THE
WORKS
MOST REVEREND FATHER IN GOD,
WILLIAM LAUD, D.D.
SOMETIME LORD ARCHBISHOP OF CANTERBURY.
VOL. VI.— PART I. MISCELLANEOUS PAPERS.— LETTERS.
OXFORD :
JOHN HENRY PARKER,
M DCCCLVII.
PEERAGE.
THE contents of the two parts of this Volume which now appear are of a miscellaneous character. They are classed, however, under three general heads, on each of which a few words must here be said.
I. The Miscellaneous Papers, which are placed first, consist almost entirely of documents which have been already pub lished. One of them, the Speech at the censure of Bastwick, Burton, and Prynne, was first printed in 1637, by Laud's own authority, and was subsequently included in the volume of his Remains, published in 1700. The first of the papers against Lord Say and Sele was printed from Laud's MSS., by Henry Wharton, at the end of the History of his Troubles and Trial ; and the second of them by Wharton's father, in the volume of the Remains mentioned just above. Of the remaining papers several were printed in Prynne's " Hidden Works of Darkness," and " Canterbury's Doom," in Rush- worth's Collections, and the State Trials.
The unpublished part of this portion of the volume consists only of the Paper on Sutton's Hospital, and of the Speech against Prynne and Sparkes.
VI PREFACE.
II. The series of Letters iu the first two parts of the sixth volume consists : (i.) Of all the Letters of Archbishop Laud which had already been published, but which hitherto were dispersed in various different works. The English Letters comprise those printed by Prynne, in his " Hidden Works," and " Canterbury's Doom ;" in the "Cabala;" by Rushworth, in his "Collections;" by Parr, in his "Life of Usher;" in Wilkins' "Concilia;" by Knowler, in the Strafforde Letters and Dispatches ; and in the Rawdon Papers, edited by Barwick. The Latin Letters are taken (with but two exceptions) from the correspondence of G. J. Vossius, printed at London, 1690, and in the "Prse- stantium ac eruditorum Virorum Epistolse." These Letters, together with all those hitherto unpublished, (except two which were obtained after the volume had been so far printed,) are now brought together in chronological order.
(ii.) The Letters, which now appear for the first time, include all that could be found in the British Museum, the Lambeth MSS., and the Tanner MSS. in the Bodleian Library, and a few others which the Editor has succeeded in obtaining from private sources. a
This portion of the series, including the Letters from Bishops Bedell and Williams, amount in number to fifty- eight. The correspondence with Bishop Williams is noted as of special interest.
The source, whether printed or MS., from which each Letter is taken, is noticed at its commencement.
a Among others who have kindly Edwin II. Lawrence, Esq., the present
allowed unpublished letters in their possessor of the Letter numbered
possession to be transcribed, the cxcviii. in this Collection. Editor wishes especially to mention
PREFACE. Vll
The number of Letters which have been found, printed and unprinted, have already swelled the volume so much as to require its division into two parts. It was hoped that the whole of Archbishop Laud's Letters would have been included in them. But, when they were almost ready for publication, researches which have been recently made at the State Paper Office brought to light a large amount of additional matter, hitherto unpublished, such as will necessitate the publication of a third part, which will be sent out with the least possible delay.
A " Calendar/' or Chronological Arrangement of all the Letters, will be appended at the end of the volume, which will in some measure compensate for the inconvenience which results from their appearing in two distinct series.
III. Notes on the Controversies of Cardinal Bellarmine. The source from whence these are derived, and the assistance which has been furnished to the Editor, both in their transcription and in carrying them through the press, are fully stated in the notice which is prefixed to them. It is sufficient here to say that they are obtained from the Library of Trinity College, Dublin, and have had the advantage of passing under the eye of Dr. Todd.
JAMES BLISS,
OGBOURNE ST. ANDREW, March 13. 1857.
CONTENTS,
Page
I. Miscellaneous Papers.
1. Reasons for not dissolving Button's Hospital . 1
2. The Memorables of King James . . 5
3. Answer to the Remonstrance of the House of
Commons .......
4. Answer to the Order made by the Lower House
of Parliament .... .11
5. Speech against Henry Sherfield . 13
6. Paper concerning the Dutch Churches . . 22
7. Speech at the Censure of Sir James Bagg . . 29
8. Speech against Bast wick, 'Burton, and Prynne . 35
9. Speech at the Trial of Bishop Williams . . 71
10. Answer to Lord Say's Speech touching the
Liturgy ... .83
11. Answer to Lord Say's Speech against the Bishops 147
12. Speech against Prynne and Sparkes . . . 234
II. Letters I— CC. . . 238
III. Notes on the Controversies of Cardinal Bellarmine . ' 607
MISCELLANEOUS WOEKS.
WHETHER SUTTON'S HOSPITAL MAY BE DISSOLVED, AND THE LANDS, OR THE USE OF THEM, CONVERTED TOWARDS THE MAINTENANCE OF AN ARMY OF 10,000 OR 12,000 MEN, TO BE ALWAYS ON FOOT AND IN PAY, TO SEND INTO IRELAND, OR UPON ANY OTHER NECESSARY SERVICE a.
[Lamb. MSS. Numb. 943, fol. 119 b.]
1. IT may be lawful for a State, in point of necessity, for public defence, to dissolve a society, alms-house, &c., this or any other, one or more, and convert the means to public service (excepting that which is consecrated to the immediate service of God).
Because all such foundations are but for the maintenance of some few members of the commonwealth. And therefore, in the very law of nature, their ordinances must be submitted to the preservation of the whole, in and by which they stand, and in whose ruin (should it so happen) they must also be raked up.
And the will of the Founder dead must be interpreted by the regular and ordinary will of the same Founder living.
a [Sutton' s Hospital is better known copies, excepting one passage men-
under its more usual title of ' The tioned in the notes. Charter House.' See an account of In the margin of the first copy is
this Foundation and the life of the the following note by Laud : — 'Sathur-
Founder, in Dr. Bearcroft's 'Historical daye, 25 of Septemb. 1624. I delivered
Account.'] in this answear Wensdaye, Octob. 13,
b [There are two copies of this paper 1624;' to which is added, in Henry
in Lamb. MSS. The transcript is made Wharton's hand, ' See the Diary on
from the second and fairest of the two those dayes.']
LAUD. VOL. VI.
« REASONS FOR NOT DISSOLVING
Which must be that his means, gotten in the commonwealth, and given for the benefit of it, should not be so tied to main tain any few members of the State, as that therewhile it should suffer the whole State to perish or be hazarded.
2. I do not think this lawful (for aught I can yet see), but only in case of necessity. Neither is it honourable for a State to dissolve works of charity upon any other pretence.
3. If the case of necessity cease, I shall ever doubt, whether the State be not bound to restore the Society to the use appointed by the Founder, and the means to maintain it in that use, if the means be not wholly spent and wasted upon that necessary service, whatever that be.
Obj. Yea, but this Hospital is abused.
Ans. But the argument from the abuse of it, therefore to convert it to other use than the Founder appointed by will, is no good argument in either reason or conscience. Unless, perhaps, where it can and doth appear, that there neither is, nor can be, other means to cure that abuse; and that the abuse be such as is not sufferable in a Christian State, which I presume is not here.
Obj. Yea, but the Founder himself appointed this Hospital to maintain old and decayed soldiers ; therefore, to convert it to maintain soldiers in present pay, and for necessary use of the State, is as little alteration of his will as may be.
Ans. 1. But this foundation consists of a school, and other maintenance of youth, as well as of decayed soldiers.
2. Besides, the case of conscience proposed is not how near this project comes to the will of the Founder, but whether there be such a necessity now upon this State, that such a foundation should be dissolved? Without which necessity I yet see not how the act can be lawful or expedient.
FURTHER CONSIDERATIONS UPON THE PARTICULAR, WHICH I HUMBLY SUBMIT TO BETTER JUDGMENT.
1. Will it not be an ill example to other times that may mean worse to such foundations than I hope the present doth?
2. It is the greatest work that hath been done since the Reformation of religion. Will not, therefore, the dissolving
BUTTON'S HOSPITAL. 3
of it be a great scandal to this State and Church, and give the Roman party just occasion to triumph ?
3. Will it not be a great disheartening to all charitable men, to see such works dissolved in the very age that brought them forth ?
4. Since the House stuck hard at the consent of passing York House c, which was a case of far less moment, and by way of valuable exchange, which is lawful where dissolution is not, is it not probable they will deny this ? And if it be proposed, and either House cast it out, will not dishonour follow the attempt ? And will not they which oppose it get the reputation ?
5. Then, will it be thought fit for the State to keep and maintain at all times such an army on foot ?
(1.) If it be thought fit, since the revenue of this Hospital falls so much short of maintaining the aforesaid army of 10,000 or 12,000 men, that it will scarce keep 1,000 a year, were it not better to supply all by other good means, than to dispute honour, and for that which can afford scarce one-tenth part to the work?
(2.) If it be not thought fit to continue this army still, will not then, upon the ceasing of it, the former doubt arise, of restoration of the land and hospital to its former use ?
6. Can it be fit to have such an army on foot at all times ? May it not be thought the commander of them, if he get the love of the soldiers, will command the State too ? The Ro mans had neither their old emperors secure, nor the elections of new free, while their armies were on foot at or near home.
7. Will it not be thought a waste of such expense as will be necessary indeed if a war follow these troubles ?
8. Is it not impossible for this State to maintain such an army in pay, and that only out of expectation or fear of danger; the yearly charge whereof will hardly be defrayed for 120,000/. ?
9. Is it fit at this time to set up such an armyd; (since you cannot forget the Spanish villany intended against you ;) or but to propose it ? May not the King reflect, and think it is
c [See Works, vol. iii. p. 152.] copied from the first of the two Lamb.
d [The remainder of this paper is MSS.]
B 2
ETC.
for other ends than are pretended ? And God forbid such a jealousy should possess him !
10. If it be thought fit at this time to have so many men in readiness, and to continue them so for a time, is it not better to take this course: that so many soldiers in divers parts should be trained, and be with their arms at an hour's warning in readiness, for any service at home or abroad ? Especially since in this way there is no more charge than the maintenance of captains to train them, a little powder while they are trained, (both which lie upon the county, and not upon the King,) and the loss of their day's work so oft as they train, which may with no great burden be supplied, if it be thought needful. Whereas, the other course, to keep them in continual pay, is too great a charge for any prince, and will but maintain them in idleness and riot.
GUIL. MENEVEN.
THE MEMORABLES
OP
OUR LATE DEAR AND DREAD SOVEREIGN,
KING JAMES,
OP FAMOUS MEMORY.
[Prynne's Breviate, p. 5.]
1. HE was a king almost from his birth.
2. His great clemency, that he should reign so long and so moderately, that knew nothing else but to reign.
3. The difficult times in Scotland during his minority, as much perplexed with Church as State factions.
4. His admirable patience in those younger times, and his wisdom to go by those many and great difficulties, till God opened him the ways to his just inheritance of this crown.
5. His peaceable entry into this kingdom, contrary to the fears at home and the hopes abroad, and withal God's great blessing both on him and us.
6. His ability, as strong in grace as nature, to forgive some occurrences.
7. The continuance of full twenty-two years' reign all in peace, without war from foreign enemy or rebellion at home.
8. The infinite advantage which people of all sorts might have brought to themselves, and the enriching of the State, if they would have used such a government with answerable care, and not made the worst use of peace.
9. God's great mercy over him in many deliverances from private conspirators, and above the rest, that which would have blown up his posterity and the State by gunpowder.
6 MEMORABLES OF KING JAMES.
10. That in all this time of the reign of England he took away the life of no one nobleman, but restored many.
11. That the sweetness of his nature was scarce to be paralleled by any other.
12. It is little less than a miracle, that so much sweetness should be found in so great a heart, as, besides other things, sickness and death itself showed to be in him.
13. Clemency, mercy, justice, and holding the State in peace, have ever been accounted the great virtues of kings, and they were all eminent in him.
14. He was not only a preserver of peace at home, but the great peacemaker abroad ; to settle Christendom against the common enemy, the Turk, which might have been a glorious work, if others had been as true to him as he was to the common good.
15. He was in private to his servants the best master that ever was, and the most free.
16. He was the justest man that could sit between parties, and as patient to hear.
17. He was bountiful to the highest pitch of a king.
18. He was the greatest patron to the Church which hath been in many ages.
19. The most learned prince that this kingdom hath ever known for matters of religion.
20. His integrity and soundness of religion, to write and speak, believe and do, live and die, one and the same, and all orthodox.
21. His tender love to the King his son, our most gracious Sovereign that now is, and his constant reverence in perform ance of all duties to his father, the greatest blessing and greatest example of this and many ages.
22. The education of his Majesty whom we now enjoy (and I hope and pray we may long and in Tiappiness enjoy), to be an able king, as Christendom hath any, the very first day of his reign; the benefit whereof is ours, and the honour his.
23. His sickness at the beginning more grievous than it seemed; a sharp melancholy humour set on fire, though ushered in by an ordinary tertian ague.
24. He was from the beginning of his sickness scarce out
MEMORABLES OP KING JAMES. 7
of an opinion that he should die ; and therefore did not suffer the great affairs of Christendom to move him more than was fit, for he thought of his end.
25. His devout receiving of the Blessed Sacrament.
26. His regal censure of the moderate reformation of the Church of England, and particularly for the care of retaining of Absolution, the comfort of distressed souls a.
27. His continual calling for prayers, with an assured confidence in Christ.
28. His death as full of patience as could be found in so strong a death.
29. His rest, no question, is in Abraham's bosom, and his crown changed into a crown of glory.
a [See Works, vol. iii. p. 158, note J.]
ANSWER
REMONSTRANCE OF THE HOUSE OF COMMONS.
[Prynne's Hidden Works, pp. 93, 94 ».]
ALTHOUGH we are not bound to give an account of our actions to any but to God only : yet out of the honour and integrity of our grace, the love and care of our people, the great and hearty desire we have to take off all fears and jealousies from our loyal and loving subjects, we have thought fit to declare these reasons following, why we have called in this Remonstrance, which yet we presume and constantly believe was framed and delivered up unto us with good intentions, though by a misguided zeal.
For first, that Remonstrance begins at religion, and fears innovation of it by Popery. But we would have our subjects of all sorts to call to mind what difficulties and dangers we endured, not many years since, for religion's sake; that we are the same still, and our holy religion is as precious to us as it is or can be to any of them, and we will no more admit innovation therein, than they that think they have done well in fearing it so much.
'Tis true that all effects expected have not followed upon the petition delivered at Oxford ; but we are in least fault, for that supply being not afforded us, disenabled us to execute all that was desired, and caused the stay of those legal pro ceedings which have helped to swell up this Remonstrance :
B [This paper was found in the vol. iv. p. 360,) it is here reprinted.
Archbishop's study, written with his The Eemonstrance to which it is a
own hand. It is written, as is obvious, reply may be found in Prynne's Hid-
in the name of K. Charles. But, as den Works, pp. 90 seq., and Eush-
thc Archbishop acknowledged on his worth's Collections, vol. i. pp. 619
Trial that he was the author, (Works, seq.]
ANSWER TO THE REMONSTRANCE. 9
yet let all the counties of England be examined, and London and the suburbs with them, neither is there such a noted increase of Papists, nor such cause of fear as is made, nor hath any amounted to such an odious tolerating as is charged upon it/nor near any such.
For that Commission so much complained of, both the matter and intent of it are utterly mistaken ; for it doth not dispense with any penalty, or any course to be taken with any Papists for the exercise of their religion ; no, nor with the pecuniary mulct, for not-conformity to ours. It was advised for the increase of our profit, and the returning of that into our purse, which abuse, or connivance of inferior ministers might, perhaps, divert another way ; if that, or any other, shall be abused in the execution, we will be ready to punish upon any just complaint.
The next fear is the daily growth and spreading of the Arminian faction, called a cunning way to bring in Popery ; but we hold this charge as great a wrong to ourself and our government as the former ; for our people must not be taught by a Parliament Remonstrance, or any other way, that we are so ignorant of truth, or so careless of the possession of it, that any opinion, or faction, or whatsoever it be called, should thrust itself so far, and so fast into our kingdoms, without our knowledge of it. This is a mere dream of them that wake, and would make our loyal and loving people think we sleep the while.
In this charge there is a great wrong done to two eminent prelates that attend our personb; for they are accused without producing any the least show or shadow of proof against them ; and should they, or any other, attempt any innovation of religion, either by that open or any cunning way, we should quickly take other order with them, and not stay for your Remonstrance.
To help on this, our people are made believe there is a restraint of books orthodoxal ; but we are sure, since the last Parliament began, some, whom the Remonstrance calls ortho dox, have assumed to themselves an unsufferable liberty in printing. Our Proclamation commanded a restraint on both sides, till the passions of men might subside and calm. And * [Neile and Laud.]
10 ANSWER TO THE REMONSTRANCE.
had this been obeyed,, as it ought, we had not now been tossed in this tempest ; and for any distressing or discountenancing of good preachers, we know there is none, if they be (as they are called) good ; but our good people shall never want that spiritual comfort which is due unto them. And for the pre ferments which we bestow, we have ever made it our great care to give them as rewards of desert and pains : but as the preferments are ours, so will we be judge of the desert our self, and not be taught by a Remonstrance.
For Ireland, we think, in case of religion, it is not worse than Queen Elizabeth left it : and for other affairs, it is as good as we found it, nay, perhaps better : and we take it for a great disparagement of our government, that it should be voiced, that new monasteries, nunneries, and other super stitious houses, are erected and replenished in Dublin and other great towns of that our kingdom ; for we assure ourself, our Deputy and Council there will not suffer God and our government so to be dishonoured, but we should have had some account of it from them ; and we may not endure to have our good people thus misled with shows.
There is likewise somewhat considerable in the time when these practices to undermine true religion in our kingdom are set on foot. The Remonstrance tells us it is now, when religion is opposed by open force in all other parts : but we must tell our people, there are no undermining practices at home against it, if they practise not against it that seem most to labour for it. For while religion seems to be contended for in such a factious way (which cannot be God's way), the heat of that doth often melt away that which it labours earn estly (but perhaps not wisely) to preserve. And, for God's judgments, which we and our people have felt, and have cause to fear, we shall prevent them best by a true and religious remonstrance of the amendment of our lives, etc.
AN ANSWER
TO THE
ORDER MADE BY THE LOWER HOUSE OF PARLIAMENT,
THE 28iH OF JANUARY, 162|a.
[Prynne's Cant. Doom, pp. 163, 164.]
1. THE public Acts of the Church in matters of doctrine are Canons and Acts of Councils, as well for expounding as determining ; the Acts of the High- Commission are not in this sense public Acts of the Church, nor the meeting of few or more bishops extra concilium, unless they be by lawful autho rity called to that work, and their decision approved by the Church.
2. The current exposition of writers is a strong probable argument de sensu Canonis Ecclesia, vel Articuli, yet but probable. The current exposition of the Fathers themselves hath sometimes missed sensum Ecclesice.
3. Will ye reject all sense of Jesuit or Arminian? May not some be true ? May not some be agreeable to our writers, and yet in a way stronger than ours to confirm the Article ?
4. Is there by this Act any interpretation made or declared of the Articles, or not ? If none, to what end the Act ? If a sense or interpretation be declared, what authority have laymen to make it ? For interpretation of an Article belongs to them only that have power to make it.
* [The order made by the House of Acts of the Church of England, and
Commons is as follows : " We, the the general and current exposition of
Commons now assembled in Parlia- the writers of our Church, have been
ment, do claim, profess, and avow for delivered unto us ; and we reject the
truth, the sense of the Articles of sense of the Jesuits, Arminians, and
Religion, which were established in all others, wherein they do differ
Parliament the thirteenth year of from us."] Queen Elizabeth ; which, by the public
12 ANSWER TO THE HOUSE OF COMMONS.
5. "Tis manifest there is a sense declared by the House of Commons ; the Act says it : We avow the Article, and in that sense ; and all other that agree not with us in the afore said sense we reject. These and these go about misinterpre tations of a sense : ergo, there is a declaration of sense. Yea, but it is not a new sense, declared by them, but they avow the old sense declared by the Church, ' the public authentic Acts of the Church/ Yea, but if there be no such public authentic Acts of the Church, then here 's a sense of their own declared under pretence of it.
6. It seems against the King's Declaration. (1.) That says, we shall take the general meaning of the Articles. This Act restrains them to consent of writers. (2.) That says, the Article shall not be drawn aside any way ; but that we shall take it in the literal and grammatical sense. This Act ties to consent of writers, which may, and perhaps do, go against the literal sense ; for here 's no exception ; so we shall be perplexed, and our consent required to things contrary.
7. All consent, in all ages, as far as I have observed, to an Article or Canon, is to itself, as it is laid down in the body of it ; and if it bear more senses than one, it is lawful for any man to choose what sense his judgment directs him to, so that it be a sense secundum analogiam fidei ; and that he hold it peaceably, without distracting the Church; and this till the Church, which made the Article, determine a sense. And the wisdom of the Church hath been in all ages, or the most, to require consent to Articles in general, as much as may be, because that is the way of unity ; and the Church in high points requiring assent to particulars, hath been rent. As de transubstantiatione.
SPEECH IN THE STAR-CHAMBER,
AT THE
CENSURE OF HENRY SHERFIELD, ESQ.
RECORDER OF SALISBURY,
JFOR BREAKING A PAINTED GLASS WINDOW IN THE CHURCH OP ST. EDMUND IN THE SAID CITY,
FEB. STH, 1632.
[Hargrave's State Trials, vol. i. coll. 412—414.]
IF there be defensio facti or confessio facti, or else two witnesses, I think any one of these three will be a sufficient proof to convict a man of an offence ; and I have observed there are all these together in this cause against Mr. Sher- field. He confesseth that he broke the windows, and setteth forth his justification in his Answer to Mr. Attorney's in formation; and this was done by him with his pike-staff, as is testified by two witnesses, such as they were ; yet they were eye-witnesses, which is the strongest testimony. I am persuaded, as I am a private man, that at least he heard of the Bishop's inhibition ; I do not say but ignorantia facti may excuse a man in such a case, at least a tanto, though not a toto perchance ; but ignorantia juris never doth excuse8; yet, because it is not directly proved that he had notice of the Act of Inhibition made by my Lord Bishop, I shall forbear to give my sentence touching this particular, the rather because he hath cleared himself of it by his oath ; and yet I have met with as strange an equivocation in some of late as almost hath been heard of, I have not read the like ; but seeing there is not plain proof, I must not judge him other than an honest man.
I • [Digest, lib. xxii. tit. vi. ' De juris et facti ignorantia.']
14 SPEECH AT THE CENSURE
Mr. Herbert b hath defended this as well as ever any did a cause to my knowledge. As for Vestries, which were made and suffered first by negligence doubtless, yet being of con tinuance, we cannot so easily restrain the power which they use. I have had experience of what I speak therein ; in a parish church within my diocese, St. Lawrence by name, there is a Vestry. It fell out once that they could not agree upon some election. I interposed as Ordinary; I had no sooner done this but I was inhibited by the Archbishop of Canterbury ; afterward, by his Grace's means, it was referred to me to end, which I endeavoured ; but then a prohibition at the common law was sent me : so that it is not an easy matter to restrain a custom.
But it is not in the power of a Vestry to remove or displace anything in the church that is doubtful ; and though they made an order in this case, for the taking down of the window6, yet it was Mr. Sherfield's fault to go disorderly to work ; his violent and riotous breaking into the church, and upon a con secrated thing, is criminal in him.
Whereas divers things touching his conformity have been proved, I am confident upon good information that had the cause been followed as well as defended (but it was ill fol lowed by them that prosecuted, and unworthy their places), many more things might have been proved against him ; and that it would have appeared, he had done more harm under hand in his place, than good otherwise. But for his trouble of conscience, which should impel to this action, it troubled not much, for he kept it in, and nourished it, till it grew, as you see, to a great head, so that at last it hath brought him hither, even to the sentence of this court.
My conscience being laid at stake, I am not of opinion that images and pictures were not in the Church till the time of Gregory the Great ; nor am I of opinion that the first trouble about them was at the second Council of Nice. St. Gregory,
b [Afterwards Sir Edward Her- new make the same window with white
bert.] glass ; for that the said window is some-
c [The order of the Vestry passed what decayed and broken, and is very
Jan. 162|, was as follows : " It is darksome, whereby such as sit near
ordered that Mr. Recorder may, if it the same cannot see to read in their
please him, take down the window books." — Vestry-book of S. Edmund's,
wherein God is painted in many quoted in Hatcher's History of Salis-
places as if He were there creating bury, p. 371.] the world, so as he do instead thereof
OP HENRY SHEKFDELD. 15
who was 600 years after Christ, in his 9th Book and 9th Epistle written to [Serenus], saith of images, Vetustas admisit^. But, 200 years before this, we find that Gregory, surnamed the Divine, otherwise called Gregory Nazianzen, when the Emperor laid siege to the city of which he was bishop, in his oration to the said Emperor, to move him to pity, saith that the citizens, above all their losses, spoiling of the city walls, ruining of their houses and temples, took to heart the pulling down of their statues. Et hoc acerbum, saith he e. Nay, we find them in the Church 200 years after Christ ; they were upon the chalice, and that is ever upon the altar.
In Tertullian' s time, (who was one of the ancientest Fa thers,) there was painted upon the chalice the picture of the shepherd bringing home the lost sheep upon his shoulders f ; and this was objected against Tertullian himself, who in his latter time fell into the opinion and error of the Montanists, who are against second marriage and repentance after bap tism, affirming that no repentance is left to him that sinneth after baptism; against which error the Church used this symbol of the shepherd bringing home the lost sheep.
Again, in the time of that ancient Father, Irenseus, who is held to be the scholar of St. John, they had the picture of Jesus Christ ; and they had it from the Gnostics, who had adorations with it and sacrifices ; and therefore the holy Father condemned that picture, because (saith he) the Gnostics did that to this picture which the heathen did to their idol gods^. But it hath been a distasteful thing to
d [" Frangi vero non debuit quod (Tertullian, Oxf. Translation, vol. i.
non ad adorandum in Ecclesiis, sed p. 112, note b.]
ad instruendas solummodo mentes f [" A parabolis licebit incipias, ubi
nescientium fuit collocatum. Et quia est ovis perdita a Domino requisita,
in locis venerabilibus sanctorum de- et humeris ejus revecta. Procedant
pingi historias non sine ratione ve- ipsse picturae calicum vestrorum."—
tustas admisit, etc." — S. Greg. Mag. Tert. de Pudicit. cap. vii. Op., p. 379.
lib. xi. Ind.iv. Ep. xiii. Op., torn. ii. "Si forte patrocinabitur pastor, quern
col. 1100.] in calice depingis." — Ibid. cap. x.
e [He refers to the following pas- p. 392.]
sage in the letter of S. Greg. ISTaz. to * [" Et imagines quasdam depictas,
the Prefect Olympius : — Ou5e jap d quasdam autem et de reliqua materia
ai/Sptaj/res KaTei>ex#TJ<T'oi/Tai, TOVTO Set- fabricatas habent, dicentes formam
vov, ct ital aAAws Seivdv ^TjSe irepl TOV- Christi factarn a Pilato, illo in tem-
TUV vo/j.ia"r]s fi/jur eTi/cu T&V \6yov, oTs pore quo fuit Jesus cum hominibus.
irepl ra Kpf'iTTova ^ 0Trou8?j. — S. Greg. Et has coronant et proponunt eas cum
Naz. Epist. xlix. Op., torn. i. p. 810. imaginibus mundi philosophorum."—
C. D. This passage refers, however, S. Iren. contr. omn. Hasret. lib. i.
to statues on the buildings of the city, cap. xxv. § 6. Op., p. 105.] and not to images in churches. (See
16 SPEECH AT THE CENSURE
remove pictures and images. We read that the Bishop of Cyrene broke the pictures in the churches, which his people took so ill, that they rose against him, and were hardly appeased.
And of late times we have had experience of like mischiefs in France and the Low Countries about this matter. And we know what rebellions were raised in the beginning of the Reformation, in this kingdom and in Germany : when Carlo- stadius and his company went about to pull down and deface the images in the churches, what a stir was there ! If Luther himself had not come back, and appeased the multitude by his timely advice, that the work of reformation was to be left to the supreme magistrates, (which was well done of him, and a thing wherein he showed his wisdom,) much more mischief would have ensued11. I do not say these things to any such purposes as that images should have any part of divine adoration.
When these were brought into the churches, as one side fell to worshipping them, so the other side fell to breaking and defacing them, which bred many broils; and amongst the rest one very sharp contention, by reason of the prevail ing of worshippers of images, was stirred in the time of Con- stantine the Great1; for I read the Empress gave her voice against her son Constantine to put him off from the empire ; because of his defacing of the images which they had in their churches. But for that gross Council of Nice, (pardon me this gross term, but they deserve it in my opinion,) they decree the same honour was to be done to the image as to the life, whether it were the picture of man, or of God, or of Christ. And then another decree in that Council was, that a man must rather endure penury than do violence to a picture ; and their absurd distinction of latria and doulia, &c.k Yet this I say, there is a great deal of difference between an image and an idol ; but then, if men give worship to them as to the other, it is unlawful.
h [See Cochlaeus, in Yita Lutheri, Kal TUVTO.IS aa-iraa-^ teal
an. 1522.] -npovKvvriaiv airovt/^fiv ov /u.rjv Tr\v Hard
1 [There seems to be some inaccu- TT'HTTIV f)/j.<2v a\T\Qivr)v \arpeiav, $? TrpeTret
racy in this statement.] novy rfj Qdif, Qvcrft . . . f) yap rijs eiKovos
k ['Op/fb/xe*' . . . irapatr\'t}(T'uas T<p TVTTW TIJJ.T) firl TO trpurorvTrov Si.al3a.ivei. —
ToG TL/J.IOV Kai fyoiroiov <TTavpov avwri- Cone. Nic. ii. Act. vii. — Cone. torn. vii.
TO.S ffeirras Kal ayias etwJfas . . . col. 555. C — E.]
OF HENRY SHEE FIELD. 17
18 SPEECH AT THE CENSURE
not pulled down, till Josiah the king did it, and this he doth by his supreme power ; and the king did this by the priests of the first and second order. Both these appear in their; stories in the Fourth Book of Kings, the 18th and 23dj chapters.
As for the second commandment, ' Thou shalt not make: any graven image,' or picture, fto thyself/ No, take heed,i worship it not, howsoever it be : if thou dost make an image,! yet thou shalt not worship it. But there is no command orj example for breaking of images (when they are made) with-! out public authority. You shall see this plainly in that altar set up by the Reubenites and Gadites at Jordan : this was conceived by some of the people to be an idolatrous thing, at least an intention in them to set up another manner of wor ship, and Jerusalem was the place of worship only. There was an embassage sent unto them, and Phineas and other princes were employed on it. They did not presently fall upon them, and break down the altar, though they hadi special and strict command to overthrow and break down allji idolatrous and heathen altars, groves, places of idolatry, andji images ; but this they were not to do presently, — they were! to tarry till the land was theirs, in their own power, as youi may see in the 7th and 12th chapters of Deut. But you will!' say, these were for the Jews, but not for us in the times of 1 the Gospel. In St. Augustin's time, the people committed) idolatry with their images, and many there were that would] have pulled down the images (the causes of this idolatry). St. Augustin adviseth — No, first preach them out of men's hearts ; and he called upon the ministers so to do ; but you shall not pull them down (saith he) till the supreme power doth it, or power were given them m. Thus, if it were Jupiter's picture, Mr. Sherfield or any others are not to pull it down till power be given them. And Gerardus the Lutheran is of the same opinion.
The Homily against Idolatry (so much magnified11) plainly shows it to belopg to the supreme magistrate, and has refer ence to such pictures as are upon walls; but stories upon
m [See S. Aug. Serm. Ixii. (al. de xxxiv. Works, vol. iv. p. 238.]
Verb. Dom. vi.) § 17. Op., torn. v. col. n [Urged by Sherfield in his de-
520. D. The passage is quoted in fence.] History of Troubles and Trial, chap.
OF HENRY STIERFIELD. 19
glass windows were not here meant. And as for my Lord Bishop of Salisbury his book of worthy Lectures0 at Cam bridge, upon the fourth chapter of the Epistle to the Col- lossians, upon these words, ' Walk wisely towards them that are without/ what saith he ? Why, the very same that St. Austin did before, that a private man hath neither vocationem nor potestatem to do it : thus, if he had read a little further P, he should have found direction to have walked wisely. And, indeed, those that are out of the Church must be dealt wisely withal. When you see these things, you cannot, as the Israelites did not, deface them, for they belong only to the supreme power. And you shall see St. Paul's practice, in the 17th chapter of the Acts of the Apostles ; he saw they had set up an altar to the unknown God, yet he went not to pull it down, but to teach them that God which they knew not, even as St. Austin afterwards advised.
So I come to this, which is the work of the day : this is a violent, riotous, and profane entering into the church by him, to break this window down with his pike- staff : and as the matter standeth proved to me, it seemeth there are these circumstances of aggravation of his fault : —
1. The first circumstance of aggravation is, that when he went about the taking down of this window, he went not unto the Bishop, but chose another way.
2. He was twenty years offended at it ; and in all this time, we think, some good spirit might have suggested unto him better advice, if he would have followed it.
3. By his office and authority, his fault is the greater and more scandalous.
4. By his age, being grown grey, he should have learned wisdom.
5. That when he went to do this, he went in private, which some have said to be well done ; but I am not of that opinion. True, if it had been a work of necessity in him to take it down, he might have done it ; but then he must follow his order, and he should then have taken a glazier with him to have taken it down, and not break it down with his staff.
0 [Davenant on the Colossians, cap. to a certain book of the now Bishop iv. 5. p. 490. Cant. 1627.] of Sarum (Dr. John Davenant), written
"> [Sherfield in his defence referred on one of S. Paul's Epistles.]
c 2
20 SPEECH AT THE CENSURE
6. His offence is the greater by his office of justice of peace ; certainly herein he was not conservator pacis, for besides the force and violence,, there might have been much discord and bloodshed about it, as was well observed by Mr. Attorney.
7. By the doing of this act contrary to his conformity, there have been the like insolences done in the same church, for which I think there is a cause against some of them de pending in the High-Commission Court. There was a tomb of a dead bishop there : his bones taken up, his skull made a mazer in an apothecary's shop (as I am informed), his dust thrown about, and all to bury a tanner's wifeq.
8. In regard of his tenderness of conscience, which he al leged for himself; my reason is, for that, if he were of tender conscience indeed ; yet in this thing I shall sentence him, for not going to the Bishop to reveal it to him ; if it were but a show of tenderness, then surely there was the more wilful- ness in his offence, and this can be no excuse.
9. His fault is aggravated from his profession. It is an honourable profession ; and as it is a great offence in a divine to infringe the law of the kingdom wherein he is born and bred up, so it is also a great offence if those of the profession of the law vilify the poor laws of the Church. Thus much let me say to Mr. Sherfield, and such of his profession as slight the ecclesiastical laws and persons, that there was a time when Churchmen were as great in this kingdom as you- are now ; and let me be bold to prophesy, there will be a time when you will be as low as the Church is now, if you go 011 thus to contemn the Church.
To proceed, he went into the church. It pleased God to give him a fall upon the place, and if it had not been God's mercy, he had broken his back upon the edge of the pew. Yet all this while these things have not wrought him to any confession that he hath done amiss ; nay, he saith he was per secuted for God's cause (as I am informed), but I think he persecuted the poor sexton of the church ; they put him in prison, and there kept him, and would have kept him, if my Lord Bishop had not sent bail ; and if it had not been for the Bishop, they would have turned him out of his place.
i ["This assertion appears to have — Hatcher's History of Salisbury, p. Leon made on erroneous information." 373.]
OF HENRY SHEFFIELD. 21
And then, just upon the fact committed, cometh a new Lec turer to town, and he pitcheth upon the text, Psalm cxix. ver. 121 : ' I have executed judgment and justice ; leave me not to mine oppressors/
I have been the willinger to render this account at this time, because some are ready to slander us as maintainers of Popish superstition, and I know not what.
As for my sentence, I agree with my Lord Cottington r.
r [The recorded sentence of the make an acknowledgment of his of-
court was, that Sherfield should be fence and contempt, before such per-
committed to the Fleet, fined 5001., sons as the Bishop would call unto
and ordered to repair to the Lord him.] Bishop of his Diocese, and there
CONCERNING
THE DUTCH AND FRENCH CHURCHES
IN ENGLAND.
[Prynne, Cant. Doom, pp. 398—402.]
WHEREAS I was commanded by your Lordships, upon Friday, March 22, 1632, first, to represent to his gracious Majesty the great and honourable care you had to preserve the unity and government of the Church of England, as it stands now established by law, which care was very great and pious ; and according to my duty, in the name of the Church, I humbly thank your Lordships for it ; and have, in pursuance of your commands, faithfully acquainted his Majesty with as many particulars as I could carry away safe in my memory.
Secondly, I was commanded by your Lordships to take into further consideration such heads as might best conduce to the rectifying of such his Majesty 's subjects as reside at Hamborough, or elsewhere beyond the seas, but especially in the Low Countries, either in merchandise, or 'in use and exercise of arms under the colonels there : as also what might be thought fit to be done concerning the French and Dutch Churches, as they now stand, and are used at this present within this realm ; but at such time as your Lordships in your wisdom shall best approve.
Concerning the first of these, viz. the English living in Foreign Parts, I humbly recommend to your Lordships3 wisdom, as followeth : —
1. Whether it be not fit (I had almost said necessary) that the several colonels in the Low Countries should entertain no
CONCERNING THE DUTCH AND FRENCH CHURCHES. 23
minister as preacher to their regiments, but such as shall con form in all things to the Church of England established, and be commended unto them from your Lordships by advice of the Lords Archbishops of Canterbury or York for the time being.
2. That the company of merchants residing there, or in other foreign parts, shall admit no minister as preacher to them, but such as are so qualified and so commended as aforesaid.
3. That if any minister, having by feigned carriage gotten to be so recommended, either to any of the several colonels, or to the deputy-governor and body of the merchants there, shall after be found unconformablc, and will not mend upon warning given him by the colonel or deputy-governor of the merchants, [he] shall, within three months after such warning given and refused, be dismissed from his service, that a more orderly and peaceable man may be sent unto them.
4. That every minister or preacher, with any regiment of soldiers that are his Majesty's born subjects, or with the com pany of merchants there or elsewhere, shall read Divine ser vice, christen children, administer the sacrament of the Lord's Supper, marry, instruct the younger or more ignorant sort in the Catechism, visit the sick, bury the dead, and do all other duties according as they are prescribed in the Book of Com mon Prayer maintained in the Church of England, and not otherwise. And that he which will not conform himself so to do, shall not continue preacher, either to any regiment of English, or Scottish, or to the merchants.
5. That if any minister or preacher, being the King's sub ject, shall with any bitter words or writings, in print or otherwise, defame the government of the Church of England established, his Majesty's ambassador or agent in those parts for the time being is to be informed of it ; and upon notice given from him to the State, he or they so offending shall be commanded over by Privy Seal, or otherwise, to answer their offence or offences here.
6. That no colonel of any several regiment, or deputy- governor of the merchants, shall give way that their minister or preacher shall bring any other minister to preach for him in time of his sickness, absence, or other necessary employ-
24 CONCERNING THE DUTCH
ment, but such as for whose conformity to the Church and Government here he will be answerable.
7. That if any minister being a subject of the King, in the Low Countries, or any other place beyond the seas, shall in any other auditory, as well as before the regiments or the merchants, preach or publish, or in any other way by public speech, writing, or printing, divulge anything derogatory to the doctrine or discipline established in the Church of England, or otherwise prejudicial to the temporal state and government, his Majesty's agent there shall use the best means he can to discover him or them so offending, and having found them, shall presently certify the State here, that so they may be recalled by Privy Seal to answer it. And if they then refuse to come, that the law in that case pass upon them.
8. That no man shall be chosen or sent over by the mer chants here, either to Delf, or any other place of their residence beyond the seas, (whensoever such place or places shall become void,) but such a man as is conformable to the Church of England both in doctrine and discipline, and such as will be careful to see that they which are under his govern ment shall observe all such Church duties as are expressed and required in any the former Articles. And that some of the chief merchant-adventurers here be sent for to the Board, and be made acquainted with this Article. And further, that at every time and times that they send a new deputy- governor to any place of their residence, they present the said deputy to the Lords, and give them assurance of his fitness and sufficiency for that charge ; at which time the said deputy may have such directions given him by their Lordships as the present times and occasions require. And that there be like care taken for other good officers there, as for the deputy-governor himself.
9. That whensoever the merchant-adventurers shall become suitors to his Majesty to renew or confirm their patent, (as in most Kings' times it is usual so to do,) that then there be a clause inserted into their patent, to bind them to the observance of all or so much of these Instructions as shall be thought fit by his Majesty and the Lords.
10. That the present agent, as also all others that shall
AND TRENCH CHURCHES. 25
succeed in that employment, have these Instructions given them in charge ; and that once a-year they be required to give the Board an account what the proceed of the business is. That so his Majesty' s subjects, as well abroad as at home, may be kept in orderly obedience, to the honour of his Majesty's government, and the better uniting of the hearts of his people to God, his Majesty, and one to another, in which will consist the strength as well as the honour of the kingdom.
11. I conceive it no way fit, that the ministers which are his Majesty's subjects in Holland, should have any classical meetings allowed them (as it seems they pretend some grant since the year 162.2), especially that they be not suffered to assume power of ordination ; for then it will be a perpetual seminary to breed and transplant men ill affected to the Government into this kingdom.
It is to be observed that the French and High German congregations in the Low Countries do all observe the Liturgy of their own mother Churches ; only the English observe neither their own, nor any other uniformity.
Concerning the second ; that is, the French and Dutch Churches, as they now stand in many parts of this Kingdom, I as hum bly represent, first the danger, then the probable remedy.
For the dangers I humbly submit, but conceive as fol- lowetli : —
1. It was honour and piety in this State, when at the first way was given for those Churches, both in London and some other parts of this kingdom ; because at that time there was persecution upon them in their own countries, and the peace with which God then blessed this kingdom was their safety.
2. I conceive it was never the meaning and purpose of this State, then or at any other time, that they living and continu ing here, marrying, and having wives and children, and many of them plentiful fortunes, and lands ; and their children and children's children being now natives, and his Majesty's born subjects, should live like an absolute divided body from the Church of England established, which must needs work upon their affections, and alienate them from the State, or at least
26 CONCERNING THE DUTCH
make them ready for any innovation that may sort better with their humour.
3. It is likewise considerable what an entire and divided body they keep themselves. For few, or none of them, marry with any of us, but only one with another. Upon which it must needs follow, that as they increase and multiply, they which are now a Church within a Church, will in time grow to be a kind of another commonwealth within this, and so ready for that which I hold not fit to express any further.
4. It is likewise of great consequence, that these men living with their entire families, divided from the present government of Church and Commonwealth, are many, and have got their residence and settlement in all or most of the haven towns, especially such as lie fittest for France and the Low Countries. And were occasion offered, God knows what advantage they may take to themselves, or make for others.
5. Their example is of ill consequence (in Church affairs especially) to the subjects of England. For many are con firmed in their stubborn ways of disobedience to the Church- government, seeing them so freely suffered in this great and populous city.
6. Last of all, I think it very just not to suffer French or Dutch Churches, differing from us in discipline, to be other wise or longer tolerated in any part of this realm, than the doctrine and discipline of the Church of England shall, among the subjects of this crown, be tolerated in those several parts beyond the seas, whither they have cause to resort and abide.
For the remedies likewise I humbly submit, but conceive they may be these : —
1 . I think it fit their number in all places of this kingdom be made known as fully as may be; that your Lordships may the better judge both of them, and the way to reduce them into one body with this kingdom, in which they are born subjects.
2. I conceive the best way to know their number is by a command from the State itself, and to have it avowedly taken
AND FRENCH CHURCHES. 27
in all places where they reside ; with a certificate, either presently, or when your Lordships shall think fit, which are the men of credit and wealth among them. And this may be done really for their good, and so sweetened, as that they may apprehend it for a benefit, as indeed it is.
3. It is fit, if they will continue as a divided body from both State and Church, that they be used as strangers, and not as natives. That is, that they may pay all double duties, as strangers use to do, and have no more immunities than strangers have, till they will live and converse as other sub jects do. And this matter of loss or gain is as likely to work upon them, especially the merchants and richer men, as any other thing, and perhaps more.
4. When it shall be thought fit actually to reduce them to live as other subjects do, both in relation to Church and State, the way I conceive may be, to have them fairly warned in an ecclesiastical way, for every man with his household (if he be not a new comer, but a born subject) to repair to his parish church here, to conform himself to prayers, sacraments, &c. And if any receive not according to canon and law, then to excommunicate him and them. And by that time the writ de excommunicato capiendo hath been served upon some few, it may be the rest will yield themselves.
5. If this do not prevail, then I conceive, under favour, it will be hard to remedy, unless the State will publicly declare, That if they will be as natives, and take the benefit of sub jects, they must conform themselves to the laws of the kingdom, as well ecclesiastical as temporal. Which declara tion, when it shall once be made public, I think they will be well advised before they will resist or refuse it.
28 INJUNCTIONS TO THE DUTCH AND WALLOON CHURCHES.
INJUNCTIONS TO THE DUTCH AND WALLOON CHURCHES,
A.D. 1634, 1635.
[Prynne's Cant. Doom, p. 402.]
1. THAT all the natives of the Dutch and Walloon congre gations in his Grace's diocese, are to repair to their several parish churches, of those several parishes where they inhabit, to hear Divine service and sermons, and perform all duties and payments required in that behalf.
2. That the ministers, and all others of the Dutch and Walloon congregations, which are not natives and born sub jects to the King's Majesty, or any other strangers that shall come over to them, while they remain strangers, may have and use their own discipline, as formerly they have done; yet it is thought fit, that the English Liturgy should be translated into French and Dutch, for the better settling of their children to the English government.
NOTES OF SPEECH
AT THE
CENSURE OF SIR JAMES BAGG AND OTHERS,
Nov. 10, 1635 a.
[Rushworth's Collections, vol. ii. pp. 310—313.]
My Lords,
THIS is a cause of great danger, I shall be as short as I can ; before I speak of the defendant, I shall speak of the great minister of state. If the court think fit to leave it to my Lord of Portland15 to vindicate his father's honour, I shall do so too. I do remember what both my Lord Chief Justices c have said, whether this charge can be severed from the scandal, or not ? Whether a necessity to name the Lord Treasurer, or not ? I do conceive it to be unavoidable. If a necessity in using his name, then what fault in Sir Anthony Pell ? If no necessity, I must condemn Bagg for being in a far greater fault, that by his open mouth so much vilified the honour of the name of my Lord Treasurer. I descend to the delivery of my judgment clearly, and am of opinion that my Lord Treasurer's honour standeth right in this court, there being nothing by way of proof or aspersion that can fasten upon him. If anything, it must arise from the plaintiff, or from the defendants. And I shall be as ready as any man to protect the honour of that great lord, be it against Pell, or Bagg, or whom else soever. But, my Lords, if it be a fault in Sir Anthony Pell, for the spreading of this, the fault must
a [This was an action by Sir Anth. Pell some claims he had on the Trea-
Pell against Sir James Bagg, for dc- eury. — See Eushworth's Collections,
frauding him of sundry sums of vol. ii. pp. 302, 303.]
money, under pretence of paying them b [Jerome Weston, second Earl of
as a bribe to the Earl of Portland, the Portland.]
Lord Treasurer, in order to secure for r [Finch and Bramston.]
30 SPEECH AT THE
light upon Sir James Bagg, for he gave the occasion of all these reports. My Lords,
Having, as far as lieth in me, done the duty I owe to the dead, whom I hold to be clear in all, I shall fall upon the particulars. First, for the examiner. I never knew so many gross abuses in any cause, by an examiner, as in this. If this course be held, any cause of the King's may be over thrown. Since I had the honour to sit in this court, never such gross abuses were committed by an examiner. That order may be taken with this base examiner, I hold him to be the most unworthy fellow, and a cut-throat of any man's cause.
For Sir Richard Tichburne, I hold him innocent from any aspersion ; but I can give him no reparation. What if five or six defendants, and only proof be brought against them, one or two, shall this fall foul upon the plaintiff for want of proof?
For the plaintiff's debt, I shall not say anything, nor think it a crime that Pell was delayed in the payment of his money ; for the King hath a great many very great public and important occasions, that he cannot pay all upon de mand. And withal considering that the original debt was but 7,000?., and it suddenly grew to above 13,000/., therefore the Lord Treasurer had need to look about him. God forbid, that upon main occasions, when the King promiseth a suit (perhaps directly) of so much money, and is not presently paid, that the King must pay interest for this ; this is no fair usage of the King.
The thing that troubleth me is this, of the attendants on the Lord Treasurer. If the Lord Treasurer have a near kinsman, or secretary, or any other employed for him, if those men shall be corrupt, or do those acts which shall make the world believe it is so, it shall be as much as if they were really guilty. For by this means the people will run on with an opinion of bribery and corruption. They cannot have it out of this great man's hand, but they must go that way of bribery to the secretary for it. It shall not only bring great men into despite, who perhaps never heard of it ; but men when they cannot have their money without going this way, care not what thev do.
CENSURE OF SIR JAMES BAGG. 31
Because lie nameth the great officer in the bill, is it a scandal ? Must this be a terror to any man for doing the King's service ? Oh, but there is meddling with the King's revenue. What hath Sir Anthony Pell to do with it? If there be but a possibility of fraud, shall the King have no court of justice to do him right ? If it come to this pass, that no abuse concerning the revenue must be questioned, the King shall never know what the escheat is.
Here are four defendants : —
For Sir Richard Tichburne, the Lord Treasurer had no dishonour by him ; a gentleman of an ancient family, and very worthy as any man ; therefore I shall concur, that the sentence may be drawn up with a fair mention of his manifest innocency throughout the cause.
For the second defendant, Mr. Gibbins, I do clear him.
For the third defendant, his secretary, Mr. Lake, I am very sorry to meet him here upon this occasion, not that I shall censure him, but yet somewhat sticketh with me, and that is his letter to Mr. Bond, that upon his faith and credit he had assignments of 6,000/. in keeping for the plaintiff. Should he be so adventurous as to write so without his lord's privity ? It troubleth me the more, partly for the proof of it, because there are six days between Sir James Bagg's ad vancement of 2,000/., and Mr. Lake's letter to Bond to help Sir Anthony to 3,000/., therefore a fraud is contrived in some kind. Yet I shall acquit Mr. Lake, though I cannot think so well of him as I have done. My Lords,
Now as for Sir James Bagg, I do not stand upon it, whether Sir Anthony Pell is damnified in this business, yea or no ? The question is, what fraudulent practices are here by Sir James Bagg ? And if there be but an intention to do the same, I hold him as guilty as if he had done it. Join this together with his using of my Lord Treasurer's name to lend these monies, that so he might be enticed by that merely to get the assignments ; I do hold this practice to be criminal in this court.
The proof is, That he had experience in businesses of this nature; he was to have but seven hundred pounds for his pains. He must to Wallingford House; though in answer
32 SPEECH AT THE
to this it was wittily observed by Sir James Bagg's Counsel,, this construction, (sensu diviso, sensu composite,) that he must pay the money, and then presently to Wallingford House, and pay the money there.
If two witnesses not concurring in time and place, yet if they shall concur in proving the crime, they are of force to me, they all come home to this plot and practice. I should be of opinion with my Lord of London, if these things were several.
But consider the shoehorn they draw on by the name of the Lord Treasurer, and the plot will appear.
I find this money pretended to be for my Lord Treasurer, though it was never paid back again, nor ever tendered ; and yet what a glorious defence at bar was offered, that Bagg would not pay it till the bill came in. For why? Because that the world should not take notice, that he was afraid of the bill. This is but a gloss and weakening of himself. All the world may see, if it had not been for the bill, Sir Anthony Pell should never have had his money. It is even as if one fall upon another in the highway, and they rob him, and make him enter into bond, that he will not question him hereafter ; and then others come and see them, then he that robbed him answers, Here is your money, I did but borrow it. I conceive the getting of the money by Bagg from Pell as bad, as if he had gone away with the two thousand and five hundred pounds.
I agree in .one thing with my Lord Finch, that Bagg was a most unnatural man, that had drawn two thousand five hundred pounds for the use of himself and his friends, from the plaintiff. And whereas Sir Anthony was in a strait how to advance three thousand pounds, that he should be so hard hearted (that two thousand five hundred pounds being in his hands) as not to help him at such a time, I would have sentenced him for this unnatural part alone. Poor Sir Anthony must suffer all this, while it is likely Bagg would never have been gulled in a business. He was an ingenious man, Sir Anthony was a single plain man.
If Bagg had put this bill in, I should have conceived the worst of it ; but I shall never believe poor Sir Anthony had in him that malice, as if Bagg had put it in. For his Counsel to take exceptions against witnesses at the hearing,
CENSURE OF SIR JAMES BAGG. 33
is of dangerous consequence ; any cause of the King's may be so spoiled. They say one of Sir Anthony's witnesses was but seventeen years of age ; if it were so, yet he was of age enough to tell and receive money. They except against them because they are Sir Anthony's servants. Who are so proper to be witnesses as his men ? Why is here no exception taken to Sir James Bagg's witnesses ? for he had two sworn as well as Sir Anthony.
For Mr. Escourt, they say he was then present, and heard no such words as Marsh sweareth. That might be true, and he not hear; for they might be spoke, and not in his hearing. What if Pell did fail in the proof of his bill, not only in the matter, but in the manner ?
I will not look upon Pell, but upon the public ; but I hold this proved both in matter and manner; for it would not have been sufficient for Pell to have proved he was cozened thus much, but in this manner. That which is worst of all, and is so foul, that his Counsel offered no defence, and that was Bagg's own answer ; where he sweareth, that he never did deserve any such kindness of Sir Anthony Pell for to do so great courtesy, as to lend him these monies. Look but upon, and see the many letters he writ ; ' James Bagg, your most real friend ; your business will be better done, if you leave it to your friend James Bagg/ Here is his hand against his oath, and his oath against his hand. He was a most base fellow to say, 'Your most real friend/ and to serve Sir Anthony as he did. I have now done with that bottomless Bagg, and my censure. I leave my Lord of Portland to do what he thinketh fit against him. I hold it as dangerous a practice of him as ever was in this kind. I fine him at 5,000/., and imprisonment during the King's pleasure ; only pray, that a man whose hand and oath cannot be taken, may not be in trust, especially in places concerning his Majesty. The plaintiff hath a loss personal and real, and engaged him self in many thousand pounds for the obtaining of money; therefore I fine Bagg 500/. damages to Sir Anthony Pell.
LAUD. — VOL. VI.
A SPEECH
DELIVERED IN THE
STARR-CHAMBER, ON WEDNESDAY, THE
Xiv. of JUNE MDCXXXVII.
AT THE CENSURE,
(lohn Baftwick, Of -j Henry Burton, & \William Prinn ;
Concerning pretended Innovations In the CHURCH.
By the most Reverend Father in GOD,
WILLIAM,
L. Arch Bishop of Canterbury his Grace.
LONDON :
Printed by RICHARD BADGER. MDCXXXVII.
D 2
[This Speech has been collated with the original edition, the pages of which are inserted in the text in brackets. The figures in the margin mark the pages of the second volume of Laud's Works, Lond. 1700, in which it was reprinted.']
TO HIS MOST SACRED MAJESTY,
CHAELES,
BY THE GRACE OF GOD, KING OF GREAT BRITAIN, FRANCE, AND IRELAND, DEFENDER OF THE FAITH, &c.
Most Gracious and Dread Sovereign,
I HAD no purpose to come in print, but your Majesty commands it, and I obey. Most sorry I am for the occasion that induced me to speak, and that since hath moved you to command me to print. Nor am I ignorant that many things, while they are spoken and pass by the ear but once, give great content; which when they come to the eyes of men, and their often scanning, may lie open to some exceptions. This may fall to my lot in this particular, and very easily, considering my many diversions, and the little time I could snatch from other employment to attend this. Yet choose I rather to obey your Majesty, than to sacrifice to mine own privacy and content.
Since then this Speech uttered in public in the Star- Chamber must now come to be more public in print ; I humbly desire your sacred Majesty to protect me and it from the undeserved calumny of those men, ' whose mouths are spears and arrows, and their tongues a sharp sword,' Psal. Ivii. 4. Though, as the wise man speaks, ' their foolish mouths have already called for their own stripes, and their lips' (and pens) e been a snare for their souls/ Prov. xviii. 6, 7.
The occasion which led me to this speech is known. X There
have of late been divers libels spread against the prelates of
this Church, t And they have not been more bitter, which is
the shame of these ' raging waves a,' than they are utterly false,
a Jude, ver. 13.
38 DEDICATION.
which is our happiness. v But I must humbly beseech your Majesty to consider, that His not we only, that is, the Bishops, that are struck at, but, through our sides, your Majesty, your honour, your safety, your religion, is impeached.** For what safety can you expect, if you lose the hearts of your people ? And how can you retain their hearts, if you change their religion into superstition ? And what honour can you hope for, either present, or derivative to posterity, if you attend your government no better than to suffer your prelates to put this change upon you ? And what majesty can any prince retain, if he lose his honour and his people ? K God be thanked His in all points otherwise with you : for God hath blessed you with a religious heart, and not subject to change^ And he hath filled you with honour in the eyes of your people : and by their love and dutifulness he hath made you safe. **So that your Majesty is upheld, and your crown flourishing in the eyes of Christendom > And God forbid any libellous blast at home from the tongues or pens of a few, should shrivel up any growth of these.
We have received, and daily do receive from God, many and great blessings by you : and I hope they are not many that are unthankful to you, or to God for you. And that there should be none in a populous nation, even enemies to their own happiness, cannot be expected. xYet I shall desire even these to call themselves to an account, and to remember that blasphemy against God, and ' slandering the footsteps of His anointed/ are joined together, Psal. lxxxix.b For he that blasphemes God will never stick at the slander of his prince ; and he that gives himself the liberty to slander his prince, will quickly ascend to the next highest, and blaspheme God.*
But then, as I desire them to remember, so I do most humbly beseech your Majesty to account with yourself too : and not to measure your people's love by the unworthiness of those few. For a loyal and obedient people you have, and such as will spare nor livelihood, nor life, to do you service ; and are joyed at the heart to see the moderation of your
b Psal. Ixxxix. 50. " Wherewith and slandered the footsteps of thine thine enemies have blasphemed Thee, anointed."
DEDICATION. 39
government, and your constancy to maintain religion, and your piety in exampling it.
And as I thus beseech you for your people in general, so do I particularly for the three professions which have a little suffered in these three most notorious libellers' persons.
And first for my own profession, I humbly beg of your Majesty to think Mr. Burton hath not in this many followers, and am heartily sorry he would needs lead. The best is, your Majesty knows what made his rancour swell0 ; I'll say no more.
* And for the law, I truly honour it with my heart, and believe Mr. Prynn may seek all the Inns of Court, (and with a candle too if he will,) and scarce find such a malevolent as himself against State and Church. And because he hath so frequently thrust mistaken law into these pamphlets, to wrong the governors of the Church, and abuse your good and well-minded people, and makes Burton and Bastwick utter law which, God knows, they understand not (for I doubt his pen is in all the pamphlets), I do humbly, in the Church's name, desire of your Majesty, that it may be resolved by all the reverend Judges of England, and then published by your Majesty, that our keeping courts, and issuing process in our own names, and the like exceptions formerly taken, and now renewed, are not against the laws of the realm (as 'tis most certain they are not), that so the church-governors may go on cheerfully in their duty, and the people's minds be quieted by this assurance, that neither the law, nor their liberty as subjects, is thereby infringed d.
And for physic, the profession is honourable and safe ; and I know the professors of it will remember that corpus huma- num, man's body, is that, about which their art is conversant, not corpus ecclesiasticum, or politicwn, the body of the Church, State or Commonwealth. Bastwick only hath been bold that way. But the proverb in the Gospel, in the fourth of St. Luke, is all I'll say to him : Medice, cur a teipsum ; ' Physician, heal thyself6.' And yet let me tell your Majesty, I believe
c [He had been Clerk of the Closet d [Such a Proclamation was subse-
to the King, when Prince, and ex- quently issued. See Wilkins' Cone,
pected to have been continued in the torn. iv. p. 536.]
same office on his accession to the e St. Luke iv. 23. crown.]
40 DEDICATION.
he hatli gained more by making the Church a patient, than by all the patients he ever had beside.
Sir, both myself and my brethren have been very coarsely used by the tongues and pens of these men, yet shall I never give your Majesty any sour counsel; I shall rather magnify your clemency, that proceeded with these offenders in a court of mercy as well as justice : since (as the reverend Judges then declared) you might have justly called the offenders into another court, and put them to it in a way that might have exacted their lives, for their stirring (as 6 much as in them lay) of mutiny and sedition.
Yet this I shall be bold to say, and your Majesty may consider of it in your wisdom, that "one way of government is not always either fit or safe, when the humours of the people are in a continual change : especially, when such men as these shall work upon your people, and labour to infuse into them such malignant principles, to introduce a parity in the Church or commonwealth. Et si non satis sua sponte insaniant, instigare f; and to spur on such among them as are too sharply set already : and by this means make and prepare all advantages for the Roman party to scorn us, and pervert them.
I pray God bless your Majesty, your royal consort, and your hopeful posterity, that you may live in happiness; govern with wisdom; support your people by justice; relieve them by mercy ; defend them by power and success ; and guide them in the true religion by your laws and most reli gious example, all the long and lasting days of your life : which are and shall be the daily prayers of
Your sacred Majesty's most loyal Subject, and
Most dutiful Servant, as most bound,
W. CANT.
f [Tcrcnt. And. iv. 2. 9.]
SPEECH AT THE CENSURE, ETC. 41
(1) MY LORDS,
I SHALL not need to speak of the infamous course of libel ling in any kind : nor of the punishment of it, which in some cases was capital by the imperial laws ; as appears, Cod. lib. ix. t. xxxvi. s : nor how patiently some great men, very great men indeed, have borne animo civili (that's Sueton. his wordh) laceratam existimationem, the tearing and rending of their credit and repu(2)tation, with a gentle, nay, a generous mind. V But of all libels, they are most odious which pretend reli gion : as if that of all things did desire to be defended by 'a mouth that is like an open sepulchre/ or by a pen that is made of a sick and a loathsome quill. *
There were times when persecutions were great in the Church, even to exceed barbarity itself : did any martyr or confessor, in those times, libel the governors ? Surely no ; not one of them to my best remembrance : yet these com plain of persecution without all show of cause ; and in the meantime libel and rail without all measure. So little of kin are they to those which ' suffer for Christ/ or the least part of Christian religion.
My Lords, it is not every man's (3) spirit to hold up against the venom which libellers spit. For S. Ambrose, who was a stout and a worthy prelate, tells us, not that himself, but that a far greater man than he, that '& King David, had found out (so it seems in his judgment 'twas no matter of ordinary ability) grande inventum, a great and mighty invention, how to swallow and put off those bitter contumelies of the tongue i : and those of the pen are no whit less, and spread further. And it was a great one indeed, and well beseemed the greatness of David. But I think it will be far better for me to look upward, and practise it, than to look downward, and discourse upon it.
* [Col. 852. Col. Allob. 1624.] ! In Apol. i. David, c. vi. [§ 31. Op.,
hInJul.c.75.[p.88.Lugd.Bat.l672.J torn. i. col. 685.]
42 SPEECH AT THE CENSURE
In the meantime I shall remember what an ancient, under 6: the name of S.Hierom, tells me, Indignum est et prceposterum*-, 'Tis unworthy in itself, and pre (4) poster ous in demeanour, for a man to be ashamed for doing good, because other men glory in speaking ill.
And I can say it clearly and truly, as in the presence of God, I have done nothing, as a prelate, to the uttermost of what I am conscious, but with a single heart, and with a sincere intention for the good government and honour of the Church, and the maintenance of the orthodox truth and religion of Christ, professed, established, and maintained in this Church of England.
S< For my care of this Church, the reducing of it into order, the upholding of the external worship of God in it, and the settling of it to the rules of its first reformation, are the causes (and the sole causes, whatever are pretended) of all this malicious storm, which hath lowered so black upon me, and some (5) of my brethren. v And in the meantime, they which are the only, or the chief innovators of the Christian world, having nothing to say, accuse us of innovation ; they themselves and their complices in the meantime being the greatest innovators that the Christian world hath almost ever known. I deny not but others have spread more dangerous errors in the Church of Christ ; but no men, in any age of it, have been more guilty of innovation than they, while them selves cry out against it. Quis tulerit Gracchos ?
And I said well, Quis tulerit Gracchos? For 'tis most apparent to any man that will not wink, that the intention of these men, and their abettors, was and is to raise a sedition, being as great incendiaries in the State (where they get power) as they have ever been in the (6) Church ; Novatian himself hardly greater.
>,Our main crime is (would they all speak out, as some of them do), that we are bishops ^ were we not so, some of us might be as passable as other men.
k [" O quam indignum est atque ' Burton's Apol. [of an Appeal,]
praeposterum, ut justi confundantur in p. 110. [Lond. 1636. The passage is
bonis, et peccatores glorientur in in the ' Summe of two Sermons,' enti-
malis."J — Ad Ocean.de Ferend. Op- tied, 'For God and the King,' ap-
prob. [S. Hieron. Op., torn. xi. col. 366. pended to the Apology.] D. inter Opera spuria.]
OP BASTWICK, BURTON, AND PRYNNE. 43
a great trouble 'tis to them, that we maintain that our calling of bishops is jure divino, by divine right : of this I have said enough, and in this place, in Leighton's case, nor will I repeat. Only this I will say, and abide by it, that the calling of bishops is jure divino, by divine right, though not all adjuncts to their calling. And this I say in as direct oppo sition to the Church of Rome, as to the Puritan humour. * And I say further, that from the Apostles' times, in all ages, in all places, the Church of Christ was governed by bishops : and lay-elders never heard (7) of, till Calvin's new fangled device at Geneva. ^
Now this is made by these men, as if it were contra Regem, against the King, in right or in power.
But that 's a mere ignorant shift ; for our being bishops jure divino, by divine right, takes nothing from the King's right or power over us. For though our office be from God and Christ immediately, yet may we not exercise that power, either of order or jurisdiction, but as God hath appointed us, that is, not in his Majesty's or any Christian king's kingdoms, but by and under the power of the King given us so to do.^
And were this a good argument against us, as bishops, it must needs be good against priests and ministers too ; for 9 themselves grant that (8) their calling is jure divino, by divine right ; and yet I hope they will not say, that to be priests and ministers is against the King, or any his royal prero gatives.
*Next, suppose our calling, as bishops, could not be made good jure divino, by divine right, yet jure ecclesiastico, by ecclesiastical right, it cannot be denied. And here in England the bishops are confirmed, both in their power and means, by Act of Parliament. So that here we stand in as good case as the present laws of the realm can make us. And so we must stand till the laws shall be repealed by the same power that made them. *
* Now then, suppose we had no other string to hold by, (I say suppose this, but I grant it not,) yet no man (9) can libel against our calling, (as these men do,) be it in pulpit, print, or otherwise, but he libels against the King and the State, by whose laws we are established. Therefore, all these libels, so far forth as they are against our calling, are against the
44 SPEECH AT THE CENSURE
King and the law, and can have no other purpose than to stir up sedition among the people. **
If these men had any other intention, or if they had any Christian or charitable desire to reform anything amiss, why did they not modestly petition his Majesty about it, that in his princely wisdom he might set all things right, in a just and orderly manner ? But this was neither their intention nor way. For one clamours out of his pulpit, and all of them from the press, and in a most viru(10)lent and unchristian manner set themselves to make a heat among the people; and so by mutiny to effect that which by law they cannot ; and by most false and unjust calumnies to defame both our callings and persons. But for my part, as I pity their rage, so I heartily pray God to forgive their malice.
No nation hath ever appeared more jealous of religion than the people of England have ever been. And their zeal to God's glory hath been, and at this day is a great honour to them. But this zeal of theirs hath not been at all times and in all persons alike guided by knowledge. Now zeal, as it is of excellent use, where it sees its way, so it is very dangerous company where it goes on in the (11) darkm : and these men, knowing the disposition of the people, have laboured nothing more than to misinform their knowledge, and misguide their zeal, and so to fire that into a sedition, in hope that they whom they causelessly hate might miscarry in it.
For the main scope of these libels is to kindle a jealousy in men's minds that there are some great plots in hand, dan gerous plots, (so says Mr. Burton expressly",) to change the orthodox religion established in England, and to bring in, I know not what, Romish superstition in the room of it. As if the external decent worship of God could not be upheld in this kingdom, with (12) out bringing in of Popery.
Now, by this art of theirs, give me leave to tell you that the King is most desperately abused and wounded in the minds of his people, and the prelates shamefully.
m You may see it in the example of ings against the disciples, Acts ix. 1.
S. Paul himself, whose very zeal in the So true is that of Saint Greg. Naz. Orat.
darkness of his understanding, which xxi. : Zelus iracundiam acuil : All zeal
he then had, made him persecute puts an edge to anger itself : and that
Christ and his Church, Acts xxii. 3, 4. must needs be dangerous in the dark.
And he was very dangerous company n [Burton's Humble Appeal,] page 5.
then; for he breathed out threaten- [Lond. 1636.]
OF BASTWTCK, BURTON, AND PRY.NNE. 45
The King most desperately : for there is not a more cunning trick in the world, to withdraw the people's hearts from their sovereign, than to persuade them that he is changing true religion, and about to bring in gross superstition upon them.
And the prelates shamefully: for they are charged to seduce, and lay the plot, and be the instruments.
For his Majesty first. This I know, and upon this occasion take it my duty to speak : there is no prince in Christendom more sincere in his religion, nor more constant to it, than the (13) King. And he gave such a testimony of this at his being in Spain, as I much doubt whether the best of that faction durst have done half so much as his Majesty did, in the face of that kingdom. And this you, my Lord, the Earl of Holland, and other persons of honour, were eye and ear witnesses of, having the happiness to attend him there. And at this day, as his Majesty (by God's great blessing both on him and us) knows more, so is he more settled and more confirmed, both in the truth of the religion here established, and in resolution to maintain it.
. And for the prelates ; I assure myself they cannot be so base, as to live prelates in the Church of England, and labour to bring in the superstitions of the Church of Rome upon themselves and it. And if any should be so foul, I (14) do riot only leave him to God's judgment, but (if these libellers, or any other, can discover that his base and irreligious falsehood) to shame also, and severe punishment from the State : and in any just way, no man's hand shall be more or sooner against him, than mine shall be.
And for myself, to pass by all the scandalous reproaches which they have most injuriously cast upon me, I shall say this only :
First, I know of no plot nor purpose of altering the religion established.
Secondly, I have ever been far from attempting anything that may truly be said to tend that way in the least degree : and to these two I here offer my oath.
Thirdly, if the King had a mind to change religion, (which I know he (15) hath not, and God forbid he should ever have,) he must seek for other instruments. For as basely as these men conceive of me, yet I thank God, I know my duty
46 SPEECH AT THE CENSURE
well, both to God and the King : and I know that all the duty I owe to the King is under God. And my great happi ness it is (though not mine alone, but your Lordships' and all his subjects' with me), that we live under a gracious and a religious King, that will ever give us leave to serve God first, and him next. But were the days otherwise, I thank Christ for it, I yet know not how to serve any man against the truth of God, and I hope I shall never learn it.
But to return to the business ; what is their art to make the world believe a change of religion is endeavoured? What ? Why forsooth, they say, (16) there are great inno vations brought in by the prelates, and such as tend to the advancing of Popery.
Now, that the vanity and falsehood of this may appear, I shall humbly desire your Lordships to give me leave to recite briefly all the innovations charged upon us, be they of less or greater moment, and as briefly to answer them. And then 7 you shall clearly see, whether any cause hath been given of these unsavoury libels, and withal, whether there be any show of cause to fear a change of religion. And I will take these great pretended innovations in order, as I meet with them.
First, I begin with the ( News from Ipswich °/
Where the FIRST INNOVATION is, ' that the last year's fast was enjoined to be (17) without sermons in London, the suburbs, and other infected places, contrary to the orders for other fasts in former times : whereas sermons are the only means to humble menp/ &c.
To this I say, first, that an after-age may, without offence, learn to avoid any visible inconvenience observed in the former. And there was visible inconvenience observed in men's former flocking to sermons in infected places.
Secondly, this was no particular act of prelates ; but the business was debated at the Council-table, being a matter of State as well as of religion. And it was concluded for no sermons in those infected places, upon this reason, that infected persons or families, known in their own parishes, might not take occasion upon those (18) by-days to run to
0 [This book was written by Prynne, proceedings of Bishop Wren.] under the name of Matthew White, P Page 2. and was specially directed against the
OP BASTWICK, BURTON, AND PRTNNE. 47
other churches where they were not known, as many use to do, to hear some humorous men preach ; for on the Sundays, when they better kept their own churches, the danger is not so great altogether.
Nor, thirdly, is that true, that sermons are the only means to humble men. For though the preaching of God's word, where it is performed according to His ordinance, be a great means of many good effects in the souls of men, yet no sermons are the only means to humble men. And some of their sermons are fitter a great deal for other operations: namely, to stir up sedition, as you may see by Mr. Burton's ; for this his printed libel was a sermon first, and a libel too. And 'tis the best part of a fast to abstain from such sermons.
(19) 2. The SECOND INNOVATION is, ' that Wednesday was appointed for the fast-day, and that this was done with this intention, by the example of this fast without preaching, to suppress all the Wednesday lectures in London V
To this I answer, first, that the appointing of Wednesday for the fast-day was no innovation. For it was the day in the last fast before this : and I myself remember it so, above forty years since, more than once.
Secondly, if there be any innovation in it, the prelates named not the day ; my Lord Keeper, I must appeal to your Lordship : the day was first named by your Lordship, as the usual and fittest day. And yet I dare say, and swear too, that your Lordship had no aim to bring in Popery ; nor to suppress all or any the Wednesday lectures (20) in London. Besides, these men live to see the fast ended, and no one Wednesday lecture suppressed.
3. The THIRD INNOVATION is, ' that the prayer for seasonable weather was purged out of this last fast-book, which was,' say they, ' one cause of shipwrecks and tempestuous weather V
To this I say, first in the general ; this fast-book, and all that have formerly been made, have been both made and published by the command of the King, in whose sole power it is to call a fast. And the archbishop and bishops to whom the ordering of the book is committed, have power under the King to put in or leave out whatsoever they think fit for the i Page 3. r Page 3.
48 SPEECH AT THE CENSURE
present occasion ; as their predecessors have ever done before them. (21) Provided that nothing be in contrary to the doctrine or discipline of the Church of England.
And this may serve in the general for all alterations, in that or any other fast-book, or books of devotion upon any particular occasions, which may and ought to vary with several times ; and we may, and do, and will justify, under his Majesty's power, all such alterations made therein.
Secondly, for the particular. When this last book was set out, the weather was very seasonable. And it is not the custom of the Church, nor fit in itself, to pray for seasonable weather when we have it, but when we want it. When the former book was set out, the weather was extreme ill, and the harvest in danger ; now (22) the harvest was in, and the weather good.
Thirdly, 'tis most inconsequent to say, that the leaving that prayer out of the book of devotions caused the ship wrecks and the tempests which followed. And as bold they are with God Almighty, in saying it was the cause : for sure I am, God never told them that was the cause. And if God never revealed it, they cannot come to know it ; yet had the bishops been prophets, and foreseen these accidents, they would certainly have prayed against them.
Fourthly, had any minister found it necessary to use this prayer at any one time during the fast, he might with ease and without danger have supplied that want, by using that prayer to the same purpose which is in the ordinary Liturgy.
(23) Fifthly, I humbly desire your Lordships to weigh well the consequence of this great and dangerous innovation. The prayer for fair weather was left out of the book for the fast ; therefore the prelates intend to bring in Popery. An excel lent consequence, were there any show of reason in it.
4. The FOURTH INNOVATION is, ' that there is one very useful collect left out, and a clause omitted in another8/
To this I answer, first, as before ; it was lawful for us to alter what we thought fit.
And secondly, since that collect made mention of preaching, and the Act of State forbad sermons on the fast-days in
• Page 3 .
OF BASTWTCK, BURTON, AND PRYNNE. 49
infected places, we thought it fit, in pursuance of that order, to leave out that collect.
(24) And thirdly, for the branch in the other, which is the first collect, though God did deliver our forefathers out of 'Romish superstition/ yet (God be blessed for it) we were never in. And therefore that clause being unfittingly ex pressed, we thought fit to pass it over4.
5. The FIFTH INNOVATION is, < that in the sixth order for the fast, there is a passage left out concerning the abuse of fasting in relation to rneritu.'
To this I answer, that he to whom the ordering of that book to the press was committed, did therefore leave it out, because in this age and kingdom there is little opinion of meriting by fasting.
Nay, on the contrary, the contempt and scorn of all fasting (save what humorous men call for of themselves) is (25) so rank, that it would grieve any Christian man to see the necessary orders of the Church concerning fasting, both in Lent and at other set times, so vilified as they are.
6. The SIXTH INNOVATION is, ' that the Lady Elizabeth and her princely children are dashed ' (that 's their phrase) c out of the new collect, whereas they were in the collect of the former book*/
For this first, the author of the ' News ' knows full well that they are left out of the collect in the latter editions of the Common Prayer-book, as well as in the book for the fast. And this was done according to the course of the Church, which ordinarily names none in the prayer but the right line descending. Yet this was not done till the King himself commanded it ; as I have (26) to show under his Majesty's hand.
Secondly, I beseech your Lordships to consider, what must be the consequence here : The Queen of Bohemia and her children are left out of the collect; therefore the prelates intend to bring in Popery ; for ' that,' you know, they say, ' is the end of all these innovations/ Now, if this be the end and the consequence, truly the libellers have done very duti-
t [The passage is quoted in Prynne's in Prynne's Cant. Doom, p. 250.] Cant. Doom, p 249.] x Page 3.
u Page 3. [The passage is quoted LAUD.— VOL. vi. E
50 SPEECH AT THE CENSURE
fully to the King, to poison his people with this conceit ; that the Lady Elizabeth and her children would keep Popery out of this kingdom, but the King and his children will riot. And many as good offices as these have they done the King quite through these libels, and quite through his kingdoms; For my part, I honour the Queen of Bohemia and her line as much as any man whatsoever, and shall be as ready (27) to serve them ; but I know not how to depart from my alle giance, as I doubt these men have done.
7. The SEVENTH INNOVATION is, ' that these words, 'who art the Father of Thine elect and of their seed/ are changed in the preface of that collect which is for the Prince and the King's children.?.' And with a most spiteful inference, ' that this was done by the prelates to exclude the King's children out of the number of God's elect/ And they call it fan intolerable impiety and horrid treason.'
To this I answer, first, that this alteration was made in my predecessor's time, before I had any authority to meddle with these things, further than I was called upon by him.
Secondly, this is not therefore to lay any aspersion upon my predecessor, for (28) he did in that but his duty : for his Majesty acknowledges it was done by his special direction, as having then no children to pray for.
And thirdly, this collect could not be very old, for it had no being in the Common Prayer-book all Queen Elizabeth's time, she having no issue.
The truth is, it was made at the coming in of King James, and must of necessity be changed over and over again, pro ratione temporum, as times and persons vary. And this is the ' intolerable impiety and horrid treason ' they charge upon us.
In this method the innovations are set down in the ' News from Ipswich.' But then in Mr. Burton's News from Friday- street (called his ' Apology2') they are in another order, and more are added. Therefore, with your Lord (29) ships' leave, I will not repeat any of these, but go on to the rest, which Mr. Burton adds.
y Page 3. There is not a second title, ' X
a [Burton's 'Apology of an Appeal.' from Friday-street.']
Or BiSTWICK, BURTON, AND PRTNNE. 51
8. The EIGHTH INNOVATION is, ' that in the Epistle the Sunday before Easter, we have put out ' in,' and made it ' at the name of Jesus every knee shall bow / which alteration/ he saith, ' is directly against the Act of Parliament a/
Here give me leave to tell you, 'tis ' at the name of Jesus,' in the late learned translation made in King James his time. About which many learned men of best note in the kingdom were employed, besides some prelates.
But to this I answer, first, 'tis true the Common Prayer- book was confirmed by Act of Parliament, and so all things contained in it at the passing of that Act. But I hope if anything were false-(30) printed then, the Parliament did not intend to pass those slips for current.
Secondly, I am not of opinion, that if one word be put in for another, so they bear both the same sense, that there is any great matter done against the Act of Parliament.
Thirdly, this can make no innovation. For ' in the name/ and ' at the name of Jesus/ can make no essential difference here. And Mr. Pryn (whose darling business it hath long been to cry down the honour due to the Son of God, at the mention of His saving name Jesus) knows the grammar rule well, ' In a place, or at a place/ &c.
Fourthly, if there were any error in the change of ' in ' into ' at/ I do here solemnly protest to you I know not how it came : for authority from the pre(31)lates the printers had none, and such a word is easily changed in such a negligent press as we have in England. Or if any altered it purposely, for aught I know, they did it to gratify the preciser sort. For therein they followed the Geneva translation, and printed at Geneva, 1557 b, where the words are, ' at the name of Jesus/ And that is ninety-four years ago, and therefore no innova tion made by us.
Fifthly, this I find in the Queen's Injunctions, without either word ' in ' or ' at/ ( Whensoever the name of Jesus shall be in any lesson, sermon, or otherwise, pronounced in the church/ 'tis enjoined, ' that due reverence be made of all persons, young and old, with lowliness of courtesy, and un covering of the heads of the men-kind, as thereunto doth
n Burton's Apology, pag. 2. b In octavo.
52 SPEECH AT THE CENSUHE
necessarily belong, and heretofore hath been accustomed0/ (32) So here is necessity laid upon it, and custom for it, and both expressed by authority in the very beginning of the Information, and is therefore no innovation now.
9. The NINTH INNOVATION isd, ' that two places are changed 7 in the prayers set forth for the fifth of November : and ordered to be read/ they say, ( by Act of Parliament. The first place is changed thus : from, l Boot out that Baby lonish and aiitichristian sect which say of Jerusalem/ &c., into this form of words, ' Root out that Babylonish and antichristian sect (of them) which say/ &c. The second place went thus in the old : ' Cut off these workers of ini quity, whose religion is rebellion / but in the book printed 1635, 'tis thus altered : ' Cut off those workers of iniquity, who turn religion into rebellion/ ' &c.
(33) To this I say, first, 'tis a notorious untruth that this book was e ordered to be read by Act of Parliament/ The Act of Parliament, indeed, is printed before it ; and therein is a command for prayers and thanksgivings every fifth of November, but riot one word or syllable for the form of prayer: that's left to the Church. Therefore, here's no innovation against that Act of Parliament.
Secondly, the alteration first mentioned, that is, ' that sect/ or ( sect of them/ is of so small consequence as 'tis not worth the speaking of; besides, if there be anything of moment in it, 'tis answered in the next.
Thirdly, both for that and the second place, which seems of more moment; and so for the rest, not only in that book, but that other also for his Majesty's coronation, his Majesty expressly (34) commanded me to make the alterations, and see them printed. And here are both the books, with his Majesty's warrant to each of them. So that herein I con ceive I did not offend, unless it were that I gave not these men notice of it, or asked them leave to obey the King.
Against this there can be but two objections, should malice itself go to work. The one is, that I moved his Majesty to command the change; and the other, that now, when I saw
c Injunction Hi. [Wilkins' Cone. toin. iv. p. 188.] d IVge 3.
OF BASTWICK, BURTON, AND PB^NNE. 53
myself challenged for it, I procured his Majesty's hand for my security.
To these I answer clearly, first,, that I did not move the King, directly or indirectly, to make this change.
And, secondly, that I had his Majesty's hand to the book, not now, but then, and before ever I caused them (35) to be printed as now they are. And that both these are true, I here again freely offer myself to my oath.
And yet, fourthly, that you may see his gracious Majesty used not his power only in commanding this change, but his wisdom also, I shall adventure to give you my reasons, such as they are, why this alteration was most fit, if not necessary.
My first reason is, in the Litany in Henry VIII. his time6, and also under Edward VLf, there was this clause : ' From the tyranny of the Bishop of Rome, and all his detestable enormities, from all false doctrine, &c., Good Lord, deliver us/ But in the Litany in Queen Elizabeth's time, this clause about the Pope was left out, and it seems of purpose, for avoiding of scandal : and yet the prelates for (36) that not accounted innovators, or introducers of Popery. Now 'tis a far greater scandal to call their religion ( rebellion' than 'tis to call their chief bishop ' tyrant.'
And this reason is drawn from scandal, which must ever be avoided as much as it may.
My second reason is, that the learned make but three religions to have been of old in the world, Paganism, Juda ism, and Christianity; and now they have added a fourth, which is Turcism, and is an absurd mixture of the other three. Now, if this ground of theirs be true, (as 'tis gene rally received,) perhaps it will be of dangerous consequence sadly to avow that the Popish religion is rebellion. That some opinions of theirs teach rebelli(37)on, that's apparently true ; the other would be thought on, to say no more. And this reason, well weighed, is taken from the very foundations of religion itself.
My third reason is, because if you make their religion to be rebellion, then you make their religion and rebellion to be
e It was put into the Litany of of Edw. VI., both that which was
Hen. VIII.'s time, as appears in his printed 1549, and in that which was
Primer, with his injunction before it. after, anno
f A ud 'tis in both the Service-books
54 SPEECH AT THE CENSURE
all one. And that is against the ground both of state and the law. For when divers Romish priests and Jesuits have deservedly suffered death for treason, is it not the constant and just profession of the State, that they never put any man to death for religion, but for rebellion and treason only? Doth not the State truly affirm, that there was never any law made against the life of a Papist, quatcnus a Papist only ? And (38) is not all this stark false, if their very religion be rebellion ? For if their religion be rebellion, it is not only false, but impossible, that the same man, in the same act, should suffer for his rebellion, and not for his religion.
And this King James of ever-blessed memory understood passing well, when, in his Premonition to all Christian Monarchs, he saith, ' I do constantly maintain that no Papist, either in my time or in the time of the late Queen, ever died for his conscience %.' Therefore, he did not think their very religion was rebellion ; though this clause passed through inadvertency in his time. And this reason is grounded both upon the practice and the justice of the law.
Which of these reasons, or whe(39)ther any other better, were in his Majesty's thoughts when he commanded the alteration of this clause, I know not. But I took it my duty to lay it before you, that the King had not only power, but reason to command it.
10. The TENTH INNOVATION is, 'that the Prayer for the Navy is left out of the late book for the fast11/
To this I say, there is great reason it should. For the King had no declared enemy then, nor (God be thanked) hath he now. Nor had he then any navy at sea ; for almost all the ships were come in before the fast-book was set out.
But, howsoever, an excellent consequence it is, if you mark it : The Prayer for the Navy was left out of the (40) book for the fast ; therefore by that, and such like innovations, the prelates intend to bring in Popery. Indeed, if that were a piece of the prelates' plots to bring in Popery from beyond sea, then they were mightily overseen that they left out the Prayer for the Navy. But else what reason or consequence is in it I know not, unless perhaps Mr. Burton intended to
s [Work?,] page 336. h Page 3.
OF BASTWICK, BURTON, AND PRYNNE. 55
befriend Dr. Bastwick, arid in the navy bring hither the Whore of Babylon to be ready for his christening, as he most profanely scoffs.
Well; I pray God the time come not upon this kingdom, in which it will be found that no one thing hath advanced or ushered in Popery so fast, as the gross absurdities even in the worship of God which (41) these men, and their like, main tain, both in opinion and practice.
11. The ELEVENTH INNOVATION is, ( the reading of the second service at the communion-table, or the altar1.'
To this, first, I can truly say, that since my own memory this was in use in very many places, as being most proper (for those prayers are then read which both precede and follow the Communion) ; and by little and little this ancient custom was altered, and in those places first where the emissaries of this faction came to preach. And now, if any in authority offer to reduce it, this ancient course of the Church is by and by called an innovation.
Secondly, with this the Rubrics of the Common Prayer- book agree ; (42) for the first Rubric after the Communion tells us, that upon holidays, though there be no Communion, yet all else that '& appointed at the Communion shall be read. Shall be read? That's true; but where? Why, the last Rubric before the Communion tells us, ' that the priest, stand ing at the north side of the holy table, shall say the Lord's Prayer, with that which follows/ So that not only the Communion, but the prayers which accompany the Commu nion (which are commonly called the Second Service), are to be read at the communion-table. Therefore, if this be an innovation, 'tis made by the Rubric, not by the prelates. And Mr. Burton's scoff, that this ( second service must be served in for dainties k,' savours too much of belly and pro fanation.
(43) 12. One thing sticks much in their stomachs, and they call it an INNOVATION too ; and that is, ' bowing, or doing reverence at our first coming into the church, or at our nearer approaches to the holy table, or the altar/ (call it
5 [Burton's Sermon for God and service, as dainties, must be said the King,] page 105. there,"
k Page 105 : "Then the second
56 SPEECH AT THE CENSURE
whether you will ;) in which they will needs have it, ' that we worship the holy table, or God knows what V
To this I answer, first, that God forbid we should worship anything but God Himself.
Secondly, that if to worship God when we enter into His house, or approach His altar, be an innovation, 'tis a very old one.
For Moses did reverence at the very door of the Taber nacle (Numb. xx. 6)m; Hezekiah, and all that (44) were pre sent with him, when they had made an end of offering, bowed and worshipped (2 Chron. xxix. 29) ; David calls the people to it with a Venite, ' O come, let us worship and fall down, and kneel before the Lord our Maker' (Psal. xcv. 6). And in all these places (I pray, mark it) 'tis bodily worship.
Nor can they say, that this was Judaical worship, and now not to be imitated ; for long before Judaism began, Bethel, the house of God, was a place of reverence (Gen. xxviii. 17, &c.) ; therefore, certainly, of and to God.
And after Judaical worship ended, Venite, adoremus, as far upwards as there is any track of a liturgy, was the introitus of the priest, all the Latin Church over.
And in the daily prayers of the (45) Church of England, 71 this was retained at the Reformation ; and that Psalm, in which is Venite, adoremus, is commanded to begin the Morning Service every day. And for aught I know, the priest may as well leave out the Venite, as the Adoremus; the calling the people to their duty, as the duty itself when they are come.
Therefore, even according to the Service-book of the Church of England, the priest and the people both are called upon for external and bodily reverence and worship of God in His church. Therefore, they which do it do not innovate. And yet the government is so moderate, (God grant it be not too loose therewhile,) that no man is constrained, no man questioned, only religiously called upon, Venite, adoremus, ' Come, let us worship.'
(46) For my own part, I take myself bound to worship with body as well as in soul, whenever I come where God is
1 Page 105. paragraphs, which relate to the twelfth
m [Prynne has commented very innovation, in Cant. Doom, pp. 200, scurrilously on this and the following 201.]
OF BASTWICK, BURTON, AND PRYNNE. 57
worshipped. And were this kingdom such as would allow no holy table standing in its proper place, (and such places some there are,) yet I would worship God when I came into His house. And were the times such as should beat down churches, and all the ' curious carved work thereof, with axes and hammers/ as in Psal. Ixxiv. 6, (and such times have been,) yet would I* worship in what place soever I came to pray, though there were not so much as a stone laid for Bethel. But this is the misery, 'tis superstition now-a-days for any man to come with more reverence into a church, than a tinker and his bitch come into an ale-house. The (47) comparison is too homely, but my just indignation at the profaneness of the times makes me speak it.
And you, my honourable Lords of the Garter, in your great solemnities, you do your reverence, and to Almighty God, I doubt not ; but yet it is versus altare, ' towards His altar/ as the greatest place of God's residence upon earth. (I say the greatest, yea, greater than the pulpit ; for there His Hoc est corpus meum, ' This is My body / but in the pulpit 'tis at most but Hoc est verbum meum, ' This is My word/ And a greater reverence, no doubt, is due to the body than to the word of our Lord. And so, in relation, answer ably to the throne where His body is usually present, than to the seat whence His word useth to be proclaimed. And (48) God hold it there, at His word ; for, as too many men use the matter, His Hoc est verbum Diaboli, ' This is the word of the Devil/ in too many places. "Witness sedition, and the like to it.) And this reverence ye do when ye enter the chapel, and when you approach nearer to offer. And this is no innovation, for you are bound to it by your order, and that's not new.
And idolatry it is not to worship God towards His holy table ; for if it had been idolatry, I presume Queen Elizabeth and King James would not have practised it, no not in those solemnities. And being not idolatry, but true Divine wor ship, you will, I hope, give a poor priest leave to worship God as yourselves do : for if it be God's worship, (49) I ought to do it as well as you ; and if it be idolatry, you ought not to do it more than I.
I say again, I hope a poor priest may worship God with as lowly reverence as you do, since you are bound by your
58 SPEECH AT THE CENSURE
order, and by your oath, according to a constitution of Henry the Fifth (as appears"), to give due honour and reve rence Domino Deo, et altari ejus, in modum virorum ecclesias- 71 ticorum ; that is, ' to the Lord your God, and to His altar/ (for there is a reverence due to that too, though such as comes far short of Divine worship ;) and this ' in the manner as ecclesiastical persons both worship and do reverence/
The story which led in this decree is this : King Henry the Fifth, that noble and victorious prince, return (50) ing gloriously out of France, sat at this solemnity ; and finding the knights of the Order scarce bow to God, or but slightly, and then bow towards him and his seat, startled at it, (being a prince then grown as religious as he was before victorious ;) and after asking the reason, for till then the knights of the Order never bowed toward the King or his seat, the Duke of Bedford answered, it was settled by a Chapter Act three years before. Hereupon that great King replied : ' No ; Til none of this, till you the knights do it satis bene, well enough, and with due performance, to Almighty God/ And hereupon the forenamed Act proceeded, that they should do 1 this duty to Almighty God/ not slightly, but ad modum virorum ecclesiasticorum, ' as low, as well, as decently as clergymen use to do it/
(51) Now, if you will turn this off, and say it was the superstition of that age so to do, Bishop Jewell will come in to help me there. For where Harding names divers ceremo nies, and particularly bowing themselves and adoring at the Sacrament, — I say, ' adoring at the Sacrament/ not ( adoring the Sacrament/ — there Bishop Jewell (that learned, painful, and reverend prelate) approves all, both the kneeling and the bowing, and the standing up at the Gospel, (which, as ancient as it is in the Church, and a common custom, is yet fondly made another of their innovations ;) and further, the Bishop adds, ' that they are all commendable gestures, and tokens of devotion, so long as the people understand what they mean, and apply them unto God °/ Now, with us the people did (52) ever understand them fully, and apply them to God,
n In Libro Nigro Windesoriensi, ° B. Jewell's Reply to Harding's
p. 65. [See ' The Register of the most Answer, art. 3, div. 29. [p. 151. Lond.
noble Order of the Garter,' &c., by 1C09.] John Anstis, vol. ii. p. 76.]
OP BASTWICK, BURTON, AND PRYNNE. 59
and to none but God, till these factious spirits, and their like, to the great disservice of God and His Church, went about to persuade them that they are superstitious, if not idolatrous gestures : as they make everything else to be, where God is not served slovenly.
13. The THIRTEENTH INNOVATION is, ' the placing of the holy table altarwise, at the upper end of the chancel/ that is, fthe setting of it north and south, and placing a rail before it/ to keep it from profanation, which Mr. Burton says, 'is done to advance and usher in Popery1"/
To this I answer, that 'tis no Popery to set a rail to keep profanation from that holy table ; nor is it (53) any innova tion to place it at the upper end of the chancel, as the altar stood. And this appears both by the practice, and by the command and canon of the Church of England.
First, by the practice of the Church of England : for in the King's royal chapels, and divers cathedrals, the holy table hath ever since the Reformation stood at the upper end of the quire, with the large or full side towards the people.
And though it stood in most parish churches the other way> jet whether there be not more reason the parish churches should be made conformable to the cathedral and mother churches, than the cathedrals to them, I leave to any reasonable man to judge.
And yet here is nothing done, ei(54)ther by violence or >0 command, to take off the indifferency of the standing of the holy table either way, but only by laying it fairly before men, how fit it is there should be order and uniformity ; I say still reserving the indifferency of the standing.
But, howsoever, I would fain know how any discreet moderate man dares say that the ' placing of the holy table altarwise' (since they will needs call it so) is done either ' to advance or usher in Popery?' For did Queen Elizabeth banish Popery, and yet did she all along her reign from first to last leave the communion-table so standing in her own Chapel Royal, in St. Paul's and Westminster, and other places, and all this of purpose to advance or usher in that Popery which she had driven out ?
* [Apology,] pp. 4, £, [and Sermon for God and the King, p.] 105.
60 SPEECH AT THE CENSURE
(55) And since her death, have two gracious Kings kept out Popery all their times, and yet left the holy table stand ing as it did in the Queen's time, and all of purpose to advance or usher in Popery, which they kept out ?
Or what's the matter? May the holy table stand this way in the King's chapel, or cathedrals, or Bishops' chapels, and not elsewhere ? Surely, if it be decent and fit for God's service, it may stand so (if authority please) in any church. But if it { advance or usher in any superstition and Popery, ' it ought to stand so in none.
Nor hath any King's chapel any prerogative (if that may be called one) above any ordinary church to disserve God in, by any superstitious (56) rites. Where give me leave to tell you, that the King and his chapel are most jeeringly and with scorn abused, in the last leaf of Mr. Burton's mutinous Appeal, for such it is.
Secondly, this appears by the canon or rule of the Church of England too, for 'tis plain in the last Injunction of the Queen, that the holy table ought to stand at the upper end of the quire, north and south, or altarwise. For the words of the Queen's Injunctions are these : —
1 The holy table in every church' (mark it, I pray, not in the Hoyal Chapel or cathedrals only, but fin every church') * shall be decently made, and set in the place where the altar stood ^.' Now, the altar stood at the upper end of the quire, north and south, as (57) appears before by the practice of the Church. And there to set it otherwise is to set it cross the place, not ' iii ' the place where the altar stood ; and so, Stulti dum vitant vitia* — weak men, as these libellers are, run into one superstition while they would avoid another ; for they run upon the superstition of the cross while they seek to avoid the superstition of the altar. So you see, here 's neither Popery nor innovation in all the practice of Queen Elizabeth, or since.
These words of the Injunction are so plain, as that they can admit of no shift.
And give me leave to tell you, that a very learned prelate of this Church, and one whom I think these men will not
i [Wilkins' Cone. torn. iv. p. 188 ] r [Hor. Sat. i. 2. 24.]
OF BASTWICK, BU11TON, AND PRYNNE.
61
accuse as a man like to (58) ' advance or usher in Popery/ is of the same opinion : 'tis my Lord the Bishop of Salisbury s. Some difference was lately rising about placing the com munion-table in a parish church of his diocese. The Bishop, careful to prevent all disorder, sends his injunction* under his hand and seal to the curate and churchwardens, to settle that business ; in which he hath these two passages remark able. I have seen and read the order11.
8 [Dr John Davenant, a divine of strong Calvinistic leanings.]
1 May 17, 1637.
u [The Editor, in examining the Parish Register of Aldbourne for an other purpose, most unexpectedly dis covered a copy of this very document, which, by the kindness of the Rev. G. P. Cleather, M.A., Vicar of the parish, he was permitted to tran scribe.
" A copy of the order sent from the Right Reverent father in God the Bishop of Sarum to the Parish of Al- borne for the placing of the Holy Table, and administration of the Holy Sac. of the Lord's Supper.
" John, by divine providence Bi shop of Sarum, To the Curate and Churchwardens with the Parishioners of Auborne, in the County of Wilts, and our Dioccs of Sarii, greeting, Whereas his Matie hath beene lately informed, that some men factiously disposed, have taken upon themselves to place and remove the Coilmnion Table in the Church of Auborne; and thereupon his highnes hath required me to take prsent order therein. These are to let you know, that both accord ing to the Injunctions given out in the Raigne of Queene Elizabeth for the placing of Comunion Tables in Churches, and by the 82 Canon agreed upon in the first yeare of the Raigne of King James of blessed memory, it was intimated that those Tables should ordinarily be sett and stand with the side to the East wall of the Chauucell. I therefore require you the Church wardens, and all other persons, not to meddle with the bringing downe or transposing of the Coiimnion Table, as you will answere it at your owne perill. And because some doe ignorantly sup pose that the standing of the Comu nion Table where Altars stood in times of supstition has some relish of Po pery : And some prchance may as erroniously conceive that the placing
thereof otherwise when the holy Coiliunion is administered savors of irreverence : I would have you take notice from the forenamed Injunction, and Canon, from the Rubric prefixed before the administration of the Lord's Supper, and from the first article not long since inquired of in the Visitation of our most reverend Metropolitan ; that the placing of it higher or lower in the Chauncell, or in the Church, is by the Judgment of the Church of England a thing indif ferent, and to be ordered and guided by the only Rule of Conveniencie. Now because in things of this nature to iudge and determine what is most covenient, belongs not to private per sons, but to those that have Ecclesi astical authority; I inhibit you the Church- Wardens, and all other persons whatsoever, to meddle with the bring ing downe of the Comunion Table, or with altering the place thereof at such times as the Holy Supp is to be admi nistered ; and I require you herein to yield obedience unto what is already iudged most convenient by my Chaun- cellor, unless upon further considera tion and viewe it shall be otherwise ordered. Now to the end that the Minister may neither be overtoyled, nor the people indecently and inconve niently thronged together, when they are to draw neere, and take the holy Sacrament ; and that the frequent cele- b ratio thereof may nevertheless be con tinued, I doe further appoint that thrice in the yeare at the least, there be pub- lique notice given in the Church, for fower Comunions to be held upon fower Sundaies together; and that there come not to the Comunion in one day above two hundred at the most. For the better observation whereof, and that every man may know his prop time, the Curate shall divide the Parishioners into fower parts according to his discretio, and as shall most fittingly serve to this
62 SPEECH AT THE CENSURE
The first passage is this : ' By the Injunction of Queen Elizabeth/ saith he, ' and by Can. 82 under King James, the communion-tables should ordinarily be set and stand with the side to the east wall of the chancel/ Therefore, 81 this is no innovation, since there is injunction and canon for it.
(59) The other passage is this : ' 'Tis ignorance/ saith that learned Bishop, ( to think that the standing of the holy table there relishes of Popery/ Therefore, if it do not so much as relish of Popery, it can neither advance it nor usher it in. And therefore, this is a most odious slander and scandal cast upon us.
So here 's enough both for the practice and rule of the Church of England since the Reformation. Now before that time, both in this and other Churches of Christendom, in the East and West ordinarily, the holy table or altar stood so. Against this Mr. Burton says little.
But the Lincolnshire minister comes in to play the Puritan for that. Concerning which book x (falling thus in my way) and the (60) nameless author of it, I shall only say these two things.
The one is, that the author prevaricates from the first word to the last in the book ; for he takes on him both for the name and for the placing of the holy table, and the like, to prove, that generally, and universally, and ordinarily in the whole Catholic Church, both East and West, the holy table did not stand at the upper end of the quire or chancel. And this he must prove, or he doth nothing.
Now when he comes to make his proofs, they are almost all of them particular, few or none general and concludent; for he neither brings testimonies out of the general and received rituals of the Eastern and Western Churches, nor
purpose. And if any turbulent spirit this order was copied by the Rev.
shall disobey this our order, hee shall Mr. Atkinson, then minister of A.ld-
be proceeded against according to the bourne.]
quality of his fault and misdemeanour. x [The title of the book here re in wittnes whereof I have hereunto ferred to is, 'The Holy Table, Name Bet my hand and scale Episcopal this and Thing, &c., written long ago by a seventeenth day of May, 1637. And Minister in Lincolnshire.' It was the in the yeare of our Consecration the production of Williams, Bishop of Lin- sixteenth." coin, whose name appears as its licenser From a memorandum in the same for the press. Heyliri replied to it in page of the Register it appears that his ' Antidotum Lincolniense.'j
OF BASTWICK, BURTON, AND PRYNNE. 63
of Fathers and histories of the Church, (61) which speak in general terms of all, but where they speak of particular Churches only.
So that suppose the most that can be, that is, suppose his quotations be all truly alleged, and true too in the sense that the minister takes them, (though in very truth, the places, most of them, are neither truly alleged, nor sensed,) yet they are but exceptions of, and exemptions from the general practice. And you know both in law and reason, exceptio firmat regulam in non exceptis ?. So that upon the sudden I am not able to resolve, whether this minister hath done more wrong to himself or his readers, for he hath abused both.
The other is, that in the judgment of very many learned men, which have perused this book, the author (62) is clearly conceived to want a great deal of that learning, to which he pretends; or else to have written this book wholly and resolvedly against both his science and his conscience.
And for my own part, I am fully of opinion, this book was thrust now to the press, both to countenance these libellers, and, as much as in him lay, to fire both Church and State.
And though I wonder not at the minister, yet I should wonder at the bishop of the diocese (a man of learning and experience), that he should give testimony to such a business, and in such times as these.
And once more, before I leave the ' Holy Table, Name and Thing/ give me leave to put you in mind, that there is no danger at all in the altar, ' name or thing/ For at the be gin (63)ning of the Reformation, though there were a law for the taking down of the altars, and setting up of holy tables in the room of them ; yet in some places the altars were not suddenly removed. And what says the Queen in her Injunction to this? Why she says, 'that there seems no matter of great moment in this, saving for uniformity, and the better imitation of the law in that behalf V Therefore 52 for any danger or hurt that was in the altars, ' name or thing/ they might even then have been left standing, ' but for uni formity, and the imitation of the law/
•
y [See Gloss in Clement, lib. v. z Injunct. ultim. [Wilkins' Cone, tit. xi. cap. 1. § 'Cum auteni.'] torn. iv. p. 188.]
64 SPEECH AT THE CENSURE
But howsoever, it follows in the same Injunction, ' that when the altar is taken down, the holy table shall be set in (not cross) the place where the altar stood ;' which, as is aforesaid, (64) must needs be altarwise.
14. The FOURTEENTH and the last INNOVATION comes with a mighty charge, and 'tis taken out of an ' Epistle to the temporal Lords of his Majesty's Privy Council.' Of which epistle we got one sheet, and so (for aught I yet know) that impression stayed. In that sheet is this charge; the words are :
' The prelates, to justify their proceedings, have forged a new article of religion, brought from Rome (which gives them full power to alter the doctrine and discipline of our Church at a blow/ (as they interpret it,) ' and have foisted it ' (such is their language) ' into the beginning of the 20th Article of our Church. And this is in the last edition of the Articles, anno 1628, in affront of his Majesty's Declaration before them/ &c.
(65) The clause (which they say is forged by us) is this : ( The Church ' (that is, the Bishops, as they expound it) ' hath power to decree rites and ceremonies, and authority in matter of faith.' (The word is ' controversies of faith/ by their leave.) 4 This clause/ say they, ' is a forgery fit to be examined, and deeply censured in the Star-Chamber. For 'tis not to be found in the Latin or English Articles of Edward VI. or Queen Elizabeth, ratified by Parliament.'
And then in the margent thus : ' If to forge a will or writing be censurable in the S tar-Chamber, which is but a wrong to a private man; how much more the forgery of an article of religion, to wrong the whole Church, and overturn religion, which concerns all our souls ? '
(66) This is a heavy charge, my Lords ; but I thank God the answer's easy.
And truly I grant, that to forge an article of religion in whole or in part, and then to thrust it upon the Church, is a most heinous crime, far worse than the forging of a deed. And is certainly very deeply censurable in this court. And I would have humbly besought you, that a deep censure might have been laid upon it, but that this sheet was found
OF BASTWICK, BURTON, AND PRYNNE. 65
after, and so is not annexed to the information, nor in judg ment at this present before you.
But then, my Lords, I must tell you, I hope to make it as clear as the day, that this forgery was not, that this clause mentioned was added by the prelates to the Article, to gain power to the Church, and so to serve (67) our turns; but that that clause in the beginning of the Article was by these men, or at least by some of their faction, rased out, and this to weaken the just power of the Church to serve their turns.
They say (to justify their charge) that this clause is not to be found in the Articles, English or Latin, of either Edw. VI. or Q. Elizabeth.
I answer : The Articles of Edw. VI. and those made under Q. Elizabeth differ very much. And those of Edw. VI. are not now binding. So whether the clause be in or out of them, 'tis not much material.
But for the Articles of the Church of England, made in the Queen's time, and now in force, that this clause for the power of the Church to e decree ceremonies, and to have authority in con(68)troversies of faith/ should not be found in English or Latin copies till the year 1628, that it was set forth with the King's Declaration before it, is to me a miracle ; but your Lordships shall see the falsehood and boldness of these men.
What ? Is this affirmative clause in 110 copy, English or Latin, till the year 1628? Strange. Why, my Lords, I have a copy of the Articles in English of the year 1612, and of the year 1605, and of the year 1593, and in Latin of the year 1563, which was one of the first printed copies, if not the first of all. For the Articles were agreed on but the nine- and-twentieth day of January, anno 1563.a
And in all these, this affirmative clause for the Church's power is in. (69) And is not this strange boldness, then, to abuse the world, and falsely to say 'tis in no copy, when I myself, out of my own store, am able to show it in so many, and so anciently ?
But, my Lords, I shall make it plainer yet : for 'tis not fit concerning an Article of religion, and an Article of such consequence for the order, truth, and peace of this Church, a [In 1562, according to the English computation.]
LAUD. — VOL. VI. P
SPEECH AT THE CENSURE
you should rely upon my copies, be they never so many or never so ancient.
Therefore I sent to the public records in my office, and here under my officer's hand, who is a public notary, is returned me the twentieth Article with this affirmative clause in itb. And there is also the whole body of the Articles to be seen.
b [The Editor is indebted to the Kev. W. C. Sharpe, B.D. Fellow of St. John's College, Cambridge, for a copy of the following paper, preserved in the library of that Society :—
" A Transcript of a Paper thus endorsed by A. B. Laud's own hand. ' Jun. 12, 1637. A Transcript out of my Registry concerning ye 20th Arti cle of those yl were made 1562.'
" Extract, e Registro Principali Se- dis Archiep. Cant. &c.
" Acta Convocationum tempore Revmi Dni Parker Archiep'i Cantuar. &c.
"In Convocation Anno Dni 1562 in Capella Regis Henrici Vmi infra Eccl'am Collegiatam D. PetriWestmon. Bituat. tenta die Martis 19° die men- sis Januarii Sess. 3tia pag. 19 & 20 praedicti libri, inter alia actum erat prout sequitur.
" Tandem dictus Revmus accersiri jussit ad se Prolocutorem domus in- ferioris, Qui quidem Prolocutor una cum sex aliis de Clero dictae domus infer, coram Patribus sui copiam
faciens proposuit & asseruit qd qui- dam de dicta domo exhibuerunt quasdam diversas schedas de rebus Reformandis per eos respective ex- cogitat. & in Scripta redact. Quae quidem Schedge de coihuni consensu traditae sunt quibusdam viris graviori- bus & doctioribus de ccetu diet, domus infer, ad hoc electis perspiciendae & considerandae. Quibus sic electis (ut asseruit) assignatum est ut hujusmodi Schedas in Capitula redigant ac in proximS, Sessione exhibeant coram eodem Prolocutore ; et ulterius pro posuit qd articuli in Synodo Londi- nensi tempore nuper Regis Edw. 6tl (ut asseruit) editi, traditi sint quibus dam aliis viris ex ccetu dictae domus infer, ad hoc etiam electis ut eos dili- genter inspiciant, examinent & con- siderent, ac prout eis visum fuerit, corrigant & reforment ac in proximti Sessione etiam exhibeant. Et tune Revmus hujusmodi negotia per dictum Prolocutorem & Clerum incepta ap- probavit, ac in eisdem in prox. Sessio-
nem juxta eorum determinationem procedere voluit & mandavit.
" Octava Sessio.
" Die Veneris 29° viz. die mensis Januarij Anno Dni praedicto inter horas 8 et 9am ante meridiem ejusdem diei Revmo in Christo Patre D"° Mat- thaeo Archiep'o Cautuar. etc. necnon Reverendis Patribus Dnis Edmundo Londin., Rob. Winton., [Jo]han. Here- forden., Rolando Bangor, Joan. Sa- rum., Nicol. Lincoln., Johanne Nor- wicen., Rlchardo Meneven., Thorn a- Asaphen., Edmundo Roffen., Rlchardo Glocestren., Thoma Cov. et Lichfield., Gilberto Bathon. et Wellen., Richardo Elien., Wilhelmo Exon. respective Ep'is in domo Capitulari Eccl'as Ca- thedralis D. Pauli London, congre- gatis, post tractatum aliquem inter eos habitum tandem super quibusdam articulis orthodoxse fidei inter Ep'os, quorum nomina eis subscribuntur, unanim. convenit, quorum quidem articulorum tenores sequuntur in Eccl. praad. In quo tenore articulus vicesimus de Ecclesioe authoritate sic se habet in hasc verba, p. 27.
" ' Habet Eccl'a ritus statuendi jus & in fidei controversiis auctoritatem, quamvis Eccl'ae non licet quicquam instituere qd verbo Dei scripto ad- versetur, nee unum Scripturae locum sic exponere potest ut alteri contra- dicat ; quare licet Eccl'a sit divino- rum librorum testis & conservatrix, attamen ut adversus eos nihil de- cernere, ita praeter illos nil credendum de necessitate Salutis debet obtrudere.'
"P. 31.
" Hos articulos fidei Christianafi con- tinentes in universum novemdecim paginas in autographo qd asservatur apud Revmum in Christo Patrem Dum Matthaeum Cantuar. Ep'um totius Angliae Primatem Metrop. Archiep'i et Ep'i utriusq6 provinciaa Regni Angliae in Sacni Provinciali Synodo legitime congregati unanimi assensu recipiunt & profitentur & ut veros & orthodoxos manuum suarum subscrip- tionibus approbant 29° die mensis
OF BASTWICK, BURTON, AND PRYNNE. 67
(70) By this your Lordships see how free the prelates are from forging this part of the Article. Now let these men quit themselves and their faction, as they can, for their index expurgatorlus and their foul rasure in leaving out this part of the Article. For to leave out of an Article is as great a crime as to put in ; and a main rasure is as censurable in this court as a forgery.
Why, but then, my Lords, what is this mystery of iniquity ?
Truly, I cannot certainly tell ; but as far as I can I '11 tell you.
The Articles you see were fully and fairly agreed to and subscribed in the year 1563. But after this, in the year 1571, there were some that refused to subscribe, but why they did so is not recorded. Whe(71)ther it were about this Article, or any other, I know not. But in fact this is manifest, that in that year 1571, the Articles were printed both in Latin and English, and this clause for the Church left out of bothc. And certainly, this could not be done, but by the malicious cunning of that opposite faction. And though I shall spare dead men's names where I have not certainty ; yet if you be pleased to look back and consider
Januarii An0 Dni secundum compu- chardo London. Ep'o tune Prsesidente.
tationem Eccl'ae Anglicanse 1562°, "Sess. 16.
Universusq6 Clerus inferioris domus " Demum idem Revdus Praeses Lon-
eosdem etiam unanimiter & recepit don. Ep'us protulit quendam librum
& profcssus est, ut ex manuum articulorum de quibus in Synodo
suarum subscriptionibus patet, quas London, commtmi assensu Archiep'o-
obtulit & deposuit apud eundcm rum, Ep'orum & Cleri utriusque
Revmum 5to die Februarii anno prse- Provinciae consensum est Anno Dni
dicto. 1562 ad tollendam opinionum varie-
" In Convocatione tenta An0 Dni tatem & confirmand. veram, uni-
1571 inter alia p. 110 continetur ut formem Christ! religionem Regift
sequitur, authoritate & assensu publicatis et
"Et tune dictus Revmus dimisso in Anno Dni 1571 per &c. revisis.
Clero domus infer, exceptis Prolo- Quern per Mag. Wil. Wood Legum
cutore ac Decanis & archidiaconis Doctorem alta & intelligibili voce
voluit & jussit ut omnes de co3tu perlegi fecit, quo lecto dicti Revdi
eorum qui Articulis, de quibus in Patres consensum et assensum suos
Synodo Londinensi An0 Dni juxta eisdem articulis praestiterunt & eo-
comput. Eccl'ae Angl. 1562 inter Ar- rum nomina manibus suis propriis
chiep'os et Ep'os utriusque Provinciae, eisdem articulis respective subscripse-
necnon universum Clerum convenit, runt tune et ibidem,
hactenus non subscripserunt modo " Concordat cum Reg'ro praed. fact&
«is gubscribant ; & qd omnes & sin- collutione per me Sac. Wade Notum
guli qui eisdem articulis subscribere Publicum."]
voluerint aut recusaverint (si qui tales c [Strype (Life of Parker, book iv.
inveniantnr) a dicta domo inferiori & chap, v.) states that he had seen three
coatu Cleri praed. penitus excludantur. different English editions of the Arti-
" In Convocatione tenta An0 DIli cles, printed in 1571 by Jugg and
1604, Regniq6 Serenissimi Dni Jacobi Cawood, in all of which this clause
Regis Anno 2do Revdo Patre Dno Ri- was found.]
F 2
68 SPEECH AT THE CENSURE
who they were that governed businesses in 1571, and rid the Church almost at their pleasure; and how potent the ancestors of these libellers began then to grow, you will think it no hard matter to have the Articles printed, and this clause left out.
And yet 'tis plain, that, after (72) the stir about sub scription in the year 1571, the Articles were settled and subscribed unto at last, as in the year 1562, with this clause in them for the Church : for looking further into the records which are in mine own hands, I have found the book of 1563 subscribed by all the Lower House of Convocation, in this very year of contradiction, 1571, Dr. John Elmar (who was after Lord Bishop of London) being there Prolocutor : Alexander Nowel, Dean of St. Paul's, having been Prolocutor in 1563, and yet living and present and subscribing in 1571 d. Therefore, I do here openly in the Star-Chamber charge upon that pure sect this foul corruption of falsifying the Articles of the Church of England ; let them take it off as they can.
(73) I have now done, and 'tis time I should, with the innovations charged upon the prelates, and fit to be answered here.
Some few more there are, but they belong to matter of doctrine, which shall presently be answered, justo volumine, at large, to satisfy all well-minded people e. .But when Mr. Burton's book, which is the main one, is answered, (I mean his book, not his railing,) neither Prynn, nor Bastwick, nor any attendants upon Rabshakeh, shall by me or my care be answered. If this court find not a way to stop these libellers' mouths and pens, for me they shall rail on till they be weary.
Yet one thing more, I beseech you, give me leave to add. 'Tis Master Burton's charge upon the (74) prelates. ' That the censures formerly laid upon malefactors, are now put upon God's ministers for their virtue and piety f.'
A heavy charge this too. But if he or any man else can show that any man hath been punished in the High-Com-
d [This very copy is preserved Moderate Answer to the Seditious and among Selden's books in the Bodleian Scandalous Challenges of Henry Bur- Library.] ton,' &c. Lond. 1637.]
c [It was answered by Peter Heylin, ' Page 175. in a book entitled, ' A Brief and
OF BASTWICK, BURTON, AND PRYNNE. 69
mission, or elsewhere, by the prelates, for virtue and piety, there is all the reason in the world we should be severely punished ourselves. But the truth is, the virtue and piety for which these ministers are punished, is for preaching schism and sedition, many of their sermons being as bad as their libels, as Burton's libel was one of his sermons first. But whether this stuff have any affinity with virtue and piety, I submit to any Christian reader.
(75)VAnd yet Mr. Burton is so confident of his innocency, even in this cause wherein he hath so foully carried himself, that he breaks forth into these words : ' I never so much as once dreamed, that impiety and impudency itself, in such a Christian State as this is, and under such a gracious Prince, durst ever thus publicly have called me in question, and that upon the open stage,' &c.s K
You see the boldness of the man, and in as bad a cause as, I think, in this kind ever any man had.
I shall end all with a passage out of S. Cyprian11, when he, then Bishop of Carthage, was bitterly railed upon by a pack of schismatics, his answer was, and 'tis now mine : ' They have railed both bitterly and falsely upon (76) me, and yet non oportet me paria cum illis facere, it becomes not me to answer them with the like either levities or revilings, but to speak and write that only which becomes sacerdotem Dei, a priest of God/
Neither shall I in this give way (though I have been extremely vilified) to either grief or passion to speak, remem bering that of the Psalmist, Psal. xxxvii. 8, ' Fret not thyself, else shalt thou be moved to do evil/
Neither yet, by God's grace, shall the reproaches of such men as these make me faint, or start aside, either from the right way in matter of practice, (they are S. Cyprian's words again *,) or a certa regula, ' from the certain rule of faith.'
And since, in former times, some spared not to call the Master of the (77) house Beelzebub, how much more will they be bold with them of his household ? as it is in St.Mat-
& [Burton's Appeal,] page 7. cia perditorum, quominus a via recta
h [S. Cypr.] Lib. i. Ep. 3. [Ep.lv. et a certa regnla non recedamus."]
ad Cornel, p. 85. Ed. Ben.] — Ib. p. 10. [Ibid. p. 83.] ' [" Nee movere nos debent convi-
70 SPEECH AT THE CENSURE, ETC.
thew x. 25. And so bold have these men been ; but the next words of our Saviour are, ' Fear them not/
I humbly crave pardon of your Lordships for this my necessary length, and give you all hearty thanks for your noble patience, and your just and honourable censure upon these men, and your unanimous dislike of them, and defence of the Church.
But because the business hath some reflection upon myself, I shall forbear to censure them, and leave them to God's mercy and the King's justice k.
k [The sentence of the court was, Castle, in Guernsey, and Mont Orgueil,
that they should each be fined 5000?., in Jersey. Their conduct when in the
be deprived of their ears, and be com- pillory is described in the Biographia
mitted to prison. The sentence was Britannica, in the notes to their several
accordingly executed ; after which, lives, and in a letter from Garrard to
Bastwick was committed to Launces- Wentworth (Strafford Letters, vol. ii.
ton, Burton to Lancaster, and Prynne p. 85). They were released from prison
to Caernarvon Castle. Afterwards they in 1640, and entered London in
were respectively removed to S. Mary's triumph. ] Castle, in Scilly Island, to Cornet
*** [It is stated in the Harleian Cat. (vol. ii. p. 669.) that there were only twenty-five copies of the first edition of this Speech ; which seems hardly probable, considering that there are three copies still preserved in the Bodleian Library alone. (Wood, Ath. iii. 135.) It has not been thought necessary to" cumber these pages with extracts from Bp. Williams's notes on the Speech, which are there mentioned. It was translated into French in 1637, of which translation there is a copy in the Cathedral Library, Canterbury.
SPEECH
AT THE
TRIAL OE JOHN WILLIAMS,
BISHOP OF LINCOLN, JULY 19, 1637.
[Kushworth's Collections, vol. ii. pp. 438— 445 a.'
SORRY I am, my Lords, that such a man as my Lord Bishop of Lincoln for profession, and sorry that he, being so wise, so discreet and understanding a man every way, should come to stand culpable of such faults as should deserve the censure of this court, and in this nature, that it should fall out, that by being over-active and over-doing businesses of other men's, to undo his own, nay even hereby also to undo himself.
We have adversaries too many amongst ourselves, but this day's work opens a way for the Romanists to take advantage by it, to see so eminent a person as a Bishop, and so eminent a Bishop as he, to become thus censurable in a thing of so high a nature in this high court ; it opens a way, I say, to them of rejoicing, which I would to God had not been at all, or at least not by him.
When I look upon and consider his excellent parts, both of nature and achieved unto by study and art ; when I think upon his wisdom, learning, agility of memory, and the experience that accompanies him with all those endowments, it puts me to a stand ; that after he had been overtaken in one error in the first cause b, he should not have recalled himself, and made a stand, but that he hath now run on into a far
a [There are two copies of this speech were clearly wrong in Rushworth have
in the Ashmolean MSS., Numb. 800, been corrected, and passages supplied,
Art. vi., Numb. 824, Art. vii. The from the Ashmole MS.]
first of these is a brief abstract ; the b [The first charge brought against
other a full report, apparently taken Williams was for revealing the King's
down at the time. That in Rushworth secrets, contrary to his oath as a Privy
seems to have been printed from a Counsellor.] similar report. Several places that
72 SPEECH AT THE TRIAL
worse, and more desperate a one in this cause, by obnoxious and criminal ways, even to a very precipitation and downfall of himself and his credit.
What though there was some question made, and some proofs on foot, whereby his loyalty to the King his master seemed to be in dispute, and his discretion might have someways come to a trial in matter of words, discovering his affection in some matters of state, must he seek unlawful means to procure his actions and words to be lawful, and leave the course of a good conscience, to bolster up a fancy of innocency in another man, and make himself plainly faulty, for to make another man seem free from shame c ? I could wish heartily from my heart, (however this cause be, let it be as it is,) that his deportment for passion had been like to that of St. Cecilia. I read it in a very good author, and it is not impertinent, nor unworthy, what her patience was. When a great stir there was, and all the stream and current ran quite against her, to bear her down in a most furious and violent manner, she mildly in the heat of these storms, and when those billows seemed to over whelm her, and hide her from all hopes of being admitted hearing her to plead her own innocency, much less to gain success to her desires, it being told her there were many witnesses against her, but none that did, or would be seen to appear for her, or in her behalf; she used the saying of holy Job, Testis meus est in coelis, ' My witness is above d ; ' and so it fell out, for (as the story saith) when the matter came to be scanned, the witnesses that were against her, (by what means, or from whence, or how, I know not,) but they were so daunted and struck with such an amazement, that it was their general vote, Nos nihil habemus contra Ceciliam. I have it in St. Augustine, a Father of the Church, (whose authority there is no doubt of, he being held learned among the best of that time,) lib. i. contra H&reticum Donatum e. It had been better with my Lord Bishop, if he had had such a cause. I am sure, in the circumstances, if his behaviour had been more temperate, and mixed with more patience, the
c [Prigeon, the principal witness in d [Job xvi. 19.]
"Williams's favour, was charged with e [There appears to be a serious
incontinency, and Williams was ac- error in this reference, which the
cused of tampering with the witnesses Editor cannot correct.] who supported this charge.]
OF BISHOP WILLIAMS. 73
event could not have been so unlucky, and his censure so sharp, as it is now like to be.
I may be bold to say it, my Lords, (it 's no untruth,) I have been five several times upon my knees to the King my master in his behalf, I delivered for him several petitions myself into the King's own hand, and I then did that (which had I known what now I do) I should not have done. I sent him, under my own hand, the King's answer upon every petition. And after all those five several services, I must tell you, my Lords, I was but coarsely dealt withal, nay very ill requited ; yet was I overcome to move again, and I have it under his own hand, or (if his secretary writ the letter) his own hand and name is underscribed, that he had better and more hopes by my once moving the King, than he had formerly had, by the solicitation and means of all the friends he had at court.
And no longer ago than at Christmas last I moved the King my master again in his behalf f; and then (had he fol lowed that which was intended for his good, and prosecuted the same with submission) it had in all likelihood gone better with him than he could have expected, nay, I think, as the case stood, better than he then desired.
But a cross business came just in the way at the very time (of which your Lordships, or the most part of you, I am sure, are privy to), and had not I then interposed myself (the King being then so exasperated against him), he had fallen. But to let pass my desires, and the earnestness I used, and the tenderness I had, lest my public aspersion should have been opened, and such as could not have been wiped away, but needs have left a stain to my coat, I must needs say thus much for his Majesty, he was very inclinable to have had a fair reconcilement, as may appear by his often asking, * What Lincoln did ? Doth he seek to repair my credit ? Hath he any show of sorrowfulness for his fault ? ' And, my Lords, I may safely say (because I truly speak it), whoever penned his petitions (howsoever they seemed to be his friends, or whoever advised him to let them pass in that form), they did him (though questionless he is able to pen them himself) an injury; yet if he did it by f [Sec Laud's Letter to Williams, Jan. 6, 1636.]
74 SPEECH AT THE TRIAL
advice, they were not therein his friends ; for in them all there was not at any time one word tending to submission or confes sion, or so much as an acknowledgment of a fault, whereby any show of reparation in that nature might be made to his Majesty, as both in duty he ought, and in wisdom might have made proffer of, and with more safety and assurance have performed ; insomuch as that, by his stiff and stubborn behaviour, there was no way but to have the business fully ripped up, heard, and decided. Yet there were not wanting divers ill-disposed persons, who bruited it forth, and very boldly gave out, that my Lord Bishop of Lincoln had not made any fault, or done, or spoken aught, but that which he could stand unto, and needed not to be ashamed of; only that he was rich, and must be let blood, he might well spare it, and the King wanted 10,000/. or 12,000/., and so he should have little said to him, if it was once condescended unto, and either given by him, or gotten from him. But howsoever these reports go, the King is just, as he is honourable ; and though he was inclined to mercy (for so the Bishop of Lincoln had found it, if he had sought it seasonably), yet now you see there is cause, and just cause of censure, and in a very high nature of desert in him to be sentenced by this court.
Now for the nature of the cause, the several charges and the proofs, the defences also that have been made by my Lord Bishop's Counsel, all hath fully and amply been opened by the two Lords Chief Justices %, and if I should attempt anything this way, it were but needless labour to myself, and would breed a tedious troublesomeness to your Lordships ; dictum dicere would be all, when I had said all.
I leave to meddle with the manner of the proceedings, and must give Mr. Attorney h a great and large commendation, and Mr. Solicitor1 also, for their wise stating of the cause, and for their wisdom, wit, temper, and patience in the prose cuting of the same.
The matter is ill, and howsoever it perhaps be not subor nation of perjury, yet to tamper with witnesses, to threaten, deter, affright, corrupt, silence, or absent those that are to witness the truth, and to give evidence in a court of justice, are ejusdem natures, a very foul crime, and a most odious and *>' [Finch and Bramston.] h [Sir John Banks.] { [Sir Edward Littleton.]
OF BISHOP WILLIAMS. 75
detestable fault in any man, of what condition soever he be ; and if these things be suffered, and may go unpunishable^ no state can stand ; it destroys the interest of meum and tuum, and no man is sure of what he holds, or can say whether he hath an estate or no.
It 's a point that ruins all right, and is the utter enemy and subverter of all justice, and must needs overthrow any state, where it is not weeded out, and prevented by severe animad version, and correction, where it happens to be found out.
First, it destroys maximum mandatum, the great command ment given by the great Lawgiver, God himself, ' Thou shalt not bear false witness/ In the fifth of Leviticus k, if a man know a truth he is not to conceal it, nay, he is to witness it.
In the twenty-third of Exodus1, a man is not in any case to bear unjust witness ; and so in the nineteenth of Deuter onomy"1 it is in criminalibus, and he that did bear false witness was to suffer per ley em talionis that same punishment and loss, which by his false testimony the other party should have undergone.
In all the time that passes from the creation of the world until the Law, I do not find that the Holy Ghost once made mention of any that attempted in this way. I find no shadow nor overture of any such crime. The corruption of nature had not then grown to the height, and so over swollen the banks, as to break out so outrageously, and produce any such ill-disposed persons.
Insomuch as I find not any track, no vestigium of the like precedent for above 3000 years : and the Fathers of the Church upon that place, where it is said, ' Out of the mouth of two or three witnesses shall everything be justified n ;' they descant upon it, why two or three witnesses in matters of conse quence ? Because, say they, if so many, they should not be subject to be tampered withal, being they might be of several tempers, several conditions, and so the truth might be had by some of them, if not by all.
And for a long time I read of none, but of the devilish practice and leading piece of impiety set on foot by Jesabel, for what cause, and how prosecuted, you know as well as myself, and what she was, how she sped, and what end she made, is
k [Levit. v. 1.1 m [Deut. xix. 19.]
1 [Exod. xxiii. 1.] " [Ibid. 15.]
76 SPEECH AT THE TRIAL
recorded to posterity. Yet, my Lords, I pray you observe, and note with me, how warily the Holy Ghost goeth about in the setting forth of this fact, and the passages therein, in the 21st verse; as if the Spirit of God was unwilling to display and discover the heinousness of this monster hatched by this vile woman ; as if He would not have it seen, He shadows it forth in a low strain, that there came in two sons of Belial, and said, &c. 1 Kings, cap. xxi. As if the original of this odious practice was not rooted in human nature, but took his birth from hell; it came in with two sons of Belial in the devil's name.
Well, afterwards such a tutor could not want apt scholars, and, as St. Paul saith in another place, when I come to speak of it ' after the manner of men/ 1 find it then practised, and that (with a witness) ( it outfaced the God of truth/ though truth itself must not be trodden under foot ; but this engine fetched from hell must be planted to defeat the counsels of God Almighty. They found out and hired false witness against Christ Himself. Who they were you know ; ' The chief priests and the elders, and all the whole council, sought false witness against Jesus to put Him to death0/ And after Him, Stephen had the same measure ; ' Then they suborned men, who said, We have heard him speak blasphemous words against Moses and against God V
Thus amongst those stiff-necked and hard-hearted Jews, the fault was in use, when sin and iniquity grew ripe, and as the prophet saith, ' faith and truth could scarce be found amongst mortal men**/ but the subversion and destruction of their city follows, and there comes in the government of a warlike nation and people, the Romans; amongst whom I find some laws made against false witnesses, and those very severe ones.
Besides other laws, in the law of the Twelve Tables there is a strict law confirmed against it ; and these Twelve Tables were not made by any mean advice or persons, but by the persons of a powerful Consul and the decemviri; that he that was found faulty in this notorious crime, he was to be thrown down a steep high rock, to have his bones shivered all to pieces, e monte Tarpeio, or e saxo Tarpeio r ; afterwards
0 [Mark xiv. 55.] r [Legg. XII. Tabularum, Tab. VII. P [Acts vi. 11.] leg. xii.]
1 [Jer. v. 1.]
OF BISHOP WILLIAMS. 77
the lawgivers pursued this fault with banishment and confis cation of goods ; Confiscatio bonorum fiat, et puniatur uti pro crimine falsi, which in those times was a heavy and most severe punishment, whereby their posterity also was branded with the fault of them that went before them.
In the ninety-fifth Counsel I find a course set down for the prevention of this crime, and a punishment set for the offenders therein s.
And in later times Bartolus * often meets with it, and goes very precisely and very exactly in the case, that if so be it be found in any man, so much as an overture of tampering with witnesses, it is censurable ; reus est, he is guilty, though he effect not his purpose, if he menace, threaten, or deter a witness. And so, my Lords, shall I do, — hold him fit for censure. I hold him worthy of censure, though, he but barely attempt to smother, deter, or hinder any witness, when he is to give his testimony; be it by words, looks, or actions, promises or threats, it comes much to one in my opinion upon the matter.
Now, my Lords, to come unto the laws of the Church, if we peruse the canon and ecclesiastical law, there we shall often in every age have somewhat or other still established against it. In the canon law, the second part of the Decretals, 22. Caus., if any man shall be a suborner of witnesses, etiamsi instigatus aut compulsus a domino u, if he bring a false testi mony, though he be even enforced to it by his superior, his lord, governor, or his master, deliver him over to excommuni cation, et sic maneat usque ad exitum vita, and so he must stand and remain in that state and case during term of life. A grievous thing, and a most heavy burden, inflicted on the offender, though nowadays and in our times excommunica tions are slighted, and little set by; yet in cases of this nature, when the offence is so high and transcendent, and of condition tending to the ruin and condemnation of the soul, the party at that time, and for that present, even dallying, mocking, and abusing of God to His very face, to be left void
s [The Editor has examined several u [Vid. Decret. par. ii. Caus. xxii.
collections of ' Consilia,' but cannot Qusest.v. cap. i. 'Qui compulsus. 'Corp.
find the passage referred to.] Jur. Can. torn. i. col. 1274. The words
* [Vid. Bartolum (de Saxoferrato) which follow ' et . . . exitum vitae,' are
De Iteprobatione Testium, apud Trac- found in substance in cap. vii. ibid,
tatus Univ. Juris, torn. iv. p. 72, seq.] col. 1275.]
78 SPEECH AT THE TRIAL
of the communion of saints, to be bereaved of the benefit of being a member of Christ's flock, and cut off from that holy body the Church, I think that no man is in a worse and a more miserable estate ; and more to be pitied, if he be insensible of it himself.
To come to the first Council of Macedon [Macon] , the seven teenth canon, Si scit ilium /also juraturum, reus esto. And what is he guilty of? Of no small matter. Ranked and ranged in the degree and place of a murderer — et cum homicidis x.
Nay, he is worse than a manslayer, for he that kills a man destroys but one, and that but the body neither, for he cannot any way infringe the union of his soul, that it had with its Maker. But he that goes about to suborn and procure false witnesses, he at one time destroys two souls, both his own, and the soul of him that he so in that kind intermeddles withal; and unless he be rejoined again by the renewing of faith, and serious and hearty repentance, he sets God and both their souls at odds.
Afterwards you find it in the western parts of England ; and in France, in the seventeenth [canon of the] Council of Agatha, you have a tamperer with witnesses adjudged to death y ; even in the time of Alaricus, who was no better than a barbarous Goth, this crime was disallowed, made horrid and abominable, and held severely to be punished.
You may find it in St. Augustine, who lived about some 400 years after our Saviour Christ, and indeed he most excel lently sets it out, in his 28th Sermon, De Nativitate Domini7", either he had it out of that Council, or the Council out of him, being much-what both at one time, and in one age.
Some parts of Greece, I find, did affect and patronise lying, but Tully wittily girds them for it, saying they were not wise to countenance folly b ; yet I find that Aristotle, in his Rheto-
* [The Council of Macon contains >' [The seventeenth canon of the no statement of the kind. See Decret. Council of Agde states nothing of par. ii. Caus. xxii. Queest. v. cap. vii. the kind. The statement that parri- It seems to be a reference to the fol- cides and perjurers are to be con- lowing passage of S. Aug. quoted in demned to death is found, Decret. par. the same Quaest. cap. v. : " Ille autem ii. Caus. xxiii. Qnoest. v. cap. xl. ' Rex qui hominem provocavit ad juratio- debet.' — Corp. Jur. Can. torn. i. col. nem et scit eum falsum esse juratu- 1350.]
rum, vincit homicidam. Quia homi- z [S.Aug. Serm. clxxx. (al. De Yer-
cida cospus occisurus est, ille animara ; bis Apost. xxviii.) Op., torn. v. col.
imo duas, et ejus quern jurare provo- 1248.]
cavit, et suam." — S. Aug. Serm. cccviii. a [See Orat. pro L. Flacco, cap. iv.] cap. 4. Op., torn. v. col. 1836. A.]
OF BISHOP WILLIAMS. 79
rics, concerning the interrogatories to witnesses, gives admi rable rules, and such as, though short, comprehends the most- what of the most settled, and the wittiest, and the safest ways used now-a-days in that kind; lib. ii. Rhet. you may read the ways of prevention herein by him set down.
And to come into our own country, about the year 1222, in the reign of King Henry III., and if I do name Henry III. your Lordships know that it was a troublesome time, yet I read that Stephen Langton, my predecessor, (then Archbishop of Canterbury,) called a Council to be held at Oxford : the main business was for the reformation of two points ; the one was concerning marriage, the other concerning exhereditation, &c. ; where I find a foul penance inflicted and set out for him that shall either bear false witness by himself, or procure it in another b.
For he that is a tamperer this way, he is guilty of no small crime, doing (at one and the same time) wrong to three of the greatest persons in the world, namely, 1, to God ; 2, to the King ; 3, to the innocent, who, in conspectu Dei, in the sight of God, is a person of no small esteem.
First, he manifestly wrongs God by a notorious contempt, by a very slighting and vilifying His omniscience, omnipre sence, and omnipotency.
He disrobes God of that which is His very essence, for God is truth. And he that dares thus outface God's truth, and wit tingly deviseth and practiseth to lay it aside, and keep it from the light ; I find him in very nature to be abhorred, and held unfit for human society. Aristotle himself, in that glimmering he had of divine learning, deciphers such a one, and sets him out by these very characters ; he must be one qui pietatem non curat c, a man that matters not at all for piety ; he must either deny the Deity, or else think he can escape the reach of the celestial powers, such a one qui putat se latere Deo, he must be able to skulk on the one side, and absent himself from the hand of God at his pleasure.
Secondly, in the next place, another great person unto whom he doth injury, is the King, whom he plainly cheateth to his face, and wrongeth him in the very seat of justice, even forcing his officers, the grave and learned judges, will they, nill they, to do injustice; for if the witnesses be suborned,
b [Wilkins' Cone. torn. i. p. 585.] c [Arist. Rhet. ad Alexand. cap. xviii.]
80 SPEECH AT THE TRIAL
and give in false evidence, the juror cannot come near the truth, and the judge must needs exact, order, and sentence, what otherwise they neither would, nor ought to have done.
Last of all, the third person that is wronged, in conspectu Dei is a person of no small esteem, the innocent (one little enough, God He knows, of no esteem, or of very little many times in the eye of the world, yet is he gracious and great too in the sight of God) ; and he is also most shamefully wronged and abused, nay, perhaps undone, by the indirect practices of those false witnesses. Sometimes his person is traduced, his fame and credit either stained, or else quite taken away, or so shaken, that it's a shrewd matter to deal with him ; another while his estate, his birthright, is wrested from him, or else withdrawn, and for a time with held from him; one while his goods, another while his lands, a third time himself is at stake; so life, lands, goods, and all are in danger : well, though such witnesses be against him, his plea is never a whit the worse in foro cceli, his inheritance is laid up amongst the saints, testimonium ejus est in ccelis d: { Doubtless there is a reward for the righteous, verily there is a God that judgeth the earth e :' ' for there is nothing hid which shall riot be revealed V
And thus, my Lords, have I said what I thought fit, though not so much as the crime deserves, for my time being scanted, I have laid it out, though roughly, yet so as it may easily be seen of what a vile nature this cankered and pestilent weed is, and from whence it had its original, and how odious and detestable it hath been to all ages, how dangerous the effects be that proceed from it, and therefore how carefully it ought to be looked unto, and suppressed in all good commonwealths.
I shall make my word good in my brevity concerning the last thing I am to perform, and shall pass over the sentence very speedily : to make any repetitious were but actum agere (as my Lord of London said), therefore T will be very short in this.
I find much tampering and striving by my Lord Bishop' s agents for to suppress and decline a truth.
I wonder that Lake should be sent to the University of Cambridge presently to take the degree of Doctor, and that they would let him pass.
d [Job xvi. 19.] « [Psal. Iviii. 10.] ' [Matth. x. 26.]
OF BISHOP WILLIAMS. 81
I cannot commend Mosteyn (though otherwise a very civil and deserving man, and I think very true and trusty to his master) ; yet to be present when a blank is to be put up, and an affidavit to be made to a blank by his privity, and in his presence, this is not honest ; he might have done well to have disallowed the proceedings, or at least not been present, and have countenanced the same. And Walter Walker, though he be a solicitor, and must and ought to follow the causes he undertakes, with as much skill, industry, and advice as he may, yet he might have been ashamed of this blank affidavit, and he ought indeed to have suppressed it. And Mosteyn must bring him in at the back door, an un worthy part ; if the business be such, as will redound to the shame of my Master, he should have come in at no door, by my being usher unto him : and if the business and bringer be justifiable, the fore-door had better fitted.
If Walker had been a good servant, it had gone better with the Bishop than now it is like to do ; and if Walker do escape sentence, it 's more by hap than skill, more, by luck than honesty. I find him to be a very arrant honest man in all the business, and my Lord Bishop is a very miserable man, thus to defend Prigeon's good name with the loss of his own.
Catlin, he must have a living given him, and well he de served it, but as yet he had not played his part to the full, and therefore stay your hand, my Lord, (saith Walker,) till the business be done. A manifest plain proof that there was some use to be made of this cunning and crafty fellow, to countenance the business in hand. And I can say no less than that I find Catlin to be a very lewd man, a very incen diary, and truly to be paralleled with that Catlin of Rome, against whom so many learned and eloquent Orations were writ by Cicero, that famous orator.
For Lunn, let him go on in God's name, to be put off from the place and offices that he hath ; and for Powell, I could go deeper than any before me hath yet done, who prosecutes an unjust act so long, so oft, and never repents of it.
For Kilvert's affronting of my Lord Bishop in that manner he did, I must set that, and the Bishop's offering to be present at the examination of the witnesses, both in one distance, and they may very well the one of them quit the other. For if Kilvert, being upon so weighty a business, and
LAUD. — VOL. VI. p
82 SPEECH AT THE TRIAL OF BP. WILLIAMS.
concerning so great a matter, interessed into it by no worse than the King's Majesty, and in a cause that concerned him self ; if Kilvert, I say, should have gone puningly, faintly, and cowardly have put his finger in a hole, if he had upon my Lord's presence, and by the terms he used, gone sheepishly on in his business, the matter might have failed. Some of your Lord ships have condemned him for his bold carriage toward a bishop in his own diocese ; but I cannot, for my Lord and his passions were more to be condemned. A temper would better have befitted him, and indeed he ought not to have given any such occasion, and therefore it may be said, Etiamsi ego dignus sum hac contumelia, indignus tamen, qui fecerit %} I pass that by as to be excused, by reason of the weightiness of the matter.
For the gaining of papers from the Council- table, I find my Lord Bishop had them long enough in his custody, and they were returned unsealed; and I do find that he proceeds to counter-proofs directly, according as he was informed by these papers, which in my mind shows apparently, that he both had them and perused them.
For Sir John Mounson, the King is wounded through his sides. I have known him a long time, and I never knew nor heard anything of him but good, and therefore do hold one thousand marks little enough for reparation of his credit, who did nothing but that which was his duty, and belonged to his place.
For my Lord Bishop of Lincoln, truly I am heartily sorry to do that which I must do, both by reason he is of my own coat, and also by reason of the place he hath in former time sustained in this court amongst your Lordships, and in this commonwealth ; but I must not forbear to do that which my conscience leads me unto, and less I must not do, than for to discharge that as I ought to do.
Wherefore I shall agree with my Lord Cottington, and the rest that have gone before me, in the fine of 10,000/. to his Majesty, and likewise for his imprisonment in the Tower during the King's pleasure, as also to be suspended from the exercise of his ecclesiastical function, tarn a beneficiis, quam officiis, and to be referred over to be proceeded against in the High- Commission Court, as the merit of his offence shall deserve.
* [Terent. Eun. v. 2. 27.]
THE ANSWER
OF
THE MOST REVEREND FATHER IN GOD,
WILLIAM,
LOUD ARCHBISHOP OF CANTERBURY,
TO THE
SPEECH OF THE LORD SAY AND SEAL,
TOUCHING THE LITURGY'.
THE speech begins thus :
My Lords, I have waited to find you free from greater busi nesses, that I might crave leave to speak of something that concerns myself. And this I have the more desired, since my Lord of Canterbury's last speech, who expressing his troubles, and bewailing the misery of his condition, and of the condition of the Church of England, (for he would needs join them together, which I think he may, as the cause and the effect^ for the miseries of the Church have certainly risen from him, ) he insisted much upon this : that these troubles had befallen him through the malice of two parties, the Papists and the Sectaries, and by those he said the Church was greatly afflicted.
My Lords, and all Christian readers, those great businesses which my Lord speaks of are now ended ; and I hope as you are free from business, so you will be free from prejudice, while I also crave leave to speak something concerning my self. And this I also have the more desired, since I saw this honourable Lord had put his speech in print, which I find as
11 [This Answer is reprinted from bishop's History of his Troubles and the first volume of Laud's Works (Lond. Trial. The pages of this volume are 1695), where it was inserted by H. noted in the margin.] Wharton, at the end of the Arch-
G2
84 ANSWER TO THE LORD SAY'S SPEECH
much, if not more, against me than for himself. This speech was not put in print till near six months after it was spoken ; and, I conceive, was printed then to renew the business, and to whet the malice of those Sectaries against me. 'Tis true that after I was impeached by the House of Commons for high treason, there came no articles up against me in full ten 4 weeks after ; then they came up in generals only ; and I was called to the House to hear them on Friday, February the 26th, 164^. Now, by these articles I found that there was great but (I humbly praise God for it) causeless jealousy of me in point of religion. This made me labour more to clear myself from that, than from anything else objected against me, as ever hating to seem other in religion than what I truly and really am. For of all simulations or dissimulations, that is the basest, when a man, for poor, temporary, fading ends, shall shift his religion or his judgment concerning it, with the time if not with the tide, as if at all times he had somewhat to seek before he would express : whereas it is most true which St. Hilary speaks in matter of religion, Non opus est intervallo aliquo inter cor et os b : ' There 's no need of a distance between the heart and the mouth ; as if a man were to bethink him self of some faithless ambiguity, before he would speak that which belonged to the profession of his faith.'
Now, if seeing myself under so great a pressure, and the Church of England so hard laid at, as then it was, I did bewail the condition of both, I think I did what became me ; and I hope I offended no man in 'joining our conditions to gether/ And whereas this honourable Lord thinks, ' that I might well join them, as the cause and the effect/ I think so too myself, but in another sense.
For his Lordship says too peremptorily, that ' the miseries of the Church have certainly risen from me/ No, certainly ; the miseries of this Church have proceeded from the Sepa ratists, and from such as for private at least, if not for worse ends, have countenanced them and their strange proceedings against the government and governors of the Church : and this so long, till they brought the Church's condition (which
b ["Non tardo opus est petitoque loquendum sit, per infidelcm ambi-
longe verbo confessionis, nee inter- guitatem cogitetur."] — St. Hilary, 1.
vallo aliquo inter cor atque os relicto, x. de Trin. p. 1G5. [$ 70, col. 1080. B.
ut quod ad protestationein religion!,-; Paris. 1693.]
TOUCHING THE LITURGY. 85
flourished before) to be the cause of my condition, such as it now is ; and I fell into this condition by labouring, by all good means, to uphold the Church of England from that misery into which, I fear, it is now falling.
And I doubt not but God will open the eyes of all good men, to see clearly in time, that this was the cause which laid both me and this Church so low, and not any actions, much less practices of mine. This being so, if ' I insisted much upon this, that these troubles have befallen me through the malice of two parties, the Papists and the Sectaries ' (as this honour able Lord says I did), I had great reason so to do. For, cer tainly, the Church of England is ' greatly afflicted ' by them ; and I pray God, in the end it be not torn in pieces between them. That which I then said, in my sudden speech to the Lords to this particular, was as follows0: —
" I am very unfortunate in this business, between the ma lignity of two parties against me, the Papist and the Sepa ratist. And shall I suffer on both sides at once ? Shall I be accounted a deadly enemy to the Papist, as I am reputed by them both at home and abroad ; and, in the meantime, accused for no less than treason for favouring and complying with them ? Well, if I do suffer, -'tis but because truth usu ally lies between two sides, and is beaten on both sides (as the poor Church of England is at this day by these factions). But in this and all things else, and in despite of malice, truth 2 shall either be my protection from suffering, or my comfort while I suffer : and by God's gracious assistance I shall never depart from it, but continue at the Apostle's ward, Nihil pos sum contra veritatem : 'I can do nothing against the truth V and for it, I hope, God will enable me patiently to suffer any thing."
This, or to this effect, I then spake, and I hope without any offence ; sure I am, without reflecting upon any particular person. Yet my Lord seems to think otherwise ; for he says —
How far this man will extend this word Sectary, and whom he will comprehend under it, I know not ; but I have some cause to fear that I may lie under some misapprehension
c [This part of the Archbishop's vii. Works, vol. iii. p. 415.] speech is recorded by him in the His- d 2 Cor. xiii. 8. tory of his Troubles and Trial, chap.
86 ANSWEK TO THE LORD SAY'S SPEECH
in respect of matters of this nature, which how far it con cerns him, your Lordships will perceive by what I shall say.
My Lord, it seems, ' knows not how far I will extend the word Sectary/ Truly, no further than the Church of Christ extended it, ever since sects and schisms broke in upon it, to help despoil it of peace and unity. And a Sectary is hee . .
The next thing which my Lord knows not is, ' whom I will comprehend under that name ;' and that his Lordship may easily know. For I comprehend none under it but such as divide from the Church, and either make or follow a breach, where no just cause is given by the Church, or where, though cause were given, ways of division are preferred before ways of peace. But that which troubles my Lord about these things, which he professes he knows not, is, that he hath some cause to fear (for so he confesses) ' that he may lie under some misapprehensions in respect of matters of this nature/ And this I think may trouble him indeed ; for there's cause enough why he should fear that he may lie under, not misap prehensions, but very just apprehensions, in respect of matters of this nature, since His manifest that he separates himself, as Sectaries use to do, from the common prayers of the Church ; and those such as were composed by such bishops and other divines as suffered, some of them to martyrdom, for the truth of Christ ; and those such also as were a second time, under the prosperous reign of Queen Elizabeth, confirmed by Act of Parliament. So that his Lordship, separating himself from those prayers which were made by the one and confirmed by the other, must needs be apprehended as a Sectary, whether you look upon Church or State. But my Lord tells you, ' that you will perceive by that which he shall say, how far this concerns me/ And therefore I pray you observe it diligently ; for I cannot yet conceive how anything else that belongs to a Sectary can concern me, or anything else, much, which his Lordship can say against me.
My Lord of Canterbury ! a man of mean birth, bred up in a College, (and that too frequently falls out to be in a
e The definition or description of a Sectary is wanting in the original. — H. W.
TOUCHING THE LITURGY. 87
faction,} whose narrow comprehension extended itself no further than to carry on a side in a College, or canvass for a Proctor's place in the University.
This concerns me indeed, and very nearly ; for I see his Lordship resolves to rake me up from my very birth, a way unusual for men well-bred, and little beseeming a person of honour, especially thus to insult upon a fallen fortune. But yet it concerns me not in any relation to a Sectary, unless his Lordship would possess the world that I was bred in faction, and so like enough to prove one. But how my Lord is mis taken in this will plainly appear. \First, then, 'tis true I am a man of ordinary, but very honest birth ; and the memory of my parents savours very well to this day, in the town in Reading, where I was born. Nor was I so meanly born as perhaps my Lord would insinuate ; for my father had borne all offices in the town, save the mayoralty; and my imme diate predecessor (whom I am sure my Lord himself accounted very worthy of his place) was as meanly born as myself, his father being of the same trade in Guilford that mine was of in Reading. But all this of my birth might well have been spared ; for my Lord knows well enough —
* Miserum est aliorum incumbere famse ; Ne collapsa ruant subductis tecta columnisf;'
and that which follows in the satirist. And had my birth been meaner than it was, that would not have impaired me among men of understanding. And howsoever, this advan tage I have ; I have done honour to my birth, which every man hath not done, that hath had an honourable descent^ To my birth, his Lordship adds that I was bred up in a College. That's true. But 'tis as true that his Lordship was bred up in a College also^, and of the same University ; and therefore, so far he speaks as much against himself as me. But I hope he intends not to charge being bred in a College, as a fault upon either of us ; and though ' it too fre quently falls out that Colleges be in a faction,' (for that also is too truly observed by his Lordship,) yet that is no fault in any man who neither causes nor nourishes the faction. But that which his Lordship charges next upon me is both a
f Juven. Satir. viii. [76, 77.] * [In New College.]
88 ANSWEE TO THE LORD SAY'S SPEECH
weakness and a fault, if true : weakness, that ' my compre hensions are narrow ; ' and a fault, because ' they extended no further than to carry on a side in the College, or a canvass for a Proctor's place in the University/
For the weakness first. My comprehensions, as narrow as they are, are yet as large as God hath been pleased to make them, and as large as my hard study, accompanied with His grace, hath been able to stretch them ; and so large I am sure they are, as that I have ever looked carefully upon the whole Catholic Church of Christ, spread upon the face of the whole earth.
And therefore certainly my comprehensions are not so narrow as theirs, whose largest cannot, or will not, look upon one entire national Church ; nay, a parochial is too big for them, and a conventicle big enough. Nor did my ' narrow comprehensions ' ever reject that great body, the Catholic Church, out of the Creed, as some of late have done, whose comprehensions are not, for all that, censured by his Lord ship for their narrowness.
Next for the fault. That's twofold. First, my compre- 4! hensions went no further (says my Lord) than ' to carry on a side in a College/ Here my Lord is either utterly mistaken, or, which is worse, in a wilful error ; for,Xvhile I was Fellow of St. John Baptist's College, where I was bred, it is well known I never made nor held up any side. Indeed, when I was chosen President of that College, there was a bitter faction both raised and countenanced against me (I will for bear to relate how and by whom) . But this is certain, I made no party then; for four being in nomination for that head ship, I lay then so sick at London, that I was neither able to go down, nor so much as write to my friends about it. Yet, after much tumble, a major part of the votes made choice of me. Thus I was chosen President, May 10, 1611 h.l After this my election was quarrelled at, and great means made against me, insomuch that the most gracious king, King James, sat to hear the cause himself, for the space of full three hours, Aug. 28, at Tichburn in Hampshire, as he re turned out of the western progress. Upon this hearing, his Majesty approved my election, and commanded my settle-
h [See Diary at this date, Works, vol. iii. p. 135.]
TOUCHING THE LITURGY. 89
merit ; which was done accordingly at Michaelmas following. But the faction in the College finding such props above, as they had, continued very eager and bitter against me. The audit of the College for the year's accounts, and choice of new officers, followed in November : there so God blessed me with patience and moderation in the choice of all offices, that I made all quiet in the College. And for all the narrowness of my comprehensions, I governed that College in peace, without so much as the show of a faction, all my time, which was near upon eleven years. And the truth of all this is notoriously known, and many yet living, of great worth in the Church, able and ready to avow it. And this, I hope, was not to lead on a side.
Secondly, my Lord charges my narrow comprehensions as reaching no further than ' a canvass for a Proctor's place/ I was (with thanks to their love that thought me worthy) chose Proctor of the University1, so soon as by statute I was capable of it ; but I never meddled in the managing of the canvass for it for myself, nor afterwards for any other, while I continued Fellow of the College. When I was chosen Pre sident, I continued so for two years, and meddled not in that business ; and this I did, because in some things I did utterly dislike that canvass, and the carriage of it. At last some of the senior Fellows came to me, and told me that the College had been many years without the credit of a Proctor, and that the Fellows began to take it ill at my hands that I would not show myself, and try my credit and my friends in that business. Upon this, rather than I would lose the love of my companions, I did settle myself in an honest and fair way to right the College as much as I could ; and by God's blessing it succeeded beyond expectation k. But when we were at the strongest, I made this fair offer more than once and again, that if the greater Colleges would submit to take their turns in order, and not seek to carry all from the lesser, we would agree to any indifferent course in Convocation, and 75 allow the greater Colleges their full proportion according to their number. This would not be hearkened unto ; whereupon things continued some years.
1 [In 1603.] as mentioned above (vol. v. p. 143,
k [Richard Baylie, of St. John's Col- note !), Laud's principal opponent in lege, was Proctor in 1615. He was, his election to the Presidentship.]
90 ANSWER TO THE LORD SAY'S SPEECH
After this, by his Majesty's grace and favour,, I was made Bishop of St. David's; and after that of Bath and Wells. When I was thus gone out of the University, the election of the Proctors grew more and more tumultuous, till at the last the peace of the University was like to be utterly broken ; and the divided parties brought up a complaint to the Council- table. The Lords were much troubled at it, especially the right honourable William, Earl of Pembroke, Lord Steward, and their honourable Chancellor. I had by that time, and by the great grace of his now Majesty, the honour to be a Councillor, and was present. There I acquainted the Lords what offers I had made, during my time in the University, which I did conceive would settle all differences, and make peace for ever. The Lords approved the way ; and after the Council was risen, my very honourable Lord the Earl of Pembroke desired me to put the whole business in writing, that he might see and consider of it. I did so : his Lordship approved of it, and sent it to the University, with all freedom to accept or refuse, as they saw cause. The University approved all, only desired the addition of a year or two more to the circle ; which would add a turn or two more, to content some of the greater Colleges. This that honourable Lord yielded unto; and that form of election of their Proctors was by unanimous consent made a statute in Convocation, and hath continued the University in peace ever since1. And this is all ' the carrying on of a canvass for a Proctor's place ' which any truth can challenge me withal. And it may be, my Lord is pleased to impute 'narrow comprehensions' to me, because my advice enclosed the choice of the Proctors within a circle. I am heartily sorry I should trouble the reader with these passages concerning myself; but my Lord forces me to it, by imputing so much un worthiness to me. But my Lord leaves not here, but goes on, and says worse of me : —
Being suddenly advanced to highest places of government in Church and State, had not his heart enlarged by the enlargement of his fortune ; but still the maintaining of his party was that which filled all his thoughts ; which he prosecuted with so much violence and inconsiderateness,
1 [See Wood's Annals, ad ann. 1628, 1629, pp. 360, seq.]
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that he had not an eye to see the consequences thereof to the Church and State, until he had brought both into those distractions, danger, and dishonour, which we now find ourselves encompassed withal.
The next thing which my Lord charges me with is, that ' I was suddenly advanced to highest places of government in Church and State/ This is like the rest. And I dare say, when my Lord shall better consider of it, he will neither re-affirm nor avouch such an untruth. ' Suddenly advanced !' What does my Lord call ' suddenly?' Jl was eleven years his Majesty's Chaplain in Ordinary, before I was made a Bishop. I was a Bishop twelve years before I was preferred to be Archbishop of Canterbury, that highest place my Lord mentions. When I was made Archbishop, I was full three- '6 score years of age, within less than one month* Whereas my immediate predecessor was not any one month in his Majesty's ordinary service as chaplain, but far from that honourable indeed, but yet painful and chargeable service, and was made Bishop of Lichfield, of London, and of Canter bury, within the compass of two years, he being at the time of his translation to Canterbury but forty-nine years of age ; and yet never charged as a man ' suddenly advanced/ But my advancement, which it seems pleased not my Lord so well as his did, was very sudden ; which I leave to the impartial reader to judge.
Next being advanced to this ' high place/ as my Lord calls it, (but now made low enough by his Lordship, and other of the same feather,) he says, < I had not my heart enlarged with the enlargement of my fortune/ Sure my Lord is mistaken again. For my heart (I humbly thank God for it) was enlarged every way as much as my fortune, and in some things perhaps more. But it may be my Lord meant, that my heart was not sufficiently enlarged, because I could not receive those separatists into it (further than to pray for them) which would not suffer the open bosom of the Church of England to receive them; but ' neglecting their father's commandment, forsook also their mother's instruction"1.' Nor did I ' maintain any party •/ but any Churchman, or
m Prov. i. 8, and vi. 20.
92 ANSWER TO THE LORD SAY'S SPEECH
any man else that loved order and peace in the Church, was very welcome to me. And I leave the world to judge, by what they now see, whether I or this Lord have practised or studied most ' the maintenance and advancement of a party/ And as I did not ' maintain a party/ so