hath instituted Government in General but not limited it to any one kind but left it to the wisdom and choice of men to pitch upon what Government best agrees with a Nation But to what mens wisdom to some few or to many or to all men of that Nation All or the major part have no wisdom nor possibility to choose Few or many choosing doth manifest injustice to the others But what needs repetition of what is said quite opposite to all this This therefore is only here to be added That the supposition here made is utterly false and incongruous to the nature of all things else constituted by God and contrary to the course of nature and Gods manner of working which apparently is not to begin with Generals and so to proceed to Particulars but first he makes Particulars â—nd creates only Individuums single beings and by a necessary consequence whatever existence the General Nature hath it borroweth from thence As God did not at first make man in General and then left some body else as they thought to make Adam and Eve and the rest nor did he irst and only make a living Creature in General and then left the Angels or some other unknown Creatures to us to make what special Animals they pleased out of that but he first made Adam and so mans nature was made He first made the Sun and Moon so far as we read and upon that followed that he made great Lights And the like method must of necessity be acknowledg'd in Gods Institutions Moral and Civil and he must inevitably so far as humane wit can reach first ordain some one Government in particular before he could be said to be the Author of Government generally taken Now if it doth not at all appear That God had any more than a common hand whereby evil as well as good doth spring up in the World in the institution of any more than one sort of Government and that he did particularly pitch upon one and gave instances and intimation of his choice of one and nothing can be alleadged in behalf of the opposite to that as proceeding in any direct special manner from him then will the form of Government we now seek after commend it self unto us And this we shall do by giving the Divine Prerogatives which Monarchical Government hath above others invented by man to stand in competition with it And this not by wading deep or wandring far into an uncertain and tedious Disputation of finding out reasons on both sides which may seem to commend and prefer one above another and so consequently to conclude a divineness in one especially but by certain visible indications and motives evidencing this to every imprejudic'd mind And they are these First Consider we that simple and imperfect Regiment which is Natura enim commenta est Regeâ—â— quod ex aliis animalibus licet cognoscere ex apibus quarum regi amplissimum cubile est medióque ac tutissimo loco Seneca de Clement lib. 1. cap. 9. Vide etiam Hieron Epist 4. Isidorum Pelusiat Epist lib. 2. ep 216. Origen cont Cels lib. 4. pag. 217. Basil Ma. Hom. 8. in Hexaem Chrysost in Rom. Serm. 23. pag. 189. found in Animals and there will appear a resemblance of this Monarchical power only as in herds of Deer and Cattle and Bees in which is observed the Superiority of one over all so far as there is any subjection at all Yea St. Cyprian and divers other Fathers writing against Gentile Idolatry do prove the Monarchy of God over all the World from the Unity of Inanimate things as the Sun in the firmament raigning as it were over all the other Celestial Bodies Secondly The more proper and refined Law of Nature written in mens heart and inclining them to this kind of Government only do not a little argue the hand of God in its institution That being received for a Law of God natural to which all people without syncretizing consulting or combining mutually do consent and practise Now it is evident so far as any History doth inform us That all Nations were at first governed by a single person And whereas Nimrod is reported by some first to have usurped Regal Power over men because the Scriptures tell us how he was a mighty hunter before the Lord it hath more of phansie thaâ— substance in it Yet possibly he might be the first that collected many petty Princes of Families together constraining them to lay aside their Domestick Monarchy and to be subject unto him Or that he brought his neighbour Princes all to his Dominion and so became a Tyrant overthem And at this day if we advise with those People in both Indies discovered we shall find that they scarce ever heard of any other Government but that of Monarchy and that almost Paternal being extended to very few Persons compared with the multitude of which Kingdoms or Governments generally consist And in truth it may give some repuâ—e to the Government of many that Christian Religion favoureth it but it can give no credit to Christian Religion That it only practises and acknowledges a different way of Ruling people from all the known world besides For it will be hard to find any other but Regal Power out of Europe and in Europe not the tenth part owning Antimonarchical Government And of those that do differ from Monarchical Power not two agreeâ—ng in the same form but only negatively against a single Persons Suprenacy So that we may see they have no general Rule to go by but every Nation are a Rule to themselves Thirdly the Paternal Power being acknowledged to be natural and of Divine institution and differing from Monarchical and Regal but as Magis and Minus the lesser degree doth from the greater the thing is in a manner yielded But fourthly Divine Presidents and Examples do further confirm this and that taken from the Word of God in all which there is no mention at all made of any Government but Regal though not alwayes under that name For before the children of Israel went into Egypt the Father or Patriarch of them had this power without competitor In the the Captivity and Servitude of Egypt they had no publick Government besides that of the Kings of Egypt unless peradventure every Tribe had a Chief by succession over them without any Civil Autority From their departure out of Egypt to the death of Joshuah the Supremacie was in one notwithstanding subordinate Councels and Rulers constituted by Moses After Joshuah arose Judges by Gods special appointment not many at once thereby framing an Aristocracie but one Eminent person giving Law to all others And these differed from that of more formal Regal Persons instituted by God at the desire of the discontented people in that before Saul God kept the choice of their Governours more immediately in his own hand and ordained them Deliverers and Judges according to his pleasure and occasions offered which was the
reason together with their rejecting of so eminent a Servant of God as was Samuel that God 1 Sam. 8. 10. said of the People they had rejected him rather than Samuel From Saul to the Captivity it is manifest what their Government was and from thence it matters not as to our present purpose how they governed themselves seeing they were ruled by the Regal Power of Foreign Princes until shaking off that yoke they were brought under that form by their own Deliverers which was again extorted from them by usurping Tyrants So that when Philo-Judeus and Josephus seem to write of an Aristocratical Government instituted by Moses they can no otherwise be understood to write faithfully but in reference to Ecclesiastical Courts and Cases of Religion purely wherein the Counsel of many was to take place but not to the administration of Civil Justice unless as is above-said when they were themselves subject to Forrain Princes The Objections against this Form thus asserted I leave to be answered from the positive grounds thus laid down And commend the Reader to the learned Disputations of others which are many concerning the excellencie and benefits of one Form above another But as to Hereditary and Elective Governments what is convenient may be gathered from the general discourse now made Now we proceed to the Third thing in Government the mutual Obligation of Governour and Governed CHAP. XXVI Of the mutual Relations and Obligations of Soveraigns and Subjects No Right in Subjects to resist their Soveraigns tyrannizing over them What Tyranny is Of Tyrants with a Title and Tyrants without Title Of Magistrates Inferiour and Supream the vanity and mischief of that distinction The Confusion of Co-ordinate Governments in one State Possession or Invasion giveth no Right to Rulers The Reasons why THAT we read not in the New Testament of any Rules or Advice given to Kings and Princes how to govern the people under them the reason is plain viz. Because in those dayes there were none Christian and St. Paul says What 1 Cor. 5. 12. have I to do to judge them that are without the Church For doubtless had any been of the Society of Christians they had fallen under the Christian Discipline and Precepts of the Apostles But that occasion of instructing Kings in the due administration of their power failing we are to seek for satisfaction from the old Testament where not much is found besides general moral Precepts of Sobriety Temperance Justice and the like enjoyned Solomon by David his Father and left by Solomon in his Book of Proverbs for Rules to succeeding Princes Moses likewise not without Gods appointment hath drawn up some special Precepts for Kings to follow in the real and cordial embracing of Gods word and worship and taking the defense and protection thereof Of which to speak it little behoves us at present Neither purpose we out of Humane Arguments and Autority to prescribe to Supreams what they ought to do or how to govern any farther than the known Rules of Justice in common do require For no doubt there is a mutual Obligation between Soveraign and Subject and that he is tyed and circumscribed in the exercise of his power by God as really as this is in his Obedience to him and that upon the common duties expressed by St. Paul of Masters to Servants and Husbands to Wives and Parents to Children For it doth not at all follow That because Princes are not subject to their Subjects therefore they are free from all subjection Ephes 6. 8. No St. Paul's Rule holds good to Kings as well as to Masters viz. That they should know that their King and Master is in heaven and that Kings are to be subject as well to the Laws of God as their Subjects are to the Laws of Man And though Children ought to obey their Parents in all things yet there is tacitly understood certain Laws of Limitation restraining the boundless tyranny of both civil and natural Parents For Subjects and Children are to know that they have a higher Lord and a more powerful Father to whom in the first place obedience must be paid And we must withdraw our selves from the commands of our Earthly Soveraign when our Heavenly who is his Soveraign doth require it as all rational Kings do grant as well as People But neither ought we to restrain the will of Princes to the literal and express will of God only but even to the most just and reasonable Laws of Humane Authority but only we must distinguish the vast difference between the obligation of Subjects to the just and equal Laws prescribed and imposed on them and that of Princes in relation to those Laws concerning their governing For all Laws contain two special causalities in them The one Exemplary whereby a Form and Rule is prescribed directing such as are to be guided thereby to the observation of Justice Equity and Reason as well to the publick as private good And to this so far as it is reasonable Kings are no less bound than Subjects they ought to observe entirely and religiously these sound and profitable Laws and that under pain of Gods displeasure The other causality which Laws have is Efficient and Compulsive whereby a Civil penalty being denounced and impending over the head of the infringers thereof they are better guarded from transgressions by either loss of outward good or life it self according to the merit of the Offense It cannot either consist with the Law of God or Nations to inflict punishments on Princes Soveraign Not but that for instnace murder adultery unjust spoil and robbery of the Subjects may no less considering the nature of the Crime deserve such punishment of Princes as they do of People but because there is none in such cases that can or ought duly and regularly to execute such Laws because there can be no such execution without the power of the Sword and there can be but one proper subject of that power in any one Republick Every man must not put to death him that is a notorious offender no not though he be justly and legally condemned to dye but he or they only who are thereunto rightly impowred and authorized by the Supream And though every man may in his own mind and judgment sentence a malefactour whose crime is high and apparent to death yet cannot he in civil judicature render him obnoxious to it And the reason hereof is plain because Justice must be done justly or else there is incurred no less guilt than is sought and intended to be revenged And of all guilt I know not whether any be greater than the assuming of such a power which no wayes belongs to a man For better it were to take away ones horse or to ravish another mans wife or to extort unjustly anothers estate than to devest a Prince of his Right of Rule and usurp it to himself and that first because no mans estate or any thing that is his doth descend
Tim. 2. 1 2. prayers and intercessions and giving thanks for all men For Kings and all that are in authority c. which hath been so understood by some as if he had intended here to distinguish and establish a co-ordination of Governours over the same people but there is no necessity at all of such a consequence and St. Peter expresly distinguisheth their relations 1 Pet. 2. 13 14. not to be co-ordinate but subordinate saying Submit your selves to every ordinance of man that is not as some weakly and presumptuously would interpret the Apostle as if Kings and Princes were mens creatures and by them constituted but humane Creature which is the word in the Original doth signifie such Persons as have authority over men as men and not as Christians such as were then Civil Governours amongst the Gentiles which the phrase of the Jews commonly called Creatures barely and Humane as having no such Divine Graces conferred on them as had the Jews for the Lords sake whether it be unto Kings as Supream or unto Governours as unto them that are sent by him for the punishment of evil doers and for the praise of them that do well Here Governours are said to be of two sorts not co-ordinate and subordinate but Supream and Subordinate such as have authority immediately and absolutely in themselves without dependence upon others and such as are of an Inferiour order and under the said Supream rule and execute Justice So that nothing can be more absurdly and sediciously taught than to make such as are constituted by another to have any authority at all over their Founder and Lord the author of their power I know infinite instances may be brought of Common-wealths which have admitted and been governed by such a Co-ordination or at least a power reserved in store in the hands of certain persons whose proper office and care it should be to regulate and reduce to a safe mean the extreams which single and absolute Monarchs may easily fall into But all these varying so exceedingly from the natural form of Government sway not much with me For that which is natural and of Divine Ordinance and Institution cannot possibly be uncertain and mutable so that no man shall be able to know where to place his duty of Obedience which God requires to be paid to such as are in Authority And obedience being due only to the Supream himself immediately or to those that derive authority from him how is it possible to understand but by the sad effects of power pressing and afflicting a man where he is to yield his obedience Therefore surely God can have no hand in such modellings of States which shall perplex a man in rendring his subjection For it is not a great empty and ridiculous Title which maketh a Supream but entire power and absolute freedom at least from subjection to others especially of his own Dominion All Titles without this are honourable Mockeries but the real Supremacy is actual I say not how justly or injuriously in those Tutours of Princes and Keepers of the Liberties of the people as is commonly given out and in this case supposing that Right and Power are not separated not these Proveditors or Senatours who thus chastise Princes are rebellious but they who bearing the name of Kings and Princes being in truth but meer subjects refuse to submit to the decrees of their Superiours But if possession giveth not Right which is the most Christian as well as rational opinion it may be doubted how a just title can be acquired by any Persons in co-ordination to the Supream power when as we have shown the People never had any such themselves and therefore can transferr none nor such select persons had any of themselves who assume this nor is it to be conceived how any natural Right should descend upon many persons as the Paternal power doth upon one from whence Monarchical Power and Right may flow And If Senatours as they call them or suck like States-men cannot regularly found their title in nature or Divine Writ or revelation It was no act of Rebellion that greatest act of Hostility in Julius Caesar to reduce the Roman Common-wealth to Monarchy For there are two things to be considered in Civil Authority The Government it self in its form and kind and the Governour invested with this The Person Governing may doubtless offend notoriously though I dare not say forfeit to any other his Authority but the Government it self being abused cannot be in fault or for any miscarriages of the Person lapse to other The Government is religiously to be observed and secured from adulterations and corruptions even when the Monarch is irreligiously discarded and dethroned So that the Tyranny of a single person invading the Government administred by States and arrogating the Supremacy to himself alone must needs be less criminal than for many conspiring into a Common-wealth to change both Person and Government from the Natural to the Artificial and meerly of Humane invention and pleasure Now that Possession doth not alwayes include a Title nor Might Right in Civil Affairs is both most reasonable and Christian to believe Reasonable from several heads First from the notoriousness of the mischiefs which croud in upon all Societies of Men where this Tenet is received For what a powerful motive will it be to all discontented persons to invade others and dispossess them when there lies no other difficulty before them but the means to attach successfully whom they intend to destroy but having overcome that by whatever villanies they shall be reputed as legal owners of what they are become Masters as the most innocent and just person of all But can ever any peace or security be expected by that Society wherein it shall be lawful for any man to intrude himself into Power No say some Power acquired and possessed doth give Right to hold but not justifie the Act of inordinate acquiring the same But if it be true in Logick That the Conclusion doth alwayes partake of the weakness of the Premisses and in Nature That an evil cause be it but of the nature of a Circumstance corrupteth the whole effect is it not altogether as rational that such an hainous act in the acquiring such Power here should quite marr the effect Who can bring a clean thing out of an unclean not one saith holy Job 14. 4. Recte factum est ut id quod male caeptum est Autoritate publica destrucretur Damasus Epist Acholio Eurydico c. apud Holstennii Collectionem pa. 40. Part. 1. Job So not one can by an unrighteous Act produce a righteous effect Neither can the inveterateness of an Evil any wayes mitigate the same nor tract of time wipe away that Guilt which was at first acquired For prescription in such cases never gives just Title but where other Titles are extinguished which is by accident Then indeed Possession it self giveth not a good Title but hath less evil and inconvenience
Secondly Religion of all sorts ever acknowledged Festival worship Thirdly Apostolical practice and Prescription commend them and Fourthly our Church Homilies one reason possibly they have suffered Homily of the time and place of Prayer pag. 125. so many reproaches of ungodly men tell us that Holy days were appointed by the same Authority that the Lords day was which as sorely as it may vex these dissenters to hear is most true For though it sayes with the same Authority it doth not from thence follow that they by that Authority were instituted with the same sacredness And Mr. Perkins is Perkins Preparat to Problem pag. 681. deceived who tells us Not a Feast except Easter can be proved for 300 years after Christ Indeed Socrates whom he quotes saith the Apostles did not much concern themselves in Feasts but his meaning plainly is not about such punctilio's or Circumstances of Feasts as gave him occasion to write about them such as were the Contentions between the Eastern and Western Church about the day of keeping Easter But that Easter was Apostolical can be no more doubted then that Sunday was so And that fifty days after Easter to Whitsuntide were kept Festivally Tertullian witnesseth And therefore Cartwright whom nothing Tertul. Advers Psychicos cap. 14. could hold but his own fansie and the Genevan Plat-form thought it safer to say being urged with Antiquity I appeal from the examples of the Ancient Church to the Scriptures There were other grosser Errors countenanced by Antiquity There were so or there were none at all But what greater errour did Antiquity generally assert to then this of Innovatours denying all Holy days lawful but the Lords day Do you appeal to Scripture to prove this So do we Show one place against them if ye can Or show that the Church where there is no precept of Scripture in particular may not ordain such times of Worship When will these Scriptures appear For the places commonly alledged against set days viz. Rom. 14. 5. I leave Mr. Perkins to answer sufficiently though not absolutely in his Cases of Conscience Lib. 2. cap. 16. And that of Galat. 4. 10. to his Comment on the words And that of Colos 2. 16. to the now quoted place of his Cases of Conscience intending here no formal disputation though this Author falls into many pitiful suspicions and imaginations of his own in these places As for instance on Galatians 4. 10. he saith Indeed the Church of England observes Holy days but the Popish superstition is cut off This is true but the reason he gives very false which is this For we are not bound in conscience to the Observation of those days For Conscience binds every good Christian from singularizing Conscience binds to embrace all convenient opportunities to praise and honor God Conscience likewise binds to faithful obedience to our Ecclesiastical Superiours in such pious exercises as these and against which no more then the rude Effects of their private opinions and passion hath been alledged notwithstanding I know how much Gelaspie and after him Voctius have travailed in this subject and notwithstanding his answers Davenant on Coloss 2. v. 16. I hold the Reasons of Bishop Davenant to be strong and Pious given us for the observation of Holy days in his Comment upon the Colossians to which I refer the Reader for brevity sake And for the same reason I reduce what may be said about Fasts to what is already said of the Feasts of the Church For there is the very same reason of Antiquity Apostolical for the observation of both power and Liberty of the Church just occasions offered Conformity to the Primitive state of the Church Advantages of such exercises Characteristicks of Christian from unchristian societies and professions which all equally infer the duty of Fasting on set days as of Feasting and the madness and wickedness of such Christians as dare open their mouths against them because no doubt but both one and other have been much abused by Roman superstition Yet not Fasting so much as Festival days The abuses may here be noted to be these 1. Multitude whereby works of Nature and Civil necessities should be so far impeded Origen Hom. 10. in Genes and retarded that no small prejudice should befall the Common-wealth thereby Indeed Origen saith Every day is to be a Festival to a Christian calling them Jews who observe some now and then but his meaning is not that every day a man should cease from his labour wholly and only wear his best cloaths walk about and do nothing but worship God but as there he expresses himself should go to Church daily and not content himself with his domestique devotion but appear before God in publique place though not in that publique manner as with the assembly of Christians This still binds as a Councill at least if not Command and that which as hath been shewed already is much better then that which is performed within the walls of our Bucerus de Regno Christ lib. 2. cap. 10. own house or Closets if we will take Bucers judgment who speaketh thus When as all that we have and are and our very lives we have received and do receive daily from the free bounty of God is it not very meet also that we should assemble daily also to render him thanks and to renew our devotion to him and our worship of him by his Word and Sacraments which he hath for this purpose appointed for us and by daily Prayers which he requireth of us Your Majesties therefore he speaketh to Edward the sixth Part it is to inforce the authority of the Divine Law against this so great abuse of God and unbridled profanation of Holy days And therefore if Sectaries Religion be examined duly which hath procured them so much credit and esteem amongst unknowing people it will be found to fall short by much of that which is approved and established by our Church They are said to be frequent and constant in duties as they call them of their Families meaning prayers perhaps morning and evening this is very good and laudable But consider we a little whence this practice hath arisen whither it tendeth and it is rather a defrauding God of that due which we plead for then out-doing others The Church the publique house of God is the proper place of Gods worship and that he is more glorified in than by home-made worship Therefore for them to translate the Service of God out of the Church at all times but when a Sermon calls them forth into their own houses and to offer the morning and evening sacrifice at home when it ought and may be offered in his own house is so far from deserving the name of extraordinary Pieties that it deserves rather the name of Sacriledge And this I speak meaning when this proceeds either from that brutish opinion that all places are alike to God which is only true in sensu diviso and
undoubted Right of lawful Governours under God to propound and impose Laws serviceable to the common ends of such a Society as thereby is disposed and regulated And there are three things principally requisite to make a Law obligatory upon men The first is taken from the Person Giving or propounding this Law and that is Authority without which the best Laws that can be invented are directly tyrannical and unjust as well in respect of the Person whose Right is thereby invaded and usurped so that Conscience is so far from being obliged by it that rather it is bound to oppose and resist such Laws though in themselves very profitable and reasonable because they imply a wrong to another to whom only pertaineth the Legislative Power as of the persons to whom such goodly Laws are given because thereby is an unjust service and bondage brought upon them But no man can be bound to this double injury though peradventure such a Case may be put in which to decline a greater evil and mischief a man may be patient and passive under such usurpers A second thing is taken from the matter and nature of the Law it self which if it be not just and reasonable bindeth not the Conscience though enacted by Authority altogether lawful and unquestionable The reason whereof is that so often abused place of holy Writ which adviseth to obey God rather then men Gods eternal and indispensable Law Acts 5. 29. exacteth of man due observation and that chiefly upon account of his absolute Soveraignty and Dominion which no inferiour Power ought to controul or can make void But should any mortal man command contrary of God it could signifie nothing more then the folly of his own heart and the distemper of his mind and a foul revolt and defection in him that should suffer himself to be so abused But is there no difference think we between the Powers on earth acting quite contrary to God and such as only want special warrant for what they sometimes expect from their Subjects The ignorance or wilful negligence of this distinction or notion is it which hath hurried men into so many unchristian acts and made such havock especially in Religion A third principal ingredient into a Law is that taken from the Persons to whom it is made not that they must owe obedience unto the Lawgiver thought that be true for this is the very same with the first For wherever there is the first part of the Relation there must also of necessity be the second and so wherever there is Power and just Authority to command and rule there must necessarily be a duty of obedience in others but knowledge and manifestation of a Law before touched is absolutely requisite to bind people to the observation of it And yet I mean not actual and inevitable knowledge but possible and ordinarily attainable it being most certain that the same persons who stand generally obliged to observe a Law made and propounded are likewise bound to take notice of its promulgation and this neglecting subject themselves to the like penalties as the wilful Violators of it There may well be added unto these three a Fourth Condition to the validity of a Law and that is Power How Power and Authority differ is not unknown viz. that the first consists in sufficient strength and force to constrain obedience or inflict the punishment denounced against disobedience not necessarily inferring Right so to do And this is not intrinsecal to a Law because it is only to be exercised as a necessary instrument subservient to the ends of Right and Justice preceeding which is Authority properly so called which duly exercised doth oblige without force to submission and that out of Duty and Conscience as appeareth from what we have said already in the First Book of the First Part of this Treatise Now though this Power be not intrinsecal to the Obligation of a Law as some unnatural Philosophers have of late days imagined and boldly and basely endeavoured to maintain yet may it be essential to the Execution of the same Men being generally so unreasonable and averse to Order and Government and the publick Good when no special and immediate advantage accrues to their particular person that without the iron rod to constrain the Majesty of the Scepter will not sway them And but that I have found such prodigious tenets in the writings of late Politicians denying all Justice and Conscience and destroying them as far as their blind and pestilent wits will enable them which certainly they never shall any more than to destroy God himself and extinguish the notion of a Deity out of the minds of men I should have thought that for want of such a distinction between the Obligation and Execution of a Law they fell into such flat and portentous errours For what doth argue greater stupidity than to conclude there is no necessity of violence this should be done therefore it ought not to be done Or because that man is impious who because he is strong enough to be successful scruples not at all to invade and prey on another and he may become ridiculous that commandeth without any ability or probability of effecting what he requireth therefore no obligation lyes on the persons to whom he directs himself to obey Aristotle indeed Arist Politic. l. 3. c. 4. §. 78. tells us of a Law that the Hares should make in their solemn Assemblies that all beasts should share alike in the earth but at this said Antisthenes the Lyons laughed and well they might when such Laws proceeded from them who had neither Right to make nor Power to enforce them but where there is Right without Might the matter is more to be abhorred on the one side than decided on the other True it is that Marsilius Patavinus does make Coaction an ingredient into Lex propriè sumpta Praeceptum coactivum est de fiendis aut omittendis humanis actibus sub poena transgressoribus infligenda Marsilius Patavinus de Jurisdictione Matrimoniali the definition of a Law and that not amiss if we consider that definitions of things are to be made according to the Habitude of things rather than Actualness and so this his definition is very good A Law properly taken is a Coactive Precept of doing or omitting humane acts under punishment to be inflicted on transgressours For though a Prince deprived of Power makes Laws which he is not able to enforce or the Church yet while indelible Right to Power resides with him as an Habitude the Law is of force and is of a Coactive nature though not actuated And this being not unduly as we hope premised we now proceed to the explication of that particular Law of God called the Decalogue which though it branches it self into ten parts yet according to the Jews not amiss conceiving is but One Law as proceeding from one Fountain pronounced in one breath say they engraven or written as one Line or Word on
infinite reasons First from the Object of their worship generally directed to a multitude of Gods and patching up a plenitude of power out of the shreds of innumerable Demi-gods or pieces of Gods whereof one should have power and vertue in one thing and another in another but this is to deny God in effect who if he be not absolute is not at all and indeed all the arguments before used to prove there can be but one God do prove that to be a false and foolish Religion which alloweth and worshippeth more than one Neither can it suffice to excuse them to say that the wiser of the Heathens acknowledged but one God because it availeth nothing at all but to add to their condemnation for any persons to have a right sense and meaning reserved to themselves and to proceed directly contrary to such found judgment in their practice and worship it self And therefore the most absurd and abominable manner of worshipping their pretended Deities is sufficient conviction of the Religion it self For whereas modesty sobriety temperance chastity truth justice and the like moral vertues were such as the Light of Nature did commend to all men and all consented to be excellent and laudable All these were contemned by the admirers of these Gods yea the very Religion it self tempted and incited many to offend against all these and that which is most intolerable from the examples of the pretended gods so chusing to be worshipped from whence must needs follow what St. Paul affirmeth of the Gentiles Religion and gods The things which the Gentiles sacrifice they sacrifice to Devils and not to God They were impure and wicked 1 Cor. 10. 20. spirits delighting in absurd and vitious practises And therefore upon this subject no more need be spoken at present The Neat pretender to true worship may be the Mahometan who worshipping the True God so far as may be discerned yet faileth egregiously in the manner of exhibiting the same the very grounds and end also being false and unreasonable For first that the Author and Coiner of that worship was an impostor and made pretences of Sanctity in the midst of impurities and infirmities he was subject unto is apparent out of Histories of those times and places where he by the assistance of a Fugitive Nestorian Monk laid the plot and whole design of his Religion and that among a people altogether rude ignorant barbarous easie to be deceived and cheated into a credulity of pretended Revelations Again the many absurdities and contradictions of their Law most sacred as misnaming of persons mistiming of Facts mistaking of Histories in the gross impossible prophane blasphemous opinions concerning the nature the will the Actions of God contrary to common philosophy and reason Ridiculous and foolish imaginations of Angels utterly false opinions of the nature of things and such like being duly and soberly weighed and examined do convince the whole Fabrick of that superstition of Idleness and foolish fictions And not to multiply more arguments here The way of propagating this Erroneous Fashion of serving God discovereth the Errour of the thing it self For it is a general and most rational Principle deserving admission and belief of all That Religion being the most excellent act of humane Creatures ought to have the most high and noble Faculty of the soul for its proper seat and fountain from whence it should proceed such as is the intellectual faculty of Man But this superstition is carried on by the ministery of the Senses chiefly And moreover It ought to have for its end the most sublime and divine of all But the Mahometan constituteth the low pleasures of the Senses as the sufficient and proper end of all their service making the beatitude of Heaven to consist in perpetual Licentiousness and fresh delights of senses And therefore no need of insisting on this subject here What is here spoken being for method sake rather then necessity or a formal confutation of those Errours CHAP. V. Of the Jewish Religion The Pretence of the Antiquity of it mulled Their several Erroneous grounds of the Jewish Religion discovered DUT the Religion of the Jew requireth more diligent examination as well because of a notable presumption from ancient Tradition and a certain preoccupation of divine truths and auctority of divine Constitution as because the consideration thereof is an introduction to Christian Religion and the disproof of that a proof of the Christian And if according to Christians own concessions and the eminentest Apostle St. Paul they were once the people and true Church of God To Rom. 3. 2. cap. 9. 4. them were committed the Oracles of God To them pertained the Adoption and the glorie and the Covenant and the giving of the Law and the service of God and the Promises Why not alwayes a Church If once Gods people Why not alwayes so If once confessed to be pure and Faithfull When did they cease to be so When first entred corruptions into their Church Under what High Priest And who brought such errours first in This is the sum of what they can say either for themselves or against the Christians of whose Religion which undoubtedly they do and will call Heresie they can give the time and place when and where it sprang up and the person who first founded and advanced the same And if any Church or Society of men in the world can lay claim to the Promises of perpetuity and infallibility surely the Jewish will pretend much more from the Prerogatives peculiar to them as do witness every where the Law and the Prophets To all this a sufficient answer shall be comprehended in the prosecution of the contrary Grounds which here follows which I reduce to these two whereof One concerns their Errour about their Law and the Other about their Messias The first general Errour concerning their Law is first that they suppose that the word of God given to Moses for their proper use was equally to oblige all Nations saving where certain priviledges were pretended to Jews by birth which they suppose no people were worthy or capable of except the stock of Abraham But that all nations could not be included in that Covenant which was made with Abraham nor were all obliged to the Rites and Ceremonies thereof appears from the ordinary impossibility of being observed by all People For how could people of the remotest parts of the earth appear thrice a year at Jerusalem as was commanded the Israelites by God who dwelt in the Land of Canaan How Levit. 12. 6. could all Nations at any time bring their Sacrifices to the door of the House of the Lord to be there received and offered by the Priests Another Errour concerning their Law received by Moses is that they say It was it whereby men should be justified Which is false and that First because the most ancient holy and renowned Patriarchs of the Jewish Line were not so Justified They were not justified by the
Apostolical that which now is so reputed and that which any mans memory might assure him was so in very deed the Apostles Doctrine This controversie then seems to come to this issue First in Reason Whether Oral and Memorial Tradition can be so secure as Scriptural The resolution of which doubt almost every man may make sufficiently of himself and hath been competently treated of above The other Question is about matter of Fact Whether the Church of God did ever so unanimously agree in the necessity validity or Sacredness of any Traditions not contained in the written Word of God as to equal them with this This we absolutely deny And upon the account of Tradition it self There being no such Tradition to be found in all the Records of the Church that Tradition is so highly to be valued Again there appearing consent sufficient in the Church for many ages That as to the Material parts of Christian doctrine the Scriptures do sufficiently instruct us as a Rule and Law of believing For If the Law of Moses as a Law was sufficient before the Prophets added to it for the People of God under that Dispensation And the Law and the Prophets were still sufficient till John and Christ is to believed That the Law of Christians delivered by Christs appointment should fall short of the same ends now It is truly affirmed That what St. Paul writeth in commendation of Scripture was intended chiefly if not only of the books of the Old Testament viz. That they were able to make a man wise unto Salvation through Faith that is in Christ Jesus and All Scripture is given by Inspiration of God and is profitable for doctrine for correction for instruction in Righteousness That the man of God may be perfect throughly furnished unto all good works Now if the Scriptures of the Old Testamant were sufficient to bring a man to the Faith of Christ and to instruct him to Salvation can any man reasonably doubt Whether the much clearer and fuller manifestation of the Doctrine of Christ and Salvation by the books of the New Testament are sufficient to the same end joyned to the obscurer of the Old I know there are that say expresly No and endeavour to make it good by several instances very material to Faith and yet not expressed in Scripture and yet again of force to be believed by all that would be good Christians As the Articles of the Trinity and of Christs Person consisting of humane and divine nature Of his being born of the blessed Virgin Some other are added hereunto but they are either such as are neither favoured by Scripture nor good Tradition as Invocation of Saints Purgatory c. or have only a general warrant from Scripture and Tradition and such are they which are of a mutable nature Rites and Ceremonies of the Church which ought not when confirmed by long consent and use in the Church lightly to be refused and cast off so when any Church having power over its own body shall think fit to alter is that Church to be refused as a true Church by others But to the first of these we stick not openly to profess That it suffices to believe so much only as is really contained in and soberly deducible from the Scriptures taking these articles of Faith separately from certain accessory obligations of all good Christians For instance It is not required to believe the doctrine now established in the Catholick Church concerning the Trinity in the forms at present received from the nature of the Articles themselves which may with safety sufficient be assented to as they are simply found in Scripture yet considering That Hereticks have stirred up most dangerous and sacrilegious doubts to the obviating them and securing the main stake which would be endangered if farther explications were not found out and imposed it is needful to receive them also or at least not to oppose and declare against them For 't is very well known there passed some ages before the Articles of the Trinity of Persons were so much stood on or so well setled as now they are and that Tradition was as much to seek as the written Word of God to bring things to that pass they now are in And for Christ's manner of birth I know no such Tradition either written or unwritten which required antiently any more than to believe barely That the eternal Son of God became man and was incarnate and born of a woman who was a pure Virgin but probable circumstances and reverence to the high Mystery of Christs Person obliged to the honorary part of that Article And the like answer may be made to another instance about Paedobaptism which some as occasion offers will say is required in Scripture and again it serving at other times their turn better to deny Bellarmin it will hold the contrary For Baptism of Infants as Infants is not indeed required by Scripture but as persons saveable it is the rule general in Scripture running thus Except a man be born of water and the Holy John 3. 5. Ghost he cannot be saved It is not said unless a man be born by water while he is an infant or Child but absolutely For had it been so expressed just doubt might have been made whether a man baptized at his full age were effectually baptized Neither is Baptism appointed signally and precisely for men in years though none but such at the first preaching of the Gospel who could profess their Faith could be capable of it but indefinitely is it spoken without any limitation and therefore sufficiently implied Other instances against the plenitude of Scripture as a Rule of Faith have either already been touched as that which tells us It is nowhere contained in Scripture that the Scriptures are the word of God neither can it be proved by it for no more can it be demonstrated by Tradition or may be easily brought to the same end To conclude this point having shewed what we mean by Tradition and what it serveth not to it were unreasonable to leave it slurr'd so and not to give it its due in shewing the great use thereof in the Church of Christ For however we make it not supream nor coequal with the written word of God it may without any offence or invasion of Divine Right or Autoritie claim the next place to it and as Joseph to Pharaoh be greater then all the the people besides but inferiour to Pharaoh in the Throne Of God it is said Thou satest in the Throne judging right God now judges by his Word Psalm 9. 4. written as by a Law and Rule of faith as is shewed Yet I see no reason for the injudicious zeal and reverence of such who think they cannot give enough unto the Scriptures unless in word and pretence for t is no more themselves constantly acting contrarie to their profession they ascribe all the Form of Judging unto the Scriptures and all things determinable to their
Eucharist and especially going upon the grounds of Luther Calvin Perkins and some others of Great note that all Sacerdotal they may call them if they please Ministerial Acts done by him who is no true Minister are really null and void Fourthly we conclude that seeing all Ecclesiastical power as Ecclesiastical doth proceed from Christ and his Successors and that by Ordinary and visible means they who have not received the same by such Ordinary Methods are usurpers of the same whether Political or Mystical And that to deny this to the Church is to deny that which Christ hath given them and such a Principle of the Churches well Being without which it cannot subsist and it not subsisting neither can the Faith it self And to the reason above given we may add Prescription beyond all memory For from Christs time to this day a perpetual and peculiar power hath ever been in the Clergy which hath constantly likewise born the name of the Church to assemble define and dispose matters of Religion And why should not Prescription under Unchristian as well as Christian Governours for so many Ages together be as valid sacred and binding to acknowledgment in the Case of Religion as Civil Matters will ever remain a question in Conscience and common Equity even after irresistible Power hath forced a Resolution otherwise It is true such is the more natural and Ancient Right Civil Power hath over the outward Persons of men than that which Religion hath over the Inward man that it may claim a dominion and disposal of the Persons of even Christian subjects contrary to the soft and infirm Laws of the Church because as hath been said Men are Men before they are Christians and Nature goeth before Grace And Civil society is the Basis and support to Ecclesiastical Yet the grounds of Christianity being once received for good and divine and that Religion cannot subsist nor the Church consist without being a Society and no Society without a Right of counsel and consultation and no consultation without a Right to assemble together the Right of assembling must needs be in trinsique to the Church it self Now if no man that is a Christian can take away the essential ingredient to the Church how can any deny this of Assembling For the practise of it constantly and confidently by the Apostles and brethren contrary to the express will of the Lawful Powers of the Jews and Romans and the reason given in the Acts of the Apostles of obeying God rather then man do imply certainly a Law and Charter from God so to do and if this be granted as it must who can deny by the same Rule necessity of Cause and constant Prescription that they may as well provide for the safety of the Faith by securing the state of the Church as for the truth and stability of the Church by securing the true Faith by doctrine and determination The Great question hath ever been Whether the Church should suffer loss of power and priviledges upon the Supream Powers becomming Christian Or the Supream power it self loose that dominion which it had before it became of the Church For if Christianity subjected Kings necessarily to the Laws of others not deriving from them then were not Kings in so good a Condition after they were Christians as before when they had no such pretences or restraints upon them and so should Christs Law destroy or maim at least the Law of God by which Kings reign But there may be somewhatsaid weakning this absurdity For Granting this That there is a God and that he is to be worshipped and that as he appointeth all which we must by nature believe it seems no less natural to have these observed than the Laws of natural Dominion Now granting that at present which if we be true to our Religion we must not deny viz. That Christian Religion is the true Religion and that God will be worshipped in such sort as is therein contained For any Prince absolute to submit to the essentials of that Religion is not to loose any thing of his Pristine Rights which he had before being an Heathen for he never had any Right to go against the Law of God more then to go against the Law of Nature but it doth restrain his Acts and the exercise of his Power And if the Supream after he hath embraced Christianity shall proceed to exert the same Authority over the Church as before yet the Church hath no power to resist or restrain him Civilly any more than when he was an Alien to it Now it being apparent that Christian Faith and Churches had their Forms of believing and Communion before Soveraign powers were converted and that he who is truly converted to a Religion doth embrace it upon the terms which he there finds not such as he brings with him or devises therefore there lies an Obligation upon such powers to preserve the same as they found it inviolate And truly for any secular Power to become Christian with a condition of inverting the orders of the Church and deluting the Faith is to take away much more than ordinary accrues unto it by such a change It is true the distinction is considerable between the Power of a Christian and unchristian King exerted in this manner because taking the Church in the Largest sense in which all Christians in Communion are of it what Christian Kings act with the Church may in some sense bear the name of the Church as it doth in the State acting according to their secular capacity but much more improperly there than here because there are no inferiour Officers or Magistrates in such a Commonwealth which are not of his founding and institution whatsoever they do referr to him and whatsoever almost he doth is executed by them But Christ as we have shewed having ordained special Officers of his own which derive not their Spiritual Power at all from the Civil and to this end that his Church might be duly taught and governed what is done without the concurrence of these can in no proper sense bear the name of the Church But many say the King is a Mixt person consisting partly of Ecclesiastical and partly Civil Authority but this taken in the ordinary latitude is to begg the Question and more a great deal than at first was demanded For who knows how far this Mixture extends and that it comprehends not the Mystical Power of the Church as well as the Political And how have they proved one more than the other by such a title It were reasonable therefore first to declare his Rights in Ecclesiastical matters as well as Civil and thence conclude he is a Mixt Person and not to affirm barely he is a Mixt Person and from thence inferr they know not what Ecclesiastical power themselves And if he hath such power whether it is immediately of God annexed to his Natural Right or by consent of the Church is attributed unto him For by taking this course we
are we to mutiny against the Constitutions of Eastern and Western Churches which in progress of time added some inferiour Orders to those most anciently received in the Church viz. of Bishop Priest and Deacon For I take it to be no invasion of Christs Right to call to the assistance of such as he had constituted such as he did not ordain to that end but to retrench of the number to dissolve that Order which he appointed that is sacrilegious What then may we call Orders but The Collation of an Ecclesiastical Faculty or Power to serve God and the Church by such as are authorized by God using the necessary Forms of Words and Rites thereunto required according to his order of Ministration Now we have already shewed That as no man can create himself a secular neither can he an Ecclesiastical Officer and as no man in that Politv can be created but by one in Authority rightly derived to him so can none in Spiritual matters be ordained to Ecclesiastical Ministration but he that is thereunto called by some in Lawful or at least real Power And therefore such who are chosen and appointed by the common people are but common people after such vainly affected callings and they who are of an inferiour Order were never acknowledged to have power to create one of a Superiour to them As it was never endured in the Church till of late dayes that Priests should appoint Bishops or Priests because though Power of the Keys were communicated to them in reference to the two Principal and necessary Sacraments yet never as to the whole complex notion of the same which consists of Jurisdiction as well as Knowledge and Intercession And the School argument which at least hath given occasion to confound the Order of Bishop and Priest is very false and frivolous supposing all Ecclesiastical Orders to be so denominated in or dine ad consecrandum from their relation to the Power of Consecrating the Body and Blood of Christ in the Eucharist because they suppose that to be the supream Mystery and End of Priestly Office but the distinction of Power Political and Mystical in the Church quite overthrows that For the Power of Jurisdiction is greater in its kind than that of celebrating and therefore not so vainly to be taken Again the Orders of the Church are so called from the Relation they have to the Body Ecclesiastical or outward Form and Constitution of it which is made up of all of them by a gradual ascent from the lowest to the highest which make that Hierarchy without which a Church has but very little to show that it is a Church but is forc'd to shroud it self under the obscure priviledges of being an invisible Church though not visible Orders therefore thus duly administred though they be not a Sacrament for then must there be seven Sacraments subordinate to the other famous seven because generally seven sorts of Orders are administred in the Church yet are they Sacramental things that is Sacred and no less necessary to the constituting a Visible Body of Christ than are the others to the Invisible And though that cannot presently be concluded to be a true Church of Christ which hath them I do not see how that can be a true Church which hath them not And for that which is commonly called Extream Unction being the Anointing of the Infirm of Body or such as are despaired of as to this Life I see no great matter to be objected against it no more did Luther nor Bucer nor some other eminent Reformers for a good while after they left Rome provided it be done with that solemnity and soundness of invocation of God and Benediction of the deceasing Party as may comfort and strengthen him in his last Agonies It being ancient though not so old as is pretended nor ministred in the same manner as now For in the beginning not one but many Presbyters of the Church were called according to the advice of St. James to pray over the sick and to anoint James 1. 14 15 him with common not compounded or artificial Oyl and that not without a miraculous event But because the Miracle is now ceased it is no good reason the thing it self should be detested For Primitively a Miracle did accompany Baptism too which ceasing no man will declare the Sacrament it self ought to cease likewise The Superstitions of Prayer and some other Rites added of late whereby the simplicity of it hath been corrupted is a more reasonable ground of laying it down Neither is the want thereof in that formality to be charged upon a Church where there is commanded and continued due Ministration to the Sick answerable to the necessities of Body and Soul But though the use hereof be ancient yet the name Sacrament hath not so anciently been ascribed to it in the sense at this day Current And Innocent the first who is reported to have so called it doth permit others besides Priests to minister the same to the Sick the Chrism or Oyl being made by the Bishop CHAP. XXXVII Of Confirmation What it is The Reasons of it The Proper Minister of it Of Vnction threefold in Confirmation Of Sacramental Repentance and Penance The Effects thereof BUT of Confirmation much greater esteem hath ever been and ought still to be had though not so much as some of the Ancients and divers Modern Schoolmen would exalt it to unless a favourable interpretation be made of their judgments delivered concerning it For they make it more useful than Baptism it self and impute the efficacy of Baptism in great part unto this Sacrament To judge the better of which Opinion it is to be consider'd what this Confirmation is Confirmation may be said to be a solemn Act of Invocation of God and Benediction of a Person upon his publick Profession of that Christian Faith into which he was before baptized First It was required that the Person capable of this Ceremony should have first been baptized For he was not hereby made a Christian but as the word importeth confirmed in that Faith into which he had been baptized And the Reasons hereof were such then as do to this day commend exceedingly the use of it viz. Because some were baptized in their minority or infancy when wanting common judgment they could not discern the nature use and end of Baptism and therefore very requisite it was that they should after due and sober information in the mysteries and principles of Christian Religion make in their own person such a publick Profession of the same as they were bound to do at the time of their baptism according Catechismus Argentoratensis p. 36. D. Cum nos pueri instituti sumus in fide Christiana debemus eam palam aperte profiteri c. as the Church Catechism of Strasburgh since the Reformation well thus expresses it by Scholar and Master Schol. We that are children and instructed in the Faith of Christ ought to profess the
purpose or to their advantage to say for instance sake as the more sober especially when they would gain upon the good opinion of men That Images may be worshipped relatively and as instruments to devotion and helps but when there are found and generally known to be such doctrines as teach a veneration of Images for their own sakes and directly and that with the same sort of worship that the things they represent are capable of though perhaps they upon a pinch can insert a distinction which neither can be understood nor profit such a doctrine as this known to be delivered by the Principal Doctors of their Churches and maintain'd not being condemned by that Church however not generally embraced may subject a Church to a censure of Heresie and Idolatry of both and so in other things whereof tolerable senses are given in the Church of Rome or else they could not be said so much as to be a Church at all but intolerable and Heretical are also uncondemned and so are no true Church and so may be separated from without Schism but not without peril of damnation united to And do not our brethren for such they were before they professed Schism and I hope may be after they have renounced it see now plainly enough the vaniâ—y and spitefulness of their Evasion Are not the Cases infinitely different and that in their own eyes Hear they what Perkins saith to our and their purpose So long as a Church Perkins on Gal. C. 5. V. 20. or people do not Separate from Christ we may not separate from them 2 Pro. 24. 21. Fear the King and meddle not with them that vary i. e make alterations against the Laws of God and the King Indeed Subjects may signifie what is good for the State and what is amiss but to make any alteration in the State either Civil or Ecclesiastical belongs to the Supream Magistrate And â—n another place the same Author hath these words Great therefore is the rashness Id. Galat 1. V. 2. and want of moderation in many that have been of us that condemn our Church for no Church without sufficient conviction going before If they say we have been admonished by books published I say again these be grosser faults in some of those books than any of the faults that they reprove in the Church of England and therefore the books are not â—it to convince especially a Church Thus we see how the cases in the matter difier And no less may we see the difference in the manner For 't is apparent that Schismaticks against the Church of England never had any Legal autority to warrant their vile and Scandalous practices but were forced to give names to things uncapable of them to excuse themselves or else by an unnatural course to entitle the People to a Power Supream who have none at all but what is given them from another fountain neither did the people concurr with such misdemeaners as was pretended they did But thirdly another difference is to be noted from the Rights of a Patriarchal Power over a Provincial Church not properly of its Diocess and that of a Metropolitan with his Suffragans over the members of the Church which they altogether make For according to the constitutions of the Church though a Patriarchs Power was Intensively equal to Episcopal over his proper and immediate Diocess and Extensively much greater than the Metropolitans or Bishops in relation to other Diocesses yet was it never so Intensive i. e. so particular and great in those Bishops Diocesses over which he had only an Order of Unity rather than Intrinsick power to dispose matters therein though in process of time this also was invaded much by him and might be recovered to the proper Bishop by the Laws of the Church But the Bishops of this Church had the sole and immediate disposing of the affairs of it and nothing could be concluded without obligation of obedience out of Conscience without their Concurrence as desparately as Schismaticks then did and still do rage at this truth But then as Hinderson saith with others They would never reform themselves It is very likely so meaning as they would have them but that not to the better Rule of the Ancient Churches and the Scriptures is more than they knew or would acknowledg when they saw because still they would have done otherwise and invented a new Rule of their own But seeing the grounds and Cause of separation are they upon which the Guilt of Schism is avoided or contracted according to the nature of them and obscure and difficult and tedious is the method leading to the tryal of the sufficiency of them to justifie a Separation therefore it were well contrived if as in the search of a true Church they may being very long and uncertain and grievous to most proceeding upon the points of Faith and Parts of worship themselves certain infaâ—lible obvious and plain Characters could be produced to convince the Schism and distinguish it from simple and innocent Separation A Fair attempt to which hath been made by Austin who dispuâ—ing against the Donatists denies that any man can separate from the Universal Church innocently So that although it should be doubtful as most things are managed by Learned Partisans whether considering the grounds of Separation in themselves the Separation be Schismatical or lawful and laudable yet by such an outward Characteristick it might be competently discerned And so farmust I needs comply with that Judicious and Holy Father and such as urge this out of him against us as to yield it a most probable outward Note of Schism for any man or number of men not a Church but in Fieri as they speak only and in breeding to divide from the Universal Church not only as comprehending all Ages but of any one Age the weight and evidence of which Concession will appear from the esteem of the Church Catholick and the wrath and extent of Christs promises to preserve it in All truth For this is certain That Christ directed his promises and restrained them to no one time or Age. And it is not probable there should be such an Intercession or intermission of Faith or Christianity that the universal Church should mortally err in any one thing necessary to salvation nay though we take it not in such a large sense as sometimes it is wont to be used for all individual persons in it as well as Churches of which the whole is constituted And therefore to desert the communion of all Churches not of persons for this is scarce to be supposed to happen at any time doth argue shrewdly That the separation hath much of Schism in it without examination of particular grounds which are pretended sufficient For it will be said That it ought not to be supposed that Christ should deliver over his whole Church to such heretical errours which only can exempt a Separation from Schism From such notorious suspicions as these we
discriminating note made between the incorrigible reprobates destined to destruction and the corrigible offender ordained to life then indeed much more colour would appear to justifie the refusal of dispensing the means of salvation to such and the denial in the reprobate to give ear to such offers but flesh and bloud cannot reveal this to us and the Spirit of God hath not Doth not God send his Prophet Ezekiel with Ezek. 3. 4. 7. express commission to warn the house of Israel though he expresly assures him They will not hearken unto thee for they will not hearken unto me If the child in the womb being certainly determin'd to one sex long before it is brought forth yet this certainty being hid from our eyes though but for such a small time is thought by Parents a matter of prayer many times that it may be a Son How should not we much rather take the just occasion of applying our selves to acts of Religion though possibly the event with God is determined The summe then of this Chapter comes to this That God by his soveraign dominion and by his inscrutable counsels doth out of the corrupted and forlorn mass of fallen man elect whom he pleases to effectual Grace and from thence brings them to infallible Glory but never without their own acts of embracing his offers and persevering faithfully in his service So that though he purely chooses them to the means of Grace without consideration of their worth or fruitfulness yet he never ordains any or elects them to Glory but upon an intuition of faith and obedience to his will And on the other side he passes by others leaving them in great part as he found them from whence spring works of wickedness freely invented and acted and tending infallibly unto damnation So that God doth not in like manner influence the wicked as he doth the righteous that is for no other cause but his own will taking occasion justly from that common deformity wherein he finds them but never simply destinates any man to damnation but upon beholding the deserts of their sins But how it can come to pass that God thus ordaining the end damnation should not also appoint the means sin without which he condemns no man shall be answered in a more proper place Here only I add for their sakes who measure opinions by famous Patrons to which they are addicted that as I have said nothing to comply with or spitefully to oppose Calvin and his followers so neither to cross Arminius But this I must say that though I look upon Arminius as a much more modest man and more judicious Disputant than Calvin in these deep points yet in their followers we shall easily see a great disparity to the disadvantage of the Remonstrants For very many of Calvins followers have mitigated and fairly interpreted his too harsh and scandalous expressions and opinions and I think none have gone beyond him But on the other side what Arminius with much modesty and gravity delivered erroneously his abettors and followers have pursued and improved many of them to such an intollerable height that they fall often into direct Pelagianism and from thence which is much worse into Socinianisin as experience plainly sheweth And to that Dutch Physician Emperick in this part of Divinity who Beverovicius protested against all ministration of Physick to sick persons unless he could be assured of a mutability in the term of his Patients life for I must openly profess the same reason of Gods Providence and pre-determination to temporal life and death as spiritual and eternal and they are equally fixt and moveable both of them it suffices to answer Then he may let it alone and no absurdity follows But because a very learned and grave Divine of ours seemeth to have given some weight to the argument by citiug him to our present purpose I answer further That no such thing is said to be so precisely and simply â—ecreed â—ut it is as necessary the means should be determined as the end God hath determined no effect but he hath determined the proper cause thereto conducing And it is as false that God hath determined that such a man should recover his health as that he shaâ—l do it without such proper means The means comming under the decree as well as the end It will be said that this takes away all liberty from man as well in the way as to the end And probably Beverovicius if he had thought on this though he had been assured that the tearm of mans life was moveable but the means-thereto unmoveable would never have read book about physick nor stir'd off his seat to any patient because whatever he did or not did the means should have been applyed and succeeded to the sick party But because we are sure we cannot go out of our Island on foot shall we not stir out of doors at all Because we cannot do what we would and go as far as we would shall we not do any thing at all Because our Liberties do not reach beyond Gods Mannor and priviledge the second cause from the autority and influence of the first shall we be sulle in and dogged and refuse that which we Certainly whatever plausible suggestions may of late have been instilled into the common peoples minds of a free subjection it can never be rightly and honestly understood of a freedom from the Supream Power and Justice And so whatever liberty of will may be claimed to man in his actions must be interpreted rather in relation to his fellow creatures and subjects and outward causes which cannot impose upon his will but the first cause may in that cannatural way we before mentioned and in the next place shall have occasion offered farther to explain CHAP. XIII The Occasion of treating of Sin here What sin is What Evil. Monstrousness in things natural and Evil in Moral things illustrate each other Sin no positive or real Thing God the direct Cause of Evil. St. Paul in his Epistle to the Romans makes nothing for the contra Remonstrants literally and primarily taken THE near respect that Sin hath to what is passed and the aspect it hath to what is before us concerning the Providence of God in the Fall of Man from his native Righteousness oblige us here to enquire farther into the nature of it And slightly passing over that doubt of some Philosophers and Ancient Hereticks How if there were a God who is supreamly and infinitely good and no more but one Evil should find any being amongst the beautiful works of God its nature being so foul monstrous and contrary to God because it is touched above and in truth do adde rather a greater beauty and lustre to God works than if no such thing were to be found and because as the glory so the power of God is much more manifested thereby in that he curbs and checks its excess and exorbitancie at his pleasure and forces it by his providence to
of any Saint in any other respect then that the Scriptures which that day are read in the Church be concerning that Saint and contain either his calling preaching persecution martyrdom or such like A third and yet worse abuse in the Roman Church is that they celebrate the memory of some who have been no Saints and of others who have been no good Christians as their highly applauded Thomas a Becket who indeed was villanously slain and with gross Circumstances but by no better authority than a man may be murther'd upon the high-way and that for none of his vertues but for sticking closser to the usurping Pope than to Christ or his Prince to whom he was a much greater Rebel than was Cranmere which a very late impudent railer hath in print so termed to disgrace him and the Reformation so far as naked lies can prevail without the least instance against which of those Princes he lived under or in what he died an impenitent Traitor as he calls him This we know the Hall of the Jesuites Seminary in Rome is hung round almost with such Saints as have died convicted of treason against their Prince and Country as Judicially as ever any were But no more of this There yet remains somewhat to be said under this head of Times and Seasons of Prayer and that is concerning Hours of Prayers called Canonical which were retained and published by our Church at the beginning of the Reformation by the confession of that unsatisfied and unquiet Puritan Mr. Prinne himself who wrote against them and the Prinne against Consens pag. 32. excellent design of the Reverend Publisher of them with great wrath and bitterness and all the reason he could which was little enough God knows In the year saith he 1560 was printed Orarium or a Book of Prayers which mentioned Canonical Hours But in the second impression in the year 1564 these hours were quite obliterated and so in the Edition 1573. But if these things be so the First Edition is with me much more Authentique than the following unless it can be proved that such alterations were made with the like authority with the first For we have divers instances of Puritans busie zeal to make alterations in impressions of such books as offend their corrupt humor and that upon their private heads watching Presses that print any thing that troubles them and purging them Hath not the late Arch-bishop Laud in his Lauds speech in the Star-chamber An. 1637. pag. 64 65 66 67 c. solid and judicious refutations of their contumelies and scurrilous slanders against their Governors found out their falseness in contriving the expunging of that clause in the twentieth of the nine and thirtieth Articles of Queen Elizabeth viz. The Church hath power to decree Rites and Ceremonies and authority in matters of Faith And having caused the Article with this rasure to be printed to argue from that Copy and flie most boldly in the faces of the Prelates as forgers of Articles in latter Editions when there were so many ancienter Copies retaining that Clause as that of the year 1593 and 1563 and 1605 and in the publique Records of them And having so done to say the Article was never so printed before the year 1628 But the reason there given makes the matter more clear For many scrupling such Right in the Church refused to swear to the Articles so framed and thereupon made no scruple to purge them of such troublesom matter and having so done to cover their wickedness the better to begin to clamour loudly against the Bishops as if in their Edition they had foisted as they speak that into them of their private heads And what can be a greater or more bold presumption in them to attempt than in the Title of the Singing Psalms which never had the least approbation of either Civil or Ecclesiastical Authority to print these words Set forth and allowed to be sung in all Churches of all the people together before and after Morning and Evening prayer and also c whereas they could never yet produce the least colour of Authority more than gross connivance at that will-worship of their own heads For the Church never owned any other Psalms or Singing but what she warranted by her practice in Cathedrals which as it was much more ancient and solemn so much more easie also for common people to learn and more easie to be understood by those who are not able to joyn with them that so sing And yet what will not affectation of mens own invention and spite against others drive men to say they boldly argue against that manner of singing as not easily intelligible or to be learnt and also as a way most unfit to address ones self to a Prince in and much more to God as if their contrived Psalming of it were not much more obnoxious to these exceptions and more ridiculous to be used towards any man than the other The only advantage these have above the Churches grave plain and chearful way of Reciting the Psalms being that they are fallen into this their own way but cannot tell how or why and admire it infinitely But to return Can we knowing they have been guilty of such vile Artifices make any great scruple to think that they might play false with the said Orarium too of which Mr. Prinne speaks Such doings and the disuse of these might give occasion to the Rhemists in their Comments to affirm that The Church of England hath utterly rejected Canonical Hours of Prayers Which is not so Indeed she doth not impose them with that rigour as doth the Roman Church but commendeth the same as very godly and profitable And there is not one book in more esteem with her next to the Office of the Liturgy it self than that book to that end published by the late Reverend Bishop of Durham Dr. Cosens notwithstanding all the dirt cast in the face of it and him by Mr. Prinne And notwithstanding the three notable abuses noted amongst the Papists by Master Perkins in the use of the Canonical Hours First Perkins Cases of Conscience p. 79. in binding to them upon mortal sin This we acknowledge to be an abuse unless the persons have brought themselves under any Rule or Order which requires such services as such may lawfully be and wilfully neglect the same Secondly binding only to those hours whereas those hours differ not from others But here we are to distinguish first between binding to those hours only as if it were not permitted to use them at any other hours which I know none do and not binding them to any others but them only this is lawful secondly between binding to hours for the Hours sakes and for Orders sake Indeed Hours as is solidly and very philosophically argued differ not in nature one from another But emergencies and occasions may diversifie them and the devotions belonging to them without any just objection to be made to the