is not necessary for the Raising of Aids and Subsidies Rush 602. An. 1628. That there was a general fear of secret Working and Combination to introduce into this Kingdom Innovation and change of our pure Religion by Persons much favoured and advanced not wanting Friends even of the Clergy near to your Majesty namely Dr. Neal Bishop of Winchester and Dr. Laud Bishop of Bath and Wells who are justly suspected to be unsound in their Opinions that way It being generally held to be the High-way to Preferment and Promotion in the Church many Scholars do bend the course of their Studies to maintain those Errors that their Books and Opinions are suffered to be printed and published and others written against them and in defence of the Orthodox Church are hindered and prohibited And we find that there hath been no small labouring to remove that which is the most powerful means to strengthen and increase our own Religion and to oppress Popery which is the diligent Teaching and Instruction of the People in the true Knowledg and Worship of God and therefore means have been sought out to depress and discountenance Pious Painful and Orthodox Preachers peaceable in their Disposition and Carriage and yet their Preferment of such is opposed and instead of being encouraged they are molested with vexatious courses and pursuits hardly permitted to Lecture 602 632 634. 1628. Tantum Religio potuit suadere malorum Quae peperit saepè scelerata atque impia facta 195. And our high and mighty Church of England Men did in our memories so superciliously manage their own haughty Resolutions that they necessitated the Parliament to take away their High Commission and their Parliamentary Priviledge forbidding them to meddle with any Temporal Affairs And I do not find that they are grown much more prudent yet for that they manage themselves in this intricate juncture of time at such a rate that all Mens Mouths are ready and stand half cockt against them and I fear may in time provoke the Parliament to do the like or more again they monopolizing all Government over others of themselves which is far from being Apostolical for in the Apostles times and divers Ages after all the People being under the inspection of one Bishop vulgarly the the Pastor of a Parish were wont to meet together not only for Worship but other Church Administrations all publick Acts passed at the Assemblies of the whole People they were consulted with their concurrence was thought necessary and their presence required that nothing might pass without their Cognizance Satisfaction and Consent This was observed not only in Election of Bishops Priests and Officers but in Ordination and Censures in Admission of Members and Reconciling of Penitents and in Debates and Consultations about other Emergencies but not one plain word in Scripture that one Apostle was subject to another nor one gathered Church subject to another or that any Man had lawful Authority to forbid Assembling of the Brethren together whether with or without a Priest In summ when Priest-craft had enlarged their Territories beyond their ancient Bounds which was but one Parish or a select Number scarce exceeding 150 or 200 unto many whereby they became Cardinals and Diocesans c. They thereby cajoled the People of their undoubted Rights and Priviledges and necessarily introduced an essential change of the True and Primitive Government of the Church set up by Christ and set up one to fit their own turn and ends In the very next Ages succeeding the Apostles and so for 400 Years and more one Parish or single Congregation was thought sufficient for one Bishop or Pastor so that as Christians multiplied so separate Congregations Bishops or Pastors so that there were as many Pastors or Bishops as there were several Congregations or Churches in a Province and not one Church or Congregation subject to the Laws Usages or Ordinances of any other No Churches gathered by St. Paul were subject to those gathered by St. Peter nor è contra of them or of any other of the Apostles or of any Churches gathered by their Successors Hence came several and diversity of Rites and Usages in the Ancient Churches without being accounted Schismaticks Separatists Non-cons or Phanaticks and with perfect Love Unity and Uniformity because they held the same Faith and Doctrine And 150 or 200 Souls was thought as many as one Bishop or one Pastor could take charge and give a good account of So that a single Congregation or gathered Church was esteemed a competent Charge for an Episcopal Pastor for the Episcopal Churches were daily multiplied and each Church had Power to govern and order it self and so followed such orders as every Church or gathered Congregation thought fit without being obliged to conform to those of any other Church or Congregation they had no Rule or Order in things of this nature requiring observance or did they regard such Uniformity as later Ages have been fond of to the prejudice of the Unity and Peace of the Church even to the persecuting of Righteous Men in our Kingdoms none of those Churches used the same Prayers all of them had not the same Creeds they had not the same Rites in Baptism or the Lord's Supper nor the same way in Confirming Marrying or Burying they used not the same mode either in reading the Scriptures or Singing they observed not the same methods in admitting Members or preparing them for the Communion neither proceeding to Censures or reconciling Penitents they differed also in their Habits and Postures they varied in their Fasts both for time and manner and observed not the same Festivals This was the Uniformity of the more Pure and Primitive times and no Persecution ensued no Appeals allowed from one Bishop or one Congregation to another So that the Uniformity the latter Ages have been so fond of is a down-right Novelty and Innovation which hath broken the Bond of Charity and Unity and instead thereof hath brought in Animosities Divisions and Separations nay Persecutions on God's Holy People very unworthy and unbeseeming Christian Pastors to make such actings more their business than the suppressings of Sin and promoting of real and strict Holiness All this and much more is so plain in ancient Writers that none but Novices and Chits in Story can be ignorant hereof If you will believe one of the greatest Prelates of the West and at no less than 600 Years distance from Christ In una fide nibil officit Sanctae Ecclesiae diversa consuetudo saith Gregory the first where there is one Faith it s no harm to the Church if there be diversity of usages i. e. the Church hath no harm for want of Uniformity And before him Innocent the first who lived about the Second Century in his Epist ad Decen writes that diversè in diversis locis vel Ecclesiis obtineri aut celebrari videntur To the Justification whereof and to the constant Practice thereof even from the Days of the Apostles unto
in Parliament 4 Car. for that they tended to alter and subvert the whole Frame and Fabrick of this State and Commonwealth that they tended to infuse into the Conscience of his Majesty the perswasion of a Power not bounding it self with Laws which King James in his Speech March 21. 1609. to the Parliament calls Tyranny with Perjury he endeavours to perswade the Conscience of the Subjects that they are bound to obey commands illegal yea he damns them for not obeying them he robs the Subject of the Property of their Goods and seeks like Faux and his fellows to blow up Parliaments and Parliamentary Power c. That they hold it a great presumption for a private Divine to debate the Right and Power of the King which is a matter of such high Consequence as to be handled only in Parliament and that with moderation therefore upon the whole matter he was censured to be Imprisoned during the pleasure of the House Fined 1000 l. to make his submission at both Bars suspended three Years from the exercise of his Ministry disabled to have any Ecclesiastical Government or Secular Office for ever disabled to Preach at Court his Book to be burnt in London and in both Universities and the re-printing thereof to be inhibited by his Majesties Proclamation Notwithstanding all these Censures Reprimands and Judgment of Parliament yet such Juglers were the mighty Church of England Priests and Prelates and such was the Prevalency Potency and Impudency of the then Court Clergy no Nathaniels that they procured their Royal Pardons of all Errors heretofore committed by them either in Speaking Writing or Printing and Manwaring was immediately presented to the Rectory of Stampford Rivers in Essex and had a Dispensation to hold it together with the Rectory of St. Giles's in the Fields Rushwerth's Collect. when as the justness of the Nation required their severe Reprimands nay their Punishments nay the Muzling of their Mouths These and their Abettors no Nathaniels Bishops of London Durham Rochester Oxford and others being of the same Quire and Chorus sung the same Tune and boasted themselves to be the true Church of England Men but the Archbishop-Abbot though Primate and Metropolitan of all England and multitudes of others both Bishops Priests and Lay much more Loyal and more True Church of England Men than themselves were branded for not being right Church of England Men and reviled as Puritanical Factious what not Under which Notion the Archbishop Abbot suffered being disgraced at Court commanded to withdraw into the Country Sequestred c. Whoever will seriously consider how Industriously Active and Instrumental the Bishops then in Vogue who were the Bishops of London and his Complices viz. Durham Rochester Oxon. St. Davids and others were to procure Dr. Alexander Leighton a learned Scotch-man Mr. Burton B. D. Mr. Pryn Barrister and Dr. Bastwick to be so inhumanly censured in the Star-Chamber and High Commission viz. Imprisoned Fined Whipt Pillored Ears cut off Cheeks branded with other Severities fitter for Infidels nay for Brutes rather than Christians and for what not truly for Crimes scarce Peccadilloes but rather for Rebukes of Sin as their Works do testifie in respect of what abominable Doctrines their own Priests preached countenancing and preferring those that Preached them espousing their Cause as their own and so became participes criminis tho' against the Interest and Sense of the whole Kingdom assembled in Parliament whereby and by their being a constant dead wait for the Court against the Kingdom they brought so great a Disdain and Contempt on their Hierarchy and those Courts that the Nation was not able to bear them and was forced to take away both these Courts and their Priviledge of Sitting in the House of Lords On which I shall only Remark thus much viz. That those Ecclesiasticks that preached Prerogative highest tho' to the ruine of the Nation and tho' condemned by the whole Kingdom in Parliament and that severely and with high Resentments yet when the Parliament was up Bishop Laud and his Complices no true but Mungril Church of England Men so improved their Interest at Court that they were preferred and others that did but Write and Preach against their violent and unconscionable Proceedings were barbarously censured and used which the Parliament so laid to Heart that they took away both these Courts And when those Three viz. Prin Bastwick and Burton returned from their designed perpetual Imprisonment they were met and caressed all along the Road and received by the City with great Joy and Acclamations And some while after Bishop Laud came to his unhappy Doom how deservedly I judge not If so to countenance and prefer those that Preach Doctrines so destructive to whole Nations and to Persecute learned and pious Men by the Character of a right Church of England Man I must confess that I cannot distinguish between Nathaniels and those that can swear by the Lord and Melcom I Appeal to the whole World whether of those two Contemporaries Archbishop Abbot or Bishop Laud were the Nathaniel the truest Church of England Man Abbot refusing and Laud granting an Imprimatur to Sibthorp's Sermon which was condemned to be burnt and yet Abbot Discountenanced Sequestred sent into the Country c. and Laud advanced Besides I verily believe that it cannot be proved by any plain place of Scripture that there is any Power under Heaven Ecclesiastick or Civil that hath lawful Authority to forbid any Man lawfully qualified to Preach the Gospel or to Prosecute any Man for denying submission to the use of Ceremonies no ways Essential to the Salvation of Souls If so what are we modestly to think of those Ecclesiasticks and their Adherents that ever since the Reformation Persecuted our Dissenters for Non-conforming to such commands What made so many of our Learned Pious Conscientious Clergy and Laiety Orthodox both in Life and Doctrine cry Migremus hinc and plant themselves in Foreign Barbarous Countries but Persecutions for their Consciences and for Rebukes of Sin rather than for any Crimes or Sins And yet their Persecutors had the Impudency of Abab the son of Omri who did evil in the sight of the Lord above all that went before him to tax them for Troublers of Israel when themselves Abab-like troubled it for they medled not with the Conformist but the Conformist with them not considering that Christ came to take away the heavy Yoke of Jewish Ceremonies and he and his Apostles never used nor prescribed any other and why any other Authority should impose any other Ceremonies and compel Obedience to them whereby they require other Conditions of Gospel-Communion than ever Christ himself did or his Apostles after him is past all Understanding They would oblige us to shew us by any one plain place of Scripture that Christ hath given any Charter to his Church or to any Officers thereof to require more Ceremonies to be admitted into his Fellowship and Worship than he himself hath done or to
become more sensless of God's Glory Wrath and Indignation and the eternal Welfare of the pretious Souls of God's own People than was Balaam's dumb Ass The fatal mischief of such base Flattery and of such Pulpit Laws and Doctrines as it was foreseen punished and declared to tend to the ruine of this or any other Nation by the Wisdom of our Sage Predecessors so we did see it was fairly fulfilling in our late Days and times Such was the Imprudence nay Impudence of the then Court Clergy favourites and sycophants in those Days that tho' Sibthorp and Mainwaring were by King and Parliament so severely doomed to be punished yet no sooner was the Parliament up but by the Interest of those fawning time-servers the said Mainwaring and Sibthorp were preferred and Archbishop Abbot frowned upon because he would not License such pulpit destructive Doctrines And it is such only of the Clergy and other lewd Priests that are in contempt and vile esteem with the Nation whilst others true Church of England Men indeed are as highly in their Esteem and Veneration Thus to discover Crimes of some Priests is not to Calumniate the Church of England but that she may be purged of such Vermin The Reverend Dean of Rippon in his Sermon on 1 Kings 8.66 is of like Mind and Principles who therein declares That be the Kings Heart inclinable to any Religion or none yet it leaves him no Rival none to contradict him for he is made our King by God's Law of which the Law of the Land is only declarative Kings must not be upbraided with their Promises which Promises are Donatives and it is reason the Donor should have the explaining of his own Mind that the King is major universis as well as singulis that the sole Legislative Power is lodged in the King and to him belongs the Interpretation of all Laws and Dispensing with them and that he may make a grant with a non obstante to them c. Pure Doctrine for a Reverend Dean to Preach and yet this pure Mungril Church of England Man preferred to be Bishop of Chester for these abominable Doctrines Whoever will seriously consider and compare those dismal Preachments and Prints destructive to all human Societies which our high Church of England Men pulpitted and printed heretofore and how highly they were disgusted by several Parliaments the greatest Wisdom of our Nation and dissatisfied therewith and how they stigmatized those very Doctrines and condemning the Authors of them to mulcts and punishments and yet when those Parliaments were up those very false Teachers were carressed with Pardons and Preferments whoever I say will compare those Doctrines with those Mr. Samuel Johnson printed and maintained even to the undergoing of Inquisition Torments and which the present Parliament and generality of the Nation now own justifie and practise with their Lives and Fortunes must confess that both the Reward and Punishment of the one and the other were mightily misplaced It is yet fresh in our own Memories when our Clergy were much more modest when but one Temporizing Sibthorp and another Court-Parasite Mainwaring durst Pulpit or Print such Doctrines under the Sacred Title of Apostolick Obedience Licens'd by the then Bishop of London and for which they received the just Censures of the King and the whole Kingdom in Parliament which in the truest sense is the Church or rather the Representative Governing part both of Church and State the Bishops and Priests being but Officers thereof which they do not love to hear of but now Confidence nay the Brow of Brass is the Temper and Complexion of very many Pulpits which Thunder every where with such Documents and Outcries as the High-ways to Preferments always having their Mouths half-cockt to let fly at all their gain-sayers not only in the Pulpits and Prints but also in all publick places and Meetings as Coffee-Houses Westminster-Hall Court of Request Lobbies in Parliament-time can witness whereby they have obtained a new name of Tory Church of England Men. They scorn to consider the black Characters they were then stigmatized and branded with by former Parliaments as serpens qui devorat serpentem fit Draco that they tended to the alteration and subversion of the whole Frame and Fabrick of the State and Common-wealth That they tended to the seducing of the Conscience of the King to increase his Royal displeasure against his Subjects to scandalize impeach and subvert the good Laws and Government of the Kingdom and Authority of Parliaments to avert his Majesty's Mind from calling of Parliaments to alienate his Royal Heart from his People to cause Jealousies Sedition and Divisions in the Kingdom c. Besides these Characters they held it a great presumption for a private Divine to debate the Right and Power of the King which is a matter of such a nature as to be handled onely in Parliament and that with moderation and therefore the said two Sermons called Religion and Allegiance were adjudged to be called in and burnt by the King's Proclamation the Author to make his submission and acknowledgment of his Crime to the imprisoned during the pleasure of the House to be fined 1000 l. suspended for three Years from the Exercise of the Ministery disabled to have any Ecclesiastical Dignity or Secular Office and for ever disabled to Preach at Court A better Example to imitate and follow than either Fire and Faggot or the Address of the Universities or the Pulpit Doctrines of the 9th of September 1683 wherein both King Nobles Prelates and People were interessed in that Judgment Were such Tenets of such ill consequence by the Judgment of the whole Nation in those Days and are they not the same now where 's the difference The violation offered to plain Texts of Scripture by perverting the true and natural sense and meaning of them by such of the Clergy a Generation of Men that under the umbrage of that Sacred Canopy of Religion as being appointed Teachers and Ministers of the Gospel indued with the Power of Ordination set up for themselves in an opposite and distinct Interest separated from the rest or Body of the Church whereby they erect regnum in regno against the Purity and Sincerity of Religion and Interest of Mankind and this they have been upon the catch to compass by little and little almost ever since the Apostles Days and that by sinister means hath been the occasion of all Misgovernments by ascribing Divine Power to Kings and that they are accountable to none but God for any male-regiment False Prophets not considering if Rulers hearken to Lyes and such are all false glossers on Texts of Scripture all his servants will be wicked Prov. 9.12 such-like of the Clergy are the Time-servers and Court-Parasites that draw odium and contempt upon that Sacred Profession that ought to be had in Reverence by all the Sons and Daughters of Men. I could wish that they would first pull out the Beams that are in their own
magis Deo quam heminibus Acts 5. What is this but to dally and to play fast and loose with Scripture by creating subtilties and distinctions where there needs none it being always to be understood of unjust Powers and Commands and to fight against Shadows to wrangle with their own Conjectures Consider also that when a Prelate so a Magigistrate in his Sphere abuseth the Power of the Keys he doth more disparage and injure the Keys and offends God more grievously than doth any Man subject to his Jurisdiction when he obeys not his Prelate And hence it follows that in such-like cases it is best to resist the Prelate to his Face as St. Paul did Peter The Reason is demonstrable for that a human Praecept subject to Errors ought not to come in Competition nor be laid in the Ballance with an express Precept from God Besides it is a greater sin to abuse Power than to disobey for that one abuse of Power and Authority gives a greater scandal to the World and is a cause of greater mischief than many disobediences and the Person of the Superior as more eminent is much more bound by his greater Obligation to God to do his Duty St. Paul'sgrave Rebuke to St. Peter instructs Inferiors how they ought to behave themselves towards their Superiors and no scandal can arise from such behaviour but what is taken not given Therefore Cajetan in his Tract De Authoritate Papae Concilii affirms That he ought to resist the Pope to his face when he abuseth his Authority and saith Abusui potestatis qui destruit obviam eant congruis remediis non obediendo in malis non adulando non tacendo sed arguendo Advocando illustres ad increpandaum exemplo Pauli c. The conclusion is certain That as they that obey not their Superiors commanding according to his Precepts that gave them their Authority are to be condemned so the Superiors that abuse the same Authority Notwithstanding such convincing Reasons yet it is wonderful to consider with what confidence the mighty Potentates of the Earth both Ecclesiastical and Civil do assume and appropriate to themselves Authority to lay that blame on others which indeed and in truth doth belong to and proceed from themselves and from their own haughty and false Opinions of I know not what Divine Authority to be appropriate to themselves that when they command what they have no Authority to do or command unlawful things if disobeyed yet have the impudent confidence to lay the fault on the disobedient and account and persecute them as Factious Schismatical Rebellious what not Whereas it is manifest to the whole World and Histories swell with examples of Commotions Tumults Rebellions as they are pleased to call them that have their primary Origine and Spring from the abuse of Power in the Governors Look but a little back to the very beginning of the Separation that fell out some hundred Years since in Germany which took not its Original from any disobedience of the Subjects but out of an abuse of Power and greatness in the Prelates backt and countenanced by the Civil Power It is very well known that it grew out of indiscreet and exorbitant Extortions and extravigant Fashions of granting Indulgences c. Whence began those great Differences betwixt Pope Paul the Fifth and the State of Venice but from the Abuse of Power Pride Insolence and Avarice of the Papacy and so adjudged by the Papists themselves Most strange that the Pope should claim Authority to innovate and change the course of Judicature and Laws of another Nation that had been used and established more than Twelve hundred Years past and the Laws that had their Original Three hundred years before wherein if he had prevailed what would the end have been even to have stripped all the Laity of their Laws Liberties Honour and their Goods as they have done already of their true Religion And in fine some few who have nothing else but the bare name of Church-men might without fear of Justice or controul offend other Men both in their Lives Honour and Estate As in the Ecclesiastical so in the Civil Government run to and fro far and near through the Christian World conslt all Histories consider with your exactest Minds and Judgments and you will certainly find all the Seditions Confusions and those called Rebellions have most especially been occasioned and proceeded from the abuse of Power and that the best and truest Historians assert the same What made the United Provinces quiet under the easie Government of Queen Mary their Governess to shake off the Spanish Yoke but the abuse of Power by the Duke of Alva raging against them with great insolence violently oppressing them by illegal Taxations c. What made Hungary revolt against the Emperor but his abuse of Power abridging their Liberties and not keep Covenants and Agreements most solemnly made with them What made the Subjects of the Duke of Savoy about the Year 1559 to take up Arms in their own Defense against him but his abuse of Power forbidding them by the instigation of the Pope upon pain of Death to exercise their Religion How faithfully the many Solemn Treaties and Conditions and Edicts of Peace for the Liberties and Religion of the Hugonots have been kept is so notorious that it 's enough only to name them v. Mars Gallicus I have now done most heartily wishing that Divines would not be so sawcy with the Word of God as to put corrupt and false glosses upon plain places of Scripture since to fall into open Errors repugnant to the Scriptures is a crime so great that whosoever falleth into it hath few sparks either of Godliness or true Knowledge For to err manifestly against plain places of Scripture is the greatest blindness that can happen to Christians and the greatest chastisement that God can impose in punishment of him whosoever shall make use of Divine Authority to serve his own turn in sinister ends for sublunary and worldly Interests I shall conclude with Judicious Hooker viz. That impossible it is that any should have compleat lawful Power over-Commonwealths but by consent of Men or immediate appointment of God because not having the natural Superiority of Fathers their Power must either be usurped and then unlawful or if lawful then either granted or consented unto by them over whom they exercise the same or else given extraordinarily from God unto whom all the World is subject That naturalDefence requires no Jurisdiction at all and doth not appertain to Magistrates only but to private Man also and that it is impossible that lawful Defence can be the Sin of Rebellion And therefore to conclude That they are to be condemned that obey not their lawful Superiors commanding lawful things lawfully and those Superiors to be condemned that abuse the Laws Powers Priviledges and Prerogatives of those who gave them such Authorities Opus exegi Liberavi animam meam FINIS ERRATA PAge 2. line 22. for Paetus Thrasea read Thraseas Paetus l. 35. r. abire p. 4. l. 2. been as of old so p. 5. l. 43. r. for the raising of p. 8. l. 32. dele to be l. 37. r. denied l. 44. r. fraudulenter se occultat p. 9. l. 30. is absol l. 55. r. commonly were refared ult dele were p. 14. l. 8. r. proceeding for hath proceeded p. 15. l. 5. r. abused l. 24. r. accused for abused l. 37. dele now p. 16. l. 2. r. metamorphosed l. 53. r. villaines antep r. think it should p. 17. l. 37. r. Talionis l. 43. dele and. p. 22. l. 1. r. during for ever l. 8. r. or so much as of p. 23. l. 14. r. Panagyrist p. 25. l. 21. dele Pauntheses l. 41. r. that rich City Marcion p. 27. l. 1. dele the first And. p. 28. l. 32. r. it for them p. 31. l. 4. dele 32. p. 32. l. 39. dele 32. p. 35. l. 60. r. Clergies