WHereas in some of the libellous Bookes and Pamphlets lately pub­lished, the most Reuerend Fathers in God, the Lords Archbishops, and Bishops of the Realme, are said to haue vsurped vpon His Ma­iesties Prerogatiue Royall, and to haue proceeded in the High Com­mission, and other Ecclesiasticall Courts, contrary to the Lawes and Statutes of the Realme, It was ordered by His Maiesties high Court of Starre-Chamber the twelfth day of Iune last, that the opinion of the two Lords, chiefe Iustices, the Lord chiefe Baron, and the rest of the Iudges and Barons, should be had and certified in these particulars, viz. Whether Processes may not issue out of the Ecclesiasticall Courts in the names of the Bishops: Whe­ther a Patent vnder the great Seale be necessary for the keeping the Ecclesiasticall Courts, and enabling Citations, Suspensions, Excommunications, and other Censures of the Church: And whether the Citations ought to be in the Kings name, and vnder his Seale of Armes, and the like for Institutions and Inductions to Benefices, and correction of Ecclesiasticall Offences; Whether Bishops, Archdeacons, and other Ecclesiasticall persons may or ought to keepe any Visitation at any time, vnlesse they haue expresse Commission or Patent vnder the great Seale of England to doe it, and that as His Maiesties Visitors onely, and in His Name and Right alone.

Whereupon, His Maiesties said Iudges hauing taken the same into their serious conside­ration, did vnanimously concurre and agree in opinion, and the first day of Iuly last certified vnder their hands as followeth, That Processes may issue out of the Ecclesiasticall Courts in the name of the Bishops; And that a Patent vnder the great Seale is not necessary for the keeping of the said Ecclesiasticall Courts, or for the enabling of Citations, Suspensions, Ex­communications, and other censures of the Church; And that it is not necessary that Sum­mons, Citations, or other Processes Ecclesiasticall in the said Courts, or Institutions, or In­ductions to Benefices, or correction of Ecclesiasticall Offences by censure in those Courts, be in the Kings name, or with the stile of the King, or vnder the Kings Seale, or that their Seales of Office haue in them the Kings Armes; And that the Statute of primo Edwardi sexti, cap. secundo, which enacted the contrary, is not now in force: And that the Bishops, Archdeacons, and other Ecclesiasticall persons, may keepe their Visitations as vsually they haue done, without Commission vnder the great Seale of England so to doe: Which opinions and resolutions being declared vnder the hands of all His Maiesties said Iudges, and so certified into His Court of Star-Chamber, were there recorded: And it was by that Court further ordered the fourth day of the said moneth of Iuly, that the said Certificate should be enrolled in all other His Maie­sties Courts at Westminster, and in the High Commission, and other Ecclesiasticall Courts, for the satisfaction of all men, that the proceedings in the High Commission, and other Ecclesiasti­call Courts, are agreeable to the Lawes and Statutes of the Realme.

And His Royall Maiestie hath thought fit, with aduice of His Councell, that a publike de­claration of these the opinions and resolutions of His Reuerend and learned Iudges, being agreeable to the Iudgements and Resolutions of former times, should be made knowne to all His Subiects, as well to vindicate the legall proceedings of His Ecclesiasticall Courts and Ministers, from the vniust and scandalous imputation of Inuading or Intrenching on His Royall Prerogatiue, as to settle the mindes, and stop the mouthes of all vnquiet spirits, that for the future they presume not to censure His Ecclesiasticall Courts or Ministers in these their iust and warranted proceedings: And hereof His Maiestie admonisheth all His Subiects to take warning, as they will answer the contrary at their perils.

Giuen at the Court at Lyndhurst, the eighteenth day of August, in the thirteenth yeare of His Maiesties Reigne.