before shewing that the Apostles had jurisdiction over Prophets Evangelists Presbyters and Deacons and I think will not be denied Then the Canons stiled Apostolical say Canon 38. let the Presbyters and Deacons do nothing without the knowledge or consent of the Bishop he is the man that is trusted with the Lords People and that must render an account of their Souls Ignatius Bishop of Antioch almost 30 years in the Apostles times agreeth fully with that Canon saying do nothing neither Presbyter nor Deacon without the Bishop neither let any thing seem orderly without his liking for it is unlawful and displeasing unto God And again without the Bishop let no man do any thing that pertaineth to the Church Ignat. ep 3. ad Magnes Ibid. ep 7. ad Smyrneos Cencil Ancyran can 13. Laodicens 56. Aralatens c. 19. Tolet. 1. c. 20. by which it plainly appears that in the purest times Bishops were both Pastors of the Churches and Governours of the Presbyters in every City that believed so long as they ruled well and were instead of the Apostles and as their Successors they had charge of ordaining others for the work of the Ministry and guiding the Keys with the advice and Consent of the Brethren and Church there Congregated § Christ being now ascended in triumph into Heaven the eleven Apostles returned from Mount Olivet unto Jerusalem where they continued with one accord in Prayer and Supplication with the Women and Mary the Mother of Jesus and with his Brethren and Peter standing up in the midst of the Disciples the number of Names together being about 120. moved that of these Men which had companied with them all the time that the Lord Jesus went in and out amongst them one might be ordained in the room of Judas to be a witness with them of his Resurrection and they appointed two Joseph called Barsabas who was surnamed Justus and Matthias And they prayed and said thou Lord which knowest the hearts of all men shew whether of these two thou hast chosen that he may take part of this Ministry and Apostleship from which Judas by transgression fell that he might go to his own place And they gave forth their lots and the lot fell upon Matthias and he was numbred with the eleven Apostles 1. Acts 12. c. It s observable that this being the first and most considerable action that the Apostles together with those Disciples who had given their Names to Christ did after his Ascension and before the Holy Ghost had been powered out upon them they did not go about it without taking the other Disciples which were Laicks into their Council and making them partakers of the Facts for when they had prayed they cast Lots The like the Apostles did when there grew a'murmuring for the neglect of the Grecian Widdows they called the Multitude of the Disciples directing them to look out seven men of honest report full of the Holy Ghost and Wisdome c. And the saying pleased the whole Multitude and they chose Steven and the rest whom they set before the Apostles who laid their hands on them 2. Acts 2.3.4.5.6 so that upon the whole matter the choice and election of those seven Deacons was committed by the whole Chorus of the Apostles unto the Multitude they had their concern their part to act in it Paul being in danger of being killed by the Jews at Jerusalem the Brethren having notice thereof brought him down to Caesarea and sent him forth to Tarsus 9. Acts. 30. News being brought to the Apostles and Brethren that were at Jerusalem of the Conversion of Cornelius when Peter came up to Hierusalen they that were of the Circumcision the Brethren there contended with him saying thou wentest in to men uncircumcised and didst eat with them 11. Acts 23. by which it is manifest that the Brethren the Church that then was at Jerusalem by their own right did impose a kind of necessity on Peter Prince of the Apostles and Pope of Rome in the esteem of Romanists to vindicate himself by rehearsing the whole matter and he as humbly without standing upon his Apostolical Dignity or Papal Authority did give the Body of the Church satisfaction and then had their approbation also by their saying then hath God also to the Gentiles granted repentance unto life v. 18. When Peter was miraculously delivered out of Prison by an Angel he came to the House of Mary where many were gathered together praying 12. Acts 12. and spake unto them saying go shew these things unto James president of the Church at Jerusalem and to the Brethren v. 17. and that ex aequo that the whole Body might sympathize and participate of the joy and might not be held in suspence between Hope and Fear In the Church at Antioch famous for Prophets and Teachers as they were ministring to the Lord and fasting the holy Ghost said to the whole Congregation seperate me Barnabas and Saul for the work whereunto I have called them and when they had fasted and prayed and laid their hands on them by the Elders they sent them away 13. Acts 1.2.3 Paul and Barnabas having been persecuted from Iconium returned to Antioch and having gathered the Church together they rehearsed all that God had done with them and how he had opened the door of faith unto the Gentiles 14. Acts 27.15 Acts 1. In the Church of Antioch there being a great dissention raised by certain men which came down from Judea concerning Circumcision with whom Paul and Barnabas had had no small disputation they determined that Paul and Barnabas and certain other of them should go up to Jerusalem unto the Apostles and Elders about this question where they were received of the Church and of the Apostles and Elders and they declared all things that God had done with them and after Peter had spoken all the Multitude kept silence and gave audience to Barnabas and Paul declaring it c. and it pleased the Apostles and Elders with the whole Church to send chosen men of their own Company to Antioch with Paul and Barnabas and wrote Letters by them the title of which Letters was the Apostles and Elders and Brethren send greeting unto the Brethren c. It seemed good to the Holy Ghost and unto us to lay upon you no greater Burthen than these necessary things c. when they came to Antioch and when they had gathered the Multitude together they delivered the Epistle and Judas and Silas being Prophets also themselves exhorted the Brethren and confirmed them 32. and afterwards were let go in peace from the Brethren unto the Apostles 33. and Paul chose Silas and departed being recommended by the Brethren unto the Grace of God 40. And the Brethren immediately sent away Paul and Silas by night unto Baeraea 17. Acts 10. And the Brethren sent away Paul to go as it were by Sea v. 14. and Paul took his leave of the Brethren 18. Acts 18. and when he had landed
been so extreamly and publickly mischievous God would not have suffered it Besides if Scandal shall not remain unpunishable in the Prince yet it shall in the Spiritual Man which is a Mischief of the same nature with the other For if Caesar shall abide the Censure of this or that froward Pope or Consistory what Judgment shall the Pope or Consistory abide If this Spiritual Supremacy rest in any one that one must be unpunishable for two Supreams are things incompatible And if this Supremacy rest in more than one is is very hardly consistent with Monarchy for the one or other must be transcendent § Without all contradiction it is a manifest violence to use the Power of excommunication be it what it will if any such thing there be at all granted by Christ contrary to his own Institution and towards him that hath Power and unjustly useth the same the remedy is to have recourse to a Superior if he may but if there be no Superior to whom to have recourse God hath allowed no other remedy to a Prince thus offended but to make resistance with his own force opposing himself and force to force because it comes from God And the Civil Being of every Common-wealth or Kingdom is to the end of his Glory And therefore a Prince cannot permit without a sin and offence that his own Liberty should be infringed which is the Civil Being of every Principality and there is no doubt but that negligence in defending it is a dangerous offence to God and most hainous if he voluntarily suffer it to be usurped and incroached upon § To obey therefore the Commandements of God Kings when accosted and assaulted by Excommunication Papal or Presbyterian may and ought to oppose themselves against the Authors of them that will take away the Power which God hath given them to make Laws both Civil and Ecclesiastical and with Justice to defend themselves and their injured Subjects in their Lives Honours Goods and Religion And as the Innocent by an error in facto unjustly excommunicated to avoid scandal is bound patiently to endure So when the Error is in Jure and the manifest injustice thereof is apparent to avoid scandal likewise the Prince is bound to resist and oppose himself against the Injury Because there is no doubt but that such unjust Censures are against Magistracy it self and therefore when it shall be known to other Kingdoms that such a Prince or State for fear of unjust Censures and those invalid hath yielded unto violence whereof there are Examples not a few and omitted to exercise and execute his Natural Power they would be exceedingly scandalized thereat as also the Subjects that should discover such a vain fear they would become very perverse And therefore for this cause also it is both equal and necessary for the Prince to make due resistance for such no doubt or more weighty Reasons have our Kings and Queens defended themselves and their Subjects against all such Thunderbolts and so did the Venetians against Paul the Fifth who without any colour of reason excommunicated them being not a few Millions of Men The like have the Emperors and Kings of England and of France done and they had Authority so to do by their great Charter from Heaven The Church both Laity and Clergy but especially the Clergy ought to pacifie their Minds and Consciences attending the Service of God under the protection of their Princes constantly believing that the Holy Ghost was promised and given to all the Faithful both Laity and Clergy amongst whom Christ himself is present when they are congregated in his Name and that none can justly be excluded out of the Holy Catholick Church except by their own sins they be first excluded out of the favour of God and that the obedience which God commands us to perform to our Ecclesiastical Superiors is not a foolish or ridiculous Subjection nor the Power of Pope or Presbyters an Arbitrary Judgment but both the one and the other must be ruled by the Law of God who Deut. 17.10 11 12. ordained not an absolute obedience to the Priest but a prescribed observance according to the Law-Divine Facies quaecunque dixerint qui praesunt loco quem eligerit Jehovah docuerint te juxta Legem ejus It is the Word of God only not of Men in the Priests Mouths that me must obey God only is an Infallible Rule to whom only we must profess and yield obedience without all exception He that generally professeth this towards others without the Commandments of God as the Papists do sinneth and whosoever supposeth any Humane Will to be infallible as the Papists do committeth great Blasphemy in ascribing to the Creature a Property only Divine We have an Example hereof in the Acts when the Ancient Church expostulated and contended with Peter himself about the Vocation of the Gentiles he did not thunder against them with hideous and abominable Excommunications nor use menacing Language nor went about to silence them but he taught and perswaded them by Reason and Authority of Divine Revelations and the Words of our Saviour The very same Peter commanded the Elders to feed the Flock of God taking the over-sight thereof not by constraint but willingly not for filthy Lucre for Cardinalisme or Nepotisme sake but of a ready mind neither as being Lords over Gods Heritage but being Examples to the Flock 1 Pet. 5.2 3. by which it is evident that Priests must not domineer nor command with Empire but with Holy Deportment and Instructions of Piety for that they have no Dominion of our Faith but are or should be Helpers of our Joy 2 Cor. 1.24 The very same St. Peter when he erred in Antioch St. Paul did not forbear boldly to reprehend him in the presence of all Men Gal. 2.11 St. Paul's superexcellency above any thing that we can pretend unto was no Warrant for him to oppose himself against one whom it was not lawful to resist Who more humble or gave greater acknowledgement of his due Reverence to the High Priest than Paul did In this questionless Paul did no more than what the least of us may do with due Reverence to his Holiness Quaecunque scripta sunt ad nostram Doctrinam scripta sunt Rom. 15.4 the Holy Ghost would never have written this History but for our Example to the end we might imitate it And we see that all the Popish Doctors in discussing how any one may oppose himself to the Pope when he erreth and governs unworthily they have recourse to this Example Let no Man therefore be troubled depending only on the Authority of a Pope for that according to their own Doctors not one but two Keys were given to Peter and to the rest of the Apostles and if they be not both used together the effect of Loosing and Binding doth not ensue the one being of Power the other of Knowledge and Discretion Christ never gave Power to be used without due Knowledge and Circumspection
when differences about Doctrine and Worship have been broached and disorders in Church and State have ensued § About the year 1548. Paul 3. when the Emperor Charles the 5th had by â—is own Authority Published a Reformation of the Clergy which contained about 130 Precepts so just and Equitable that scarce any former Reformation was more exact or less partial without Subtilties or Snares to inâ—rap the unadvised and which might have been acceptable to Rome her self except in a point or two but being made by the Emperor it seemed more insupportable than the Interim which Rome could by no means indure it being a fundamental maxime of that Court that the Seculars of what degree or honesty soever cannot give Laws to the Clergy tho to a good end and because the Pope and his Conclave were not able to endure such an affront or Tyranny as they called it nor yet able to resist it he presently so for humbled himself to Heresie as that he quickly dispatch't Nuncio after Nuncio into Germany first the Bishop of Fano and then the Bishop of Verona and Terentino for his Nuncij with a Bull of large Faculties and Pâ—â—â—â—rs dated the last of August to Pardon and Embrace all to remit some things of the old Discipline giving them faculty fully to absolve in both Courts all secular Persons tho Kings or Princes Regulars Câ—llâ—â—ges and Communities from all Excommunications and Censures even from Temporal Punishments incurred for matter of Heresie tho relapsed 〈◊〉 to diâ—â—ence with Irregularities in what case soever even for Bigamy to restore them to Fame Honour and Dignity to remit every abjuration and Penance due to absolve from Oaths and Homages made and Perjuries committed and to absolve the Regulars from Apostacy giving them Power to wear the Regular Habit under the Habit of a Secular Priest to give leave to every Person tho Ecclesiastick to eat flesh and forbidden Meats in Lent and fasting dayâ—s to moderate the number of Feasts to grant the use of the Chalice indeed any thing rather than to approve of a Reformation made by the Emperor or any Secular Prince tho never so Potent and conducing to the saving of Souls To descant upon the Absurdities and Contradictions of this Bull in taking upon him to restore Kings and Princes to Honours Fame and Dignity to absolve from unlawful Oaths which need none and from just Oaths which no Man can obsolve to absolve the Friars which forsook their Cloysters to wear the Habit covered as if the Kingdom of God did consist in a Colâ—â—r or vestment which not being worn in shew yet it was necessary to have it in secret is not to my purpose but it is observable and remarkable to shew that if Rome her self that proud Imperious Usurper of Powers Omnipotent could so far humble her self even to her Hereticks and Heresies as to dispence with so much of her old Discipline and to grant such Liberties to them rather than to admit of a Reformation made by a Secular Prince may it not suffice England and be Honourable just and becoming her Protestant self to Reform things which are a shame to the Church and a scandal to the People and that having Power over the Goods and Lives of Nonconformists and of Dissenters Hereticks Schismaticks Separatists names not justly applycable either to them or to their Opposites each equally differing one from the other but neither one from the other in Doctrines fundamental but in things indifferent and Ceremonial only which neither Conformists nor yet Non conformists can Infallibly know who Infallibly hath or hath not the truth on their side and therefore ought to bear with each other the stronger with the Infirmities of the weaker not accounting and reviling each other as Enemies but admonishing each other as Brethren those Ignominious separating terms of Schismaticks Separatists c. more properly belonging to Papists who err not in Ceremonials Circumstantials and Superstructures only but in Doctrines Fundamental and therefore may justly separate from such to let them make publick Profession of the same Gospel the same Religion with the Church of England to avoid suspicion by Private Conventicles or Assemblies and to suffer their Consciences to be free and to belong to God and themselves only who desire only to save Souls the most precious thing that ever God Created § About the year 1559. the Duke of Savoy sent one expresly to desire Pope Pius the 4th that by his favour he might make a Colloquy of Religion within his own Dominions to instruct his People of the Vallies who were generally Alienated from the Old Religion of Rome these were a part of those Waldenses who 400 years before forsook the Church of Rome and in regard of their persecutions fled into Polonia Germany Puglia Provence and some of them into the Valleys of Montesenis Lâ—cernia Angrovia Perosa and St. Martin but the Pope answered that he would by no means consent thereunto but offered to send a Legate with Divines to instruct and Authority to absolve his Subjects when Converted yet said withal that he had little hope to Convert them because the Hereticks were obstinate and whatsoever is done to exhort them to acknowledge their fault they expound to be a want of force to Compel them that it cannot be remembred that any good was ever done by moderation and that experience hath taught that the sooner Justice is used and force of Arms when the other is not sufficient so much the better the Success is and if he would proceed to Arms he would send him assistance Your Servant Sir Ghostly Council I wot more becoming a Wolf or an Hireling than a good Shepherd and it is a shrewd sign that he never entred into Christs Sheepfold by the Door which is Christ but climbed up some other way to Steal and to Kill and to Destroy 10 of John 1.10 But the Duke not liking at all the sending of a Legate because it would have provoked his Subjects the more and forced him to have proceeded according to the Interests of others thinking it better to take Arms which the Pope Commended more and promised Assistance wherefore the Duke resolving to make them receive the Catholick Religion rectius Heresy he caused many to be Burned and to be put to death by other means and to be condemned to the Gallies being more especially instigated thereunto by Inquisitor Thomaso Jacamello a Dominican Fryer which strange Persecution forced them * Here note that in the Church of Rome the Popes were the first Preachers of Force and Violence and that St. Dominick was one of the first that Preached the Doctrine of Death and Tortures for Opinions in Religion he was the Founder of the begging Orders of Friers Preachers and therefore in honour of him the Inquisition is intrusted only to the Friers of his Order And if their own Legends speak truth his own Mother the Night before he was born Dreamed that she was brought to Bed of a great
obey them that have the Rule over you and submit your selves for they watch for your Souls c. Not considering that the word Rulers in St. Paul's dialect doth signifie Feeders and Leaders which be the two signs and duties of good Shepards And yet we do not deny but that the Messengers and dispencers of God's Mysteries by Preaching the word Administring the Sacraments and Rights useing the Keys have their Internal and Spiritual Regiment over the Souls as well of Princes as of others But be it that St. Paul saith so altho in truth there 's a great disserence between posuit vos Episcopos and posuit Episcopos between he hath made you Overseers and hath made Overseers And what are these Overseers or Bishops commissionated to do Nothing but to feed the Flock of Christ But be it as they would have it yet nothing can possibly be concluded out of this place that the Pope is above Princes or above the Church any otherwise than any other Bishop is which position is Heresie at Rome But from hence we may conclude that all Bishops have their Authority immediately from God which happily will be as little acceptable at Rome as the other § That place also of Hebr. 13.17 is not meant of the Pope in special but of Bishops in General yea and of all Pastors and Curates also so that it makes nothing for the Pope in particular so far forth as those that are set over our Souls and do truly watch for the good of our Souls by speaking unto us the word of God so far we are to submit to both Pope and Presbyter but no manner of colour to conclude from hence the Pope to be above all Temporal Princes The word here also signifies Leaders as well as Rulers and is to be understood so here for it follows v. 7. Remember them which have the Rule over you who have spoken unto you the word of God whose Faith follow considering the end of their Conversation If we must mark and imitate them then surely they must be Leaders to direct us and not Rulers to Tyrannize over us But whether the word signifies Leaders or Rulers it advantages the Pope and Cardinals nâ—â—hing at all for that they are not thereby meant but all that be Christians and Godly Preachers And the obedience here required is no Corporal subjection to their persons but an inward likeing and embracing of their Doctrine And whom they call Rulers here St. Paul 2 Cor. 4.5 maketh Servants we Preach not our selves but Christ Jesus to be Lord and our selves your Servants And 2 Cor. 1.24 Not that we have Dominion or Rule over your Faith but we are helpers of your Joy And Christ's charge was Mark 10.42 43. and Luke 22.25 The Kings of the Gentiles exercise Lordship over them but so it shall not be among you c. And Christ himself was amongst them as he that doth serve Their very function then is to Serve not to Rule their Brethren to feed not to domineer or Tyrannize over the Flock of Christ say or write what or who can or will they will hold the conclusion with Bellarmine that the Pope as Supream Prince Spiritual may change Kingdoms take them from one and give them to another when he shall think it necessary for the Salvation of Souls § Should I dig and rake deeper into the Sink and Pit of Romish rubbish and Errors I should but find it bottomless full of Lyes and Errors backt with Impudency and Obstinacy maugre all that can be said against them and therefore will draw towards an end and conclude from what hath been already written and from what sollows viz. That the Popes of Rome together with their Principles and Doctrines Practices and Trinckets Dâ— Row Pâ—nt Lib. 5. â— 6.7 8 John 8.44 are the silthy spawn and product of their Father the Devil and the Lusts of their Father the Devil they do He was a Murderer from the beginning and so are they both in Practices Principles and Doctrines witness the Inquisition the Popes Slaughter-house their being often drunk with the blood of Saints not sparing Kings nor Emperors no nor yet men more righteous than themselves and that by Mariana his quacunque arte which could proceed from no one that was not Spirited by the Devil and abode not in the truth because there was no truth in him no more have they John 8.24 having erred from the Faith first delivered to the Saints and forsaken the right way and gone astray witness their whole Scheme of false Doctrines their Twelve new Articles of Faith and other false Doctrines of that packt Conventicle at Trent and those Twelve Blasphemous Articles of Jo. Baptista * Mat the end of the book Poza a Spanish Jesuit his Creed and the New-Politick-Gospel-Light of Cardinal Palavicini in his History of the Council of Trent Collected by one of their own Communion their Jesuits Morals c. when he speaketh a Lye he speaketh of his own he is a Lyar and the Father of it Rome a la mode they are his spawn and Children and do his works witness their cheating Auricular Confession foolishly called Sacramental there being nothing of a Sacrament in it the Pick-lock of all the secret Councils of all the Kingdoms of the World holding out that Regicides and the greatest sinners of the World shall go plum to Heaven if but Confest and Absolved tho but in Articulo Mortis by their Priests their own Complices and Confederates in the same Crimes witness also their lying Legends their * Vile Mr. 〈…〉 Forgeries Forgeries their false cheating Miracles their coyning contrary Creeds in the dayes of Constantine and Constantius their raking out the Bowels and intrails of Old Authors Fathers and Councils their Doctrines of Equivocation of Infallibility and Probability their Clementines Extravagants and Decretals for if they were of God they would hear his Word and therefore they hear them not because they are not of God v. 47. for it is impossible that such monstrous horrid Principles and Doctrines such abominable impostures should proceed from any other Spirits but from the Spirits of unclean Devils Lâ—ke 4.33 for had they been born of God his Seed would have remained in them which would have preserved them from those Legions of Diabolical Principles and Practices they now stand indicted and are found guilty of To these great truths bears farther Testimony their own hand writing of Ordinances against themselves even their own Authors and Councils Witness not only their allowance for Fornication non obstante Gods own command to abstain from Fornication 1 Thesâ— 4.3 Acts 15.21 Ch. 21.4.25 nay not only barely to abstain but to Flee from it â— Cor. 6.8 non obsbante the Apostle imputed it as a great sin to the Corinthians that there was Fornication amongst them 1 Cor. 1.5 and non obstante it be expresly declared by the Apostles that the Body was not for Fornication 1 Cor. 6.18 but for the
Civil Magistrate to be Custos utriusque tabulae unless be meant by Keeper the Defender only And averrs That it is a false and deceivable Maxime not to be defended or maintained by any Proof or Argument which hath not in that his Treatise been first or last refuted Therein also averring That there can be no place left for the Magistrate or his Force in the settlement of Religion by appointing either what we shall believe in divine or practice in religious things And that to compel but outward Profession is to compel Hypocrisie not to advance Religion And that Christian Liberty sets us free not only from the Bondage of Ceremonies but also from the forcible Imposition of Circumstances of Place and Time in the Worship of God though imposed with a confident perswasion of morality in them which he holds to be impossible in Place and Time And that the settlement of Religion belongs only to each particular Church by perswasive and spiritual means within it self And that the defence of things religious setled in the Churches within themselves and the repressing of their Contraries determinable by the common light of Nature only belongs to the Magistrate All which he endeavours to make good by four Spiritual Reasons as he calls them as on a firm square 1st That Protestants have no other Divine Rule or Authority from without them warrantable to one another as a common ground but the Scripture and no other within them but the illumination of the Spirit so interpreting that Scripture as warrantable only to our selves and to such whose Consciences we can so perswade can have no other ground in matter of Religion but only from the Scriptures And these being not possible to be understood without the Divine Illumination which no man can know at all times to be in himself much less to be at any time for certain in any other it must follow That no Man or Body of Men can be the infallible Judges or Determiners in matters of Religion to any other Mens Consciences but their own f. 6. Wherefore if we count it a crime for Papists to believe only as the Church believes how much greater crime will it be for a Protestant to believe as the State believes And it being the general consent of all Protestant Writers That neither Traditions nor Councils nor Canons of any visible Church much less any Edicts of any Magistrate or Civil Session but the Scripture only can be the sinal Judge or Rule in matters of Religion f. 7. and that only in the Conscience of every Christian to himself which Protestation made by the first publick Reformers of our Religion against the Imperial Edicts of Charles the 5th imposing Church-Traditions without Scripture gave first beginning to the Name of Protestant And therefore the Conscience not being the Magistrates Province he ought not to force or impose because he hath no right to judge and yet when he comes to the Toleration of Popery he seems to be of another mind averring § But as for Popery and Idolatry why they also may not hence plead to be tolerated I have much less to say For that their Religion the more considered the less can be acknowledged a Religion but a Roman Principality rather he might have said an entire Apostacy from the Apostolick Faith endeavouring to keep up her old universal Dominion under a new Name and meer Shadow of Catholick Religion being more rightly named a Catholick Heresie against the Scripture supported mainly by a Civil and except in Rome by a Forreign Power Justly therefore to be suspected not tolerated by the Magistrate of another Country besides of an implicit Faith which they profess the Conscience also becomes implicit and so by voluntary servitude to Mans Law doth forfeit her Christian Liberty who then can plead for such a Conscience as being implicitly enthralled to Man in stead of God almost becomes no Conscience as the Will not free becomes no Will Nevertheless if they ought not to be tolerated it is for just reason of State more than of Religion which they who force though professing to be Protestants deserve as little to be tolerated themselves being no less guilty of Popery in the most Popish Point And for Idolatry who knows it not to be evident against all Scripture Old and New and therefore a true Heresie or rather Impiety wherein a right Conscience can have nought to do and the work thereof so manifest that a Magistrate can hardly err in prohibiting and quite removing at least the publick and scandalous use thereof The Second Scriptural Reason is If we should grant the Civil Magistrate were able to judge in those things yet as a Civil Magistrate he hath no right because Christ hath a Government of his own sufficient of it self to all its ends and purposes in governing his Church and is much different from that of the Civil Magistrate 1st Because it deals only with the Inward Man and his Actions which are all Spiritual and to outward force not liable 2dly To shew us the Divine Excellency of his Spiritual Kingdom able without worldly force to subdue all the Powers and Kingdoms of this World which are upheld by outward force only That the Inward Man is nothing else but the Inward part of Man his Understanding and his Will and that his Actions thence proceeding yet not simply thence but from the Work of Divine Grace upon them are the whole matter of Religion under the Gospel The Third Scriptural Reason is from the wrong the Civil Power doth with its Force or Imposition by violating the Fundamental Priviledge of the Gospel the new birth-right of every true Believers Christian Liberty The Fourth Scriptural Reason is from the consideration of all those ends which the Magistrate can pretend to the interposing of his force therein which can hardly be other than 1st The Glory of God 2dly The Spiritual good of them whom he forceth or 3dly The Temporal punishment of their scandal to others § Mr. P. N. in his Treatise of the same Subject P. N. his Opinion P. 22. with the other of J. M. is far more ingenious herein not only asserting the Supremacy and Authority of all Kings and Civil Magistrates in general over all persons and things Ecclesiastical both by Scripture Reason and Authentick Authors but also of our Kings in particular most pertinently and particularly out of our own Municipal Laws and Constitutions to boot He doth therein also as strongly assert Independency which rightly stated and rightly understood is without doubt the Tenent and Practice of our Church both by Scripture and by the Opinion of sound Judicious and Orthodox Divines very great Friends unto and Contenders for Episcopacy as Bishop Bilson Dr. Jackson Mr. Hooker and others But the Independency of Churches which these Men and others as Orthodox as themselves plead for is not altogether the same with that which P. N. and other his Associates do contend for These Men maintain that
an Unity of Discipline or Coactive Laws full power of Jurisdiction or Independant Judicature is not seated in any one Church or Person Pope or other to whom all other Churches and Persons must vail Bonnet and submit but the same power is in each of those Churches and this they maintain against the Romanists the English Priests and Jesuits who do not only hold this Unity of Independent Judicature to be necessary to the Constitution of the Visible Catholick Church but that of necessity it must be radically in one person to wit the Pope on whom as upon the Head and Fountain the unity of the Holy Catholick visible Church doth depend and for this reason they put his Holiness into the definition of the Holy Catholick Church and contrary to this the Protestant Divines do maintain That the Church of England and all other National Churches have a Discipline of Government and Judicature within themselves Independent of any other Person Church or Power And this is the Drift and Scope both of Bishop Bilson Dr. Jackson and others in their several Treatises § That which P. N. contends for in the Congregational termed also the Independant way is this viz. That those who are called out of the World by the Ministry of the Gospel have power given them by Christ being a competent Number to gather themselves together in his Name and judge their Warrant to be from 18. Mat. And a Church so gathered becomes a Body or Spiritual Corporation and being joyned thus by mutual Assent of each Person have power one over another as in all Fraternities and liberty from Christ to choose their Officers censure Offenders make Canons and Orders in circumstantials for regulating their Affairs And they further say as the Church-Catholick in general so each parcel of it each particular Church hath Christ also for its Head and in such a union with him and such existence in him even as a Church 1 Thes 11. as that if Persons making up this Body be considered distinctly and as incorporated one with another only and not in their relation to Christ also as one with them and chief in the midst of them 18. Mat. 20. Where two or three are gathered together in my Name there am I in the midst of them they are not a compleat Body or Spiritual Politie And upon this account it is they profess their dependency to be upon Christ alone for the government and manage of this his Kingdom and thus being dependent upon Christ their only Law-giver 4. Ja. 12. Who is the wisdom of the Father and best knoweth how to govern his own House they profess themselves Independent in respect to the Authority or Sovereignty of any other Person Church Synod or meer Ecclesiastical Power whatsoever yet notwithstanding they own and submit to Magistrates in Matters and Causes both Ecclesiastical and Civil as an Ordinance of God and so far as God hath given the Civil Magistrate Authority to command and require But finding in the Books of God that there are some things of so misterious and of so Spiritual a Nature and peculiar to holy Worship that Christ hath reserved the sole Menage thereof to be ordered by himself as expressed in his Word and no otherwise Now although the Magistrate may and ought to require of his Subjects due obedience to such duties yet ought he not by any Laws or Statutes that he shall enact in this kind either add alter or diminish any thing Christ hath established either in the substance or necessary circumstance thereof and if he shall so do the Churches are required of the Lord the one Law giver who is able to save and to destroy 4. James 12. not to be subject 2 Colos 20. And it is a sin for them through fear of Man or the like temptation to observe and keep such Statutes and for this they bring 6. Mich. 16. For the Statutes of Omri are kept and all the works of the House of Ahab and ye walk in their Councils c. And in this sense only they profess themselves subject to the Civil Magistrates supremacy in Ecclesiastical Affairs and go no further and in this also reserve to themselves the sole judgment of what matters are thus meerly spiritual and appertaining to the Worship of God So that if the Christian Magistrate shall out of a good intention appoint Ceremonies or such like helps for the stirring up our dull minds and to make the Worship of God more edifying or shall appoint a day to be observed as sacred in the Remembrance of the Birth or Resurrection of Christ or to the Honour of the blessed Virgin or holy Apostles if the Magistrate for better government of the Church establish Arch-bishops Bishops Chancellors c. or any Officers that are not appointed by Christ himself they will by no means submit but choose rather to suffer which they term Passive Obedience Thus far P. N. from his own Mouth and under his own Hand to me verbatim § But those Reverend Authors Bilson and others considering the Civil Magistrate is highly responsable being appointed by the Lord as Custos utriusque tabulae if any matters of impiety in respect of God as well as unrighteousness in respect to Men be permitted or countenanced by him therefore he is to see to it that his People be not seduced into Errors Heresies or hurtful Opinions tending to prophaness and disloyalty And God having trusted him with Authority in these things it must of necessity also belong to him to judge what Crimes fall within his Province and Cognizance and accordingly to apply himself as the Minister of God for incouragement to those that are good and to execute wrath upon them that do evil And not to be looked upon as only a by-stander Impedimenta removere as P. N. would have him or to execute only what the Ecclesiasticks have decreed by their Censures or in their Synodals as some others though the Name of Independent was not then in common use § Others as Mr. John Robinson in his Apology in Justification of the same Tenets endeavours to prove the same averring That by Intendment of the Scriptures speaking definitely of visible Ministerial Churches no other is to be understood ordinarily at least than one Congregation met together in one place in such competent numbers as that they may all hear and understand one another 18. Mat. 17 20. If he neglect to hear them tell it unto the Church for where two or three are gathered together in my Name there am I in the midst of them And when you are gathered together and my Spirit with the power of the Lord Jesus Christ 1 Cor. 5.4 All that believed were together and had all things common 2. Acts 44. And they were all with one accord in Solomons Porch 5. Acts 12. Then the Twelve called the Multitude of the Disciples unto them c. and the saying pleased the whole Multitude 6. Acts 2 5. When ye come together therefore into
We find no evil in this Man but if a Spirit or Angel hath spoken unto him let us not fight against God 23. Acts 9. This they did not out of true love to Paul or to the Truth he taught but from love of themselves their Party and their Opinions and from jealous impatiency of contradiction in publick by an Inferiour Sect so when Christ had fully satisfied a curious question captiously proposed by the Sadduces by proving the Resurrection out of Moses saying I am the God of Abraham of Isaack and of Jacob certain of them answered Master thou hast well said 20. Luke 39. Though the Pharises were well pleased of his Probat of the Resurrection against the Sadduces yet for all that they could judge him to death for avouching himself to be the great Judge of those that were raised from the dead whereby it appears that both their approbation and condemnation of our Saviour in these particulars did issue out of one and the same corrupt and monstrous Fountain that could send forth sweet water and bitter 3. James 11. viz. from love of their Party love of Authority over the People and applause of Men from a stubborn opiniative and envious desire to excel their opposites and not to be excelled by any so when John came neither eating nor drinking yet they say he hath a Devil and when the Son of Man came both eating and drinking then Behold a Man gluttonous and a Wine-bibber a friend of Publicans and Sinners 11. Mat. 18 19. The Devils and unclean Spirits in this kind were in some measure more ingenious than the Jews for when Christ had disobliged them by casting them out as soon as they saw him they fell down before him and cryed Thou art the Son of God 3. Mark 10. But the Scribes which came down from Jerusalem said he hath Belzabub and by the Prince of the Devils casteth he out Devils 21. Acts 22. So the Jews were pleased neither full nor fasting Thus can perverse Spirits and Wits turn and wind any thing never so innocently and plainly spoken or written unto a different or contrary sence The same Spirit of Contention and way-ward emulation reigns at this day through Christendome and rageth oft-times no less in defence of good Causes than of bad and makes many to concur with Schismatical or false Opinions in transforming particular places of Scripture which makes for private desires or designs as factious opposition to the Sadduces did the Pharises to consent unto our Saviour and unto St. Paul in the Points mentioned § The Monks Friars and Jesuits like the Pharises are rare Sophisters can handy dandy shuffle and cut Texts of Scripture with most admirable dexterity Their impertinent Collections to prove Purgatory from such places of Scripture as have no other semblance with it save only that they mention Metaphorical Fire would make an impartial Reader call to mind the Fable of the Apes or Monkies who espying Glow-worms in the night gathered sticks and blowed themselves breathless to make them burn Would not Impudence it self blush and Stupidity tremble at the senseless collections and deduction of these Men. As the Papists and among them the Jesuits more especially have no parallel except the Jews in this kind so in other main Points of their Religion as concerning the Infallibility of the Pope Transubstantiation the Authority of the Church the real Presence their Prayers in an unknown Tongue and the like they do not go so much beyond others as besides themselves The extream desire they have that Sacred Authority should countenance and abet their profitable Tenents makes them wrest and transform Places of Scripture beyond all Construction whereby they do not manifest the Truth but the poyson of their Doctrines and their Zeal and earnestness herein to be a Spice or Symptome of Spiritual madness or Phanaticisme Musing and dreaming are of near alliance He that thinks of nothing but of confirming his own conclusions or apprehensions will quickly perswade himself that the Word of God speaks just so As the Fool thinketh so the Bell clinketh the superstitious Phisiognomer and Palmister are not without their Scripture 13. Ex. 9. And it shall be a sign unto thee upon thy hand and for a memorial between thine eyes c. and that in 37. Job 7. he sealeth up the hand of every Man that all Men may know his Work What is this else but to make deformed Pictures of beautiful Colours or senseless and ridiculous Inferences out of Divine and Supernatural Antecedents or of plain Texts of Scripture Except we do strictly compare the Marginal Quotations of some Jesuitical Anabaptistical Quaking and Schismatical discourses with the Texts and both with the Conclusions intended by the Author one would hardly believe it possible for some Men to speak or write nothing but Gospel-language and yet to speak or write scarce a true or wise or pertinent word to the purpose Desire of Victory and to excel others is a Disease hardly cured in any Men Sects or Parties and oft-times work most indefatigably where it works most secretly Gods Gifts of Wit Learning and Judgment some can admire and magnifie in others and acknowledge them to be above their own yet will they not in conclusion be perswaded that any Men not of their own Sect or Opinion have so pure and clear a Beam of Light as themselves or know so much of Gods Eternal Will and Purposes as they do and it is no marvel that such who for expounding greatest Mysteries have betaken themselves wholly to the Spirit or to the Labours of Men whom they presume to be throughly sanctified i. e. that are free of their Brotherhood and Corporation only or at least served a compleat Apprentiship to their supposed Spirit But the wisest oft miscarry in their Projects and so do these by taking wrong measures in that they think there is no direct way to Grace but by undervaluing helps of Art or gifts of Nature of this misconceit the Quakers the Enthusiasts the Phanaticks are most guilty The first and immediate Issue of this Perswasion is that every action which is not warranted by some express Rule of Scripture apprehended by Grace is not of Faith and being not of Faith it must be a sin so that these two Propositions 1. All Actions warranted by the express Word of God must needs be lawful 2. All lawful Actions must needs be warranted by the express Word of God differ no more in their Logical and Grammatical sence than house-keeping and keeping house do in common understanding utitur Diabolus Testimoniis Scripturarum non ut doceat sed ut fallat S. Ambrose That admonition of St. Paul to the Philip. 2.3 concerns these times as much as those wherein he wrote and the Maintainers of true Religion most of all and it were most happy for Christianity if all Christians could in good earnest embrace it Let nothing be done through strife or vain glory but in lowliness of mind let
the Members of the holy Church Triumphant or Militant nor yet consists only of them or of men internally though ineffectually called but of them and of others called only vocatione merè externa by vocation meerly external Thus the several societies of Christian men unto every one of which the name of Church is rightfully attributed as the Church of Rome France Spain England and as of old the seven Churches of Asia which certainly hold a nearer resemblance unto National or Provincial Churches than unto the Gathered Congregations for most certainly each of these had certain particular Congregations under them as London hath must be endued with correspondent general properties and powers belonging of right unto them as they are publick Christian Societies And all the powers given by Christ to the Churches Militant or to visible Ministerial Churches are most properly attributed to such Churches and not to those where two or three or some few only in respect of the whole are gathered and such are our Independent Churches here in respect of the Church of England and such like are our several Parishes which more properly and strictly ought to be accounted of as Members or Homogeneal parts of the Church of England than so many several Churches endued with such powers though in common discourses we may allow them the title or appellation of Churches yet in discourses of this nature being disputative they ought to be distinguished § Unto the Attributes or Prerogatives attributed to the Church in the Apostles or Nicene Creed or unto the Promises annexed unto it in the Scriptures the Visible Ministerial Churches have no claim or title save only in reversion or reflection or in expectancy i. e. the Mystical Body of Christ is only instated in the Blessings Prerogatives and Promises made unto the Church yet from this Body or rather from Christ the Head of this Body both Blessings and Powers do immediately and successively like the precious ointment upon the head that ran down upon the beard even Aarons beard that went down to the skirts of his Garments descend though in different Measures unto the several Members of it as unto National Churches more and greater Powers and unto the several Congregations thereof Blessings and Powers though not in the same measure and fullness and indeed by Analogie and Participation unto all and every one that hath put on Christ by profession Thus we are to conceive of the Catholick Church as of one entire Body made up by the Collection and aggregation of all the faithful unto the unity thereof from which union there ariseth unto every one of them such a relation unto and such a dependance upon the Church Catholick as parts use to have in respect of the whole whereupon it followeth that neither particular persons nor particular Churches are to work as several divided Bodies by themselves which is the ground of all Schism but to teach and to be taught and to do all other Christian duties as parts conjoyned unto the whole and Members of the same Common-wealth or Corporation and therefore the Bishops of the Antient Church though they had the government of particular Congregations only committed unto them yet in regard of this Communion which they had with the universal did usually take to themselves the title of Bishops of the Catholick Church which maketh strongly as well against the new Separatists as the old Donatists who either hold it a thing not much material so they profess the Faith of Christ whether they do it in the Catholick Communion or out of it or else which is worse dote so much upon the perfection of their own Party that they refuse to joyn in fellowship with the rest of the body of Christians as if they themselves were the only people of God and all wisdom must live and die with them and their Generation § To prosecute their own simile of Fraternities or Corporations whereby they claim a power over one another by consent or agreement Be it that every Church exceeds an ordinary Assembly or Multitude in that it is a Society of Men incorporated and every Corporation or Society corporate supposeth an unity more than meerly local between the Members thereof an Union by Laws and Statutes or else they were no more significant than so many men meeting at a Play or Whitsun-Ale quod non est aliquid formatum non est aliquid vere unum that which hath no set form or fashion can have no true real unity for it is the form of every thing which giveth it a distinct entity or unity Hence it is that though all men are mortal yet Corporations consisting of such mortal men are yet accounted immortal because their Laws and Ordinances is the life the soul and spirit of every Corporation or Body Civil every Church in what usual sense soever it be taken is a Society or Body Politick though every Society or Body Politick is not a Church And that which differenceth the Church properly so called from a Society or Body meerly Civil is the diversity of Laws and Ordinances and the different manner of union between the Members All this is to fortifie and to make plain their simile and which they will not gainsay Yet withal I shall commit to their consideration that there are no Corporations in England nor in any well governed Commonwealth without a proper Charter from the Crown and Laws of the Kingdom to authorize them to be a Corporation and to make By-laws as they call them or to have power one over another So none of them are independent of the publick Laws of the Kingdom or Nation whereof they are Subjects or have any authority to form or establish themselves by any power of their own but by what is derivative from some other power paramount So also there is no Parish in England nor any Company of Christians that have power of themselves so to confederat or congregat into a Church such a Church as hath all the Powers and Attributes wherewith a National Church is endowed and to meet as an Independent Congregation to make Laws choose Officers censure Offenders make Canons and Orders in circumstantials without authority first obtained from the supreme Powers legislative or without any Supervisors or Superintendents or Laws over them if every particle of the Church hath this power derived unto it from Christ then certainly the same cannot be denied to a whole National Church and whether be more just or equal that a part should govern the whole or the whole the parts judg ye Power to meet to fast and pray to break bread and administer Sacraments which renders them capable of the appellation of a Church cannot reasonably and ordinarily be denied unto them yet this doth no way qualifie them to be Independent The strength and virtue even of the Law of Nations is such that no particular Nation can lawfully prejudice the same by any their several Laws and Ordinances more than a single person by his
private resolutions can abrogate the Laws of a Nation wherein he lives For as Civil Law being the Act of a whol Body Politick doth therefore overrule each several part of the same Body so there is no reason that any one Common-wealth it self should to the prejudice of another annul that whereupon the whole world hath agreed Now as there is great cause of Communion and consequently of Laws for the maintenance of communion amongst Nations so amongst Nations Christian the like in regard even of Christianity hath been always adjudged needful And in this kind of correspondence amongst Nations the force of General Councils doth stand For as one and the same Law divine is unto all Christian Churches a rule for the chiefest things by means whereof they all in that respect make one Church as having all but one Lord and Lawgiver Christ one Faith one Baptism Jam. 4.12 Eph. 4.5 So th◠urgent necessities of mutual communion for propagation of the Gospel and for preservation of unity in these things as also for order in some other things convenient to be every where uniformily kept maketh it requisite that the Church of God here on earth have her Laws also of spiritual commerce between Christian Nations Laws by vertue whereof all Churches may enjoy freely the use of those reverend religious and sacred consultations which are termed Councils General a thing whereof Gods own blessed Spirit was the Author a thing practised by the holy Apostles themselves a thing always afterwards kept and observed throughout the world a thing never otherwise than highly esteemed of till pride ambition and tyranny began by factions and vile endeavours to abuse that divine Invention unto the furtherance of wicked purposes But as the just Authority of Civil Courts and Parliaments is not therefore to be abolished because sometimes there is cunning used to frame them according to the private intents and interests of men over-potent in the Common-wealth so the grievous abuse which hath been of Councils should rather cause men to study how so gracious a thing may again be reduced to the first perfection than in regard of the stains and blemishes sithence growing be held for ever in extreme disgrace What hath been here affirmed of the Laws of Nations in general and of General Councils to make the thing we treat of more evident and reasonable the same reasons are as applicable and adequate to all intents and purposes of every particular Kingdom and Government and runs parallel throughout all Laws both of Church and State made by every particulat Church and Nation and it cannot be otherwise without shaking and hazarding the very foundation of all peaceable and good Governments in the World For should it be in the power of any small or greater numbers less than the whol to confederat and avowedly to act contrary to publick established Sanctions either of Church or State what issue could be expected but abominable disorder and confusion and every man to do what seems best in his own eyes as once in Israel when there was no King for as the Civil Laws of every Nation so of England are made for the whole Kingdom primarily and to the particular Divisions and Fraternities secondarily and obedience is yielded unto them not as Eastern or as Western Northern or Southern men but as Subjects of the same Kingdom So the Laws of Christ are given to the whole Church primarily and yet they oblige every particular Church to the observation of them but not because in such a particular congregated Brotherhood but because Subjects of Christs visible ministerial Church I am verily perswaded that it cannot demonstratively be made appear by any that every congregated Church in the best and purest times after the days of the Apostles was a Plenipotentiary Church unto it self to all intents and purposes I must confess that they would very much have obliged us if they had at any time given us any one instance of such a Church but they having not yet done it I take it for granted that it is not to be done though if such an instance could be made yet the posture of Ecclesiastical persons and affairs being so much different now from what it was then may quite alter the case I must confess it cannot reasonably be imagined that it could then be otherwise because in those days all Kingdoms and Governments were so far from being friends to Christianity or Christian Churches that they were all Persecutors thereof and therefore not possible that there should be any National Churches and happily were none till the lays of Constantine the first Christian Emperor § Their Maxim or Position is this viz. 1. That they who are called out of the world by the ministry of the Gospel as all Christians are have power given them by Christ being a competent number to gather themselves together in his name 2. That a Church so gathered becomes a Body or spiritual Corporation and being joyned thus by mutual assent of each person have power one over another as in all Fraternities and liberty from Christ to choose their Officers censure Offenders make Canons and Orders in Circumstantials for the regulating of their affairs § Unto the first part of their Position I can so far subscribe that it is tru that where but two or three whether with or without a Priest are gathered together in Christs Name the presence of Christs Spirit is by promise annexed unto them Matth. 18.20 and the particular Assemblies of Christians were thereby intended and approved by Christ viz. to have communion in the publick exercise of holy duties mentioned Act. 2.42 46. viz. breaking of bread and prayer But that it doth describe or purport a mutual agreement which doth formally constitute them a Church Independent without any regard had to the National Church wherein they live is not so very clear the Text not warranting the same in the least if it do then every Family by the same Text might claim Independency § As unto the other part of the Position I can by no means submit without very great qualifications But if the second part of their Position be tru of every particular Assembly it must necessarily be much more tru of the whole or National Church for which they were primarily given and ordained and unto other Churches under the same Government but secondarily and subordinat Moreover consider the Original Commission for gathering of Churches Go teach all Nations and baptize them in the Name of the Father Son and Holy Ghost Matth. 28.19 which Commission was before the Church was cantonized into divisions and subdivisions by publick Authority or the Independent Congregational Fraternities set up by any particular men The distinction of Churches fell out naturally and necessarily as this or that City or Nation was here or there converted by some one or other of the Apostles and their Successors and so division of Churches came secondarily for convenient administration of Ordinances and communication of
or for any other sinister end or if their consultations should be managed by superior power or faction as not long since in that pack'd brib'd Conventicle at Trent Independently in their esteem made up of Titulars and Pentioners and Bishops they have no like interest in the former promise For any Church visible or representative whose Individuals are not so qualified the greater part whereof for number or more principal Authority may be Infideles aut Haeretici occulti Hereticks or Atheists in heart for though their persons and profession of their Faith may be to us mortals visible yet the sincerity of their hearts and faith is to us invisible And I can say Amen also to some part of the affirmative which follows viz. That we as well as they do profess our dependency also to be upon Christ alone for the government and management of this his Kingdom and thus being dependent upon Christ our only Lawgiver James 4.12 who is the wisdom of the Father and best knoweth how to govern his own house But I cannot from hence conclude them Independent as they do in respect to the Authority or Soveraignty of any other Person Church Synod or Power whatsoever there is modus in rebus difference between staring and stark mad between submitting to Superiors as if they were Lords and had dominion of our Faith and to our Superiors representative making wholsom Laws for order and good government only and those not exclusive our consent neither virtually at least Yet I say that this also may be true in some part as in Substantials though not in Circumstantials As if Authority should command the administration of the Eucharist which was instituted by Christ himself in the days of his flesh and is of so mysterious and so spiritual a nature that whosoever shall add or diminish from it will be in danger of the menace recorded Revel 12.18 19. in one kind only as our holy Father at Rome doth when as Christ commanded to be given and received in both kinds or should command service in an unknown tongue contrary to St. Pauls prescript 1 Cor. 10. such Canons such Commands may come within the verge of the Statutes of Omri indeed and consequently no obligation on any Church or Person to submit thereunto but this holds not in innocent Circumstantials Therefore to quote Mich. 6.16 to me seems very strange as if there were no difference between our Canons and the Statutes of Omri who did worse than all that were before him walking in all the ways of Jeroboam 1 King 16.25 26 who did sin and made Israel to sin 1 K. 14.16 as if no difference between his Priests who consecrated whoever would even the lowest of the People Priests of the high places and our Bishops and Priests Priests of the most high God as if no difference between Jeroboams Calves and our service but both must be alike Idolatrous this is hard But I forbear only the 6. of Mich. 16. will not warrant the Assertion as to us what ever it may do at Rome they must if they can bring better proofs the Text is not in the least applicable to our Discipline and Polity this is plainly to pervert Scripture and comes within the verge of the Paraenesis prescribed § Those famous Churches of Jerusalem of Ephesus Corinth Smirna c. were of old quasi National Churches or at least instead of them pro tempore for that then and in those days there were no National Churches no Kings or Common-wealth Nursing-Fathers of the Church so that when Religion was planted in chief Cities these Cities wherein no doubt were several Congregations were as it were the Mother and chief Churches and in all probability the minor Churches in the Suburbs and Villages next adjacent unto such Churches had more especially recourse for advice unto the next Metropolitan or more ample Church who had all the powers rightfully belonging to a Compleat Church But it cannot demonstratively be made out that every Parish or Congregation in those days was a Plenipotentiary Church to all intents and purposes and that they were Independent in their sense For instance in those famous Churches of Philadelphia Pergamus Thyatira Sardis Laodicea c. as Independent they cannot for that as each of those Churches had many Presbyters so consequently they had many Congregations and yet the Title of Church was attributed only to each Church in general and to the Angel of that Church as chief Governor thereof and not to every particular Presbyter and his gathered Congregation there Nero quaesitissimis poenis affecit quos proflagitia invisos vulgus Christianos appellabat Auctor nominis ejus Christus qui Tiberio imperante per Procuratorem Pontium Pilatum supplicio affectuserat Repressaque inpraesâ—ns exitiabilâ—s supâ—rstitio c. Tacitus Annul l. 15. c. 10. and these Churches in all probability were governed by the whole number of the faithful but whether ex praecepto or prudenter only I leave to every man to judg I must confess that I do not know any one Church in the whole New Testament that is characterized as Independent the most probable to have been so is that of Cenchrea and that only because it was a very poor maritime Town a few leagues distant from Corinth and yet it is said to be Oppidum Corinthiorum navium statione celeberrimum ideo frequens valde populosum the Port of that City and therefore not so very probable to have been Independent more probably happily that Church in Caesars House may be thought to have been Independent because gathered under the Nose of Nero that cruel Tyrant and consequently might not have so free recourse to other Churches for advice What should here follow concerning the power of the Civil Magistrate shall be referred to a more proper place § A more plausible Argument for Independency and unobserved by any that I have yet read is viz. that when Christ sent his twelve Apostles two by two into several Coasts to preach his Gospel and to teach all Nations c. It was not that the Churches gathered by St. Paul should be subject unto the Government or Inspection of St. Peter or unto the Churches gathered by him nor that the Churches gathered by St. Peter should be subject unto the Judicature of St. Paul or the Churches gathered by him and so of all the other Apostles but every Apostle and his gathered Church had a right of Ecclesiastical Government intrinsick within it self not depending on any of the other Apostles nor responsible for their Actions to any other Church Person or Officers and that divers of the Apostles met in Council at Jerusalem to settle some urgent things then controverted and not then agreed on was prudential only and voluntary not essential compulsory or obligatory yet a practice very worthy of Imitation § That the Apostles and other Ambassadors of Christ were so sent and that they and their Congregations were independent in point of Discipline
neighbouring Villages and indeed throughout al Palestine The Persecution increasing 19 Tiberii Paul himself being as it were Signiser or Inquisitor Haereticorum great cruelty being used towards the Christians caused the Apostles and some of their Disciples to dispose of themselves into neighbouring Nations whereby the great wisdom and counsel of God was eminent that thereby the propagation of the Gospel became more universally spread yet so that some of the Apostles were always at Jerusalem as the principal Seat of the Church of Christ always ready to confirm and strengthen the Brethren under their Persecutions and though they made often excursions from Jerusalem into other Regions yet they many times returned thither again Paul himself returned thither five times after his conversion from whence he was carried prisoner to Rome where though detained two years a prisoner yet preached the Gospel even then and there All this while no footsteps of any Dependency that any one Church throughout all Palaestine or the Regions round about had of another Communications and Advisoes reciprocal there might be between the gathered Churches far and near but no dependencies obligatory upon one another Soon after Christs ascention the Gospel was preached by the Apostles to al Nations both in Asia Africa and Europe and in the mediteranean Islands as Cyprus Crete Samothracia and in the Aegean Sea Lesbon Chion Samon Trogyllium Pathmos Sicily Melita Though there were thousands of Churches gathered by the Apostles yet there are no footsteps remaining that the Churches gathered by any one Apostle were subject or did depend on any one or more Churches gathered by any other or more Apostles The like I may say after the death of the Apostles that no one Church by what Apostle soever gathered was left subject to any other Church gathered by any other Apostle no nor yet subject to any Church of their own converting and gathering but every Church was to be governed by its own peculiar Body observing Gospel precepts viz. to love one another and to do all things in decency and in order c. How and when the Supremacy of the Clergy came in Histories are ful and plain and would have been yet more ful and plain had but our Holy Fathers Inquisitors been as Innocent as Doves as they were cursedly wise as was that Divelish Serpent that beguiled Eve whilst they have scarce left us a Father or Monument of Antiquity whose very bowels they have not raked out and yet still retain that Hellish and daring Impudence to persevere in that embowelling trade and yet every hedge Priest to boast that All they cannot speak less than all the Fathers are on their side though their very Hearts and Intrals had they not been raked out by such unreasonable and cruel hands would have born witness against them and for us § By all which it appears that the Summ and meaning of the visible Church and of the Government thereof upon Earth lies in a very narrow room and is very plain and obvious to every understanding though Ecclesiastick's of all perswasions have by perverting plain truths and texts rendred them as obscure as they could that they might not appear clear unto poor Laick's And which aggravates the more we find by woful experience that as of old so now they still are very well content and pleased that we should yet be kept on in an amaze and Laberinth and to know no more of Church and Church-Government then what will stand with the grandeur benefit and domination of Ecclesiastick's only and still continuing blinded in extreme ignorance We should have them only in admiration as if Gods and Oracles indeed Bellarmine in his tract against Gerson magnifying the Popes Power above the Skies saith and saith truly that the holy Church is not like the Common-wealth of Venice or of Geneva La christ Santa non è similâ— aâ—la Rep. di Venâ—tia c. p. 318. or of other Cities which confer upon their Dukes that Power which themselves please in regard whereof it must be said that the Common-wealth is above the Prince neither is it like to an earthly Kingdom in which the People transfer their own Authority unto the Monarch and in certain cases may free themselves from Royal Dominion and reduce themselves to the Government of inferior Majestrates as did the Romans when they passed from Dominion Royal to Consular-Government for that the Church of Christ is a most perfect Kingdom and an absolute Monarchy which hath no dependance on the People neither from them had its Original but dependeth only on the Divine Will which Christ sheweth when he saith ye have not chosen me but I have chosen you 15. John 16. Luke 32.33 2. Psal 6. but what strange Blasphemous Conclusions he hath drawn out of these premises and texts which relate only to Christ himself by applying them to his Vicar General I will not in this place concern my self at all The position it self is thus far true that the Church is not a Common-wealth as Venice much less a Kingdom as England which hath a Blood Royal and Kings succeed by Birth nor as some other Kingdomes by Testament which hapily may change the Government because the Church which is Christs Body hath Christ for its perpetual and immortal Head and King who whilst Man in the daies of his flesh first made the Body the Church and not the Body him the Head thereof governed it both visibly and invisibly invisibly by influencing his Body and conferring Gifts and Graces upon men fit for his Body the Church now touching this inward and merely Spiritual Government it is not like unto any Government no Prince Pope or Prelate having any such Government at all but only Christ who knoweth the hearts of all men which are deceitful above all things and can only influence them and can confer Gifts and Graces upon them whereby they are made and may become free Denizens of the Heavenly Jerusalem And because Christ was always to have his Body the Church on earth even unto the end of the world to be composed of visible Men and Members and not of one visible Man the Pope as the same Bellarmine and others would make us believe he hath appointed the Authority which his Body should have after his Ascention with promise that he would be with them unto the end of the world and therefore he set some in the Church as Apostles Prophets Teachers and after that Miracles then Gifts of Healing Helps in Government Diversities of Tongues 1 Cor. 12.28 Some of which as Miracles Diversities of Tongues and Gifts of Healing died and ceased with the Apostles who only were extraordinarily and Infallibly Gifted and inspired as necessary only for the first planting of the Gospel Therefore when Christ Ascended on high he gave Gifts unto Men 68. Psal 18.4 Eph. 8. yet diversly and in divers Measures and according to his Promise John 14.26 Sent the Holy Ghost the Comforter amongst them which should
teach his Body the Church all things and should continue with them unto the end of the World § For soon after his Ascention the Apostles together with the rest of the Body being met together in a great Assembly and after they had prayed the place was shaken where they were assembled together and they were all filled with the Holy Ghost and great Grace was upon them all 4. Act. 31.32.33 and accordingly the manifestation of the Spirit is given to every Man to profit withal to one the Word of Wisdome to another the Word of Knowledge to another faith c. and all by the same Spirit 1. Cor. 12.7.8 and all these for the edifying of the Body of Christ 4. Eph. 12 For though the Body be one yet hath it many Members and all the Members of that one Body being many are one Body whereof Christ is the head 1. Cor. 12.12 In the visible Government of the Church Christ appointed and instituted a Priesthood in which likewise it is dissimilar to all temporal Governments which quodam sensuis Independent of the Church though touching the application of the Authority to the Person it is elective and depending of the Body of the Church under this Priesthood is comprehended Bishops and Presbiters now what their Authority and Powers are vide their Commission 28. Mat. 19.20 go teach all Nations Baptizing them in the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you and loe I am with you always unto the end of the world other Powers besides these and laying on of hands especially coercive I know none derived unto them by any text of Scripture These Bishops these Presbiters these Ministers or Pastors are not Lords and Masters as in the Roman Church but are Servants to the Body of the Church For we preach not our selves but Christ Jesus the Lord and our selves your Servants for Jesus sake 2. Cor. 4.5 and these Authorities are not coercive but are given them to exhort reprove rebuke beseech intreat for Christs sake and by the mercies of God c. 12. Rom. 3. chap. 15.30 1 Thes 4.1 according to the Doctrines Precepts Rules and Commands set down in Scripture which are able to make us wise unto Salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus and which is profitable for Doctrine for reproof for Correction for instruction in righteousness that the Man of God may be perfected throughly furnished to all good works 2 Tim. 3.16.17 These and such like only are all the Powers that belong unto the Priesthood by any Law of God and there is no need of any other for what concerns punishment for Sins or the breach of moral Duties or municipal laws the Body hath Power to make laws and ordain punishments for any of its Members § I know that they have a long time hooked in by Head and shoulders a kind of coercive Power Excommunication by usurping to themselves the Power of Excommunication a thing I must confess that hath made a great noise and buzz in the world but in truth a magnificum nihil a meer ignis fatuus there being no such thing in the whole new Testament as now used and that which Pope and Presbiter would have to be it is as much in the Power of the Laicks against them as in them against the Laicks and most truly in the Body of the Church In the Romish Church the Bishop or his Vicar excommunicateth without the advice or participation of any many times also the Register only and that which is most important by Authority deligated a Clark of the first Tonsure deputed Comissary in some slight Cause doth excommunicate a Priest Yea Leo. 10. in the Council of Lateran in the 11. Session by a perpetual constitution of his hath granted faculty to a secular person to excommunicate the very Bishops and that which doth more import Navar saith c. 27 no. 11. that if any man shall obtain an excommunication of some Prelate if the obtainer shall not have an intent that the party be excommunicated he shall not be excommunicated moreover he saith ch 23. num 104. that the excommunication pronounced by the Law it self against him that payeth not a Pension for example sake on the Vigil of the Nativity is not incurred by him that payeth it not no not in many month's and years after if the Creditor thereof would not have it incurred But if on the other side after many Month's or Years he would have it incurred it is reputed to have been incurred from the day of the debt from the Vigil of the Nativity and so is the stile of the Court but the Council of Trent hath now expresly provided otherwise Ses 25. c. 3 forbidding secular Princes that they hinder not Prelates to excommunicate nor command that any excommunication be revoked considering that this is no part of their Office by this you may in little see what a nose of wax is made of excommunication and all this and much more grounded and occasioned from wrong Glosses put upon plain Texts But of this more fully hereafter § Though the Congregational men have not fully modelled out unto us the Platform of their Government and Discipline as the Presbyterians have done yet in general they do affirm Independency and Church-Government that to each gathered Church Christ hath given all Power and Authority requisite unto that Order and Discipline which he hath instituted for them to observe and to execute the same with Commands and Rules as before And negatively that there is not instituted by Christ any person or Church more extensive or Catholick entrusted with Power over other Churches and that each particular Church consists of Officers and Members which Members they call Brethren and the Officers they stile Pastors Teachers Elders and Deacons and that there are no stated Synods in a fixed combination of Churches nor any Synods appointed by Christ in any way of sub-ordination to one another nor no one Church to have Power of Censures but of inspection only over other Churches and Members thereof that Counsel and Advice might mutually be communicated That it was so in the days of the Apostles and continued so for some Generations after every Individual gathered Church every Christian Societie as it is natural to all Societies as well Christian as Civil governing it self by its own Laws and Constitutions whithout being obliged to any other superintendency hapily is so manifest that it would not be gainsaid But when the Church became planted and spread its Branches and took root in divers Nations and whole Common-wealths became Christian and Kings and Queens and other Civil Governments became Nursing-Fathers and Mothers of the Church then of necessity for the quiet state of the whole the case came to be altered it being then impossible that every individual Member or Brother of any Christian Kingdom or Common-wealth should personally meet to make Laws
the whole body politick whereof if the Presbyter or Independent judge themselves to be any part then is the Law even their own deed also as being made by the representatives of the whole wherein they are included as having their most proper representatives in our Parliaments and Convocations the undoubted Legislative Power of this Kingdom And is it reasonable in things of this nature and consequence to give men audience pleading for the overthrow of that which as it were their own very deed hath ratified Laws that have been approved both in Church and State may be no man doubteth again repealed and to that end also disputed against by the same Authority But this most properly is when the whole doth deliberate what Laws each part shall observe and not when a few run counter the Laws which the whole hath made in a full and free Parliament and lawfull Convocation Be it that some reasons induce some persons to be otherwise minded if those reasons be demonstrative and absolutely necessary such I confess discharge consciences and setteth them at full liberty but if probable only what thing was there ever set down so agreeable to sound reason but some probable shew against it may be made Is it meet that when Acts of Parliaments and Canons have been publickly received and long practised that general obedience thereunto should cease to be exacted in case some few led by some probable conceits should make open protestation of their dissatisfaction Certainly in such cases they are obliged to suspend their judgments for that in otherwise doing they offend against God by troubling his Church without any just or necessary cause For until the Civil Christian Magistrate whose power it is that I contend for doth otherwise order and determine obedience is to be given to the Laws Ecclesiastical and Civil if not contrary to the word of God Turpis est pars quae universo non congruit suo Out of which premises and of what will follow more particularly I shall take the liberty to assert and conclude that the Church of England in general is undeniably Independent and hath intrinsick power within it self without any forraign aid or dependency or any subordination to any other Person Church or Council to govern it self and that every Parish or Congregation thereof is not so Independent but rather that every particular doth depend upon the whole for that all ought to govern the whole and every particular thereof and every one ought to imploy himself most in that which is most particularly recommended to him and that the true Representatives of this Church of England and of all other National Churches is the Legislative Power thereof and that the King is the chief Governor thereof according to the constituted Laws and Canons thereof § And this Legislative Power hath lawful Authority to constitute all Qualifications unto all publick Ecclesiastical preferments so that they which will not submit to such qualifications shall be uncapable of such publick Benefices and Preferments But neither this nor any other Power throughout the whole Vniverse hath any lawful Authority to forbid the gathering of Churches or stop the mouths of any Bishop or Presbyter to preach the Gospel nor to forbid the solemn assembling together of the Saints or of the Brethren according to their several Commissions viz. go teach all Nations c. 28. Matth. 19.20 And let us consider one another to provoke unto love and to good works not forsaking the Assembling of our selves together as the manner of some is but exhort one another 10. Hebr. 24.25 if this had not been good Doctrine and practised even by Christ himself his Apostles and their followers maugre all the Interdicts of Jewish and Gentile States and Princes cursed Tyrants the Gospel had never been spread In such Cases where commands of Governments are contrary to commands of God it is undoubtedly better to obey God than Man I have dwelt the longer on this subject of Indepency for that though in truth it the be elder Brother unto Presbyterian Government by 1600 years yet it seems unto most to be but my Lord Musshrome and of yesterdays extract and very little understood by Vulgar Capacities In the Treaty whereof I have taken occasion in some measure to trace both the wayes of the Church and the wiles of the Church-Men from its very Infancy and shall pursue it farther when I come to shew what and who are meant by the term Church so that if possible the Government of the Church may be made easie and intelligible to every understanding Plain dealing is best and truth like beauty is most beautiful when stark naked stript of all paints and School-tricks and Glosses by which truth is more often confounded and defaced than brought unto light in its pure and natural colours § I shall now proceed and say something of the Presbyterian way but shall not meddle with their Model at all it being done and done to my hand it hangs on every Hedg and is decyphered and refelled in an Iliad of Pamphlets and is as perfectly disliked and disgusted as known and therefore I think we may bid them defiance set it up and establish it if they can especially if excommunication the main prop and pillar thereof were taken away without which it must necessarily fall to the ground and which is of no use in any Christian State and which in truth is a nemo scit utterly unknown to Scripture it self as now used especially And yet so fond are they of it and so wedded unto it and such is the selfishness of the Clergy of all perswasions and so great a Biass is their interest and love of domination that the very thought of parting with it doth cut them to the heart and it cannot be got from them without rending and tearing as if it were as perverse as an unclean spirit and though in truth it makes no return considerable unto any of them but what redounds unto their dishonour and reproach I shall only shew some of their tenets and practises by which you may the better judge of them and I shall not go far to fetch them and declare that now to erect and establish that Government here or in any other Christian Common-wealth were to erect Regnum in Regno and then in short process of time upon every difference and dispute as it happened in the State of Venice 1610. where Father Avaraldo a Capuchin being demanded by the Inquisitors at Rome for a certain opinion concerning Anti-Christ and from that Inquisition the process being sent to Bressia where the Father was the Inquisition at Bressia proceeded in the Cause without the Civil Assistants and answered them not without a design to cajole the Civil Magistrate out of his just right by a nice distinction viz. that they ought not to assist but only in causes which were begun at the proper Tribunal but not when the Denuntiation was given at Rome so in a very short time as
Election of Bishops purporting that a Cathedral being vacant the Metropolitan should write unto the Chapter the Name of him who was to be promoted who should afterwards be published in Pulpit in all the Parish-Churches of the City on Sunday and hanged on the Door of the Church and afterwards the Metropolitan should go to the City vacant and examine Witnesses concerning the Qualities of the Person and all his Letters Patents and Testimonials being read in the Chapter every one should be heard that would oppose any thing against his Person of all which an Instrument should be made and sent to the Pope and read in the Consistory But such a Decree was too good to pass in that Packt Council which having too much publick respect to the publick Good even of their own Catholick Church Protestant Churches having not the same reasons to complain was oppsed by all Arts and Industry by the Bishop of Bertinoro General Laynez and by all the Pentioners and Favourites of the Court of Rome which by much was the major part for the many and great inconveniences that would ensue thereby And what were they Forsooth that such a Decree would be a Cause of Calumnies and Seditions and that thereby some Authorities long since taken away would be restored to the People Vâ—â— Ao 870. Distinct 73. Padre Paolo Defence 75. with which they would usurp the Election of Bishops which formerly they were wont to have that this was to bind the Authority of the Pope that he could not gratifie any one Just and pregnant Reasons I must confess to perswade unto Usurpation of the Right of others and therefore it could not pass The like Opposition was made against the Article concerning those who were to be promoted to the greater Orders in which it was also said that their Names ought to be published to the People three Sundays and affixed to the doors of the Church and that their Letters Testimonial ought to be subscribed by four Priests and four Laicks of the Parish alledging that no Authority ought to be given to the Laicks in these Affairs which are purely Ecclesiastical 725 726. what Right soever they had unto them In the Discourse also of the Reformation of Cardinals a Congregation was ordained on purpose to consult and find a means that Princes might not intermeddle in the Conclave in the Election of the Pope so jealous and unwilling are they to have any Laick great or small to come within their Verge their Scrinia sacra or to intermeddle in such their Concerns though they have none de Jure but their Priesthood but what they have either obtained by Power or usurped by Fraud or by the Supineness or Favours of Pious Princes But when some of the Council thought in order to Reformation to make a Constitution that no Bishop should have any Temporal Offices either in Rome or in the Ecclesiastical Dominions that even that also would be a great prejudice to the Ecclesiasticks of France Polonia and of other Countries and Kingdoms where they are Councellors of Kings and have the Principal Offices of which they would soon be deprived by the instigation of the Secular Nobility for their own Interests and therefore that String was not to be touched upon but left unto the Popes ordering Furthermore the Bishop of St. Mark in the Dispute about the Title of the Council of Trent had the boldness to aver that the Laicks are most improperly called the Church for that the Canons determine that they have no Authority to command but Necessity to obey and that the Council ought to Decree that the Seculars ought humbly to receive the Doctrine of Faith which is given them by the Church without disputing or thinking of it Petro Soave Polano 141. That is in Romish understanding that that Religion which the Pope Obedience unto him being made by them a true Mark of the Church doth please to give them ought to be embraced by the Laicks without dispute What is this else but plainly and grosly to mock the world and to think all men Fools and Cuddens but themselves and to perswade themselves that all their Absurdities should be believed without more ado What is this less than to perswade Rational men that they are Bruits Horses or Asses void of all understanding or that hearing they do not hear or that seeing they do not see or that perceiving they do not understand Qui vult decipi decipiatur § Thus have I unto the meanest Capacities made plain and evident both by Precept and Practice out of the Word of Truth the Title and Interest which the whole Congregation of Believers have unto the Appellation and Powers of the Church and unto Ecclesiastical Concerns without wresting or perverting any one Text of Scripture § Now the Pope would very much oblige us if he would vouchsafe unto us but only one plain Text to warrant the Powers he exerciseth and lays claim unto over the Laity or how he comes to be so essential to the Church as to be put into the very definition thereof It being plain downright nonsence if it be good manners to say so to aver that any one single person alone how great soever can suffice to make a Church a Congregation for that at least two or three are necessarily required to make an Assembly or Congregation Ecclesia or the Church even in its Natural and Grammatical Construction signifying a Plurality or Multitude be it Civil or Ecclesiastical And as it is a new so it is an absurd kind of Trope devised by the Romanists to make the Pope a single person to signifie the Church I know the Papalins are most excellent Artists most rare Alchymists surpassing even those our Brethren Roseae Crucis who are modest Mountibanks in respect of these Audaces Jesuitae for they took the whole Book of Genesis to found their Phanatick Chymaeraes upon but these can extract their extravagancies out of two or three words only viz. Pasce oves meas i.e. Feed my Sheep out of this Word Pasce Bellarm. hath extracted so many Quintessences so many Elixirs so many Legions of Diabolical or Antichristian Arguments for the Popes Pride and Grandeur that he can hardly desire any thing that these would not afford him will he be a King as well as a Bishop and will he have Temporal Power to be as extensive as his Spiritual Bellarmine assures him that it is so for that Christ said to Peter Pasce i.e. Regio more Impera Play the Rex at pleasure In the ancient Church when any Heresie disturbed the Truth and publick Peace a grave Assembly of Bishops and others were called and the Book of God fairly laid open before them and out of it were all Doubts determined Now Scriptures and Councils are needless Will the Pope be supreme Judge of all Controversies Lib. 4. De Rom. Pontif. C. 1. C. 3. Bellarmine thinks the Claim to be well grounded upon this Pasce Joh. 21.17 And it is
these are executed by the power of the Judge who enforceth submission so those only by the will of the Guilty to receive them who refusing them the Ecclesiastical Judge remaineth without execution and hath no power to enforce but to foreshew the Judgment of God which will follow in this Life or the next This kind of Proceedings and this kind of Judicature was according unto Christ's Institution and would not enterfeer with any Civil Government Christian or not Christian and unto which the Apostles did conform and which lasted some Centuries of years in the Church and was esteemed by the Saints of those more pure times the Judgment of Charity not of Jurisdiction because they did thereby charitably not judicially or magisterially reconcile the persons compose the differences and rebuke the Sins and Vices of the Believing Brethren and did thereby prevent the Scandal and Reproaches that otherwise they and their Religion would have been exposed and liable unto from Unbelievers This kind of Judicature was so far from being essential or peculiar unto the Bishops and Presbyters as that the least esteemed in the Church were as capable of it as the greatest indeed any that were wise and able to judge between the Brethren rather than to suffer them to go to Law before the Vnbelievers 1 Cor. 6.4 5 6. The Apostles who had greater Abilities and understood their Commission better than ever any Pope did refused to take this Charge upon themselves as being not fit for Preachers of the Gospel to take any Civil Employment that might any way impede the main End and Design which was to give themselves continually to Prayer and to the Ministry of the Word and by reason whereof they could not serve God in that whereunto they were chiefly called without distraction and therefore for the same reason would not serve Tables but would have such Duties devolved upon others Acts 6.2 3 4. Nay Paul most solemnly professeth that Christ sent him not to Baptize but to Preach the Gospel 1 Cor. 1.17 So wholly did he devote his Service to the exact performance of his Commission Of the same Opinion was the Bishop of Aiace in the Council of Trent who in the Debate of Residence which he held to be Jure Divino complained that the cause of their Non-Residence was that the Bishops did busie themselves in the Courts of Princes and in the Affairs of the World being Judges Chancellors Secretaries Councellors Treasurers there being few Offices of State into which Bishops have not insinuated themselves though forbid by St. Paul 2 Tim. 2.4 who thought it necessary that a Souldier of the Church should not entangle himself with the Affairs of this Life that he may please him who hath chosen him to be a Souldier therefore he moved that the Council would constitute that it should not be lawful for Bishops or others who have Cure of Souls to exercise any Secular Office or Charge In the Ecclesiastical Laws there is a whole Title to this effect Ne Clerici vel Monachi Secularibus negotiis se immisceant And St. Chrysostom hath a long Discourse In Decretal in Mat. Hom. 26. Consid 1.24 complaining of Clergy-men leaving the Care of Souls become Proctors Economists c. practising things unbeseeming the Ministry Though the Papalins cannot deny these to be great Truths yet in this as in divers other Cases they please themselves with false Glosses upon plain Texts of Scripture asserting most Magisterially for their Justification the Popes Authority to dispense not only with Humane but Divine Laws that in Humane Laws his Authority is absolute and unlimited because he is superior to them all and therefore when he doth dispense though without any cause the Dispensation notwithstanding was to be held for good and that in Divine Laws he had power to dispense but not without a Cause alledging St. Paul for their justifications 1 Cor. 4.1 Who saith that the Ministers of Christ are the Dispensers of the Mysteries of God and that to him the Apostle the Dispensation of the Gospel had been committed 1 Cor. 9.17 And that howsoever the Popes Dispensation concerning the Divine Law be not of force yet every one ought to captivate his Vnderstanding and believe that he hath granted it for a lawful Cause and that it is Temerity to call it into question Hist Conc. Trent 675. Bonny Glosses I must confess and well calculated for the Zenith of the Popes Altitudes and Authorities but they are quite contrary to Apostolick Doctrine and the Conclusion drawn hath no warrant at all from the Text for the Text doth not prove a power of Dispensation to be in the Bishop of Rome i.e. a Disobligation from the Law and Commandments of God and the Gospel as the Popes would have us believe but only a power to dispense i.e. to publish and declare the Divine Mysteries and Word of God which is perpetual and remaineth inviolable for ever according to Eph. 3.2 8 9. Eph. 6.19 Col. 1.26 c. 4.3 What is this but to wrest and pervert the very Words and Sense of Scripture and as much as in them lieth to make a new Gospel as they made a new Creed at Trent In Human Laws happily a Dispensation may lie for that the Law-makers are subject to infirmities and fallibility and unable to foresee all Cases and future Accidents and Occurrences which when they come to be discovered and known may justly admit of some Exceptions and Dispensations But where God is the Law-giver from whose all-seeing Eye nothing is concealed and by whom no Accident is not foreseen the Law can have no Exception no Dispensation for that by such Dispensation the strength of all Gods Laws is taken away made null and in truth escheated into the Breast and Power of the Popes Holiness From such corrupt Glosses it is that there are few or no Cardinals without many Bishopricks how incompatible soever they are together Hence also the Use of Commendaes and Vnions for Life Administrations at first invented probably for good ends by which against all Laws many Benesices were given to one person alone really with appearance that he had but one only Therefore the Law of God and Nature ought not to be esteemed as a common written Law which in some Cases happily may be dispensed withal and made more gentle for that all his Laws are even Equity and Justice it self Besides the Pope who takes himself to be the great Dispenser Paramount cannot in any case free him that is bound Paul was obliged to preach the Gospel as being called thereunto and so was Peter and all the rest of the Apostles and all the Bishops and Priests are no otherwise sent and called than to preach the Gospel and feed Christ's Flock as all the Apostles were which includes the Pope himself if he be Peters Successor yea a necessity was laid upon him yea wo unto him if he did not preach the Gospel 1 Cor. 9.16 And therefore he most earnestly desires
the Ephesians c. 6.18 19 20. that they would always pray with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit and watch thereunto with all perseverance and supplication for him for what I pray that he might have a Dispensation not to preach or not to attend his Flock and be Non-resident or having put his hand to the Plough that he might look back or that he might have great Employments in Civil Affairs in Princes Courts that would necessarily hinder his preaching Nothing less What then Even that Vtterance might be given unto him that he might open his mouth boldly to dispence and make known the Mysteries of the Gospel for which he was an Ambassador Eph. 6.18 19 20. The like unto the Colossians c. 4.2 3. And did not the same Paul most solemnly and most severely charge Timothy before God and the Lord Jesus Christ who shall judge the quick and the dead at his appearing and his Kingdom to preach the Word to be instant in season out of season reprove rebuke c. 2 Tim. 4.1 2. By which it demonstratively appears that in St. Paul's Grammar and Construction to dispense and make known are Terms Synonimous and Equivalent maugre the false Glosses of the Papalins And when think you would Paul unto whom by Revelation was made known the Mystery of Christ whereof he was made a Minister that he should preach among the Gentiles the unsearchable Riches of Christ and to make all men see what is the Fellowship of the Mystery c. Eph. 3.2 3 8 9. or any other of the Apostles have besought Peter or any of his Successors of Rome for a Dispensation not to Preach They were better taught than so than to take other Civil Employments which must necessarily hinder them from preaching and declaring the Mystery of the Gospel for in true understanding to be a Priest and not to preach is to be no Priest having as much as in them lies un-priested themselves after the Character imprinted for Christ never gave any Authority to his Ministers but what was meerly and purely Spiritual Yet so it was that the Judgment of the whole Church or Congregation as is necessary and natural to all Societies Civil and Ecclesiastick for the sake of Order was fit to be conducted and managed by some one who should preside and guide the Actions and Deliberations propose the Matters and collect the Results of the Assembly which Care being always due to the most worthy and best qualified person for such an Action was mostly committed to the Bishop not of right but of choice § This kind of Judicial Proceeding was observed and kept on foot unto the Year 250 Ep. 5. f. 12 13 14. as is plainly to be seen by the Epistles of St. Cyprian who in the matter concerning those who did eat of Meats offered to Idols and subscribed to the Religion of the Gentiles writeth to the Presbytery that he doth not think to do any thing without their Counsel and the Consent of the People and writeth to the People that at his return he will examine the Causes and Merits thereof in their Presence and under their Iudgment And he wrote to those Priests who of their own heads reconciled some that they should give an Account unto the People Soon after this time of the Day these kinds of Proceedings begun to lose of their Purity and Simplicity and to degenerate into Empire For indeed as before so more especially and more confidently soon after Constantines Days and Donations the succeeding Bishops not without some Artifices and some Usurpations quickly began to set up for themselves and indeed in short time mounted so high that they became suspected of Princes and terrible to the People their Tribunals became a common Pleading-place having obtained Execution by the Ministry of the Civil Magistrate Petr. AErodius and to obtain the Name of Episcopal Jurisdiction and Episcopal Audience and the like This Rome was not built in one Day nor in one Age the Piety and Charity of that more pure Age made them and their Judgments to be had in great veneration which insensibly was the Cause that the Church in the truest sence not regarding the Charge given and laid upon them by Christ and his Apostles did supinely leave the Care to the Bishops who readily and with great care embraced it and soon erected their Tribunals This kind of Judgment though it were not like to the first in regard of the former viz. to determine all by the Opinion of the whole Church yet it had some semblance with it and Constantine finding some Ease and Conveniency to have Causes determined by the Authority of Religion added this to his other Powers granted to them viz. That no Appeal should lie from the Sentence of the Bishop and Valence the Emperor inlarged them in the Year 365. But those Judicial Proceedings and Negotiations did not please the best and most pious Bishops being of St. Pauls mind who deemed such Employments and Powers not fit for a Preacher of the Gospel and therefore would not take such himself But Arcadius and Honorius 70 years after the Law of Constantine finding the Bishops to degenerate and to abuse their Power revoked that Law in part ordaining that they should judge Causes of Religion not Civil except by consent and that they should not be thought to be a Court which not being observed in Rome by reason of the great power the Bishop there had Valentinian being there in the Year 452. did renew it but the succeeding Emperors restored some part of it and Justinian established unto them a Court and Audience c. By which means and gradations the Popes had got the Knack of encroaching and were thereby the better enabled to crave and get more and that not without making the world believe that those and more were their due and that not Jure Ecclesiastico only but Divino also a Band so sure and strong that it would hardly be loosed though Posterity should find Inconveniences and would redress them 200 years were not fully elapsed ere they claimed absolutely all Judicature Criminal and Civil over the Clergy and in some things over the Laity also pretending the Cause was Ecclesiastical Besides they contrived another kind of Judicature which they termed Mixt whereby they hooked in all Judicature to themselves so that after the Year 1050. having with much Art and Industry Monopolized all the Causes of the Clergy to themselves and very many of the Laity under the Title of Spirituality and almost all the rest under the Title of a Mixt Judicature and placing themselves above the Secular Magistrates upon pretence of Justice denied they were at length so bold as to say that the Bishop had the power to judge not by the grant or favour of Princes or by the will or concession of the People or the whole Church or by Custom or Vsage but that it was essential to the Episcopal Dignity and given to it by Christ whereby
sent it by Stephanus and others signifying unto them that though he were absent in Body but present in Spirit had already judged as present him that had so done and therefore advised them in the Name of the Lord Jesus Christ that being gathered together and his Spirit with the vertue of the Lord Jesus Christ to deliver such a one unto Sathan Now it is observable that when St. Paul wrote this Epistle he was absent at Philippi a City of Macedonia and directed it not to any one single person Pope or other but unto the Church of God which was at Corinth and to them that were sanctified in Christ Jesus called to be Saints with all that in every place call upon the Name of Jesus Christ our Lord both theirs and ours He did not according to Romish Custom write by his Breves I excommunicate such a one and in one Scrap of Paper send as much as in him lieth Kings and Queens and Emperors nay whole Kingdoms and States to the Devil but he wrote to the Church a Collective Body that being gathered together with his Spirit they should deliver that Incestuous person to Sathan And again when he wrote his Second Epistle he directed it also unto the Church of God which was at Corinth with all the Saints which are in all Achaia declaring it sufficient to such a Man is this Punishment which was inflicted of many admonishing them to forgive and comfort him lest perhaps he should be swallowed up with overmuch sorrow whereby it is plain and not to be gainsaid that the Delivering of him unto Sathan be the Punishment be the Censure what it will it was inflicted by many 2 Cor. 2.6 Now if Paul an Apostle would not excommunicate or deliver unto Sathan at his own will and pleasure but would consult the Church that the Matter being transacted by common Authority and Approbation the Censure the Punishment might be performed by Common Consent It being most just and equal and of Moral Right that they who to morrow must deliver such a one to Sathan whom to day they account as a Brother dear in Christ should be fully satisfied why and wherefore Now how came Signore Papa alone to be entituled to exercise Powers greater than the Apostle Paul would use What hath he to do with it more than the rest of his Brethren If so interrogated I can make no other Answer but Ignoramus Moreover hath the practice of Christ's Vicars at Rome been correspondent to that of Paul the Apostle of such esteem and prevalency is publick consent with God himself even in the Affairs of the Church that though in his secret Decree Paul and Barnabas were to be set apart for the Work of the Ministry yet by God's own appointment were they separated after Fasting and Prayer to the same by the Church which was at Antioch Acts 13.2 Thereby teaching us not to despise the Office of the Church i.e. of the Multitude of Brethren where it may be had By these very small Hints it is easily discernable what a Nose of Wax the Papalins make both of Scripture and Tradition and Excommunication their great and terrible Thunderbolt even against Kings and Kingdoms not considering the little efficacy it hath What was the State of Venice and her Duke or Queen Elizabeth and her Dominions the worse for Romish Excommunications and Interdicts or what the worse the Kings of Spain for being excommunicated every Maunday Thursday And indeed what the worse his Holiness at Rome for being solemnly excommunicated every year by the Muscovite Fops § Some indeed of later days have intimated a great and just dislike of those who have hitherto endeavoured to hang Excommunication on some doubtful Places of Scripture but yet endeavour to settle it on another Basis viz. on the Nature and Constitution of the Church Christian as a Society Instituted by Jesus Christ whereby they say it is manifest that if Excommunication cannot be established upon some better and other Bottom than what hath hitherto been laid by their Predecessors on some doubtful places of Scripture it must necessarily decay and fall to the ground moreover they most ingenuously confess themselves unsatisfied as to any convincing Argument whereby it can be proved that any were denied Admission unto the Lords Supper who were admitted to all other parts of Church-Society and owned as Members in them § Though I have said enough already sparsim that if rightly applied doth demolish this Fabrick of Fundamental Right yet I will add a little and but a little more viz. that if by the Word Church in these Positions be meant only the Clergy met or not met in Councils Synods Consistories Convocations or Assemblies as the Representatives of the Church Assembled by their own power as by a Fundamental Right grounded on Christs Institution then to say no more is hereby justified Robert Bruce David Blake and those seventeen Scottish Ministers before-mentioned and their Tenets denying the King and his Council to have any Authority in Matters Ecclesiastical For certainly if God hath given them power of themselves to Assemble and Consult and make Laws and hath not withal given them Force and Power to put them in execution they have only a mock and ridiculous Authority which God never instituted nor ordained And if it be not so meant then they either say nothing to the purpose or equivocate But if herein by the Word * By the word Church may be meant either all Believers holding saving Truth in general of what condition or quality soever or else more striftly the collective Body of the Clergy for if we speak right of the Church Universal or this or that Particular Church as of Spain France England c. this Term may be taken in either of those two Sences Church be meant the Civil Power and Laity together with the Clergy then we are Friends and that Fundamental Right arising from the Constitution of the Church derived from Christ himself of Right belongs to the Commonwealth if Christian and to every congregated Number of Believers gathered in any Gentile State or People and united into one Society and not only to the Clergy thereof and the Laity are as capable and have as much Right to be of such Councils and Synods as the Ecclesiasticks Or that the Church be not semper and perpetuo a peculiar Society separate and distinct from the Commonwealth as certainly it is not or that the Officers thereof as limited by these Positions unto Teachers and Pastors injuriously enough if they pretend beyond Teachings Administrations of Sacraments Imposition of hands for Ordination and the publick use of the Keys are not only inflicters or executioners of Church-Censures as certainly they are not then the very Foundation of this Fabrick for the Support and Justification of Excommunication must necessarily fall to the ground It is true that every Church is a Society or Body Politick though every Society or Body Politick is not a Church every
Member of the Militant Church is ordinarily a Member of the Christian Commonwealth or Kingdom wherein he lives and è contra That which differenceth the Church properly so called from a Society or Body meerly Civil is the diversity of Laws and Ordinances and the different manner of Union betwixt the Members of it A Church A Commonwealth or Body Civil are not necessarily two Bodies contra-distinct or Opposite as the Romanists often dream or presuppose in their Arguments brought for the Prerogatives of the Roman Church alledging that those have first their being and then they frame their Government and therefore are free and that all Jurisdiction is originally in them which they do communicate to Magistrates without depriving themselves of it But the Church did not make it self and its Government but Christ did first Institute Laws by which it should be Governed and then did Christ assemble it but rather one Body endowed with several or distinct Powers or Perfections when a Kingdom or Commonwealth becomes Christian and Consequently a Church it looseth nothing of what it had but rather acquires a New Perfection and Accomplishment by the Accrument of Divine Powers added to the Civil It may be true that when the Church was first Founded by Jesus Christ that it was altogether distinct from the Commonwealth for indeed it could not be then otherwise for that all Kingdoms and Commonwealths were then open and professed Enemies to the Gospel and therefore the Regiment given unto the Church by Jesus Christ was accordingly such as might be exercised by the Members thereof in any Nation and among any People be their Government what it would or their Enmity to the Gospel never so great without clashing or interfeering with it or with them and without the least disturbance of the quiet State of the Kingdom or People whereunto they were sent for their Conversion But when that Prophesie that Kings should be the Nursing Fathers and Queens the Nursing Mothers of the Church was to be fulfilled and whole Kingdoms embraced the Gospel and became Christians then the Church and Commonwealth became one and were no longer contra distinct Certainly the Justifying of Excommunications or Church Censures in this manner on such grounds and Positions is to speak modestly scarce safe or defensible For that they seem too much to Countenance and to approach too near unto the Positions of the Papists which are 1º that the Spiritual Power is above all Secular and Civil Power which Assertion were it rightly limited and Stated is in it self Orthodox as here is declared but the more Orthodox it is in it self the more Pernitious and deadly it makes the second Position unto which they seek to Wed it viz. 2º that this Supream and Spiritual Power is totally Stated in the Clergy as in a Body distinct from the Body Politick And the most of them hold the plenitude of this Power to be in the Pope from whom all Spiritual Power of Jurisdiction is derived unto the rest of the Clergy after the same manner as Jurisdiction in causes Temporal is derived unto the Inferior Magistrates from the Civil Monarch in each Kingdom And that the Regiment of the Church is Regimen Monarchicum a Visible Monarchy of which the Pope is the visible Monarch therefore without all doubt it is not only less Obnoxious to Cavils and Sophisms but also more truly Orthodoxal and more Justisiable to aver and maintain that the Church and Commonwealth Christian tho happily like Man and Wife before their Intermarriage were two Bodies two contradistinct Societies but being once Incorporated by mutual and reciprocal Wedlock do become one Body one Society endowed with several Powers and several Perfections newly acquired by such Intermarriage wherewith she was not endowed before her Intermarriage and so consequently the Powers of the Church do escheat into that of the Commonwealth whensoever it becomes Christian whereof the Pastors and Teachers are special Members and Officers according to their Commission but for no other ends nor purposes above the Laity though the Authors of these Positions do fully acknowledg that the Person of the Supream Magistrate must and ought to be exempted as to any outward effects of the Power of Excommunication Yet these Positions are subject unto so many nice and School distinctions that it is much to be feared that perverse and subtle wits would strongly Combate with us with our own Weapons and find or make a way to render the Power of the Magistrate only serviceable unto the Power or Interest of the Clergy Do but a little consider how subtelty Bellarmine in his tract against Gerson of Excommunication doth endeavour to erect and prove Regimen Ecclesiasticum to be Monarchicum upon the like fundamental right f. 4.142 whilst he affirms that the holy Church is not like to the Commonwealth of Venice or of Geneva or of other Cities which confer upon their Dukes and Princes that Power which themselves please in regard whereof it may be said that the Commonwealth is above the Prince neither yet is it like to an earthly Kingdom in which the People transfer their own Authority unto the Monarch and in certain Cases may free themselves from Royal Dominion and reduce themselves to the Government of Inferior Magistrates as did the Romans when they changed from Dominion Royal to Consular Government for the Church of Christ is a most perfect Kingdome and an absolute Monarchy which hath no dependance on the People neither from them had its Original but dependeth only upon the Divine Will and that this Kingdom doth not depend on Men Christ sheweth when he saith you chose not me but I chose you 15 John 16. thou hast made us unto our God Kings and Priests and we shall Reign on the Earth 5. Apoc. 10. And this is the cause why this Kingdom is in the Scripture resembled to a Family who then is a faithful and wise Servant whom his Lord hath made Ruler over his Houshold 24. Matth. 25. Because the Father of the Family doth not depend on the Family neither from them hath his Authority So by consequence the Vicar general of Christ doth not depend on the Church but only on Christ from whom he hath his Authority and doth affirm that Christ doth declare that a Bishop in his particular Church and the Pope in the Church Vniversal is as it were a high Steward in Gods Family quis enim fidelis dispensator et prudens 12 Luke 42. and hath Power over the Family and not the Family over him contra-Gers Yet by the leave of so great a Prelate St. Cyprian tho no Cardinal yet of greater reputation saith that the practise of those times which were freest from Corruption even when the Holy Martyrs were Bishops was that Pastors were subject to the Censures of the Church And lib. 1. c. 4. giveth an express Testimony where speaking of the People he saith Quando ipsa plebs maxime habeat potestatem vel eligendi dignos sacerdotes
vel indignos recusandi quod ipsam videmusde divina Authoritate descendere ut sacerdos plebe praesente sub omnium oculis deligatur c. whereby it appears that the supream Power of choosing such Priests as are worthy and refusing unworthy doth principally rest in the People And he speaketh of Bishops particularly although in the words alledged he mentioneth Priests and withal it is not only St. Cyprians Epistle but the Epistle of thirty six Bishops and written to the Common People of Leon Asturia and Emerita Vide his 14. Epist of his 3. Lib. such Authorities we may alledge but not mystical and enforced Explications nor yet wrong Conclusions from right Premisses The Faithful Flock of Christ ought to resemble Sheep indeed in humility and innocency yet ought they not to be so sheepish or sottish as to decline the Authority which Christ their great Shepherd hath bestowed on them either of choosing them a Good or of judging a Wicked Shepherd St. Austin proves unanswerably that Doctrines are to be grounded on the Literal Sense of the Scripture and not on any Mystical Interpretation In this equivocating Art of Sophistry Bellarmine hath shewed both in this Subject as in others his great dexterity first to settle with the Reader the Relation which the Holy Church hath towards the Divine Majesty and then to conclude on the Relation towards the Pope such false Sophistry such disingenuity becomes not so great a Prince so great a Scholar as himself but the Parisians no Protestants conclude that God hath called the Church to the Faith and his Worship and that he hath placed Christ over it for an Head for ever who first himself did govern it on Earth in the days of his Flesh but being ascended into Heaven doth rule it with inward influence and assistance invisible unto the end of the World It is true that the Church is not a Common-wealth as Venice or as Geneva which give as much Authority as themselves please to their Dukes and Princes nor a Kingdom which may change the manner of governing it neither invisibly nor visibly because that Christ hath prescribed the manner much less is it such a Kingdom as England which hath a Blood-Royal where the Kings succeed by Birth neither as some other by Testament but as touching the Inward Government and meerly Spiritual it is not like unto any because it hath a perpetual Immortal and Eternal King who only knows the Heart and tries the Reins In the visible Government it hath a Ministry whose Authority was instituted by Christ and independing of the Church but as concerning the Application of this Authority unto this or that Person it is elective or depending of it Wherefore when he alledgeth I am constituted a King by him Our Lord God shall give him a Kingdom Luke 1.32 and 12.32 You chose not me but I have chosen you John 15.16 Thou hast made us to our God a Kingdom All these places and such like others are meant of the Invisible Spiritual and Interior Kingdom where the Pope hath no regiment nor influence at all but Christ is all in all governing by his Spirit and according to the Council of his own Will Thus he having laid down and proposed to use a Proposition or Doctrine quodammodo and in some sense true and having Validity under the Covert of an Universal yet having applied it to wrong Particulars it hath lost its Energy and Effort and its fallacy is discovered A piece of Artifice and Skill that runs through the Veins and Lines of most Popish Writers in the Controversies between us and them and what else is this but to make Lies their refuge and under Falshood to shelter themselves If Popes may now excommunicate as they pretend yet this concludes not that they may excommunicate Princes or Magistrates or whole Common-wealths The Primitives of old did use excommunication very sparingly and moderately and with great prudence and policy and with great respect to the good of the Church And therefore be the Power what or where it will St. Augustine holds an Excommunication against a Multitude though it were for some notorious and manifest sin too sacrilegious pernicious impious and insolent Lib. 3. contra Ep. Permen 23.4.4 c. non potest And Thomas putteth a Question whether any generality may be excommunicated and he answereth himself No and produceth Reasons for the same concluding that the Church appointeth with great Providence that no Community might be excommunicated And all other Divines with one accord determine the same And also Pope Innocent the 4th in the Chap. Rom. saith In Vniversitatem vel Collegium proferri sententiam Excommunicationis penitus prohibere de Sentent excom in 6. We must know that it is of worse consequence and example where â—t is used against Princes than divers other Bodies and Societies in as much as one Prince is of more consequence and power than thousands of other Lay-men We know also that in all Judgments there is a necessity of a Legal Trial to precede Conviction And that great Multitudes may be convented examined sentenced and punished with less disturbance of Peace less violation of Majesty than those that sway the Ball-Imperial Besides if the condemnation of Princes might be upon due Trials without violence yet the execution of the Sentence would produce more monstrous events in them than in private Men for how shall the People honour obey and reverence him in the State as Gods Lieutenant whom they see accursed cut off and abhorred in the Church as the Devils Vassal upon the excommunication of Princes whole Nations have been interdicted witness England Venice and other in the times of several Popes whole States subjected to ruine the Innocent with the Obstinate the Princes with the People all have have been sacrificed to Blood-thirsty-Popish-Priests under pretence of obedience to the Holy Catholick Church In what Code of the Ancient Church can it be found where any such strange kind of punishment was ever instituted as that for the offence of a few many Millions of Souls should be accursed cast out of the Church and in Popish construction damned How can they call that Power Apostolical that punisheth in this manner seeing the Apostolical Power was given for edification and not for destruction And yet so precipitate have some Popes been as to excommunicate whole States and Kingdoms Surely therefore we ought not so tamely to acquiesce on the bare ipse dixit of the Clergy pleading in their own Cause and for themselves only exclusive the Laity Certainly it is too small a security for so great a concern therefore let us a little examine what they urge for this exorbitant Power § If Kings be not this way punishable then they are no other way which is mischievous in the Church Sol. The Jewish Kings were as great and scandalous sinners as Kings-Christian now are yet God assigned no Rulers Spiritual for their Castigation and we must suppose that if it had
appear rather to be taken than given as this Author suggests Certainly this great Cloud of Witnesses will cure our Author of this his fear and set him and all others right as to Matter of Fact in this Point and so I leave it § Other Objections he makes against Liturgies if imposed as that they occasion neglect and disabilities that they hinder the due Exercise and Improvement of Spiritual Gifts and that they are an unwarrantable Abridgement of that Liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free and therefore sin in the Vse and Imposition thereof These I take to be rather Libels than just Objections for that there is no property belonging unto a good Pastor but what is very consistent with the true Nature and Use of sound Liturgies as hath been shewed already But if there be any such Watch-men that are blind ignorant dumb Dogs that cannot bark sleeping lying down loving to slumber greedy Dogs which can never have enough lazy idle Shepherds that cannot understand Isa 56.10 11. that will take occasion from the Imposition of Liturgies to neglect to feed their Flocks to strengthen the Diseased to heal the Sick to bind up that which is broken and to seek that which is lost yet this cannot without slander be imputed unto the Nature and Condition of Liturgies or their Imposition but unto the Shepherds themselves who will exact their due but neglect their Duty who take the hire of Labourers but live as Loiterers who love Pride fulness of Bread and abundance of Idleness and to feed themselves and not the Lords Flock Ezek. 34.3 looking to their own ways every one for his gain from his Quarter saying We will fetch Wine and fill our selves with Strong Drink and to morrow shall be as this day and much more abundant Isa 56.10 11 12. the more shame for those that ordain such and put such into Preferments and no doubt but God will in his due time require his Flock at the Hands of such Pastors and feed them with judgment causing their Habitation to mourn and themselves to howl for that God will spoil their Glory Zech. 11.3 for indeed I know no power that Gospel-Ministers can undoubtedly challenge by their Charter from Heaven but to preach in season out of season to teach their Flock and duly to Administer Gods Ordinances and Sacraments And if this should be denied them by vertue of the Imposition of Liturgies or that Liturgies were really exclusive of that Provision of Means that Christ hath ordained for the Edification of his Church as this Author seems to brand them it were better that both Liturgies and my self were tied to a Mil-stone and both cast into the midst of the Sea than that I should thus plead for them but being clearly convinced of the contrary I shall go to that which is last to be touched viz. § That Liturgies if imposed are against Christian Liberty § Christian Liberty I must confess is a specious and glorious term a most precious and most excellent thing an inestimable Blessing purchased by the death of the Son of God Jesus Christ blessed for ever and therefore ought not to be infringed or impeached by any and let him be Anathema that would willingly and knowingly endeavour it And as it is a thing of very high concern to all Christians so it is very apt to be highly wrested and abused contrary to the holy Ghost by Christians of divers perswasions every man Writing and shaping it to his own humor and fancying to themselves liberty in such and such things and then wresting places to favour their fancies which were never so intended by the Holy Ghost which crime is chiefly charged and falls most heavily upon the Anabaptists who do embrace an opinion very Licentious Extravagant and even destructive to all Government holding that a Christian Mans Liberty is lost and the Soul which Christ hath Redeemed unto himself injuriously drawn into Servitude under the Yoak of Humane power if any Law be now imposed besides the Gospel of Jesus Christ in obedience whereunto the Spirit of God and not the constraint of Men is to lead us according to that of the Blessed Apostle such as are lead by the Spirit of God they are the Sons of God Rom. 8.14 and not such as live in Thraldom unto Men therefore their Judgment is that amongst Christians there must be no Magistrates for if there must be Magistrates they must have Power to make Laws besides the Laws of God but this Power they have not because Christians have a free use of all the Creatures of God by Christian Liberty Next unto the Anabaptists it falls heavy I wish I could say not Justly upon some scrupulous Non-conformists that under pretence of Christian Liberty wherein they say they ought to stand fast and so no doubt they ought they often deny obedience to the Lawful Commands of the Magistrate in the business of the Lord and so use or rather abuse their Liberty for a Cloak to cover their malitiousness I will not say but their misunderstandings and not as the Servants of God 1 Pet. 2.16 There are others of the like Synagogue of Libertines as Phanaticks Quakers Ranters Adamites others But because they are Persons having no Principles no Mediums whereon to Ground and Regulate Discourses or Disputations I shall wave and a little look into the true nature of Christian Liberty which according to Calvin contains some higher thing than the Liberty in the use of Ceremonies and which I take to be a Spiritual Right or Condition in all the parts of it because it pertains to Conscience Be the extent of this Liberty what it will in it self it is inwardly in the Conscience But the publick use of it being in outward things and Actions is therefore under the Order of Humane Laws because Liberty is in Conscience and the Magistrates Authority pertains to the Body § For to make all restraint of the Outward Man in matters indifferent Confer at Hamp Court 70 71. an Impeachment of Christian Liberty what were it else but even to bring Flat Anabaptism and Anarchy into Church and State and to overthrow all bounds of Subjection and Obedience to lawful Authority For wherein can the immediate Power and Authority of Rulers consist or the due obedience of Inferiours be shown if not in indifferent and Arbitrary things For things absolutely necessary and commanded by God we are bound to do whether Humane Authority required them or no and things absolutely unlawful as Prohibited by God we are bound not to do whether Humane Authority forbid them or no there are no other things left then wherein to express properly the obedience due to Superiour Authority than indifferent things In rebus mediis lex posita est obedientiae Bern. Ep. if any retort as some have done that if we are obliged to do things absolutely necessary and commanded by God and obliged not to do things absolutely unlawful and forbidden by God without the Interposition
of Humane Authority then there are no things left for the exercise of Christian Liberty but only things indifferent among which Liturgies may be reckoned which Liberty if invaded or infringed by any Humane Authority A great Gospel priviledge is thereby infringed which ought not to be Then I must retort on them also and return their own Weapons upon themselves if every restraint in things indifferent be injurious to Christian Liberty then themselves are no less Injurious by their Negative Restraint viz. use no Liturgy wear not cross not kneel not c. like that Col. 2.1 touch not taste not handle not then they would have the World believe our Church is by her positive restraint unto the use of our Liturgies and Ceremonies therewith used let themselves be Judged whether it is more Injurious to Christian Liberty Publick Authority by mature advice Commanding what may be forborn or Private Spirits through humourous dislikes or at best not upon any demonstrative reasons forbidding what may be used the whole Church Imposing the use Or a few Dissenters requiring the forbearance of such things as are otherwise and in themselves equally indifferent for use or for forbearance Besides if I am not much mistaken the true Nature of Evangelical Liberty as intimated before consists chiefly if not wholly about things of a higher strain and Nature than of matters Indifferent and it will be very hard to prove by any one plain Text of Scripture without Wresting the Liberty so much contended for to be their Gospel and inviolable right when the Power of the Magistrate doth interpose Pro or Con. For if indifferent things be the only subject matter both of Publick Christian Authority and of Christian Private Liberty in every Individual Christian whereon to exercise themselves then the whole Gitt of the Contest will be whether Publick Authority or every Private Person be to be Indulged and Obeyed Judge even ye your selves Judge § Now the best way to my apprehension to understand what the Apostles in their Writings do mean and intend by the Words and Terms of Liberty and Freedom will be to consider them with their opposites viz. Bondage and Servitude and this St. Paul doth as in other of his Epistles so most fully and most plainly in his Epistle to the Galatians where he pursues these two opposite Terms Allegorically under the two Titles of two Mothers the one viz. Agar a Servant gendring unto Bondage the other viz. Sarah a Free Woman gendring unto Freedom thereby signifying the Two Testaments viz. the Covenant of Works and the Covenant of Grace and thereby shewing that the Jews in respect of the Christian Church of the New Testament were as Children differing nothing from Servants but were under Tutors and Governours and in Bondage under the Rudiments of the World i.e. the Law or Ministry of Moses so called in respect of a more full and clear Doctrine in the Ministry of the New Testament Now the Law is a grievous Yoak which none can bear because First it did bind the Church of the Old Testament to the Observation of many and those very costly and burthensome Ceremonies and Sacrifices Secondly because it did bind every Offender to everlasting death Gen. 2.17.3 Gal. 13.3 it is a Yoak as it increaseth Sin not casually but occasionally and as it is the strength of it 1 Cor. 15.56 5. Rom. 20.7 8. and whose property it is to gender unto Bondage But after the fullness of time was come and Christ had Redeemed them that were under the Law they did then receive the Adoption of Sons God had sent forth the Spirit of his Son into their Hearts they were then no more Servants but Sons i. e. such as enjoy the liberty of Sons and were Free indeed because the Son had made them Free John 8.36 so Agar which typifieth the Law is in Bondage with her Children but Jerusalem which is above and typifieth the Gospel is free Gal. 4.25 26. Now Christian Liberty consists first in our being delivered from the Curse of the Law for the breach thereof and from the Obligation of the Law whereby it binds us to bring perfect righteousness in our Own Persons according unto do this and live Secondly From the Observation of the Ceremonial Law of Moses Col. 2.16 Thirdly It delivers from the Tyranny and Dominion of Sin For Sin shall not have Dominion over you for ye are not under the Law but under Grace Rom. 6.14 Fourthly Christian Liberty is to have a freedom in good things we are delivered from our Enemies that we may serve God in righteousness and holiness before him all the daies of our lives without sear Luke 1.47 75. and Paul saith where the Spirit is there is Liberty Cor. 12.3 17. Fifthly It consists in the free use of all the Creatures of God Whatever is sold in the Shambles that Ea◠asking no Questions for Conscience sake 1 Cor. 10.25 27. I have perused these and divers others if not all the places of Scripture urged by several of the Synagogue of the Libertines whereby they lay claim unto their exhorbitant dearly beloved and much Idolized Liberty to do what they list without controle or Inspection into their Actings in and about Holy things and do and whosoever shall soberly and seriously consider them together with their Contexts shall find them all to Center into their own one and the same most naturall and genuine sence and meaning viz. that by Liberty and Freedom in them mentioned is mainly if not meerly meant the Liberty from the Yoak Bondage and Curse of the Law it being a Spiritual liberty in all the parts of it freeing the true Christian from the Servitude of Sin and from all other Yoaks of Spiritual Bondage wherewith Sin hath intangled us and from which Christ the Author of this Liberty hath redeemed us and that the Law of this Liberty is the Gospel and that neither in the Texts of Scripture urged by this Author nor in any other that I know of is there any one Syllable of force to support the Liberty that this Author seems to plead for that is Impeached or Contradicted by the Imposition of sound Orthodox Liturgies Mostly all the Texts wherein Liberty and Freedom are but Named are generally Mustred up as a Cloud of Witnesses to shadow and shelter the Pleaders for their fancyed Liberty that under the pretence and umbrage of them and their corrupt glosses upon them they may with the better grace deny obedience to the Lawful Magistrate in Lawful things in and about the Worship of God and so use or rather abuse their true Gospel Liberty which no man can take from them for a Cloak to cover their Non-compliance with the Lawful Commands of the Civil Magistrate which indeed are the Commands of the National Church which to do is certainly not to approve themselves unto God Workmen that need not be ashamed rightly dividing the word of Truth 2 Tim. 2.15 but by thus perverting and shaping Texts of
Dog with a fire Brand in his Mouth the signification and application whereof I leave to every Reader to make Only his deportment towards the Albigenses is storied to be rabying against whom he so Preached adeo quidem ut câ—ntum haereticorum millia uh octo Millibus catholicorum fusa intersercta fuisse perhibeantur saith one of him and of those who became Captives 180 were Burnt to Death the first Example that I find in the Church of Rome of putting Dissenting Bretheren to Death Of this order was this precious Inquisitor Jacomello to Arms alleadging for their Justification that Magistrates were set over them by God and themselves for the good and behoof of the Governed and not the Governed Ordained for the Lusts of Magistrates to be destroyed and killed at pleasure that their Condition being desperate they might use Arms in their own Defence and that in their Condition their appeal unto Arms was not so much against the Prince as against the Pope who usurped more Authority than did Dejure belong unto him and did also abuse the Authority of their Prince by subtle and crafty seducements for his own sinister ends Hence there were War all this year and part of the next And the Duke having made more than a years tryal to reduce them by Wars and Punishments being therein assisted with Money from the Pope and at last after many Skirmishes an Appeal being made unto the Lord of Hoasts by a formal pitcht Battel the Duke lost 7000 men slew but 14 of his Enemies and tho he did often recruit his Army yet had he always the worst Therefore the Duke wisely considering that he did thereby only make his Subjects the more Warlike and teach and inure them more Stoutly to Offend him Consume his own Country and VVast his Treasury he resolved to receive them into favour and made an agreement with them 5º Junij in which he pardoned all past faults gave them Liberty of Conscience appointed them places where they might meet gave leave to those that were Fled to return and restitution of Goods to those that were Banished Which Agreement very much distasted the Pope that an Italian Prince who had been Assisted by him and might have more need of him should yet permit Hereticks to Live freely in his Territories and for that the example would be urged by greater Princes when they inclined to permit another Religion whereof he bitterly complained in the Consistory comparing the Ministers of the most Catholick King with the Duke who having about the same time discovered 3000 Lutherans who went out of Cosenza and retired themselves to the Mountains to Live according to their Doctrine did Hang some Burn others and put the rest into the Gallies but the Duke justifying his Cause with such Reasons which the Pope not being able to answer did Acquiesce And are not such Councils such Advisocs greater marks of an Hireling or a Butcher than Obedience to the Pope a true Mark of the Church Appello ad Caesarem Deum Deorum Dominum Dominorum qui non accipit personam neque recipit munus 10 of Deut. 17. § About the same time there were great Troubles and Disorders in France for cause of Religion Multitudes disdaining to see poor Innocent Christians drawn every day to the Stake to be Burned Guilty of nothing but of Zeal to Worship God to keep a more intimate near and dear Communion with their God and to fave their own Souls These Humors were not Purged nor yet allaied neither by Punishments nor Pardons proferred and Proclaimed but that greater Tumults were raised in Province Languedoc and Poicton whether the Preachers of Geneva were called and came willingly by whose Sermons the number of the Protestants did daily increase examples of great fear being always joyned with others of equal boldness for the quieting of which Humors Francis the 2d the 11º Aprilis 1559. intimated a National Synod as a proper Remedy But the same Hireling Pius the 4th as before in the cause of the Duke of Savoy did most severely complain that the King had Pardoned Hereticks and Errors committed against Religion wherein none had Power but himself and that he would not by any means Consent to an Assembly of Prelates either in France or elsewhere for that a National Council of that or of any other Kingdom would be a kind of Schism from the universal Church give bad example to other Nations and make Prelates proud assuming greater Authority with Diminution of his own and that to consent to a National Synod was to consent that the Axe should be laid to the Root of the Papacy and that by consequence it was an Alienation from the Apostolick See As if God had not given to every National Church and State all things necessary to Govern themselves by but that they must all run to Rome and Romish Priests for redress nay this good Shepherd commanded his Nuntio to intimate farther to the King that if he would resolve to compel his Subjects by force that he would assist him with all his Power and Labour that the King of Spain and Princes of Italy should do the like But if he refused to compel his Subjects by force then his Nuntio was to insinuate to him that all the mischief and Poyson came from Geneva that the extirpation of that root would take away great part of the nourishments of the Evils that disquieted his Dominions § Dissentions and Troubles Fears and Jealousies still increasing in France the King maugre all the Popes Arguments and Interests called a great Assembly at Fountain Bleau 21 Aug. 1560. who being Petitioned by the Reformatists desired nothing but a moderation of their cruel Punishments and that they might make publick profession of their Religion to avoid suspition which might arise by Conventicles or private Assemblies John Monluc the Bishop of Valence did therein complain that Provision had not been made against them because the Popes had no other aim but to hold the Princes in Wars and the Princes thinking to suppress the Evil with Racks and Tortures having not attained their desired end nor the Magistrates and Bishops justly performed their Duty the principal Remedy was to fly unto God to assemble Godly Men to find a way to root out the Vices of the Clergy to forbid Infamous and Immodest Songs and instead of them to Command the Singing of Psalms and Holy Hymns in the Vulgar Tongue And farther shewed that they did grievously erre who troubled the Publick with Arms upon pretence of Religion and that their error was as great who Condemned to Death those that adhered to the New Doctrine only for the Opinion of Piety During these disorders Francis the first Dying the 5th of Dec. 1560. and Charles the 9th Aged 10 years Succeeding he more like the good Shepherd than he that Styled himself Pius by the mature advice of his Council after Solemn and great Consultations and deliberations about the Troubles and Disorders in
I abhor the thoughts of it as will appear hereafter there being a Vast difference between such a Tolleration of Idolatry Superstition crying sins and therefore absolutely unlawful and a Remission only of some few severities in some Acts Canons and Injunctions which relate only to Formalities that tho in construction of Law may be exacted yet may be dispensed withal without prejudice to sound Doctrine or good Conversation and without which the Worship of God would be as pure and sincere Indeed all Acts Canons and Injunctions whether they relate unto Uniformity or not ought according to their own Nature to be sincere and free from all Traps and Covert designs to exclude any that Profess the same Faith and Worship tho many cannot perhaps thro meer tenderness of Conscience submit to every thing therein enjoyned In Concerns of this Nature Scripture in a more especial manner ought to be the Rule of Resolutions and that abstractly and purely without mixing and bringing with them Interest Usurpation or Artifices of men else what were it but by Edicts to lay Snares in Mispah and spread Nets upon Tabor to use Laws Menaces and subtleties to keep Gods People from his Court and Sanctuary and Confine them to State-Religion and to Walk after the Mode of the Commands of men Those Non-conformists Non-assenters that have received Order which they could not have had but permissu superiorum by the Licence and under the Authority of the King in our Laws expressed For no Man hath Power to give himself either Orders to be a Priest or Institution to a Pastoral Charge but must depend upon another Power who by Acts Canons and Edicts long since published and extant hath directed the qualifications of the Persons to be Ordained the manner and Form how the Persons who ought to Ordain them c. and they could not be ignorant that the Liturgy and enjoyned Ceremonies were by the Imperative Constitutive Government of this Church and State to be Countenanced and used in publick Churches by the Bishops Presbyters and Pastors either they consulted their Consciences when they entered on the Ministery by taking Holy Orders whether they could Comply and Submit unto the whole Frame of Government and Polity of this Church Constituted by Act of Parliament from whom they were to receive Authority and Licence to Exercise their Function Gifts and Talents or they did not If they did not they are inexcusable for entring on so Sacred a Calling Stamped with an Indelible Character so rashly so unadvisedly without perspect or foresight of Consequences and yet if they were so pur-blind as not to see one step before them yet their neglect herein cannot be Pleaded in their Excuse it being their own Fault in Common Justice no Court will permit any man to take Advantage of his own misdemeanors or failings Besides hath not every Minister that hath receiv'd Pastoral Charge twice or thrice if not oftner witnessed his allowance of all and singular the 39 Articles of our Church once at his Ordination before the Bishop then at his Institution into his Benefice before his Ordinary and both these by Subscription under his own hand and afterwards upon his Induction before his own Flock and that by verbal Approbation he hath not only acknowledged in the Church the Power of Ordaining Rites and Ceremonies 20 Articles But he hath after a sort bound himself openly to rebuke such as willingly and purposely break the Traditions and Ceremonies of the Church as Offenders of the Common Order of the Church and Wounders of the Consciences of the weak Brethren and hurters of the Authority of the Magistrate Artic. 34. and is it not enacted 1º Eliz. c. 2. that they shall be punished pro ut in the Act that shall Preach declare or speak any thing in derogation or depraving our Liturgy c. Are not then such Dissenters obliged both in Conscience and by virtue of their own Voluntary Acts and Subscriptions to be constant to their own Hands and Tongues if they would be accounted Faithful in Gods House as was Moses And is it reasonable then to hearken unto such Pleading against their own Voluntary Acts and Subscriptions their own Hands and Tongues Besides quo jure with what Face or Conscience can they expect Temples maintenance protection and all things requisite for their Ministery from that Law and Government that they will not Protect Countenance nor submit unto § Indeed it seems to me an old piece of Conscientiousness if not Impiety to enter the Holy Ministerial Function to day when they are sure without Conformity to be silenced to morrow Besides it is Nicety and Indiscretion to exact an express Rule of Scripture or Faith for the Cross in Baptism for standing at the Creed Kneeling at the Lords Beard for Habits in Divine Service the usual sear-Crows of scrupulous men In these cases consent of the Church or Tradition may suffice so there be no express Law of Command to the contrary He that exacts in these Points as express Rules of Faith or Warrant of Scripture for his Obedience to Ecclesiastical Government as he would or as every man ought to do for adventuring upon Worshipping of Images Invocation of Saints c. doth make his Brain or Fancy the chief Seat of his Religion which should be seated in the Heart and Intitles God to the Fancies and Chymaeraes of their own Brains Thus to disobey the Church in these Cases wherein it hath Authority to Command Obedience is to disobey those Mandates of God which give the Body of the Church Authority to make Laws to Govern it self by in things indifferent neither expresly Forbidden nor expresly Commanded by the Law of God I know the Apostles Rule is let every man be fully persâ—â—ded in his own mind 14 Rom. 5. And this full perswasion or assurance of Faith is in the Cases there mentioned necessary because whatsoever is not of Faith is Sin v. 23. This last Maxim is undoubtedly true and the former Precept most exactly to be observed in such Causes as the Apostle there speaks of that is where the positive Practise unless our Warrant be Authentick in it self and evident to us is very dangerous or deadly whereas on the contrary the forbearance of such Practise is either safe or not prejudicial to our Souls but to our Bodies only or State temporal such Ceremonies as be neither against Faith nor adverse to good manners in the Judgment of St. Austin ep 11.8 go for indifferent and may be Born in Christian Unity without Offence or Confusion If God hath left things indifferent what Authority can make them necessary Let them be so still and their nature not changed by any Injunction and Unity will necessarily ensue Quodam modo it may be true that in Ordination there is something which they receive thereby from God Independent of the King or any Civil Power viz. Authority to Tâ—â—ch Baptize and Administer Sacraments by Virtue of Ordination And â—â— is as true that
there is something in Ordination or appendant to it which they receive from the King First Licence to be Ordained and Liberty to exercise what God hath Authorized them to do viz. to Preach Baptize c. In which Ordination also there is if not an Overt yet a tacite and implyed condition viz. Submission to the Imperative Constitutive Government of the present Church that doth permit them to be Ordained Licence them to Preach Establish them a maintenance c. All which if they expect from the Prince all the reason Imaginable that he should judge and appoint who should be capable of such Liberty and maintenance and appoint the qualifications or else if he should give the same Countenance Liberty and maintenance to Popish Priests or Jews why were he to be blamed if he had no Power nor Command from God to Judg to Licence or Tollerate Suppress or Prohibit Therefore if after Ordination and Admission into the Ministery they refuse to submit to the Established Government of the present National Church the same Authority that permitted them Ordination may for sound and good reasons as Warrantably deny them publick preferments and publick places for the exercise thereof for the Application of the Persons to the Charge is wholly in the Body of the Church and Magistrates Power which is one and the same thing whether you consider Independent or not ndependent Churches And I appeal to all the Congregations Presbyterian and Independent whether they will admit any into their particular Societies that will not submit to their Government Constitutive by consent And do not again Excommunicate those that after their admission do deny submission to their Constitutions I would have no man patient in causa laesae fidei yet it is Pauls Counsel and Practise in things indifferent to become all unto all and to be indifferently minded 1 Cor. 9 2â— Moderation what Wise man but approves in external Rites to fit himself to that Church wherein God shall call or occasion him to Live § I will make no severe reflections on any peccadilloes of any persons of any perswasion but believe that as they are all Heirs of the same Faith and of the same Salvation and all Brethren of Christ so they may all meet in Heaven and therefore will exhort all to Unity and and Peace and Love the last Legacy Christ left to Disciples viz. Love one another and I hope they all have the same Christian Love and Charity each toward other Paul and Barnabas Jarred yet Preached the Gospel and why not you Our love to God is more espetially manifested and signalized by our love to Saints for whom we ought to lay down our lives 1 Joh. 3.16 David a King and a man after Cods own Heart solemnly Protests all my delight is in the Saints on the Earth and in such as excell in Vertue 16 Psal 3. The proximity and near Relation that Saints have with Christ should encourage them whom he hath dignified with his own name and Power to prefer the Saints in love To Saul an Enemy David shewed kindness but his Soul clave to the Soul of Jonathan 1 Sam. 18.13 Gods Precepts and Saints Practise oblige us always to limit the specially of our Love to the Houshold of Faith if ye all have Faith towards God of which I make no question why then live ye not in love one towards another why so dissenting why such animosities each towards other scarce affording a good word one of the other I hope you have not so learned Christ Gods love to his Chosen so impartial that whether Graecian or Barbarian Bond or Free all are one in Christ Jesus Gods favours for Salvation are Extended to all Prince Pesant Prelate Presbyter Independent Conformist Non-Conformist Assenter Dissenter Liturgist or Antiliturgist however different among your selves in point of Discipline nothing in Doctrines fundamental All a like Redeemed by the Blood of Christ Sanctified by his Grace and Providence the ground of all Holy Love is the same in all the Image of God the Loadstone of all gracious Affections Apage imbelles quaerimonias A way then with all Animosities all evil speakings and murmurings one against another as if Ca-sirouna dogs â—â—ch to other Beware also of Partiality in affections towards one another must your Love and Testimonies thereof be limited only to place and outwâ—rd Eminency in our Church and of your own rank and perswasion only must Dissenters tho never so Rich in Faith be scarce vouchsafed your Eugè unless the same moment you give them your Vale meats scarce meet for the Dogs of your Flock To such I say with Paul despise ye the Church of God and shame them that have not 1 Cor. 11.22 Be Exhorted therefore without partiality to love each other in good earnest considering that our Love to the Brethren is the best Evidence of our Love towards God and the best Evidence of our Sincerity in loving and surest sign of true Gracious Love when it is Impartial to all tho Dissenting Brethren for if our Love be sincere and without dissimulation it will be impartial and will work no ill to the Brethren and is the very fulfilling of the Law It is not to be denyed but that tho the Body the Catholick Church be one yet it hath many Members and all the Members of that one Body being many are one Body whereof Christ is the Head 1 Cor. 12.12 whether Prelate Presbyter or Independent whether National or Congregational Churches are all Members of the same Catholick Body and therefore I do deem it very unbrotherlike if not unscholastick to stigmatizey either Conformist or Non-Conformist with the name of Seperatist or Schismatick because they all hold the Truth in Righteousness those names more properly belong to Dogs to evil Workers to the Concision of which we ought to beware and avoid 3 Phil. 2. the Conformist and Non-Conformist the Liturgist and Anti-Liturgist they all serve and Worship God in Truth and in Sincerity and give God thanks and are certainly Members of the same Body and neither ought to Esteem other Seperatist or Schismatick but the stronger to bear the Infirmities of the weaker they differing only in Circumstantials not in Fundamentals or things absolutely necessary St. John 3 Ep. Commendeth to Pious Preachers the Example of Gajus and Demetrius for their peaceable deportments towards the Brethren and their love of the Truth and Rebukes Diotrephes for loving praeheminence among the Brethren and for prating against them with usalicious words unbeseeming both Conformists and Non-conformists and not receiving them nor yet the love of the Truth but forbidding them that would and in as much as in them lyeth casting them out of the Church Take heed and by love serve one another for in this one word Love all the Law is fulfilled for if ye bite and devour one another take heed I say ye be not Consumed one of another 5 Gal. 13.14 15. FINIS I Have now done with our Friends at
boldly Written that to restrain the Obedience due unto the Pope unto things concerning the Salvation of the Soul is to bring it to nothing That St. Paul appealed to Caesar who was not his Judge and not to St. Peter lest the By-standers should have laughed at him That the Holy Bishops of Old shewed themselves subject to Emperors because the times so required others adjoyned farther that then it was meet to introduce the Empire of the Pope by little and little it being a thing unseasonable to despoil Princes newly converted of their Estates and also to permit something unto them for to interess them Other like discourses they made which many Godly persons abhorred to read and reputed them Blasphemies Hist of the Inquisition Sparsim § Moreover these were not the Scriblings of some Vulgar Pens but some Ecclesiasticks of very great quality Printed in favour of the Roman Pontiffs cause a very seditious Sheet wherein was affirmed against all sound Doctrine that Marriages within the State of the Republick were invalid the Matrimonial Conjunction Adultery and the Children all Bastards that it was not only lawful butmeritorious for Pastors to abandon their Flocks And whither did all this tend but to unty the very Bonds of the Civil Government of all States To contradict which there was published a Treatise of John Gerson written 150 years before to which was adjoyned a Letter exhorting all Curates to take care of their Churches not fearing the Offence of God by not observing the Interdict Soon after came out a Treatise of Cardinal Bellarmine against that of Gerson then followed the admonition of Cardinal Baronius as also a discourse of Cardinal Colonna endeavouring to terrifie the Prelates and other Ecclesiasticks placed in the greatest places by the fear of censures and the privation of their Dignities and Benefices Bellarmine aimed to shake the devout Consciences by exalting the Authority of the Pope so far as to make it equal to that of God Bellarmine Baroâ—ius Colonna In summ all the three Cardinals laboured mainly how conscientiously let the World judge to disguise the truth that it should not be discovered These are not only false and Blasphemous but new Doctrines also never known to the Old Romans for many hundred of years The Sun at Noon never saw these abominations until within these 3 or 400 years whereby it is apparent that they are not all Rome which are of Rome neither are they all Legitimate Children begotten in the Lord by the Doctrines of St. Peter but are the degenerate and Bastard Plants and Successors tho they boast of their succeeding Peter in his Local Chair at Rome tho they differ from him in his Doctrines and tho in the truest understanding the Protestants are the Legitimate Children of St. Peter and not those that stile themselves St. Peter's Successors at Rome § The Antient Fathers taught obedience to Princes Antient Fathers taught obedience to Princes but never taught that the Pope hath Power to abrogate the Laws of Princes in Temporal matters or to deprive them of their Crowns or free their Subjects â—â— their Allegiance that to depose Kings from their Thrones is a new thing never attempted till within these 600 years and is against the Scriptures and the examples of Jesus Christ and of his Saints and to teach that in Case of Controversie between the Pope and a Prince it is lawful to pursue the Prince with frauds and open force or that the Subjects which do Rebel against him do by that means obtain the Remission of their sins are Doctrines Seditious and Sacrilegious That Ecclesiastical men by Divine Law are not exempted from the Secular Power neither in their Persons nor in their Goods though they have received from Godly and Devout Princes since Constantine the Great until Frederick the Second divers Priviledges which they had power only to grant for their own times and their own Dominions which did exempt them from the power of Inferior Magistrates only but not from their own Soveraign Authority That the exemptions granted by Popes unto the Order of the Clergy have not been admitted in some places and in others admitted only in part and that they have been valid so far only as they have been received that notwithstanding any Papal exemption the Prince hath still power over their Persons and Goods whensoever necessity constrains him to serve himself of them And if at any time they should abuse such exemption to the perturbation of the publick tranquillity that the Prince is obliged to provide a remedy Now that these Evils having gotten such exorbitant growth and have been so troublesom to all States and Kingdoms whom may Kings and Princes blame but themselves who not having that due regard to the Divine Precepts which so straitly oblige them to take knowledge of Gods most Holy Law and of Religion but have altogether neglected this duty as if Religion were a thing that did not concern them and as if they were not to render an account to God neither for themselves nor for their Subjects by neglecting the care and defence of it against the Divine Precepts of Gods word the Doctrine of Sacred Canons and Fathers and the Practice of Pious Princes contenting themselves with a Religion without knowing what it is or how it should be kept from Corruption tollerating for their own Ease and worldly Interests the people to be kept in ignorance and to be deceived by often alterations under pretence and Mask of Religion and Piety with a dayly permission not only to Religious persons but to all sorts of men to invent new Orders and Rites as Jesuitism Inquisition c. for their own profit Interest and Greatness without considering that in the end every old Order Rite and Custom carries along with it its own Credit which invites belief and so Religion becomes changeable and meerly serviceable to the Interests and Ends of those that manage it And these alterations having been once received and a while continued by the present Kings and Princes have been no small obligation to their Heirs and Successors to continue them upon the reason of Authority stampt upon them by time and custom A thing that often happens in all humane affairs but chiefly in Religion when superstition and false Doctrines are broached and invented for ends not suitable to pure Religion and undefiled As every Government so that of the Church more especially requires watchfulness and faithfulness and he that dischargeth himself of these destroyeth himself of so much of his Authority and happily doth not perceive it till it be lost and cannot be recovered again which hath been the Case of many supine and negligent Princes Kings and Princes ought not in any prudence to trust to the Pope or any other Ecclesiastick mens care nor have recourse to any one but to abound in care themselves forbidding all that may hurt a good Government lest his Subjects be circumvented and induced to embrace and favour opinions
this Life and in that which is to come meer Vassals they and their Subjects likewise in no better condition than the Sheep in Demosthenes where the Dogs were to be banished and the Wolves to be their Guardians for they endeavor to make the World believe that they have power over their Souls and Bodies at their pleasure both in this Life and after Death These have been the Collections and Observations of Fra. Paolo and other learned and faithful Writers and eye-witnesses The best is Ab initio non fuit sie there are no such Doctrines in Bibliis Sacris but the contrary And our Doctrines concerning these points and indeed our Religion is the same which is contained in the Scriptures in General Councils and in the Fathers of the First Three I might say Five Ages which have not been purified in their Purgatory their Indices expurg and agrees with the Articles of Faith and only differs in those which they have lately invented and added which he that examines them one by one shall find that none of them make for the Glory of God but all for the Increase of the Grandeur Wealth worldly Power and Jurisdiction of the Ecclesiastical Order so that in truth the true Roman Religion such as it was in the dayes of the Apostles and some Centuries next succeeding is insensibly but manifestly Bastardized and become spurious at Rome and all reduced to a new fashioned Religion which chiefly if not only makes for the pomp and Interest of the Court of Rome So that in truth these latter Popes are no more nor otherwise the true Possessors or Successors of St. Peter's Doctrines at Rome than the Grand Signior is of the Doctrines of St. James's at Jerusalem or of St. Paul's in those famous Churches of Asia In the dayes of Sixtus Quintus that Great Prince there lived in Italy that famous Alchymist and Impostor Nick-named Mamugna who was verily believed that he could make Gold not by the Vulgar only but by Cardinals Princes nay by the Pope himself One more wise and more merry than the rest habiting himself like this famous Alchymist went up and down the City of Venice in a Gondelo well fraught with a Cargo of fire Bellows Crucible Glasses c. crying Al Magmugna A tre lire il soldo del loro sino who buyes a shillings worth of pure Gold for nine pence which being told the Turkish Chiaus made this short answer Il gran signore dumque verra a servirlo if he can make Gold the Great Turk shall come to be his Servant I shall make no other Application or inference of this Mountebank Story than what is natural qui vult decipi decipiatur if Princes will be content to let false and base Coin go for currant be it so But in truth all the Papalins were not of the same mind and opinions with those famous Cardinals and Jesuits the Popes Partisans nor with the Court of Rome but Books were Printed Pro and Con by Papalins themselves in great numbers For besides the Papalins within the State of Venice the Sorbonists were very Orthodox and maintained the Defence of the lawful Secular Power opposing themselves against the Usurpations of Rome and maintaining the Liberty of the Gallican Church for that Kingdom holds it for a matter most certain and apparent that Popes have no power over Princes and that they ought not to proceed by Censures against them or their Officers in things which concern the State And as soon as the King knew of the publication of the Monitory at Rome he complained greatly of the too hasty proceedings of the Pope and sent a dispatch to him with speed requesting him to accommodate the differences The King of Polonia absolutely denyed the publishing of the Popes Monitory for that it did not stand with reason to govern themselves after another fashion towards that Republick of Venice whose Cause was common with his own Kingdom The Catholick King of Spain on whom the Pope relyed for Succors for that he had sometime before made liberal offers unto His Holiness from which he retreated in time of necessity and advised him to neglect his own private Interests for the universal good of Christendom and said that it did not beseem the Father of all Christendom to ground a War so cruel and pernitious to Christian People upon a King so pious and that His Holiness would abase the Apostolick Dignity if he sustained by humane means the Authority which God had given him Quarrels of Paul the Fifth pag. 374 375 376. Thus you see Rome it self divided the Pope and Court of Rome differing in this their greatest point and Diana Jurisdiction both from the old and from the more Novel Church of Rome as well as from that of the Church of the Protestants And thus you may perceive the unquiet and uncertain State that all Princes are like to be in and their Condition never like to be better whilst such monstrous State-destroying-Principles are held for Gospel at Rome For it matters not whether these Doctrines are true or false or received and believed by others or no nor yet whether Protestants or Papists it is all a case so long as so believed at Rome You see the State of Venice a Popish Republick no more safe nor quiet than England a Protestant Kingdom Had the Popes Swords been keen and powerful enough no doubt but that they would have brought both those States in their respective differences and quarrels as once Frederick Barbarossa the Emperor to that Brute Alexander the Third creeping on their knees to obtain Absolution from their Sentences of Excommunication or as Henry the Fourth whom Hildebrand would not release from his Excommunication till he came bare-foot to Canusium in a bitter cold Winter waiting three dayes before the Popes Palace for his Absolution which he hardly obtained by the Intercession of the Dutchess Matilda The Pope besides that he is the Head of Romish Religion is also a Prince who hath for more than 600 years by past aspired to the Monarchy of all Italy at least I might say at an universal Monarchy Temporal and Spiritual which he hath been some time so near to obtain that it is a wonder that he hath misled of it seeing he leaves no stone unturned quacunque arte to enlarge his Jurisdiction He hath three great charges upon him 1. That of Religion 2. That of Ecclesiastical affairs 3. The Temporalty of his Estate The care of all which I shall not grudge him as of right belonging unto him in one or other of his Capacities so he kept within his own Dominions and Territories tho happily all of the Romish Religion will not allow him so much for that all Bishops ought to be governed by the Canons and in which both Pope and all Bishops antiently in the best and purest dayes did acknowledge the Supream power to be to which they all submitted and not by the Pope alone there being also three kinds of
to seed his Fock No no Ezekiel shews that their duty is to strengthen the Diseased to heal the Sick to bind up the broken to bring again that which was driven away and to jeek that which was lost this also is consonant to the Doctrine of St. Peter 1. Ep. 2 3. Feed the Flock of Christ taking the oversight thereof not for filthy Lucre but of a ready mind neither as being Lords over Gods Heritage but being Examples to the Flock Besides it can never be proved by Scripture that Christ's instituting Pastors in the Church did at any time exempt them from obedience to the Church she being the Common Parent of all Christians both Ecclesiastical and Secular and the Practice was so in the purest times as may appear by St. Cyprian Lib. 1. c. 4. Moreover when Christ ascended on high tho he led Captivity Captive and gave gifts unto men yet he did not divest himself of all power of Governing his Body the Church Militant here on Earth devolving it on the Pope but doth still continue to govern it internally and Spiritually by the secret influences and illapses of his Spirit and so will do until time shall be no more And altho the Popes have nothing at all to do with this kind of Government nor as yet in terminis have laid any claim thereunto yet their Illustrissimo Bellarmine hath had such effronted Impudence as to aver that the Pope is able to do all that which is necessary to the Conducting of Souls to Paradise unto which end certainly Divine Inspiration is most necessary and can take away all Impediments which the World or the Devil with all their force or Crast are able to oppose which doth covertly insinuate and attribute the same Spiritual Invisible power to be also in the Pope hoping it will not be seen but it is discovered for without such Insluences and assistances it is very improbable if not altogether impossible to be conducted to Heaven and if Bellarmine's Doctrine be good what need of petitioning Heaven for Graces it is but going to Rome a pleasant Journey where we may have all things necessary for our Journey to Paradise for asking for some merry Pence Romae omnia venalia As to the external Government of his Body and Church Militant here on Earth it consists here of visible men The Church to be Governed by its own Body So Christ himself would that it should be governed by visible men without divesting himself of his Spiritual influences and in order thereunto he appointed Pastors and Teachers for the perfecting of the Saints for the work of the Ministery for the Edifying of the Body of Christ Ephes 4.8 11 12. Who having in his life-time endowed them with power and commands to teach all Nationis Baptizing c. Matth. 28.19 which is all the Authority that ever Christ gave or bequeathed unto them and which is purely Spiritual without any mixture Temporal and that only as Ministers and Servants not as Lords of his Body which power tho it may be peculiar to the Clergy of the Church as chief Officers and Ministers thereof yet the application of the same Authority to the person is purely elective and depending on the Body hence it follows that the Body or Sheep having chosen their Bishop or Pastor he is now become subject to the Body and not the Body to him which Authority of choosing them a good or of Judging or of censuring a wicked Pastor being given them of Christ their Head and Father they cannot wave or devolve the same without committing great offence against God and if they should yet they cannot wholly divest themselves thereof Besides in disputes among themselves whether the Pope be above a Council very many of the most Learned of them do argue and agree that as the Head or Superior of the Inquisition is not Superior to the whole Congregation of the Inquisition being assembled nor do they admit that the rest of the Body hath no power over the Head especially being such a Head as the Body it self hath constituted They argue the like also from the examples of Kings and Kingdoms of which I shall make this use only that if these be good instances among themselves to prove a Council to be above the Pope it will hold also in minor collective Ecclesiastical Bodies Thus do they abuse all places of Scripture by wresting them from their proper meaning and intendment The Popes claims first modest then Impudent as I have hitherto shewed and therefore the Readers may do well to bear in their memories the Cautions and Observations laid down in the Paraenesis forementioned The pretensions of the Popes were at first modest as I have shewed you in Gregory in respect of that height of Impudence they have now arrived unto They claimed only precedency or Primacy not Supremacy but now their Judgments are Infallible their Jurisdiction Infinite their Empire boundless fetching in and Monopolizing all Churches and Kingdoms All Bishops but their Curates All Kings and Emperors but their Vassals for of the Pope was meant Gens regnum quod non servierit tibi eradicabitur and this Bellarmine Baronius and others of the same Leaven plead for not out of the Decretal Epistles or Constantine's Donations but out of Scripture The first and best Bishops of Rome thought more of their Martyrdom than of an Universal Monarchy expounding Scripture with contentedness according to the natural sence of the Text without racking or torturing it unto wrong ends and purposes But their Successors lost by degrees first conscience then Learning and now at last all Grace and Modesty This their Babel as it now stands was not built in a day but as the itching desires of this or that proud and haughty Pope of enlarging their Fringes and Phylacteries did increase so their claims and pretentions increased therewith At first they claimed a Primacy of Order or at most of Honor not of power among their Brethren only not over them And these contestations were with Bishops not yet with Emperors they medled yet only with the Keyes not with the Swords owning all their power to be meerly and purely Spiritual for the benefit of Souls nothing at all directly or indirectly temporal But when once they had put a Padlock on the Scriptures and Preached Ignorance up to be the Mother of Devotion then the Mystery of Iniquity became quickly advanced to that monstrous height which at this day we see but cannot remedy And the better to set out this Pageant not only some scraps and shadows of old Fathers and Councils but the Scripture it self our Lord Christ and St. Peter are brought upon the Stage and rackt and tortured to do obeysance unto this Monster of Iniquity whereas we may safely swear that there is not one word or Syllable of the Pope or his Power in all the Scripture Old or New but what is due to all Bishops in Common with him save only as he is described
Pyramids erected with Superscriptions for their perpetual infamy and Banishment not only demolished and solemn Laws ordained against them revoked but to prevail to be re-admitted nay so re-established and re-ingratiated as to become their Chief Preachers Confessors Favorites and fully so to possess themselves of their hearts and affections as they have been and still are in Popish Nations and Courts and Prime Ministers of all affairs I am half perswaded that tho the Four Evangelists should rise from the dead and become Competitors for the more special favors of those Kings and States with whom the Jesuits have got their Sure-sooting that they would yet keep themselves Chief Lords of their Ascendents and lead them Captive as they use to do Not to trouble you with many Stories Pierre Cotton Confessor to Henry the Fourth of France that great Prince may suffice whence grew that Proverb amongst them Les Oreilles du Roy sont Buschees de Cotton The Kings eares are stopt with Cotton And that Pasquill Le Roy ne scauroit fair un Pas Que le Pere Cotton l'accompane Mais le bon sire ne scait pas Que le sin Cotton vient de espagne The King no where can step a Foot But Father Cotton finds him out Yet the good King is not aware That fine Cotton is Spanish ware To which I shall add the Quadrane to the Queen Regent If you desire your state continue may Then chase these evil Tygers far away Who cutting their Kings life Apart Are their own paymasters with his Heart This most excellent faculty of theirs puts me in mind of the man in the Parabâ—e â—â—t of whom an unclean Spirit having been cast Mat. 12. Luke 11. and after long wa◠〈…〉 finding no rest took with him seven other Spirits more wicked than hâ—â—sâ—â—f of and returned into the same House from whence he came out and finding it swept and garnished entred and dwelt there whereby the last estate of that man became worse than the first § Si fas sit divinare may we not probably conjecture that Confession tho insignificant in it self yet by the most excellent management of those of the Church of Rome together with some apprehensions on one side and happily some Menaces on the other of being sent the same way after their Predecessors to be one of their chief Charmes For tho Confession practised as it ought may be both convenient and useful yet that it cannot be performed but by a Priest is besides all reason and common sense It is storied that if a man struck with a Scorpion Plin. lib. 28. c. 10. do immediately whisper it in the ear of an Ass he shall find sudden ease A story as credible as that without Confession to a Priest no Absolution can ensue The Common-law of Nature and Civil Law of Man kind teacheth that unto every man justly offended satisfaction is justly due Our neighbor is satisfied by Confession and Restitution of the wrong done to the offended without the help of a Priest And if a Priest do wrong to one of his Parishioners the Priest is obliged to Confess to him and not to his fellow-Priest and Absolution will follow accordingly If a Prince offend or wrong but one of his Black Guard and he confess and restore the wrong done to him he hath more Authority to forgive and absolve him V. p. 96 97. than all the Popes and Priests of Rome Confess and Absolve as they please I know they pretend Scripture to justifie their insignificant Sacramental Confession there being nothing of a Sacrament in it but their ill hap is such that there is not one plain Text in all the Bible that warrants it and therefore they fly unto conjectural consequences in which they have the same ill fate for that the Premises cannot possibly yield the Conclusions they draw from them Besides they would very much oblige us if they would but impart unto us any good intent they have or possibly can have to pry into other mens bosom-sins when they do no way concern them nor can they remedy or pardon them more than any other private man He that confesseth to God and forsaketh his sins they are forgiven whether a Priest be concerned therein or not and without forsaking confess or not confess no Pardon ensues Scire secreta domus cannot then be to any good intent and can only be designedly to make themselves Masters of the very souls and bodies lives and fortunes of the confessed that they may lead them Captive at their pleasure to accomplish their own wicked designs tho to Hell it self in pursuit of them And to make Confession yet a more compleat Instrument and Mystery of Iniquity they pin and hang upon it another Buckram Sacrament of Penance by which the worst and vilest sins that are may be pardoned on very easie terms and then who that can be perswaded to believe these Doctrines will not adventure to kill Kings or do any thing that is worse if worse can be When on a slight Confession and as slight a Penance they shall as easily be absolved by those that set them a work Sad and lamentable examples liereof were Henry the Third and Henry the Fourth of France brave Princes fearless and undaunted in War and in all Heroick Actions how difficult soever yet cow'd daunted and Butcher'd by these men notwithstanding their compliances with them changed the best Religion in the World in which they had been brought up and imbraced the worst even Romish Superstitions to gratifie them designing thereby to save their lives but in vain Whereas Elizabeth Queen of England professed the same Religion they were brought up in withstood the Papists to their faces and notwithstanding all their Dags and Daggers dyed in Peace and in her Bed full of dayes and full of Honour Besides Henry the Fourth did not only change his Religion but recalled the Jesuits solemnly banished by the first seat of Justice with the Erection of a Pillar with Inscriptions to their perpetual Infamy readmitted them into his very bosom gave them his House at Le Fleshe for a Colledge with indowments and all this contrary to the advice of the Duke of Sully giving no other reason than demanding then security for his life What got he by all these favors First a stab in the mouth by Chastel then a stab to his heart by Ravilliac plain demonstration that no obligations can secure against their Butcheries And which is yet more wonderful that after this dismal fatal blow that Pierre Cotton Confessor to the said Henry the Fourth his Declaratory Letter to the Queen Regent Apologizing for the Jesuits did more prevail with her for favoring of the Jesuits than the Refutation of that Letter and the Supplication of the University of Paris against them and the Discourse to the Lords of Parliament touching the very Murder of the said Henry the Great all demonstrably proving the Jesuits to have been the Plotters and Contrivers of
Catholicorum haec explicantium citantium inseruntur By this holy Inquisition also these men so wise are they in their Generation have endeavoured to appropriate and monopolize unto themselves the whole power of the Press and as much as in them lyes to cajole the secular power thereof and not without grand reason of State Ecclesiastick for they have been so dexterous at it that they have already expunged the ancient Authors and Councils of all that makes for temporal Authority Ab initio non fuit sic The matter of Fact stands thus the reasonableness of the Practice shall follow In the primitive Church Heretical Books were examined and declared to be such by the Councils but not prohibited by them nor by the Pope but by the Prince The first Council of Nice condemned the Heretical Doctrine of Arius but Constantine the Emperor did forbid his Books by Imperial Law The second Council of Constantinople did declare Eunomias to be an Heretick but the Emperor Arcadius did prohibit the Books of the Eunomians and Maniches by a Law which is in the Theodosian Code The third Council of Ephesus declared Nestorius to be an Heretick and his Books were forbidden by a Law of Theodosius which is in the body of the Civil Laws The fourth Council of Chalcedon condemned the Eutychians and their Books were forbidden by a Law of the Emperor Martian which is in the same aforesaid Book and in Spain the King Ricaredus those of the Arrians This was the manner of the Church until the year 800. since which Times the Popes of Rome have by Usurpation declared divers Writers to be Hereticks and heretical that will not subscribe to the Canons of that Conventicle of Trent But all this while the Press was not guarded nor Transcribing forbidden but left free Books only and those but few censured and prohibited until after the year 1200. and then also but sparingly until about the time of Wickliff H-usse and Jerome of Praghe which was about 1371. in the days of Edw. 3d. Rich. 2d and Pope Martin 5th who by his Bull excommunicated all Sects of Hereticks in their esteem especially Wicklefists and Hussites and had recourse also unto a stricter Guardianship of the Press and also to Excommunication nay to Fire and Fagot also against them and their Books and good reason and high time it was so to do for that their Doctrines touched to the quick the Reformation of the Heretical Doctrines and lewd practices of the Court of Rome and therefore that faithless and jugling Council of Constance in a time of Schism did condemn them their * Counted to be 200 Volumes by Aenaeas Sylisias and Jo. Cocleus in his Book de Historia Hussitarum Books and Bones though Wickliffe had been quiet in his Grave above 40 years before causing them to be taken up burned and their Ashes to be thrown into the River such was their rancour of heart since which Times the Popes succeeding have made it their grand Concern to prosecute the same design which is still on foot at this very day viz. to lay Foundations to maintain and make great the Authority of the Court of Rome by depriving men of knowledge which is absolutely necessary to defend themselves from Abuses Vsurpations and Delusions with which the Court of Rome is full fraught And therefore Paul 4th caused an Index to be composed which being perfected Anno 1659. was so severe and strict that there scarcely remained a Book to be read if rightly observed for that therein many Authors and Books were condemned which for 1 2 or 300 years had usually been read by the Romanists with the privity and without the Contradiction of the Popes then ruling and amongst the Modern some of those which were Printed in Italy even in Rome it self with approbation of the Inquisition and allowed also by the Brief of the Pope himself are forbidden as Erasmus on the New Testament which Leo 10th having read approved by his Brief dated the tenth day of September One thousand five hundred and eighteen But which is most considerable as to the main of my intent and purpose is to shew that where the Hogen Mogen Pontiff not unlike the chief Musty doth domineer there the very bowels of orthodox and sound Books wherein the Authority of Kings and Civil Magistrates is defended from the Vsurpations of the Clergy and in which the Hypocrisies and Tyrannies of the Clergie are manifested are hellishly raked into purged prohibited and condemned with strange Cruelties and which is yet more abominable this is done under the colour of Faith and Religion by which the people under that very pretence of Religion are miserably cheated and deluded A greater mystery of Iniquity was never broached then to use Religion so dirtily as under pretence thereof to make men as much as in them lyes insensible nay brutish by keeping them from the knowledge and consequently from the love of the truth What is this less then Antichristian and like men abominable disobedient and to every good work reprobate and to sit as God in the Temple of God as Judex vivorum mortuorum working after the working of Satan with all power and deceivableness of unrighteousness But though the Court of Rome hath assumed to it self to prohibit Books whether they concerned Religion or other Matters yet before these latter years they have not been so impudent as to dare to say that the Prince also hath not power to forbid Books Cardinal Baronius was the first that spake that boldly but was not seconded by any a long time after but he in the beginning of the year 1605. printing the 11th Tome of his Ecclesiastical Annals libelled therein the Monarchy of Sicily with much bitterness and against many Kings of Arragon and especially against King Ferdinand the Catholick and the Progenitors of the Fathers side of him who then reigned which Book coming to Naples and Millan were prohibited by the King's Officers whereof the Cardinal having notice made a bitter Invective against those Officers unto the Colledge of Cardinals assembled in the vacancy of the See of Clement the 8th for that in so doing they had forsooth laid hands on Ecclesiastical Authority And afterwards when Paul the 5th was chosen Pope he wrote unto the King of Spain the 13th of June the same year wherein amongst other things he concluded that to the Pope only did belong the approving of Books of all kinds much more Ecclesiastical ones Notwithstanding the King of Spain was so wise as to abett and continue the Prohibition of his Officers at which the Cardinal was so netled that he could not contain himself but printing his 12th Tome 1607. he inserted a Discourse stigmatizing that Prohibition as abominable and impious affirming that Princes do it because the Books rebuke their unjust acts and that it was to take out of St. Peter's hands and putting into the Prince's one of the Keys given him by Christ viz. the Key of knowledge to