Part 21

When in the year 1721 I looked over Archbp. Sancroft’s manuscripts and papers, I found among them one containing a scheme for the government of the Church of England under a R.C. Prince; which I thought exceeding well drawn, as well for preserving a just prerogative in the Crown, as for providing a reasonable security for the Church. It appeared to me to be drawn at the time of the Bill of Exclusion, when the late K. Charles offered to come into any scheme of that nature, though he was resolved never to passe that Bill, as conceiving it to be contrary to honour, justice and conscience. I laid that scheme aside, with some curious discourses of the Archbps. and abundance of valuable letters which I selected in order to write his life. But being to passe into Leicestershire and spend 3 or four months before I got to London, I left them at Fresingfield, intending to send for them to town, as soon as I got thither. But being forced to come abroad not long after in 1722, they still remained at Fresingfield, and were swept away by Dr. Tanner, then Chancellor of Norwich, with the rest of the ArchBps. manuscripts, which he bought in the beginning of 1728, about a quarter of a year before I returned to England. Dr. Tanner dying about 3 years ago and leaving all his MSS. to the University of Oxford, I made two journeys thither last year to search for this scheme: but though I looked over every individual paper of his that had been delivered to the University, I could not find what I searched for. This makes me conclude that the Drs. Executors did not deliver to the University all the MSS. that were bequeathed them; and the rather because I did not observe among them half even of the most curious MSS. of the ArchBps. which I had taken a short catalogue of for my own use.

In defect of this scheme, I venture to draw up my own thoughts on the subject, and to mention some particulars which I conceive may be either for the security or for the advantage of the Church of England.

First, that which I imagine would be a very good and perhaps a better security to it than any other privilege, is the restoring to the Clergy their ancient right of taxing themselves; a right enjoyed by the Clergy in all parts of Europe, and never enjoyed by the English till 3 years after King Charles the Second’s restoration; when the Convocation then sitting gave it up by a Solemn Act, without ever consulting their Constituents, reserving, however, to themselves by an express clause a power to resume it whenever they should think fitting. It would be against all law, justice, and equity to deny them such a resumption whenever they demand it; which they are now universally desirous of doing, having seen the Sitting of Convocations interrupted, and that representative Body and chief judicature of the Church rendered useless, almost ever since they gave up this right. The House of Commons, fond of allocations of extending their power, and grasping at everything that will aggrandize themselves, may not perhaps care to part with this new branch of their power; but it is not the interest of the Crown that the Commons should grow too great, and the experience of 1641 ought for ever to make a Prince, and indeed all orders of men, jealous of every accession of power which accrews to that Body: and if ever they are to be prevailed with to part with this additional branch thereof, it is most likely to be done on the account here mentioned, viz. for the security of religion. For by the constant and regular sitting of the Convocation concurrent with every Parliament (which will be fully provided for by restoring to the Clergy this right of taxing themselves), it will be scarce possible for any material steps to be taken for the introducing of another religion, when there is a body of men sitting and on the watch against all measures of that kind, and ready to oppose them by their weighty and prudent remonstrances. There is no method so proper for redressing grievances as by returning to the old ways of our Constitution; all deviations from which have ever been found of mischievous consequence. The inconveniences of new institutions are seldom thought of till they are felt; but we have the experience of ages to shew us the wisdom and advantages of ancient usages: and as no inconvenience ever yet attended this right of taxation during the many hundreds of years that the Clergy enjoyed it, it cannot with the least pretence to reason be surmised that any should now attend the restoring it to them. I knew not whether I need observe that the only reason why the Convocations grants of subsidies were inserted in Acts of Parliament was that the Collectors thereof might have a power of distraining on the glebe and goods of the Clergy; which could not be given by any Ecclesiastical authority.

2. Another thing that would contribute greatly to the security of the Church, and be as much for its benefit, is a repeal of the Act of Submission passed in the time of Henry 8, which hinders ArchBps. and Bps. from holding provincial and diocesan synods, to which they were obliged by the old canons of the Church, but are deterred from doing so by the dread of a Praemunire, which in such case they would incur according to the terms of that Act. The right of holding such synods in provinces and dioceses, for the due ordering of Ecclesiastical affairs and the better execution of the Canons, is as ancient as the institution of Christianity, and is enjoyed in all Christian countries upon earth, except in England. For the Act of Submission having never taken place in Ireland (where as there had been no exercise of the Legative power, so there had been no obedience paid to it, and consequently no penalties thereby incurred), the Clergy in that Island still enjoy the right of meeting in provincial and diocesan synods. ArchBp. King of Dublin lately held one of the first sort, and the Acts of one of the latter kind held by Bedell, Bp. of Kidmore, are published in the life of that prelate: which are sufficient evidences of this right of the Church of Ireland. It was in this manner that the Primitive Church was governed, and it is fit that every National Church in times posteriour to their should be governed in the same manner; as that of England indeed ever was till the Act of Submission. These Synods will be a great security to the Church of England in the intervals of Parliaments and Convocations.

They will be likewise of great use in other respects, and contribute much to the ends of religion. They may restore the just discipline of the Church, and correct abundance of grievances, as well as in regard of the scandalous corruption of the spiritual Courts, as of the shameful oppression of the Clergy by some Bps. in many cases. Bishops in France and other countries abroad, tho’ obliged by the Canons to hold diocesan Synods every year, are yet not very fond of holding them, because they are a curb upon their authority. For tho’ they can put a negative upon the resolutions of the majority, yet being often ashamed of dissenting from truth and reason, the Presbyters or incumbents of livings are still found to have the greatest weight in such Synods. And possibly for the same reason they may be as little agreeable to our English Bishops, who having in a manner quite lost the power of exercising any part of their authority over the Laity, endeavour continually to make themselves amends by lording it over other Clergy; insisting (as their Archdeacons also, after their example and in virtue of their delegated authority, have done) upon the oath of canonical obedience, which they pretend obliges the Clergy to obey them in everything whatever that they enjoin which is not absolutely unlawfull; an interpretation of that oath contrary to the sense of all Canonists abroad, who agree that it only obliges to obedience in such things as are prescribed by the Canons. But the fonder they are of power, the more necessary is it that their power should be restrained to the ancient bounds, and that institutions of such great use as Diocesan and Provincial Synods should be restored.

It was in such provincial Synods, that all disputes about matters of faith were determined and heresies condemned during the 3 first centuries of Christianity. It is in these that the authority and jurisdiction of the Church has in all ages been chiefly and most usefully exerted. ’Tis a hardship peculiar to the Church of England to be deprived of a benefit which all other Churches upon earth enjoy, and therefore it is much to be wished this right of holding provincial Synods were restored. There would then be no want of visible judge of doctrine and controversies, such as served to direct the primitive Christians and martyrs in the first ages of the Gospel in the way of salvation. There would not then be any want either of a ready antidote against any heretical or irreligious books that are published nowadays with encouragement rather than impunity, or of power to censure them and punch the authors thereof if they should prove to be Clergymen. There would not then, if any Bp. or other Ecclesiastick should preach and maintain any heretical tenets or assert any of the new erroneous doctrines which the Court or Church of Rome have grafted upon the ancient faith of the Church, or be guilty of any other crime the Canons have decreed to be punished with deprivation, be any want of canonical authority to take cognisance of the cause, and pronounce sentence in a regular manner. For it is in these provincial Synods that Bishops have in all ages of the Church been ever judged and deprived in such cases: and if the same method had been established in England in Q. Mary’s time, the church would not then have been ruined. For none of the Edwards Bps. were deprived canonically by a Synod of their comprovincial Bps., but by a few persons, some of them Laicks, empowered by a particular commission from Her Majesty. The High Commission Court has indeed been since put down by an Act of Parliament, which provides that neither that Court nor any like it shall ever be erected for the future. But lawyers may possible dispute whether that Act extends to such particular commission as Q. Mary issued (which perhaps were not thought of in 1690 when this Act passed); so that it is highly to be wished that Provincial Synods might be restored, and the offences of Bps. and Clergymen inferring deprivation, subject to their cognisance.

Diocesan Synods never intermeddled in matters of faith. Their business was confined to points of mere discipline, and their chief care was to make proper regulations for inforcing the practise of that discipline, and to provide for the due observance of the Canons within their district. Offences against these were also within their cognisance, and whatever else was under the jurisdiction of the Bp. in his single capacity, came also before him when at the head of these Synods; which may be composed either of all incumbents in his Diocese, or of the Chapter of the Cathedral, the Archdeacons, Rural Deans, and two Proctors chosen by the Clergy of each Deanery. And if in the interval of these Synods a Bp. was obliged to consult with the Chapter of his Church, and the Rural Deans of his Diocese before he gave judgment in any cause, and to use them as his co-assessors in hearing it, this would add much to the dignity and effect of such sentence, and would probably reconcile abundance to Episcopary, that are at present disaffected to that kind of government.

There was in the last Sitting Convocation in 1713/4 a proposal made and an intention formed of reviving the institution of Rural Deans, and it would probably have taken place in the next, had there not happened a change of government which has ever since put an end to the Sitting of Convocations. But were that old institution revived, and such a method of episcopal and synodical jurisdiction settled, it might easily be so adjusted, as to reform abundance of shameful practices in the spiritual Courts to prevent any false doctrines either heretical or Roman from being instilled into the people. For whilst there is so short and easy a method of calling those who reach them to an accompt before their brethren of the Clergy in their own neighbourhood, scarce anybody will dare to attempt such an innocation, when he must expect a censure to be immediately passed upon him by his Bp. not alone, but assisted by a venerable Council of Rural Deans recommended for their merit by the body of the Clergy, and antecedent to his crime approved of and constituted by their Diocesan.

There was at the same time another proposal made of reviving also the charge of Suffragan Bps. as anciently used in the Church of England, or as at last regulated in the reign of Henry, and continued to that of Q. Elizabeth. And as some Dioceses in England are too large, they might be very useful for the due exercise of discipline, as well as for reforming the corruptions and lessening the power of Spiritual Courts.

It might be observed that the corruption of those Courts is not owing to the Bishops. Some of these have endeavoured to reform them, but in vain, they have put limiting clauses into the patents, and they have granted to Vicars general, Chancellors and Commissiaries, but still to no purpose, even with regard to the granting of licenses to preach, which being, by the Rubrick of the Common Prayer book established by Act of Parliament, reserved expressly to Bps. they naturally thought they might very well restrain their deputies from granting them. But these deputies, distinguished by the several titles before mentioned, pretend that a Bp. having constituted them Vicars general, Chancellors or Commissiaries by patent, they are in virtue thereof actually invested with all the power usually annexed to such office, and that all restraining clauses are null by common Law: and so they continue to exercise a power in those cases wherein by the express terms of the patent they are debarred the exercise thereof. Our Common Law is in truth but too favourable to such iniquities, and it is highly reasonable that an Act should pass to restrain the power of these officers to the terms of their patent; or perhaps it may not be amiss to provide that such offices should be held only for the life or incumbency of the person that grants them; or if allowed to be granted to persons quamdice bene se gesserint, certain cases may be specified wherein these officers shall be removable by the judgment of the Bp. in conjunction with the Chapter and Rural Deans of the Diocese, from whose sentence there should lye no appeal to Common Law.

The Courts of Common Law, however they have intrenches on the jurisdiction of the Spiritual Courts, do yet give countenance and protection to all their iniquities, which serve to bring them in business; and this makes the Common Lawyers so loath to see them reformed, and so ready to baffle all attempts of that nature. The judges thereof have stuck to no maxim so constantly as to that scandalous one of St. Edw. Cokes, A Boni judicies est ampliare jurisdictionem curice suce, and have by monstrous fictions, and by the help of numberless querks and pretences swallowed up in a manner all the jurisdiction of other Courts, as the Lord Constable and Marshals, Admiralty, etc. in order to draw all business to themselves. Thus also as often as they please they call by prohibitions (for which they never want pretences) all causes before them from Spiritual Courts and other Ecclesiastical or Visitatorical jurisdictions: and when a cause is once brought into their Courts, where they can invent and start an hundred points and issues to be argued, there is no end of the expense or no hopes of a decision, so that it must drop at last after several years continuance without any determination as the late affair of Dr. Bentley. It is very fit there should be prohibitions in many cases, as there are appels d’abus in France; but it is as fair that those cases should be settled fixed and determinate. There was in the time of K. James I. a judgment given upon this subject by the King in his Privy Council (to whose judicature it properly belongs to decide of the just authority of different Courts when they quarrel about their jurisdiction) and proper bounds were fixed to the authority, as well of Spiritual Courts as of those of Common Law, which were tolerably well observed till the troubles of 1641 threw all government into confusion, and Episcopacy being destroyed and the jurisdiction of Bps. suppressed with their Order, the Common Law carried all before it, swallowed up the Ecclesiastical authority, and has ever since kept a great part of what it then invaded.

This is now grown to so intolerable an height, that at present there is not any Ecclesiastical authority in England to call a Clergyman to an accompt, and punish him for preaching or printing any heretical doctrine or any erroneous tenets of the Court of Rome: so that unless the Common Law be restrained in this respect, and the use and authority of provincial and diocesan Synods be revived, I do not see how it can be practicable to secure the Church of England from being overrun with false doctrines. For unless there be a short and easy way of punishing those that vent them, many will be induced to do so, when temptations shall be offered and encouragements given for the attempt: and this power can be vested nowhere so properly, so safely and so unexceptionally as in provincial and diocesan Synods, agreeable to the constitution of the Primitive Church.

If it be apprehended that these Synods may be apt to assume too great a power (not to say that such an apprehension is groundless) it is a very easy matter to prevent their doing so by restraining their jurisdiction to the crimes of heresy, false doctrine and Simony and to the persons of the Clergy, leaving all Laicks who are guilty of the like offences to the cognisance of the Civil Courts.

3. Another method for the security of religion is, to distinguish between _Legatine_, and the _Archiepiscopal_ power of the ArchBp. of Canterbury, and to reduce that exorbitant power he possesses at present to what it was before the year 1400, when he enjoyed only his Archiepiscopal authority, not being made _legaties natus_ till after that year. These two powers are compounded at present, and the ArchBp., though he enjoys the legatine, only in virtue of the exercise thereof by his predecessors, derived originally from a Papal grant of no force in England, does yet continue to exercise it, tho’ he hereby encroaches upon the jurisdiction and rights of all the Bishops and the Kingdom in several cases, and by the abuse thereof may ruin the established church when he pleases. It was in virtue of this Legatine power, which is as yet affirmed by no law, that Dr. Tennison deprived Watson Bp. of St. Davids by his single authority; tho’ according to the ancient Canons and constitution of the Christian Church, no Bp. can be regularly condemned, but by the sentence of a Provincial Synod, in which twelve Bps. are present. ’Tis easy to see how fatal such a claim of power, now supported by the seeming countenance of an House of Lords, may be in its consequence to the Church of England.

There was in the time of Henry 8 (when the Papal power was abolished in England) an authority vested in the ArchBp. of Canterbury to grant faculties and dispensations in all cases where the Pope used before to dispense. Under pretext of this general grant Archbishops have taken upon themselves to grant dispensations in cases where the Pope himself could not effectually dispense. Such particularly is the power of qualifying persons for living and dignities annexed by Law to certain degrees in our Universities. The Pope had certainly long used to confer honorary degrees on such as he saw fit, but these degrees never qualified persons in France or other countries abroad for benefices and dignities appropriated to Graduates in their Universities. This is so settled a point that even in the Pope’s own territory of the Comtat de Venagsein about Avignon, tho’ he confess such benefices on those who are not graduates, yet he always in his bulls obliges them to take their degree requisite in the Universities. Yet in England ArchBps. of Canterbury have of late exerted their power in numberless instances to the great discouragement of learning and prejudice of our Universities. This is a point that well deserves to be corrected.

4. As the Universities are a nursery for the Church, and a great support of the established religion, there cannot be too great an assurance given of the preservation of their privileges, their statutes and rights of election; which should not be liable to be invaded, by any Ecclesiastical Commission for the extraordinary visitation of particular Colleges or of the Universities in general, or by writs of Mandamus for putting in Heads or Fellows of Colleges, contrary to their Statutes and right of election; or in fine, by appeals from the sentence of Visitors to the Courts of Common Law, where they have been controverted of late; particularly in Dr. Bentley’s case; tho’ such sentences were ever deemed unappealable and have been so declared in the House of Lords in the case of Exeter College, wherein they gave judgment against their own jurisdiction in this point.