UNIVERSITY

OF CALIFORlle

THE

DISCOURSE OF JOHN SELDEN

I.

ABBEYS. PRIORIES.

THE unwillingness of the monks to part with their lands will fall out to be just nothing, because they were yielded up to the king by a supreme hand, viz. a parliament. If a king conquer another country, the people are loth to lose their lands; yet no divine will deny but the king may give them to whom he please. If a parliament make a law concerning leather, or any other commodity, you and I, for example, are parliament-men; perhaps in respect to our own private interests we are against it, yet the 10

Explanation of signs.

H. Harleian MS. 1315. H. 2. Harleian MS. 690. S. Sloane MS. 2513.

Line 3. they were yielded up to the king &c.] The lands were taken from the monks by two Acts of Parliament. The carlier, that of 27 Henry VIII, cap. 28, gave the king the properties of the smaller houses, below a clear annual value of £200. The next Act, that of 31 Henry VIII, cap. 13, confirmed the surrenders which the Abbots or Priors of the larger houses had in the meantime been threatened or cajoled into making. Selden's remarks, here, may have been suggested by any one of the numerous attacks made on church property in his own day.

major part concludes it; we are then involved, and the law is good.

2. When the founders of abbeys laid a curse upon them that should take away those lands, I would fain know what power they had to curse me. 'Tis not the curses that come from the poor, or from anybody, that do me hurt because they come from them; but because I do something ill against them, that deserves God should curse me for it. On the other side, 'tis not a man's blessIoing me, that makes me blessed; he only declares me to be so; and if I do well, I shall be blessed, whether any bless me or not.

3. At the time of dissolution, they were tender in taking from the abbots and priors their lands and their houses, till they surrendered them, as most of them did. Indeed the prior of St. John's, Sir William Weston 1, being a stout

1 William Weston] Richard Weston MSS. and early editions; probably through confusion with the name of

the High Treasurer in the early years of Charles' reign.

1.3. when the founders of abbeys &c.] This may be an objection to one of the arguments which Selden had heard used by Dr. Hacket in defence of the sacredness of cathedral revenues. On May 12, 1641, there was a special session of the House of Commons to hear a dispute between Dr. Burgess, as assailant, and Dr. Hacket, as defender of these revenues; and Hacket, in the course of his speech, urged that 'these' (sc. the chapter revenues and lands) are dedicated to God; the founders appoint the uses, and curse any that alter it.' See Verney, Notes on the Long Parliament, p. 75–76.

1. 15. Indeed the prior of St. John's &c.] The priory of St. John of Jerusalem, the chief English seat of the Knights Hospitallers, was not touched by the Act of 31 Henry VIII, since the prior (as Selden implies) had not at that time surrendered; nor does it appear that he ever did surrender. The priory lands were taken away by a special Act passed in the next year. The prior died in May, 1540, on the day on which the suppression took effect. In Dugdale's Monasticon (vol. vi. 800-805) there is a long list of the lands and farms which had belonged to the priory. When the Knights Templars were suppressed, all their lands were given over to the Hospitallers; see (7 Edward II) a letter De Terris quondam Templariorum Hospitalariis liberandis. The grant was confirmed by 6, 7, and 12 Edward III, and some tenements

man, got into France, and stood out a whole year; at last submitted, and the king took in that priory also, to which the Temple belonged, and many other houses in England. They did not then cry no abbots, no priors, as we do now no bishops, no bishops.

4. Henry the 5th put away the friars aliens, and seized to himself £100,000 a year; and therefore they were not the protestants only that took away church lands.

5. In Queen Elizabeth's time, when all the abbeys were pulled down, all good works defaced, then the preachers 10 must cry up justification by faith, not by good works.

II.

THIRTY-NINE ARTICLES.

THE nine and thirty articles are much another thing in Latin, in which tongue they were made, than they are

in London, which had been wrongfully seized by Hugh Despencer, were restored and secured to the Hospitallers. Dugdale, Monasticon, vi. 809, 810.

1.6. the friars aliens] These were religious orders, domiciled abroad, and holding land in England. They were pecked at several times before Henry Vth's reign. Edward I began in 1285; Edward III followed in 1337. In 1361 their lands were restored, but their revenues were still occasionally taken away for a while. They were sequestered during Richard II, and were finally expropriated in 2 Henry V. Dugdale, Monasticon, vi. 985 ff. See also Prioratuum Alienigenorum Catalogus, qui Leicestrensi Parliamento suppressi sunt. Anno Henrici Quinti secundo. An. Dom. 1414. Dugdale, Monasticon, vi. 1652-53.

1. 13. much another thing in Latin &c.] See e. g. Article 9, in which ' quamvis renatis et credentibus nulla propter Christum est condemnatio,' is rendered by, although there is no condemnation for them that believe and are baptized.' In Article 33, ' pœnitentia' is rendered penance-an error to which Selden seems to refer in the discourse on 'Penance.' The right claimed in Article 37, 'Christianis licet justa bella administrare,' is enlarged into 'it is lawful for Christian men to serve in the wars.' The older version of 1552 had translated the same

translated into English. They were made at three several convocations, and confirmed by act of parliament six or seven times after. There is a secret concerning them: of late, ministers have subscribed to all of them; but by the act1 of parliament that confirmed them, they ought only to subscribe to those articles which contain matters of faith, and the doctrine of the sacraments, as appears by the first subscriptions. But Bishop Bancroft, in the convocation held in King James's days, he began it; that ministers 10 should subscribe to three things, to the king's supremacy, to the common prayer, and to the 39 articles: Many of them do not contain matter of faith. It is matter of faith how the church should be governed? Whether infants should be baptized? Whether we have any property in our goods?

1 Act, H. 2 and S.] Acts, H.

words by 'to serve in laweful warres.' There are some other minor inaccuracies.

1.2. six or seven times after] If this reading is to stand, the word 'times' must be taken in a special sense-parliamentary sessions or terms. So, perhaps, in 'Confession,' sec. 1, 'In time of Parliament,' i. e. when Parliament had met. The Articles were confirmed once only, vizt. in 1571, by 13 Elizabeth, chap. 12.

1.5. by the act of parliament that confirmed them &c.] The Act orders that every minister (except certain specified persons) is to declare his assent, and subscribe to all the Articles of Religion which only concern the confession of the true Christian faith and the doctrine of the Sacraments.

The obligation on the clergy to subscribe to the whole of the Articles was imposed at a Synod of the province of Canterbury, held in 1604, under the presidency of Bancroft, then Bishop of London. It was then settled that no one was to be ordained who had not stated in writing-Quod libro de religionis Articulis, in quos consensum est in Synodo Londinensi an. MDLXII. omnino comprobat, et quod omnes et singulos Articulos in eodem contentos, qui triginta novem citra ratificationem numerantur, verbo Dei consentaneos esse agnoscit (Wilkins, Concilia, iv. 386).

III.

BAPTISM.

I. 'Twas a good way to persuade men to be christened, to tell them that they had a foulness about them, viz. original sin, that could not be washed away but by baptism.

2. The baptizing of children with us, doth only prepare a child, against he comes to be a man, to understand what Christianity means. In the church of Rome it has this effect, it frees children from hell. They say they go into limbus infantum. It succeeds circumcision, and we are sure the child understood nothing of that at eight days old. Why then may not we as reasonably baptize a child at that age? In England, of late years, I ever thought the priest baptized his own fingers rather than the child.

3. In the primitive times they had godfathers to see the children brought up in the christian religion, because many times, when the father was a christian, the mother was not; and sometimes when the mother was a christian, the father was not; and therefore they made choice of two or more that were christians, to see the children brought up in that faith.

1. 8. it frees children from hell. They say they go &c.] i. e. They say that unbaptized children go, &c. The Limbus Infantum was one of the divisions of hell. In the Church of Rome baptism is said to free children from this. See Canons, &c. of the Council of Trent, Session v. sec. 2, 3, 4. On the limbus puerorum, the place of eternal punishment for those qui solo originali peccato gravantur, and on the degree of punishment, the mitissimam poenam which they are alleged to suffer, see Aquinas, Summa Theolog. Supplementum 3tiae partis. quaest. 69, art. 5 & 6. So, too, Moroni (Eccles. Dict. under title Limbo, Limbus) writes-Il secondo luogo, che chiamasi limbo o limbus puerorum, è quello in che vanno i bambini morti senza battesimo. Many various opinions are collected as to the nature and extent of their punishment. That it is to be eternal all the cited authorities agree. So, too, Dante writes of the occupants of the Limbo, or first circle of the Inferno, a vast crowd of infants, women, and men, there placed perche non ebber battesmo, and suffering only duol senza martiri. Inferno, Canto iv. 28-35.

ΤΟ

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