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abbeys, and other places, were freed from episcopal jurisdiction, and many other privileges and exemptions both personal and conventual, Seventhly. By legatine levies. These though not annual, yet came almost as often as the pope's needs or covetousness would require them. Eighthly. Mortuaries, due at the death of great prelates; though, I find not in what manner and proportion they were paid.

Ninthly. Pardons. He saveth his credit the best who makes no conjecture at the certainty of this revenue. And though the pope (as then too politic openly to confess his profit by granting, so since) be too proud publicly to bemoan his loss, by stopping of these pardons, yet is he secretly and sadly sensible of a great emptiness in his treasure thereby.

Tenthly. Peter-pence succeeded; granted by Ina, king of the West Saxons, to pope Gregory II. anno 626. It was a penny paid for every chimney that smoked in England, which in that hospitable age had few smokeless ones; the device of cypher-tunnels, or mock chimneys merely for uniformity of building, being unknown in those days. Indeed, before the Conquest, such only paid Peterpence who were worth thirty-pence* in yearly revenue, or half a mark in goods; but afterwards it was collected generally of all solvable housekeepers, and that on most heavy penalties.

Now, though none can tell what these amounted to, yet conjecture may be made, by descending to such proportions, which no rational man will deny. Allowing nine thousand parishes (abating the odd hundreds) in England and Wales, a hundred houses in every parish, two chimneys in every house, one with another, it ariseth unto a yearly sum of seven thousand five hundred pounds. Here I say nothing of the intrinsical value of their penny, worth two-pence in our age.

Eleventhly. Pilgrimages follow; many persons of quality going yearly to Rome, sometimes perchance with bare feet, but never with empty hands. But the pope's principal harvest was in the jubilee, which of late recurred every five-and-twenty years, when no fewer than two hundred thousand strangers have been counted at Rome at once. Of these, more than the tenth part may be justly allowed English, it being always observed, that distance increaseth devotion; and the farthest off, the forwardest in will-worship of this

nature.

Twelfthly. We conclude with tenths; and on what title they were paid to the pope, largely hereafter.

44. All cannot be truly counted.

Here we speak not of the accidentals;-as legacies bequeathed by the deaths of princes and great persons, and other casualties, and See SPELMAN'S "Councils," page 625.

obventions; Sixtus IV. being wont to say, that "a pope could never want money, while he could hold a pen in his hand;" (understand him to grant general indulgences ;) though Luther's holding a pen in his hand hath since much marred his mart herein. Now, certainly Demetrius could tell better what was gotten by making silver shrines for Diana, Acts xix. 27, than St. Paul himself: and while some Protestants compute the papal profit to be a hundered and fifty thousand pounds per annum, some more, some less, (but all making it above the king's revenues,) they do but state his income at random.

45-48. Polydore Virgil, Collector of the English Peter-pence, be-laurelleth the Choir of Wells: a Malefactor to Posterity for burning MSS. Two-edged Verses.

Only Polydore Virgil, if alive and willing, were able to give a certain account of the Peter-pence, (a good guess at the rest of papal revenues,) knowing them, as well as the beggar knows his dish, as holding the basin into which they were put, being Collectorgeneral of Peter-pence all over England. But this Italian was too proud to accept them as gratuities, (in which nature they were first given,) but exacted them in the notion of a rent and tribute due to the pope his master.

This is that Polydore Virgil, who was dignitary of the cathedral of Wells, (and, as I take it, archdeacon of Taunton,) on the choir whereof he bestowed hangings flourished with the laurel tree, and, as I remember, wrote upon them, SUNT POLIDORI MUNERA VIRBut would he had spared his benefaction to the church of Wells, on condition he had been no malefactor to the church of England; yea, to religion and learning in general, if it be true what commonly is reported!

GILII.

For he wrote a Latin History of Britain, from the original of the nation, until anno Domini 153, the year of king Henry VIII. out of many rare manuscripts, which he had collected together. Now, partly to raise the reputation of his own writings, that he might seem no lazy transcriber; partly to render himself out of the reach of confutation, (being suspected not over-faithful in his relation,) he is said to have burned all those rare authors, which he could compass into his possession. Thus, tyrant-like, he cut down those stairs whereby he ascended the throne of his own knowledge. If this be true, the world may thank Polydore Virgil for his work, De Inventione Rerum; but have cause to chide (not to say, curse) his memory for his act De Perditione Librorum.

I have met with a paper of verses, which, like a two-edged sword, cut on both sides, plainly at Polydore Virgil, but obscurely at a later plagiary, and, in my opinion, not unworthy to be inserted.

LEYLAND'S SUPPOSED GHOST.

Am I deceived? or doth not Leyland's ghost
Complain of wrong sustained after death;
As Virgil's Polydore accused his host,
The Thracian king, for cruel breach of faith,
And treasures gain'd by stopping of his breath?
Ah greedy guardian! t' enjoy his goods,
Didst plunge his princely ward into the floods!

Am I deceived? or doth not Leyland's spirit
Complain with th' ghosts of English notaries
Whom Polydorus Virgil robb'd of merit,
Bereft of name, and sack'd of histories,
While (wretch !) he ravish'd English libraries ?

Ah wicked book-thief! whosoever did it,
Should one burn all, to get one single credit ?

Am I deceived? or doth not Leyland's spirit
Make hue and cry for some book-treasure stealth,
Rifling his works, and razing name and merit,
Whereby are smother'd a prince-given wealth,
A learned writer's travel, wits, and health?
All these he spent to do his country pleasure,
O save his name, the world may know his treasure!

I am deceived: for Leyland's ghost doth rest,
From plaints and cries, with souls of blessed men ;
But heaven and human laws cannot digest,

That such rare fruits of a laborious pen

CAME to be drown'd in such a thankless den.

Thus heaven and all humanity doth sue,

That Leyland dead may have his titles due.

Who this second plagiary was, complained of for plundering Leland, if the reader cannot conjecture, I will not tell;—such the honour I bear to his admirable performances, though herein not to be excused.

49-52. How papal Power in England was cantoned. God first had his Share; Christ, his Due; the Holy Spirit, his

Portion.

Papal power thus extinguished in England, it is worth our inquiry where the came for the future was fixed; which we find not entirely settled in any one, but, according to justice and equity, divided amongst many sharers therein.

And, first, "give unto God the things which are God's." What the Pharisees said was true in the doctrine, though false in the use thereof, as applied to our Saviour, whom they mistook for a mere man, Mark ii. 7, "Who can forgive sins but God alone?" This paramount power, no less blasphemously than arrogantly usurped by

the pope, claiming an absolute and authoritative pardoning of sins, was humbly and justly restored to the high God of heaven.

Restitution was made to the Second Person in the Trinity, of that universal jurisdiction over the whole church as belonging to Christ alone, who is the Shepherd and Bishop of our souls, 1 Peter ii. 25; and a badge of antichrist for the pope proudly to assume the same.

To the Holy Ghost was restored that infallibility which to him doth properly pertain, as being "the Spirit of truth," which neither will deceive, nor can be deceived, and which hath promised to lead his church in general "into all truth," John xv. 26; xvi. 13; but never fixed any inerrability on any particular person, or succession of single persons whatsoever.

53-57. The King assumes his Share.

And, now, "give unto Cæsar the things that are Cæsar's." The king comes to claim his own right, what the kings of Judah, his predecessors in sovereignty, had by the word of God, and Christian emperors, by the practice of the primitive times, did possess. In order whereunto, the parliament did notify and declare, that ecclesiastical power to be in the king which the pope had formerly unjustly invaded. Yet so, that they reserved to themselves, beside other privileges which we leave to the learned in the law, the confirming power of all canons ecclesiastical; so that the person or property of refusers should not be subjected to temporal penalty without consent of parliament.

Of this power thus declared in the king, part thereof he kept in himself;-as to call and dissolve convocations at his pleasure, to grant or deny them commission to debate of religion, to command archbishops and bishops to be chosen in vacant sees, to take order for the due administration of the word and sacraments.

The other part of power ecclesiastical the king passed over to the archbishop of Canterbury, as his substitute: First. To grant faculties in cases not repugnant to the law of God, necessary for honour and security of the king, formerly wont to be remedied in the see of Rome. Secondly. To determine causes ecclesiastical in his court, whence lay an appeal to the court of delegates, &c.

The representative clergy had power, by the king's leave, to make canons and constitutions; whilst each bishop in his respective diocess, priest in his parish, were freer than formerly in execution of their office, acquitted from papal dependence.

Lastly. Every English layman was restored to his Christian birthright; namely, to his judgment of practical discretion, (in perusing the Scriptures in his own language,) formerly swallowed up

in the ocean of the pope's infallibility. Thus, on the depluming of the pope, every bird had his own feather: in the partage whereof, what he had gotten by sacrilege was restored to God; what by usurpation, was given back to the king, church, and state; what by oppression, was remitted to particular Christians.

SECTION IV.

TO MASTER HENRY BARNARD, LATE OF LONDON, MERCHANT.

THOUGH lately you have removed your habitation into Shropshire, my pen is resolved to follow after and find you out. Seeing the hand of your bounty hath had so long a reach, let the legs of my gratitude take as large a stride. When you shall be disposed to be solitary, and desirous to have society, at the same time peruse this book, whereby you shall attain your desired condition.

1, 2. Fisher made Cardinal. The King enraged thereat.

For twelve months had bishop Fisher (formerly condemned) now lived in durance, and so was likely to continue, until (in all probability) his soul at the same time should be freed from two prisons, I mean, that of his body, and that of the Tower. For, his life could do the king no hurt, whose death might procure him hatred, as of one generally pitied for his age, honoured for his learning, admired for his holy conversation. Besides, it was not worth the while to take away his life, who was not only mortalis, as all men ; and mortificatus, as all good men; but also moriturus, as all old men, being past seventy-six years of age. But now an unseasonable act of the pope accelerated his execution, in making him cardinal of St. Vitalis; a title which Fisher so little affected, that he professed, if the hat lay at his feet, he would not stoop to take

it up.

His Holiness could not have studied a more destructive way against Fisher's life, than to fasten this injurious favour upon him. This heightened the king's anger into fury against him. He expounded the pope's act, or rather the act expounded itself, (as capable of no other comment,) as done in his defiance; and, therefore, a warrant is sent to the lieutenant for his execution. Let not

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