ther with the title) were annexed for ever to the Imperial Crown of thi realm.

2. A fulness of power, to correct and punish all errors, heresies, enormities, and vices; and to exercise all manner of Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction.

3. A plenitude of authority, to depute his vicegerent, his doctors of the civil law, his chancellors, commissaries, &c. to execute all manner of Spiritual Jurisdiction, with a non obstante to any constitutions, customs, &c. to the coutrary.

4. An unlimited power, not only to grant Dispensations from the throne, but also to authorize some elect persons to dispense with all Ecclesiastical Laws, without the consent of the Clergy, or of any lawful Church Authority.

5. An absolute power to supersede the jurisdiction and authority of Archbishops, Bishops, &c. and to pronounce them deprived of all Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction, except such only as they might obtain and enjoy by, under, and from his Majesty.

6. A power to amplify or diminish, admit or abrogate, the Ecclesiastical Laws of this realm ad libitum.

7. A power to grant Licences, Dispensations, Faculties, &c. to be himself (or, if he pleased, his Court of Chancery, or any other deputy) the dernier resource, or final judge in matters of controversy; to whom (and no farther) appeals might be made, concerning what is agreeable or repugnant to holy Scripture and the Law of God.

8. A power to define, that no speaking, doing, or holding against any spiritual laws shall be deemed to be heresy.

9. A power, not only to suspend any spiritual person or persons that shall preach or teach contrary to the determinations which are or shall be set forth by his Majesty; but also to condemn every such offender, after the third offence, to suffer (as an heretick) the pains of death by burning. Vide Stat. 34 and 35 H. 8. c. 1.

10. A power to restrain all foreign appeals, censures, and processes, not only in cases when the regality of the crown, the civil government, or the interest of the subjects were concerned, but likewise in such as are merely spiritual, and entirely subjected to spiritual cognizance.

Lastly, he challenged a power to declare all canons, constitutions, &c. made or published by the Clergy without the royal assent, to be null and void.

Such were the powers and such the prerogatives which King Henry VIII. with the concurrence of his obsequious

Parliaments, extorted from the Church. And granting now that a set of modern statutes and acts of Parliament might serve for a ground-work to a Parliamentary Religion, yet I presume may nevertheless venture to say, that From the beginning it was not so. Canon law and ecclesiastical constitutions were rules of practice to all the kings of this island, from its conversion to Christianity, till that memorable period when the Religion of England first became parliamentary, i. e. till the unhappy days of King Henry the Eighth. And if so, we may conclude his noble progenitors fell vastly short of their proportionable dividend of power, in case this monarch had no more of it than came fairly and honestly to his share. For we defy all the advocates for the Lay Supremacy to show us, what particular crowned Head it was, in all the royal list of King Henry's predecessors, that ever challenged the above recited powers, or ever attempted to advance the prerogative royal to that exorbitant height it was carried to, towards the latter end of his distinguished reign.

But behold King Harry the Eighth's Champion! Be hold a formidable Dimock in lawn sleeves! Behold Bp. Bramhall advancing against us, and with a magisterial and decisive air, objecting that, "*To be Head of the English Church is neither more nor less than our laws and histories, ancient and modern, do every where ascribe to our English Kings."

In answer to this, we beg leave to observe, that our author's neither more nor less amounts to nothing more and nothing less, than just nothing at all! For if by the Head of the English Church our wise objector means nothing more than a political head, vested with proper authority to go. vern all his subjects, of all ranks and degrees, whether ecclesiastical or lay persons, we grant what he advances to be true. But then, what is it to the purpose? For upon a very superficial inspection into our laws and histories, it may easily be perceived, that something more than this comes to was actually ceded to King Henry VIII. by his pliant Parliaments. We may find that he was the first of our English Kings that ever styled himself the Supreme Head of the Church of England, the first that ever annexed the Supremacy to the imperial crown of this realm, the first that ever made it treason to deny or refuse him that title. All which particularities are as plain and evi

* Bram. Schism Guarded, p. 86. Gravenhagh, 1658.

1

dent in our histories, as that there was such a man as King Henry VIII.

But our author goes on, and in the same dictatorial strain assures us, that "*The ancient Kings of England did assume as much power in ecclesiastical affairs as Henry the Eighth did.

Did they so? But where's the proof of this groundless and arbitrary assertion? For truly we are not disposed implicitly and blindly to subscribe to the Doctor's ipse dixit. We owe no such deference to his authority. On the contrary, we positively say and maintain, he imposes upon his reader, by his too boldly advancing, that the ancient Kings of England did assume as much power in ecclesiastical affairs as King Henry the Eighth did. For, in the obvious sense and meaning of these words, nothing less is imported, than that all King Henry the Eighth's predecessors invaded the Spiritual Prerogatives of the Church, and trampled upon the privileges of the Clergy in the same manner and with the same insolence as he did. But this we do aver to be a palpable mistake, if not something worse.

Nor is it any thing to the purpose in this dispute, to quote the vastly unaparallel cases of Henry II. and Richard II. The first, it is very well known, was only engaged in a private dispute with an Archbishop of Canterbury: tho' the contest of the latter, we confess, was of a more public nature, and makes some little noise in history, but more in controversy, upon the account of a noted præmunire-act, which passed into a law in the 16th year of this prince's reign. Which act, because it is said, by some injudicious writers, to give a mortal stab to the Pope's Supremacy, it, may not, we presume, be disagreeable to the reader, to have a clear and distinct view of it laid before him.

§ 6.-King Richard the Second's famous Statute of Præmunire... Remarks upon it.

REPEATED attempts have been made, from time to time, by the advocates of the lay-supremacy, to extenuate at least, tho' we think it scarce possible to vindicate, King Henry the Eighth's unexampled encroachments upon the immunities of the Church and her sacred patrimony.

+ Schism Guarded, p. 264.

Some will have it, that his Majesty did not budge one step beyond the boundaries prefixed by the ancient king's of England, his predecessors. But this opinion is manifestly inconsistent with the authentic records of the history of Great Britain. Others fancy King Henry's conduct to be perfectly similar, if not all of a piece with that of King Richard II. This is fancy indeed! and nothing else. For whoever is disposed, (without passion or preju dice) to balance the respective pretensions of these two kings, and the principles upon which they acted, will be hard put to it, I believe, to discover any thing like a similarity in their proceedings. To give a few instances.

Henry boldly challenged and laid claim to every branch of the spiritual power: Richard was modestly content to assert his temporal authority. Henry insisted upon being constituted Head of the Church: Richard resolved to maintain (and who can blame him for it?) the regality of his crown. Henry would be independent, and subject to no earthly power in spirituals: Richard affected the same independency in temporals only. And the truth of these observations is evidently demonstrable from the following particulars which we are going to recite. (1) The Archbishop of Canterbury's Protestation. (2) The preamble to the act. (3) The act itself. To which shall be added a few remarks, in order to explain the nature and design of the celebrated statute now before us.

Let it be observed then, that upon the Commons bringing in a bill (by way of petition) against some papal encroachments which, in those days, were thought to bear somewhat too hard upon the prerogative royal, William Courtenay, Archbishop of Canterbury, stood up, protested and gave his opinion in the High Court of Parliament, in answer to the petition of the House of Commons: and as this was a leading step to what followed, so we shall commence our account of the whole affair from

The Archbishop's Protestation.

*To our dread Sovereign Lord the King in this present Parliament, his humble Chaplain, William Archbishop of Canterbury, gives in his answer to the Petition brought into Parliament by the Commons of the Realm, in which Petition are contained certain articles, that is to say:

'Whereas our said Sovereign Lord the King and all his liege subjects ought of right to sue in the King's Court, to recover their presentments to churches, prebends, &c. But

+ Collier's Eccl. Hist. Vol.I. b. v. pp. 594, 595.

now of late divers processes be made by the Bishop of Rome, and censures of excommunication upon certain Bishops of England, because they have made execution of such commands, &c. The Archbishop protests,-that 'twas not of his intention to affirm our Holy Father the Pope has no authority to excommunicate a Bishop, pursuant to the Laws of Holy Church, declares and answers, that if any executions of processes are made, or shall be made, by any person; if any censures of excommunication shall be published and served upon any English Bishops, or any of the King's subjects, for having made execution of any such commands, he maintains such censures to be prejudicial to the King's Prerogative, as is set forth in the Common' Petition and that so far forth he is resolved to stand with our Lord the King, and support his crown in the matters above mentioned, to his power.

6 And likewise, whereas it is said in the Petition, that complaint has been made that the said holy Father the Pope has designed to translate some English Prelates out of the realm, and some from one Bishoprick to another, within the same realm, without the King's assent and knowledge, and without the consent of the Prelates which shall be so translated, &e.

The said Archbishop, first protesting that it is not his intention to affirm that our holy Father aforesaid cannot make translations of Prelates, according to the laws of holy Church, answers and declares, that if any English Prelates, who by their capacity and qualifications were very serviceable and necessary to our Lord the King and his Realm, if any such Prelates were translated to any sees in foreign dominions, or the sage lieges of his council were forced out of the kingdom against their will, and that by this means the wealth and treasure of the kingdom should be exported; in this case, the Archbishop declares, that such translations would be prejudicial to the King and his Crown for which reason, if any thing of this should happen, he resolves to adhere loyally to the King, and endeavour, as he is bound by his allegiance, to support his Highness, in this and all other instances in which the rights of the crown are concerned. And lastly, he prayed the King this schedule might be made a record, and entered upon the Parliament Roll, which the King granted.' From this recital of the Archbishop of Canterbury's protestation, proceed we, in the next place, for the further information of our reader, to transcribe