Leaves from the Note-Books of Lady Dorothy Nevill

by Lady Dorothy Nevill

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.