremacy and allegiance prescribed by the self same statute, which erects the High-Commission) and the Bishops themselves, contrary to all Law and justice, even in this case which immediately concerned themselves alone, must be both his accusers and Judges, and pass this doom upon him though his professed enemies, what Law, or Canon is there that makes preaching against Maygames, May-poles, mixed and lascivious dancing (especially on the Lord's-day) cringing to Altars, turning Communion-Tables into Altars, or placing and railing them in Altarwise at the East-End of the Church, or preaching that the Sacraments and preaching ought to go hand in hand, the one being in manner dumb without the other; that Bishops and Ministers in the primitive Church were usually elected by the whole Clergy and people (a truth most clear and undeniable,) that a wounded conscience is such a tender thing, that it cannot bear the weight of 3. Steeples on it; that Christians ought to avoid ill Company as dangerous, since Peter being in the company of the High-Priests Servants denied his Master, and the like, neither crimes nor errors? yet Master Workman, Master Ward, Master Wilson, Master Brodet, and other Ministers have been lately fined, censured, deprived, or suspended for these capital, exorbitant offenses, and put by their Ministry: In a word, there is scarce one fine, or sentence given in the High-Commission; but is directly contrary to Magna Charta, the Law of the Land, and all the forecited statutes.

To make this undeniable, it is and must be confessed on all hands.

1. First, That no Ecclesiastical Judge, or person could by the Common Law of the Realm, either fine, or imprison any man for any Ecclesiastical offense or breach of any Canons, which being Ecclesiastical, can prescribe no temporal, but only Ecclesiastical punishments and censures?

2. Secondly, That no man can be fined, or imprisoned in any case whatsoever of Ecclesiastical Conusans, by any Ecclesiastical Judge, unless some Act of Parliament, give that Judge particular power to fine and imprison in those particular cases.

3. Thirdly, That the power of sinning and imprisonment, given to Ecclesiastical Judges, in one particular case or two only, cannot be extended by equity to any other all penal Statutes, being ever to be taken strictly for the Subjects liberty and ease.

4. Fourthly, That the Statute of 1. Elizabeth c. 1. by restoring and uniting the ancient Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction to the Crown, and giving the King power to delegate it over by his Letters Patents to Commissioners to execute it, did neither alter nor intent to alter either the nature or punishment, of Ecclesiastical offenses, so as to make them temporal and punishable by fine and imprisonment (which are truly and merely temporal and not Ecclesiastical Censures, but left them Ecclesiastical to be proceeded against, by Ecclesiastical process and censures only, as before the making of that Act, not by fine and imprisonment, which I shall make clear by these ensuing reasons.

1. First, Because the Statute unites to the Crown only, such Jurisdictions, Privileges, Superiorities, and Preheminences, Spiritual and Ecclesiastical, as by any Spiritual and Ecclesiastical power or authority had heretofore been, or might lawfully be exercised, or used for the Visitation of the Ecclesiastical State, and persons, and for the reformation, Order, and correction of the same, &c. So that nothing but bare Ecclesiastical power in cases merely Ecclesiastical, and such as had been before that time lawfully exercised, and used by Ecclesiastical power and persons, is united to the Crown in such manner and form only as Ecclesiastical persons used it. This mere Ecclesiastical power thus united the Statute, authorizeth the Queen and her Successors to delegate by Letters Patents to such natural borne Subjects, who shall exercise, use and execute under them all manner of Jurisdictions, Privileges or Preheminences touching or concerning any Ecclesiastical (not temporal) Jurisdiction, and shall visit, reform, correct, &c. all such Errors so as by any manner spiritual or Ecclesiastical power, (not temporal) authority or Jurisdiction can or may be lawfully reformed, &c. And that after the said Letters Patents to them made and delivered. Then they shall have full power &c. to exercise, use and execute all the premises, (that is, all manner of Jurisdictions, privileges, and preeminences, spiritual and Ecclesiastical) according to the tenor and effect of the said Letters Patents, that is, for such and so long time, for such and such precincts, at such convenient seasons and places, and for such offenses, Errors and misdemeanors, as shall be contained in the Letters Patents; And that according to the Ecclesiastical Law and manner of proceedings and Censures, (as is clear by the precedent words) not in such an arbitrary course of violent and unjust proceedings by Pursevants, attachments, fines, imprisonments, and the like, as the Prelates by their policy, power and flattery, shall at any time procure to be inserted into their Commission, as they now most absurdly interpret it; for that wear not to delegate or exercise an Ecclesiastical, but a mere temporal Jurisdiction, never lawfully exercised before by any Ecclesiastical power or authority. And if the King should insert into his Patents, that the Commissioners might at their discretions censure men to be banished, whipped, pillored, branded, dismembered, burned, executed, or t • at they should forfeit their lands or goods for Ecclesiastical offenses, (which he may as lawfully do, as that t • ey shall be fined, or imprisoned,) these proceedings should be thought lawful, and warranted by this last clause: (According to the tenor and effect of the said Letters Patents,) which no man in his right senses dare affirm.

2. Secondly, There is not one syllable in all this clause, concerning the Delegation of the Kings Ecclesiastical power, touching, fining, imprisoning, or inflicting any other temporal punishments upon the Subjects for Ecclesiastical offenses▪ Therefore doubtless no intendment of the Law-makers, that they should be punished in this manner; who would have declared as much in express words, at least, had they intended any such proceedings, neither shall the liberty of the Subjects, persons, or goods, against imprisonment and illegal fines, ratified by Magna Charta, and the fore-named Statutes, in express terms be taken away by this Statute, only by strained inferences and intendements, without any express words at all.

3. Thirdly, This very Act before this clause, repeales the bloody Law of 2. H. 4. c. 15. revived by Queen Mary; authorizing ordinaries and others to imprison, fine, and proceed against men Ex officio, by self accusing, Oaths and captious ensnaring Articles and interrogatories to entrap them. (So the Statute of 25. H. 8. c. 14. brands them, ) of that, which they called and deemed heresy, and false Doctrine, as an unjust, bloody and tyrannical Law, (so Master Fox, oftentimes stiles it, ) upon which all the Martyrs in martyrs days were butchered by the Prelates: Therefore certainly it would never revive the same proceedings, oaths and censures by implication only, which i • expressly repealed in the former branch.

4. Fourthly, It cannot possibly be intended, that this Parliament in the first year of Queen Elizabeth, so soon after the Marian persecution, should in the very first Act they made, increase the penalties of Ecclesiastical offenses, and make them more penal to the Subjects then for mercy they were, i • Queen Mary's days, by making them liable to Ecclesiastica • and temporal Censures, both at once, when as before all o • them, (except what they made and interpreted to be heresy and schism,) were only punished with Ecclesiastical Censures, and to give the Prelates and every Ecclesiastical Commissione • more power over the Subjects then ever the Pope; (whose authority they abolished by this Act) did formerly exercise and enjoy • For this had been nothing else, but to shake of a lighter yoke of bondage from the subjects necks, to put on an heavier; to erect a new Starchamber for Ecclesiastical offenses; to set up many Popes whilst they banished one, and to punish one offense twice, by inflicting at one and the self time in the same Court, both temporal and spiritual Censures. Therefore questionless these Ecclesiastical errors and offenses, were not intended by them to be punished by fine or imprisonment.

5. Fifthly, It cannot be imagined, that the Parliament would give such unlimited power to the Queen and every of her Commissioners and Prelates, as the greatest Courts of the Kingdom never before enjoyed, no not the Parliament it self: The Queens highest temporal Courts of Justice, could but fine and imprison men for those offenses which are not capital, but not excommunicate, degrade or punish them with temporal and Ecclesiastical Censures both at once, for one and the same temporal, or any Ecclesiastical crime: her Ecclesiastical Courts, could only inflict Ecclesiastical censures on her Subjects before this Act, for spiritual offenses, but not fine and imprison them to. And would the Parliament (think you) then give so much power to every Commissioner by this Act, as to imprison, fine, excommunicate, deprive, degrade, and in some cases also to adjudge to death, or exile, any of her Subjects for Ecclesiastical misdemeanors only? This verily had been a strange oversight, rashness, and such a vasalage, as no wise men whatsoever would pull upon their heads: therefore it cannot be presumed of here, what ever our Prelates and their favorers pretend.

6. Sixthly, This very Act distinguished Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction, Judges, causes, offenses, proceedings and punishments from temporal, and temporal from Ecclesiastical, both in the precedent and subsequent clauses, as things always distinct and severed, in respect of their matter, manner, form, execution, and never confounded together: It cannot therefore be conjectured that it would unite and confound them both together, in our Prelates and Ecclesiastical Commissioners in correcting Ecclesiastical offenses by temporal and Ecclesiastical process, censures, and proceedings both at once?

7. Seventhly, This Statute gives the Queen and her Successors the selfsame Jurisdiction, power and authority, as the Statute of 26. H. 8. c. 1. did to King Henry the 8. and his Commissioners; But King Henry and his Visitators, his Commissioners proceeded only by Ecclesiastical Censures against delinquents, not by temporal, as is clear by the very words of 37. H. 8. c. 17. Therefore the Queens and her Successors by virtue of this Statute ought to do so now.

8. Eighthly, The Statutes of 13. Eliz. c. 12. & 3. Jacobi, c. 4. 5. expressly rank the Commissioners in causes Ecclesiastical in equipage with Archbishops, Bishops, and other Ecclesiastical Judges, providing, that they may inflict Ecclesiastical Censures, according to the Ecclesiastical Law upon Ministers, who offend against the 39. Articles and recustomes to, notwitthstanding temporal Censures and penalties to be inflicted on them by temporal Judges and Justices; putting the Ecclesiastical Commissioners in opposition to temporal Judges, and confining them expressly to Ecclesiastical Censures; not one Statute so much as intimating that they can fine, imprison, or inflict any other temporal Censures, nor giving them power so to do. These Acts therefore, compared with the several Statutes of 37. H. 8. c. 17. 1. Ed. 6. c. 2. 2. & 3. Edw. 6. c. 1. 13. 19. 23. 3. & 4. Edw. 6. c. 10. 11. 5. & 6. E. 6. c. 1. 2. 3. 4. 1. M. Sess. 2. c. 2. 3. 1. & 2. P. & M. c. 6. 8. 1. Eliz. c. 2. 5. Eliz. c. 1. 23. 8. Eliz. c. 1. 13. Eliz. c. 8. 18. Eliz. c. 10. 23. Eliz. c. 1. 31. Eliz. c. 6. 4. Jacobi. c. 5. 1. Car. c. 1. 3. Car. c. 1. which expressly distinguish between temporal and Ecclesiastical Censures and Jurisdictions; appropriating the first, only to temporal Judges and Magistrates, the other to Ecclesiastical, are a direct resolution, that the High-Commissioners and spiritual Judges, can neither fine, nor imprison his Majesty's Subjects for Ecclesiastical offenses, by virtue of the Statute of 1. Eliz. c. 1. but only proceed by Ecclesiastical Processe and Censures of the Church; and that this Act leaves all Ecclesiastical offenses and proceedings, as it found them without any alteration.

9. Ninthly, The Statute of Magna Charta c. 20. and others forecited, expressly resolve, that no man shall be imprisoned, sined, outlawed, destroyed, or outed of his freehold, goods, and chatles, but by the Law of the Land. The Law of the Land therefore being that Ecclesiastical Judges and Commissioners can fine or imprison, no free man for Ecclesiastical offenses, contempts, or breach of Ecclesiastical Constitutions, Canons, Ceremonies, Orders, Injunctions, unless some Act of Parliament in express terms prescribes, and gives them such power. This Satute of 1. Eliz. c. 1. which speaks not one syllable, that Ecclesiastical Commissioners shall fine, or imprison any man for Ecclesiastical misdemeanors, not punishable by fine or imprisonment before this Act, shall not by a mere wrested inferrence and implication, be interpreted or strained so far, as to give them such a power, in opposition to Magna Charta, and all the former positive Laws; The rather. 42. Ass. 12. 5. 38. Ass. 32. Imprisonment Br. 100. 8. E. 4. 14. 6. E. 4. 9. 39. E. 3. 7. 1. H. 7. 4. Fitz. Monstrance De Faites 132. 2. H. 5. 5. 6. Dier. 475. Cook 7. Report. fol. 20. and 8. f. 117. to 121. and C. 11. f. 52. and Tr. 3. Caroli. B. Rex. The case of the Town of Boston are expressly resolved, that no Corporation or company can prescribe or make By-Laws, to imprison any man, because it is contrary to Magna Charta; and that Commissions, to arrest or imprison men, are void in Law, because no man ought to be arrested, but upon Inditement, suite of the party, or other due process of Law.

10. Tenthly, All Ecclesiastical proceedings and Censures whatsoever in criminal causes are only, pro Salute animae & reformatione morum, as is resolved, C. 5. C. Report. f. 6. a. Cawdries case, which is effected by excommunications and penance, which punish the Souls, not by fine and imprisonment, which punish only the purses and Bodies of delinquents. This Statute therefore being principally made for the reformation of men's Souls and manners by Ecclesiastical Censures, as is resolved in Cawdries case, shall not be extended to fines and imprisonments, which are but corporal Censures.

11. Finally, The lower house of Parliament, in 3. and 7. Iacobi, and in many Parliaments since, have resolved, that the High-Commissioners fining, and imprisonment for Ecclesiastical offenses, (which are not ordered to be so punished by express Statutes, yet in force, by spiritual Judges and ordinaries) is an intolerable grievance, oppression, and vexation, not warranted by the Statute of 1. Eliz. c. 1. which gives them no such power, but to proceed only by Ecclesiastical process and Censures; Sir Edward Cook, and the rest of the Judges in their Conference with the Prelates before King James, and in their Declaration of the true grounds of their prohibitions to the High-Commissioners, composed, and committed to writing by his Majesty's Fathers command, about the ninth year of his Rain, delivered their Judgments and resolutions, accordingly in direct terms, that the High-Commissioners could fine in no case, and imprison only in case of heresy, and incontinency of Ministers, and that by way of Censure after conviction, not of process before it, as the discourse it self (which is common) witnesseth at large.

These particulars being thus premised and proved, it is apparent that the High-Commissioners cannot legally by the Law of the Land, impose any fine at all on any delinquents for any Ecclesiastical offense whatsoever, because neither the Canon, nor any Statute Law whatsoever, now, or then in force, gives them, or any Ecclesiastical Judge, power to fine, or amerce any man for any such offense. And that they can imprison in no cases, but only of incontinency of Ministers, and of heresy, (in which two cases Ecclesiastical Judges have power to imprison, by the Statutes of 1. H. 7. c. 8. and 25. H. 8. c. 14.) but in no other, that I can find in any Statutes, no not in cases of fighting and quarrelling in Churches, or Churchyardes, Adultery, incest, Simony, Blasphemy, Drunckennesse, Usury, Inconformity, and the like; which they may punish with Excommunications, or other Ecclesiastical Censures, and by deprivation, perchance in Ministers, but not by fine or imprisonment, (as they now daily do) which is clear by the Statutes of 5. and 6. of E. 6. c. 4. 37. H. 8. c. 17. 1. Eliz. c. 2. 13. Eliz. c. 8. 12. 31. Eliz. c. 6. 23. Eliz. c. 1. 3. Iacobi c. 4. 5. 4. Iac. c. 5. and other forecited Acts, and that this is no private opinion of my own, but a generally received truth, I shall besides the resolution of the Parliament 7. Iacobi, and of many Parliaments both before and since, and of the Judges forementioned, cite some particular Judgments in point, Mich. 9. and 10. Eliz. in the C. B. ret. 1556. (which in 10. years after the Statutes first made, which erects the High Commission,) one Leigh an atturney of the Common Pleas, was committed by the High-Commissioners to the Fleet, because he was present at a Mass, and refused to take an Oath to answer to Articles, which they would administer to him; whereupon he brings a Habeas Corpus in the C. B. and by the resolution and advise of all the Judges (some of which were present in Parliament, when this Act was made,) he was bayled and discharged of his imprisonment; not only, because he was a necessary member of the Court, and so his attendance could not be spared, but principally, because the High-Commissioners had no power by virtue of this Act, to imprison any man, either for hearing Mass or refusing an Oath to accuse himself. So Mich. 18. and 19. Eliz. One Hind was committed prisoner, by the High-Commissioners, for refusing to swear, to answer Articles, exhibited against him for usury; whereupon he brought an Habeas Corpus in the Common Pleas, and was discharged by the Judges; because the High-Commissioners have no power given them by the Statute to imprison any man, either for refusing to take an Oath, (which the Statute gives them no authority to administer,) nor yet for usery it self: both which cases are reported by the Lord Dyer, then chief Justice of that Court, and printed in the first edition of his reports, though (I know not by whose procurement,) omitted in the last editions of them. Anno 42. Eliz. in Simpsons case forecited, it was resolved upon mature deliberation by all the Judges of England, that the High-Commissioners had no power at all by the Statute of 1. Eliz. c. 1. to arrest any man by Pursuivant, or warrant, or, to attach his bodies appear and bring it before them, either by the Sheriff, Constable or a messenger, nor to imprison any o • e for adultery, but that they ought to proceed only by Ecclesiastical process and Censures: notwithstanding their Commission to arrest and imprison men; which being not warranted by the Statute is void as to this particular. And hereupon Simpson indicted of w • llf • ll murder, for pistoling Johnson, who came in aid of the Constable of Aldrington to arrest Simpson, by a warrant from the High-Commissioners, for committing adultery with Fusts wife, was acquitted and found not guilty by Judges special direction to the Jury. Anno 3. Iacobi, one Berry was committed by the High-Commissioners, for irreverend speeches and saucy carriage to Doctor Newman, whereupon he brought an Habeas Corpus in the Kings Bench at Westminster, and was discharged by the Court, both for the generality of the return, and because the Commissioners have no power by the Statute, to commit any man for irreverend speeches or carriage to his Minister, though it be a misdemeanor: And the Court in this case resolved further, that whereas the Commissioners usually took bond of those who were cited to appear before them to answer to such interrogatories, which shall be administered to them, before they have seen their Articles, that all such obligations are void in Law: (and all Oaths Ex officio too by the self same reason) neither have they power to require or take such bonds (much less then such oaths) of any by this Statute. Anno 11. Iacobi, one Brooke an Herald at Arms, was committed to the Fleet by the High-Commissioners for refusing to pay such Alemoni to his wife, as they enjoined him: whereupon he brought an Habeas Corpus in the Kings bench, and was discharged by the Court, because the Commissioners have no power by the Statute of 1. Eliz. c. 1. to grant Alemony to discontended wives, and if they had, yet they could not by Law imprison any man, that refused to pay it. An. 6. Jacobi B. Rex, it was resolved in one Master Withers case, that the High-Commissioners could not arrest, or attach men by their Pursevants, but ought to proceed by Citation and Excommunication, only as other Ecclesiastical Courts do. Tr. 7. Jacobi B. Rex, in Warringtons case, it was resolved, that the Commissioners could not imprison any man for refusing to take an Oath to answer to Articles, or for hearing of Mass; and the party so committed, was thereupon bayled. 7. Jacobi. C. B. it was adjudged in one Hawes case, that the High-Commissioners could not imprison a man, for refusing to obey the sentence of his ordinary in case of adultery. Pasche 8. Jacobi B. Rex. Meltons case, and 12. Jacobi B. Rex. Bradstones case, it was resolved that the Commissioners could not commit men, for refusing to answer Articles, or to give bond to pay expenses, or obey orders in cases of Alemony, between man and wife, Hill. 3. Caroli. B. Regis. One Lucas was detained close prisoner, in the house of a Pursuivant, belonging to the High-Commissioners by their order, until he should pay 3. p. 13. s. 4. d. for the Pursevants journey into Norfolk, and 6. s. 8. d. every day, that he had been in his Custody, (the usual fees, they now demand and take of all men,) whereupon a Habeas Corpus was prayed and granted to the prisoner discharged voluntarily by the Pursuivant, and the fees ruled to be excessive, Hill. 3. Caroli B. Rex, Master George Huntly, a Kentish Minister, was committed by the High-Commissioners,, and fined by sentence of the Court, for giving contemptuous words to the Archdeacon, charging him with injustice, and refusing to preach a Visitation Sermon upon his command, to whom he owed Canonical obedience, and other contempts to the Archbishop of Canterbury himself, as was pretended, whereupon he brought his Habeas Corpus; the Judges upon the Archbishops solicitation would not then bail him, (though bound by Law and Justice to do it) unless he would promise to submit to the High-Commissioners, which he refused standing upon the innocence of his cause to do. After this Hill. 4. Caroli. he brings there another Habeas Corpus, Serieant Hetley and Master Calthrop his Council, prayed that he might be bayled. 1. Because his refusal to preach a Visitation Sermon upon the Archdeacons command, was no breach of Canonical obedience, no Law or Canon requiring it. 2. Because the offenses pretended, are not within the statute of 1. Eliz. c. 1. and if they were, yet the statute gives them no power at all to sine or imprison, but only to proceed by Ecclesiastical Censures; whereupon he was bayled at the Court. But loe the intolerable insolency of the Prelates, and their most contemptuous execrable affronting of Justice: (the like whereof was never offered to the King and his Judges in any age, deserving at the least a Premunire, ) no sooner was this poor oppressed Minister bayled & released by the Court, but the Pursevants by a new warrant frō the Commissioners, as he was going frō the Barre, within the vew of the Court, apprehended him a fresh, & carried him over to Lambeth; where the Commissioners sitting the same afternoon, deprived him of his living, degraded him from his Ministry, imposed a great fine upon him, and committed him to a loathsome prison, only because he sought to five himself from their former oppressions, by an Habeas Corpus; a legal course of Justice for all oppressed Subjects. And presently after, one Master Agustine, the Archbishops Chaplain, was presented by him to his living. This poor distressed oppressed, Minister hereupon endeavors to right himself by a course of Law; for which purpose he brings an Ejectione Firme against Master Agustine in the Kings bench, to recover his benefice; and an Action of false imprisonment against the High-Commissioners and their officers (who deserved a more severer proceeding of another nature, or affronting the King and his Judges in their execution of Justice, and relief of an over injured Subject.) In which actions the Prelates and Commissioners by their mighty power have these 5. or 6. years together delayed him. And I know not upon what quirks and underhand doing got them discontinued by reason of the infinite delays and adjournments, and some negligence in the Clerks, in entering the continuances. Since which he hath brought new actions again, wherein they tire him out with new delays; and have so far prevailed by their power with the Judges, that they will neither assign him Council to argue his cause, neither appoint him any set day for the argument of his action of false imprisonment, (which they now pretend is discontinued;) shifting him of with delays, contrary to the express letter of Magna Charta, We shall sell to no man, we shall deny or defer to no man, either justice or right, and to the Judges own Oaths, ye shall swear that ye shall do even Law and execution of right to all the Kings Subjects, rich and poor without having regard to any person, and that ye deny to no man common right, by the Kings Letters, nor none other man's, nor for none other cause, and in case any Letters come to you contrary to the Law, (as to many Letters and messages now do,) that ye do nothing by such Letters, but certify the King thereof, and go forth to do the Law, notwithstanding the same Letters; which now few Judges do, or dare to do; out of a sordid slavish fear of I know not whom or what; I am sure not of God, who requires Judges, to be men of courage fearing him, that so they may not fear the threats or frowns of men. And by reason the swaying Prelates, and Judges are so far engarged against this distressed creature, as to brow-beat all his Council for his sake, he is now so destitute of all Council, t • e Judges refusing to assign him any, that he can procure no man cordially to plead his cause, (a great shame to the honorable profession of the Law) but is enforced to move the Court himself, and to entreat them that he may have liberty to argue his own cause. All which extremity this poor afflicted Minister hath undergone for almost 9. years space together, without any respiration, to the utter ruin of his estate, the enfeebling of his person, through penury and long imprisonment, only for refusing to preach a visitation Sermon upon the Archdeacons command, (who by the Canons and Custom of the Church is bound to preach himself,) because of a present sickness, then upon him, and the shortness of the warning, in regard of both, which he desired to be excused, Proctors to the Archdeacon, to procure another, to supply his place, who would not accept of his money, or just excuses, but enjoined him to preach in person; which he not doing for the forementioned reasons, was convented before the High-Commissioners, and for this cause alone, and no other thus handled, as I have truly and impartially related. And are these proceedings censures think you (which every just and upright man must needs tremble and stand amazed at, and I trust his Majesty out of his most gracious Royal Justice will now lay to heart) agreeable to the forecited statutes, the Law of the Land, or tolerable among Christians? God forbid, that any Christian or moral heathen man should deem them so. To conclude this point: The Judges of the C. B. 4 Caroli, in case of a Baliefe prosecuted in the High-Commission, for disturbing and arresting of a Minister in the Church, in the time of Divine Service, contrary to the statutes, of 5. & 6. Ed. 6. c. 4. resolved, Una voice, that the High-Commissioners could neither fine, nor imprison the party, for this misdemeanor, but only excommunicate and enjoin him Ecclesiastical Penance. And Judge Hutton and Yelverton at that time, in my own hearing, gave order to the parties Council to insert this clause into his prohibition to the Commissioners, that they should not proceed to fine or imprison him; and if they did, the whole Court protested it was against the Law; and that upon a motion of his Council, they would free him. By all which Reasons, Statutes, Resolutions, and Authorities, both of the Commons-Howse of Parliament, the Judges of the Kings Bench, and Common-pleas, in Queen Elizabeth's, King James, and King Charles several reigns, (till the domineering humor of our present great swaying Prelates, I know not by what Law, or Justice, stopped the currant both of Prohibitions, and Habeas Corpus, to relief the Subjects, against their unjust vexations fines, imprisonments,) it is apparent, that the High-Commissioners can fine in no case, and imprison only in two cases, and so all their fines, most of their imprisonments, are mere oppressions of the Subjects, encroachments on their Liberties, therefore void in Law: In so much, that an Action of false imprisonment, and of the Case too, grounded upon the former statutes, will lie against them for it, at the Common Law, if not a Premunire. But admit, they had power to impose fines, for Ecclesiastical offenses, which I absolutely deny: yet then they ought to fine men, not ten thousands, thousands or hundreds, as now they do, for mere toys and triffles, yea for small or no offenses, to the utter ruin of their estates, loss of their freeholds, and ruin of themselves, and their families; but according to the quantity only of their offenses, if they be small, and for a great fault, after the manner thereof; saving still to the parties, their contentment, or freehold, to villainies their waynage, and to Merchants their Marchandise; neither ought any man of the Church to be fined, after the rate of his spiritual benefice, but after his lay tenement, and the quantity of his trespass, by the express statutes of Magna Charta c. 14. and 3. Edw. 1. c. 6. And if they excessively fine, or amerce any, contrary to those Laws, a writ of moderata misericordia, or Action of the Case upon those statutes, lies for their relief; the Law having this just and favorable respect to all men, that in all offenses, not capital, for which the life and by consequence the estate to support it, are both forefaited on the attainder; (the delinquents in such cases, needing no livelihood, to sustain them, their lives being presently to be lost in Judgment of Law,) it ever allows men, both the use of their callings, with asufficient stock to follow them, both for their present maintenance, preservation, and the public good; which our Prelates disrespecting, fine men beyond all bounds and moderation in all Courts of Justice where they come, without any pity, mercy or respect to men's necessities, freeholds, and the public good; puutting many men, (especially Ministers, of their own coat who are most conscionable and painful,) both from their callings, means, freeholds, to their destruction, which I am certain by Law they cannot do?

All that our Prelates can now allege for excuse of these their illegal exorbitant proceedings, not sufferable among Christians, is but this;

1. First, That they have a commission from his Majesty, authorizing these their proceedings and censures.

2. Secondly, That their Predecessors usually proceeded, fined, imprisoned thus before themselves, and they do but tread in their footsteps.

3. Thirdly, That the Starchamber examines men in criminal causes upon oath, and fines, and imprisons men to; Ergo they may do it.

Answ 1. To the first of these, I answer; First, that their Commission it self warrants not sundry of their extravagant arbitrary censures and proceedings, though it be very large.

2. Secondly, That the largeness of their Commission, is not by any direction from his Majesty, or his Council, but by their own solicitation, fraud and procurement, many passages and clauses being inserted into the two last Commissions, which were not in the former; and some of them so unlimited and illegal, that Master Noy, the late Kings Attorney, made a que • e in the margent of his Doclet, for the last Commission, whether some of them were not to large and unfit to pass the Seal.

3. Thirdly, This Commission thus procured either fraudently, or with strange hand by themselves, is directly against the Laws and statutes of the Realm, not warranted by 1. Eliz. c. 1. therefore void in law, and these their proceedings, illegal, unjust, oppressive, notwithstanding the Commission; we read of Saul, that he breathning out threatenings, and • laughter against the Disciples of the Lord, went to the High Priest, and desired of him Letters, (or a Commission,) to Damascus, that if he found any of this way, whether they were men or women, he might bring them bound into Jerusalem; (as our High-Commission Puisevants serve God's people now,) which Commission he obtained. But yet this was no excuse or Justification of his persecution of God's Saints; No more are your Commissions sued for by yourselves, any plea to extenuate or defend your persecutions, oppressions, and exorbitances. The Jews cried out against our Savior, that they had a Law, and by that Law he ought to die; was Pilate's condemnation, and their execution of him therefore lawful? David informs us of a throne of iniquity, that hath no fellowship with God, which frameth mischief by a Law or Commission. By virtue of which they gathered themselves together against the righteous, and condemned the innocent blood. But will this Commission justify their sin? The Elders of the Citty, who most unjustly condemned Naboth, had a Commission under Ahab's great Seal for their warrant, but yet this was no extenuation, but a more grievous aggravation of their injustice and murder. George the Arian Bishop, and Macedonius his confederate, had a Commission and the Emperors Edict to warrant their barbarous tyranny and proceedings, against the orthodox Bishops and Christians, whom they imprisoned, fined, and butchered, yet this would not excuse their persecutions. The like Commissions had Boner, and other our own persecuting Prelates, in Henry the 8. and Queen Mary's days; yet this would neither justify nor extenuate; but aggravate their sinfulness, and illegality, of their bloody proceedings: But to come nearer home, 24. E. 3. 42. Ass. 5. & 12. Brooke Commissions, 3. 15. 16. it is resolved, that if the King grant a Commission to any man to imprison, or seise another man's person, or goods, before or without indictement, suite of some party, or other due process of Law, and thereupon the Commissioners accordingly arrest him or seise his goods; that this Commission being void, and against the Law, can no ways justify, nor excuse the Commissioners; in the 1. and 2. year of our present Sovereign King Charles, there were divers Commissions granted out for the executing of Martial Law, upon billited Soldiers and Mariners, in times of peace, whiles the Kings Courts of justice were open; and likewise to convent men, concerning the Loane, and to administer an Oath, to such as refused to lend money; together with a Commission, for an excise upon divers Commodities; yet all the Commissions by the Petition of Right, and the whole Parliament, 3. Caroli, were adjudged to be against the Law of the Land, and Liberties of the Subjects, and so insufficient to justify the proceedings, oaths, imprisonments, executions, grounded on them, or to excuse the parties, that executed them. Empson and Dudly h • d a Commission from King Henry the seventh, for what they did, yet they were attaincted in Parliament, and executed as Traitors by King Henry the eight, notwithstanding their Commission; how many Monopolists, (as Sir Giles Mompersons and others,) have been severely punished in Parliaments, notwithstanding their Patents and Commissions? why then our High-Commissioners may not be lawfully, and justly fined, imprisoned, suspended in the Kings Bench, or Starchamber, for fining, imprisoning, oppressing his Majesty's Subjects, against all Law and Justice, notwithstanding their Commission, which will neither excuse, nor patronize their proceedings, either before God, or men, I cannot yet conjecture; and why an Action of the case, of false imprisonment, and a Premunire too, should not lie against them for the present, by the parties grieved, I see little case to question? We know that many Patents and Commissions, under the great Seal for monopolyes, are and have been condemned, and adjudged, void, and suppressed, as great grievances and oppressions to the Subject, and contrary to the Laws of the Realm, yea the Statute of 21. Jacobi c. 3. against Monopolies, declares, that all Commissions, Grants, Licenses, Charters, Letters Patents, Proclamations, Inhibitions, Restraints, Warrants of assistance, erecting, or tending toward the erection of any monopolies, are contrary to Law, and shall be utterly void, and of no effect, and in no wise to be put in ure or execution; and if any presume to execute the same, that an Action upon the statute shall be against him, wherein he shall render treble Dammages to the parties grieved, notwithstanding his Letters Patents, or Commission, which will not excuse his fault: Therefore our High-Commissioners, may by the same reason be questioned and punished for their illegal imprisonments, fines and proceedings, notwithstanding their Commission.

Finally, It is a rule in Law, that no man shall take advantage of his own colusion, fraud, hurt, or wrong; If a Bishop excommunicate another man, who brings an Action against him at the Common Law, the Bishop cannot plead his excommunication in Barre of his Action, because pronounced by himself: The same Law holds in case of remitters, discents, disseisins, and the like by collation or wrong, he that is party or consenting to them, shall have no advantage by them. Our Prelates are all parties and privies in procuring this torcious illegal Commission, therefore they shall take no advantage by it, from it, to extenuate or justify their illegal proceedings, censures, oppressions, by couler of them; the rather, because, both the Parliament and Judges have oft adjudged these their Commissions void in Law, and their proceedings on them, great grievances, pressures, and injustice, the statute of 2. H. 4. c. 15. (made by the Prelates themselves, without the Commons assent, which they foisted into it,) resolves, that ordinaries and Ecclesiastical Judges, cannot by their Jurisdiction, spiritual imprison, which the statutes of 5 R. 2. c. 5. 2. H. 5. c. 7. & 1. H. 7. c. 4. further manifest; yea Lindewood himself determines, that a Layman cannot be imprisoned by an Ecclesi • sticall Judge, for any Ecclesiastical crime whatsoever. Therefore no Commission can authorize them to do it.

Answ. 2. To the second excuse, I answer, that by the like prerext, the Prelates may excuse almost any sin. Their Predecessors have oft times been Traitors, Rebells, Oppressors, Murderers, Persecutors, ambitious, covetous, proud, merciless, luxurious, lecherous, idle, Simmonaicall, Wolves, False-teachers, Non-residents, Pluralists, malicious, envious, revengfull, yea Pilate's, Imposters, Devils incarnate, as Sant Bernhard, and others style them. Ergo, they may now be such by authority without offense; because they walk in their Predecessors steps, as to many of them truly do. If this be no good consequent, then not the other.

Secondly, I answer, That these proceedings, and censures, of their Predecessors, have been condemned, declaimed against as Antichristian, tyrannical, illegal, barbarous, and inhumane by our Parliaments, our Judges, our writers, yea by Fathers, and others witness, Origen in Epist. ad Romanos. l. 9. c. 13. tom. 3. fol. 212. who from these words, wilt thou not be afraid of the power, &c. makes this inference, From hence it appears; that the secular Judges of the world, do fulfill the greatest part of the Law of God; For all crimes which God w • ll have to be avenged, he will have to be avenged, NON PER ANTISTITES ET ECCLESIARUM PRINCIPES, not by Bishops, and Governors of Churches, but by secular Judges. And Paul knowing this, doth rightly name him the Minister of God. Sant Hilary, on the second Psalm p. 199. 〈◊〉 demands this question, What, had Paul any Civil power or magistracy, that he should threaten a rod to the Corinthians, and that he would come to the Church of Christ with the office of a Serieant, or Pursuivant? Verily, we are not thus to imagine, yet our Lordly Prelates must have their Pursevants and gailers attending them and their prisons too. The same Father in his Epistle to Auxentius proceeds thus: Have the Apostles assumed to themselves any dignity, or civil power from the Princes palace? yet now the Church affrights men with banishments and imprisonments, and compels men to be committed to herself, who was formerly committed to banishments and prisons. Socrates Scholasticus, observes, that Cyrillus Bishop of Alexandria, and Boniface Bishop of Rome, PASSING THE BOUNDS OF THEIR PREISTLY ORDER, presumed to challenge themselves secular power and authority, which none of their Predecessors, or any other Bishops did before them; taking upon them besides the oversight and Jurisdiction of the Clergy and Ecclesiastical matters, the government also of temporal affairs, and secular Jurisdiction: in so much, that they shut up the Churches of the Novatians, spoiled them of their goods, and committed them to wars; yea Cyrilius executed some of the Jews in Alexandria, and banished the residue of them for a murder, committed upon the Christians. All which this Historian taxeth in them, as a mere presumption, exceeding the bounds of their preistly function, and a thing not formerly practiced by any orthodox Bishops. Rupertus the Abbot, on Matth. l. 8. saith thus: The Rod of the Disciples of Christ is a rod of love: but the rod of domination or temporal rule, is not granted to the Ministers of the Gospel of peace. Petrus Blesensis, Archdeacon of Bath, writes thus to John Bishop of Worcester: Thou art set ever men's souls, not their bodies: Nihil Prelato commune est cum Pilato: A Prelate hath nothing common with Pilate: and thence he infers, that they ought not to intermeddle with any temporal affairs, or causes of blood, imprisonments, demembrations, and the like. Anselm, Archbishop of Canterbury, determines thus: As that, which belongs to the Ministerial function, appertains not to Kings: So neither ought a Bishop to exercise those things, which belong to the Kings, as the power of fining and imprisonment doth. Our famous great Schoolman William Occam resolves thus: Christ hath interdicted his Apostles that domineering manner of governing, observed of the Potentates of the world. And these two distinct powers, temporal and Ecclesiastical, which God would have to belong to different persons, ought not to fall together unto one person: Whence he resolves, that neither the Pope, nor any other Prelate, ought to exercise any temporal Jurisdiction over the bodies of men. Marsilius Patavinus, proves at large, that neither the Pope himself, nor any Bishop or Clergyman, hath, nor ought to have any coërcive power at all over men's bodies, to fine or imprison them; it being directly prohibited by the Scripture in sundry places, and in Matth. 20.25.26. Our famous English Apostle John Wycliffe, Dialogorum, l. 4. c. 15. 16. 17. 18. 26. 27. maintains the selfsame Position, and proves at large, that Bishops ought not to have any prisons, or to imprison any man, for any cause, nor yet to exercise any temporal power or Jurisdiction; and that it is a mortal sin for them, to use any civil dominion, or for Princes, to give them such authority, contrary to our Savior's express inh • bition. Our famous Martyr Master Will • am Tyndale • writes thus: That since Christ's Kingdom is not of this world, or any of his Disciples may be other wise then he was, therefore Christ's Vicars, which minister his Kingdom here in his bodily absence, and have the eversight of his flock, may be no Emperors, Kings, Dukes, Lord's, Knights, temporal Judges, or any temporal Officer, or under false names have any such dominion, or minister any such office as requireth violence. The Officers in Christ's Kingdom may have no temporal Dominion or Jurisdiction, nor execute any temporal authority or Law of violence, nor may have any like manner among them: Christ's Kingdom is altogether spiritual, and the bearing of rule in it, is clean contrary to the bearing of rule temporally. And therefore the Popes Kingdom is of the world; For there every man reigneth over another with might, & have every ruler his prison, his jailor, his chains, his torments, even so much as the Friers observants observe that rule, and compel every man, other with violence, about the cruelnes of the heathen tyrants. Our famous Martyr John Frith, in his answer to the Bishop of Rochester p. 57. concludes thus: To say that Christ would have his Disciples to compel men with imprisonment, with fitters, scourging, sword and fire (the learned Prelates best and canonists arguments to convince men,) is VERY FALSE, and far from the mildness of a Christian spirit, although my Lord approve it never so much. For Christ did forbid his Disciples such Tyranny, yea and rebuked them, because they would have desired, that fire should descend from heaven, to consume the Samaritans, which would not receive Christ, Lu. 9. But he commanded them, that if men would not receive their Doctrine, they should depart from thence, and sprinkle off the dust of their feet, to be a testimony against the unfaithful, that they had been there, and preached unto them the word of life. But with violence will God have no men compelled unto his Law. Finally, what doth they compulsion & violence, verily nothing, but make a stark Hypocrite, for no man can compel the heart to believe a thing, except it see evidence and sufficient proof. So Doctor Andrew Willet in his Synopsis Papismi, the 7. general Controversy, Quest. 2. Sect. 3. p. 399. condemns the Violence used by the popish Prelates, in imprisoning, torturing, and racking men to accuse themselves, or others, or confess the truth: Which though in some dangerous cases, as of High-Treason and such like, where there is great peril of concealing the truth, and no other way to sift it out, it may be admitted; Yet to use it in an ordinary cause as the Papists did, and in causes of Religion, it is to shameful, and OF ALL CHRISTIANS TO BE ABHORRED. Master Andrew Melvin, in his excellent Anatomy of the High-Commission, printed 1620. proves at large: That Bishops and Clergymen, neither as they are such, nor yet as High-Commissioners, or temporal Officers, can or ought to commit or imprison any man, because these being branches, only of temporal Magistrates Jurisdiction, are expressly prohibited all Bishops and Ministers by our Savior's, Vos autem non sic: Matth. 20.25.26. both directly and indirectly, the inhibition being a universal negative, reaching to the persons as well as to the functions of Ministers and Prelates, whom Christ would not have to intermeddle with any temporal office, or Jurisdiction, belonging to the temporal Magistrate, no more then he would have temporal Magistrates to administer the Apostles, or Ministers office. And it will be a poor plea for Bishops, and other Clergymen at last, when Christ shall arraign them, for breach of this oft reiterated command, to reply; that they imprisoned, fined, and pursevanted his servants, and their fellow-Ministers, as they were High-Commissioners, Lord's of the Council, or Justices of peace, (neither of which Christ ever made or allowed them to be,) not as they were Bishops, or Ministers: and if Christ condemn them for it, as such; I am afraid, they will hardly be saved, as they are Bishops or Ministers. Since therefore all these Fathers and writers, with infinite others, condemn your fining, and imprisoning of men, as directly contrary to God's word, and Christ's own inhibition: your walking in your Predecessors unlawful ever condemned footsteps, is but a going on still in wickedness, oppression, injustice, with an high hand against the Laws of God, and the Realm; therefore an aggravation, not an extenuation of your offense, your sin and desperate wickedness.

3. Thirdly, Your Ancestors fining, imprisonment, administering Oaths before sight of Articles, for men to accuse themselves,, arresting men, breaking up their houses by Pursevants, &c. being against Magna Charta and the precedent statutes, can make no good prescription; since no person or Corporation can prescribe to imprison, or make by-laws to imprison others, (no not the City of London it self,) because it is contrary to Magna Charta, as was adjudged in the case of Boston, upon a quo warranto, Tr. 3. Caroli. B. Rex and oft times resolved before that case, in printed Law books. The Law therefore not allowing you do any of these, you cannot plead prescription in them as a good title or Justification; the rather, because the Ecclesiastical Commission it self was erected within time of Memory, and the present commission is yet scarce 4. years old, and the High-Commissioners fining and imprisoning, hath yet ever since it hath been used with one consent, been declaimed against as illegal, and so oft adjudged.

4. Finally, The Commissioners and Prelates now exceed their Predecessors in all the forementioned extravagancies, growing every day more violent, exorbitant, and oppressive; therefore this fond excuse, will no ways palliate or extenuate their illegal Actions, Censures, proceedings, which are execrable, abominable, both to God or man, diametrally opposite to all these wholesome statutes, intolerable oppressions, and grievances to his Majesty's loyal Subjects, and so merely erroneous and void in Law, by these forecited statutes resolution?

3. To the Third, That the Starchamber examines men upon Oath against themselves, and fines, and imprisons men: Ergo, the High-Commissioners may do it.

Answ. 1. I answer, First, That the Argument is a mere Non sequitur: the one Court being Civil, the other Ecclesiastical, both in respect of causes and proceedings, the one kept only by an arbitrary Commission; the other absolute by Act of Parliament. And if this be a good argument, I know no reason, but every Bishop may infer as well: The Starchamber can fine, imprison, examine men upon Oath, in criminal causes: Therefore we may do it in our Consistories and Visitations, which Conclusion is both false and absurd. And the High-Commissioners may as well argue, that the Starchamber adjudgeth men to the Pillary, to loose their ears, and the like; and may pun • sh all forjuries, perjuries, routs, riots, conspiracies, trespasses in parkes, subornation of perjury, and the like: Therefore the High-Commissioners may do it. I am sure, they dare not argue thus; The Kings Bench can hold plea of Trespass, Debt, Felonies, Murthers, Treasons, and adjudge men to death for the same; Ergo, the Ecclesiastical Commissioners may do it: This were but a frenticke consequent: Why not then the other? Shall the Lord's of the Starchamber argue thus? The High-Commissioners may hold plea of all Ecclesiastical offenses, and punish men by excommunication, degradation, sequestration, and other Ecclesiastical Censures; Ergo, we may much more do it? If the Prelates will not grant this consequence, as I presume they dare not: I must by the same, or far better reason deny to grant the other.

But to give a more punctual answer. The statutes of 37. E. 3. c. 18. 38. E. 3. c. 9. 16. R. 2. c. 2. 3. H. 7. c. 1. 5. Eliz. c. 9. 14. if not the Common Law it self authorize the Starchamber to fine, imprison, and inflict other corporal punishments, in such cases, as are expressed in these Acts; as Master Crompton in his Jurisdiction of Courts, Tit. Court De Starchamber, f. 29. to 42. at large demonstrates. But no statute, much less the Common Law, gives the High-Commissioners any such power.

2. Secondly, The Starchamber being a temporal Court, for the punishment of the highest temporal offenses, which are not capital, may inflict temporal censures and punishments, (as fines and imprisonment) on delinquents, yet they cannot impose Ecclesiastical. But the Commissioners (being only Ecclesiastical Judges, in Ecclesiastical causes, punishable by no Common or statute Law, but by Ecclesiastical Censures only, ) cannot inflict temporal punishments, as fines and imprisonment, no more then the Starchamber can Ecclesiastical Censures, for temporal offenses; much less then, both temporal and Ecclesiastical punishment for one and the self same offense, which no Court of Justice else can do.

3. Thirdly, It is true, that the Starchamber useth to examine men in criminal causes upon Oath, and men are there bound, to put in their answers upon Oath, to the informations, and bills, exhibited against them; but then we must consider,

1. First, That no other Court of Justice else can or doth use it, but the Starchamber only; The Kings bench cannot examine felons, traitors, trespassers, or any persons indicted, or informed against before them, nor yet compel them to answer upon Oath. The Chauncery, Exchequer-Chamber, Court of Wards, and Court of requests, though they injoine men in Civil causes only, concerning the rights and properties of goods, and such like, to answer to English Bills upon Oath; yet they cannot do it against; as hath been adjudged: and though they use sometimes in cases of Contempts, and of them alone, to examine men upon Oath to Articles criminally objected against them, yet this is extrajudiciall, not warranted by Law; and the parties examined may lawfully refuse such Oath, and put the Court or party, whom it concerns, to prove the contempt by witnesses. If then neither, the Kings bench, Chauncery, or any other Court of Justice, but the Starchamber only, can examine men criminally upon Oath; I may better conclude, that the High-Commissioners cannot do it, because no other Courts else, but the Starchamber can or do ordinarily use it; Then our Prelates infer, that they in the High-Commission may do it, because the Starchamber ordinarily doth it, but no Courts besides.

2. Secondly, The Starchamber Judges have authority (at leastwise some good couler of authority, thus to proceed, by the statutes of 3. H. 7. c. 1. and 21. H. 8. c. 20. which give them express power, to call delinquents before them by writ, or privy Seal, and them and other by their discretion, by whom the truth may be known; to examine, (to wit, upon Oath as common practice hath interpreted it, though it be not expressed) where the Judges in their discretions shall think meet: notwithstanding some learned Judicious men have conceived, that this clause authorizeth not the Starchamber to examine delinquents criminally upon Oath, to accuse themselves, it being contrary to the Common statute, Canon Law, Scripture, and the proceedings, both of the Jews and Romans, as the Premises evidence, but only without Oath, and none but witnesses, only upon Oath. But let this be interpreted as it may be, yet the Statute of 1, Eliz. c. 1. gives the High-Commissioners no power at all, to administer any Oath, no not of Supremacy prescribed by it, much less to examine any man at their discretions upon Oath, for any Ecclesiastical offense, there being no such clause, as this in that Act; And by the Common and statute Law Ecclesiastical Judges can administer an Oath to none in any criminal, or civil matters, but only in cases of Matrimony and Testament: Therefore the High-Commissioners have no Law, nor couler of Law to administer Oaths to men, to answer criminal Articles to accuse themselves, though the Starchamber hath.

3. Thirdly, In the Starchamber, no man is forced to take an Oath, as soon as he appears to answer to the Bill, or Information exhibited against him, or to Articles framed on them, before he seeth the Bill, or the charges therein comprised; neither is he denied a Copy of them, by which to frame his answer, nor proceeded against, without any Prosecutor assigned; neither is he forced to answer, what he thinks or believes, or how he likes or dislikes things in his Judgment; or to detect and accuse others, (as all, or many are in the High-Commission;) But upon his apparance, he hath liberty to take out a Copy of the bill and complaints against him, to carry, to his Counsel, to demure in Law thereto without Oath, if there because; or otherwise to plead a general not-guilty, and so put the prosecutors to their proofs by witnesses, without any self examination upon Articles; or else to put in such a particular answer as his Counsel shall advise and direct; upon the putting in whereof, he only takes an Oath, that it is a true answer; and to give a true answer to such Articles as he shall be examined upon concerning the chargs in the Bill, (being always matters of fact, not thoughts) which he knows and adviseth upon before hand, with his counsel. Which Articles, comprising nothing, but what is contained in the Bill, ( else the party may demure and refuse to answer them, ) he needs give no other answer to them, what he hath given before to the Bill by advise.

The Oaths and proceedings therefore of the Starchamber, being so far different from those of the High-Commissioners, and far more just and legal, then their strange exorbitances, can be no justification of their legality, but a direct condemnation of them as altogether extravagant, unjust and illegal, as our Parliaments and Judges have ever reputed them, and all other men of common reason or honesty to, except themselves. To conclude this point of the High-Commissioners, and Bishops strange oppressions and proceedings, contrary to the fore-named statutes in all the recited particulars; I find a notable President of a Commissioner of Oyer and Terminer, in the Register, to inquire of the oppressions, cruelties, exactions, and exorbitances of the Bishop of Winchester and his Officers, exactly parralell with these of the High-Commissioners and our Prelates now, which will notably decipher them in their true coulers, and show, how dishonorable, how contemptuous they are to the King himself, how pernicious to his Subjects: Rex Vicecomiti salutem, Exclamosis quaerimoniis diversorum hominum de comitatu tuo ad nostram saepius pervenit auditum, quod A. Episcopus Win. nec non bellivi constabularij, & alij Ministri & servientes ipsius Episcopy, plurimas & diversas oppressiones, extortiones duritias, damna, excessus & gravamina, intollerabilia dictis hominibus, in diversis partibus comitatus praedicti, tam infra libertates quam extra multipliciter & diversimode intulerunt, & de die in diem infer non desistunt, plures de dictis hominibus vi & armis multotiens verberando, eosque capiendo, imprisonando, & in prisona forti & dura super terram nudam & absque alimento, fame, frigore, & nuditate fere ad mortem cruciando, & eos in prisona hujusmodi, donec fines & redemptiones ad voluntatem suam fecerint, nullo modo deliberari permittendi; nec non domos quorundam hominum hujusmodi vi armata fraudendo, & bona & catella sua capienda, & asportando, eosdemque uxores & servientes suos verberando, vulnerando & male tractando, & hominibus super hujusmodi duritiis conquaeri volentibus in tantùm commando, quod iidem homines in hundredis & aliis curiis dicti Episcopy, vel alibi negocia sua inde prosequi metu mortis non sunt ausi; & alia hujusmodi, mala damna, & excessus inhumaniter in dies perpetrando, in nostri dedecus & contemptum, & populi nostri partium praedictarum destructionem & depressionem manifestas unde plurimùm conturbamur, nos oppressiones duritias damna & excessus, ac gravamina praedicta si perpetrata fuerint nolentes relinquere impunita, volentesque salvationi & quieti dicti populi nostri in hac parte prospicere, ut tenemur; assignavimus dilectis & fidelibus nostris &c. sciri poterit, de oppressionibus, extortionibus, duritiis, damnis, gravaminibus, praedictis, per dicti Episcop •• ballivos, constabularios ministros & servientes suos & alios quoscunque de confederatione sua in hac parte existentes qualitercunque perpetratis; & de praemissis omnibus & singulis plenis veritatem, & ad quaerelas omnium & singulorum pro nobis vel pro se ipsis inde conquaeri & prosequi volentium, nec non ad praemissa omnia & singula tam ad sectam nostram quàm aliorum, quorumcunque audienda & terminanda, secundum legem & consuetudinē regni nostri Angliae. Et ideo tibi praecipimus, quod ad certos, &c. tibi scire fac venire fac coram, &c. quos &c. tot & tales probos, & legales homines de balliva tua tam infra libertates quàm extra, per quos rei veritas, in premissis meliùs sciri poterit & inquiri. Et habeas &c. Whether the like Commission be not meet to be now granted out, to inquire of our Prelates and Ecclesiastical Commissioners, barbarous inhumane oppressions, cruelties and proceedings of this nature, and severely to punish the same, I humbly submit to his Majesty's and his Counsels grave considerations.

2. The Statutes of 25. H. 8. c. 14. 19. 21. 27. H. 8. c. 15. 1. Eliz. c. 1. 2. 13. Eliz. c. 12. utterly disable the whole Clergy in their Convocations and Synods, and every Prelate in his Visitation Consistory or Diocese, so much as to presume, to attempt, allege, claim, put in Ure, enact, promulge, or execute any Canons, Constitutions, ordinances, provincial or Synodal, Rites, or Ceremonies whatsoever, unless they may have the Kings most Royal essent and licenses, under his great Seal, both to make and likewise to confirm, promulge and execute the same. And they further declare, that all Canons, Constitutions, Ceremonies, Rites, Orders, Articles, made by the whole Clergy or any of them, without the Kings special license, and confirmation under his great Seal, and the Parliaments approbation too, are merely void, no ways obligato • y, and not be commonly accepted, received, or obeyed, as any Law of God or man within the Realm: which likewise appears by the several statutes of 4. E. 1. c. 5. 20. H. 3. c. 9. 36. E. 3. c. 8. 31. H. 8. c. 8. 14. 32. H. 8. c. 15. 26. 38. 34. H. 8. c. 1. 37. H. 8. c. 17. 1. E. 6. c. 1. 2. 9. 2. and 3. E. 6. c. 1. 13. 19. 21. 23. 3. and 4. E. 6. c. 10. 11. 12. 5. and 6. E. 6. c. 3. 4. 5. Eliz. c. 1. 8. Eliz. c. 1. 23. Eliz. c. 1. and 35. Eliz. c. 1. Hence was it, that when King Luc • us sent to Pope Eleutherius, (upon his Commission to the Christian faith:) for the Roman Laws and Canons, to govern the Church and Kingdom by; the Pope returned him this answer: Ye have received through God's mercy in the Realm of Britain, the Law and faith of Christ, ye have within the Realm, both the parts of the Scriptures. Out of them by God's Grace WITH THE COUNSELL OF YOUR REALME, (to wit a Parliament, not your Bishops and Clergy,) TAKE YEE A LAW, and by that Law (through God's sufferance) rule your Kingdom of Britain: For you be God's Vicar in your Kingdom &c. Where the Pope prescribes, and refers the making of Ecclesiastical Laws and, Canons, not to the King or Clergy, but to the King and Parliament. Hence the Canons of the Council of Clonesho, An. 747. were made, and confirmed in Parliament by King Ethebald and his Dukes, and Nobles. Malmesburiensis, De Gestis Pontif. Angliae, l. 1. p. 197. In the Council of Westminster, under Anselm, An. 1102. both the King and Nobles were present, that so whatsoever was determined by the authority of the Council, Utriusque ordinis concordi cura, & sollicitudine ratum, servaretur. SIC ENIM NECESSE ERAT. Malm. Ibid. p. 218. and Eadmerus, l. 3, p. 67. l. 4. p. 94. 95. and William the Conqueror, Edger, Canutus, Ira, Alfred, Edward the Elder, Ethielstane, Edmond and Ethebrede made Ecclesiastical Laws and Canons in Parliament, as Lambard in his Arch • onomia, Fox Acts and Monuments, p. 714. 715. Bishop Jewell Defense of the Apology, part. 6. c. 2. Divis. 1. p. 521. 522. Joannis Seldeni Notae ad Eadmerum, p. 167. 168. testify at large. The Book of the Common prayer and administration of the Sacraments, and other Rites and Ceremonies of the Church of England, made and confirmed by Parliament, exactly prescribes all Orders, Rites, and Ceremonies whatsoever, that shall or ought to be used in the Church of England in time of Divine Service, or Sacraments, both by Ministers and people. And the Statute of 1. Eliz. c. 2. enacts, that no manner or Person, Vicar, or other Minister, whatsoever shall use, or by open fact, deed, or threatenings compel, or cause, or other wise procure, or maintain any Person, Vicar, or other Minister, to use any other Rite, Ceremony, Order, Form, or manner of celebrating the Lord's Supper, Matten, Evensong, administration of the Sacraments; or other open prayers, then is mentioned and set forth in the said Book, under the forefeitures, and penalties mentioned in that Act, providing, that if there shall happen any contempt, or irreverence to be used in the Ceremonies, or Rites of the Church, by the misusing of this Book, the Queens Majesty, (not her Bishops, Heirs or Successors,) by the advise of her Ecclesiastical Commissioners, or of the Metropolitan of this Realm, might ordain and publish such further Cerimonies or Rites, as may be most for the advancement of God's glory, the edification of his Church, and the due reverence of Christ's holy Mysteries and Sacraments. Which last clause is merely personal to the Queen, and extendeth not to her Heirs and Successors, thrice mentioned in the former clauses, but left out purposely in this; the Parliament, having good assurance of the Queens zeal to Religion, not of her Heirs and Successors, of whose persons and qualities they were then utterly ignorant. By all these Statutes, as likewise by King James Letters Patents, before the Canons and Constitutions An. 1603. and King Charles his Declaration, prefixed to the 39. Articles An. 1628. compiled, by the Bishops themselves, it is apparent, that neither all the Archbishops, Bishops, Archdeacons and Clergy together, nor any of them apart in their several Diocese, can so much as make enjoin or prescribe any new Canons, Constitutions, Orders, Ceremonies, Rites, or Ornaments of Churches whatsoever, nor yet alter any of those prescribed in the Common Prayer Book, no more then the meanest Curate, or Layman, by their own Episcopal power or authority, much less then suspend, silence, deprive, or excommunica • e any, who refuse to submit to their new orders, Articles, C • no s, Constitutions, Rites, Ceremonies, Alterations, Innovations, and Ordinances. Yet such is the arrogant insolency of our Archbishops, Bishops, Archdeacons, and their officials, that they not only dare make, promulge, print, publish, and prescribe new Articles, Canons, Constitutions, Orders, Injunctions, Rites, Ceremonies, (as standing up at Gloria Patri, the Nicene and Athanasius Creed, bowing at the naming of Jesus, cringing to Communion-Tables and Altars, placeing and railing in Communion-Tables Altar wise, erecting of Images, Pictures, Crucifixes, Altars and Tapers in Churches, Prayer towards the East, coming up to the Communion Tables to receive, with a world of other Innovations. contrary to the Common Prayer Book,) in their Visitations and Consistories, (without the Kings special License, under his great Seal,) but likewise excommunicate, fine, and imprison such Churchwardens and Laymen, and suspend, silence, deprive, imprison such Ministers and Clergymen, as oppugn disobey, or refuse to submit unto them, (when as their own 12. Canon excommunicates ipso facto, all such as shall obey them, or submit unto them, and themselves to, for making them without the Kings authority: ) witness the Churchwardens of Ipsw • tch, and Beckington, Master Chauncy, and divers others: A great oppression, and vexation to his Majesty's faithful Subjects, and a high affront and contempt, not only to his Majesty's supreme Jurisdiction, in causes Ecclesiastical, but likewise to his Royal Declaration, prefixed to the 39. Articles, reprinted by his Commandment, wherein he professeth, that he will not endure any varying, or departing, in the least Degree, from the Doctrine and Discipline of the Church of England then established; and to his Declaration to all his loving Subjects, of the causes which moved him to dissolve the last Parliament, published by his special Commaund, An. 1628. p. 21. 42. wherein he called God to record, that he will never give way to the authorizing of anything, whereby any Innovation may steal, or creep into the Church, but preserve that Unity of Doctrine, and Discipline established in the time of Queen Elizabeth, whereby the Church of England hath stood and flourished ever since: and professeth, that he w • ll maintain the true Religion and Doctrine established in the Church of England, without admitting or conniving at any back sliding, either to Popery or Schism.

3. The Statute of 21. H. 8. c. 5. enacts, that Ordinaries and their Ministers, for Probate of wills, or letters of administration, where the goods do not clearly amount above the vallue of C. s. shall take only 6. p. where they are above C. s. and yet exceed not the value of 40. s. but only 3. s. 6. d. and not above, where they amount to above 40. p. only 5. s. and no more, unless one penny for every 10. lines of 10. Inches long under pain of forfeiture of double the money they take above these fees to the party, and ten p. besides to the King, and party grieved; Yet these greedy cormorants and oppressors, for every will, now proved, and all Letters of administration take usually 3. 4. 5. or 6. times as much more of his Majesty's Subjects, as this Statute allows them, and are not ashamed to claim it as their due; refusing to take less to the great oppression of his Majesty's Subjects. John Stratford, Archbishop of Canterbury, with the Council of London, October the 10. 1342. made this Constitution concerning fees for Letters of order, Institutions and admissions to benefices &c. (which is still in force, if any part of the Canon-Law be, as our Prelates affirm, and some Lawbookes too.) a new and insatiable (so Aton) a cruel and wretched Covetousnes (so Lindewood reads it) hath invented, how great exactions may oft times be made for Letters of institution of Clercks, admitted to benefices Ecclesiast • call, and for letters of orders, for the pains of writing, and for the Seals which the Canon it self reprooveth, saying, that as it becomes not a Bishop to sell the imposition of hands, so neither the Minister to sell his quill, moreover the Clercks of Archdeacons, and their Officials and other ordinaries, refuse to deliver the Certificates of inquisitions made upon vacant benefices, unless they have first and excessive Some of money for writing, we therefore willing to abolish this abuse, have determined by the advice of this present Council to ordain, that for the writing of the letters of Inquisitions, Institutions, and collations, and Commissions to induct any into their benefices, or for the certificates of the same. The said Clerks receive not either by themselves, or by others above 12. d. and for the letters of every holy order, not above 6. d. In other things, let the ordinaries themselves be bound to allow stipends, for their Ministers and Officers, whereby they may justly be satisfied, but for sealing of such letters, or to the Marshall for entering into the house or Porters, or doorekeepers, or Barbars, we will that nothing at all be exacted or paid by coulerable intend, least the payment for Seals of letters, or entrances aforesaid be turned into a damnable gain. And this we ordain upon pain of double to be restored within one month, otherwise the Clerks that refuse to restore double, let them know, that they stand suspended from their office, and from their benefice, by the approbation of this holy Council: We ordain likewise, that those, who are bound at the Commandment of their Superiors, to indict such, who are admitted unto Ecclesiastical benefices, be contended with moderate charges, for such induction to be made. Namely, if the Archdeacon be thoroughly contented with 3. s. 4. d. and his Officiall with 1. s. for all charges, both of himself, and his return, concerning Diet, and let him that is inducted aforesaid, choose whether he will provide for the return of him and his that giveth the possession in such quantity of money, or in other necessaries. And if anything over and above this, by occasion of the premises be received by such as induct, or if they receive anymore for the induction to be made by them, or if it shall happen, that they make not letters certificatory of their induction, and deliver them unto the Inducted, or which faighneth pretence unlawfully defer them, we will such as are culpable herein, so long to incur suspension from their office, and entrance from the Church, until the things contrarily received, be restored, and that they satisfy in the premises, him who by their default is hindered. Bus what if he be inducted (saith Lindewood in his Gloss,) by another then the Archdeacon himself or his official, yet at the commandment of the said Archdeacon, whether may the Archdeacon receive anything for such an induction? Answer no, but he that investeth him after this sort, shall have of him, that is inducted necessary expenses, and such as are agreeable to his estate and calling under the moderation, limited unto the Archdeacon himself, or his Officials, if any of them had personally made any such induction. And Stephen Laughton, Archbishop of Canterbury, and the Council of Oxford, An. 1222. made this Degree; We ordain that no Prelate, when he shall confer any Church or Prebend, presume or dare any manner of ways, either to usurp unto himself the fruits of the same Church or Prebend, not yet gather or to exact, or suffer to be exacted, by his Officials or Archdeacons, anything for the institution, or possession giving, or for any writing to be made, touching the same; Moreover, by the Canon Law, and Book of ordination of Ministers, every Minister may lawfully preach in his own Cure, as well as baptize, administer the Communion, and read Common prayer, without a license; and if any have licenses, granted them to preach, out of their own Cures, they ought to be granted freely without any fee or gratuity, to the Bishop or his Officers. And the Statute of 23. Eliz. c. 1. provides expressly: That no ordinary, or their Ministers, shall take anything for the licensing or allowance of Schoolmasters; yet notwithstanding these Statutes, Canons, and Constitutions, our Prelates their Commissaries, Secretaries, and other Officers, take no less then 15. 20. 25, or 30. s. for the orders of every Deacon, and as much for every Ministers orders, so as few are or can be now made Ministers under 40. 50. or 60. s. charge in fees and in some places more, yea they exact and take no less then 6. 8. d. yea 10. 15. and 20. s. sometimes for every license to preach and keep a School, and no less then 3. 4. 5. s. (and sometimes more as themselves shall please to demand) at every trienniall visitation, for showing these their letters of orders, and licenses; when as there is never a farthing due by Law; and as for institutions and inductions to Benefices, our Archdeacons and their officials exact, and take for every institution and induction, no less then 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. and sometimes 7. p. and more according to the vallue of the livings: An horrible extortion, oppression and Simmony, far worse then the selling of Benefices by Patrons, yet our Prelates connive at, countenance, and maintain all these exactions and extortions, not questioning any man for them, which is ill; yea refusing to right, and persecuting those who complain against them, which is far worse. So far is that of Vespatian now with them and theirs Dulcis odor lucri ex re qualibet.

The Statute of 31. Eliz. c. 6. ratifies these former constitutions, concerning the selling and giving of orders, and provides: That if any person or persons whatsoever, shall receive or take any money, fee, reward, or any other profit, directly, or indirectly, or shall take any promise, agreement, covenant, bond, or other assurance to receive any money, fee, reward, or any other profit, directly, or indirectly, either to him or themselves, or to any other of their, or any of their friends, (all ordinary and lawful fees, only excepted, which are but those above specified) for to procure the ordering, or making of any Minister or Ministers, or giving of any orders, or license, or licenses to preach; that then every person or persons, so offending, shall for every such offense forfeit the sum of xl. p. of lawful money of England, and the party so corrupted, ordained, or made Minister, or taking orders, shall forfeit 10. p. And if within 7. years after such corrupt entering into the Ministry, or receiving of orders,, he shall accept any benefice, living or promotion Ecclesiastical, that then immediately, from and after the induction, investing or installing thereof, or thereunto, had the same benefice, living and promotion Ecclesiastical, shall be merely void, and that the Patron &c. may present and collate unto the same, And by the same statute it is enacted, that if any person or persons, for any sum of money, reward, or gift, profit or commodity whatsoever, directly, or indirectly, (other then for usual and lawful fees, which are those only forementioned) or for, or by reason, of any promise, agreement &c. (as in the former clause,) shall at any time admit, institute, install, induct, invest, or place any person, in or to any benefice, with Cure of Souls, dignity, benefice, or other Ecclesiastical living, that then every person, so offending, shall forfeit, and loose the double vallue of one years profit of every such Benefice, Dignity, Prebend, and living, and that the same shall be immediately void, so as the Patron may present thereto; By virtue of which Act, I fear me, most Ministers may be turned out of their livings; and all our Prelates with their Officers, and late ordained Clerks undone, if their forfeitures were but well inquired after; Otho in his Constitutions, with our whole general national Synod, under him prescribes, that Archdeacons in their Visitations, or when they punish and correct crimes, shall not presume to receive anything, (by way of fee,) nor to involue any man in censures unjustly, that so they may extort money from them, because those things, and such like savor of Simmoniacall pravity: And he further ordains, that no Archdeacon or Bishop shall receive procurations from any Church, unless he personally visit the same Church, nor extort anything for redemption of Visitations: And John Stratford, Archbishop of Canterbury, with the Council under him, An. 1342. degree: That no man shall presume to receive of any Church any procuration, to be paid by reason of visiting, unless he diligently visit the same Church in person: and if any will visit any Churches in one day, let him be content with one days procuration in victuals, or money, unto which procuration let him cause all and singular Churches, so visited in one day, proportionally to contribute as the Canons ordain; yea Boniface, Archbishop of Canterbury ordained, that the Appariters and Bedels, should receive nothing from Ministers and others for any Sermons citation, but what they should please to give them freely. By which and sundry other Councils it is apparent.

1. First, That by the Canon Law, no procurations are due, or ought to be paid to Archbishops, Bishops, Archdeacons, and other Ordinaries, unless they visit in person, not when they visit by the parties.

2. Secondly, That they ought personally, to visit every Church in their Diocese, (not an whole Deanery, only at one Church, as now they do without visiting the rest;) else it is not in truth a Visitation, for how is that visited, which is not so much as seen? and that no procurations are due from any Churches, which they do not personally visit.

3. Thirdly, That where they visit many Churches in one day, there they ought to receive but procuration for them all.

4. Fourthly, That this procuration may be paid, either in money or provision, at the Election of those who are visited, it being only paid to defray the charges of their provision, and not as any fee, or duty.

5. Fifthly, That where the Bishop, Archdeacon, or Visitor, is entertained by any Minister or Gentl. and put to no expenses for provision, there no procuration is due; nor yet ought to be required.

6. Sixthly, That no fees are due to Apparitors, or any other Officers attending those Visitors for any offenses presented, inquired after or punished, nor for showing of licenses, Visitation-Articles, or Churchwardens, presentements &c. but only the procu • ation it self, which ought to be no more then the Visitors necessary (not superfluous and idle) expenses. This without all controversy is the Canon and Common Law to, as the Premises evidence? yet our Archbishops, Bishops, Archdeacons & other ordinaries (as if they visited only of purpose to fill their purses, and fleece both Ministers and people, as they have ever done, ) take and exact procurations. 1. When they visit not in person, • ut by deputy, when none are due by Law. 2. Of such Churches, which they never personally visit. 3. Many pro • urations of every Church, within the Deanery for one days Visitation only. 4. Procurations in money, not in provi • on, and that more then will defray their necessary expenses. 5. Procurations evenwhere they are entertained by the Mi • ister or some others, and are put to no expense.

Moreover, they and their Registers exact and demand • cessive fees.

1. First, Of every Minister for showing of his Letters of order and licenses, to preach sometimes 3. s. 6. d. sometimes 5. s. • here there is nothing due.

2. Secondly, Of every Schoolmaster and others for showing • heir licenses, to teach School, and the like as much.

3. Thirdly, Of Churchwardens and Sidemen for their • resentment, accounts, oaths, and the illegal Book of Ar • icles, they sell them to present on 1. s. 6. d. or more.

4. Fourthly, Of the Parties there presented, cited, and cen • red; what ever they please to exact, sometimes 2. s. 3. s. or • ore.

5. Fifthly, Of Rurall Deans, for their Oath, accounts, and office, (though imposed on them against Law, for the Archdeacons, and Apparitors case,) 6. s. 6. d. or more.

All these with many others are mere extortions against Law and Canon; yet our Prelates, Archdeacons, and their underlings, both take and challenge them, as their due, excommunicating those, who refuse to pay them: Their Visitations (kept without any Commission or Patent from the King, in their own names, for which they incur a Premunire ) being mere illegal oppressions, extortions, and deprevations on the poor Ministers and Subjects, as they have been in all ages, (no Counsels, Canonists, Histories, or Authors ever mentioning them, but with a relation and censure of those manifold exactions, extortions, and oppressions which inseparably attend them ) & non morum, sed nummorum visitatio, as Doctor Boys out of the Centuries, and Sant Augustine concludes; Their extortions in their High-Commissions and Consistories, by their Chauncellors, Commissaries, Officials, Registers, Apparitors, Pursevants and other officers, are infinite and intolerable, not any one of them warranted by Law or Canon, fitter to be inquired after by the Commissioners for extorted fees, then here to be related, only I cannot but remember, that it is the Common practice of these harpies, to cite men into their Courts by their Apparitors, by a general Citation, without expressing the cause in the the C • tation, for which they are summoned (which Fitzherbert long since resolved to be an oppression; and against Law) or th • Party at whose suite they are summoned, if they appear not there • then they excommunicate them for a contempt, and so must pay 4. or 5. s. for an absolution, though nothing be objected against them, if they appear, then they must pay the fees of th • Apparitor and Court, to wit, 16. d. 2 s. 2. s. 6. d. or mor • sometimes, though no man appear to object anything against them and be dismissed, and if they refuse to pay their fees, (which are according as themselves please, to cease them sometimes 16. 18. 20. d. 2. s. or more) then they will not dismiss, but for vexation and grave adjourn them to some other Court day, and if th • appear not, they forth with excommunicate them, upon wh • they must pay terrible fees, or more for an absolution though Innocent. This is the common course and daily practice of thei • Consistories, an extortion, oppression, and vexation so unjust, so frequent and grievous to the Subjects, (that I speak • not of their several plots and devices, how to raise fames of innocent men and women to bring them into trouble,) as th • they groan and languish under it, and now more then ever • In a word their extortions are so manifold great and grievous • that Petrus Blesensis, Archdeacon of Bath (who notably deciphers and declaimes against them) derives the name of an Officiall, from the verb officio, as it signifieth to hurt, calling it, an office of perdition, and damnation, in which whosoever continueth, must necessarily be damned and cannot be saved, whether our Prelates, Archdeacons, Commissaries, and all their under Officers, who thus fleece, oppress and vex his Majesty's Subjects by these their manifold extortions, and are (I dare say,) the greatest oppressors, and extortioners, and polers of them, this day living, (except their High-Commission, Purseuants, Registers, Goalers, Officers, who equal or exceed them,) ought not to be forthwith informed against in the Starchamber, and there deeply fined to his Majesty, (to the value at least of the fees, they have extorted) and deprived of all their offices, Courts, and places, for which they have no Patent, and so no right or Title; and whether this would not be a just and lawful project, whereby the new Lord Bishop Treasurer, might and ought to procure his Majesty a great Mass of money, I humbly submit to the Iudgments of those, whom it most concerns, to look thereto, & to take care to ease the Subjects of these extortions, which are now become an insupportable burden to the people. To these I might add their pecuniary mulcts, fines, and penalties, for omitting, and negligent performing of their disorderly orders, to turn Communion-Tables Altarwise, and the like by which Device Doctor Peirce, now Bishop of Bath and Wels, and his Officers, (men as worthy to be brought into the Starchamber for their exactions as any of their Coat, to omit Doctor Mason and others) extorted no less then 6. s. 8. d. of late in less then one quater of a year of many Parishes in his Diocese. Their commutations of penance, (the money whereof they purse up themselves, whereas they should distribute it to the poor, or bestow it on other charitable uses) even in cases, where Penance ought no to be committed. Their extorting of money by Purgations, Cumpurgaturs, and by granting licenses, to marry without asking banes in the Church which if marriages and licenses to marry, be merely spiritual, as they pretent, (as if a license to preach, or receive the Sacrament,) is gross Simmony, and so to be taken from them to prevent Simmony in them, which makes them excommunicate, and irregular Ipso facto, uncapable to preach (which they seldom do, and thefore need not much to value) to administer the Sacraments, give orders, or exercise any Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction. If civil and temporal, then it belongs not to their Jurisdiction, but the Kings; and such temporal Officers, as he shall authorize to grant them. But these, I pretermit, as fit • for Commissioners or a grant Jury, to inquire after that, they may be punished, then here to discourse or treat of any further. Only this I shall observe, that there are divers Commissions printed in the Register, for inquiring after extortion, oppression, and exacted fees in officers, and for sequestering their offices, till the Inquiry fully made for the better examining, sifting out of their extortions. Yea I find King Edward the 3. in his Proclamations against Archbishop Stratford, published to his Subjects, that he removed some great men from their offices and places, and imprisoned others of inferior quality, who upon probable grounds were suspected of the ill administration, and subversion of Justice, the oppression of his Subjects, taking of bribes, exacting excessive fees, and other great offenses, till these their offenses wear fully examined, and inquired of least they enjoying their accustomed liberty & offices, the execution of Justice should be supplanted by their subtility, and the inquisition of the truth deluded by their craftiness. Whether our Prelates and their officers ought not thus to be suspended, imprisoned, and proceeded against, for their forenamed extortions, exacted fees, bribes, and oppressions, I refer to his Majesty's wisdom and Justice.

4. It is most perspicuous and apparent by the several Statutes of 9. H. 3. c. 28. 51. H. 3. c. 14. 3. E. 1. c. 40. 6. E. 1. c. 8. 13. E. 1. at Westm. c. 43. 13. E. 1. Statute of Winchester, c. 1. 6. 13. E. 1. statute Merchant Articles of Inquisition, upon the statute of Winchester. 34. E. 1. statute of liberties, c. 6. 51. H. 3. statute of Escheators, 9. E. 2. statute of Scheriffes, 17. E. 2. c. 4. 1. E. 3. c. 8. and statute 2. c. 4. 5. E. 3. c. 2. 9. E. 3. of money c. 9. 15. E. 3. c. 3. 4. 18. E. 3. statute 3, The Oath of Judges and Clerks of Chauncery, 20. E. 3. c. 1. 3. 25. E. 3. stat. 1. c. 5. 6. stat. 4. c. 1. and stat. 7. of levying the quindesme, 27. E. 3. stat. 2. c. 1. 15. 16. 23. 24. 26. 31. E. 3. stat. 2. 5. R. 2. stat. 1. c. 2. 12. 13. 14. 6. R. 2. c. 12. 9. R. 2. c. 3. 12. R. 2. c. 8. 13. R. 2. c. 7. 17. R. 2. c. 9. 4. H. 4. c. 10. 18. 20. 21. 1. H. 5. c. 6. 2. H. 5. c. 4. 6. 7. 4. H. 5. c. 2. 4. 2. H. 6. c. 10. 18. H. 6. c. 4. 10. 20. H. 6. c. 10. 23. H. 6. c. 2. 33. H. 6. c. 3. 5. 3. E. 4. c. 3. 7. E. 4. c. 1. 8. E. 4. c. 2. 12. E. 4. c. 2. 3. 17. E. 4. c. 2. 5. R. 2. c. 12. 14. 1. R. 3. c. 6. 25. H. 8. c. 22. 26. H. 8. c. 2. 31. H. 8. c. 14. 23. H. 8. c. 5. 28. H. 8. c. 16. 32. H. 8. c. 46. 33. H. 8. c. 22. 19. H. 7. c. 7. 1. Eliz. c. 1. 5. Eliz. c. 1. 13. c. 7. 27. Eliz. c. 12. 1. Jac. c. 9. 31. 3. Jac. c. 4. 7. Jac. c. 2. 6. 21. Jac. c. 7. 20. 33. 1. Car. 2. 1. 2. Car. 2. 1. and the Petition of Right, 3. Car. Wests presidents Tit. Chauncery, Sect. 34. 36. 39. 57. 58. 59. 61. with sundry other Statutes and Lawbookes, that no kinds or forms of Oaths can be made or imposed on his Majesty's Subjects, nor prescribed to them in any new cases, but by Act of Parliament, only, that no Bishop or Subject whatsoever, have any power to make or enjoin any new Oaths or forms of Oaths, nor yet authority to administer an Oath to any man, without a special Commission from the King, under his great Seal, or some Act of Parliament, specially authorizing him, to give or take an Oath, unless in Courts of record in cases, where the Canon Law enables the Judge to administer an Oath by prescription, originally grounded on some Charter, or Commission from the King. The statute of Magna Charta c. 28. enacts, That no Bailiff from henceforth, shall put any man to his open Law nor to AN OATH, upon his own saying, without faithful witnesses, brought in for the same. The equity whereof extends to the Bishops, though the words only to Bailiffs. The statute of Marlebridge 51. H. 3. c. 22. enacts, That none from henceforth may distrain from his freeholders, to answer for their freeholdes, nor for anything, touching their freeholdes without the Kings writ: nor shall cause his freeholders to swear against their wills; FOR NO MAN, MAY DOE THAT WITHOUT THE KINGS COMMAUNDEMENT, to wit, by the Kings special writ and Commission for that purpose. An. 1236. Otho, the Popes Legate, in a Council of London, made this Constitution, touching oaths in spiritual causes in Ecclesiastical Courts, till that time not known, nor used in England, as appears by the words of the Constitution, Iurisjurandum calumniae in causis Ecclesiasticis cujuslibet, ET DE VERITATE DICENDA IN SPIRITUALIBUS QUOQUE, ut veritas aperiatur facilius, & causae celerius terminentur, statuimus DE CAETERO PRAESTARI IN REGNO ANGLIAE, secundum Canonicas & legitimas sanctiones OBTENTA IN CONTRARIVM CONSVETVDINE NON OBSTANTE. A clear resolution, that till that time the custom of England, and the Law of the Land was contrary, that they could not enforce any man to his Oath in such cases. After which Grosthead, Bishop of Lincoln, An. 1246. upon the suggestion of the Friers Predicants and Minorites, raged more then was meet or expedient against those of his Diocese: making strict inquisition in his Bishopric by his Archdeacons and Deans, concerning the chastity and manners, as well of noble as ignoble, (upon oath,) to the enormious hurt and scandal of the reputations of many, WHICH HAD NEVER BEENE ACCUSTOMED TO BE DONE BEFORE, The King hearing the grievous complaints of his people against these innovations, did thereupon by the advise of his Counsel and Courts of Justice, send a writ to the Sheriff of Hertford in these words; Henry by the grace of God, King of England, &c. We command thee, that as thou lovest thyself, and all things that are thine, that thou from henceforth suffer not any Laymen of thy Balywicke, to assemble together in any place, at the will of the Bishop of Lincoln, or of his Archdeacons, Officials, or Rurall Deans, to make any acknowledgments, or attestations upon their oath, unless in cases of Matrimony and Testament. And the very next year following in pursevance hereof, the King (by Parliament) enacted, and commanded these things, ensuing to be inviolably observed: That if any Laymen were convented before an Ecclesiastical Judge, for breach of faith and perjury, that they should be prohibited by the King: And that the Ecclesiastical Judge should be prohibited to hold plea of all causes against Laymen, unless they were of Matrimony and Testament. All which Matthew Paris precisely relates. Which Prohibition and statute nullified the Constitution of Otho; and hindered this his innovation: Whereupon, that insolent trayterly audacious martial Archbishop of Canterbury, Boniface ( better skilled in affairs of the Campe then of the Church,) An. 1256. (but nine years after this Prohibition and forenamed Statute,) published this peremptory audacious Constitution in affront of them both: Statuimus quod Laïci ubi de Subditorum peccatis & excessibus corrigendis per Praelatos & Ecclesiasticos Iudices inquiritur, AD PRAESTANDVM DE VERITATE DICENDA IVRAMENTVM, per excommunicationis se • tentias, si opus fuerit, COMPELLANTVR; Impedientes vero NE HVIVSMODI IVRAMENTVM PRAESTENTVR. (For the Judges with many others then generally oppugned and hindered the ushering in of this innovation,) per interdicti & excommunicationis sententiam arceantur. To evacuate with exorbitant illegal Constitution ( meant only of witnesses, not of Churchwardens, Sidemen, or strangers oaths, as the Gloss of Lindewood, (who records it,) resolves in express terms,) trenching both upon the people's Liberties and the Courts of Justice too; the Judges frequently granted out sundry general Prohibitions, to all, or most of the Sheriffs of England; as is evident by the Register of Writs; Fitzherberts Natura Brevium; Rastall, and others, commanding the Sheriffs, to inhibit Bishops and their Officers, to cite Laymen before them, to take an oath in any cases whatsoever, except of Matrimony or Testament only; and not to suffer the people to appear before them to take such oaths; Which Prohibitions run in these words. The King to the Sheriff greeting; We command thee, that thou permit not, that any Laymen henceforth come together at the Citation of the Bishop, or his officers, in any place, to make any recognitions, or to take an oath, unless it be in case of Matrimony and Testament; Upon which Prohibitions, this Attachment followed: The King to the Sheriff, greeting: Cause such a Bishop to put in sureties to appear before our Justices &c. to show cause, why he made certain Lay-persons to be summoned and distrained by Ecclesiastical Censures, to appear before him at his pleasure, to take an oath against their wills, IN GRAVE PRAEIVDICIVM CORONAE ET DIGNITATIS NOSTRAE REGIAE, NEC NON CONTRA CONSVETVDINEM REGNI NOSTRI, to the Greivous prejudice of our Crown and dignity, and also against the custom of our Kingdom, &c. Which Prohibitions and Attachments were usual, as appears by Rastalls Abridgment of statutes, Prohibition. 5. where a larger form of Prohibition and Attachment is recited; commanding the Scheriffes of s • verall Counties, that they suffer not, that any Laymen in their Balywicke come together in any places, to make any recognisances by their oaths before Bishops or Ecclesiastical Judges, except in causes of Matrimony and Testament. The Statute of 2. H. 5. c. 3. recites, that the Ecclesiastical Court in that time could cite men (to swear,) only in cases of Matrimony and Testament. And the Statute of 2. E. 6. c. 13. concerning Tithes, enacts, That if any man refuse to pay his personal Tithes, that then it shall be lawful for the ordinary of the same Diocese, where the party dwells, to call the said party before him, and by his discretion to examine him, by all lawful and reasonable means, concerning the true payment of the said personal Tithes, OTHER THEN BY THE SAYD PARTIES CORPORALL OATH. For that was neither lawful, nor reasonable, the Ecclesiastical Court, having no power to administer oaths, but in case of Matrimony and Testament, and no man being by Law or equity bound to accuse or bare witness against himself: the true reason, why the Parliament inserted this clause, and a direct Parliamentary resolution, that Ecclesiastical Judges can enforce no man to swear, nor not a witness, (much less as a party,) except only in case of Marriage and Wills; nor contstrain any man in any case to take an Ex officio oath to accuse himself: Which Ex officio oaths are forever exploded by the Petition of Right, 3. Caroli; that mentions this among other great grievances, contrary to the Laws, and statutes of the Realm, and the Subjects Liberties and Rights; That of late d • verse Commissions were directed to sundry Commissioners in several Counties, by means whereof the people had been in divers places assembled, and required to lend certain sommes of money to his Majesty, and that money of them upon refusal so to do have had an oath administered un o them, (to answer to certain Interrogatories, which the Commissioners should demand of them Ex officio to accuse themselves, and others,) not warrantable by the Laws and statutes of this Realm; whereupon they there pray as their Rights and Liberties, according to the Laws and statutes of this Realm; That no man be hereafter called to make answer, or take SUCH OATH, or be confined, or otherwise molested, or disquieted, concerning the same, or for refusal thereof. (A fatal blow to all Ex officio oaths and Proceedings, for men to answer to Articles, to detect, accu • e themselves, or others used by our Prelates & High-Commissioners,) To which the King gave this Royal answer in Parliament; Let right be done as is desired; adding moreover: that his Maxim is; that the people's Liberty, strengthens the Kings Prerogative, & that the Kings Prerogative, is to defend his people's Liberties. And I do here declare, that those things, which have been done, whereby men had some cause to suspect the liberty of the Subjects to be trencht upon, shall not hereafter be drawn 〈◊〉 example for their prejudice. And in time to come (in the word of a King,) you shall not have the like cause to complain. The King and Parliament therefore here publicly declaring, resolving that Ex officio Oaths, for men to answer to questions and Articles to accuse themselves, are not warrantable by the Laws and statutes of the Realm; but contrary thereto, and to the Subjects Rights and Liberties though warranted by special Commissions and instructions under the great Seal; is a most pregnant resolution, that the High-Commissioners and Bishops Ex officio oaths and Articles in criminal things, being of the self same nature and quality with them, and formerly adjudged to be against the Law; the statutes of the Realm, and the Subjects Liberties in the Parliament, of 7. Jacobi, and in the Kings Bench and Common Pleas, as the premises evidence, are directly against the Laws and Fraunchise of the Land, the Rights and Liberties of the Subject, and that no man ought henceforth to be called before the Prelates, High-Commissioners, or any others, to take such oaths, or to be confined, imprisoned, disquieted, or otherwise molested, concerning the same, or for refusal thereof; and that their Commission to administer such oaths, (made since this Parliamentary resolution, and the Kings own Royal promise in Parliament, even in the word of a King, that they should never hereafter be drawn into example unto his Subjects prejudice, &c. ) is in this particular illegal, and merely void in Law, no man being bound by Law to accuse, arraign, or give in evidence against himself upon his oath, in any criminal Ecclesiastical cause whatsoever by any Law or Statute, either of God or man, as the premises manifest. From all which Statutes, Laws, Prohibitions, and premises, it is apparent.

1. First, That no Ecclesiastical or temporal Judge, Archbishop, or other Ecclesiastical person, can prescribe or make any new form of oath, nor yet impose an oath in any cases, but in such as the Statutes and Common Law of the Realm have allowed, and authorized them to do it; and that no new form of oath may or ought to be framed or imposed in any new case, but by special Act of Parliament, Yet our Archbishops, Bishops, Archdeacons, and their Officials, like so many Popes or Parliaments, take upon them both to make, print, promulge, and impose new forms of oaths on Churchwardens, Sidemen, and other his Majesty's Subjects, in their Visitations and Consistories in their own names, and by their own, authority; as appears by all their late printed Visitation Articles, and Consistory proceedings; and that in cases where they have no authority to do it, either by Statute or Common Law.

2. Secondly, That no Ecclesiastical Judge, Archbishop, Archdeacon, Commissioner, or Officiall, hath any power or authority in point of Law, to administer an oath, or compel men to swear in any criminal Ecclesiastical cases or matters, within their Jurisdiction, (especially the parties themselves,) but only in cases of Testaments and Marriage, and that a Prohibition, yea an Attachment lies against them, in case they cite or force any man to take an oath before them in any other cause. Yet all our Ecclesiastical Judges, Prelates, Archdeacons, Officials, and High-Commissioners, in contempt of all the premises, daily administer oaths to his Majesty's Subjects, and by Citations, Excommunications, and imprisonments oft times, compel them to swear and take an oath, not only in causes of Matrimony and Testaments, but likewise in criminal, and all other Ecclesiastical causes, coming before them; and that not only as witnesses, but likewise as informers, to accuse, to detect themselves and others upon captious and ensnaring Articles.

3. Thirdly, That no Ecclesiastical Judge, Prelate, Officer, or any other Subject whatsoever, hath any power or lawful authority to administer, or impose an oath upon any Subject, unless he hath an express Act of Parliament enabling, or Commission under the great Seal of England, authorizing him to do it. Yet our Archbishops, Bishops, Archdeacons and other Ecclesiastical Judges and officers, without any such special Act of Parliament or Commission, presumptuously take upon them to administer oaths to his Majesty's Subjects in all cases whatsoever, as their own fancies and wills direct them; to the great vexation and oppression of the people, the increase of perjury, rash oaths, and common swearing; the perdition of many souls, and the advauncement of their own usurped Antichristian Jurisdiction, in prejudice and derogation of his Majesty's Ecclesiastical Prerogative; though no Archbishop or Bishop, could so much as administer the oa • h of supremacy, or allegiance to any Minister or person, (though tending to the preservation of his Majesty's person, and Prerogative Ecclesiastical, and the Republics safety) without a special Commission under the great Seal, authorizing him, as is evident by the Statutes of 28. H. 8. c. 10. and 1. Eliz. c. 1. till the Statute of 8. Eliz. c. 1. enabled them, and others for to do it, 〈◊〉 express clause without such a special Commission. If therefore they could not administer this oath to any without special Commission, till enabled thereto by Act of Parliament, much less can or may they administer any other.

4. Fourthly, That all oaths Ex officio in criminal causes for men to accuse, or detect themselves, are directly contrary to the Laws, Statutes and Customs of the Realm, and forever abandoned by the Petition of Right; and that no Prelate, Ecclesiastical Judge, or High-Commissioner, may or ought to compel, or enforce any man to take such an oath, or excommunicate or imprison any man, for refusing to take the same. Yet notwithstanding our Prelates, and High-Commissioners, trampling all the forecited Laws and Premises under their feet, daily cite and compel men to take Ex officio oaths, to accuse and betray themselves and others; excommunicating, yea imprisoning at the first, all such, who out of Law or Conscience refuse to take them; to the intolerable oppression, grievance, vexation of his Majesty's Subjects, and the infringement of their just, ancient Rights and Liberties. When our Savior Christ was convented before the High-Priest, and there asked by him of his Disciples and of his Doctrine; Jesus answered him, I speak openly to the world, I ever taught in the Synagogue, and in the Temple, whither the Jews always resort, and in secret have I said nothing, why askest thou me? ask them which heard me, what I have said unto them: behold they know what I said. And when he had thus spoken, one of the officers which stood by, stroke Jesus w • th the palm of his hand, saying: Answerest thou the High-Priest so? Jesus answered him, If I have spoken evil, bare witness of the evil, but if well, why smitest thou me? If any of Christ's Ministers be convented before our Bishops or High-Commissioners, concerning his Disciples and Doctrine, and shall answer them as Christ here doth the High-Priest, and in his words, refusing to accuse or detect himself and them, they are so far 〈7 letters〉 sting satisfied with our Savior's own, and this their an • w •• , as the High-Priest was; that they and their officers will use them, as the High-Priests officers did our Savior, saying; Answerest thou the High-Priest, Archbishop, Bishops, and High-Commissioners so? and send him forthwith to prison, as obstinate ad seditious persons, and experience daily testifieth: so far worse and unreasonable are our Prelates, and High-Commissioners grown, then the Jewish High-Priest, who convented our Savior; and such a capital offense is it now a days reputed, for Christ's faithful Ministers to follow this their Masters example; in so much, that one wittily make this Quaere o in a printed Book, dedicated to Queen Eliz. If Christ himself were now a live on earth, and convented before our High-Priests and Commissioners, as he was before the Jews High-Priest, and there asked by them of his Disciples and Doctrine, and should give them the self same answer, as he did to him; to which of the prisons he should be committed by them for it. Whether to the Kings Bench, the Clinck, the Fleet, Marshallsey Counter, or Gatehouse? (For to one them he should surely be sent;) they committing Master Bambridge, Master Johnson, and sundry other Ministers, for giving them the self same answer, even in our Savior's words, when they were asked by them, of their Disciples and Doctrine, and refused to take an oath to accuse themselves, as our Savior here did.

5. Fifthly, That all our Bishops, Archdeacons, and their Deputies, Visitation oaths, are directly unlawful, against the Laws, the statutes of the Realm, and Liberties of the Subject, which I would wish, that insolent, audacious Prelate, Doctor Wien, Bishop of Norwich, and his Visitors, to consider; who in his Visitation Articles, printed An. 1636. Ch. 6. Sect. 9. hath inserted this extravagant new Article of Inquiry for Churchwardens, to present any one upon oath: Hath any man, that you know, or have heard of, by speech or writing, or upon the assertion of any other man affirmed, (whether within or without his Diocese it matters not,) That men ought not to take the office, or the oath of a Churchwarden, or of presenting at the Bishops Visitation? Or that the said oath is unlawfully given them: Or that being taken, it is but of course, and binds them not, nor need to be regarded: Or that (the said oath notwithstanding) it is free for them to make inquiry, nor to answer, but to do what they list, and to leave out and pass by whom they will, and what they will in their presentments? Threatning at the end of the Articles, That if (their oath and all his advertisement) notwithstanding any Churchwardens or sworn men, shall follow the customary manner, and be careless in inquiring and presenting as they ought, or shall not make a distinct answer to every of his Articles (being in all 139.) and to everything thereof, as far as they know, or have heard of any offense; that upon information and proof otherwise had, they shall be called to answer their willful perjury, (unjustly occasioned by this willful Bishop himself) in some other course of justice, for neglecting to inquire or present to all the particulars herein proposed: Though these oaths in these ensuing respects, be altogeiher unlawful, yea ungodly and Antichristian.

1. First, Because they are neither made nor prescribed by any Act of Parliament, but only by the Bishops and Prelates themselves, without any lawful authority.

2. Secondly, Because, they are out of cases of Matrimony and Testament, wherein only Ecclesiastical Judges can administer an oath by the Common and statute Law, and so they have no color of Authority or Jurisdiction, to impose and make such oaths, being point blank against the Laws, Statutes and Customs of the Land, and forecited Prohibitions.

3. Thirdly, Because they have no Letters Patents, nor Commission from his Majesty, under the great Seal, to administer or impose such oaths.

4. Fourthly, Because they administer them in their own names and right (in which the likewise print and publish them,) not in his Majesty's, nor by his authority, contrary to the Statute of 1. Eliz. c. 1. and their oath of supremacy and allegiance.

5. Fifthly, Because the Articles which they force Churchwardens and others to present upon, by virtue of these Visitation oaths, are utterly unlawful: contrary to the express statutes of 25. H. 8. c. 14. 19. 21. 27. H. 8. c. 15. 3. and 4. E. 6. c. 11. 12. 13. Eliz. c. 12. with sundry other statutes, yea contrary their own Canons, 1603. Can. 1.2.12. and King James Letter Patents before them; being set forth and published in their own Right and names alone, without the Kings authority, License, and confirmation under his great Seal, and the Assent of the Convocation and Parliament, without which no Articles, Canons or Ecclesiastical Constitutions can be promulgated, to bind the Commons and Laity, as these statutes with others resolve.

6. Sixthly, Because these oaths, are directly contrary to the oath of Supremacy and allegiance, tending to erect a usurped Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction, not derived by Letters Patents from his Majesty, nor exercised in his name and Right, or by his Royal authority: and to subject his people thereunto; contrary to the Statutes of 25. H. 8. c. 14. 19. 20. 21. 26. H. 8. c. 1. 27. H. 8. c. 15. 37. H. 8. c. 17. 1. Ed. 6. c. 2. 1. Eliz. c. 1. to their own Canons, 1603. and contrary to their duty and allegiance to their Sovereign.

7. Seavently, Because they are contrary to the Canon Law it self, and are but late encroachments. The first that ever attempted to administer an oath in Visitations, was Grosthead, Bishop of Lincoln, An. 1246. before which time Matthew Paris records, it was never used here in England; and thereupon a Prohibition was directed to the Sheriff of Hertford, to prohibit all Laymen to take any such oath, by the King, his Judges and Counsels special direction. Whereupon such oaths were never afterwards administered till Bishop Bonners time; the Canonists themselves resolving, that Visitors ought to visit without administering any oath. Hence Angelus de Clavasio, a famous Canonist, flourishing about the year of our Lord 1480. expressly resolves, that Bishops and Visitors in their visitations, ought to in • ire of those things, which belong to their office, without oath, and • action; inducing the people to reform those things that are amiss, • eth by wholesome counsels, and by gentle persuasions, or reproofs, • s they shall think meet. And our great English Canonist William Lindewood, about the year of our Lord, 1424. (though • grand advancer of Episcopal Jurisdiction within this Realm,) determines positively: That Archiepiscopall, Ep • scopall, Archidiaconall visitations (which he calls solemn preparatory Inquisitions,) are regularly made in general, ET SINE EXACTIONE IVRAMENTI, and without the exaction of an oath. If this be not sufficient, he adds more • ver: That from the beginning, when a general Inquisition is made in visitations, NON DEBET EXIGI IVRAMENTVM, no oath ought to be exacted, by which any one may be constrained to detect another man's secret sin and offense; yet after such time, (CRIMINA SINE IVRAMENTO RETINENTVR,) • at such crimes are presented without oath, to be corrected, the Inquisitor may then exact an oath, (ad praestandum de veritate Testimonium,) of witnesses to give testimony to the truth; but not of Churchwardens, or Sidemen, to present any upon oath. Which joint resolution both of Angelus De Clavasi • , and Lindewoode, not very many years before Bonners visitation, • re not only an unanswerable evidence, that visitation oaths, and Articles of Inquire and presentments upon oath, are direct • y unlawful, as well by the Canon, as the Common Law; but likewise a grant Argument to manifest, that the Popish Hellhound, Bishop Bonner, was the first that used, or imposed any such Oaths and Article • , these Canonists not long before concluding them unlawful in point of Law, and unusual in point of practice, as the first words of Lindewood, (solemn preparatory Inquisitions, are regularly made in general, and without the exaction of an oath) insinuate. In all the Articles of Inquiry and Injunctions, published by King Henry the eight, King Edward the 6. or Queen Elizabeth, and given in charge by their Visitors in their general visitations, I find no form, nor mention of any oath, administered to Churchwardens, or any other, as there is in all Archbishops, Bishops, and Archdeacons Articles of inquiry, lately printed: therefore questionless they administered no oath, though they visited by Commission from the King himself. How then dare they now to enjoin and make such Visitation oaths as they do, when as the Kings own immediate Visitor did it not? In all the Licenses and Letters Patents made to Archbishops, Bishops, and others by King Henry the 8. or King Edward the 6. authorizing them to keep Consistories and Visitations, and Inquiry of all Ecclesiastical offenses, there is no word or intimation that they should do it upon oath, nor any Commission given them to make, or administer oaths to any.

Therefore no doubt their visitation Inquiries were without oath, else they would have had some clause or other in their Patents to inquire upon oath. In the Articles of Cardinal Poole, in Queen Mary's days, for his Archiepiscopall Visitation, there is no mention of any oath to be administered to Churchwardens, Questmen or Sidemen. In the Canons made in Convocation, and printed 1571. there is not one word of an oath, nor any form of oath, prescribed for Churchwardens, or any others to take, or Bishops to administer: Yea in the Book of Canons, made in Convocation, An. 1603. there is no form of oath prescribed, inserted, nor constituted for Churchwardens, Questmen, or Sidemen to take before their presentments; and the 113. and 114. Canons ordain, that Ministers may present offenses without oath; why not Churchwardens then as well as they? The first man I read of, who administered an oath of Inquirie in any Visitation kept in England, was that bloody butcher of God's Saints, and Antichristian bandogge, Edmond Bonner, Bishop of London; wh • upon the eight day of September An. Dom. 1554. upon the coming in of Queen Mary, began his Episcopali Visitation, and therein charged 6. men in every parish, to inquire, according to their oaths, (which he had purposely framed and administered to them,) and to present before him, the day after Sant Matthews being the 23. of September, all such persons, as either had or should offend in any of his Articles, which he had set forth to the number of 37. (the first Articles, that ever any Bishop durst set forth in England, except 5. Articles, published at Paulus Cross by Archbishop Bourgchiers command, An. 1455. to be inquired of in his Archiepiscopall visitation, but not upon oath, for ought appears.) Never did any English Bishop, that I read of, administer any oath of inquiry before this bloodsucker Bonner; a fit Author for such an Antichristian Romish innovation; not seconded (for ought I find,) till Archbishop Bancroft his Metropolitical visitation, who Anno 1604. published visitation Articles in print, to be inquired of upon oath; whose footsteps our Archbishops and Bishops since have followed, yea and Archdeacons too, who now both make and print oaths and Articles usually in their own names, to be taken and inquired of in their visitations every year without fear or shame, (though they incur thereby a Praemunire, ) as if each of them were a King and Parliament, to make and prescribe what oaths and Laws they pleased, in contempt and Derogation of the Kings Crown and Dignity, and of the Laws, the customs of the Realm, which prescribe or warrant no such oaths or Articles; as the Prohibition formerly mentioned, and the Petition of Right expressly resolve.

8. Eighthly, These visitation oaths are unlawful, because they make a direct Alteration of the Common Law, in enforcing an oath on the Subjects in such cases, where the Law saith, they ought not to take an oath, and so bring in a bondage both upon their Consciences and persons, binding their souls over to damnation by reason of the sin of perjury, and their persons to infamy, Ecclesiastical Censures, mulcts, excommunications, and by consequence, to imprisonment upon a Capias Excommunicatum, contrary to the express Statute o • Magna Charta, c. 29. That no man shall be taken, imprisoned or any way outlawed, or destoyed, but by the Lawfull Ju • gement of his Peers, and by the Law, (that is, the Common and Statu • Law) of the Land: Now neither the King himself, nor th • Pope, nor the Archbishops, Bishops and Clergy in Convocation nor yet the King and they together, (much less then every Archbishop, Bishop, or Archdeacon in their several visitations, can alter the Common Law, or deprive the people, either of the Liberty of their Consciences or persons, or make that an offense of an high nature, which by the Law before was none: (All or eithe • of which a Parliament only is able to do, by a general unanimous consent both of the King and Realm, ) Therefore they ca • neither make nor impose any oath in their visitations, this being the true ground, why a Prohibition lies at Common Law, to inhibit all such oaths.

9. Ninthly, Because such oaths are directly contrary to the ancient Rights and hereditary liberties of the Subject, as i • resolved in the Petition of Right that all oaths are, which are n • warranted by the Laws and Statutes of the Realm; (which Rights and Liberties every good Subject is bound in Conscience to maintain against all unjust encroachments,) and because they tend to the erection and supportation of an Antichristia • Episcopal tyranny over the very consciences and souls of men • not warranted, but directly oppugned, both by the Laws o • God, and the Realm, and to bringing in of such a mere arbitrary Hierarchical domineering power, as will make every Bishop an absolute Pope, and as much, as a King and Parliament, to enact, what Articles he will; and do what he list of hi • own head, without consent, either of King and Parliament • For these oaths are only for the maintenance and executin • of those Articles, which the Bishops and their officers set o • and print in their own names, by their own bare authority contrary to the Laws and Statutes of the Realm, the King Supremacy and Subjects Liberties; devised of purpose to in • hrall and captivate both Churchwardens, Sidemen, and all other his Majesty's Subjects under them; to bring the whole Realm into a mere servitude and vasallage, to every Bishops • leisure; to bring in what Ceremonies, Religion, Rites, or In • ovations soever they list without opposition, and enforce all to submit unto them, though directly contrary to God's word, the Doctrine established in our Church, and the Statutes of the Realm. Now what good Subject or Christian, in point of Conscience can submit to oaths devised and pressed for such dangerous purposes, or directly tending to the introducing and propagating of such an exorbitant Episcopal tyranny?

10. Tenthly, Because these oaths are directly against the • ery Rules of charity and law of God; especially as they are now • sed: For the Articles, which are nowadays exhibited to Churchwardens and Sidemen to present on, by virtue of their oaths, without any favor, affection, or partiality to any person, whatsoever that is within their dangers, are mere snares: and traps, to entangle all good Ministers and people; and bring them into trouble in the Bishops Consistories, even for their conscionable and faithful discharge of their several ministerial, or Christian duties, and their opposing, or not using of those Popish Superstitions, Ceremonies, Rites, Innovations, or Romish Arminian Doctrines, which they canno • submit to, use, or not oppose, even in point of Conscience; as their several late Articles publicly man fest. Now what good Christian can, or dares take an oath, to present (upon such wicked Articles as now are usually published, his own faithful, painful, conscionable Minister, his godly Christian Neighbors, kindred, brethren, friends, that are most nearly linked to him, to draw them into trouble, either to the loss of liberty, living, goods, (yea all of them oft times,) and that only for their well doing, at least for that, which is not apparently evil? Is this Christianity? Is this charity? Is this Religion? or rather the very fulfilling of our Savior's praediction, Matth. 10.17.21. But beware of men, for they will deliver you up to the Councils, and they will scourge you in their Synagogues: and the Brother shall deliver up the brother, and the Father the child, and the children shall rise up against their parents: And ye shall be betrayed both by parents and Brethren, and kinsfolk and friends? Certainly the Godly Martyrs of old would never have taken such an oath, nor presented on such Inquisition Articles as these: For as they generally refused and declaimed against the oath and proceedings, Ex officio, to accuse and detect themselves, administered to them, by tyrannical and bloodthirsty Popish Prelates, as Antichristian and illegal; so they utterly denied to accuse, detect, present, or inform against any of their Christian Brethren and Ministets unto the Bishops and their officers, as a work more proper for the Devil, (the accuser of the Brethren, Rev. 12.10.) then themselves, whose office they would not usurp. Hence our worthy Martyr, William Thorpe, being examined before Thomas Arundell, Archbishop of Canterbury, An. 1407. refused, first of all to swear by, or on a Book, or to take an oath, before he was informed what it was, he should swear to. And the Archbishop requiring him to swear in all Diocese where he came, to forsake and oppose the Sect of the Lollards, and to publish them and their names, and make them known to the Bishop of the Dioces, or his Ministers, (the very oath in effect, that Churchwardens now take,) he hearing these words thought in himself, that this was an unlawful asking, and deemed himself cursed of God, if he consented hereto; and then spake thus to the Archbishop: Sir, if I consented to you thus, as ye have here before rehearsed to me, I should become an appealer, or every Bishops espy, sent over all England. For, and I should thus put up, and publish the names of men and women, I should herein deceive full many persons; yea Sir, as it is likely by the doom of my conscience, I should herein be the cause of the death both of men and women, yea both bodily and ghostly. For many men and women, that stand now in the way of Salvation, if I should for the learning & reading of their belief, publish them therefore up to the Bishops, or to their unpiteous M • nisters, I know some deal by experience, that they should be so distroubled, and diseased with persecution, or otherwise, that many of them (I think) would rather choose to forsake the way of truth, then to be travailed, scorned, slandered, or punished, as Bishops and their Ministers now use, for to contstrain men and women, to consent to them. But I find in no place of holy Scripture, that the office that ye would now enfeoffe me with, accordeth to any Priest of Christ's Sect, nor to any other Christian man: and therefore to do this, were to me a full noyous bond, to be bonden with and over-grievous charge. For I suppose, that if I thus did, many men and women would, yea Sir, might justly to my confusion say to me, that I were a Traitor to God and to them: since (as I think in mine heart,) many men and women trust so mikle in my cause, that I would not for saving of my life, do thus to them. For if I thus should do, full many men and women would (as they might full truly) say, that I had falsely, and cowarly forsaken the truth, and slandered shamefully the word of God. For if I consented to you to do here, after your will, for boncheife, or mischief, that may befall me in this life, I deem in my conscience, that I were worthy herefore to be cursed of God, and also of all his Saints: for which inconvenience, keep me and all Christian people, almighty God, now and ever for his holy name. So John Lithall, An. 1558. being questioned before the Chancellor both concerning himself, and some others, that he knew; answered, If you have anything to lay to my charge I will answer it; but I will have no other man's blood upon my head: refusing to accuse or detect any other. Hence also our famous Martyr John Lambert, being pressed upon his oath, to detect his fellows, that adhered and resorted to him, denied that he knew any such ad •• ents in the matters objected to him: But though I did, (saith he) I would not, (except I knew that charity so required, which I do not find yet hitherto) detect, or betray any • ne of them, for no man's pleasure. So John Warbecke, Martyr, being both by threats and allurements oft times urged to detect his other Christian Companions and their secrets to the Bishop of Winchester, absolutely refused to discover or accuse any of them, though he might thereby have procured his liberty and saved his life, in so much, that Winchester said thus to his men, when he came from Mass: This is a marvelous Sect, for the Devil cannot make one of them to betray another. So Master Philpots fellow prisoners, refused to swear or give any testimony at all against him, neither would they accuse themselves upon Articles Ex officio, tendered them to answer to upon oath: Neither would Master Philpot himself discover his friend, that wrote a Letter to him, which came to the Bishops hands, though he were urged to do it, telling the Bishops, that they should never know of him who wrote it; neither would he answer upon oath, to the articles Ex officio administered to him, to entrap him. So Cuthbert Simpson, Martyr, Deacon of the Christian Congregation in London, though tortured and racked in the Tower, in a most cruel barbarous manner, would not discover any of those that came to the English Service: And being after articled against, so being at assemblies and conventicles, where a multitude gathered together, to hear the English Service, and receive the Sacraments, and to discover, whether he did not read service there, & app • oove those things. He answered to this, that he was not bound to answer to this article as he believed. If these Martyrs seem factious and Puritannicall to our Prelates, I shall desire them to remember, that Master Hutchinson in his book, entitled The Image of God, printed Cum privilegio, 1552. f. 40. records out of other Histories, That one Firmius, Bishop of Tagusta, when the Emperor sent his Officers, to search after a certain Christian man, whom he had hidden; he being inquired for him, said, he would not deny, but that he had hidden him, because of lying; but that he would never betray him; for which answer he was grievously pained and to tured: but no pain could cause him to disclose where the man was. Whereupon the Emperor marvelling at his steadfastness and fidelity, delivered him: whose fact he highly magnified. Moreover this hath been not only the constant practice, but likewise the Doctrine of our Martyrs, that one Christian ought not to accuse, detect or betray another, unless it be for some notorious Error, crime, Heresy, vice, or capital offense, which is Master Tindals express Doctrine, and Master John Fox his assertion too, in sundry places of his Acts and Monuments; yea the Canonists themselves affirm upon record, that no man ought to be compelled to accuse another, nor yet to take any oath, to that end or any other, unless it be for the public good in lawful causes, the advancement of God's glory, his own, or his neighbors benefit, and that all oaths tending to the prejudice or corporal hurt of himself or his neighbor, or against any positive, or public laws, are unlawful, and no ways binding, yea utterly to be refused. And Pope Cornelius himself confesseth, Nos Sacramentum ab Episcopis nescimus oblatum, NEC VNQVAM FIERI DEBET, NISI PRO RECTA FIDE: & Sacramenta incanta fieri prohibemus, We never knew any oath administered by Bishops, neither ought it to be administered, but only for the right faith, in point of purgation, when one is publicly accused, or Haeresie; and we prohibit inconsiderate oaths (as all visitation and Ex officio oaths are) to be made or administered: Which Decree of his, (inserted by Gratian, into the body of the Canon Law,) utterly subverts all visitation oaths, which antecede all accusations, and are not made or given in cases of purgation, concerning the orthodox faith. These visitation oaths, therefore being thus directly contrary to the positive Laws and Statutes of the Realm, the public good of Religion; the Rules of Christian charity, and purposely to ensnare men in the Bishops traps, for the advauncing of their own usurped Antichristian Jurisdiction, and of such ill beginning and dangerous consequence, no good Christian, or Subject, can or ought to take them, but utterly to withstand and refuse them as illegal, in all these respects, as they were adjudged in Master Whartons case, by Sir Edward Cook, and all the Judges of the Kings Bench, in the third year of King James: who being Churchwarden of Blackefriers Church in London, and excommunicated, and imprisoned upon a capias excommunicatum, for refusing to take an oath, to present upon visitation articles, was upon a Habeas Corpus brought by him, discharged by the whole Court, both from his imprisonment and excommunication: because the oath and articles were against the Laws and Statutes of the Realm, and so might and ought to be refused: Which oath now commonly runs in this form: You shall swear that you and every of you, shall duly consider, and diligently inquire of all and every of these articles given you in charge: and that all affection, favor, hatred, hope of reward and gain, or fear of displeasure or malice set a side, you shall present all and every such person, that now is, or of late was within your Parish, or hath committed any offense, or made any default, mentioned in or any of these articles, or which are vehemently suspected, or defamed of any such offense or default, wherein you shall deal uprightly and fully, neither presenting nor sparing to present any, contrary to truth, having in this Action God before your eyes, with an earnest Seal to maintain, truth and to suppress vice. So help you God and the holy contents of this Book.

11. Finally, These visitation oaths, ought utterly to be abandoned, because they are an ordinary occasion of very much perjury; there being scarce one man that takes them, that either can or doth sincerely and fully di charge them, the Articles and several clauses of them, being so various for matter, so numerous for multitude, so opposite to Law, and the Oath of Allegiance, as appears by Bishop Wrens late Articles. As therefore the Fathers and others upon Matthew and James the 5. with some of our own Martyrs generally condemn all Book Oaths, with the enforcing of men to swear, unless in cases of great moment and absolute necessity, to avoid the danger of perjury, both in the swearers, compellers, and officers that give the Oath, as Sixtus Senensis, hath largely manifested out of the Fathers own words: And as the second Synod of Cabilonium, under Charles the Great, An. 813. c. 13.14.18. inhibits men to be constrained to take an oath in causes of Tithes, by reason of the danger of perjury, in these ensuing words: Qui vero decimas post crebras admonitiones & praedicationes sacerdotum dare neglexerint, excommunicentur; IVRAMENTO VERO EOS CONSTRINGI NOLVMVS PROPTER PERICVLVM PERIVRII: and likewise prohibits Ministers to take, and Bishops to give any oath of Canonical obedience for the same reason, in these terms: Dictum est intereà de quibusdam fratribus, quod eos, quos ordinaturi sunt, jurare cogant quod digni sint, & contra Canones non sint facturi, & obedientes sint Episcopis, qui eos ordinat, & Ecclesiae in qua ordinantur, QUOD IVRAMENTVM, QUIA PERICVLOSVM EST, OMNES UNA INHIBENDVM STATVIMVS. Though both these oaths tend to the advauncement of the Bishops Jurisdiction and profit. So by the selfsame reason, these visitation oaths must needs be concluded to be unlawful, intolerable, (and those Ex officio too, in which men are over prone, rather to perjure then betray themselves,) because they are the occasion, not only of much, rash, and inconsiderate swearing, but of much perjury likewise, which makes the whole land to mourn, and precipitates many into hell, who might have lawfully and with much comfort have refused them, as contrary both to the Laws of God and man.

To mention all the particular encroachments of the Prelates upon the Subjects Liberties, besides those here forecited, were an endless work; requiring rather many folio volumes to comprise them, then a brief Epitome, unable to contain them, wherefore pretermitting them till some fitter occasion, I shall close up this Breviate, with a summary relation of though • e penalties, which our Prelates and their Officers have incurred by them, not so much in respect of the particular persons, they have injured and oppressed; who may right themselves by Prohibitions, Actions of the case, False imprisonments, and Indictments, according to their several cases, even at the Common-Law; as in regard of his Majesty, whom they have most injured and affronted, who may justly proceed against them for these their exorbitances and encroachments, either by Indictements in the Kings Bench, or by Informations in the Starchamber, or by Attachments of their bodies, and seisure of their temporalties, or else by a Praemunire, the most proper remedy, as the ensuing Presidents and Law cases will demonstrate. In Rastals Abridgement of statutes, Title Provision and Praemunire, we may see, as in a Mapp, how all those who shall purchase Provisions or Bulls from Rome, or derive any Ecclesiastical er temporal Authority thence, or shall exercise any Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction, or Authority hy his own inherent, or usurped power, or by any foreign or domestic Ecclesiastical authority, not derived from the King, by Letters Patents, or sue any man for temporal things, determinable in the Kings temporal Courts, before any ordinary or spiritual Judge, or attempt anything merely against the Kings Crown, and regality used and approved in the time of his progenitors, shall or ought by Law, to incur a Praemunire, for all and every of these misdemeanors, as the several Acts there cited, prove at large. Which our Law Books thus second: In 5. Ed. 4. 6. Fitz. Praemunire 5. and Br. 12. Cromptons Jurisdiction of Courts, f. 97. a. it is agreed, that if a man be sued and excommunicated in the Bishops Court, for a thing which appertains to the Common Law, that a Praemunire lieth: for the words of the statute of Praemunire are, If any sue in the Court of Rome, or ELSEWHERE, which is intended in the Bishops Court; and so saith Fitzherbert, it was then adjudged, as also Pasche, 11. H. 7. which himself heard and observed. So Sant Germin, in his Book called Doctor and Student, l. 2. c. 24. 32. f. 106. 119. and Br. Praemunire, 16. accord; That if any man sue for a Lay thing in the spiritual Court, which belongs not to Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction; as for debt against executors on a simple case, especially if he be excommunicated, may sue a Praemunire facias, as well against the party that sued him, as against the Judge, and he ought to be assoiled gratis, 21. E. 3. 60. a. Cromptons Jurisdiction of Courts, f. 97. a. and Br. Praemunire 21. If a Bishop visits or intermeddle with a donative, which is a Lay thing, (as the Archbishop would now visit the Colleges of Cambridge, all of them Lay things and corporations, many of them of the Kings ancesters Royal foundation, and so exempt from Archiepiscopall, as well as Episcopal visitatation, and the residue having their peculiar Visitors, appointed by their Founders, by the Kings ancestors special license, and so not to be visited by any other,) he incurres a Praemunire by it; as did Barlo, Bishop of Bath, and Welles in the time of King Edward the 6. for visiting the Dean and Chapter of Welles, and depriving the Dean; and William Bateman, Bishop of Norwich, for visiting the Abathie of Sant Edmond's Bury, for which temporalties were seised into the Kings hands, and he fined 30. talents of gold to the King, amounting to no less then three thousand pounds: And the Archbishop of Canterbury questionless hath done now by visiting sundry Donatives and Peculiars, as Archbishop of Canterbury only, not as the Kings Visitor, Anno 44. Edw. 3. 36. Br. Praemunire, 5. If a Vicar leave his Vicarage, for years or life rendering rent, and sue in the Ecclesiastical Court for the rent, a Praemunire lieth, because the rent reserved is a Lay thing: So 10. H. 7. 9. Fitz. Imprisonment, 28. The Bishop of Durham, punished his Clerks in a Praemunire, for suffering a man, to sue in his spiritual Court for temporal causes. In 7. H. 8. Keilway, 183. 184. Doctor Standish was cited and convented before the Convocation for affirming, that the exemption of Clergy men from temporal Jurisdiction was not De Iure Divino; that positive Ecclesiastical Laws and Constitutions bound none but those, who voluntarily received them: that the study of the Canon Law was to be rejected, because it controlles Divinity it self, whose hand-maid it is. That Laymen might without sin punish any Clergy men, by reason of the negligence of the Prelates; and that so little of the volume of the Decrees did bind Christians, and no more then one might hold in his fist, upon this Citation, all the Judges of England, the Kings Council; spiritual and temporal, and divers of the Parlialiament met together at Black friers: where after full debate of the cause on both sides, they all jointly and fully resolved, that all those of the Convocation, who had their hands in a warding the said Citation against Doctor Standish, for maintaining the Kings temporal Jurisdiction, wherein the case of a Praemunire facias: Anno 1514. Richard Hunne, a Merchant-Tailor in London, by the advise of his learned Council at Law, pursued a Praemunire facias against Thomas Drifeild, Clerke, person of Sant Mary Matsilon, for suing him in the spiritual Court, for his child's Bearing-sheet as due unto him for a Mortuaris, and likewise against all his aiders, proctors, councellors and abbetters; which when the rest of the Preistly order heard of, they greatly disdaining, that a Lay-man should enterprize such a matter against any of them: and fearing also, that if they now should suffer this Priest to be condemned at the suit of Hunne, there would be thereby ever after a Liberty opened to all others; and that this might prove a fatal blow unto them; to prevent this eminent danger, they maliciously accuse this Hunne, unto Richard Fitz James, Bishop of London, who to satisfy the revengeful bloody affection of his Chaplains convented him to the Lollards Tower at Paul's, where by Doctor Horsies the Bishops Chauncellours, and other his adversaries procurement, he was cruelly murdered and strangled to death, the story, carriage, and proofs, of which barbarous murder are at large recorded by Master Fox. Anno 21. H. 8. Cardinal Woolsey, in the ruffe of his pride and power, was upon the complaint of the Lord's attainted in a Praemunire, for exercising Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction by a power Legantyne, not by a power derived from the King: and for causing the Cardinals Hat to be put on the Kings coin: whereby he forfaited all his lands, tenements, goods, and chattels to the King, and was thrust out of his office of Lord Chaunsellour, and out of Court and favor to his ruin. And the whole Clergy, with all the Prelates, spiritual Judges, Vicars general, Chauncellours, Commissaries, Officials, Rurall Deans, and all other their Ministers, whoever supported and maintained his power Legantine, were likewise everyone of them in a Praemunire, for consenting and submitting thereunto; whereupon the spiritual Lord's were called into the Kings Bench, to answer thereunto: but before their day of appearance, they in their Convocation concluded an humble submission in writing, and offered the King an hundred thousand pounds to be their good Lord, and also to give them a pardon of all offenses, touching the Praemunire by Act of Parliament; the which offer with much labor was accepted, and their pardon promised: In this submission the Clergy called the King supreme head of the Church of England; which thing they never confessed before. Upon this their submission, and the grant of an hundred thousand pounds to the King, to purchase their pardon, their pardon was granted them in Parliament, as the statute of 22. H. 8. c. 15. declares.

Our Prelates and Officials now exercise an Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction, if not by a power Legantine, yet at least by a usurped authority of their own, in their own names and rights, without any Patent or Commission from the King under the great Seal, and they stamp and coin the Kings Ecclesiastical process, (as much his by Law as his coin,) with their own names and Seals too, having commonly a Bishops Miter in or over them (a greater offense then the Cardinals stamping only his Cardinals cap on the Kings coin,) and all the Clergy of England have submitted to this their power, process, proceedings, and many Laymen too. Why then all our Prelates and their Officers should not now be attainted in a Praemunire, for these their intolerable insolencyes, and proceedings, to the loss of their Bishoprics, lands, goods, chatles, liberties? and why all those Clergymen and others, who have willingly submitted to, and maintained this their usurped Jurisdiction and Proceedings without resistance, should not likewise redeem their exemption from a Praemunire, at treeble the rate that these Clergymen did, (their livings being treeble theirs in value?) I see no cause in Law, Justice, or Conscience, Hill. 25. H. 8. Coram Rege, Rot. 15. Richard Nyx, the blind Bishop of Norwich, was attained in a Praemunire, and judgment given against him, that he should be out of the Kings protection, and his tenements, goods, and chatles, forfaited to the King, and his body taken and imprisoned, during the Kings pleasure, for citing Richard Cokerall, Major of Thetford, and Robert Fykes, and William Huet of the same Town, to appear before him in his Consistory, to answer to some Articles, concerning the mere Salvation, & Reformation of their Souls; and enjoining them under pain of Excommunication, to call before them a Jury, which had presented before them a Custom of the said Town; That the Tenants of the King, and of the Duke of Lancaster inhabiting within the same; by an ancient custom time out of mind, should not be drawn into any Court Christian, for any spiritual cause, but only for the Dean of Thetford; and that if any person should prosecute any of them, or serve them with any Citation out of any other spiritual Court, he should forfeit 6. s. 8. d. for the same, and to cause them to revoke, and disannul this presentement in open Court, to the manifest contempt of the King and his Laws, and the derogation of the Jurisdiction, and prerogative of his Royal Crown, in intermeddling both with persons exempt, and for things done legally before them in a temporal Court. This Bishop was likewise fined for this his contempt, and the Glass windows of Kings College Chapel in Cambridge, (as Catalogus Cancellariorum, &c. in Academia Cantuariensi, Collegium Regis testifieth) glased with this his fine. Not long after this Trin. 36. H. 8. Rot. 9. William Whorewood, the Kings Attorney, exhibited a Bill of Praemunire, against Arthur Bulkley, Bishop of Bangor, and John Louis, alias Vaugham, Vicar of Llan-Geyn-wyn, and Llandgaffe, who were both attainted in the same Praemunire, and like Judgment given against them, as against Bishop Nix. The case, as it appears by the record it self, was this; King Henry the eight, being Patron of the Parish Church of Llan-Geynwyn, and Llandgaffe, in the County of Anglice, the 10. day of July, in the 34. year of his reign, presented one John Gwynoth Clerke, being his Chaplain, thereunto; who after his institution and induction sold unto Reeswyn, Peter Could and others of the said Parish, the 23. day of July in the foresaid year, divers parcels of Tithes after they were severed from the ninth part for 21. p. to be paid upon their several bands at a certain day: and albeit, (so run the words of the said Bill of Praemunire.) all Plees of Debt; Quare impedit, and of Trespass for taking away of Tithes several, from the ninth part, Quare non admissit, Quare imcumbravit; and of Right of the Advowsons of Churches, and the Conuzans of all such plees happening within the Realm of England, belong to our Sovereign Lord the King, his Imperial Crown and dignity, and not to the Roman, or any other Court Christian, or to any Prelate or Ecclesiastical person, and ought to be examined, tried, and judged in the Court of our Lord the King, and not in any Court Christian by the Laws and Statutes of this Realm, albeit such Actions have been often and unjustly impetrayted and prosecuted in the Courts Christians, within this Realm of England, by the Popes Law, and some other Constitutions, Ordinances and Canons, Provincial, or Synodal, formerly made and provided in the times op the Bishop of Rome, and by the Ecclesiastical Court, within this Realm of England; not only prejudicial to the Imperial and Royal Prerogative of our Lord the King, and repugnant to the foresaid Laws and Statutes; but likewise very burthensome and derogatory to the King and his Subjects, and contrary to the Statutes of our foresaid Lord the King, and of his Kingdom of England anciently claimed, used and usurped, in derogation and prejudice of the Lord our King and other his Royal Progenitors. Yet notwithstanding the said Arthur, Bishop of Bangor, not ignorant of the premises, and endeavoring not only to deprive our present Lord the King, his Crown and dignity, of his foresaid Imperial Jurisdiction, and to subvert and utterly overturn the foresaid laudable Laws and statutes; but likewise to extol, maintain, support, and promote the said ancient usurped Jurisdictions, and famed power of the Bishop of Rome, and of his See, and of the Ecclesiastical Court: and craftily to deprive, deceive, and injure the said John Gwynoth of the Rectory of the said Church, of his said sum of 21. p. and other the premises, and alleging that the Patronadge and profits of the said Church did belong to him, and not to the King, nor to the said John Gwynoth, the 30. day of July, in the foresaid year, did draw the foresaid right and Patronadge, Debt, and suite of Tithes, before him into his Court Christian, being within his Diocese, and did likewise grant out a process of Excommunication, written and sealed with his ordinary Seal, and directed and caused the same to be delivered unto the foresaid John Louis, alias Vaughan Clerke, Vicar of the said Parish, commanding him by the said Proces openly and publicly in the presence of the parishioners of the said Parish, and of others, to excommunicate the said Reesewyn, Peter Could, and others, and to exclude them from all Tithes and Services, and to renounce them from the said parish Church; contrary to the due allegiance of the said Bishop; and contrary to the Imperial Crown and Dignity of the said Lord the King, and contrary to the form of the foresaid Laws and statutes. By pretext of which process the foresaid John Louis no ways fearing the said statutes and Laws, but aiding and asseting the said Arthur, Bishop of Bangor, in his foresaid offenses, and in the execution of his said unjust and execrable process on the 6. day of August, being the Lord's day, the said 34. year in the Parish Church of Llan-Gwin and Llandgaffe aforesaid, the said John Louis, did then and there, about 10. clock in the forenoon of the said day, apparlelled and adorned to celebrate Mass, standing at the High-Altar, within the said Church, and turning himself to some of the parishioners there present, openly and publicly with a loud voice, then and there declare and pronounce, the said Reesewyn, Peter Could and others, to be excommunicate, & to be excluded from all Divine Services; and did then and there command them to go out of the said parish Church, or else he would not celebrate Mass; By reason of which premises the said Reesewyn, Peter Could, and others being excluded and excommunicated from all Divine Service, departed out of the said Church, and so continued, expulsed, and excommunicated, until they by the Mandate of the said Bishop, within the Diocese aforesaid, upon the 15. day of August in the foresaid 34. year, appeared before the said Bishop, and by coaction of the said Bishop, and before he would absolve them, were constrained to seal and deliver divers written obligations to the use of the said Bishop, for the foresaid Tithes, formerly sold unto them in manner & form aforesaid, by the saith John Gwynoth, and the foresaid Arthur, Bishop of Bangor, and John Louis have thus unjustly don, all the premises, formerly objected against them, with all their might in the foresaid manner and form, to the manifest enervation, adnihilation, and derogation of the Imperial Jurisdiction of our Lord the King, and the subversion of the foresaid Laws and statutes, and also to the extolling, maintaining and promoting of the said ancient usurped Jurisdiction, and feigned power of the Bishop of Rome, and of his See, and of the Ecclesiastical Court, and to the great damage of the said Reesewyn, Peter Could and others, and in contempt and prejudice of the said Lord our King, and also in derogation of the Imperial dignity, Jurisdiction and Prerogative of his Royal Crown; and contrary to the form of the foresaid statutes and Laws. Thus the record it self relates the case: upon which both the Bishop and Vicar were attainted, and such Judgment given against them, as in other cases of Praemunire. By which two notable records, and the forequoted Lawbookes, it is apparent, that the Prelates encroachments upon the Kings Prerogative Royal or Subjects Liberties, either by advauncing or reviving the Canon Law, and Popes Decrees; (as our Prela • and their Officers now everywhere do, which appears b • their practices, speeches, late introduced Popish Ceremony • of bowing to Altars, and at the name of Jesus, turning Communion Tables into Altars, and placing them Altar-wise aga • the East end of the Quires, standing up at Gloria Patri, and t • Gospel, praying towards the East, and such like superstition • prescribed only by Popish Canons, with some late printe • Civil and Canon Law Books, and Calibute, Downing h • Discourse of the state Ecclesiastical of this Kingdom, Oxford. 1634 with M • ster Shelfords 5. Treatises, Cambridge, 1635. and the • own late printed visitation Articles, everywhere abundantly evidence,) or by making, publishing, and promulging, b • their own power an Authority, only without the approbatio • and consent of King and Parliament, new Canons, Articles • Ordinances, Constitutions, Rites or Ceremonies, contrary t • the Laws and Statutes of the Realm, different from thos • prescribed in the Book of Common Prayer and Homi • ies (a • all our Prelates, Archdeacons and their Officials now daily do • in their Visitations and Consistories,) or by holding plea o • things properly belonging to the Kings temporal Courts o • Justice in their Ecclesiastical Courts, (as they daily do, no • among us in cases of prescription for Tithes, manner of Tithing • enforceing of men, to prove wills, deviding Lands of Inheritance, by witnesses in their Courts, and not in Chauncer • Actions of Battery, and of the peace between man and wise • by way and under the name of Alimony, sequestering of me • goods and livings, and depriving Ministers of their freeholds i • cases not warrantable by Law, fining of men for contempts • and impleading them for Debts, Trespasses, Defamations, ar • other offenses, punishable only at the Common Law, a • by divers late devices, to engross into their hands the Trials • rights and Patronadges, gleabe lands, Tithes, and the like; b • collateral strange pretences, and putting both Ministers an • Laymen from their callings, being their freeholds, and livelihood, as they have done many of late, contrary to the Com • on and Statute Law;) or by hindering, stopping, or come • lling men by excommunications, or otherwise, to give over or release their suites at Common Law; by staying the course of Prohibitions and Canon Law, Justice against their unjust proceedings, (as our Prelates and their Officers have lately done with a most insolent and high hand, both by frequent complaining against the Judges for granting Prohibitions to their Courts, in cases not appertaining to them, where they have been usually granted in all former ages; in conventing and troubling them for the same, before the King and Council, where themselves are a great party, and bear sway in threatening and worying them, that they dare not grant Prohibitions; in excommunicating; fining, persecuting and imprisoning both in their Consistories and especially in the High-Commissions, (the chief use whereof is now only to advaunce, protect, and defend their own usurped Ecclesiastical Episcopal Jurisdiction, power, extortions, exactions, innovations and to crush all such, who anywhere dare oppose, or prosecute them for the same in any of his Majesty's temporal Courts, a thing well worthy his Majesty's, his Counsels and Judges most serious consideration;) all those who oppose their desperate Innovations, and dangerous late insolent encroachments, upon his Majesty's Prerogative Royal, his Laws, his temporal Courts of Justice, and his Subjects Liberties, and either sue for Prohibitions, or indict them, or bring their Actions of the case, or false imprisonment against them at the Common Law, to relief themselves against their injustice and encroachments, enforcing them b • threats, power and unjust vexations, excommunications, censures, imprisonments, stop of their Legal proceedings, by threatening: (and imprisoning) their Council, Soliciters, At •• nes, Judges, and other such violent and unjust means, to give over, or release their Actions against themselves, and their Off • cers, as appears by the late cases of Master Huntly, Master Smart, Stephen Puckell, Master John Clober • , the Churchwarden of Ipswitch; and a Gentlewoman of Devonshire, near Totnes, who brought an Action of the case in nature of a conspiracy against the Commissary of Totnes, even for railing a fame of incontinency of her, and then persecuting her in his Court for the same, only because she refused to marry him; which foul practice being fully proved by sundry testimon • es at the Assizes of Exeter, 9. Caroli, upon a full hearing, and the Jury thereupon giving her great Dammages; the Judge by this Commissaries, and the Archbishop of Canterburies means, was sent for before the Council Table, and there so ratled and shaken up by the Archbishop for suffering this just cause, (which much concerned the Church as was pretended,) to proceed, that he protested, he was almost choked with his lawne sleeves, and forced to stay the return of the Postea, so that the injured and oppressed Gentlewoman could have no judgment upon her verdict, and was constrained to relinquish her suite. Such is our Prelates Justice and zeal to defend the very knavery of their Officers; or by keeping their Courts, Consistories, and making out their process, citations, excommunications, probates of wills, letters of administration, writs of Jure Patronatus, and so forth in their own names, and under their own Seals, not his Majesty's, (as our Prelates and their Officials always do:) or by excommunicating his Majesty's Subjects, without just and Legal cause, and in undue manner, (as our Bishops and their Officers daily do,) are for all and every of these encroachments, within the danger and compass of a Praemunire. Our present Prelates and their Officers therefore being deeply guilty of all and every of these usurpations, and encroachments, both upon the King and Subject, are in all and every of these respects within the verge of a Praemunire, which they more justly deserve then either these, or any other of their Predecessors ever did, all circumstances of persons and times duly considered; and therefore I trust shall not escape what they so well demerit.

These writs of Praemunire, being the chiefest curbs to restrain the Prelates, Clergies and their Officers encroachments, • mbitious disloyal Antichristian usurpations, practices and designs, the chief security, both of the Kings Prerogative Royal, the Subjects Liberties, and the Common-Law, against Innovations and treacherous underminings, have been always so irksome and distasteful to their aspiring domineering practices, that they have oft times both by Petitions, persuasions, policies, bribes and threats, endeavored to suppress them, that so they might play Rex in every place without control, and captivate both King and Subjects to their pleasures, yea engross the conusans of all plees and Actions by Degrees into their own hands and Courts, as they did for the most part all temporal offices, the better to play this prize. In the year of our Lord 1439. after the burning of Richard Wicke, Martyr, Henry Chichesly, Archbishop of Canterbury, called a Convocation, wherein was propounded among the Clergy, to consult with themselves, what way was best to be taken for the removing away of the Law of Praemunire facias, by reason whereof the Churchmen at that time were greatly molested, and also by other the Kings Writs and indictements, to their no small anoyance. After long consultation and good advisement, at last this way was taken, that a petition or supplication should be drawn and presented to the abolishing of the foresaid Law or Praemunire facias, and also for the restraining of other writs and indictements, which then seemed to lie heavy upon the Clergy, and to the end, that the said Petition might take good effect, the whole Convocation granted the King a tenth before the Delivery thereof, and likewise promised, that they would most apply, furnish and assist him to their power with supplies, if he would abrogate those hard Laws of Praemunire, wherewith the Clergy were oft times caught and entangled as in unjust snares, and sometimes upon unjust occasions, as they pretended. This Bill being thus contrived, and exhibited by the Archbishops of Canterbury and York, to the King, then standing in need of a Subsidy to be collected by the Clergy, this answer was given to the supplication in King Henry the 6. behalf, being then but 19. years of age; that when the King came to full age, he would take care, that the Clergy should not be urged with such hard Laws and Actions; but in the interim he could not conveniently change the Laws that were formerly made: and for so much as the time of Christmas then drew near, whereby he had as yet no sufficient leisure to advise upon the matter, he would take therein a further pause, in the mean time, as one tendering their quiet, he would send to all his Officers and Min • sters within his Realm, that no such brief of Praemunire, should pass against them, • r any of them from the said time of Christmas, till the next Parliament. This Antiquitates Ecclesiae Britannicae p. 323. and Master Fox Acts and Monuments, p. 645. record, whose words I have conjoined: After this, the next Parliament following, the whole Clergy of England, assembled in Convocation, petitioned the King, against the Judges and Lawyers, for confining them and their Courts only to causes of Tithes, Matrimony and Testaments, both by prohibitions and writs of Praemunire, if they went but one inch beyond their bounds and Jurisdiction; which penalty of a Praemunire did exceedingly terrify and perplex the Prelates, in which if they were convicted, they forfeited all their goods and were to be perpetually imprisoned; informing the King how they strained the words of 16. R. 2. c. 5. (That if any purchase or pursue, or do to be purchased and pursued in the Court of Rome, or ELSEWHERE, any such translations, processes, sentences of excommunications, bulls, instruments, or any other thing, which touch the King, against him, his Regality, his Realm &c.) even to their Ecclesiast • call Courts; desiring, that the King and Parliament, would be pleased to interpret the word ELSEWHERE, not of their Courts, unless where they proceeded against the Kings express prohibitions; and that they might not have their Ecclesi • sticall Jurisdiction so restrained with Prohibitions and Praemunires, and that the temporal Judges might incur a Praemunire • o • for encroaching upon their Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction and causes, as well as they for encroaching upon th •• temporal Jurisdiction and causes; But this Petition likewise had • ll success, and the Judge, proceeded and interpreted the word ELSEWHERE, of their Consistories Ecclesiastical, as before An. 1463. The Clergy in Convocation petitioned King Edward the fourth to like purpose, who granted them to hold plea of Tithes, of woe • de • above 20. years growth, without incurring a Praemunire; but for holding plea of temporal causes, or of things of which they had no lawful conusant, a Praemunire still lay against them as before, as sundry presidents and authorities forequoted, with others testify, as it doth for suing in the Admiralty for any cause triable at the Common Law in any of the Kings Courts of Westminster. By the very Common Law it self, if a Bishop hold plea in his spiritual Court of Lands, Debt, Rapes, or anything belonging to the temporal Courts of the King, or not within the compass of his spiritual Jurisdiction, an Attachment upon a Prohibition lieth against him for it; in which the party grieved shall recover his Dammages against him, and he himself shall have his temporalties seised into the Kings hands, if not his body imprisoned; and though no Prohibition were de facto delivered to him, yet an Attachment well lieth, because the Statutes and Common Law themselves are a Prohibition in this case, all which hath been frequently resolved by 21. E. 3. a. 10. 11. a. 38. 40. 28. E. 3. 97. a. 30. E. 3. 11. 39. E. 3. 7. M. 11. E. 3. Fitz. Attachment, sur Prohibition 8. 13. Hill. 33. E. 3. Fitz. Ibid. 14. Pasc. 20. E. 3. Excommengement. 9. 8. E. 3. 49. 40. E. 3. 17. 50. E. 3. 10. 9. H. 6. 56. 51. 19. H. 6. 54. 1. H. 7. 18. 2. H. 7. 8. Fitz. and Brooke Tit. Attachment, Sur Prohibition. Bitz: Nat. Brev. f. 40. 41. 42 43. with sundry other Law Books. Why this Attachment likewise should not lie, as well as a Praemunire, against our Bishops, Archdeacons and their Officers, for their exorbitant proceedings, both in their Consistories, Visitations, and High-Commissions, and intermeddling in such causes, whereof they have no lawful conusans or Jurisdiction, I yet see no ground or reason: I find in 21. E. 1. in the plees of the Parliament plac. 17. and in Dorso Glaus. 21. E. 1. in. 3. that John Archbishop of York Excommunicated, and thereupon imprisoned William of Willicon, and John Romain servants to the Bishop of Duresme, (during the Bishops absence) in the Castle of Duresme, for a temporal thing, not belonging to Ecclesiastical conusans, to wit, the Custody of certain Lands, to which the Archbishop pretended right; the Archbishop refusing to absolve and deliver them, they thereupon complain against, and sue him in Parliament; where the cause was pleaded and debated at large: at last upon great deliberation it was resolved by the whole Parliament, that the Archbishops Excommunication of them for any temporal matter was a contempt of the King, to the disherison of his Crown and Dignity: and thereupon the Archbishop by the whole Parliament, though great mediation and friends were used in his behalf, was adjudged to be imprisoned, and to submit himself to the King, and fined 4000. marks, (a great sum in those times:) whereupon using many and great Friends to the King, to pacify him for this offense, he voluntarily came in, and made his submission for the same, and acknowledged a recognizance to his Majesty of 4000. marks, towards the satisfaction of the fine, as the Records at large express. Why our present Bishops and their Officers should not thus be roundly fined and censured, for excommunicating, fining, imprisoning, inflicting temporal Censures, and punishments on his Majesty's Subjects, both in their Ecclesiastical High-Commissions, and Consistories; holding plea of cases, not pertaining to their spiritual, but to the Kings temporal Courts, blocking up the free passage of Prohibitions, & their other daily affronts to Common Law and Justice, is a question past all their skill to resolve, and worthy to be demanded, if not reduced to execution. Among the presentments in Eyre, An. 3. E. 1. I find some Ecclesiastical persons presented for suing, and others for holding plea in the spiritual Court, of such things as belonged to the Kings temporal Courts, in derogation of his Crown and dignity; for which they were fined to his Majesty, and imprisoned by his Justices: And shall such things escape scot free now? In the year 1532. Master William Tracy, Esquire of Todington in Glocestershire, made in his will, that he would have no funeral pomp at his burying, neither passed he upon the Mass, and further said, that he trusted in God only; and hoped by him to be saved, and not by any Saint: he dying, his son being his Executor, brought the will to the Bishop of Canterbury to prove, which he shown to the Convocation; who judged, that he should be taken out of the ground, and burnt for an heretic; Whereupon they send down a Commission to Doctor Parker, Chaunceller of the Diocese of Worcester, to execute this their wicked sentence: who accomplished the same. The King (Henry the 8.) hearing his Subject to be taken out of the ground and burnt, without his knowledge or due order of Law, send for the Chancellor, laid this as an High-offense to his charge, who excused himself by the Archbishop of Canterbury then lately dead; but in conclusion it cost him 300. p. to gain his pardon; who else had suffered in a Praemunire for it. If this King took those illegal proceedings against the senseless carcase of his dead Subject, (though attainted in Convocation, as an Heretic,) so heinously: what Censure will our present Gracious Sovereign deem those worthy, who suspend, excommunicate, fine, imprison the living persons of his faithful Ministers and Subjects, (contrary to all Law and Justice,) never tainted with any crime or heresy, only for maintaining his Majesty's Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction, for oppugning their encroachments upon it, and the Subjects Liberties, for refusing to submit to their superstitious Popish innovations, and for performing the duty both of good Christians, good Subjects to God and their Prince? To come nearer to our present times. In the Parliaments of 3. & 7. Jacobi, the Prelates were questioned in the Commons house, as having incurred a Praemunire, for exercising Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction, without special Letters Patents, and Commissions from the King under the great Seal, proving of Wills, granting Letters of administration, and making out their Proces, Citations and Excommunications in their own names, and under their own Seals, contrary to the statutes of 1. E. 6. c. 2. ( revived by 1. Jac. c. 25.) 1. Eliz. c. 1. 5. Eliz. c. 1. 8. Eliz. c. 1. 26. H. 8. c. 1. 37. H. 8. c. 17. and other forecited Acts: and though no Judgment were then passed against them by reason of the sudden dissolution of the last of these Parliaments, (and two or three others succeeding it,) and of the great controversy concerning Impositions upon Marchandize, imported or exported, which outed most other complaints; yet the house upon the opening of the business, by Sir Henry Yelverdon, who set it on foot, conceived that they were all in a Praemunire, and that the statute of 1. E 6. c. 2. was revived and still • n force, being nothing but a Declaration of the Kings Ecclesiastical Praerogative at the Common Law, and King James having as ample Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction in and over all such causes and persons as E. 6. or any of his Royal Progenitors; and in Cottons case in the Starchamber, where he was prosecuted upon the same point, for exercising Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction, without Letters Patents or Commission from the King, and making out Proces and Probates of Wills in his own name, under his own Seal, the Court inclined to the same opinion, agreeing, that the statute of 1 E. 6. was still in force, whereupon he humbling himself to King James, and craving pardon for his said offense; the King out of his grace, by the mediation of some great persons, was pleased to remit his fining, and censure, whereas otherwise he had smarted and paid dear for this his insolent disloyal undutiful usurpation, upon his Sovereigns Royalties. In to which Court if all our Prelates and their officers were now brought for all their forementioned usurpations, extortions, oppressions, misdemeanors, and there fined, according to the greatness and multitude of their manifold offenses; after that rate as some of them have lately fined others, beyond all pity and moderation, (they there commonly out of their Fatherly Clemency and bowels of compassion, transcending all other temporal Lord's in the severity of their censures, whether pecuniary or corporal;) I doubt not but his Majesty might thereby gain in very short space, at least two hundred thousand pounds or more in fines, to the great contentment of his Subjects, whom they have oppressed; and quite strip them of all their Bishoprics, Archdeaconries, Chauncellourships, and other offices, as forefaited by their several abuses, extortions, and oppressions committed in them, (for which cause though in pretence alone, themselves have deprived many Ministers, Lecturers, Tradesmen, both of their livings, Lectures callings) if not, for want of Letters Patents; and leave them neither ears, nor nose unmangled, nor anything to support them in those Prisons; to which they deserve to be adjudged; should he and the Judges of that Court, meat them only that measure as some of them, even against the Scripture and their own Canons (which prohibit them to be strikers, or to have their hands or votes in dismembering, or shedding any man's blood,) have not long since measured out to others, who have opposed them in their exorbitant courses, and proceedings; whether more out of particular malice, envy, spleen, revenge, then out of a true zeal of Justice and the merits of the cause, I leave to their own Consciences and God himself, (who only knows the very depths and secrets of all men's deceitful hearts, ) to determine. All that I can do more, is but to submit both their persons and these their offenses against King and Subject, here epitomized, to his Majesty's Royal and Impartiall Justice; if he please to pass by and pardon these grand delinquents, (who have been always inexorable, and merciless towards others, even for the smallest slips and Errors,) at an easy rate, upon their humble submission, acknowledgment, and promise of future reformation. I hope it will teach them to be more thankful and dutiful to his Majesty, more moderate just and merciful towards others, and more careful of relapsing into the same offenses in time to come; If he in his Royal wisdom shall think it more just and honorable to proceed against them in all, or any of the forementioned ways of Justice, in a severe and rigorous course, according to the greatness and multitude of these, and other their notorious insolent crimes, both for the satisfaction of his much grieved and oppressed Subjects, (to whom they have never extended the least dram of mercy,) to furnish his Treasury, with a present legal supply, and to deter both them, and their Successors from the like encroachments, insolencies exactions, and oppressions for future times; they must all lay their hands upon their mouths, and acknowledge both God's, and his Majesty's Justice on them, yea though they should incur even corporal punishments as well as fines, deprivations, imprisonments; and confess in the words of Adonibesek, Judges. 1. 7. As I have done, so God hath requited me; and of our Savior, Math. 7.2. With what Judgment we judged, we have been judged, and with what measure we meeted, it hath been measured to us again.

To draw towards a conclusion in a few words of exhortation.

1. I shall here First of all desire every of his Majesty's faithful and true hearted Subjects, according to their oaths, duty, and allegiance, to take notice of all the Prelates, and their underlings several encroachments upon his Majesty's Prerogative Royal, and then to withstand to oppugn them by all just and lawful means, to the uttermost of their skill and power, without conniving at or submitting to them in the least degree; not giving over their endeavors against them, till they are quite reformed; and then in the next place to take notice of their usurpations, oppressions, and exactions on themselves, their just and ancient Liberties, and to shake them off with all speed and care, not suffering the Prelates, (raised for the most part from the dunghill and the depth of poverty, which makes them so harsh, proud, and ungentile, both in their carriage and proceedings) to Lord it and triumph over them, (yea even Nobles, Peers, and Judges themselves,) in a Pontifical proud, domineering tyrannical manner; contrary both to their ancient Liberties, the Laws and Customs of the Realm, nor to impose what Ceremonies, Canons, Articles, Rites; Constitutions, Errors, false Doctrines, Superstitions, and Innovations each of them shall severally please, without the King and Parliaments Consent; or to erect a new Papacy or Spanish Inquisition in the Realm, as some of them have endeavored; but to stand fast in the Liberty, wherewith Christ himself, the Laws Liberties and Customs of the Realm have made them free, and not to entangle themselves again in these their unjust heavy yokes of Bondage; which they ought to prevent and cast off by all honest legal and Christian means: And in the next place, I shall beseech all Prelates now at last, even seriously to consider and lay to heart, all their several usurpations, encroachments, oppressions, and exactions, both upon their dread Sovereigns Crown and Dignity, by whose grace alone they were first raised to their Episcopal dignities, which may stand or fall to ground in a moment at his good pleasure,) and upon your Brethren's and other Subject just undoubted Liberties, and then to recount with themselves, what a heavy reckoning they must one day make for them, before God's and Christ's tribunal in the sight of all the world, at the great day of judgment, and to what great dangers, hazards, censures, troubles, losses and perils they may now upon all occasions expose their persons, states, and fortunes, even in his Majesty's Courts of Justice, which they have no assurance to escape; and how execrably odious they now render them everywhere, both to God and man. And when they have thus taken a serious servay of them, with those several dangers which attend them, let them forth with abate their pride, and tyranny, fall down upon the knees of their souls and bodies, both to God, his Majesty, and the people, whom they have thus grossly injured and oppress • , craving both their joint and several pardons with bleeding hearts and spirits for these their crying trespasses, giving good and competent satisfaction to the uttermost of their power, to all those they have injured and oppressed; And when they have done thus, let go away and sin no more, least some worse thing happen to them. Let them lay aside their Pomp, their Pride, State, Lordlines, Idleness, Luxury, Tyranny, Bribery, Simony, good fellowship, persecutions of goodness, grace, truth, and all good men; their secular offices, employments, and pluralities; their malice, envy, hatred, emulation, contention, ambition, voluptuosnesse, backbitinge, false accusing, fines, imprisonments, Pursevants, Jailor's, unwarrantable Excommunications, fees, exactions, impieties, ungodliness, profanes, swearing, cursing, profaning of God's most sacred day, both by life, and doctrine, their non-preaching, rare-preaching, rare-praying, their frequent carding, dicing, bowling, dancing, hunting, hawking, that I say not whoring, with all other their Episcopal vices, betaking themselves wholly in a pious, studious, holy, temperate, sober, humble, chaste, unspotted, exemplary, heavenly, fruithfull, gracious preaching, charitable, pitiful, just, and upright life; shining forth like so many glorious burning lights of the world, in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation. Let them remember that they are (at leastwise ought to be) not Lord's, but servants; not Bitesheeps, but Bishops; not Pilate's, but Prelates; not imposters, but Pastors; not loiterers, but laborers; not Kings, but Subjects; not sleepers, but Watchmen; not blind Bedels, but Seers; not fleecers, but feeders; not butchers, but shepherds; not Preyers, but Preachers; not destroyers, but instructors; not Tyrants, but Fathers; not dumb-dogs, but cryers; not thieves, but keepers; not Wolves, but Guardians; not seducers, but leaders; guides and examples to the Flock and Sheep of Christ, always carrying themselves like such in all places, companies and conditions whatsoever, walking even as Christ, the Great Sheepheard of the sheep hath done before them, leaving them an example, that they should follow his steps.

If any of them are so presumptuous as to think they may still Lord it, and tyrannize over God's people, inheritance, and their fellow-Brethren, ruling them with boisterous force, violence, or with a rod of Iron, as they have hitherto done; let all such Lucisers and domineering spirits, (who strive to engross into their hands the very sway of Kingdoms and of the world it self, as many of them now conspire and endeavoure,) remember these three Lessons, which our Savior, and Sant Peter have left behind them; w • ich they had need well learn themselves, before they can ever duly rule, instruct or tutor others.

1. The first of them is this of Matthew 20.20. to 29. Mark the 10.35. to 46. Luke 22.24. to 28. where our Savior, when James and John the Sons of Zebedee came unto him with this request, saying: Master grant unto us that we may sit one at thy right hand, and the other on thy left hand in thy Kingdom, (whereupon there arose a st • ife between the other Disciples and them, which of them should be accounted the greatest;) called them all unto h m and said; ye know that the Princes of the Gentiles exercise Dominion or Eldership over them, and they that are great, exercise authority upon them; but it shall not be so with you, but whosoever will be great among you, let him be (saith Matth.) shall be (saith Mark,) your servant, or M • nister; and whosoever will be chief, chiefest (saith Mark,) let him be your servant, (saith Matth.) shall be servant of all; (writes Mark.) Even as (so Matthew,) for even (so Mark,) the son of man came not to be ministered unto, but to minister, and to give his life a ransom for many. Which S. Luke thus renders: The Kings of the Gentiles exercise Lordship over them, and they that exercise authority upon them are called benefactors. But ye shall not be so, but he that is greatest among you, let him be as the younger, and he that is chief, as he that doth serve: For whether is greater, he that sitteth at meat, or he that serveth? is not he that sitteth at meat? But I am among you as he that serveth.

2. The second is the 1. Pet. 5.1.2.3.5. The Elders, which are among you, I exhort, who am also an Elder, and a witness of the sufferings of Christ, and also a partaker of the glory, that shall be revealed: Feed the flock of God which is among you, taking the oversight thereof, not by constraint, but willingly, not for filthy lucre, but of a ready mind; Neither as being Lord's over God's heritage; but being ensamples to the flock. And when the chief Shepherd shall appear, ye shall receive a Crown of glory, that fadeth not away. Likewise ye younger, submit yourselves unto the Elder; yea all of you be subject one to another, and be clothed with humility, for God resisteth the proud, but giveth grace to the humble. On which text Sant Paul thus comments: 2. Cor. 1.24. Not that we have dominion over your faith, but are helpers of your joy: for by faith ye stand; And Phil. 2.3. Let nothing be done through strife or vain glory, but in lowliness of mind, let each esteem other better then themselves.

3. The third is Matth. 11.19. Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me, for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls. Which Sant Paul thus illustrates: Col. 3.12.13. Put on therefore (as the elect of God, holy and beloved) bowels of mercies, kindness, humbleness of mind, meekness, long suffering, forbearing one another, and forgiving one another, if any man have a quarrel against any: even as Christ forgave you, so also do ye. From these 3. Scriptures Divines both old and new have deduced these three Conclusions.

1. First, That all Bishops and Ministers by Christ's institution are of equal authority and Jurisdiction, and that one of them ought not to Lord it, or domineer over the other, as all Bishops now everywhere do, both over their fellow-brethren and the people: and that Bishops and Ministers by God's Law are of equal degree, dignity, power, and Jurisdiction.

2. Secondly, That Bishops and Ministers ought to be patterns of humility, meekness, charity, compassion, brotherly kindness, and forgiveness unto all others: and yet who so swollen with Antichristian pride, ambition, envy, hatred, malice, slander; so revengeful, implacable merciless as they, as the common proverb, (as proud, as malicious as a Prelate,) witnesseth.

3. Thirdly, That no Bishops or Clergymen ought to turn Magistrates or temporal Lord's and Officers, nor yet to exercise any civil power, Dominion or Jurisdiction over their Brethren, and fellow Ministers, or any of God's people, nor yet to inflict any fines, imprisonments, or temporal censures on them, either by their own inherent power, or any derivative Authority or Commission from the Prince or civil Magistrate.

Hence Origen, in his 31. Hom. upon Matthew, writes thus: Verily that Bishop sinneth whomsoever he be, who doth not minister like a servant to his fellow-servants, but like a Lord, yea, very often domineering by violence even like a bitter Lord, being made like the Egyptians, who afflicted the life of the children of Israel with force: therefore they ought to be mindful of the words of Christ: The Princes of the Gentiles domineer over them, &c. But among you it shall not be so. Hence Prosper Aquitanicus, complains thus of the Prelates in his time, De Vita Contemplativa, lib. 1. c. 21. We are made potent only for this end, that we may purchase, and usurp to ourselves a tyrannical Domination over those who are under our charge, not that we might defend the afflicted against the violence of great men, who rage against them like wild beasts. We delight only in things present, seek only whilst we are in this life, our own profits and honors, hastening not that we may be better but richer, not that we may be holier, but that we may be more honorable and greater then others: neither do we mind the floock of the Lord, which is committed to us, to be fed and defended, but we carnally think of our own pleasures, Dominion, and other worldly allurements. We will needs be called pastors, and yet we strive not to become such, we shun the labor of our office, and yet desire the dignity thereof. Hence also Sant Bernard complains of the Prelates in his age, in this sort: They are not Pastors, but betrayers; they are called Shepherds, when as in truth they are but thieves. Alas we have but few Pastors, and yet many Excommunicators, (as we also have now too many even upon no occasion.) And would to God the wool and the milk would suffice you, for ye even thirst after the very blood of the sheep. And in another place he thus writes to Pope Eugenius (as Master Fox records in his Book of Martyrs,) who claimed a kind of Dominion and Lordship over his fellow-Brethren: Thou hast nothing in thy greatness that may flatter thee, but a greater solicitude: True it is, thou art advaunced, but thou oughtest by all means to consider, to what purpose; not to domineer, as I conceive; for even the Prophet, when he was in like manner advaunced heard, that thou mayest pluck up and destroy; and that thou mayest build and plant. Which of these sounds of pride: rather a spiritual labor is expressed under the scheme of rustic sweat: And we therefore although we may think highly of ourselves, shall perceive a ministration imposed on us, and not a Dominion given to us, I am not greater then the Prophet, and if perchance I am equal to him in power, yet there is no comparison between us in respect of merits. These things speak thou to thyself, and teach thou thyself, who teachest others; reckon thyself but as someone of the Prophets. Is not this sufficient to thee? yea too much: But by the grace of God, thou art what thou art. What? Be thou, that which a Prophet is: art thou anything more then a Prophet? If thou art wise thou wilt be content with the measure that God hath meated to thee, for that which is more, is from the evil one: learn from the Prophets example how to bear rule, not so much to command, as diligently to perform what Christ requires; learn that thou needest a weeding hook, not a scepter, that thou mayest do the work of a Prophet: And verily he ascended not as one about to reign, but to extirpate: Thinkest thou that thou mayest not find some work to be done in the field of thy Lord? yea very much: the Prophets could not plainly cleanse it all, they have left some things to their sons the Apostles to do; yea thy very parents have left something to thee, neither mayest thou thyself suffice to do everything; verily thou shalt leave something to thy Successor, and he to others, and they to others unto the end. Finally, about the 11. hour the workmen are reproved of idleness, and sent into the vineyard; the Apostles thy predecessors have heard, that the harvest verily is great, but the laborers are few, challenge to thyself thy Fathers inheritance. For if thou art a Son, then an heir: that thou mayest prove an heir, give attendance to thy cure, and thou mayest not wax idle, unless it be also said to thee, Why standest thou idle all the day? much less oughtst thou to be found either dissolute with delights or effeminate with pomps. Thy testators writing assigneth nothing of these to thee: But what? If thou art content with their tenure, thou shalt rather inherit care and labor, then glory and riches, doth thy chair flatter thee? It is no Watch Tower: Finally, thou overseest from thence, sounding to thyself, in the name of a Bishop, not a Dominion, but an office: Why shouldest thou not be placed in an eminent place, whence thou mayest overlook all things, who art constitute a watchman over all things? for truly this prospect begets readiness, not idleness. How canst thou take pleasure to glory, where it is not lawful for thee to be idle? neither is there any room for idleness, where a sedulous solicitude of all Churches oppresseth. For what else hath the holy Apostle demised to thee? That which I have, said he, that give I unto thee: What is that? One thing I know, it is not gold nor silver, seeing himself saith, Silver nor gold have I none, if thou chance to have any, use it not according to the lust, but as the time requires; be thou such a one using them, as if thou usest them not. These things verily so far as appertains to the good of the mind, are neither good nor ill, yet their use is good, their abuse evil, their desire or care worse, their lucre more dishonest; But be it so, that thou mayest challenge it unto thee, by any other means whatsoever, yet truly by any Apostolical right thou canst not so do, for how could he give unto thee that which he hath not himself? That which he had, that hath he given, the care over the Churches, as I have said. But hath he given thee any Lordship? Hearke: what he saith, not bearing rule, saith he, as Lord's in the Clergy, but behaving yourselves as example to the flock: And because thou shalt not think it to be spoken only in humility, and not also in verity, mark the voice of the Lord himself in the Gospel: But you shall not do so: Here Lordship and Dominion is plainly forbidden to the Apostles, and darest thou then usurp the same? If thou wilt be a Lord, thou shalt loose thine Apostle-ship, or if thou wilt be an Apostle, thou shalt loose thine Lordship. Go thou then and presume to usurp to thyself, either an Apostle-ship being a Lord, or a Lordship being an Apostle. Verily thou art prohibited and must depart from one of them; if thou wouldest have both, thou shalt loose both, or else thinkest thyself to be in the number of those, of whom God doth so greatly complain, saying: They have reigned, but not through me, they are become Princes, and I have not known it. Now if it doth suffice thee, to rule without the Lord, thou hast thy glory, but not with God; But if we will keep that which is forbidden us, let us hear what is said: He that is the greatest among you, (saith Christ,) shall be made as the least among you, and he which is Highest, shall be as the Minister, and for example set a child in the midst of them: So this then is the true form and institution of the Apostles trade, Lordship and rule is forbidden, Ministration and service commanded; which is likewise commended by the example of the Law-giver himself, who subjoins: But I am in the midst of you, as one that ministereth. How now may any think himself inglorious with the Title, wherewith the Lord of glory hath before him dignified himself? Deservedly Paul glories in it, saying: Are they the servants of Christ? So am I; and he adds, I speak as a fool, I am more; in labors more often, in imprisonments more abundant, in stripes above measure, in deaths more frequent. O excellent ministry! Is not this more glorious then any principality; &c. After which he thus proceeds, against the pride, pomp, Lordship, and secular power of the Prelates: If I durst be bold to speak, these things are rather the food of Devils, then of Sheep: What? Did Peter do thus? Did Paul thus play the vice? Seest thou not, how all their Ecclesiastical zeal is fervent, only to defend their dignity? all is attributed to dignity, nothing or very little to holiness. If cause requiring, thou shalt attempt to do somewhat more submisly, or to show thyself more sociable, they say God forbid; it becomes thee not; it agrees not to the time, it is not suitable to thy Majesty, consider the person which thou bearest. Of the pleasure of God there is no mention at all, no delay for the loss of salvation. We may call nothing wholesome, but that which is sublime, and that only just, which savors of glory: Thus all humility is esteemed a reproach among the Prelates. So that thou mayest more easily find, one who desires to be, then to appear humble: The fear of the Lord they repute simplicity, that I say not folly. A circumspect man and a friend of his own Conscience, they calumniate for an hypocrite. Here, here I spare thee not, that God may spare thee: show thyself to this people a Pastor verily, or deny thyself to be one. Thou wilt not deny it, least he, whose seat thou possessest deny thee to be his Heir; He is Peter, who was never known to have gone abroad at any time, either adorned with Jewels, or silks, or covered with gold, or carried on a white Palfery, or guarded with soldiers, or environed with servants, making a noise round about him, yet notwithstanding he believed that this sacred mandate, If thou lovest me, feed my sheep, might be sufficiently discharged without these things. In these thou hast succeeded not Peter, but Constantine. I counsel, that they are to be tolerated in respect of the time, not to be affected as of due. I rather incite thee to these things, of which I know thee to be a debtor. And although thou goest clad in purple, although in gold, yet thou mayest not abhor either Pastoral labor or care, being the Heir of a Sheepheard; thou mayest not be ashamed to preach the Gospel; for verily if thou do it willingly, thou shalt have glory among the Apostles. To preach the Gospel is to feed. Do the work of an Evangelist, and thou hast fulfilled the work of a Pastor. Thou sayest, you admonish me to feed Dragons, and Scorpions, not sheep. For this cause rather set upon them, but yet with the word, not with the sword; Why doest thou attempt again to usurp the sword which thou hast been once commanded to put up into the scabheard? which notwithstanding he who shall deny to be thine, seems to me not sufficiently to have considered the word of the Lord, saying thus: Put up thy sword into its sheath: therefore it also is thine, perchance at thy command, although not to be unsheathed with thy hand. Both swords therefore are the Churches, as well the spiritual as material; but that verily is to be exercised for the Church, but the other by the Church; that by the hand of the Priest; this, of the Soldier, but yet at the beck of the Priest, and the command of the Emperor. And in his 23. Sermon upon the Canticles he concludes: Let the Prelates hear this, who will be always a terror to those committed to their charge, seldom a benefit. Be instructed, ye who judge the earth: learn, that ye ought to be the mothers of your Subjects, not their Lord's; Study rather to be beloved then feared: and if at any time there be use of severity, let it be fatherly, not tyrannical: show yourselves mothers by fostering, fathers by reprehending, wax meek, lay aside your feircenes, suspend your stripes, produce your duggs: Let your breast wax fat with milk, not swell with pride: why do you make your yoke heavy upon such, whose burdens ye ought rather to sustain? Why doth a little one bitten by the Serpent, fly from the Conscience of the Priest, to whom he ought rather to have recourse, as to the bosom of his mother. If ye be spiritual, instruct such a one with the spirit of meekness, considering everyone himself least he also be tempted. Thus this devout Father: yet notwithstanding our Savior's own inhibition, and these Fathers complaints and declamations, our Lordly Prelates, both of present and ancient times, have intruded themselves into all temporal offices, and usurped both the temporal and spiritual sword into their hands, exercising not only all manner of Ecclesiastical, but likewise of civil Lordship, and dominion over the Ministers and Flock of Christ; and that with such tyranny, cruelty, pride, oppression, injustice, and more then barbarous inhumanity, (transcending all patterns of pagan Princes, and Tyrants,) that their very Acts and Monuments of this kind, have surfeited all Ecclesiastical Stories, and swollen into many folio volumes. Witnes, the French and English Books of Martyrs, the Magdeburge Centuries, Catalogus testium veritatis, Theodoricus a Niem, and others De Scismate, Abbas Uspergensis, Sant Bridgets revelations, Matthew Paris, Alvarius Pelagius de planctu Ecclesiae, Avintine, Guiciardine, Nicolaus de Clemangiis, Onus Ecclesiae, Morney his Historia Paparus, Marsilius Patavinus Defensoris Pacis, Master Tyndals practice of Popish Prelates, Roderick Mors his supplication to the Parliament, William Wraughton, aliàs Turner his Hunting of the Romish Fox and Wolf, John Bale his Acts of English Votaries, his Centuries, and life's of the Pope, Henry Stalbridge his Exhortatory Epistle; and generally all others, who have written against the usurpation, tyranny, Jurisdiction, pride, and Lordlines, both of the Popish and of our English Prelates; In so much that Pope Gregory the first, hath long since given this true character of them; that under a pretence of Discipline, Ministerium regiminis vertunt in usum Dominationis; & cum regiminis jura suscipiunt ad Lacerandos subditos inardescunt. Terrorem potestatis exhibent, & quibus prodesse debuerant, nocent. Et quia charitatis viscera non habent, domini videri appetunt, patres se esse minime recognoscunt: humilitatis locum in elationis dominationem immutant: Etsi quando extrinsecus blandiuntur intrinsecus autem sunt lupi rapaces. Pulvinos his exhibent, à quibus se noceri posse in studio gloriae temporalis timent. Quos vero contrà se nil valere conspiciunt, hos nimirum asperitate rigidae semper invectionis premunt, nunquam clementer admonent, sed pastoralis mansuetudinis obliti, jure dominationis terrent. Quos recte per Prophetam divina vox increpat, dicens: Vos autem cum austeritate Imperabitis ijs, & cum pot • ntia: Plus enim de suo author diligentes, jactancer erga subditos se erigunt, nec quid agere debeant, sed quid valeant, attendunt. Nil de subsequenti judicio, metuunt, qui improbe de temporali potestate gloriantur. Libet ut licentur & illicita faci • n, & subditorum nemo contradicat. (A true Character of our present Prelates;) It is storied of one Moses, a Monk, whom Queen Mavia and the Saracens under her chose to be their Bishop upon their embracing of the Christian faith; that when Lucius Bishop of Alexandria would have given him orders, he refused to receive orders at his hands, reasoning with him in this sort: I think myself unworthy of the Preistly order, yet if it it be for the profit of the Common-weal, that I be called unto the function, truly thou Lucius shalt never lay hand upon my head. For thy right hand is imbrued with slaughter and bloodshed. When Lucius said again, that it became him not so contumeliously to revile him, but rather to learn of him the precepts of the Christian Religion: Moses answered: I am not come now to reason of matters of Religion, but sure I am of this, that thy horrible practices against the Brethren prove thee be altogether void of the true principles of Christian Religion: For the true Christian striketh no man, revileth no man, fighteth with no man: For the servant of God should be no fighter: But thy deeds in exiling of some, throwing of others to wild beasts, burning of some others, do cry out against thee. And do not our Prelates Ex Officio Oaths and Proceedings; their Excommunications, Deprivations, Suspentions, degradations, heavy fines, and imprisonments, their casting of the best and painefullest Ministers out of their freeholds, benefices, functions; their violent breaking open and ransacking of men's houses, studies, writings, upon small or no occasion; their committing of men close prisoners, and making havack of Christ's Flock in every place; their suppressing Lectures, preaching and all private Christian exercises, cry out against them, as much as ever Lucius his cruelties did against him. Albertus Magnus: gives this description of the Prelates in his age. Those which now rule in the Church, be for the most part thieves and murderers, rather oppressors then feeders, rather spoilers then tutors, rather killers then keepers, rather perverters then teachers, rather seducers then leaders. These be the Messengers of Antichrist, and underminers of the flock of Christ: And may not we verify the like of many Bishops now? Aventinus writes thus of the Bishops in his time: I am ashamed to say what manner of Bishops we have, with the revenues of the poor, they feed houndes, horses, I need not say whores; they quaffe, they make love, and flee all learning (preaching, grace, and holiness) as infection. Such is the misery of these times, we may not speak that we think, nor think that we speak. As for the sheep committed to their charge, to sheere them, strip them, kill them, as every man list, under a pretence of devotion, is now an ancient Custom. And is not this Custom still continued? What remedy therefore may be now prescribed for this old Malady, or punishment for these excesses? I read that Basilius otherwise Basillas, Bishop of Ancyra, was deprived of his Bishopric, for that he cruelly tormented and imprisoned a certain man, (as our Prelates have many score) forged slanders, and disquieted divers persons thereby, and molested the quiet estate of the Churches in Afric. And I find it resolved by the Canonists in their Titles De Excessibus Praelatorum; (A Title very ancient and copious,) That if a Prelate exceeds measure in correcting his Subjects, or be over-tyrannical and severe, he ought to be deposed for it: yea if he thrust any person under his Jurisdiction into prison, so as he dieth by reason of his vexation within a short time, (as many have thus died under our Ptelates hands, not only in Queen Mary's days, but since, even in our times, he thereby becomes irregular, as having his hand in blood, and may be therefore deprived even by the Canon Law. Our Prelates therefore as they are irregular for their cruel oppressions, imprisonments, excesses, and tyrannical proceedings, ( yea ipso facto Excommunicated for making, printing, and publishing, Visitation Articles, without the Kings authority, and causing his Majesty's Subjects to submit unto them, by the express provision of their own 12. Canon, and so unable to exercise any Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction whatsoever all their proceedings and Censures being now in this regard, (if not their orders too, mere nullities in point of Law, and their very company to be abandoned by all, as being both irregular and excommunicated; ) so they very justly demerit to be deprived of their Bishoprics, and made all Quondams for the same: King Henry the 8. to vindicate his Prerogative in causes Ecclesiastical from the Popes and Prelates usurpations; and to manifest to the Prelates, that all Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction, was originally vested in, and to be derived only from him, and that he might at his pleasure take it from his Prelates, who enjoyed it merely by his Grace, and delegate it to whom he pleased, though mere Laymen: created a mere Lay-man, to wit, Thomas Lord Crumwell, Lord Privy Seal, his Vice-gerent for the due administration of Justice to be had in all cases, & cases touching the Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction; to overtop the proud ambitious Bishops, inquire after, visit, and correct their excesses, and exorbitant misdemeanors, and overlook their actions, lives, proceedings, to keep them in good order and within their bounds, and for the Godly reformation and redress of Errors, Haeresies, and abuses in the Church of England. And the Statute of 31. H. 8. c. 10. yet in force, enacts, That the said Lord Crumwell, having the said office of Vicegerent, and all other persons, which hereafter shall have the said office of Vicegerent, of the grant of the Kings Highnes, his Heirs or Successors, shall sit and be placed as well in this present Parliament, as in all Parliaments to be holden hereafter, on the right side of the Parliament chamber, and upon the same form that the Archbishop of Canterbury sitteth on, and above the same Archbishop and his Successors, and shall have voice in every Parliament to assent or dissent, as other Lord's of Parliament. The Lord Crumwell vested with this Ecclesiastical Authority, both by Letters Patents from the King and this Act of Parliament, held a general Visitation in all Dioceses of the Realm over the Archbishops, Bishops, Archdeacons themselves, as well as over the Laity, inquiring after and correcting their abuses, prescribing Injunctions, Rules and Orders to them, both for the Reformation of Religion, the abolishing of Superstition and Idolatry, the correction of their exorbitant proceedings, excesses, lives and manners, appointing Laymen by Letters Patents under the Kings great Seal, to be the Kings Ecclesiastical Judges, Visitors, Vicars General, Commissaries, Chauncellours, Officials, Scribes, and Registers, (not the Bishops,) and to exercise all manner of Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction and Censures in every Diocese, from, by and under his Majesty, and by his authority; as his immediate officers not the B • shops; (whom he discharged from this trouble both to curb their ambitious domineering humors, and to make them more diligent in preaching and instructing the people, the chief end for which they were ordained Bishops, even by the Council of Trents resolution, and the main part of their Episcopal function. ) And with all, he kept a special Visitation, An. 1538. of all the Abbeys, Priories and religious houses throughout the Realm, enquiring most strictly into their lives, and vices, discovering in them such horrible detestable Sodomy, Buggery, Adultery, Whoredom, Luxury, beastliness, and sink of all manner of sin, both by their own confessions, and witnesses, as would make all modest, chaste and pious Christians, yea moral Pagans to stand amazed; as the inquisitions themselves and their own confessions in the Exchequer Records, mentioned by John Bale, Bishop Osyris, and John Speed, and transcribed lately by Master Weever, among other ancient Monuments, record to all posterity, to their perpetual infamy. Whereupon these cages of uncleanness, and infernal Stews were fortwith dissolved by Act of Parliament, and these monstrous Sodomities, and Devils incarnate, in the shapes of men, thrust out and punished, according to their deserts. King Edward the 6. and Queen Elizabeth, treading in this their Royal Fathers footsteps, appointed and constituted Vicegerents and Visitors under their great Seals, the chief whereof were Laymen, to visit both the Bishops Clergy and Laity in every Diocese, within the Realm, w • th both the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge, and to correct, redress and reform all manner of Errors, Haeresies, Schisms, abuses, offenses, contempts, enormities, sins and vices whatsoever, punishable by any Ecclesiastical Law, and to settle all things both in po • nt of Doctrine and Discipline, according to the Articles of Religion established, and their Royal Injuctions; published under their great Seals, by the advise of their Council, and Authority of Parliament enabling them to publish such Injunctions; these their Visitors having Authority Ecclesiastical in every Diocese paramount the Bishops themselves, by virtue of their Commissions and Letters Patents. A clear evidence, that the power of keeping visitations, is a chief part, of the Kings Ecclesiastical Prerogative specially united to the Crown, by several Acts of Parliament, that no Prelate or person, may or ought to usurp and exercise it, (as the Archbishop of Canterbury hath lately done, and pleaded that he ought of right to visit, not only his Province, but both Universities in his own inherent Archiepiscopall right, and name, not as his Majesty's Visitor, and in his name and right alone, which they were content at first, he should do,) by special Letters Patents, under the great Seal, by, from, and under his Majesty, as his visitors and vicegerents only, and in his name and right alone; and that, as no Archbishop, Bishop, or other Ecclesiastical person, may or ought by Law to visit any of the Kings free-chaples, Donatives, Hospitals, Abbyes, or Peculiars, though within his Diocese, and precincts, (and by consequence the Universities and several Colleges in them, many of them being of Kings foundations, all of them having special Visitors appointed them by the founders, by special Patent from the King) but by a special Commission from the King under his great Seal, without incurring both an Attachment and Praemunire, and as the King by his Royal Prerogative may exempt any place or person at his pleasure from all Episcopal Jurisdictions and visitations, as many Law Books, Histories, yea and the Canonists themselves, together with the Council of Trent expressly resolve; So likewise that no Bishop may, can or ought by Law to keep a visitation within his Diocese, without a special Patent from the King, (as appears by Bishop Ridlies, Coverdales, Scories, Ponets and many other ancient Bishop Patents, the Statutes of 31. H. 8. c. 10. 37. H. 8. c. 17. 1. Ed. 6. c. 2. 1. Eliz. c. 1. 8. Eliz. c. 1. and other statutes, ) the King being as absolute a Monarch, King, Governor, in and over all Ecclesiastical persons and causes in every Bishops Diocese, as in and over his own frank-chaples, Donatives and Peculiars; which no Prelates dare or can deny; since in the very Oath of Supremacy and Allegiance, (which the Archbishops are the first men, enjoined to take as likewise to instruct,) they make this profession and solemn protestation, I do utterly testify and declare in my Conscience, that the Kings Highnes is the only supreme Governor of this Realm, & all other of his Heighnes Dominions and Countries, (therefore in and of their Diocese,) as well in all spiritual, or Ecclesiastical things or causes, as temporal. Seeing therefore our Prelates are lately grown so insolent, as to claim and exercise all their Ecclesiastical Episcopal Jurisdiction, and the power of visitation to, by a divine right and Title only, not by any power, Patent or Commission from the King; seeing they have made so many gross encroachments, both upon the Kings Prerogative Royal, the Laws, the Customs of the Realm, and the Subjects Rights and Liberties, which they everywhere trample under their feet: And since they are grown so exorbitant, irregular, tyrannical, oppressive, vindictive; so onerous and intolerable to the Subjects, both in their Consistories and visitations, but especially in their High-Commissions, where they make the Kings Commission and Authority a mere engine and stratagem to erect and enlarge their own mere Papal Antichristian Jurisdictions and usurpations, which they challenge by a Divine (but in truth a Papal) right, thereby chrushing and questioning all such, who out of conscience towards God, or Loyalty to their Sovereign, dare make any just or legal opposition against the same, or refuse to submit thereto; And since the Statute of 31. H. 8. c. 10. authorizeth both the King his Heirs and Successors, to make a Vice-gerent general in causes Ecclesiastical, though a mere Layman, to take place of the Archbishop of Canterbury, and all other Prelates of the Realm, and their Successors, both in Parliament, and elsewhere, to curb and restrain their exorbitant usurpations both upon the Kings Prerogative, Laws and Subjects Liberties; to overlook their actions, manners, lives, proceedings; to correct their several misdemeanors, encroachments, excesses, tyrannies, oppressions, exactions, abuses, and to visit these great Lord's and Visitors themselves: Whether it will not be meet and expedient for his Majesty both in point of Honor, Justice and Policy, to constitute such a Lay Vice-gerent general, by his special Letters Patents, to check the insolency and domineering humor of our present Lordly Prelates, and to visit, inquire out, punish, redress all their forementioned disloyal encroachments, both upon the King and Subject, for the better preservation of the Prerogative of the one, the Liberties of the other, the relief of all oppressed Subjects, the better execution of Justice in all Ecclesiastical Courts and causes, and the exemption of the Prela • es from all unnccessary cares and toubles; which now so take them up, that they have neither time nor Will, diligently to teach and instruct the people in matters of salvation, as Sant Augustine, Sant Ambrose, Cy • ill, Chrysostom, Origen, and other Fathers of old, and Bishop Hooper, Bishop Latimer, Bishop Ridley, with other of our Martyrs and Godly Prelates of later times have done, who • eached every day in the week and year at least once, or twice, • ithout fail, as the marginal authorities evidence, whereas our Prelates think it much to preach once or twice a year, and then not • o the people of their Diocese, (which half of them have not done,) (but at the Court alone;) they being of the Bishop of Dunkeldens mind, that they were not ordained to preach, but to be Lordly Loyterers, bear rule, and keep off other painful Ministers from diligent frequent preaching, for fear their pains should prove their shame, and make the people believe, that were bound to preach as much, or more then other Ministers, because they have better hire. I here humbly refer to his Majesty's pious care and Princely wisdom, who may now justly and safely follow the Royal steps of his Famous Progenitors in this particular, without any scandal, offense, or innovation, to the relief and joy of all his Loyall and oppressed Subjects.

I shall begin to close up this Breviate with the words of Nicholas de Clemangiis, in his excellent Book, De corrupto Ecclesiae statu, chap. 14. to 20. where he thus paints out in lively colors. the manners, practices, oppressions, designs, and lives of the Prelates and their Officers in his age, and ours too: Those who at this day are promoted to the dignity of a Bishop, according to the manner of their professions, with great earnestness on every side, greedily gape after gain, not verily of souls, but of purses rather, the gain whereof they seek out everywhere: they burn after gain, they repute gain godliness, they do nothing at all but that which they believe, way sufferagate to collect many upon any occasion; for which they wrangle, contend, chide, go to Law, taking the loss of ten thousand souls more patiently, then of 10. or 12. But I justly reprehend myself who said, more patiently, when as they take the loss of souls with no motion or perturbation of mind, of which there is not only with them no care, but not so much as any thought; yet they undergo even the smallest losses of any part of their estate, almost with a furious and distracted mind. Moreover, if peradventure any Bishop or Pastor shall arise, who will not walk after this manner, or who contemns money or damns covetousness, who finally will not every way, whether just or unjust, extort money from his Subjects, or study to gain souls by wholesome exhortation or preaching, and meditates more in the Laws of the Lord, then in the Laws of men, presently all their teeth are set on edge to bite him: they will cry him up to be altogether an unfit man, not worthy of the Priesthood; because he being ignorant of Human Laws, is not fit to defend his rights: knoweth not how to govern, punish, and restrain his Subjects by Canonical Censures, and hath learned nothing else, but to give himself even to a Laysie idleness, or to preaching which they openly affirm, to be the office of Mendicants, enjoining no temporal care, or administration, which may possess their minds with a more profitable occupation. Therefore now the studies of (he sacred Scriptures, with their professors are turned into laughter, and a mocking stock with all men; and which is most prodigious, especially towards Prelates, who prefer their own traditions far before God's Commandments. That egregious and most excellent office of preaching, attributed only to Pastors or Bishops in times past, and principally due to them, hath now waxed so vile with them, that they think nothing more unworthy or dishonorable to their dignity then it. But loe, whilst I consider the proper sicknesses of the Court of Rome, I am fallen upon those vices, which are common with them, even to other Prelates: Which yet I will handle more particularly in a succinct relation, because I have a fit place. First it ought not to seem strange or a wonder unto any, if our Prelates principally study, to scrape together monies on every side, if being thin, lean, and empty, they study to fat themselves with the juice, wool, and milk of their sheep, of whom it appears, they were made Pastors at so dear a rate. For flies (as the proverb is,) pined with leannes bite more sharply. Likewise all living Creatures consumed with famine, are carried more greedily to the prey. For although before the undertaking of their Episcopal cure, they were very wealthy; (neither are indigent men wont to be admitted thereunto,) yet by the Ministry conferred on them, they ought at least to empty their purses for the most part. Wherefore justly and not without cause, they make it their chiefest labor to replenish them again. And by the Example of a wise husbandman, that they may gather the seed, they have sowed with increase and great return, and again recover and diligently enlarge their deminished Substance, like most vigilant tradesmen, they expose all their wares to sale to all who need them. If any Clerke among them for theft, for Homicide, for rape, or sacrilege, or any other enormious crime be cast into prison and adjudged to the dungeon there, to eat bread and water, he shall so long be liable to punishment, and suffer for his offenses as a guilty person, until he shall pay the money demanded of him, according to the measure of his revenues or goods. But when he shall do this he is set at large, and suffered to go away like an innocent, every Error, all wickednesses, although they are capital, are released and blotted out by money. For what shall I speak of the exercise of this Jurisdiction, which is so violently and tyrannically governed, that at this day men rather choose to undergo the Judgments of the most cruel tyrants, then of the Church. It cannot be expressed how great evils those wicked Inquisitors of crimes which be called promoters or Apparators, do unto the people. They oft times call simple and poor husbandmen, living, an harmless life in their cottages, and ignorant of the Cities fraud, into their Courts, for a thing of naught, they diligently feine causes and crimes against them, vex, terrify, threaten them; and so by these means compel them to compound and agree with them. Which if they refuse to do, they daily serve and infest them out of measure with frequent Citations; and if once hindered by any occasion, they shall fail to appear, presently they are struck with the Sentence of Excommunication as Rebels and contumacious. But if they shall continue to appear at the day as oft as they shall be called; they will hinder their audience at the Judges tribunals, they will lay hold of delays and subte • fugies, of imparlances, and interlocutions, which are very easily obtained from Ecclesiastical Courts; that so being tired out with long delay, and great loss of their time, they may be compelled to redeem their future vexation, and expenses, with a Sum of money, least they should incur a heap of infinite expenses, for a small or no offense, or for a little debt. Now I pray, what a thing is this, that in most Diocese Rectors of parishes do everywhere keep Concubines at a certain rate and hire, which they agree for with their Prelates? That all excesses and vices of Subjects, and all offices, even in Court of Judicature, are publicly sold by them? But to those of which we have spoken, and shall speak, these things are good. But how is this to be endured, that no man comes to a Clerkeship, or to a sacred order, or to any Eccesiasticall degree, but by reward? that none bestow sacramental grace, or imposition of hands, unless he shall give a certain price before hand? that they make all Confessions, Absolutions, Dispensations venial? that if any benefices are devolued to their disposition, they bestow them for gain, or give them to their bastards, or to stage players? Now if any man peradventure shall object that Evangelical saying to them: Freely ye have received, freely give: they want not what they may presently answer; that they did not freely receive, therefore they are not bound by the Text, freely to give. Finally, they say, that those Bishops only are bound by this sentence, who have obtained their Pastoral office, without any disbursement at all. Therefore no man (but he who strayes far from the truth,) may expect, that grace should be thus sold by equity, for how is it grace, if it be not freely given? unless we will deem it false, that that pestiferous Sorcerer was reprehended by Peter, with a direful malediction, who thought that the gift of God might be purchased with money. Now from this fountain that copious multitude of vile and most unworthy Priests hath issued. For that they might receive greater gain by conferring Orders, they admit all as many as shall come with none or little difference, to those titles which they shall ask, (unless perchance there be some so oppressed with poverty, that they are not able to pay for orders:) there is no examination of their forepast life, no question of their manners. Concerning their Letters and learning what bootes it to speak, when as we see that almost all Preistes can scarce read, and that waywardly, and by syllables, without any understanding of the things or words. What fruit therefore, what audience shall they obtain by their prayers, either to themselves or others, to whom that, which they pray is barbarous? How shall they reconcile God by their prayers unto others, whom they have made offended with themselves with their ignorance, their filthiness of life, and by their ministry? If any man at this day be idle; if any abhorring labor, if any be willing to riot in idleness, he flies to the Ministry; which having obtained he forthwith associates himself to the other Priests, who are followers of pleasures; Who living more after Epicures then after Christ, and diligently frequenting Alehouses consume all their time in drinking, revelling, pransing, feasting, playing at tables and at ball. And being surfeited and drunken, they fight, they war, they make a tumult, they curse the name of God and of his Saints, with their most polluted lips. And thus composed, at last, they come from the very embracements of their harlots to the divine Altar. But I return to our Bishops, who being educated in all lubricity from their youth, they introduce such witnesses, that I may so speak, Ministers, into the Church, whose acts are memorable, this ought not to be pretermitted by me; that many of those who have obtained the top of a Pastoral dignity, and have enjoyed the same for many years, have never entered into their Cities, have never seen their Churches, have never visit their places or Diocese, have never known the faces of their flocks, heard their voice, felt their wounds, unless perchance those wounds which themselves have inflicted on them with their rich spoils by strangers, and hirelings. I have said strangers, because even they themselves are hirelings, who seek not the custody, safety or profit of their flock, but only the retribution of a temporal reward. Therefore they themselves are hirelings, having only the name of a Bishop, because the thing signified by the name is far from them. For the name of a Bishop signifieth a Watchman or Superintendent: Behold (saith the Prophet) I have made thee a Watchman to the house of Israel. But these verily watch not at all over the flock, they oversee nothing, they look to nothing: they take the care of their own body, they feed themselves and not their sheep, not greatly weiging what accident may happen to the sheep, whether they die consumed, either with sickness or famine, so as themselves may gain anything by their death. But peradventure some man will say, that they may justly be pardoned: if they seldom go to their Diocese, or more slowly visit their little flocks; because being sent for to be Princes Counsels, they handle the great affairs of the Kingdom, & govern, defend, support the Common-wealth, which rests upon their shoulders, and would otherwise most grievously fall to ruin; which seems to be more Laud-worthy, then to consult their own private affairs. First I will by no means grant them this, that they are willingly called out by Princes of their own accord to be Consellers of state, but they obtain it with great suite, costs and intercessions of friends; not verily out of any zeal or care of the Republic, of which they have no love or charity at all; but for the stipends and large gifts which accure unto them from thence, that living upon other men's costs they may treasure up the revenues of their own Churches. Finally what profit bring they to the languishing yea almost dying, and now well nighburied Common-weal? Would to God they brought no destruction thereunto! What I pray you? do they profit in this thing, that they invend all the burdens of taxes, and tributes, with which the people are at this day charged, by their subtility and suggestions, and that being invented, they heap them one upon another, and cause them to last for so long a time? whence even long ago there hath been a Custom in this Kingdom (France he means, which is now true of England likewise,) that some Bishops are set over such exactions, and determine the causes and complaints concerning them. Whether do they herein profit the Republic, that being called to the Counsel and commanded to speak their opinions, they persuade those things which they know, will rather please the Prince, then profit the Commonwealth? that oft time being led with bribes, oft times with favor, oft times with hatred, oft times also with fear they suggest to the ears of their Lord's, not just, not true, not sincere things, but perverse and hurtful things, covered over with fallacy? Furthermore, do they help the Commonwealth in this thing, that they oft privily inculcate, that greater allowance is to be contributed to those Rectors who administer it, and more then the common allowance? For what themselves do it is likely, that being consulted, 〈◊〉 they likewise exhort others to do, least their words and astions should filthily disagree and fight between themselves. Finally, which of them is a Defender of the poor, a comforter of the afflicted, a releiver of the oppressed, who a patron for the fatherless, who a protector to the poor widdowe against the false accuser? Yea verily who is more estranged from the compassionating and commiserating of any distressed poor people then they, and truly too, doth the Prophet I say speak under the Image of the Princes of the Synagogue, of whom these, although they are their Successors in wickednesses, in respect of time, yet peradventure they may be rightly termed their predecessors in vileness; Thy Princes are treacherous and companions of thieves, everyone loveth gifts, and followeth after rewards, they judge not the fatherless, neither doth the cause of the widdowe come unto them. But it is a wonderful thing what that means, that now almost every Bishop receives yearly almost six, seven, or ten thousand Crowns from the Church, of which he is president, but not above one thousand Crowns from the King for his stipend, and yet he leaves the care of his Church, and of the fold committed to him for the service of the Kingdom. Ought he not at least like an hireling to serve him who giveth the greatest wages? But their answer to these things is at hand. For although that be more, which the Church giveth them, than what the Prince, yet that office joined to the greater, makes the sum the bigger, and too good things are better then one. Further the fruits that are given them by the King, they know they shall not receive, unless they wait at the Kings elbow; but those which accure unto them from their Churches they know shall be given them, though they be far off, and free from service. What and if they impute no doubt their promotion made at the instance of the King, to the King himselve, and not to God, nor to the Church? Therefore like grateful men, no ways forgetful of him by whom they have obtained grace they deservedly according to the vicissitude of obedience more willingly refer their service and obedience unto them. What and if they have learned to serve Kings, and not God, nor the Church? What and if they have sought their Miter, not with an intention of of exercising any office in the Church, but of obtaining quietness and case in greater abundance? What and if by reason of their accustomed wages they help to obtain many small things openly, yea and many small things openly by importunity, which serving in their Churches they could not obtain? But at least thou wilt say, they there help their own Churches, that they be not burthered or oppressed, yea they themselves oppress both their own and others, whiles they lay taxes upon them, at the will of the secular powers. For lest they should be reproved by the Noblemen, whose busenesses they agitate, and whose Counsels they frequent, that they favor their Churches more then is meet, as oft as it shall happen that anything is in agitation concerning the Church, they insult more grievously against it, then any of the Layty. Rarely happens there any affliction to these calamitous Churches, which may not derive its original from these their proper sons. But why do we so greatly accuse their absence from their Sees? when as if they were there personally present, they might in all likelihood do more hurt then good For what, I pray, do they profit, who in the revolution of the whole year tuter their Church but twice or thrice? who spend whole days • hawking, and hunting, in plays and wrestling? who pass over whole nights without sleep in most accurate banquets, in claping of hands and dances, being likewise effeminate with maidens: who by their filthy example lead their flock by bywayes into a precipice; who being yet beardles youthes, scarce gone from under the ferrula, fly to the pastoral Magistracy, and know so much concerning it as they do of a Pilots office. It is very difficult and hard to determine, which of them do more hurt to their flock: whether these who forsaking it, and committing it to wolves, are conversant with ruffins and parasites in the Court; Or those rather who keeping residence, vex it by rapine, neglect it by carelessness, precipitate it by error. For although I may rightly call both of them hirelings, yet I have spoken too little in regard of the thing it self, both of them are more fitly to be termed wolves, for both of them act the part of wolves; the devour, scatter, tear, and carry away: These verily by themselves; but those, for themselves by others. I perceive, that I have insisted longer then I thought at first in these excellent services of our Angels, (for so the holy Scriptures term Prelates,) but thououghtest to grant pardon to so great a multitude of things, which I could not.

To him I shall only annex the words of William Wraughton, in his Rescuing of the Romish Fox, ded • cated to King Henry the 8. We have put down; (saith he) to Winchester of your Orders of the world. There remain yet two Orders of the worldye in England; that is the Order of Pompous and Popish Bishops, and Grey Friers. Which if they were put down as well as the other put down before, I reckon that there should be no Kingdom, wherein Christ should more reign then in England. And of Rodericke Mors, sometimes a Grey Frier, his memorable passage in his Complaint to the Parliament-House of England, about the 37. of King Henry the eight, ch. 23. 24. No doubt (writes he,) one Bishop, one Dean, one College, or house of Canons hath ever done more mischief against God's word, and sought more the hindrance of the same, then ten houses of Monks, Friers, Canons, or Nuns. The Kings Grace began well to weed the Garden of England, but yet hath he left standing (the more pity,) the most foulest and stinking weeds, which had most need to be first plucked up by the roots, that is to say, the pricking thistles and stinking netles, which still standing; what helpeth the deposing of the petty members of the Pope and to leave his whole body behind, which be the pompous Bishops, Canons of Colleges, Deans and such other? Surely it helpeth as much as to say, I will go kill all the Foxes in Sant Johans wood, because I would have no more Foxes bred in all England. Which well pondered, we may say and lie not, that the Pope remaineth wholly still in England, save only, that his name is banished. For why his body, (which be Bishops and other shavelings,) doth not only remain, but also his tail, which be his filthy traditions, wicked Laws, and beggarly Ceremonies, (as Sant Paul called them,) yea and the whole body of his pestiferous Canon Law according to which judgment is given through out the Realm: So that we be still in Egypt, and remain in Captivity, most grievously laden by observing and walking in his most filthy dross aforesaid, which is a mysty and endless maze. And so long as ye walk in those wicked Laws of Antichrist the Pope, and maintain HIS KNIGHTS THE BISHOPS, in such inordinate riches and unlawful authority, so long say I, ye shall never banish that monstrous beast the Pope out of England, yea and it shall be a means in process of time to bring us into temporal bondage also again, to have him reign as he hath done, like a God. And that know our forked caps right well, which thing maketh them so boldly and shamelessly to sight in their God's quarrel, against Christ and his word, &c. The Bishops by their subtilities and most crafty wiles, make the people to abhor the name of the Pope of Rome for a face, and compel them to walk in all his wicked Laws. And the word of God which we say we have received, is not, nor cannot be suffered to be preached and taught purely, and sincerely without mixing it with their invented traditions and service. Wherefore to open the Conclusion of this little lamentation; if ye will banish forever the Antichrist the Pope • ut of this Realm, ye must fell down to the ground those rotten posts, the Bishops, which be clouds without moisture, and utterly abandon all and every of his ungodly Laws, Traditions, and Ceremonies. Now will I speak no further against the particular Pope, forasmuch as every Bishop is now a Pope, and ye may plainly see, (by all the premises,) that the proud Prelates the Bishops (I mean) be very Antichrists, as is their Father of Rome. Thus he, to whom I shall subjoin Henry Stalbridge his Exhortatory Epistle, to his dearly beloved Country of England, against the pompous Popish Bishops thereof, as yet the true members of their filthy Father the great Antichrist of Rome, printed at Basil, in King Henry the 8. his days, with whose words I shall close up this breviate: I say yet once again, (writes he) and that in the Seal of the Lord, as he is my judge, I wish, (if his gracious pleasure so were,) that first the Kings Majesty, and so forth all these, unto whom God hath given power and authority upon earth under him, may thoroughly see and perceive how that not only the bloody bear wolf of Rome, but also the most part of the other Bishops, and stout sturdy Canons of Cathedral Churches, with other petty proulers and prestigious Priests of Baal his malignant members in all Realms of Christendom (especially here in England,) doth yet roar abroad like hungry Lions, fret inwardly like angry Bears, and bite as they dare like cruel Wolves, clustering together in corners, like a swarm of Adders in a dunghill, or most wily subtle Serpents, to uphold and preserve their filthy Father of Rome, the head of their bawdy brood, if it may be. No less do I judge it, then a bounden duty of all faithful Ministers, to manifest their mischiefs to the universal world, every man according to his Talent given of God, some with pen, and some with tongue; so bringing them out of their old estimation, least they should still reign in the people's consciences to their souls destruction. An evident example have they of Christ thus to do, which openly rebuked their filthy Fore-fathers, the Scribes, Lawyers, Pharisees, Doctors, Priests, Bishops, and Hypocrites, for making God's Commandments of no effect, to support their own traditions, Mar. 8. Luc. 12. Paul also admonisheth us, that after his departure should enter in among us such ravening wolves, as should not spare the flock. These spiritual Man-hunters, are the very offspring of Cain, children of Caiaphas, and Successors of Simon Magus, as their doctring and living declareth, needing no further probation. Most cruel enemies have they been in all ages to the verity of God, ever since the Law was first given, and most fierce persecutors of Christ and his Church, (which he there proves at large by several examples;) No where could the verity be taught, but these glorious gluttons were ever at hand to resist it: Marvel not ye Bishops and Prelates, though I thus in the zeal of Helyas and Phineas stomach against your sturdy storms of stubbornness: For never was any tyranny ministered upon Christ, and his mystical members, but by your proud procurements. And now in our days where are any of the Lord's true servants burned, or otherwise murdered for true preaching, writing, glossing, or interpreting the Gospel, but it is by your cruel calling upon, &c. If you be not most wicked workers against God and his verity, and most spiteful Traitors to the King and his Realm, I cannot think there be any living upon the earth. Be this only spoken to ye, that maintain such mysteries of madness. Never sent Christ such bloody Apostles, nor two harned warriors, but the Devils Vicar Antichrist, which is the deadly destroyer of faithful believers. What Christian blood hath been shed between Empire and Empire, Kingdom and Kingdom, as between Constantinople and Almaigne, England and France, Italy and Spain for the Bishops of Rome? and how many cruel wars of their Priests calling on, were too much, either to write or to speak. Always have they been working mischief in their idle generation, to obscure the verity of God. I say yet once again, that it were very necessary for the Kings worthy Majesty with earnest eyes to mark, how God hath graciously vouchsafed to deliver both him and his people from your troublesome termagaunt of Rome, which afore made all Christian Kings his Common Slaves, and to beware of you holow hearted Trayters, his spiritual Promoters, considering that your proud Predecessors have always so wickedly used his graces noble Progenitors the worthy Kings of this Realm, since the Conquest and afore. Who overthrew King Herold, subduing all his Land to the Normaines? Who procured the death of King William Rufus, and caused King Stephen to be thrown in prison? Who troubled King Henry the first, and most cruelly vexed King Henry the second? Who subdued and poisoned King John? Who murdered King Edward the second, and famished King Richard the second most unseemingly? Besides that hath been wrought against the other Kings also. To him that shall read and thoroughly mark the religious acts of Robert the Archbishop of Canterbury of old, Egelwinus, Anselmus, Randolf of Durham, Ralfe of Chichester, Alexander of Lincoln, Nigelus of Hely, Roger of Salisbury, Thomas Becket, Stephen Laughton, Walter Stapilton, Robert Baldocke, Richard Scrope, Henry Spencer, Thomas Arundell, and a great sort more of your anointed Antecessors, Pontificiall Prelates, mitred Mummers, mad mastry workers, ringed Ruffelers, rocheted Ruttters, shorn saucy Swilbols, it will evidently appear, that your wicked generation hath done all that, and many other mischiefs more. By these your filthy Fore-fathers and such other, hath this Realm been always in most miserable captivity, either of the Romans or Danes, Saxons or Normans, and now last of all under the most blasphemous Behemoth your Romish Pope, the great Antichrist of Europa, and most mighty maintainer of Sodom and Gomorite: How unchristianly your said Predecessors have used the Rulers of all other Christian Realms, it were to long to write. I reckon it therefore hightime for all those Christian Princes, which pretend to receive the Gospel of salvation, and accordingly after that to live in mutual peace and tranquility, forever to cast ye out of their privy Counsels, and utterly to seclude you from all administrations, till such time as they find ye no longer wolves, but faithful feeders; no destroyers, but gentle teachers. For as Sant Peter doth say, 1. Pet. 5. Ye ought to be no Lord's over the people of your Diocese, but examples of Christian meekness. Who seeth not that in these days your bloody Bishops of England, Italy, Cycell, France, Spain, Portingale, Scotland and Ireland, be the ground and original fondation of all Controversies, Schisms, variances and wars betwixt Realm and Realm at this present, &c. Consider your beginning. Never came ye in with your Miters, Robes, and Rings by the door, as did the poor Apostles, but by the window unrequired, like robbers, thieves and manquellers with Simon Magus, Marcion and Menander. Never was your proud Pontifical power of the heavenly Fathers planting, and therefore it must at the last up by the roots, ye must in the end be destroyed without hands, Dan. 8. &c. I think the Devils in hell, are not of a more perverse mind, nor seek more ways to the souls destruction then you. Ye play Pharaoh, Caiaphas, Nero, Trajanus, with all Tyrants parts besides; Oh abominable Scorners and thieves, which practice nothing else but the utter destruction of souls? If anything under the heavens hath need of Reformation, let them think this to be one which minded any godliness: For never did cruel Pharaoh hold the people of Israel in so wicked captivity, as doth this superstitious sort of idle Sodomites, the most dearly redeemed heritage of the Lord. If they be no spiritual thieves, soul murderers, heretics, Schismatics, Church-robbers, Rebels, and Traitors to God and to man; where are any to be looked for in all the world? Another thing yet there is, which causeth me sore to lament, the inconveniences thereupon considered. And that is this, although the Scriptures, Chronicles, Canons, Constitutions, Councils and private Histories, with your manifest acts in our time, doth declare your Fore-fathers and you such Heretics, thieves and Traitors to the Christian Common-wealths, as hath not been upon the earth, but you, yet you are still taken into the privy Counsels, both of Emperor and King. (Yea as Thomas Becon complains, They alone be chiefest and of much estimation; they alone ruffle and reign; they alone bear the suring in the Court, they alone have all things going forward as they desire: They alone be capped, kneeled, and crouched unto: They alone have the keys of the English Kingdom, hanging at their girdles: whatsoever they bind, or loose whispering, and traitorously conspiring among themselves, that same is bound and loosed in the Starchamber in Westminster Hall, in the Parliament House, yea in the Kings privy Chamber, and throughout the Realm of England. The very Nobility of England are in a manner brought to such slavery, that they dare not displease the lessest of these spiteful spiritual limbs of Antichrist, we may now say, (into such an height the spiritual Sorcerers are grown,) that Priests in England are mightier then either Wine, King, Queen, Lord's, Women, and all that is besides &c. ) But what a plague it is, or miserable yoke to that Christian Realm, whereas you bear the swinge, I think it truly unspeakable, though it be not seen. O eternal Father, for thy infinite mercies sake, grant thy most faithful servant the Kings Majesty our most worthy Sovereign Lord and Governor under thee, clearly to cast out of his privy Counsel-House, these Lecherous locusts of Egypt, and daily upholders of Sodom and Gomor the Popes cruel catle, tokened with his own proper mark, to the universal health of his people, as thou hast now constituted him, an whole complete King, and the first since the Conquest. For never shall be have of them, but deceitefull workmen, and holow-hearted Gentlemen: and not only that (good Lord,) but also deprive them of their usurped authority and power, restoring again thereunto his temporal Magistrates, whom their proud Pope hath hitherto most tyrannously thereof deprived. Finally, to take from them their inordinate Pomp and Riches, and more godly to bestow them, that is to say, to the aid of his poverty, as for an Example the Noble Germans have graciously done before him. After a far other sort defended the Apostles the spiritual Kingdom of Christ. Their armor was righteousness, poverty, patience, meekness, tribulation, contempt of the world, and continual suffering of wrongs. Their strong shield was faith and their sword the word of God, Ephes. 6. With the Gospel preaching drove they down all superstitions, as you by your Lordlines have raised up again in the glorious Church of Antichrist. The Kingdom that he forsake John. 6. and the Lordship, that he so straitly forbad you: Luc. 22. have you received of the Devil, with that ambitious reign of covetousness, which he left behind him on the High-Mountain. Math. 4. What ruinous decays hath chanced to all Christian regions and their rulers, for giving swift credit to the fleering flatteries of your Babylonish brood, it were much to write. It shall be therefore necessary for our most worthy King to look upon in time, and both to diminish your authority and riches, least ye hereafter put all his godly enterprises in hazard. For nothing else can ye do of your spiritual nature, but work daily mischiefs. As well may ye be spared in the Commonwealth, as may Kites, Crowes, and Bussardes, Polcutes, Wessels, and Rats, Otters, Wolves and Foxes, Body lice, Flees, and Fleshflies, with other devouring and noisome vermin. For as unprofitable are ye unto it as they, and as little have you in the word of God, to uphold you in these vain offices of Papistry, as they. This uncommodious commodity hath England had of you always, when ye have been of the Kings privy Counsel, and I think hath now at this present honor, that whatsoever godly enterprise is there in doing, be it never so privily handled, yet shall the Popish Prelates of Italy, Spain, France, Flaunders, and Scotland, have sure knowledge thereof by your secret messengers, and you again their crafty compassings to deface it if it may be: Neither shall those Realms continue long after, without war, specially if an earnest reformation of your shameful abuses be sought there. And never shall the original grounds of that war be known, but other cases shall be laid to color it with, as that the King, seeketh his right, his princely honor, the maintenance of his Titles, or the Realms Common-wealth, being nothing less in the end, but an upholding of you in your mischiefs. So long as you bear rule in the Parliament House, the Gospel shall be kept under, and Christ persecuted in his faithful members. So that no godly Acts shall come out from thence to the glory of God, and Christian Common-wealth, but ye will so sauce them with your Romish Sorceries, that they be ready to serve your turn. Although the Kings Majesty hath permitted us the Scriptures, yet must the true Ministers thereof at your most cruel appointment, either suffer most tyrannous death, or else with open mouth deny Christ's verity, which is worse then death. Thus give ye strength to his Laws, and nourish up his Kingdom, whom ye say with your lips ye have refused, your pestilent Pope of Rome. Ye play altogether Hick-scorner under the figure of Ironia: That ye say, ye hate, ye love, and that ye say, ye love, ye hate. Let all faithful men beware of such double-day dreamers, and halow-hearted Traitors, and think whereas they bear the rule, nothing shall come rightly forward, either in faith, or Common-wealth. What other works can come from the Devils working tools, then cometh from the hands of his own malignant mischief? Who can deny the Bishops to be the instruments of Satan, understanding the Scriptures, and beholding their daily doings? Think ye there can be a greater plague to a Christian Realm, then to have such ghostly Fathers of the Kings privy Counsel? If wise men do judge it any other, then a just plague for our sin, and a yoke laid upon us for our irreverent receiving of that heavenly treasure, the eternal Testament of Christ, to have such Hypocrites, Thieves, and Traitors to reign over us, truly they judge not aright. If we would earnestly therefore repent of our former living, and unfeignedly turn unto our everliving God, as we find in the Testament, I would not doubt it, to jeopard both my body and soul that we should in short space be delivered of this Romish vermin, rising out of the bottomless pit: Apoc. 9. which eateth up all that is green upon earth, or hath taken any strength of the living word of the Lord. For the heart of a King is always in the hands of God, and at his pleasure he may evermore turn it: Prov. 21. Take me not here, that I condemn any Bishop or Priest, that is godly, doing those holy offices that the Scripture hath commanded them, as preaching the Gospel, providing for the poor, and ministering the Sacraments right. But against the bloody Butchers that murder up God's people, and daily make havoc of Christ's Congregation to maintain the Jews Ceremonies, and the Pagans Superstitions in the Christian Church. These are not Bishops, but Bitesheepes, Tyrants, Tormenters, Termagaunts, and the Devils slaughter men. Christ left no such Disciples behind him, to set with cruel Caiaphas at the Sessions upon life and death of his innocent members: But such as in poverty preached the Gospel, rebuking the wicked world for Idolatry, Hypocrisy, and false Doctrine. Episcopus is as much to say, as an Overseer, or Superintendent, whose office was in the primitive Church purely to instruct the multitude in the ways of God, and to see that they were not beastly ignorant in the Holy Scripture, as the most part of them are now a days. Presbyter is as much to say, as a Seniour or Elder, whose office was also in godly Doctrine and Examples of living to guide the Christian Congregation, and to suffer no manner of Superstition of Jew nor Gentile to reign among them. And these two offices were alone in those days, and commonly executed of one several person. They which were thus appointed to these spiritual offices, did nothing else but only preach and teach the Gospel, having assistants unto them, inferior officers called Deacons, Acts. 6. 1. Cor. 1. Rom. 3. No godly man can despise these Offices, neither yet condemn those that truly execute them. Not only are they worthy to have a competent living, 1. Cor. 9. but also double honor after the Doctrine of Saint Paul, 1. Tim. 5. But from inordinate excess of riches, ought they of all men to be sequestered, considering that the most wicked nature of Mammon is always to corrupt, yea the very elect, if God were not the more merciful, Math. 6. Which might be an admonition to our Lordly Bishops, when they be in their worldly Pomp, that they are not God's Servants, believed they his sayings as they do nothing less. I cannot think, that any Christian Bishop or Priest will be offended with, ought that I have written here, but rather prefer it to their power, it making nothing against them, seeking God's glory and not their own. Finally with heart I desire, that these enemies of the truth be no longer given over of God, but that they may find some just way to repentance, and from henceforth to maintain the pure Laws of Christ, as they have in times past, the most filthy traditions of Antichrist; (to wit, the Pope of Rome, from whose Succession and See our Archbishops and Bishops, linially derive their pedigree and descent, as Master Mason in his Book of Consecration of Bishops, An. 613. p. 9. 10. 140. Who thrice together calls the Lord's- •• y the Sabbath-day, p. 269. and Doctor Poclington, in his Sermon, entitled, Sunday no Sabbath-day, London, 1636. licensed by Master Bray, the Archbishop of Canterburies Chaplain, Do jointly aver, to our Prelates great honor, whom they thus make the very brats, sons and members of the Popes of Rome, from whom they thus derive, challenge, and pretend their Episcopal Authority, Jurisdiction, and Succession, and so are liable to the penalties of the Statute of 27. Eliz. c. 2. and Traitors to the King, if these their flatterers Doctrine, and pedigree, which they give them, be true:) So be it. Thus Henry Stalbridge concludes from Basil, An. 1544. and so do I close up this Breviate: For which if any unduetifull or malicious Prelates shall chance to persecute, vex and torture me or any other, for this my Loyalty, love and duty, to my King and Country, in laying open these their exorbitant encroachments, both upon King and Subject, I shall answer them as Tertullian once did the Barbarous Heathen Presidents and persecutors of his age, who tortured the poor Christians in his time, who heartly prayed for the Emperor and Public-weal, with bended knees, and stretched out hands under their God: Sic itaque nos ad Deum expansos ungulae fodiant, cruces suspendant, ign • s lambant, gladij guttura detruncant, bestiae insiliant, paratus est ad omne supplicium ipse habitus orantis Christiani. Hoc agite boni Presides, extorquete animam Deo supplicantem, disceptantem, pro Imperatore. Hoc erit crimen ubi veritas & Dei devotio est.