The Lives of J Selden and Abp Usher

Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: was induced to make the following declaration: My good Lords, I most humbly acknowledge the error which 1 have committed in publishing the History of Tythes; and especially in thatl have atall, by shewing any interpretation of holy Scriptures, by meddling with Councils, Fathers, or Canons, or by what else soever occurs in it, offered any occasion of argument against any right of maintenance, jure divino, of the ministers of the Gospell: beseeching your Lordships to receive this ingenuous and humble acknowledgment, together with the unfeined protestation of my griefe, for that through it I have so incurred both his Majestie's and your Lordships' displeasure conceived against mee in behalfe of the Church of England. John Selden. Before this eminent person is censured for want of firmness on this trying occasion, candour requires us to cast a view on the terrific powers with which the court of High Commission, established by Elizabeth, and then subsisting in all its vigour, was invested. The commissioners, says Hume, Eliz. ch, iv. were impowered to visit and reform all errors, heresies, schisms, in a word, to regulate ull opinions, as well as to punish all breach of uniformity in the exercise of public worship. They were directed to make enquiry not only by the legal methods of juries and witnesses, but by all other means and ways that they could devise; that is, by the rack, by torture, by inquisition, by imprisonment. V. here they found reason to suspect any person, they might administer to him an oath called ex officio, by which he was bound to answer all questions. The fines which they levied were discretionary, and often occasioned the total ruin of the offender, contrary to the established laws of the kingdom. The imprisonment to which they condemned an...