of us hold that neither Christ nor his Apostles over appointed any Elders to Rule the Church by the power of the Keys distinct from the Magistrates Government by the Sword but only ordained Ministers of Christ who have also authority to preach and administer both the Sacraments However we know that when many of these belonged to one Congregation one that was the Chief Speaker usually the Bishop was w 〈◊〉 nt to preach and the rest to be his Assistants especially in private Care of Souls and those of us that think otherwise that Christ or his Apostles made such a Church Office as Ruling Elders not-ordained or that have no power of preaching or administring Sacraments do not hold such essential to the Church nor refuse to live in love and peace and Communion with the Churches that have no such Elders And we all think that so small a difference should make no greater a breach among us VIII We are against the Excommunicating of Kings and of other Magistrates on whose Honour the well-governing and peace of the Kingdom doth depend and are sorry to find some of our sharp Accusers of another mind Our Reasons are because the dishonouring of them is forbidden in the Fifth Commandment And Positive Institutions caeteris paribus must give place to Moral Natural Laws Rituals and matters of Order are no Duties when they make against those Grand Duties which are their Ends or those that are of fundamental or greater use And this Christ hath often taught us by sending the contrary minded to learn what this meaneth I will have mercy and not sacrifice and bidding the unreconciled leave their Gift at the Altar c. The End is to be preferred before the Means which indeed are no Means when against the End And Church-Order is not to be pretended for disordering and confounding Kingdoms or against the publick good and safety We judge that Bishop Bilson Bishop Andrews and such others have truly heretofore determined that some wicked impenitent Princes may be denyed the Sacrament but not defamed or dishonoured by a Sentence of Excommunication Much less by any Foreign Usurper or any Minister at home that the Prince himself doth not by consent make the Guid of his Soul for no other but he that is called to give him the Sacrament if qualified is the denyer of it if he be unqualified unless as he is to do what he doth by the advice and consent of Fellow Pastors But the very use of Excommunication is to punish and reform men by dishonouring and shaming them therefore it is not to be used where we owe such honour by the Fifth Commandment to our Prince Obj. 1. We are bid also to honour Father and Mother 2. Yea to honour all men Answ 1. We dare not justifie any Pastors publick disgraceful excommunicating his own Father or Mother unless where a publick obligation for publick good requireth it 2. But to both instances we say that a greater end and more publick good is to be preferred to a le 〈◊〉 s And when a private mans honour is forfeited we cannot give him that which he hath cast away and God will penally take away till he repent But when the publick order and welfare which is above all personal good obligeth us to honour Magistrates a subordinat 〈◊〉 Law will not suspend it Publick Excommunication is an Act of Government to be exercised on the Governed for the Ends of Government But for a Prelate or Priest or any other to do this on his Governours though of another rank crosseth the Ends of Government Nor are Subjects so to be tempted to contemn their Rulers lest they come to think as Bellarmine and such Papists that Infidels are not to Govern Christians nor to be tolerated in their Government or as their very Religion teacheth them Concil Later c. 3. sub Innoc. 3. that when Princes are excommunicated they may be deposed by the Pope or as their learnedest Doctors say that they are no Kings and to kill them is not to kill the King See the Testimonies of this cited at large and expresly by H. Fowlis in his Book of Popish Treasons If ever any Protestants Episcopal Presbyterian or Independents were or be of another mind for the Excommunicating of Kings or Chief Rulers that 's nothing to us who shall neither live nor dye by the Faith or Opinion of others But we should so much the rather here disown it IX It is none of our judgment that when men are excommunicated by Pope Prelates Presbyters or People who are the four Pretenders to that Power the Magistrate must be their Lictor or Executioner or must further punish men by the Sword meerly eo nomine because they are excommunicate or because they reconcile not themselves to the Church by penitence and obedience or because the Pope or Prelate or Priests deliver up the excommunicate to him to be punished or threaten him if he will not do it The Civil Ruler may punish the same men for the same Crimes but upon their own exploration and judgment of the Cause and not as meer Hangmen that must needs execute the judgment of other Judges Their own Conscience must be satisfied and they must know what they do and why else to how many base and bloody offices the factious worldly Clergy may oblige them the Papal Kingdom hath long given men too sad a proof And we must profess that we are fully perswaded that we have good Reason to conclude that so near a Prosecution by the Civil Power as is the imprisoning and undoing of Persons Excommunicate meerly because they stand Excommunicate and are not absolved as Penitents hath not a few nor small incommodities Ecclesiastical 1. So great a Dominion in the Clergy hath done much to corrupt the Sacred Office and make men naturally proud unmeet for the humble Services of the Gospel 2. And it breedeth in the People a distast and hatred of the Clergy as if they were the grievous Wolves that devour the Flock in Sheeps Cloathing and bear not Grapes and Figs but wear Thorns and Thistles to p 〈◊〉 ick and hurt them and causeth their Exhortations to be the more unsuccessful 3. It seemeth to dishonour the Discipline instituted by Christ as if the Keys of his Church â—â—re of no more signification than the Crown of Thorn◠〈◊〉 Reed with which he was derided and could do nothing without the Princes Sword 4. It contradicteth the experience of above 300 years when Church Discipline was exercised more effectually than it is now and that not only without the Sword of the Magistrate but also against his will and opposition Yea it was many a hundred years more after Emperours were Christian before the Keys were ever thus seconded by the Sword and had not the Donatists by inhumane assaulting the Orthodox provoked the Churches and Magistrates it had been like to have been long before the Sword had been drawn against Hereticks at all 5. And that which much
Darkness Why should Men be feigned so mad as to argue at this rate Pr. 2. If the Question be whether any Ruler have power to Command a thing which would be no Duty but indifferent if he did not Command it It is to question that which all sober Persons must assert in the disjunctive use of Things or Actions as to each other That is 1. Nothing is to be done or commanded that is not good before or made good and useful by the Command Idle Laws are not good if idle words be bad 2. The End and Benefit of an Action may be necessary and the commanding of an Action or Circumstance before indifferent comparatively as to others may be disjunctively necessary either this or that and the indifferency taken away and the thing made both Naturally and Morally good by the Determination of the Command For Instance It is necessary that the Army keep together and march in Unity and Order It is therefore necessary that they all meet or Rendezvous at one determinate certain place and it is necessary that they meet at one determinate certain time or day It is therefore necessary that one certain place and time be determined By Consent it will not be It is therefore necessary that it be done by Command None of this is indifferent But the place and day may be antecedently so indifferent that no Man can see a Reason why one rather than the other should be chosen no more than why of two equal Eggs I should chuse this rather than the other In this case it is not properly chusing but taking I do not chuse this rather than the other there being no preserence of Esteem but only I take this and not the other because I must take one and I must take but one And when the indifferent Place and Time is determined of it then and thereby is made profitable to the End which is Unity and Order Thus far things necessary in genere this or that disjunctively and unnecessary antecedently in particular this no more necessary than that may be commanded by Authority and are thereby made Naturally useful and Morally the Subjects Duty Pr. 3. If the Question be only in matters of God's worship or Religion whether the same hold there we affirm that it there holdeth also Which we thus explain 1. No Ruler hath Authority to forbid what God commandeth or to command what God forbiddeth as to Action or any Circumstance of an Action 2. No Man can command by pretence of an Authority co-ordinate with God's but only derived and subordinate 3. No Man can do any thing which God hath appropriated to himself as his own proper work as to make Universal Laws for the whole World or Church to make another Gospel Divine Covenant or Sacraments of Gods Covenant to add to or diminish or alter the Word of God to alter the Ministry Church-state or Laws which he hath made or to make the like or to change his Institutions 4. No Man can command any thing but what God giveth him Authority to command for there is no Power but of God 5. But God giveth Men Authority to command things before indifferent in his Worship such as we before described about Civil or Military things That is It is necessary that the Worship of God be orderly performed in Sacred Assemblies and that Unity and Concord be there kept It is therefore necessary that many meet in the same Place and the same Time and use the same Translation of Scripture at that time and the same Metre and Tune of Psalms and hear the same Preacher on the same Text and the same Sermon and that the Preacher at that time use the same words and Method of Prayer and Sermon to them all whether by Notes or without c. But whether it be this place or that this day and hour or that this Translation Metre Tune or that this Chapter Text Method words or that may be indifferent before and needful and a Duty to the People after the Determination of the Ruler to whom it doth belong Pr. 4. If a Ruler do not Act quite out of the Matter or Circuit of his own Jurisdiction about a thing which belongeth not to him nor by his Determination of Circumstances subvert the thing Circumstantiated and the very End or Work it self though he miss it in a Work which belongeth to his Office and do it not the best way but be culpable in his Command the Subject yet may be bound to do what is so commanded and is not excused by the faultiness of the Rulers determining Commands Which we thus explain 1. It belongeth not to a King to govern a Mans thoughts Therefore if he make Laws for our thoughts it is doubted by many whether they oblige unless as he is the Official Promulgator of God's Laws or exhort Men to obey them Yet knowing that he is God's Minister for our good if he should Ministerially command us not to think ill of God or well of wickedness c. we will not concur with those that affirm that no secondary Obligation ariseth from his Command as long as we all hold that if a Church-Pastor Ministerially as Christ's Officer forbid blasphemous malicious filthy thoughts and Command holy meditation and mental Prayer and Thanksgiving his Ministerial Command hath an answerable Obligation It sufficeth us therefore to say that Kings cannot punish Men or reward them for their thoughts which is from their Natural Incapacity of knowing them For could they know a Thoughtful Plot of Treason or a wise and honest contrivance or design for Publick good we cannot say that they might not answerably punish and reward them But to go to clearer Instances It belongeth to the King to give general regulating Laws to Physicians to Mariners to Parents to Nurses to Farriers to Brewers Bakers Cooks c. He may forbid Physicians the use of some dangerous Drugs and Mariners some times and places that are unsafe and Parents and Nurses to give their Children some pernicious Food or wicked Counsel or Education and Brewers Bakers and Cooks to poison Men or deceive them in the matter of their Trades But if he make such Laws as take these Mens Callings out of their hands If he will chuse a Physician for every Patient and the Medicines that every Physician shall use with Dose Time and other Circumstances and what Food every Parent shall give his Children with the Measure Time c. and so of the rest This is to go beyond his Calling and so beyond his true Authority and such Laws oblige not So if a King will give such Laws to Christ's true Ministers as turn them out of their Callings and take them all upon himself it is an acting beyond and without Authority and doth not oblige It is the Office of a Pastor of the Church to have and use the Keys of the Church to be the immediate Ministerial Judge of Individuals who is to be taken in by Baptisme and
2. The Action as farther specified by the terminating Object 1. In the first respect the Gradus Actus is Accidens accident 〈◊〉 And an Act may become Good or Evil by such Intenseness or Remissness as is ordinate or inordinate And the Timing it may do the like As to be thinking when I should sleep 2. In the second respect an Accident supervening or added to the Object is said to make that Action Good or Evil by Accident that is by an alteration of the specifying Object by some Accident And this is the commonest Case and the Sense in which this Controversie in hand is most concerned which therefore we desire to be most observed Prop. 15. Any Man therefore that knoweth what true Knowledge is may easily perceive that he that will Dispute about Bonum vel Malum per se per accidens if he would not lose his labour or deceive must use more diligence in explaining these Terms than they do that toss them about unexplained as if they were sufficiently intelligible of themselves to such as some use to make the Receivers of their cholerick and splenetick evacuations Even Bonum Malum per se is not such Ver se qua substantiam nor per se qua Actum nor per se qua Intellectionem Volitionem aut Praxin execu ivam but per se ut Accidens substantiae scilicet Actum circa Objectum quod est accidens plerumque sine altero accidente superaddito So that the same which now is Bonum vel Malum per accidens is called Bonum vel malum per se in respect to a supervenient Accident And excluding all Accidents or all Good or Evil by Accident so nothing in the World is Bonum or Malum morale per se except what is anon excepted E. G. To Love is an Act that Act as is the Habit also is an Accident To love a Man as godly or wise or as my King or Teacher is to love him for Accidents that is Godliness Wisdom Authority c. This is Bonum per accidens and yet Bonum per se stating the Object thus without farther Accidents To love him as an Enemy and Persecutor and Silencer of Godly Ministers of Christ is Malum per Accidens and yet Malum per se in respect to farther Accidents To love the Man is not Evil but to love him for his Evil. The Exception here is when we are bound to love the simple Essence as such abstracting from all Accidents The principal Instance is of our love to God of which more anon because God hath no Accidents and therefore is loved meerly as in his Essence And no doubt but God is to be loved as in his Essential perfection But yet we are nono of those that against Pet. Hurtado Mendez and other Nominals will undertake to prove that Relations to the Creatures which are Accidents do not truly belong to God such as that of Creator Owner Ruler Benefactor c. we leave that Task to the Thomists and to other Mens judgements how well they perform it The next Instance is our love to Man as Man and so to other Created Essences which we deny not but add 1. That Man's Relation to God as he sheweth his Maker's perfections is a Relation and that 's it that is to be loved morally in Man at least principally and never left out The same we say of other Essences 2. And the Wisdom Goodness and so the moral amiableness of Man at least the principal is it self an Accident The Word of God and the Worship of God are Accidents But yet we say that the properest Notion of Bonum per se is when we love a thing but specially God himself as in the simple Essence 〈◊〉 a supervening obliging Accident And of malum per 〈◊〉 when God's very Essence is hated or not loved But that any morally hate the very substantial Essence of a Creature we leave others to prove Prop. 16. This holdeth about the very Negative Laws of the Decalogue e. g. To kill a Man is in it self no moral Evil else it were sin to Execute Malefactors and Kings Judges and Souldiers were the most criminal sinners To kill a Man Authoritatively that is a Traytor or Murderer is good that is an Act with its due Mode and Object which are Accidents that make it good And to kill the Innocent or without Authority is sin by this Accident of an undue Mode and Object To take another Mans Goods or Money is not Malum per se for it may be done as a Mulct or by Law on just Cause or for the Publick defence by Authority or by his Consent But to take it without Consent Right or Authority is sin by this Accident So also of the seventh Commandment The Law forbids the Act as Clothed with its undue Accidents The Names of Injustice Coveting Murder Adultery Theft False-witness c. all signifie the Acts with the undue prohibited Accidents One of our Casuists excepteth only Lying as simply per se Evil But he that Lyeth sinneth not because he speaketh those same words but because he speaketh words that in relation to his own mind and to the matter and to the hearers understanding are false and deceitful And that Relative Incongruity of the words is the accident that maketh them sinful Prop. 17. Man passeth his life among such a multitude of accidents and circumstances that it is not one but very many that every one of our actions is Clothed with or concerned in which tend to make it Good or Evil. Prop. 18. A chief distinction here to be observed is between Immutable Duties supposing our own continued Faculties and mutable ones and those things are principally or eminently called Good or Evil per se which are so immutably and no supervenient accident can ever make them otherwise And in the most notable Sense those things are called Good or Evil per accidens which by supervening accidents may be changed from what they were before Pr. 19. That which is thus immutably Good per se is Mans Duty to God himself immediately as he is our Owner Ruler Benefactor and End Considering this Duty not in this or that time but in kind in its season and supposing our Faculties and Con-causes For if a Man should be exercising even Love to God when he is bound to sleep for the support of Nature or if a Man should love God with so passionate an affection as would distract him this as so used is not good but we never knew any in much danger of so over-doing Nor is it a Duty for a Man in Infancy or an Apoplexy or deep sleep c. actually to love fear or trust God and in other such Cases of Impossibility But when possible or in its season it is immutably a Duty Not so rarely as the Jansenist chargeth the Jesuite Casuists to hold once in many Weeks or Months or Years but Love constraining us to its holy Fruits must be the very New
having once over-run us they expect that we should follow them and be ruled by them and if we do not are ready to censure us as guilty of sinful Compliance and Conformity It greatly concerneth us therefore to keep some from such mistakes to rectifie others to vindicate our selves and clear our Consciences that we tell Men what our Non-conformity is not if we may not tell them what it is I. Our Non-conformity is not in holding that the Scriptures are a particular Rule or Determination of all the Circumstances of Church-Government and Worship as Time Place Utensils Words Methods Metres Tunes Division of the Text into Chapters and Verses Translations helps by Notes Written or Printed Gestures Habits c. But Nature and Scripture give us sufficient General Rules or Laws for all such as that they be done in Unity Charity to edification decently and orderly c. which must be observed II. We hold that when 〈◊〉 un 〈◊〉 etermined Circumstances are lawfully determined 〈◊〉 Authority yea were it but by the Consent and 〈◊〉 of the Churches of Christ or the present Conduct of their Pastors the Assembly should yield Conformable Obedience and avoid unnecessary Singularities III. We hold that if those to whom such Determinations belong should mistake and not do it in the best and profitablest manner yet ordinarily it is the Peoples duty to obey and hold Communion with that Church so be it that nothing sinful 〈◊〉 e commanded them to do and the errour of the Determination be not such as overthroweth the Worship or End it self Of which we have elsewhere fullier opened our sense In our judgment of things Indifferent IV. We are against no Bishops or Church-Government of Gods appointment We all are for an Episcopus Gregis and where there are many Chappels and Curates in a Parish we are far from perswading them to deny such submission to the chief Pastor as the Law requireth and as God himself alloweth Were Ignatius his Episcopacy among us who tells us this as the Note of the Churches Unity that to every Church there is one Altar and one Bishop with his fellow Presbyters and Deacons we should be far from perswading any to separate from it Yea were it Cyprian's Measure of Episcopacy Yea there are some among us who have long professed themselves uncertain whether such a large Episcopacy as is but the same with the ordinary part of the Church-power of the Apostles and Evangelists be not jure divino such as should be still continued because 1. When Christ hath once setled a Form or Order of Government a change must not be charged on him rashly and without proof especially as made so suddenly If the Affirmer prove the settlement the Denyer must prove the Change and Revocation 2. Because Christ promised to be with them to the end of the World Mat. 28. 20. when he appointed them this universal or indefinite Work 3. Because many others as well as Apostles had larger Circuits than particular Churches for their Work as Silas Silvanus Apollo Titus and many more And at their Reformation the Scots Visitors seemed such That Men of extraordinary worth and gravity may Plant many Churches and take the care of many directing exhorting and admonishing the Pastors or particular Bishops not depriving those Pastors and Churches of the Power and Priviledges granted them in Scripture some of us do not deny Government by the Word is an ordinary continuing Ordinance of God But the Apostles extraordinary Work and Office to be Eye-witnesses and Embassadâ—â—rs immediately sent and endued with the extraordinary Measures of the Spirit these we believe they have no Successors in because they were but for a time And those of us that cannot grant so much as is aforesaid and all of us as to an Episcopacy which we think contrary to God's Word can yet submit to much which we dare not approve of and as we take our selves bound to obey all by what Names or Titles soever distinguished or dignified who circa sacra as Officers of the King do exercise any part of that Power of the Sword by his Commission which we acknowledge in the Oath of Supremacy so if any usurp more Power of the Keys than Christ alloweth them we are not thereby disobliged from living peaceably in our places nor allowed to raise Sedition or use any unlawful means to re 〈◊〉 orm it though we cannot make a Vow and Covenant never to do any lawful thing to alter and amend it Much less is it true which M 〈◊〉 n of hard Faces have sometimes said that we are against Bishops because we cannot be Bishops our selves And they that tell Men that every Presbyter would be a Parish Pope do sure think they speak to Men so silly as to be mockt by an undiscerned Contradiction A Pope is the Universal Monarch of the Christian World or all Is a Parish all the World A Diocesan is the Sole Bishop with us of a Multitude of Churches Is a Parish a Multitude of such Churches If a Man be against one Schoolmaster only over a thousand Schools shall he be reproached because he is willing to teach one Is a King in each Kingdom as unreasonable a thing as a Papal Monarch or a King of Kings and of all the Earth If it be to the gain of Souls that we are deprived of this Parochial Episcopacy we can easily bear it professing that we hold it far easier to be Governed than to Govern V. We judge not all Officers circa sacra unlawful which are made by Man As some Circumstances are not particularly determined in Scripture but left to Men so are many of the Officers that must execute them If the King appoint Church-Magistrates to keep Peace and Order to call Synods and take such cognisance of Causes as belongs to him or do any part of his work as is afore said we will obey them And so of Church-Wardens Door-keepers Sextons and such others as some Churches of old made use of so be it they usurp not any part of the Office which Christ hath appropriated to the Pastors of the Churches VI. We are not for Lay-mens claim or exercise of the Power of the Keys whether they be Lay-Chancellors or Magistrates or Lay-Officers or People But we hold that the Keys of Christs Church that is the Power of receiving in by Baptism and of Guiding the People by holy Doctrine and in holy Worship and of Excommunicating and Absolving are by Christ committed to the Pastors of the Churches Though there is also an admonishing Power in Magistrates and divers sorts of Penalties for sins against God which they may inflict And the voluntary execution of the Pastors judgment by holding or not holding Communion with others is the Peoples part in which as reasonable they have a discerning judgment VII As to the case of Elders we all hold that none should be proper Church Governours by the said Keys which are meerly Lay-men and not Church Officers And many