Page:The Acts and Monuments of John Foxe Volume 3.djvu/102



should thereunto consent, do call together my neighbours, the doctors of this university, and all others who would object any thing against the same, that we might presently find out the reason of the condemnation of this article, concerning the taking away the temporalties from the clergy.

Notwithstanding, I do profess that it is not my intent, like as it is not the meaning of the university, to persuade, that princes or secular lords should take away the goods from the clergy when they would, or how they would, and convert them to what use they list. But our whole intent is diligently to search out whether this article, as touching the taking away of temporalties from the clergy, may have in it any true sense, whereby it may be defended without reproof. Wherefore this article, being the seventeenth in the number of the forty-five, is propounded under this form: "The lords temporal may, at their own will and pleasure, take away the temporal goods from the clergy, if they do offend, and therein continue." It is thus proved: the kings of the Old Testament took away the temporal goods at God's commandment from the clergy; that is to say, from the priests offending. Therefore the kings also of the New Testament, at God's commandment, may do the like, when the priests of the new law do offend. The consequence dependeth upon a similitude; and the antecedent is evident. First, it is proved by Solomon, 1 Kings ii. 27, which Solomon deposed Abiathar the high priest, because he had taken part with Adonijah, the brother of Solomon, to make him king, without the advice either of David, or of Solomon himself, who ought to reign, and set up Zadoc the priest in the place of Abiathar, because he had not consented with Abiathar unto Adonijah, as it is written, 1 Kings i. 5—8; where it is said; "Adonijah, the son of Haggith, exalted himself, saying, I will reign; and made unto himself chariots and horsemen, and forty men which should run before him; neither did his father rebuke him at any time, saying, Wherefore hast thou done this? For he was very comely, being second son, next to Absalom, and his talk was with Joab the son of Zeruiah and Abiathar the priest, which took part with Adonijah. But Zadoc the priest, and Benaiah the son of Jehoiada, and Nathan the prophet, and Shimei, and Serethei, and Felethi, and all the power of David's host, were not on Adonijah's part."

This was the cause of the deposing of Abiathar, because he took part with Adonijah, that he should be king against Solomon, the eldest son of king David: wherefore it is written, 1 Kings ii. 26; "The king said unto Abiathar the priest. Go your ways unto Anathoth thine own field, for thou art a man of death: but this day I will not slay thee, because thou hast carried the ark of the Lord before my father David, and didst labour in all things wherein my father laboured." Then did Solomon cast out Abiathar, that he should be no more the priest of the Lord; that the word of the Lord might be fulfilled, which he spake concerning the house of Eli in Shiloh.

Behold, the most prudent king Solomon, according to the wisdom which was given him of God, did exercise his power upon the said priest, putting him out of his priesthood, and setting in his place Zadoc the priest. This was a greater matter than to take away the temporalties. If, then, in the law of Christ, who now reigneth over us, a bishop should likewise rebel against the true heir of the kingdom, willing to set up another for king, why should not the king or his heir have power, in like case, to take away the temporalties from him so offending?

It is also evident by the king Nebuchadnezzar, who had power given him of God to lead away the children of Israel, with their priests and Levites, into the captivity of Babylon, as it is written in 2 Kings xxv.

Item, We read in 2 Kings xii., how that Jehoash, the most godly king of Judah, according to the wisdom which God had granted him, "took away all the consecrated vessels which Jehoshaphat, Jehoram, and Ahaziah, his forefathers, kings of Judah, had consecrated, and those which he himself had offered, and all the treasure that could be found in the temple of the Lord and in the king's palace, and sent it unto Hazael, king of Syria, and he departed from Jerusalem." Mark how this most holy king exercised his power, not only in taking away the temporalties of the priests, but also those things which were consecrated in the temple of the Lord, to procure unto the commonwealth the benefit of peace.

Item, In 2 Kings xviii., it is written, how that the holy king Hezekiah took