A

COLLECTION

Of All the

Ecclesiastical Laws, Canons,
Anfwers, or Refcripts,

With other MEMORIALS Concerning the
Government, Discipline and Worship of the
Church of England,

From its first Foundation to the CONQUEST, that have hitherto been publish'd in the Latin and Saxonic Tongues.

And of all the

Canons and Constitutions Ecclesiastical, made since the CONQUEST and before the REFORMATION, in any National Council, or in the Provincial Synods of

Canterbury and York,

That have hitherto been publish'd in the
Latin Tongue.

Now first Translated into English with Explanatory
NOTES, and such Glosses from Lyndwood and
Athone, as were thought most useful.

PART the First.

By JOHN JOHNSON, M. A. Vicar of Cranbrook in the Diocese of Canterbury.

LONDON:

Printed for ROBERT KNAPLOCK in St. Paul's Church-Yard, and SAMUEL BALLARD, in Little-Britain.

MDCCXX.

CONTENTS

OF THE

GENERAL PREFACE TO THE READER.

I. THE SUM of this work.

II. Every thing omitted, that was not necessary to give a view of the

government, discipline, and worship of the English Church.

III. The difficulties of the Latin originals, and many mistakes in the

Latin translations from the Saxonic here removed.

IV. Difficulties in the laws of King Wihtred, &c., cleared by Mr. Somner,

and by the Textus Roffensis.

V. The contents of this work not fine, but useful.

VI. The first end of this work, to gratify the curious.

VII. Things herein contained are not of the greatest moment; but

lapses in small matters may lead men into great mistakes, and expose the

most learned.

VIII. A second end of this work was to be a strong antidote against

popery, to such of the laity as may want it. The clergy need no such

antidote.

IX. The old English bishops and clergy not deceivers, but deceived:

Grosthead an instance of it.

X. They who are most fierce against popery may most want such an

antidote; especially they who think it a fault to read popish books.

XI. If all the Service-books of the Church of Rome were translated into

vulgar tongues, it would be a great blow to that Church.

XII. The constitutions made from the beginning of King Henry the

Third's reign give a full view of true popery.

XIII. The Christianity settled here by Augustin scarce tolerable. The

Service-books introduced by him were the Romish. John the Precentor

made no substantial alteration, nor Osmund in his Use of the Church of

Sarum.

XIV. The worship of saints and images not so early used here as some

have thought; but prayers for the dead were used from the beginning.

XV. Transubstantiation is contrary to the doctrine of the Anglo-Saxonic

Church.

XVI. Augustin received the pall from the pope, but he and his first

successors did not fetch it, as later archbishops did. Appeals were of old

more rare, and the pope's decisions less peremptory.

tised till after ages.

Provisions not prac-

XVII. The devotion of some kings to the pope, especially King John's

resignation, very mischievous to the nation. Popes' provisions prevailed,

in opposition to statute-law.

XVIII. By the introduction of gross popery our ancestors were grievously

abused, as appears by these monuments, in which the reader need fear no

misrepresentations.

XIX. A third end of this work was to give the reader a more full view

of our constitution than can be had without it in the English tongue. For

some part of these constitutions are still in force, and in more force than

later canons.

XX. And not only these constitutions, but some part of the pope's

canon-law, by virtue of a statute of King Henry VIII.

XXI. Yet ecclesiastical jurisdiction does not subsist by that statute, but

only the present way of exercising it. Ecclesiastical jurisdiction was ever

exercised since the times of Theodore and Ecgbriht.

XXII. By that statute of King Henry VIII., bishops are disabled from

regulating their own courts. The writer of " The Anatomy of the Church"

ought to have known this.

XXIII. In times before, and after the Conquest, synods were assembled,

and jurisdiction exercised without any restraint; till the pope's canon-law

made prohibitions necessary.

XXIV. Many ecclesiastical laws made by the state in Saxonic times,

but none to retrench ecclesiastical jurisdiction before the Articles of
Clarendon.

XXV. All the corrupt constitutions must long since have been entirely

abolished, had it been in the power of the convocation to do it: they have

hitherto been hid in the Latin tongue.

XXVI. No corruption still remaining renders our obedience sinful.

XXVII. If ecclesiastical jurisdiction had been new modelled according

to the Reformatio Legum Ecclesiasticarum, or as our worship is; yet the

knowledge of these constitutions, and Lyndwood's Gloss had been useful.

XXVIII. There are some things commendable among these constitu-

tions, and even in the Missal.

XXIX. The fourth end of this work, that the reader may judge what of

these constitutions may deserve to be retained, what rejected. Nothing to

be retained but what is truly ancient, or good.

XXX. The objection against the ancients, viz., that their notions were

introductory to popery considered.

XXXI. That we should take special care not to fall below the worst ages.

XXXII. The oblation of the Eucharist particularly insisted on: this

delivered to us by Augustin, in a tolerable, though not perfectly primitive

state.

XXXIII. The translator cannot retract his zeal in this particular.

XXXIV. The notion of the sermon's succeeding high mass considered.

XXXV. We are contrary to the primitive Church in having more ser-

mons than communions.

XXXVI. No office of our Church more needs a review than our Commu-

nion-Service. Whether the ends of the Sacrament can be obtained without

the oblation: whether the sacrifice of Christ can be established without

the sacrifice of the Eucharist.

XXXVII. The author of "No sufficient Reasons, &c.," cannot under-

stand how the sacrifice of Christ and of the Eucharist were one and the

same.

XXXVIII. Dr. Hickes at first objected against the modus of the sacri-

fice, as represented (from the ancients), in the "Unbloody Sacrifice," but
afterwards came into it.

XXXIX. The objection of the author of "No sufficient Reasons, &c.,"

answered.

XL. It is more evident that Christ offered His Body and Blood in the

Eucharist, than that He did it on the cross. All animate sacrifices were

offered before the mactation.

XLI. The corruption of the eucharistical service in the Church of

Rome.

XLII. The translator does not think it in the power of a priest to add

to the Liturgy.

XLIII. Nor to have restored the use of the Eucharist, if it had been

wholly dropt by our reformers, and the bishops, ever since the Reformation.

XLIV. When superiors are guilty of a culpable omission, the utmost to

be expected from inferiors is, to remind them of this omission.

XLV. Nothing can wholly excuse the disuse of the oblation, as to those

who are the cause of it. The translator knows no safe communion in
which the oblation is used in its purity.