Against the bishop of Winchester

But brother Winchester you of al other men are most wretched, for you openly in the audience of many hundreds at Saint Marie Overies church the last Lent, 1587, pronounced that men might finde fault if they were disposed to quarrell as well with the Scripture as with the booke of Common praier. Who coulde heare this comparison without trembling? But lest you should thinke that he hath not as good a gift in speaking against his conscience as my lord of Canterbury is endoued with: you are to understand that both in that sermon of his and in another which he preached at the court the same Lent he protested before God and the congregation where he stood that there was not in the world at this day, nay there had not bin since the apostles time, such a flourishing estate of a Church as we have now in England. Is it any marvaile that we have so many swine, dumbe dogs, nonresidents, with their journeimen, the hedge priests; so many lewd livers, as theeves, murtherers, adulterers, drunkards, cormorants, raschals; so many ignorant atheistical dolts, so many covetous popish Bishops in our ministery: and so many and so monstrous corruptions in our Church and yet likely to have no redresse, seing our impudent shamelesse and wainscote-faced bishops, like beasts, contrary to the knowledge of all men, and against their own consciences, dare in the eares of her Majestie affirme all to be well where there is nothing but sores and blisters, yea where the grief is even deadly at the heart. . .

But you see my worshipfull priests of this crue to whom I write what a perilous fellow M. Mareprelate is: he understands of all your knaveries and it may be he keeps a register of them unlesse you amend they shall al come into the light one day. And you brethren bishops take this warning from me. If you doe not leave your persecuting of godly Christians and good subjects that seeke to live rightly in the feare of God and the obedience of her Majestie all your dealing shal be made knowen unto the world. And ise be sure to make you an example to all posterities. You see I have taken some paynes with you alreadie and I will owe you a better turn and pay it you with advantage at the least thirteene to the dozen, unles you observe these conditions of peace which I drawe

betweene me and you. For I assure you I make not your doings known for anie mallice that I beare unto you but the hurt that you doe unto God's Churche. Leave you your wickednesse and ile leave the revealing of your knaveries.

A more dignified and more definite statement of a number of the reforms desired by the Puritans is contained in the so-called Millenary Petition, presented to James soon after his accession.

Although divers of us that sue for reformation have formerly 248. Extracts in respect to the times subscribed to the book [of Common from the Millenary Prayer], some upon protestation, some upon exposition given Petition them, some with condition, rather than the church should have been deprived of their labour and ministry; yet now we, to the number of more than a thousand of your Majesty's subjects and ministers, all groaning as under a common burthen of human rites and ceremonies, do with one joint consent humble ourselves at your Majesty's feet, to be eased and relieved in this behalf. Our humble suit then unto your Majesty is that of these offenses following some may be removed, some amended, some qualified.

In the church service, that the cross in baptism, interrogatories ministered to infants, and confirmation, as superfluous, may be taken away. Baptism not to be ministered by women, and so explained. The cap and the surplice not urged. That examination may go before the communion. That it be ministered with a sermon. That divers terms of "priests," and "absolution," and some others used, with the ring in marriage, and other such like in the book, may be corrected. The longsomeness of service abridged. Church songs and music moderated to better edification. That the Lord's day be not profaned; the rest upon holydays not so strictly urged. That there be an uniformity of doctrine prescribed. No popish opinion to be any more taught or defended: no ministers charged to teach their people to bow at the name of Jesus. That the canonical scriptures only be read in the church. . .

249. A speech

of James I to parliament (1610)

250. A speech of James I

to the

So much of the history of this period turns upon the conflicting opinions concerning the powers of king and parliament held by the king and those who agreed with him, on the one hand, and the leaders in parliament and those that agreed with them, on the other, that it may be well to group some contemporary statements of these opinions here.

The state of monarchy is the supremest thing upon earth, for kings are not only God's lieutenants upon earth and sit upon God's throne, but even by God himself they are called gods. There be three principal similitudes that illustrate the state of monarchy: one taken out of the word of God, and the two others out of the grounds of policy and philosophy. In the scriptures kings are called gods, and so their power after a certain relation compared to the divine power. Kings are also compared to fathers of families, for a king is truly parens patriae, the politic father of his people. And lastly, kings are compared to the head of this microcosm of the body of man. . .

I conclude then this point touching the power of kings with this axiom of divinity, That as to dispute what God may do is blasphemy, . . . so is it sedition in subjects to dispute what a king may do in the height of his power. But just kings will ever be willing to declare what they will do, if they will not incur the curse of God. I will not be content that my power be disputed upon; but I shall ever be willing to make the reason appear of all my doings, and rule my actions according to my laws. . . . I would wish you to be careful . . . that you do not meddle with the main points of government; that is my craft. . . . It is an undutiful part in subjects to press their king wherein they know beforehand he will refuse them.

. . . Now having spoken of your office in general, I am next to come to the limits wherein you are to bound yourjudges (1616) selves, which likewise are three. First, encroach not upon the prerogative of the crown: if there falls out a question that concerns my prerogative or mystery of state, deal not with it,

till you consult with the king or his council, or both, for they are transcendent matters. . . . That which concerns the mystery of the king's power is not lawful to be disputed; for that is to wade into the weakness of princes, and to take away the mystical reverence that belongs unto them that sit in the throne of God.

Secondly, that you keep yourselves within your own benches, not to invade other jurisdictions, which is unfit and an unlawful thing.... Keep you therefore all in your own bounds, and, for my part, I desire you to give me no more right, in my private prerogative, than you give to any subject, and therein I will be acquiescent: as for the absolute prerogative of the crown, that is no subject for the tongue of a lawyer, nor is lawful to be disputed.

It is atheism and blasphemy to dispute what God can do: good Christians content themselves with his will revealed in his word; so it is presumption and high contempt in a subject to dispute what a king can do, or say that a king cannot do this or that; but rest in that which is the king's revealed will in his law.

These opinions were not peculiar to the king, as appears in the following extract from a contemporary

sermon.

Among all the powers that be ordained of God the regal is 251. A sermost high, strong, and large. . . . No power in the world or mon by Rev. Roger Mainin the hierarchy of the church can lay restraint upon these waring (1627) supremes. . . . Now to this high, large, and most restraining power of kings, not only nature, but even God himself gives from heaven most full and ample testimony, and that this power is not merely human but superhuman and indeed no less than a power divine. . . . That sublime power, therefore, which resides in earthly potentates is not a derivation or collection of human power scattered among many and gathered into one head, but a participation of God's own omnipotency, which he never did communicate to any multitudes of men in the world, but only and immediately to his own vicegerents.

The second point was mandatum regis; the commandment of the king. . . All the significations of a royal pleasure are, and ought to be, to all loyal subjects, in the nature and force

...

of a command. . . . Nay, though any king in the world command flatly against the law of God, yet were his power no otherwise at all to be resisted, but (for the not doing of his will in that which is clearly unlawful) to endure with patience whatsoever penalty his pleasure should inflict upon them who in this case would desire rather to obey God than man.

The belief of the House of Commons, on the other hand, that the powers of the king were strictly limited, and that parliament had its clearly established part in the government of the country, comes out through all the forms of respect in the following protest.

252. Apology Most Gracious Sovereign :

of the House of Commons

to the king (1604)

. . We know and, with great thankfulness to God, acknowledge that he hath given us a king of such understanding and wisdom as is rare to find in any prince in the world. Howbeit, seeing no human wisdom, how great soever, can pierce into the particularities of the rights and customs of a people or of the sayings and doings of particular persons, but by tract of experience and faithful report of such as know them, . what grief, what anguish of mind hath it been unto us at some time in presence to hear, and so in other things to find and feel by effect, your gracious Majesty (to the extreme prejudice of all your subjects of England, and in particular of this House of the Commons thereof) so greatly wronged by misinformation, as well touching the estate of one as the privileges of the other, and their several proceedings during this parliament....

With all humble and due respect to your Majesty, our sovereign lord and head, against these misinformations we most truly avouch, first, that our privileges and liberties are our right and due inheritance, no less than our very lands and goods. Secondly, that they cannot be withheld from us, denied, or impaired, but with apparent wrong to the whole state of