at Court be strong and active enough for matter of Counsell yet for matter of force the Puritans in City and Countrey be too predominant The Bishop of Downe in his visitation speech layes all the calamities of Church and Common-wealth upon Non-conformists and for proofe thereof instances in the Covenanters whom he charges of rebellion charging withall that rebellion upon Puritanisme The first thing says he that made me out of love with that Religion was their injurious dealing with Kings which I observed both in their Practice and Doctrine Hee taxes first their Doctrine because they deny the Kings supremacy in causes Ecclesiasticall and allow Subjects to resist nay and depose their King if he be a Tyrant Surely Ahab could say little for himselfe if he could not lay his owne crimes upon Elijah but see here by what art of confusion all Scots are called Puritans and all Puritans rebels King James spoke not so confusedly as if Puritanisme were a Religion and all that disliked Bishops and Ceremonies were of that Religion and all of that Religion were enemies to Kings If a Bishop needed any proofe it his {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} were not unquestionable I would desire him to prove all Covenanters Puritans denyers of the Kings supremacy or to instance in any Kings which have been deposed or murthred by Presbyteriall authority How far Bishops have incroached upon Kings is knowne to all the world our Protestant Bishops lately have by Oath and Canon combined together to bind the Kings hands though hee bee Supreme that hee shall not governe our Church but by Arch-bishops Bishops Arch-deacons c. And yet these troublers of Israel have the face to taxe Elijah of their own sinne Presbytery indeed has heretofore passed her bounds yet not of late but Episcopacy has ever from Constantine claimed an independance of Divine right till this instant I conceive there are not in all the Kings Dominions three men except Papists and Anabaptists which hold it lawfull to depose or by any force to violate the persons of Kings how ill soever The Scotch Divines indeed maintaine that a great body of men may defend themselvs against the unjust sword of misled Kings because they cannot fly or otherwise save themselves and this they take now to be their own case whereas our Court Divines in England hold that in such case we ought all to yeeld our throats without defence This seemes unnaturall and truth was never unnaturall but I forbeare to dispute a point so horrid to mans imagination The Bishop next instances in the rebellious practices of Puritans reckons up some Fasts in Scotland appointed by the Presbytery without King Iames his privity and some other seditious Sermons and actions whereby he was much annoyed But what Did not King James know his owne enemies or how to blame them Did hee condemne all Scots alike or all Bishop haters alike or joyne the English in like condemnation We know well enough that King James called rebellious precisians Puâ—itans but he never called all Puritans rebellious precisians He never used those termes as conveâ—tible but declared his contrary meaning by a manifest difference taken between them But the Bishops maine â—nstance is in the present Scotch insurrection this he cals a rebellion of Puritans and far greater than the Powder-treason For says he that plot was but the act of a few discontented Gentlemen but in this rebellion of the Puritans they have ingaged a great part of the Kingdome so that this may be said to be the common sin of that Sect. What could have beene raked out of Hell more slanderous to our Religion more Apologeticall for Popery The Powder-Traytors are here preferred before the whole sect of Puritans The sin of the Powder-Traytors was that they being but an inconsiderable party sought the destruction of their King and his issue and the flower of the Nobility Gentry Commonalty and the extirpation of the true Religion by a most diabolical bloudy practice and conspiracy And it ought not to be charged upon the meere actors as a symptome of discontent onely wee know how far the Romish Religion it selfe favours and gives ground to such damned feats and how far it has owned some having proved prosperous and justified the doing thereof in nature as impious though perhaps in degree not so hainous as this For take this as it was conspired and questionlesse since the crucifying of Iesus Christ the Light never discovered any treason more ugly and horrible Now to out-match this deed of darknesse the Scotch Nation by a strange general unanimity have armed themselves to oppose the ill government of Bishops and other alterations in the service of God and the administration of Iustice and being invaded therefore by another Nation have used force to defend their lives and seeing that defence not safe in their owne Countrey they have since pursued it further by way of prevention in the Country of their Invaders That is the greatest act of Rebellion whereby the common Peace and safety of a Kingdome is most disturbed and impeached but by the common act of a whole Kingdome that mischiefe cannot be effected therefore the Bishop failes in his politiques when he thinkes that the Major part disturbing the Minor is more trayterous than the contrary The unanimous act of a whole Kingdome ought to bee presumed to bee lesse injurious and more wise than the act of any small inconsiderable party for it hath scarce ever been seen that a whole Kingdome or the majority thereof hath ever been treasonable to its selfe in procuring its own ruine Many States have perisht by the machinations of a few ill-affected ill-advised Counsellors scarce ever any perisht otherwise but the totall body and collection has never been guilty of its owne ruine and if it were such Treason could not be so great as that which is plotted by a few Whilst the Scots contained themselves within their owne territories and were considered as a kingdome within themselves as they were when the Bishop past his censure they were not rightly so censured neither was he then privy to their intrusions that they would infest our kingdome with the same combustion and so prove a disturbance to the greater part of our British Monarchy whereof they themselves are but a member of lesse bulke and value Cursed therefore are those uncharitable exasperating censurers whereby the King is too far incensed and by whose rash instigations the commotions themselves become the harder to be appeased Great insurrections are like great fires wherein delay is mischievous and small remedies rather turne to fuell then extinguish and violent counsell against an inraged multitude is like oyle or pitch cast into the flame The wise politician proportions his remedy according to the mischiefe if water will not prevaile he useth milke if a little quantity will not suffice he powres as the combustion it selfe requires Vnfortunate Rehoboam stands as a Seamarke to warne all Princes how to
not alwayes the most knowing in all Ecclesiasticall cases neither are they at all indifferent and impartiall in many which concerne their owne honour and profit as the world feeles to his regret therefore for jurisdiction they are not the most competent But be they of what use soever they may still remaine subordinate and at the Princes election and admitted of ad consilium solum not ad consensum and it had beene happy for all Christians these many hundred yeares by past if they had not been further hearkned to The Sacerdotall function is not at all disparaged by this subordination for whether the order of Princes be more sacred then that of Bishops or not it is all one to Priests for an obedience they owe and must pay be it to the one Order or the other Our Bishops at this day stand much upon their Divine right of Jurisdiction and they refer their style to the providence of God immediatly not to the grace of the King and though in words they acknowledge a Supremacie of power to remain to the King yet indeed I thinke they mean rather a priority of order Whatsoever Supremacie they meane if it be not such as makes them meerely subordinate and dependent so that the King may limit alter or extinguish their jurisdiction as far as He may to his civill Judges they derogate much from his Kingly office Bishops for their claime of Jurisdiction ought to prove that they alone did exercise it over all in all causes from our Saviours dayes till the entrance of Christian Princes and that being cleared they must further prove that those times also are leading and precedentary to ours In both these their proofes are lame especially in the latter for neither is the power of the Keyes the same thing as Iurisdiction nor is jurisdiction now as it was in the Apostles dayes nor is the State of the times now the same as then In those dayes either Christians were to implead one another before Infidel Magistrats whatsoever the case were criminall or civill spirituall or temporall or else they were to erect some tribunall in the Church or else they were to await no justice at all and because some judicature within the Church was most fit therfore Christ himselfe according to the exigence of those times did endow his Church with a divine Oeconomy which was partly miraculous and of use then but not now The Spirit of God did then internally incite such and such men at such times to reside and preside in such such places and some of the Apostles at some times could judge by inspiration without proofs and allegations and could execute sentence of death or other spirituall punishment upon secret hypocrites not intrenching upon temporall authority but in these times this discipline is uselesse and therefore decayed Whatsoever the offence then was what injury or trespasse soever betwixt brother and brother the onely remedy was Dic Ecclesiae and yet that precept serves as strong for temporall as spirituall trespasses so that it cannot be enforced now to continue unlesse wee meane to drowne all temporall authority As for the extent also of spirituall power in those dayes I will onely cite a learned Politician of the Popish religion who admitting it seemed that the keyes of heaven were given to Saint Peter alone and his Successours and not to all Bishops and Ministers whatsoever thus proceeds By the keyes given to S. Peter many Holy Fathers mean the one of knowledge and the other of power and that that power ought not to be understood universally but only concerning the Kingdome of Heaven which is spirituall for the Civill Royall and Temporall power is expresly forbidden him by Christ Even so that also of knowledge it is not to be understood of naturall politike or morall things but as Saint Paul saith of Christs mysteries only Wherefore in matters of faith Ecclesiasticall authority may approve and Secular cannot condemne but in matters of policy what all the Prelates in the World approve Temporall authority may condemne It is a great wrong to pretend because Christ hath given Saint Peter the cognizance and power of the Kingdome and forbidden him the earthly contrary to this precept to extend spirituall things to temporall Saint Augustine often saith That Grace doth not destroy any thing in Nature but leaveth her all her owne adding moreover divine perfection The Temporality hath of its owne nature power to forbid all things repugnant to publike quietnesse and honesty and Christ came not to take away this authority from Magistrates He onely addes power to his Ministers in matters of faith not knowne by nature but revelation For ought wee know this power of opening or shutting Heaven of binding and loosing sinnes was miraculous and so but Temporary but admit it in this Catholike Writers sense yet we plainly see it is no prejudice at all to limit Secular Princes thereby The same learned Papist writes That the Easterne and Westerne Churches continued in unity and charity for the space of nine hundred yeares after Christ and this peace was easily kept because the Supreme power was then in the Canons to which all Churches acknowledged themselves equally subject Ecclesiasticall Discipline was then severely maintained in each Country by its owne Prelates not arbitrarily but absolutely according to Canonicall rigour none of them intermedling in anothers government No Pope of Rome did pretend to conferre Benefices in other Bishops Diocesses or to get money out of others by way of Dispensations and Buls but when Rome began to shake off all subjection to Canons then notwithstanding any ancient order of the Fathers Councels or Apostles themselves in stead of her ancient Primacy she brought in an absolute Dominion free from any Law or Canon and this made the division Neither could any re-union bee brought to passe within these 700 yeares because this abuse which caused the Division is not remedied Whilst the union held Saint Pauls doctrine was joyntly observed that Every one should be subject to Princes no man pretended to be free from punishment Nay and after the division the same opinion remained that every Christian in temporall businesses is subject to the Prince And nothing is more temporall then offence because nothing is more contrary to the Spirit Amongst the Greeks also it is still held that Bishops ought to judge what opinion is sound what Hereticall but to punish those of hurtfull opinions belongeth to the Secular The State of Venice as well as other Catholike Kingdomes walks between two extreams betweene Protestants which have no other ayme but to diminish Ecclesiasticall authority and the Court of Rome which hath no other aime but to encrease it and to make the Temporall her servant Those of the Court of Rome making use of Religion for worldly ends and respects under a spirituall pretense but with an ambitious end and desire of worldly wealth and honour would free themselves from obedience due to the Prince and take away
whose severall conventicles cry here is Christ and here is Salvation but what Is this the blame of the Churches indulgence to weake brethren in nice scruples surely no for it is to be hoped that when government is againe settled as favour shall bee used in matters of indifferency so the rod shall be resumed againe against all obstinate offenders in matters of weight And who does not see that these swarmes of conventiclers which now sequester themselves from us are but the dregges of the vilest and most ignorant rabble whose doctrines cannot prevaile though they meet with no opposition nor subsist when authority once lifts up its hands or shakes its Staffe against them The feeble Flyes of Sommer which every shower and cloud almost disperses are not more contemptible than these wretched throngs whose workes not being of God no nor scarce of Rationall man cannot prosper in such an age of Knowledge Learning and Piety as this is Let us not then for some Gnats or frogges sakes ungratefully murmure against Sommer or undervalue all the sweet influences of the Sun and the softer gales of Heaven Puritans by some are parallelled to Iesuites Iesuites are called Popish Puritans and Puritans Protestant Iesuites yet this is not indeed disparageable to them For doubtlesse fiery zeale and rigour were not blameable in Iesuites were not their very Religion false as celerity and expedition in a Traveller is not in it selfe faulty but commendable though the Traveller being in a wrong path it causes him to stray the further from his journies end My Lord of Downe professes that the first thing which made him distast the Religion of Puritans besides their grosse hypocrisie was sedition So grosse hypocrisie it seemes was the first What is grosse or visible hypocrisie to the Bishop I know not for I can see no windowes or casements in mens breasts neither do I think him indued with Saint Peters propheticall spirit whereby to perceive and search into the reines and hearts of hypocrites but let him proceed It is a plausible matter saies he with the people to heare men in authority depraved and to understand of any liberty and power appertaining to themselves The profession also of extraordinary zeale and as it were contempt of the world workes with the multitude When they see men goe simply in the Streets and bow downe their heads like a Bull-rush their inward parts burning with deceit wringing their neckes awry shaking their heads as if they were in some present griefe lifting up the white of their eyes at the sight of some vanity giving great groanes crying out against this sin and that sin in their Superiours under colour of long prayers devouring widdowes and married wives houses when the multitude heares and sees such men they are carried away with a great conceit of them but if they should judge of these men by their fruits not by outward appearance they should find them to be very far from the true Religion See here the froth of a scurrilous libeller whereby it is concluded that he that is of severe life and averse from the common vanitâ—es of the time is an hypocrite If these descriptions of outward austerity I shall not only shew what is an hypocrite but point out also who is an hypocrit our Saviour himselfe will hardly scape this description doubtles our Saviour and many of his devoutest followers did groane shake their heads and lift up their eyes at the sight of some publick 〈◊〉 and vanities and did not spare to taxe the vices of Superiours and to preach to and admonish the meaner sort of the people yet who but an Annas or Caiphas will infer from hence that therefore their inward parts burne with deceit and that their end is meerely to carry away the multitude such as judge only by outward appearance and have not their senses exercised to discerne betwixt good and evill It is likely the High Priests and Pharisees did thus blaspheme in those dayes and that the rather because from their owne fayned sanctity they were the more apt to suspect the same in others But what I must wee needs follow them or this Bishop in this But to proceed with this Bishop Saint Iames sayes he gives us a full description of true Religion Wisdome from above is first pure then peaceable gentle and easie to bee entreated full of mercy and good fruits without judging and Hypocrisie None of these properties will agree with the Religion of Puritans It is not pure for it allowes Vsury Sacriledge Disobedience Rebellion c. It is not peaceable for these men are the incendiaries of Christendome It is not gentle nor easie to be intreated for they are more austere than Cato and not to be moved by perswasion or command It is not full of mercy and good fruits for they are all for sacrifice nothing for mercy for the first Table not the second for faith not charity they pull downe Churches but build no hospitals It is not without judging for they are known to be most rigid censurers And hee is an Hypocrite which spies a mote in his brothers eyes and not a beame in his owne Here is a confused proofe that such Puritans are hypocrites but no proofe at all that this man is such a Puritan If my Lord Say be such a Puritan this denotes him an hypocrite but this does not prove that my Lord Say or Brooke or Dod or Clever c. or any the most famous Puritan living is guilty of Vsury Sacriledge Rebellion pulling downe of Churches setting the World on fire or of renouncing the second Table and all works of justice and charity or of censuring and condemning malignantly other men If these things were true of particular men calumny were needlesse Accusation would better suppresse them And sure it is not out of favour that Law proceeds not for malice has often enough shewed her teeth and would have bitten if she could neither would she now calumniate if she could accuse The Bishop expects not to be beleeved if he puzzell and work some into doubt it is sufficient but since bitter censuring and calumnious condemning of others is sâ— infallible a signe of hypocrisâ— how doth the Bishop wipe this off from himselfe Can Puritans speake worse of any than he doth of Puritans Sure they may well joyne with him upon this issue that the greatest slanderer is the greatest hypocrite and yet seeke no further for slanders than this very speech wherein he so eagerly inveighs against slander but if individuals cannot be thus convinced by the Bishop how shall these signes and symptomes be applyed to whole Sects Religions Kingdomes The most ordinary badge of Puritans is their more religious and conscionable conversation than that which is seene in other mens and why this should make them odious or suspected of hypocrisie amongst honest and charitable men I could never yet learne A seeming religious consists in doing actions outwardly good and the goodnesse of those actions is
sense is He which imitates Anabaptists in rebellion turbulence and opposition to Law and such are liable to Law but negatively a Puritan in the acception of King Iames is not He which dislikes Episcopacie or the Ceremonious Discipline of England This King Iames protests upon his honour though to his great dishonour He be now often cited to the contrary As for those which rellish not Bishops and Ceremonies or the English Policie Wishes them to be at peace only with those of the opposite opinion Hee himselfe vowing equall love and honour to the grave and learned of either side and not taking upon him to be a Judge in so old and difficult a controversie He onely like a sweet arbitrator perswades both parties to peace and amity I wish our Bishops would now stand to this arbitration I wish they would neither condemne the Scots discipline nor urge the English I wish they would put difference betweene seditious and scrupulous Puritans and not inferre the one out of the other I wish they would either disclaime King Iames as a manifest favourer of Puritans or else imitate him in the same definition and opinion of them King Iames further takes notice that the reformation in Scotland was far more disorderly then in England Denmark c. whilst the mayne affaires there were unduly carried by popular tumults and by some fiery-spirited Ministers which having gotten the guiding of the multitude and finding the relish of government sweet did fancie to themselves a democratick forme of policy wherein they were likely to be Tribuni plebis That the Crown might be disincombred of these usurping ring-leaders the King advises the Prince to entertaine and advance godly learned and modest Ministers promoting them to Bishopricks but restrayning them heedfully from pride ambition and avarice These things then are hence observable First Scotland differs from England in turbulent Ministers Secondly this is imputed to the iniquity of the times not to Puritanisme as if by nature the Scots were more inclining to Puritanisme then other Nations Thirdly notwithstanding that iniquity of those times there was a number sufficient of worthy Ministers fit for preferrement Fourthly King Iames erects Bishops Sees in Scotland for peculiar reasons and therefore He speaks not of Denmarke c. Lastly notwithstanding that peculiar reason He advises the Prince to be indifferently at warre with both extreams alike as well to represse Papall Bishops as to curbe proud Puritans For sayes the King the naturall sicknesses which have ever troubled and beene the decay of all Churches since the beginning changing the Candlesticke from one to another have beene pride ambition and avarice and these wrought the overthrow of the Romish Church in divers Countreys King Iames knew well how apt Churchmen had ever beene to abuse their power and pompe what enemies the High-Priests had beene to our Saviour and what a tyranny Bishops had erected over all Christendome ever since Constantine almost and therefore though he dislikes a Democracie in the Church as Hee had reason yet Hee so limits and circumscribes his Bishops both in power and honour that they might be as sensible of their chaines and fetters as of their Miters and Crosiers I wish King Iames had particularly signified what bonds and bounds Hee thought fit to prefixe to Episcopacie to preserve it from corruption and what his opinion was of a Prelacie so active in secular affaires as ours is now in England and how it would have pleased him to see a Metropolitan amongst Protestants almost a rivall to the French Cardinall The world in my opinion hath little reason to doate upon a gowned Empire wee have all smarted long enough under it men of meane birth commonly beare preferment with little moderation and their breeding having beene soft and effeminate in their malice and cruelty they neerest of all approach to the nature of Women and by the advantage of learning they extend their power and win upon others more then they ought When the Church was at first under Heathen or Jewish Governours which sought as enemies to ruine it not as Fathers to protect it they which were within could not live in peace and unity without some Politicall bonds so at that time there was a necessity of some coercive power within besides that which was without The world is now unsatisfied what kinde of power that was whether Episcopall or Presbyteriall or what Episcopacy or Presbytery was in those dayes Yet me thinks what government so ever then was it is not necessarily precedentary to us now The Episcopall faction at this day takes advantage by the abuses of the Presbyteriall and the Presbyteriall by the Episcopall and most men thinke either the one power or the other necessary and some more favour the Episcopall as K. Iames some the Presbyteriall as M. Calvin but sure the Presbyteriall is lesse offensive then the Episcopall and yet neither the one nor other of necessity Kings may grant usuram quandam jurisdictionis either to Bishops or Elders but the jurisdiction it selfe is their owne property from which they ought not to depart nor can without wrong to their charge committed to them For the power which God gives the Prince is not given for his use alone but for the peoples benefit so that since He cannot let it fall to decay without making it insufficient for good and entire government which is mischievous to the people he cannot justly lessen it at all And it is manifest that except one supreme head be alone in all causes as well Ecclesiasticall as Civill humane nature must needs be destitute of those remedies which are necessary for its conservation since power cannot be divided but it must be diminished to him which suffers that division and being diminished it proves insufficient All confesse some government necessary for men in holy Orders to whom the power of the Keyes belongs but some account Princes but as meere Temporall or Lay persons and therefore conclude against their authority over sacred Ecclesiasticall persons as incompetent especially in cases meerely Ecclesiasticall For this cause spirituall Governours have ever beene in the Church to whom some have attributed a divine right depending from none but God and subordinate to none but God but this hath beene controverted by others and no little debate and strife hath followed hereupon But it seemes to me that Princes do receive from God a spirituall Unction whereby not onely their persons are dignified and their hearts prepared and enlarged with divine graces fit for rule but their functions also innobled and sanctified above any other whatsoever and higher advanced then the sense of Laick or Secular will beare To Princes an assistance of counsell is requisite in spirituall as in civill affaires but that that Counsaile ought to bee composed onely of persons Ecclesiasticall or that those persons ought to bee invested with all those Ensignes of Honour and Authority which our Bishops now claime as of divine right seemes not necessary Clergy-men are