Hereunto I answer that the Magistrate pretendeth not to take power upon himself as a man equall to his brethren but the power he hath is derived from the supream power which he holdeth by Commission from God His Office is the Ordinance of God and his power is ordained of God and so long as he ruleth for good aiming at the publick order and edification of the Church we read that of necessity he must be obeyed a double necessity both for fear of bodily punishment God having put into the Magistrates hand a sword of justice which he hath not done into the Ministers as also for conscience sake and fear of divine punishment for men that make no conscience of breaking the precepts of God shall certainly not go unpunished conscience therefore yielding sometimes in lawfull as well as in absolute necessary things this obedience to the Magistrate is not bound by the will of the Magistrate but by the word of God himself which expresly commandeth us to obey the Magistrate for conscience sake but we no where find that for conscience sake in such things we should disobey him If any reply that if all this collected and spoken to maintain the power of the magistrate is no more then was before alledged in the times of Episcopall Prelacy who by giving credit to the Magistrate and the Magistrate to their cause imposed and injoyned what they pleased in Gods worship and government of the Church I confesse indeed that they argued very strongly for upholding the authority of the Magistrate so farre that by exalting his will they diminished his power but leaving them in their excesse I answer that if their government had been as good as their argument or had they stuck as close to the word of God in framing their Cannons and injunctions as they did in asserting the lawfull power of the Magistrate no man could have justly been grieved in conscience but their government being bad in it self could not be bettered by the goodnesse of the argument But it may be rejoyned again that for all this the Scripture doth no where appoint or confirm this Presbyteriall government as it is held forth and established by the State and therefore just it is that men should be left in liberty of their consciences whether they would conform thereunto or no This hath in part been answered before That it is not the mind of the Magistrate to compell any man to conform thereunto against his conscience neither could he do it although he so intended and therefore in effect that is but a vain feigned and frivolous plea to pretend that liberty against the Magistrate which no Magistrate can constrain onely as the Apostle saith of faith about indifferent things hast thou faith have it to thy self before God So we may say in this case hast thou liberty have it to thy self betwixt God and thee till he shall give thee a further light and a liberty to obey as well as to disobey but if thou contentest not thy selfe with this sober and moderate liberty but whilst also leap over the hedge and withdraw others from their Christian obedience then thou runnest upon the sword of the Magistrate which God hath put into his hands for the common good by which he is bound to restrain thy inordinate and offensive liberty that it disturbe not the publike peace committed to his charge To this may be added that although this Presbyteriall government in every part and parcell thereof as it is now established be not expresly commanded in Scripture as likewise no other kind of government whatsoever yet much may be brought for the approbation of it and to shew that it is repugnant to Scripture First government by a Presbytery is expresly set down in Scripture Secondly for execution thereof some generall rules are also clearly expressed That all things should be done decently and in order without contention and for edification Thirdly to whom can we imagine the ordering and decencies and edification should belong but onely to the Magistrate assisted by the advice of Gods holy word and Ministers wherein wee find another expresse command that the Magistrate so judging for the good of all ought to be obeyed for conscience sake Bring we this cause to a paire of scales and there we shall see it decided put into one scale the judgement of the Magistrate into the other the judgement of private men put into either the profession of them both to make the word of God the rule of their judgement put in again that upon search therein they meet with two severall governments neither of them directly commanded nor directly forbidden nor yet unconsonant to the Word Hitherto the beam goes even betwixt them Search again what is to be put in more and we shall find an expresse word of God commanding every private soule to obey the higher powers judging and governing for good and that for conscience sake put this into the Magistrates scale and it must needs preponderate till we can find any other word that biddeth the higher power be subject to the lower And indeed were there no word of Scripture to confirme this truth the very light of reason might convince us for if we allow that reason should rule our affections we must also allow the Magistrate to rule the people and when any difference ariseth between them in such things wherein they pretend to judge by one and the selfe-same rule reason requireth that the determination of the Magistrate should stand and that the people should no longer be wise in their own conceit but be wise with sobriety suffering their judgements to be over-ruled by their Rulers whose office is to watch over them for good in the order of such things Whiles things are debating every one may have liberty to speake their conscience but when things are determined the liberty of conscience must yeild to the duty of obedience otherwise that sweet harmony would be broken which God hath set in the world between parties commanding and parties obeying wherein alone consisteth the outward happinesse of all societies In the mean time I am glad to observe that they disclaim not civill obedience to the civill power of the Magistrate hoping that in time they will for the same reason cease to contend against this government for that it is now indeed or intended to be made a civill sanction and a statute law And then denying subjection thereunto Liberty of conscience may aswell transport them to claim exemption from many other civill lawes If one of them were accused of murder and knew in his own conscience that he was innocent and had besideâ— twenty witnesses to clear him yet if one single witnesse shall make oath against him in behalfe of the King he shall be condemned by the law May he not stand upon termes of his liberty and his innocence and justly plead that it is against his conscience to obey this law and suffer sentence being innocent Suppose another had
looke for the good of man both wayes Our duty to God is contayned in fewer precepts but more words it seeming necessary that God should explaine himselfe in his own cause leaving no power to any man to adde or diminish or interpret his Lawes but by his own word which made Moses though he were a Law-giver in Israel yet he would not judge the gatherer of sticks upon the Sabbath day without consultation with the Lord Before the written Law every father of a family was both Priest and Magistrate to looke to both and the greater the family or society was so much higher was the Magistrate and reverenced with more honour as being the common parent caring for the whole Country This Law therefore of Nature being the very dictate of God himself may not improperly be termed a divine Law There were also other Lawes which God prescribed by his servant Moses to the people of Jsrael politicke and Iudiciall Lawes for preserving humane society and governing the Common-wealth and Ceremoniall Lawes for the outward manner and forme of his publike worship for performance whereof he ordained divers Sacrifices and Sacrificers allotting maintainance for them both But when the time fore-appointed came that God would restore man to that happinesse he had deservedly lost by the sin of the first Adam he sent his onely Son Iesus Christ the second Adam in the flesh who after he had manifested his divine power to the world by his Doctrine and miracles did by his last words on the Crosse and by the first visible testimony of the power of his death finish and consummate the Law and rent from the top to the bottome the vaile of separation by both declaring the necessity of types and ceremonies places and times of worship differences of people Sacrifices and Sacrificers fixed and impropriated maintainance for any of them was no longer to bee continued strictly in the letter although a morall equity shadowed by them was to be perpetuall Neither did our Saviour in the constitution of his Evangelicall Church revive any of them nor ordain any set form of worship rule for goverment or a certained and speciall maintainance for his Ministers but only repaired and restored man to that way and manner of worship which Adam had in his innocency prescribing him to serve God the Father of spirits in spirit and in truth without otherwise confining him to time place gesture posture or other circumstances which of their own nature are not permanently confineable In like sort the blessed Apostles whom Christ sent into the world to publish the glad tydings of Salvation laid no other foundation as necessary thereunto then Iesus Christ and what he had laid himself for they were only master builders on that corner stone Christ Iesus What they declared to any people converted to the Gospel concerning any rule of order about the outward man or his Christian behaviour in publike service it was only a temporary advise sutable to the times Countries and occasions wherin they lived not universally binding to all Nations and generations to come In their dayes there was neither Christian State nor Christian Magistrate nor any publike power to countenance or appoint the outward government of the Church in default whereof it was necessary for them to make such orders and constitutions as might serve for those present times neverthelesse as Christ himself took upon him no civill authority so gave hee none to his Apostles nor they to the Ministers succeeding For when Christ was required to divide an inheritance betwixt two brothers he asked with indignation who had made him a Iudge or divider over them and when the case of the Incestuous person fell out at Corinth St. Paul inflicted no temporall punishment upon him only advised the brethren that whiles hee stood obstinate against all reproof to shun his company and cast him out of their communion that the shame thereof making him sensible of his sinne it might beget repentance and make him returne to the fellowship of true beleevers I verily thinke that if all the directions which the Apostles have left recorded in Scripture were laid in one view together no man nor multitudes of men how learned soever could collect or frame out of them all an exact body of Church government in all the parts and Circumstances thereof to bee imposed as a divine binding infallible rule upon all Christian Churches and Kingdomes in the world Indeed where we meet with any Councels or constitutions of the blessed Apostles who were holy men indued with more immediate power from Christ with a larger measure of the spirit of truth and consequently with a greater certainty of judgment then any of their Ministeriall successors we may rely upon them and make them our patternes only remembring the distinction of times that the Apostolicall Church was in infancy and under persecution and the English in full growth and dominion in so much that in the framing of Ecclesiasticall orders an eye and regard must ever bee had to the civill Government which alwayes aymeth at the publike good both of Church and State wherein the Church is lodged The Ministers doubtlesse have power by their office to advise and instruct exhort and rebuke out of the word in a brotherly way but it is as doubtlesse that the power is in the Christian Magistrate upon hearing their advice to constitute and establish under the naturall notion of order such decrees as upon due debate and deliberation they shall find most wholsome and agreeable to the present State This is also to be observed that no man ought to take unto himself the office and honour to Minister for his brethren in things pertaining unto God unlesse hee be lawfully called thereunto Christ himself was sent by the Father and annointed by the spirit to his heavenly office by Christ the holy Apostles were sent into the world from whom they had their immediate Commission and the blessed Apostles following their pattern did not only send and appoint Pastors over all Churches in their present times but also lest rules and directions for ordaining all others for the time to come till the worlds end I make no question but God doth in our dayes call and stirre up many to this holy office by particular motions of his Spirit yet that exempteth not the persons so called from manifesting and approving their vocation according to the rules left in Scripture where we are commanded to try the spirits of men whither they be of God and the Spirits of the Prophets peculiarly such as are called to the Ministery are subject to the Prophets as fitting to be tryed and examined by them who by long experience and without reproach have conversed in the Church and dispenced the misteries of Salvation From this brief and plaine deduction I shall lay down some few Positions as ground-lines of the discourse ensuing 1. That God hath by his Son taken away all ties of necessity for observing any part or
ought not to be condemned by one another In this case therefore things by nature indifferent should make no difference betwixt brethren but so to be used or not used that now and then for charity sake the expediency of them should suspend their lawfulnesse This is the Apostles doctrine instructing private Christians about indifferent things Which though they reach not the Magistrate in his office yet they do in his profession having given up his name to Christ and living in a Christian society And hath our religious Magistrate transgressed these rules Let us see what he hath done for the reliefe of tender consciences many grievances were complained of in the Episcopall times which the Parliament hath removed They have taken away consecration of dayes and places the superstition of meats and drinks Images and Altars Crosses and Surplices the usurpation of spirituall Courts and temporall Bishops which were all abused with a danger to introduce Popery and Idolatry will not these things satisfie weake and tender consciences unlesse they take away Government also which is commanded and sanctified by the Word therefore we must know that government of the Church in publike Assemblies is no indifferent thing nor to be reckoned in their number God is not the Author of anarchy and confusion but of order comlinesse and peace and when the manner of government and Gods worship in the circumstances thereof are rightly ordered according to the light of nature and Christian prudence deducted from the generall rules set down in the Word and setled by just and lawfull authority It is no longer left to the liberty of any man subject to the same authority to conform or not conforme thereunto as though it were a thing indifferent much lesse to pretend that because their consciences cannot approve thereof it should be permitted to them to set up another government which seemeth to be a most unreasonable demand that whiles they deny obedience to the Magistrates lawes they should neverthelesse seek for liberty and power from them to overthrow their own orders and make them crosse shinns with their own authority The power of the Magistrate and liberty purchased by Christ do not destroy but support one another for they are both truths avowed in the Word and no truth can overthrow another And if any man say that a weak conscience though it be in an error yet till it be convinced should sin in obeying the truth it may be replyed à fortiorâ— that the Magistrate determining the truth cannot tolerate any error without sinning against his conscience and partaking of those errors he condemneth 6. But the other objection proceeding from a conceit of strength marcheth with more assurance for some imagine that forasmuch as they are justified by grace and freed from sin and heirs of the promise they are consequently in a state of peâ—ection able to fulfill the law of God and delivered from all lawes of men For lex non ponitur justo They have no need of repentance being secur'd from falling Nor much of faith being already in fruition they are a law unto themselves under no Magistrate above all penalty as if they were out of the flesh having shaken off frailty and mortality and climed up to the new Jerusalem where there is neither sin nor sorrow This being a sweet fancy to them that are possessed with all will hardâ—y suffer it selfe to be removed by force of argumentation Otherwise we might say That never any man was without sin but Christ alone who was like to man in all things sin excepted That the blessed Apostle felt a law in his members which made him doe that he would not and will that he did not He biddeth us work out our salvation with fear and trembling not with surquedry and presumption when we have done our best and seem to be most perfect we are but unprofitable servants Many such divine testimonies might be brought to convince this opinion but it refuteth it selfe being contrary to the rule of faith and condition of humanity We must not think that the grace of God worketh against his will his will is that we should be militant in this life wherefore we must not expect to be triumphant till the warre be done his will is that we should grow to our full stature by degrees and scale the ladder of heaven not be taken up in a whirlwind His will is that we should be tempted and buffeted and fall and rise that seeing our frailty and our misery we should seek for the renewing of his grace and every day beg our daily pardon more duly then our daily bread Forasmuch as by strength of nature we may abstain awhile from food but by corruption of nature we cannot abstain awhit from sin This error puffing up the hearts of unstable men hath heretofore brought forth furious and pernicious effects The story of John a Leyden and Knipperdolling and of their phrensies at Munster is not yet forgotten I pray God our times be not pregnant of some such monster What is the meaning that so many in our dayes separate from their brethren as if all others were prophane Why do they gather in heaps together like biles and ulcers drawing the corruption with them and yet say the body is unclean In such manner began they of Munster they took upon them a garb of simplicity they seemed grave and dejected fervent in long prayers full of revelations lamenting the fashions and prophanesse of the times contemning honours despising money and neglecting Matrimonie wishing and weeping for reformation by such hypocrisies they captivated weak and wandring soules who tooke them onely to be the little flock of heaven that lived among wolves and was persecuted on earth Till having made up their musters and assembled their troops they set up a standard calling the multitude into their snare under the promise and proclamation of liberty Now the blessed time was come that the meek should inherite the earth that the Kings and Potentates and Adonibezecks of this world who had done dispite and violence to the Saints should be broken with a rod of iron and dashed in pieces like a Potters vessell Thence they fell into revelations and found it written in the beams of the Sun that John a Leyden was appointed by Christ to be King over all the world and rule the Nations in righteousnesse and in power After this the King was inspired to set up sundry Queens and to take to himselfe many wives at once to increase and multiply the holy seed upon earth But this imaginary kingdome was of short durance for the neighbour Princes finding their designe joyned against them as against the enemies of mankind and after they had indured a long siege their King by revelation assured them that before Easter they should have deliverance But when none appeared he told them that he had been in a trance six dayes in which time he had ridden on a blind Asse and that God the Father had laid upon
his back the sinnes of them all whereby they were set free and delivered from them And this was the deliverance he promised wherewithall they ought to rest contented Thereupon the Town was taken the deluded people disabused the King impostor executed to death and hung up in chaines upon the highest steeple thus ended this tragedy and ever tragicall is the end of such follies The Apostle noteth that factions and divisions are signes of carnality first men separate from others as unclean then they speak evill of government the next step is to blind the people with revelations from thence they fall into snares of the flesh at last they stir up sedition and last of all their end is destruction Hitherto I have laboured to shew that the Magistrate by his office being an ordinance of God is bound to provide for the Publick peace and safety in Church and Common-wealth which is done first by enacting just lawes and wholsome orders consonant to wisdome and the word of God and secondly by using his power to preserve them in vigor and execution as also to shew that the people are bound in conscience to give willing obedience to such Lawes and orders of the Magistrate whose duty it is to restrain the disobedient and reduce them to their duty Neverthelesse forasmuch as the power wherewithall God hath invested the Magistrate is alwaies to be used for publike good and requisite it is that a due distinction be made in the punishment of offenders between such as erre out of mistake or ignorance and those that resist out of wilfulnesse and contempt I shall in all humblenesse propound some few expedients how farre the Magistrate may please to slacken his power and so temper the lawes and penalties thereof as they may serve both waies as lenitives for the simple and corrasives for the stubborn who will not otherwise be reformed 1. I conceive that as it is unreasonable to demand so it would be dangerous to grant any toleration of Religion besides that which is established for such a liberty of conscience would breed a freedome of will and freedome of will would beget liberty of life which would breed a fearfull Independency when every one might do what they list In matters of faith necessary to salvation there is but one way and one truth all the rest is obsiquity and error Therefore when the truth hath been tried by the Word and ratified by the Magistrate he cannot suffer any falshood without being accessary thereunto Yet in matters of discipline and government there is a greater latitude for when it shall appeare that weak brethren agreeing in the same confession of faith but dissenting in outward forms out of tendernesse or ignorance to such a toleration or connivence or suspention of laws may be harmlesse and charitable till they be further satisfied and instructed 2. That whosoever living under the subjection of this state should be so far destitute of grace as to renounce Christ or speak blasphemously of him or any person of the Trinity contrary to the faith established in the Church he shall upon conviction be informed of the truth with a brotherly admonition not to divulge his error to the corruption or scandall of others or disturbance of the civill peace For the second offence he shall indure a years imprisonment be disabled in his testimony put out of protection of the Laws and wear some publike mark noting him for a Blasphemer For the third offence he shall suffer banishment or close and perpetuall imprisonment and if banished it shal be capitall for him to return without licence of the State For if he by our lawes deserveth death that seduceth any subject from the allegeance of his naturall Prince what deserveth he that seeketh to alienate the soule of any Christian from the dependance of God unto the divell 3. If any one out of an evill heart shall break forth into open reviling scorning disgracefull words against the present Church-government now established he shall not be connived at as a man of tender conscience for as he giveth himselfe power and liberty to dis-joyn from it so it is also in his power not to speak evill of it but doing it by choice and deliberation he cannot fall within the compasse of weaknesse For he that maketh no conscience of giving offence and scandall to the Christian Magistrate and all his godly brethren living in peaceable obedience cannot imagine that his private fancies though covered with weaknesse should be more tendered then the publike conscience of the Common-wealth Such a one therefore ought to be punished as a contemner of the civill power First by reproof and exhortation not to disquiet the peace of the Land Secondly by a pecuniary mulct for some publike use with disability of his credit Thirdly if he still persist with close imprisonment till he give publike satisfaction of his repentance 4. Forasmuch as no man ought to undertake the office and function of the holy Church Ministry without he be well assured of his inward calling thereunto neither can such men conceive themselves awhit the worse or that it might be any prejudice to their spirituall gifts to have an outward approbation by laying on the hands of the Presbytery and praying for divine blessing upon their persons and giving them an orderly mission into Gods harvest Therefore whosoever shall take unto himselfe the holy calling presuming to preach the Word or administer the Sacraments not being admitted nor ordained thereunto by lawfull authority he ought to be punished as the former were that contemned the civill power or rather more severely especially if they be found in their publike preaching to sow sedition among the people provided that such persons Masters of families or others meeting in their own houses or in their neighbours to repeat what they heard or learned out of Sermons preached by authority and upon that or the like occasion worship God by praying or singing of Psalmes conferring or arguing upon any part of the Word preached as also such who being required by any friend or neighbour when the advice of Ministers cannot be had to open or expound some text of Scripture or deliver his judgement upon any case of conscience for satisfaction of the parties be not comprehended under this Article or any penalty thereof because we are commanded to exercise the gifts and talents God hath given us in a sober and orderly way for the edification of one another 5. Whereas out of all doubt many things are contained in holy Scripture which are not yet fully manifested nor clearly understood and we know the Spirit of God bloweth where he listeth and is not confined to time place nor person but inspireth whom he pleaseth If therefore any man shall pretend to have a new opinion or new light revealed unto him of the sence of any part of Scripture fitting it were he should bring his knowledge to some godly Minister approved of or to the next Classiâ— where he liveth