judgers of the personal qualifications and that ordinis gratia ordinarily their approbation choice or consent shall be a relative part of their Receptive qualification 6. God himself giveth all the personal qualifications 7 He is ready to help the approvers and chusers to discern all these and to judg aright of them 8. The person being thus made a capable Recipient by personal qualifications and relative due Approbation Election and Consent God's Donation or Law doth give him Right and oblige him to the office-work And the Electors Approvers and Consenters are none of the proper efficient Donors or causes of this right and obligation but only efficient causes of his relative receptive capacity 9. That therefore the right and obligation is immediately from Gods Law by resultancy as the established medium of Gods conveyance but not immediately without any means of his receptively to make him materiam dispositam 10. That all this is true both of Soveraign Civil Power and of Church-power in Bishops and Pastors 11. That yet besides Approbation and Election God hath for the publick notice and order of the Church appointed a Regular Ministerial Investiture by which the Approved shall be solemnly put into possession as Kings are crowned and Ministers instituted and Ordination usually containeth both the approbation part of the election and the investiture 12 But this Investiture being but a Ministerial delivery of possession proveth not the Investor to be any Donor of the Power to the King or to the Bishop or Pastor 13. Nor is it necessary save ordinis gratia and in foro ecclesiae to avoid intrusion and confusion but not when it is set against the end or the end may and must be sought without it 14. Who it is that hath the power of this Ordination Approbation and Investiture is much of the controversie of these times some say it is the Magistrate but those that say it is the bishops are not agreed what species of bishops it is whether the chief Pastors of each particular Parish true Church or only a Diocesan that is the sole bishop of many parishes that are no true Churches or only Diocesans that are Archbishops over many true Parish-churches and bishops 15. But the Fundamentum juris being Christs Statute-Law or Grant and all that is left to man being but qualitatively or relatively to make the person an immediately capable Recipient and ministerially invest him therefore it follows that if at Alexandria Antioch Ierusalem Cesarea Constantinople London all the old bishops were dead or hereticks a just title may be restored without the ordination of one that had successive canonical ordination because there needeth no efficient donor but Christ and his Law and the receptive capacity may be without such ordination where it is not to be had as among Papists that will not ordain one on lawful terms c. for Order it self is but for the thing ordered and not against it And I will have mercy and not sacrifice â—morals before rituals and all power is to edification c. are certain rules And God never made men judges in partem utram libet whether there shall be Churches and Pastors and Worship or none or whether there shall be Civil Government or none no nor of what the species the Church-Offices shall be 16. I use to explain this by many expository similitudes 1. If the Laws of God authorize Soveraignty and the Constitution of the Kingdom say it shall be Monarchy were it Elective the Electors are not Efficients of power but determiners of the Recipient And if it be Hereditary or Elective the Investers by coronation are no efficients of the power but Ministerial deliverers of possession and that but necessary ad ordinem and not ad esse potestatis 2. If the King by a Charter to the University state the power of the Chancellor Vicechancellor Proctors and all the Masters of Colledges and then tell them who shall be capable and how chosen and how inveâ—ted here his power is immediately from the Kings Charter as the efficient Instrument and all that others do is but to determine of the Recipient and invest him 3. So it is as to the power of the Lord Mayor of London and the Mayors and Bailiffs of all Corporations 4. So it is in the essential power of the Husband over the Wife the woman chuseth who shall have it and the Parson that marrieth them investeth him in it but God only is the efficient donor of his Law 17. Therefore it is not in the power of the Electors Approvers or Investors to alter any of the Power established by God If both the woman and the Priest say that the man shall be her Husband but shall have no government of her it is a nullity Gods Law shall stand If the City and the Recorder say You shall be Lord Mayor but not have all the power given by the Kings Charter its vain and he shall have all that the Charter giveth him If the A Bp crown the King and say You shall be King but not have all the power stated by the Constitution on the King this depriveth not the King of his power unless he give away that which God hath not stated on him but men so if an Ordaining Prelate Patron or Parish say This is a true Parish Church and we choose and Ordain you the true Pastor of it but you shall have but part of the true Pastoral Power stablished on the office by God it 's null Gods Institution shall be the measure of his power 18. But I confess that if God had left Church-Officers as much to the will of men as he hath done the Civil the case had been otherwise for Monarchy Aristocracy and Democracy are all lawful And the King or other supreme power may make new Species of Judges and Magistrates and Officers and alter them as they see cause And it would have been so in the Church if as the Italians at Trent would have carried it Christ had immediately Instituted only the Papacy and left it to the Pope to make Bishops and to Bishops to make Priests And yet I would not wrong the worst I cannot say that they would have empowered the Pope to change the Species of Priests or Bishops But God hath fixed the Species by making a setled Law for all the work and all the Authority to do it though Accidentals may be altered in work and Office § 6. This is the clear state of my assertions which how grosly Mr. Dodwell hath falsified in his forged description I will not stay to open But it is a great stress and fabrick that he layeth on the contrary supposition that his Species of Bishops are the givers of the Powers and so we can have no other or more than they are willing to give us And let him that thinks he spoke a sentence of truth and sense to prove it enjoy his error I would quickly prove the contrary to him if I knew what he
the Antecedent True Pastors have but the power to promote and order Gods worship but not to exclude or forbid it to any much less to all or 1000. without necessary cause 2. And then if Preaching and Hearing and Sacraments be ordinarily necessary to mens salvation then God hath left it to the will or power of the Bishops whether any of the people shall be ordinarily saved But that is not so 3. And then if the King should license or command us to Preach Pray and Communicate and the Bishop forbid it it were sin But that I will not believe unless the Cause more than the Authority make the difference To cooclude I hold that just use of the Keys is very necessary and that it is the great sin of England to reject it But that a false usurped use of excomunication hath been the incendiary of the Christian world which hath broken it to pieces caused horrid Schisms Rebellions Treasons Murders and bloody Wars I. The just use is 1. When a scandalous or great sinner is with convincing evidence told of his error and with seriousness yet with love and compassion intreated to repent and either prevailed with and so absolved or after due patience Authoritatively pronounced uncapable of Church-Communion and bound over to answer it at the Bar of Christ in terror if he repent not and this by the Pastor of that particular Church which either statedly or pro tempore he belongeth to 2. And when this is duly notified to such Neighbour-Pastors as he may seek Communion with and they agree not to receive any justly cast out by others but to receive and relieve the injured and falsly condemned 3. And when the King and his Justices permit not the ejected violently to intrude and take the Sacrament or joyn with the Church by force but preserveth forcibly the Peace and Priviledges of the Churches II. The excommunication that hath turned the Church into Factions and undone almost East and West is 1. When a Bishop because of his humane Superiory as Patriark Primate or Pope claimeth the power of excommunicating other Bishops as his Subjects whose Sentence must stand because of his Regent power 2. Or at least gathering a Council where he shall preside and that Council shall take themselves to have a Governing power of the Keys over the particular Bishop not only to renounce Communion with them themselves but to oblige all others to stand to their judicial Sentence 3. When Bishops shall meddle causelesly in other Bishops Churches and make themseves Judges either of distant unknown persons and cases or of such as they have nothing to do to try Yea judg men of other Countries or so distant as the Witnesses and Causes cannot without oppression be brought to their Bar. 4. When they disgrace Gods universal Laws of Communion as insâ—fficiâ—nt and make a multitude of unnecessary ensnaring dividing Laws of their own according to which they must be mens Judges 5. When these Laws are not made only for their own flocks and selves but for all the Christian world or for absent or dissenting persons 6. When men excommunicate others for hard words not understood that deserve it not as to real matter 7. Or do it to keep up an unlawful usurped power over those Churches that never consented to take them for their Pastors and to rule where they have no true Authority but such as standeth on a forcing strength 8. When Lay-Chancellors use the Keys of the Church 9. When men excommunicate others wickedly for doing their duty to God and man or unjustly without sufficient Cause 10. When unjust excommunicators force Ministers against their Consciences to publish their condemnations against those that they know to be not worthy of that Sentence if not the best of their flocks 11. And when they damn all as Hereticks Schismaticks c. that communicate with any that they thus unjustly damn 12. When they dishonour Kings and higher Pwers by disgracing excommunications much more when they depose them 13. When they tell Princes that it is their duty to banish imprison or destroy men because excommunicate and not reconciled and make Kings their Executioners And so of old when a Bishop was excommunicate he must presently be banished And they say the Scots horning is of the same nature If all had been either banished or imprisoned that were excommunicate aâ—d unreconciled in the pursuit of the General Councils of old how great a diminution would it have made of the free Subjects of the Empire And if Princes must strike with the Sword all that stand excommunicate without trying and judging the persons themselves it is no wonder if such Prelates as can first so debase them to be their Lictors can next depose them He is like to be a great Persecuter that will imprison or banish all that a proud contentious Clergy will excommunicate As corruptio optimi est pessima I doubt not but a wise humble holy spiritual loving heavenly zealous patient exemplary sort of Pastors is the means of continuing Christs Kingdom in the World and such are the Pillars and Basis of Truth in the House of God as it is said of Timothy not of the Church as is commonly mistaken So an ignorant worldly carnal proud usurping domineering hypocritical sort of Pastors have been the great plagues and causes of Schism confusion and common calamity And that when Satan can be the chuser of Pastors for Christs Church he will and too oft hath ever chuse such as shall most succesfully serve him in Christs Name And I doubt not but such holy Discipline as shall keep clean the Church of Christ and keep off the reproach of wickedness and uncleanness from the Christian Religion and manifest duly to the flock the difference between the precious and the vile is a great Ordinance of God which one man cannot exercise over many hundred Parishes and unknown people But an usurped domineering use of excommunication to subdue Kings Princes Nobles and people to the Jurisdiction Opinions and Canons of Popes Patriarchs Prelates or their Councils I think hath done not the least part of Satans work in the world And I must tell you that I have lived now near 62. now near 66. years and I never saw one man or woman reformed or converted by excommunication and I hope I have known thousands converted from their sin by Preaching even by some that are now forbidden to Preach All that ever I knew excommunicate were of two sorts 1. Dissenters from the Opinions of the Bishops or conscientious refusers of their commands And these all rejoice in their sufferings applying Blessed are ye when they cast out your names c. say all evil of you falsly c. or they take their censure for wicked persecution The Papists laugh at their Excommunicators and say What an odd conditioned Church have you that will cast us out that never came in and because we will not come in 2. Ungodly impenitent sinners And these hate
for many Papists doubt of the Divine right of Prelacy that doubt not of the Divine unalterable right of the Priestly or Presbyter-power and work And will this cure men of Schism to tell them that God hath not so much as made and specified the Parish-Pastors Office and it is but a humane invention which you forsake § 27. And I would crave of this confident man to consider whether he reach not high and horrid Sacriledg if he make the Invester to be first the Owner and then the Donor Did we devote our selves to Patrons in our Ministry or to Diocesans or immediately to God If we covenanted only to be Gods Ministers for the Churches good then let them take heed that claim propriety in us as Priests And if Tythes and Glebes were devoted to God and not to Princes or Patrons I doubt he that maketh Patrons the Proprietaries and proper Donors will prove Sacrilegious and be convinced at last that he should only have taken Princes and Pastors for such Trustees as determine of the Receiver but give not the things § 28. If it be otherwise Princes Patrons and Prelates are greater and richer than I ever thought them 1. Then all the Bishopricks in England are the King 's till he give them 2. Then all the Tythes Glebes and Temples in England are the Patrons till they give them or else the Bishops or Chancellors who investeth men in them by institution and induction And the Patron and Bishop may have a hard suit to determine which is the Proprietor 3. And then a Bishop that Ordaineth a thousand Priests was the Owner of all their Relations before and so as they that are for the pre-existence of souls dispute whether they pre-existed individually or only in animâ universali so these that are for the pre existence of Priesthoods in the Diocesans must dispute whether they were in the Prelate a thousand individual Priesthoods before or but one common Priesthood that fell into individuals by Ordination If they say that they were but virtually in the Prelate that kills their Cause for then they did not pre-exist for existere est esse extra causas And this only saith that the Prelate had an effective vertue that could make them But the species was made before and so was the obliging and Donative Law therefore the Prelate had not power to do what God had done before § 29. I take it for granted because I know him that all this is nothing to Mr. Dodwell but to me it is moreover something 1. That the highest esteemers of Diocesans Ordination make it but a Sacrament 2 And that the Investing Minister is not the Owner and Donor of the Relation and Gift in any of their Seven Sacraments 1. In Baptism God only giveth the Right and Relation which the Minister by Investiture solemnizeth but giveth it not as his own Else every Lay-man and woman by their judgment should have multitudes of Christendoms of their own to bestow 2. In Confirmation the Priest never pretendeth to be the giver of the Spirit but by his act to fit the person to receive it The Holy Ghost is said to fall on them that heard the word before Baptism Act. 10.44 45 and they were after baptized He fell on them Act. 11.15 And Peter and Iohn prayed for the Samaritans that they might receive the Holy Ghost Act. 8.15 and they laid hands on them and they received the Holy Ghost v. 17. but not that they gave the Holy Ghost though by the laying on of their hands and their prayers he was given as he was on them without Act. 2. 3. And in Matrimony it 's confessed that the Priest is not the Owner and Donor of the Husbands power but a Ministerial Invester 4. And in the Eucharist even they that think the bread is made God take not the Priest as the efficient cause but a disposing instrument nor that he giveth God to the Receiver as the Owner or Donor but delivereth him as a Minister 5. The same is true of Penance Extreme Unction and therefore must be so also in Ordination If the King send a thousand Commissions to Captains Judges Justices c. the Messenger is not the Owner or Donor of them all nor may make any alteration of them yea if he intrust the Chancellor to name all the Justices he doth thereby but determine of the person that shall receive the Commission but altereth nothing of the Office nor is the Donor of it All this is plain to us but not to Mr. Dodwell § 30. Saith he p. 39. Are not many actual practices grounded on circumstances Are not many of those circumstances obnoxious to great mutability Are not ordinary Governours the competent Iudges of their actual change Ans. 1. And did not Christ promise his Spirit to his Apostles for the performance of their Commissions And were not those Commissions to gather and settle his Churches and teach them all that he commanded them And did not Christ by that Spirit make Pastors and Teachers as is before proved And did not the Apostles faithfully perform their trust 2. And doth he not see that by this he also subverteth his foundation of Prelatical power also as having no better institution than the Priesthood And then who are those Governours of the Church that he talks of that must judg And how prove they their jugding-power 3. And it were a kindness if he would tell us what change it is that thâ— Diocesans may make in the Priestly Office and work and tell us the bounds of their power if it have any And whether they may put down the Preaching part the Praying part the Sacraments or which of them And whether this be the power that hath put out the Sacramental Cup and made all the changes that are made in the Church To tell us of these ordinary Governours changing-power is a hard word to us that took Christs Laws delivered by his Spirit to be perfect and unchangeable However some circumstances are changed which were noted to be but occasional § 31. To return his Consequence p. 40. Since it is certain that the power of Oâ—daining others was not given to nor for some hundred years exercised by that species of Diocesans who were neither the Bishops of single Churches associated for personal present Communion nor were the Overseers of such Bishops but the Bishops of Diocesses that have many score or hundred unbishoped stated worshipping Assemblies it will follow by his arguing that these never had their Office from the Apostles and much less a continued succession of it § 32. He next pleadeth the Nullity of the Presbyterians Ordination 1. Because if they had Ordaining power it is only in Assemblies where Bishops are Presidents and Edict them 2. And because they carry it not by Plurality of Voices But I am a weary with answering such trifling things and the later part is a known mistake I never heard of one contradicting Voice against the Ordination of any
Clergy will but forbid them See I beseech you worthy Country-men what sort of men and Doctrine you have to do with § 52. And why doth the man talk only against different practice Doth he not know that Government commandeth duty as well as forbiddeth the contrary Is not Omission against Government as well as Commission If the King command Taxes Military service c. may we disobey and call it Passive obedience What if the Bishops only forbid us to confess Christ to come to Church to Pray to give Alms to do any good May we forbear sobeit we do not the contrary Doubtless if Gods Word and Authority may not be pleaded for any duty which God commandeth and the Prelates forbid neither may it be pleaded for the Omission of any Villany commanded by Prelates no not Inquisition Torments or Massacres which God forbids But this man hath the Gramatical skill to call Omissive obedience by the name of Passive § 53. It 's like he will next say that I make odious suppositions That the supreme Church-power may command any Villanies and forbid Christian duties Ans. 1. I despair of getting any of these designers to tell me which is the Supreme Universal Church-power so as to be well understood I never heard of any pretenders but Pope and General Councils and as Bishop Guning holds the Colledg of all the Bishops in the world And certainly Pope and Councils have set up Heresies and decreed even the exterminating of all that will not dis-believe all their senses and deny Bread to be Bread and Wine to be Wine They have decreed deposing Kings absolving Subjects from their Allegiance adoring Images c. And what is it that yet they may not do If they say with Peter If all men deny thee I will not how shall I know that they say true Doth not the Church of England tell us that Councils have erred c § 54. And be not these very honest Sons of the Church of England that affirm it irreconcilable to Government to alledg Divine Authority of any different practices without exception and at the same time to Subscribe to Art 21.19.6.18 of the sufficiency of Scripture That the Churches of Jerusalem Alexandria Antioch Rome have erred in matters of Faith That the Church may not Ordain any thing contrary to Gods Written Word That General Councils may err and have erred and that things Ordained by them as necessary to salvation have neither strength nor Authority unless it may be declared that they are taken out of the holy Scripture And those are accursed that presume to say that every man may be saved by the Law or Sect which he professeth And why not if he must do all that the Governours require or nothing divers to them § 55. My Reason forbids me to trace such a Writer as this any further To tell men of every vain Harangue and confident discourse that 's full of gross error or false report is work unworthy of time and labour but I will a little more open the Coar of his deceit CHAP. V. Wherein Mr. Dodwell's deceits and the danger of them do consist § 1. AS to his Method of disputing that you may detect his fallacies he hath got this absurd ptetence p. 90. That there is but one sense of all Terms which Causes oblige men to mean and that every one ought to know who pretends to have skill in Causes Ans. Would you have thought that ever a man should publickly use such a Cothurnus among the Learned What a man is obliged to mean is one thing and what he doth mean is another And is there any one that knoweth what humane Language is that knoweth not that almost all words have various significations Doth he not know by how good reason the Schools oblige Disputants first to explain their Terms And what need there is of Definition to explain them He instanceth in the words Bishops and the Church of England And might have added the Catholick Church And doth he not know that it is the species of Bishops that we differ about and will the general name here explain each parties sense When we are for one sort of Bishops and against another And is it not such fraud as souls should not be abused by to refuse wilfully to define the Episcopacy that he meaneth and then plead that all should understand him And why is it not as much ignorance in him not to understand me as in me not to understand him when I use distinct explication which he obstinately refuseth And doth not Dr. Stillingfleet's case shame what he saith of the Church of England who was hardly brought to explain it and at last denieth the very being of the Church in Mr. Dodwell's sense which of you was to blame to meddle with the Word till you had skill in Causes to understand it without a Definition And doth not Dr. Stillingfleet take it as the Introduction of Popery to hold a Constitutive Regent Church-Government National or Catholick and so he and Mr. Dodwell mean not the same thing by the Church Catholick nor Bishop Guning Mr. Thorndike or the Church of Rome who are all for an Universal humane Supreme power And who is he that hath read Dr. Challoners Credo Eccles. Cathol Chillingworth Bishop Mortons Grand Imposture Bishop Bilson Dr. White Dr. Whitaker Dr. Sutliffe Bishop Andrews Bishop Carlton c. Chamier Sadeel Melancthon Bucer c. who knoweth not that the Papists and Prorestants by the name of the Catholick Church do mean several things and that we deny the very being of any such Church as they call the Catholick And is this the bold and happy Disputant that will save the Schools and World the labour of explaining Terms and foreagreeing of the sense and put men on disputing where the Subjâ—ct is denied and fill a Book with tedious confident Harangues and then hide all the fraud by saying that there is but one sense of all Terms which Causes oblige mâ—n to mean and that every one ought to know who pretend to have skill in Causes When the Cause disputed is only managed by words as they signifie the minds of the Speakers about the real matters § 2. And as to the material fundamental difference between Mr. Dodwell's party and us it lyeth in these following things I. We totally differ about the nature of Gods Government of man II. And about the use of the Holy Scripture and Gods Laws III. About the nature and extent of all humane Government IV. About the form of moral good and evil V. About the essential form of the Catholick Church VI. About Gods ordinary means of saving Grace VII About the use of Preaching VIII About the duty of worshipping God in Sacred Assemblies or the Communion of Saints IX About the difference of Apostles and the office of the Bishops X. About the office of a Presbyter or Parish-Pastor XI About the Necessaries to Ministry Churches Christianity and ordinary title to Salvation XII And
excommunications Why then are the openly wicked so numerous 2. Do you think men can change their judgment meerly because they are commanded or excommunicated If a man study and pray and endeavour to the utmost to know the truth and you say that yet he erreth will a censure cure his understanding E. g. a Nestorian a Monothelite an Anabaptist c. much less when a man knoweth that he is in the right and the censurer fighteth againd truth and duty Men in some diseases will rage at the sight of certain things which would not much trouble them if the disease were cured Macedonius and Nestorius that were judged Hereticks themselves could not bear the Bishops and meetings of the Novatians But Atticus could and they lived together in Christian Love I know those places now in England where a Conformable and Nonconformable Minister live in so great love and the latter go still to the Parish-Churches and the former sometimes come to them as that no considerable trouble ariseth by their difference And I know other places where the publick Ministers cannot bear any that hear not themselves yea or that constantly hearing them hear any other that dissenteth But they seek to win Dissenters as Fowlers would bring Birds to the Net by showting and throwing stones at them and Anglers would catch Fish by beating the Waters VI. I will tell you also that I much dissent from you in that when I told you that the Tyranny of Prelates hath done more hurt than the disobedience and discord of the People towards them you said you do not think so Qu. Do you think that Thieves have killed as many men as Wars have done If it be true that Iulius Caesar and his Armies killed 1192000. persons besides those that he slew in the Civil Wars That Darius lost at once 200 000 and abundance of such instances in lower degrees may be given sure poor Thieves and Murderers come far short of this account And so it is in the present case Gregory Nazian was a wise and good man who saith the people were factious and too unruly but at Const. were honest and meant well But how sadly doth he describe the Bishops as rageâ—ing even in their Councils and as the far greater causes of all calamity Judg by the Twenty instances that I before gave you about their excommunication How few Heresies or Schisms were there of old that the Bishops were not the notorious causes of The Samosatinians Apollinarians Macedonians Nestorians Acephali the Monothelites yea the Donatists Novatians the Phantasiasticks and almost all The Arrians began by a Presbyter but if Petavius cites them truly as he doth too many Bishops led him the way and most of the Bishops followed and were the men that kept up and increased the Heresie far beyond the people or the Presbyters Eutychus a Monk began his Cause but he was quickly contemned by his followers and did little in comparison of Dioscorus Severus and many hundred more Bishops And is it the People or the Bishops that now keep East and West in mutual damnations Have the Peoples divisions done more harm than the Papal Schism and Usurpations and Cruelties killing about 2000000. as is said of Albigenses and Waldenses the Inquisitions bloody Wars against the Germane Emperors and many English Kings the Rebellion against the Greek Emperor Leo Isaurus and destruction of the Eastern Empire our Smithfield Bone-fires and innumerable other Cruelties Desolations Heresies and Schisms Are all these less than the abuse of Liberty by Inferiors in Praying Preaching or Disorders Judg Hale saith That he had a friend that stored a very great Pond of Three or Four Acres with a great number of Fish and at Seven years end only put in Two very small Pikes and at the draught of his Pond there was not one Fish left but the Two Pikes grown to an excessive bigness and all the rest with their millions of fry devoured by the pair of Tyrants Hale of the Orig. of Man Sect. 2. cap. 9 pag. 208. The Block had been a better Ruler The Lord forgive the Presbyterians their over-keenness against Sects before the Pikes have made an end of them Pardon truth to Your Servant Ri. Baxter For the Learned Mr. Henry Dowell after a personal Conference with him SIR COncord and Peace are so very desirable to the ends of Christianity that I am glad to hear you speak for them in the general though I take your way to be certainly destructive of them and because you think the like of mine and so while we are agreed for the end we greatly differ about the means I shall here perform what I last offered you viz. I. An explication of my own sense of the way of Church-concord because you said I am still upon the destructive part viz. 1. My fundamental Principles 2. The way of concord which I suppose to be sufficient and only likely as appointed by God to attain that end II. The reasons of my utter dissent from your way III. A Proposal for our further debating of these differences I. I hope if you are a man of charity or impartiality it will be no hard matter to you to believe that I am willing to be acquainted with healing truth that I say not as willing as you and if I be unhappy in the success of my Enquiries it is not for want of searching diligence And your parts assure me that it is so with you But it is the usual effect of one received error to let in many more and it is so either with me or you And lest it should prove my unhappiness I shall thankfully accept your remedying informations 1. The Principles which I presuppose are such as these 1. As God as Creator so Christ as Redeemer is the Universal King and Head over all things to the Church which is his body Ephes. 1.22 23. Ioh. 17.2 c. 2. He hath made Vniversal Laws to be means of this Universal Government 3. His Universal Laws are in suo genere sufficient to their proper use 4. There is no other Universal King or Ruler of the world or of the Church whether Personal or Collective And therefore none that hath power of Universal Legislation or Jurisdiction 5. Much less any that hath a superiour power to alter Gods Universal Laws by abrogation subrogation suspension or dispensation Nor will God himself alter them and substitute new ones As Tertullian saith We at first believe this that no more is to be believed 6. These Laws of our Universal Governour are partly of natural Revelation and partly of Supernatural viz. by himself and by his Spirit in his Apostles given in an extraordinary measure to this end to lead them into all truth which is delivered to us in their Scripture-records 7. Some local precepts whose matter was narrow and temporary even the mutable customs of that time and place were also narrow and temporary as the washing of feet anointing vailing women the kiss of peace c