England and letting John see the danger he was in advised him to become the Popes Foedatary John enforced by the present peril accepted the advice and made his Kingdom Tributary to the Pope to pay him yearly 1000 Marks of Gold Pandulphus hereupon returned into France and commanded Philip upon pain of Excommunication that he should molest John no longer as being now become the Foedatary of the Church but Philip refused to obey and the War continued whereupon in the year 1215. in the Council of Lateran Pope Innocent sent out an Excommunication against all those that molested John King of England And for that Cause in the year 1216. Another Legate called Guallo went to Paris who by vertue of that Sentence of Excommunication commanded Philip and Lewis his Son to forbear to pass with an Army into England which they were then prepared to do But notwithstanding all this Lewis desisted not but entred John's Kingdom with a great power altho the same Guallo was gone over into England and there ceased not dayly to thunder out his Excommunications This War continued unto the death of John after which Lewis had gotten many places of that Kingdom into his hands made Truce for five years with Henry the Son of John who succeeded his Father Thus you see how the very Holiness of Rome can Handy Dandy play fast and loose with Kings themselves § Concerning the desperate damnable Doctrines of this Chapter Novit little ought to be said for that they rather deserve a Spunge than an answer to be obliterated out of all Records minds and memories and because Gabriel Biel a man of their own Leaven hath taken great pains on that Can. Lec 75. to give some tollerable interpretation but can find none but this viz. that this Decretal and all other of the same tenor must be understood in foro poenitentiae A lame shift to help a lame Dog over a stile But Bellarmine will not be so consined he will extend it farther Frier Paolo and mark what follows even according to men of Rome that whoever will affirm as Bellarmine doth that they are to be understood in foro exteriori shall have much ado to avoid the absurdities and the utter overthrow of the Secular Power ordained of God and the confusion of the World which will arise out of these Doctrines For his purpose is to conclude that where Princes use their Power to the hurt of their own Souls or their Peoples and to the prejudice of Christian Religion the Pope may take the matter in hand to redress it If this must go for currant Doctrine mark what will follow viz. There is no action of man in Individuo but it is either a good work or it is a sin Now if it belongs to the Pope to exercise Jurisdiction over all Sins and withall to take upon him to determine what is sin and what not I say there is no longer any Prince but the Pope nay farther there is no place left for any private Government In sum the Pope may by this Doctrine examine all Laws all Edicts all Parliaments all Councils all Successions all Translation of Princes he may call in question and examine all Inheritances and Contracts of all private Men all Marriages all Treatises of Peace and War between Prince and Prince because it belongs to the Shepherd to have a care of his Sheep And this inference doth not only necessarily follow of this supposition but it is also allowed by the Canonists that write upon that Chapter Novit And yet nevertheless have the wisest men and of the most understanding noted and taxed it to be full of Absurdities which to avoid some have out of that Chapter Novit framed a distinction where there can be none viz. that it is one thing to judge of the matter or of the Action or of the contract and another to judge of the sin for if it be the Pope's right to judge of all things as they are sins and to forbid them and to enforce all men to obey his determinations therein what is there more left then for the Prince to do Not one of Democritus's Moats for Bellarmine hath taught us a very general Doctrine that to judge whether any Law contain in it sin or not it belongs to the Pope as it belongs to the Ecclesiastical Judge to determine whether a Civil Contract contain in it the sin of Vsury Hence it will necessarily follow Che il giudicare st una lege centient pâ—ccato è pregiudicio alla chiâ—â—a tocca alt ' isteslo sommo Pontifice che è gindice supren o si come il giudlcare se un contratto civile contengo peccato di usura appertiene al medisimo Giudice Ecclesiallico quals appertient la cognitione de i pâ—ccati f. 330 331. that not only the Pope but every Ecclesiastical Judge shall have Power to determine all matters for it can belong no more to him to judge whether a Contract offend in Usury than whether it contain any other wrong or Injury to his neighbor for all that do so are sins as well as the other And by the same reason it will belong to the Ecclesiastical Judge to determine of all manner of sin And in brief because there is no Action or Affair either Publick or Private whereunto sin is not Incident if it shall be in the Power of the Ecclesiastical Judge to determine and judge of it and either to allow it or forbid it and to enforce obedience to his own determinations All transactions about Contracts all Courts of Justice and all private Families may well be transferred into the Bishops Palace good grist to that Mill But the true Christian Doctrine and the common practice all the World over avoids all these absurdities subjecting all Crimes and Offences unto the Temporal Jurisdiction according to the example of Christ and his Apostles who never pretended to have or exercise any Temporal coertion or coactive Authority over mens sins And if the Pope were Christ's true Vicar indeed he would never usurp more than ever Christ exercised himself or gave him Authority to do The main business of Peter and of the rest of the Apostles was to Teach and Preach dayly in the Temple and in every House Jesus Christ Acts 5.42 Thus you see that these very Doctrines contained in the Chapter Novit need little of our Confutation it is done to our hands by several of themselves and according to their own St. Thomas they are too general because there must be excepted all internal motions of the mind whereof the Pope hath no power at all to judge unless it be in foro Poenitentiae in which also every Priest hath equal power with himself no pleasing Doctrine at Rome and of this sort are the greatest number of sins And their own Divines and Canonists do generally agree that in the Excommunications granted against Hereticks those are not comprized which err mentally so that they which attempt to defend as
the Ephesians c. 6.18 19 20. that they would always pray with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit and watch thereunto with all perseverance and supplication for him for what I pray that he might have a Dispensation not to preach or not to attend his Flock and be Non-resident or having put his hand to the Plough that he might look back or that he might have great Employments in Civil Affairs in Princes Courts that would necessarily hinder his preaching Nothing less What then Even that Vtterance might be given unto him that he might open his mouth boldly to dispence and make known the Mysteries of the Gospel for which he was an Ambassador Eph. 6.18 19 20. The like unto the Colossians c. 4.2 3. And did not the same Paul most solemnly and most severely charge Timothy before God and the Lord Jesus Christ who shall judge the quick and the dead at his appearing and his Kingdom to preach the Word to be instant in season out of season reprove rebuke c. 2 Tim. 4.1 2. By which it demonstratively appears that in St. Paul's Grammar and Construction to dispense and make known are Terms Synonimous and Equivalent maugre the false Glosses of the Papalins And when think you would Paul unto whom by Revelation was made known the Mystery of Christ whereof he was made a Minister that he should preach among the Gentiles the unsearchable Riches of Christ and to make all men see what is the Fellowship of the Mystery c. Eph. 3.2 3 8 9. or any other of the Apostles have besought Peter or any of his Successors of Rome for a Dispensation not to Preach They were better taught than so than to take other Civil Employments which must necessarily hinder them from preaching and declaring the Mystery of the Gospel for in true understanding to be a Priest and not to preach is to be no Priest having as much as in them lies un-priested themselves after the Character imprinted for Christ never gave any Authority to his Ministers but what was meerly and purely Spiritual Yet so it was that the Judgment of the whole Church or Congregation as is necessary and natural to all Societies Civil and Ecclesiastick for the sake of Order was fit to be conducted and managed by some one who should preside and guide the Actions and Deliberations propose the Matters and collect the Results of the Assembly which Care being always due to the most worthy and best qualified person for such an Action was mostly committed to the Bishop not of right but of choice § This kind of Judicial Proceeding was observed and kept on foot unto the Year 250 Ep. 5. f. 12 13 14. as is plainly to be seen by the Epistles of St. Cyprian who in the matter concerning those who did eat of Meats offered to Idols and subscribed to the Religion of the Gentiles writeth to the Presbytery that he doth not think to do any thing without their Counsel and the Consent of the People and writeth to the People that at his return he will examine the Causes and Merits thereof in their Presence and under their Iudgment And he wrote to those Priests who of their own heads reconciled some that they should give an Account unto the People Soon after this time of the Day these kinds of Proceedings begun to lose of their Purity and Simplicity and to degenerate into Empire For indeed as before so more especially and more confidently soon after Constantines Days and Donations the succeeding Bishops not without some Artifices and some Usurpations quickly began to set up for themselves and indeed in short time mounted so high that they became suspected of Princes and terrible to the People their Tribunals became a common Pleading-place having obtained Execution by the Ministry of the Civil Magistrate Petr. AErodius and to obtain the Name of Episcopal Jurisdiction and Episcopal Audience and the like This Rome was not built in one Day nor in one Age the Piety and Charity of that more pure Age made them and their Judgments to be had in great veneration which insensibly was the Cause that the Church in the truest sence not regarding the Charge given and laid upon them by Christ and his Apostles did supinely leave the Care to the Bishops who readily and with great care embraced it and soon erected their Tribunals This kind of Judgment though it were not like to the first in regard of the former viz. to determine all by the Opinion of the whole Church yet it had some semblance with it and Constantine finding some Ease and Conveniency to have Causes determined by the Authority of Religion added this to his other Powers granted to them viz. That no Appeal should lie from the Sentence of the Bishop and Valence the Emperor inlarged them in the Year 365. But those Judicial Proceedings and Negotiations did not please the best and most pious Bishops being of St. Pauls mind who deemed such Employments and Powers not fit for a Preacher of the Gospel and therefore would not take such himself But Arcadius and Honorius 70 years after the Law of Constantine finding the Bishops to degenerate and to abuse their Power revoked that Law in part ordaining that they should judge Causes of Religion not Civil except by consent and that they should not be thought to be a Court which not being observed in Rome by reason of the great power the Bishop there had Valentinian being there in the Year 452. did renew it but the succeeding Emperors restored some part of it and Justinian established unto them a Court and Audience c. By which means and gradations the Popes had got the Knack of encroaching and were thereby the better enabled to crave and get more and that not without making the world believe that those and more were their due and that not Jure Ecclesiastico only but Divino also a Band so sure and strong that it would hardly be loosed though Posterity should find Inconveniences and would redress them 200 years were not fully elapsed ere they claimed absolutely all Judicature Criminal and Civil over the Clergy and in some things over the Laity also pretending the Cause was Ecclesiastical Besides they contrived another kind of Judicature which they termed Mixt whereby they hooked in all Judicature to themselves so that after the Year 1050. having with much Art and Industry Monopolized all the Causes of the Clergy to themselves and very many of the Laity under the Title of Spirituality and almost all the rest under the Title of a Mixt Judicature and placing themselves above the Secular Magistrates upon pretence of Justice denied they were at length so bold as to say that the Bishop had the power to judge not by the grant or favour of Princes or by the will or concession of the People or the whole Church or by Custom or Vsage but that it was essential to the Episcopal Dignity and given to it by Christ whereby
Dog with a fire Brand in his Mouth the signification and application whereof I leave to every Reader to make Only his deportment towards the Albigenses is storied to be rabying against whom he so Preached adeo quidem ut câ—ntum haereticorum millia uh octo Millibus catholicorum fusa intersercta fuisse perhibeantur saith one of him and of those who became Captives 180 were Burnt to Death the first Example that I find in the Church of Rome of putting Dissenting Bretheren to Death Of this order was this precious Inquisitor Jacomello to Arms alleadging for their Justification that Magistrates were set over them by God and themselves for the good and behoof of the Governed and not the Governed Ordained for the Lusts of Magistrates to be destroyed and killed at pleasure that their Condition being desperate they might use Arms in their own Defence and that in their Condition their appeal unto Arms was not so much against the Prince as against the Pope who usurped more Authority than did Dejure belong unto him and did also abuse the Authority of their Prince by subtle and crafty seducements for his own sinister ends Hence there were War all this year and part of the next And the Duke having made more than a years tryal to reduce them by Wars and Punishments being therein assisted with Money from the Pope and at last after many Skirmishes an Appeal being made unto the Lord of Hoasts by a formal pitcht Battel the Duke lost 7000 men slew but 14 of his Enemies and tho he did often recruit his Army yet had he always the worst Therefore the Duke wisely considering that he did thereby only make his Subjects the more Warlike and teach and inure them more Stoutly to Offend him Consume his own Country and VVast his Treasury he resolved to receive them into favour and made an agreement with them 5º Junij in which he pardoned all past faults gave them Liberty of Conscience appointed them places where they might meet gave leave to those that were Fled to return and restitution of Goods to those that were Banished Which Agreement very much distasted the Pope that an Italian Prince who had been Assisted by him and might have more need of him should yet permit Hereticks to Live freely in his Territories and for that the example would be urged by greater Princes when they inclined to permit another Religion whereof he bitterly complained in the Consistory comparing the Ministers of the most Catholick King with the Duke who having about the same time discovered 3000 Lutherans who went out of Cosenza and retired themselves to the Mountains to Live according to their Doctrine did Hang some Burn others and put the rest into the Gallies but the Duke justifying his Cause with such Reasons which the Pope not being able to answer did Acquiesce And are not such Councils such Advisocs greater marks of an Hireling or a Butcher than Obedience to the Pope a true Mark of the Church Appello ad Caesarem Deum Deorum Dominum Dominorum qui non accipit personam neque recipit munus 10 of Deut. 17. § About the same time there were great Troubles and Disorders in France for cause of Religion Multitudes disdaining to see poor Innocent Christians drawn every day to the Stake to be Burned Guilty of nothing but of Zeal to Worship God to keep a more intimate near and dear Communion with their God and to fave their own Souls These Humors were not Purged nor yet allaied neither by Punishments nor Pardons proferred and Proclaimed but that greater Tumults were raised in Province Languedoc and Poicton whether the Preachers of Geneva were called and came willingly by whose Sermons the number of the Protestants did daily increase examples of great fear being always joyned with others of equal boldness for the quieting of which Humors Francis the 2d the 11º Aprilis 1559. intimated a National Synod as a proper Remedy But the same Hireling Pius the 4th as before in the cause of the Duke of Savoy did most severely complain that the King had Pardoned Hereticks and Errors committed against Religion wherein none had Power but himself and that he would not by any means Consent to an Assembly of Prelates either in France or elsewhere for that a National Council of that or of any other Kingdom would be a kind of Schism from the universal Church give bad example to other Nations and make Prelates proud assuming greater Authority with Diminution of his own and that to consent to a National Synod was to consent that the Axe should be laid to the Root of the Papacy and that by consequence it was an Alienation from the Apostolick See As if God had not given to every National Church and State all things necessary to Govern themselves by but that they must all run to Rome and Romish Priests for redress nay this good Shepherd commanded his Nuntio to intimate farther to the King that if he would resolve to compel his Subjects by force that he would assist him with all his Power and Labour that the King of Spain and Princes of Italy should do the like But if he refused to compel his Subjects by force then his Nuntio was to insinuate to him that all the mischief and Poyson came from Geneva that the extirpation of that root would take away great part of the nourishments of the Evils that disquieted his Dominions § Dissentions and Troubles Fears and Jealousies still increasing in France the King maugre all the Popes Arguments and Interests called a great Assembly at Fountain Bleau 21 Aug. 1560. who being Petitioned by the Reformatists desired nothing but a moderation of their cruel Punishments and that they might make publick profession of their Religion to avoid suspition which might arise by Conventicles or private Assemblies John Monluc the Bishop of Valence did therein complain that Provision had not been made against them because the Popes had no other aim but to hold the Princes in Wars and the Princes thinking to suppress the Evil with Racks and Tortures having not attained their desired end nor the Magistrates and Bishops justly performed their Duty the principal Remedy was to fly unto God to assemble Godly Men to find a way to root out the Vices of the Clergy to forbid Infamous and Immodest Songs and instead of them to Command the Singing of Psalms and Holy Hymns in the Vulgar Tongue And farther shewed that they did grievously erre who troubled the Publick with Arms upon pretence of Religion and that their error was as great who Condemned to Death those that adhered to the New Doctrine only for the Opinion of Piety During these disorders Francis the first Dying the 5th of Dec. 1560. and Charles the 9th Aged 10 years Succeeding he more like the good Shepherd than he that Styled himself Pius by the mature advice of his Council after Solemn and great Consultations and deliberations about the Troubles and Disorders in
an Unity of Discipline or Coactive Laws full power of Jurisdiction or Independant Judicature is not seated in any one Church or Person Pope or other to whom all other Churches and Persons must vail Bonnet and submit but the same power is in each of those Churches and this they maintain against the Romanists the English Priests and Jesuits who do not only hold this Unity of Independent Judicature to be necessary to the Constitution of the Visible Catholick Church but that of necessity it must be radically in one person to wit the Pope on whom as upon the Head and Fountain the unity of the Holy Catholick visible Church doth depend and for this reason they put his Holiness into the definition of the Holy Catholick Church and contrary to this the Protestant Divines do maintain That the Church of England and all other National Churches have a Discipline of Government and Judicature within themselves Independent of any other Person Church or Power And this is the Drift and Scope both of Bishop Bilson Dr. Jackson and others in their several Treatises § That which P. N. contends for in the Congregational termed also the Independant way is this viz. That those who are called out of the World by the Ministry of the Gospel have power given them by Christ being a competent Number to gather themselves together in his Name and judge their Warrant to be from 18. Mat. And a Church so gathered becomes a Body or Spiritual Corporation and being joyned thus by mutual Assent of each Person have power one over another as in all Fraternities and liberty from Christ to choose their Officers censure Offenders make Canons and Orders in circumstantials for regulating their Affairs And they further say as the Church-Catholick in general so each parcel of it each particular Church hath Christ also for its Head and in such a union with him and such existence in him even as a Church 1 Thes 11. as that if Persons making up this Body be considered distinctly and as incorporated one with another only and not in their relation to Christ also as one with them and chief in the midst of them 18. Mat. 20. Where two or three are gathered together in my Name there am I in the midst of them they are not a compleat Body or Spiritual Politie And upon this account it is they profess their dependency to be upon Christ alone for the government and manage of this his Kingdom and thus being dependent upon Christ their only Law-giver 4. Ja. 12. Who is the wisdom of the Father and best knoweth how to govern his own House they profess themselves Independent in respect to the Authority or Sovereignty of any other Person Church Synod or meer Ecclesiastical Power whatsoever yet notwithstanding they own and submit to Magistrates in Matters and Causes both Ecclesiastical and Civil as an Ordinance of God and so far as God hath given the Civil Magistrate Authority to command and require But finding in the Books of God that there are some things of so misterious and of so Spiritual a Nature and peculiar to holy Worship that Christ hath reserved the sole Menage thereof to be ordered by himself as expressed in his Word and no otherwise Now although the Magistrate may and ought to require of his Subjects due obedience to such duties yet ought he not by any Laws or Statutes that he shall enact in this kind either add alter or diminish any thing Christ hath established either in the substance or necessary circumstance thereof and if he shall so do the Churches are required of the Lord the one Law giver who is able to save and to destroy 4. James 12. not to be subject 2 Colos 20. And it is a sin for them through fear of Man or the like temptation to observe and keep such Statutes and for this they bring 6. Mich. 16. For the Statutes of Omri are kept and all the works of the House of Ahab and ye walk in their Councils c. And in this sense only they profess themselves subject to the Civil Magistrates supremacy in Ecclesiastical Affairs and go no further and in this also reserve to themselves the sole judgment of what matters are thus meerly spiritual and appertaining to the Worship of God So that if the Christian Magistrate shall out of a good intention appoint Ceremonies or such like helps for the stirring up our dull minds and to make the Worship of God more edifying or shall appoint a day to be observed as sacred in the Remembrance of the Birth or Resurrection of Christ or to the Honour of the blessed Virgin or holy Apostles if the Magistrate for better government of the Church establish Arch-bishops Bishops Chancellors c. or any Officers that are not appointed by Christ himself they will by no means submit but choose rather to suffer which they term Passive Obedience Thus far P. N. from his own Mouth and under his own Hand to me verbatim § But those Reverend Authors Bilson and others considering the Civil Magistrate is highly responsable being appointed by the Lord as Custos utriusque tabulae if any matters of impiety in respect of God as well as unrighteousness in respect to Men be permitted or countenanced by him therefore he is to see to it that his People be not seduced into Errors Heresies or hurtful Opinions tending to prophaness and disloyalty And God having trusted him with Authority in these things it must of necessity also belong to him to judge what Crimes fall within his Province and Cognizance and accordingly to apply himself as the Minister of God for incouragement to those that are good and to execute wrath upon them that do evil And not to be looked upon as only a by-stander Impedimenta removere as P. N. would have him or to execute only what the Ecclesiasticks have decreed by their Censures or in their Synodals as some others though the Name of Independent was not then in common use § Others as Mr. John Robinson in his Apology in Justification of the same Tenets endeavours to prove the same averring That by Intendment of the Scriptures speaking definitely of visible Ministerial Churches no other is to be understood ordinarily at least than one Congregation met together in one place in such competent numbers as that they may all hear and understand one another 18. Mat. 17 20. If he neglect to hear them tell it unto the Church for where two or three are gathered together in my Name there am I in the midst of them And when you are gathered together and my Spirit with the power of the Lord Jesus Christ 1 Cor. 5.4 All that believed were together and had all things common 2. Acts 44. And they were all with one accord in Solomons Porch 5. Acts 12. Then the Twelve called the Multitude of the Disciples unto them c. and the saying pleased the whole Multitude 6. Acts 2 5. When ye come together therefore into
teach his Body the Church all things and should continue with them unto the end of the World § For soon after his Ascention the Apostles together with the rest of the Body being met together in a great Assembly and after they had prayed the place was shaken where they were assembled together and they were all filled with the Holy Ghost and great Grace was upon them all 4. Act. 31.32.33 and accordingly the manifestation of the Spirit is given to every Man to profit withal to one the Word of Wisdome to another the Word of Knowledge to another faith c. and all by the same Spirit 1. Cor. 12.7.8 and all these for the edifying of the Body of Christ 4. Eph. 12 For though the Body be one yet hath it many Members and all the Members of that one Body being many are one Body whereof Christ is the head 1. Cor. 12.12 In the visible Government of the Church Christ appointed and instituted a Priesthood in which likewise it is dissimilar to all temporal Governments which quodam sensuis Independent of the Church though touching the application of the Authority to the Person it is elective and depending of the Body of the Church under this Priesthood is comprehended Bishops and Presbiters now what their Authority and Powers are vide their Commission 28. Mat. 19.20 go teach all Nations Baptizing them in the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you and loe I am with you always unto the end of the world other Powers besides these and laying on of hands especially coercive I know none derived unto them by any text of Scripture These Bishops these Presbiters these Ministers or Pastors are not Lords and Masters as in the Roman Church but are Servants to the Body of the Church For we preach not our selves but Christ Jesus the Lord and our selves your Servants for Jesus sake 2. Cor. 4.5 and these Authorities are not coercive but are given them to exhort reprove rebuke beseech intreat for Christs sake and by the mercies of God c. 12. Rom. 3. chap. 15.30 1 Thes 4.1 according to the Doctrines Precepts Rules and Commands set down in Scripture which are able to make us wise unto Salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus and which is profitable for Doctrine for reproof for Correction for instruction in righteousness that the Man of God may be perfected throughly furnished to all good works 2 Tim. 3.16.17 These and such like only are all the Powers that belong unto the Priesthood by any Law of God and there is no need of any other for what concerns punishment for Sins or the breach of moral Duties or municipal laws the Body hath Power to make laws and ordain punishments for any of its Members § I know that they have a long time hooked in by Head and shoulders a kind of coercive Power Excommunication by usurping to themselves the Power of Excommunication a thing I must confess that hath made a great noise and buzz in the world but in truth a magnificum nihil a meer ignis fatuus there being no such thing in the whole new Testament as now used and that which Pope and Presbiter would have to be it is as much in the Power of the Laicks against them as in them against the Laicks and most truly in the Body of the Church In the Romish Church the Bishop or his Vicar excommunicateth without the advice or participation of any many times also the Register only and that which is most important by Authority deligated a Clark of the first Tonsure deputed Comissary in some slight Cause doth excommunicate a Priest Yea Leo. 10. in the Council of Lateran in the 11. Session by a perpetual constitution of his hath granted faculty to a secular person to excommunicate the very Bishops and that which doth more import Navar saith c. 27 no. 11. that if any man shall obtain an excommunication of some Prelate if the obtainer shall not have an intent that the party be excommunicated he shall not be excommunicated moreover he saith ch 23. num 104. that the excommunication pronounced by the Law it self against him that payeth not a Pension for example sake on the Vigil of the Nativity is not incurred by him that payeth it not no not in many month's and years after if the Creditor thereof would not have it incurred But if on the other side after many Month's or Years he would have it incurred it is reputed to have been incurred from the day of the debt from the Vigil of the Nativity and so is the stile of the Court but the Council of Trent hath now expresly provided otherwise Ses 25. c. 3 forbidding secular Princes that they hinder not Prelates to excommunicate nor command that any excommunication be revoked considering that this is no part of their Office by this you may in little see what a nose of wax is made of excommunication and all this and much more grounded and occasioned from wrong Glosses put upon plain Texts But of this more fully hereafter § Though the Congregational men have not fully modelled out unto us the Platform of their Government and Discipline as the Presbyterians have done yet in general they do affirm Independency and Church-Government that to each gathered Church Christ hath given all Power and Authority requisite unto that Order and Discipline which he hath instituted for them to observe and to execute the same with Commands and Rules as before And negatively that there is not instituted by Christ any person or Church more extensive or Catholick entrusted with Power over other Churches and that each particular Church consists of Officers and Members which Members they call Brethren and the Officers they stile Pastors Teachers Elders and Deacons and that there are no stated Synods in a fixed combination of Churches nor any Synods appointed by Christ in any way of sub-ordination to one another nor no one Church to have Power of Censures but of inspection only over other Churches and Members thereof that Counsel and Advice might mutually be communicated That it was so in the days of the Apostles and continued so for some Generations after every Individual gathered Church every Christian Societie as it is natural to all Societies as well Christian as Civil governing it self by its own Laws and Constitutions whithout being obliged to any other superintendency hapily is so manifest that it would not be gainsaid But when the Church became planted and spread its Branches and took root in divers Nations and whole Common-wealths became Christian and Kings and Queens and other Civil Governments became Nursing-Fathers and Mothers of the Church then of necessity for the quiet state of the whole the case came to be altered it being then impossible that every individual Member or Brother of any Christian Kingdom or Common-wealth should personally meet to make Laws
wheresoever he heard there was a Treaty to hold a Council And after a certain time he took the power to himself which the Roman Emperors used to convocate a Council of the whole Empire and to be President himself if present if absent to send Legates to be Presidents But a little more than one Age being past it was very necessary that every Nation should Assemble by it self and resolve according to the Number of Voices and that the general decision should be established not by the suffrages of particular men but by the plurality of the voices of the Nations so it was observed in the Council of Constance and Basil which use as it is good where the Government is free as it was when the world had no Pope so it ill befits the Pope who desires all Councils to be subject to him § Having thus summarily given a short prospect of the state of the Church in the first and purer times and how in succeeding times it came by degrees to be altered I proceed and say again to the Independents that be it as they would have it that the gathered Churches by one Apostle were not subject to the inspection and subordination of an other or of all the Apostles the cause of such Independency being then and in them reasonable for that each Apostle was guided by an infallible Spirit and so not absolutely necessary and yet even in their times it was thought fit to call a Council for setling of some differences yet it doth not therefore follow nor cannot demonstratively be proved that every individual Pastor after the times of the Apostles had their select Congregations seperate and distinct from others or that those Congregations were Independent free and exempt from all inspection or superintendency of Magistrates or Bishops or other Presbiters The conjectures and probabilities and they have no Arguments of an other nature seem strong for the contrary for Religion did first take place in Cities which had their Ecclesiastical Colledges consisting of Presbiters and Deacons whom first the Apostles and their Deligats the Evangelists did both ordain and govern such were the Colledges of Jerusalem Antioch Ephesus Rome Corinth aâ—â— the rest where the Apostles are known to have planted our Faith and Religion Now Religion in those days and places and the cure of Souls was their general charge in common over all that were about them neither had any one Presbyter for ought that appears by any ecclesiastical History his several cure or seperate title distinct and apart until the division of Parishes which was first made by the People when a certain number of Inhabitants having received the true Faith built a Temple for the exercising of their Religion hired a Priest and did constitute a Church which by them was called a Parish and when the number was increased if one Church and Priest were not sufficient they who were most remote did build another and sit themselves better And in process of time for the sake of good Order and concord custom began to have the Bishops consent also and †Hic Titulos in urbe Roma divisit presbiteris Evaristus Bishop in the Sea of Rome about the year 112. began to assign precincts to ever Church or Title which the Christians held and to appoint unto each Presbyter a certain compass whereof himself should take charge alone him †Hic Presbiteris ecclesias divisit coemiteria parochias dio diaeceses constituit Dionisius papa 24. followed Ao. 268. which was found so commodious that all parts of Christendom followed the example and among the rest our Churches in the reign of Ercombert the 7th King of Kent †Hoc de Honorio maxime memo rabile Godwins Episc p. 59. Honorius also being then Arch-Bishop of Canterbury about the year 636. became divided in like manner and have so continued ever since Other distinction of the Churches there doth not appear any in the Writings of the Apostles save those according to Cities only 15. Acts 36.1 Apocal. 20. wherein they planted the Gospel of Christ and erected ecclesiastical Colledges of Presbyters and Deacons ordained by the Apostles to exercise ecclesiastical functions promiscuously and at large till the said Evaristus did about 100 years after Christ distinguish the Church of Rome into Parishes tying each one to his proper station so that indesinite care of souls and indefinite ordination do approach nearer the Apostles times and example And prescription for the congregational way may be more justly grounded on the example of the People who are the Brethren who are the Church and of Evaristus then of any Apostle of Christ Moreover this the Independents will hardly evade each Church in the Apostles days had many Presbyters that laboured in the Word the Scriptures do plainly witness it In the Church of Jerusalem 15. Acts 6.23 of Antioch 13. Acts 1. of Ephesus 20. Acts 17.28 of whom 16. Rom. of Corinth 1 Corinth 14.29 of Phillippi 1. Phil. 1. of Thessalonica 1. Thes 5.12 of other Churches the like is affirmed 13. Heb. 7. James 5.14 1. Pet. 5.1 Now if each Church had more Presbiters and Pastors than one in the days of the Apostles as it is manifest they had then can it be hardly made out by right reason that every individual Presbyter or Pastor had his particular and circumscribed gathered Church free of all subordination they seem contradictory in themselves On the contrary in the more pure times no man was ever ordained for some hundred of years to whom there was not appointed both his proper and special Office and Charge and Antiquity knew no distinction between Ordination and Benefice and ordaining was the same thing as to give an Office and the right of having ones livelyhood from the common goods of the Church § The Independents do farther aver for their own justification and that most truly that it is a thing natural that all free and Independent Societies should themselves make their own Laws of which sort they take their gathered Churches to be which is the thing questioned and denyed and say they are not Independent for the reasons shewed But be it so yet then it is averred that it is as true and as natural that the Legislative-Christian-Power should and doth belong to the whole England for example and not to any certain Parish City or Country as to London York c. of a Politick Body though happily some one part may have a greater share therein than some others And as this right doth naturally belong to a Commonwealth so it must needs belong to the Church of God which in the truest understanding is the Commonwealth if Christian and the Peopele thereof do publickly embrace the true Religion As this very thing doth make it the Church so the whole England not any certain part as St. Paul in London St. Peter at Westminster or at York hath the power of making Laws and constitutions ecclesiastical A Law is the deed of
the whole body politick whereof if the Presbyter or Independent judge themselves to be any part then is the Law even their own deed also as being made by the representatives of the whole wherein they are included as having their most proper representatives in our Parliaments and Convocations the undoubted Legislative Power of this Kingdom And is it reasonable in things of this nature and consequence to give men audience pleading for the overthrow of that which as it were their own very deed hath ratified Laws that have been approved both in Church and State may be no man doubteth again repealed and to that end also disputed against by the same Authority But this most properly is when the whole doth deliberate what Laws each part shall observe and not when a few run counter the Laws which the whole hath made in a full and free Parliament and lawfull Convocation Be it that some reasons induce some persons to be otherwise minded if those reasons be demonstrative and absolutely necessary such I confess discharge consciences and setteth them at full liberty but if probable only what thing was there ever set down so agreeable to sound reason but some probable shew against it may be made Is it meet that when Acts of Parliaments and Canons have been publickly received and long practised that general obedience thereunto should cease to be exacted in case some few led by some probable conceits should make open protestation of their dissatisfaction Certainly in such cases they are obliged to suspend their judgments for that in otherwise doing they offend against God by troubling his Church without any just or necessary cause For until the Civil Christian Magistrate whose power it is that I contend for doth otherwise order and determine obedience is to be given to the Laws Ecclesiastical and Civil if not contrary to the word of God Turpis est pars quae universo non congruit suo Out of which premises and of what will follow more particularly I shall take the liberty to assert and conclude that the Church of England in general is undeniably Independent and hath intrinsick power within it self without any forraign aid or dependency or any subordination to any other Person Church or Council to govern it self and that every Parish or Congregation thereof is not so Independent but rather that every particular doth depend upon the whole for that all ought to govern the whole and every particular thereof and every one ought to imploy himself most in that which is most particularly recommended to him and that the true Representatives of this Church of England and of all other National Churches is the Legislative Power thereof and that the King is the chief Governor thereof according to the constituted Laws and Canons thereof § And this Legislative Power hath lawful Authority to constitute all Qualifications unto all publick Ecclesiastical preferments so that they which will not submit to such qualifications shall be uncapable of such publick Benefices and Preferments But neither this nor any other Power throughout the whole Vniverse hath any lawful Authority to forbid the gathering of Churches or stop the mouths of any Bishop or Presbyter to preach the Gospel nor to forbid the solemn assembling together of the Saints or of the Brethren according to their several Commissions viz. go teach all Nations c. 28. Matth. 19.20 And let us consider one another to provoke unto love and to good works not forsaking the Assembling of our selves together as the manner of some is but exhort one another 10. Hebr. 24.25 if this had not been good Doctrine and practised even by Christ himself his Apostles and their followers maugre all the Interdicts of Jewish and Gentile States and Princes cursed Tyrants the Gospel had never been spread In such Cases where commands of Governments are contrary to commands of God it is undoubtedly better to obey God than Man I have dwelt the longer on this subject of Indepency for that though in truth it the be elder Brother unto Presbyterian Government by 1600 years yet it seems unto most to be but my Lord Musshrome and of yesterdays extract and very little understood by Vulgar Capacities In the Treaty whereof I have taken occasion in some measure to trace both the wayes of the Church and the wiles of the Church-Men from its very Infancy and shall pursue it farther when I come to shew what and who are meant by the term Church so that if possible the Government of the Church may be made easie and intelligible to every understanding Plain dealing is best and truth like beauty is most beautiful when stark naked stript of all paints and School-tricks and Glosses by which truth is more often confounded and defaced than brought unto light in its pure and natural colours § I shall now proceed and say something of the Presbyterian way but shall not meddle with their Model at all it being done and done to my hand it hangs on every Hedg and is decyphered and refelled in an Iliad of Pamphlets and is as perfectly disliked and disgusted as known and therefore I think we may bid them defiance set it up and establish it if they can especially if excommunication the main prop and pillar thereof were taken away without which it must necessarily fall to the ground and which is of no use in any Christian State and which in truth is a nemo scit utterly unknown to Scripture it self as now used especially And yet so fond are they of it and so wedded unto it and such is the selfishness of the Clergy of all perswasions and so great a Biass is their interest and love of domination that the very thought of parting with it doth cut them to the heart and it cannot be got from them without rending and tearing as if it were as perverse as an unclean spirit and though in truth it makes no return considerable unto any of them but what redounds unto their dishonour and reproach I shall only shew some of their tenets and practises by which you may the better judge of them and I shall not go far to fetch them and declare that now to erect and establish that Government here or in any other Christian Common-wealth were to erect Regnum in Regno and then in short process of time upon every difference and dispute as it happened in the State of Venice 1610. where Father Avaraldo a Capuchin being demanded by the Inquisitors at Rome for a certain opinion concerning Anti-Christ and from that Inquisition the process being sent to Bressia where the Father was the Inquisition at Bressia proceeded in the Cause without the Civil Assistants and answered them not without a design to cajole the Civil Magistrate out of his just right by a nice distinction viz. that they ought not to assist but only in causes which were begun at the proper Tribunal but not when the Denuntiation was given at Rome so in a very short time as
it is possible so it is very probable that both the Independent and Presbyterian Government would incroach and intrench on the Civil Powers so natural is it for every power to incroach upon another and either jostle it quite out of doors or make the Civil subservient to the ecclesiastical Power the sad effects of which hath been manifested in Scotland already where the Presbytery when they will speak out plainly claim to be coordinate at least with the Civil Jurisdiction and if we consult their practises we shall find them Paramount § According to Sa. Rutherford there is a mutual and reciprocal subjection of Magistrate and Pastor Pastors as subject in a Civil Relation and Magistrates as they have Souls and stand in need to be led to Heaven are under Pastors and Elders For if they hear not the Church and commit incest they are to be cast out of the Church 18. Matth. 1. Cor. 5.16 Rom. 17.1 1. Thes 3.14.15 that God respecteth not the Persons of Kings and we find them not excepted If the Preachers of the Gospel be to all believers over them in the Lord 1. Thes 5.12 1. Tim. 5.17 they have some Authority over the Christian Magistrate Divine Right of Church Government and Excommunication Presbytery displayed printed 1644. and reprinted 1663. together with the forms of Church Policy claimed and presented to the Convention at Edenburgh in January 1560 drawn up by Knox and to the Parliament of Scotland and sitting in Striveling 1578. by Mr. Andrew Melvil and together with their particular proceedings justifying their Arguments by their Facts truly related by King Charles the first in his large Declaration concerning the late tumults in Scotland printed 1639. do abundantly make it appear that their Maxims relating to Church and State Policy are the same with the Jesuits their Sermons delivered according to the Dialogue of Becanus Scippius and Eudaeman Johannes and their Arguments to be taken out of Bellarmine and Suarez as may also appear by King James his monitory Preface and his Apologia for the Oath of Allegiance and by the Books written in Defence of them both To this Assertion also give Testimony the Writings of Buchanan and Knox c. of old and Sa. Rutherford in his Lex Rex printed 1644. and his Plea for Presbytery printed 1642. and his Divine Right of Church Government and excommunication printed 1646. and a 100 more Pamphlets of later days § If we examine their practises in particulars most notoriously known we shall find them answerable to their Positions Upon the return of Angus Arrol and Huntley Popish Lords Fugitives for some Rebellious designs into Scotland Anno. 1596. K. I. and convention meeting in August at Falkland intended to shew some favour to them which being ratified at another convention of the States at Dunfermling in Septemb. the Church forsooth took pet at it and thereupon entred into a Combination to cross and prevent it K. J. for the better preservation of his Realm in peace and setled quietness consulted with much kindness Mr. Robert Bruce as one for whom the King had a particular kindness and the most leading man amongst them who was very willing that Angus and Arrol should return on the conditions proposed but by no means would admit that Huntley should return though he marryed the Kings Cousin whom he accounted as his own Daughter and offered to satisfie the Church and fulfil the conditions required and one who had the greatest power amongst them and therefore his Interest most likely to do the K. most service or most prejudice whereupon Bruce most insolently replyed I see Sir that your resolution is to take Huntly into favour which if you do I will oppose and you shall choose whether you will lose Huntley or me for us both you cannot keep There 's your Presbiter in his right Colours This done the Commissioners of the Church which Stile they most wrongfully assume and monopolize to themselves only as if the King his Council and Parliament I might say the meanest of their Congregations were not as much of the Church as themselves assembled at Edenburgh where they ordained to acquaint all the Presbiteries with what had been done and passed finding great fault with the Conditions granted to Huntly and the rest by the King and the Conventions as bringing a manifest hazard both to Church and State and therefore was desired to inform their flocks and both by publick Doctrine and private Conference to stir up the Country people to apprehend the danger to be in readiness to resist the same Oh brave Sheba's Trumpeters of Sedition and Commotion a speedy way to set a whole Kingdom against the King in a trice they proceeded yet farther by proclaiming a day of Humiliation through the whole Country to be on the first Sunday mark that in December that in Nomine Domini they might with the better grace fast for strife and debate and to smite with the fist of Wickedness and the cause assigned was the return of the excommunicated Lords whereby danger was threatned to Religion mostly made a Dequoy to intice heady and highminded men and despisers of Government not modeled by themselves to Rebellion and therefore the Presbyteries should call before them their Entertainers Resetters and such as keep company with them and proceed summarily with the censures of the Church una citatione quia periclitatur salus ecclesiae Reipublicae I wonder where this Jure Divino Power is to be found that they assumed this Prerogative to Cite Summon c. any for causes of Rebellion or censure by excommunication A meer device of their own which they can never make clearly out either what it is or of what extent or if there be any such thing that they only have power to execute it or that they can delegate it Nor rested they here but ordained that a number of Commissioners selected out of all the quarters of the Country should reside at Edenburgh to receive advertisements as should be sent from other places and take advice upon the most expedient in every case and in every business that occurred by direction of this Council which by a new name was now forsooth called the Council of the Church And was not this to erect Regnum in Regno If the punishment and pardon of Rebels be not a civil affair I do not see what is But rather than they will have their power docked they will by their Inordine ad Spiritualia their Pastoral Sheep-hook hook even Crowns and Diadems within the verge of their mitered Caps and Powers Whilst these things were agitated divers conferences passed between the King and them wherein the King and his Council made many prudent and gracious Offers and condescentions with great respect to the priviledges of the Church but no reasonings prevailing with them the King was forced to express and said that there could be no agreement so long as the marches of the two Jurisdictions were not distinguished that in their
Preachings they did censure the affairs of the State and Council convocate general Assemblies without his Licence conclude what they thought good not once desiring his Allowance and Approbation and in their Synods Presbyteries and particular Sessions meddle with every thing upon colour of scandal Besides divers other disorders which at an other time he would propound and have reformed else it was vain to think of any agreement or that the same being made could stand and continue any while Whilest these conferences lasted these just complaints of the King were verifyed and made good by all the Presbyteries in the person of Mr. David Blake one of the Ministers of St. Andrews with whom they sided and whom they defended to their utmost This David Blake in a Sermon uttered divers spightful speeches against the King and Queen the Lords of the Council and Session and had called the Queen of England an Atheist a Woman of no Religion of which her Ambassador complaining to the King he was cited to appear before the Council 10. Novemb. Mr. Andrew Melvil accompanying him to Edenburgh did labour to make this a common cause giving out that the same was done only as a preparative against the Ministers to bring their Doctrine under the censure and controulment of the King and Council and so far he prevailed with the Commissioners of the Church as they sent certain of their number to entreat the deserting of the Diet saying it would be ill taken to draw Ministers in question upon trifling delations very trifling matters as you will see by the Articles against him when as the enemies of the truth were spared and overseen Proud Presbyters Paul himself submitted his doctrines to the Test and judgment of his Auditory Judge ye what I say and yet these insolent Priests may defame Princes Councils Parliaments and say and do what they please impune No man must say why do ye so a shrewd sign their Coyn is not currant when it will not abide the Touch-stone They farther gave out that the Ministers were troubled for the free rebuke of sin and sinners and the Scepter of Christs Kingdom sought to be overthrown The process they said intended against Mr. Blake was but a Policy to divert the Ministers from prosecuting their Suit against Popish Earles and if he should submit his doctrine to the tryal of the Council the liberties of the Church and spiritual Government of the House of God would be quite subverted and therefore they concluded that in any case a Declinator should be used and protestation made against these proceedings whereupon a Declinator was framed and presented by Blake viz. that seeing he was brought thither to be judged by his Majesty and Council for his doctrine and that his answering to the pretended accusation might import a Prejudice to the liberties of the Church and be taken for an acknowledgment of his Majesties Jurisdiction in matters meerly spiritual He was constrained in all Humility to decline that Judicatory because the Lord Jesus of whom he had the grace of his calling had given him his Word for a Rule for his Preaching and that he could not fall in the reverence of any Civil Law but in so far as he should be tryed to have passed his instructions which Tryal belonged only to the Prophets and Pastors the spirit of the Prophets being subject to them alone For this and other reasons in the said Declinator alledged He for himself and in the name of the Commissioners of the general Assembly who had subscribed the same Declinator by which it appears that Blake was not herein a single but a publick person and that these desperate Tenets were the Tenets of the whole Presbytery and not of Blake singly did humbly beseech his Majesty not to infringe the liberty of the Church but manifest his care in maintaining the same i. e. in words at length and not in figures that his Majesty would subject his Regality to their Presbytery and be to them a King indeed but yet no otherwise then the stump of Wood was to the Frogs in the Fable a quiet and tame Idol whom every Frog every waspish Presbyter may play upon and securely dance about Now let us see his Peccadilloes not only charged but strongly proved against him viz. 1o. That he affirmed in Pulpit that the popish Lords were returned into the Country with his Majesties knowledge and on his Assurance and said that in so doing he had detected the Treachery of his Heart 2ly that he had called all Kings the Devils Barnes adding that the Devil was in the Court and in the Guiders of it 3ly In his Prayer for the Queen he had used these words We must pray for her for the Fashion but we have not cause for she will never do us good so that we have little reason to pray for her 4ly That he had called the Queen of England an Atheist 5ly That he had discuss'd a suspention granted by the Lords of the Session in Pulpit and called them Miscreants and Bribers 6ly That speaking of the Nobility he said they were degenerated Godless Dissemblers and Enemies to the Church likewise speaking of the Council he called them Holy-glasses Cormorants men of no Religion 7ly That he had convocated divers Noblemen Barons and other within St. Andrews in June 1594. caused them to take Armes and divide themselves in Troops of Horse and Foot and had thereby usurped the Power of the King and Civil Magistrate The Summons being read he desired to be remitted to his own Ordinary hereby meaning the Presbytery where the Doctrine was taught contending that speeches delivered in Pulpit all be it alledged to be Treasonable could not be judged by the King till the Church by which term they always mean themselves first took cognisance thereof and thereupon delivered the Declinator The King notwithstanding in favour of him deferred farther proceedings herein till the last of November In the mean time the Commissioners for the Church took advantage of his favour and sent a Copy of the Declinator with a Letter to all the Presbyteries requiring them to subscribe the same and to commend the cause in hand in their publick and private Prayers to God using their best credit with their flocks and employing all their labours for the maintenance thereof This their stirring up of Subjects against their King extorted from the King by the advice of his Council a Proclamation discharging the said Commission as unlawful in it self and more unlawfully executed by the said Commissioners commanding six of them to depart to their several Flocks within 24 hours and not to return to act therein under pain of Rebellion Upon notice of this intended Proclamation the Commissioners resolved that since they were convened by the Warrant of Christ in a most needful and dangerous time to see unto the good of the Church ne quid ecclesia detrimenti caperet they should obey God rather than Man notwithstanding any charge that should be given
acquiesce till then we are justly to be excused and I hope you will not blame us if we prefer the universal judgment of the Primitive Church touching the Church Government by Bishops before particular and late dreams They were nearer the Apostles times than Calvin whom for his other great pains and Abilities for the good of Christ's Flock I do much honour who broached not his new Church Polity until about Anno 1500. Was it possible I appeal to your selves that all the Churches of Christ dispersed far and near over the face of the Earth should at one time and that immediately after the last surviving Apostle and as it were Momento temporis joyn or jump in one and the self same Government Episcopal had it not been delivered and setled by the Apostles and their Disciples that converted the World We construe the Apostles Writings by their doings others measure the Scriptures by their own humours first framing Churches to their fancies and then conceit that the Scriptures answer and favour their Chimaera's and by their so doing come within the Verge of the Paroenesis If Bishops claim or usurp more than is their due or abuse the power which Gods Law or the favour of Princes justly alloweth to them and Pastors in Nomine Dei spare them not let the world know it but do not attempt to put out the lights of our Firmament because Phanatics and Men intoxicated stumble or miss their way whilst they shine § Gods promise to his People is Dabo vobis Pastores juxta cor meum 3 Jer. 41. pascent vos scientia doctrina It is evident that the firm of all Pastoral charge consisteth in preaching of the Gospel in administration of Sacraments and by mistake according to some in the punishment of such offences as absolutely exclude us out of the Kingdom of God These being the main things which Christ recommended to his Apostles committing them to their charge the which things only were practised by them as also by their immediate Successors and I hope our Bishops will not be found insufficient for these great Mysteries nor will be found to have warped or swerved from them though we have not wanted Coblers of Glocester the vanity of the present Churches and many other Ichabods heavily complaining § Besides for great and just reasons of State Concerning Innovators in general prudent Magistrates ought to be very circumspect and jealous and to fear the sequels of Church Innovations and Combinations even beyond all apparent cause of fear for that they who believe the Attempts for new Discipline without the licence of Civil Powers are lawful as most Innovators and Men given to change do and that not without some design as well to remove some persons out of the Saddle that themselves might be therein seated as to reform some errors will easily dispute what may be attempted against Superiors which will not have the Scepter of their new Discipline to rule over them For they that will not stick to affirm Amat â—ai ranam ranam nuit else Dianam That the Discipline which they say they have and we want is one of the essential parts of Gods Worship and therefore the better to introduce a good opinion of their own Diana they have not stuck andaciter calumniari and to style Episcopal Regiment Antichristian will as little scruple to affirm withal That the People themselves upon peril of Salvation without staying for the Magistrate may gather themselves into it always having in a readiness to say that they never found that God ever made any Precept or Command which to perform we must needs have leave of another § Moreover as every order of Religious men so every Form of Church-Government that only excepted which Christ instituted besits not every Civil Government nor Kingdom nor every State and therefore the Kingdom of France and renowned State of Venice for great reasons of State banished the Jesuits And we have an excellent example of this in the famous Government of the Kings of Castilia where without the Kings licence no new Religious Order and of such nature is every differing Church-Discipline from the Discipline by Law established could have entrance into those Kingdoms and therefore the Capuchin Friers could not be admitted thither The Foundations of these and the like Decrees are no less equal reasonable and lawful than most necessary and most antient For Cicero in oratione pro domo sua sheweth that no man could consecrate an Altar injussu populi so that the equity of such Laws hath time out of mind been apparently known unto the World And Mecoenas his counsel to Augustus in Dione was very prudent Eos qui in divinis aliquid innovant odio habe coerce non Deorum solum causa sed quia nova numina hi tales introducentes multos impellunt ad mutationem rerum unde conjurationes seditiones conciliabula existunt res profecto minime conducibilis-principatui legibus quoque expressum est quod in religionem committitur in omnium sertur injuriam For it would not in any wise be permitted to a great Number of a strange State and such are all Papists having sworn obedience to another Head contrary to their customs of life and divers ends from those of the present Governments to enter into the state of such a Common-wealth Gather themselves together into one or divers places to make amongst them one or more Heads or Governors and in secret to practise with the Princes Subjects seeing this would be presently accounted as one or more Conventicles of very dangerous consequence and accordingly would be prohibited and interrupted so under the pretext of some new Church Polity be it Popish Presbyterian or Quaking all alike as to the thing in question not by that State established many very many not only of the same but of other Nations also may frequently assemble and gather together under one or more Heads Presbyters or Teachers contrary in Customs and Affections to the established Church-Discipline and perhaps unto true Doctrine also and the many opportunities they have through Confessions Meetings Sermons and other spiritual Conferences insinuating with the Princes Subjects they may by such secret vast diffused scarcely to be discerned and powerful means and opportunities corrupt them in their sidelity and withdraw them from their Allegiances of which we are not without sad experience of elder and later days both from Papists and others not a few of several perswasions And the danger of union in an united confederacy or conspiracy is to be avoided for that it prevails more than number besides discontented minds in the beginning of tumults when any happen occasioned by themselves or others will easily agree though their ends be divers each one hoping thereby to get uppermost or to turn up that Trump that they have most mind to follow and so endanger the State For these many excellent causes all Church Congregations ought very diligently and narrowly to be
Politick the other Ecclesiastick what then hindereth that the Church now also on whom God hath bestowed a Christian Magistrate should be less content with one Government To me it seemeth monstrous to place two heads upon one body of a visible Church whose Commands Decrees and Government are divers so that the rule of one is not subject to the care of the other For the Ecclesiastical Senate or Presbytery would have the Supream Power of Punishing Vices even in Magistrates themselves though not with Corporal Punishment yet with Excommunication and debatring them from the Sacraments whereas one Magistrate appointed by God may now as well bridle all transgressions as he could of old was it not so in the Kingdom of Solomon which was as it were a Type of Christs Church reigning on this Earth And I do not find either under Moses or under the Judges or Kings or under the Government of those which were called Rulers such two discrepant Judicatories Nature denies saith Musculus two Authentick Governments in the same People whereof one is not subject to the other It is manifest that David did dispose of all Offices and Ministers of the Church 1 Ch. 22.27 Afterwards Solomon did not only build but consecrate the Temple and not a Priest Hitherto belongeth that famous History of Jehosaphat in the 2 Chr. 19. which doth perfectly clear this cause as also doth the History of Ezekias and indeed the whole Old Testament It is too well known that though Papists and Presbyters do allow something to secular Magistrates in the Rule of the Church yet the Supremacy of Power they do utterly and in very terms deny And having obtained possession of power in the Church and that as they hold out by Christs own institution they are very loath to resign the same again at the demand and into the hands of Princes It is true that when our Saviour first gave Commission to his Disciples to Preach Baptize and Propogate the true Faith in the World secular Authority being universally averse thereunto he was of necessity to commit for the present both Doctrines and Discipline to the charge of his Apostles yet not without a promise That Kings should be their Nursing Fathers and Queens the Nursing Mothers of his Church who though now they are come in and become friendly to Religion and willing to advance the spiritual prosperity of the Church as well as of the Temporal of the State yet both Papists and Presbyters having got possession are loath to be disquietted dreaming of a Spiritual Empire belonging to Priests more worthy and Sacred than that of the Emperors and so secretly preferring the Crosier before the Crown § Power and Government are things most awful and honourable and the truest owners thereof next under God are Princes whom the true legitimat Church ever looked upon as Cods immediate Vicegerents Deputies and Governours thereof St. Peter 1.2 Writing to the Church in the time of a Heathen and Impious Emperor commandeth every Soul to be Subject to the higher Powers He acknowlegeth power in a very Nero and that to be the higher Power And to that Power of that Nero he subjects every soul Christian and Heathen Priest and Layman and it may not seem strange that meer Power and Rule in an unbeliever and wicked Prince should be so sacred and inviolable We must take notice that the wickedness of Princes in ill Commands though it discharge us as to those ill Commands yet it doth not discharge their power or Rule either in those or any other For when Princes rule well they are to be obeyed when ill they are to be endured and this very endurance is an effect of obedience and subjection The violence of this or that Nero may be Tyrannous but the lawful Authority whereby the same violence is done is not Tyranny Neither is the Office of Kings the less Glorious because they can use force nor yet that of Ministers the more Glorious because they may use none but perswasive Motives and Allurements For Power it self being a Glorious Divine thing it must be most honourable to use it in Gods Cause and his Glory and the advance and increase of his Flock and Kingdom and therefore we see Iosiah and other good Kings are commended for using compulsion and on the contrary other Kings which used it not for the suppressing of Idolatry removing the high places and the like did draw curses on themselves and their subjects And whereas it is objected by I. M. and others that Force and Compulsion restrain only from the act of sin but not the Will from the liking thereof and that to compel outward profession is to compel Hypocrisy not to advance Religion But we see common experience teacheth us better effects thereof For Scotland Holland Denmark Sweden Bohemia England c. suffered great changes of Religion in a short space and these changes were wrought by the force of Civil Magistrates and could never else without strange Miracles from Heaven have been so soon compassed and these Changes have not proved the less sincere because Civil Authority wrought them as the Samaritan first believed Christ on the Womans word but then for his own sake so those that were compelled to the Wedding so many Papists in Queen Elizabeths dayes which came to our Churches first to save their Purses afterwards came out of liking of which the Pope being advertised forbad it and made it a Signum Distinctivum It s a shrewd sign that that Babe is spurious which the Mother is ashamed to bring to light and that is Falshood and Dross not Truth and Gold which dares not abide any Test and that those Masses are not of a Divine Origine that must be celebrated in an unknown Tongue and trusted only with the Priests who are parties to the Cheat. Besides the means used in all Laws of God and man to induce obedience are rewards and punishments both which may occasion Hypocrisie Corrupted man is as inclinable to dissemble Religion which he believes not as well for hope of reward as for fear of punishment which is vitio personae non praemii vel poenae else God would not have appointed them as mounds of his laws and motives of obedience The pious example of a good King is of mervelous inducement towards Religion yet one may hypocritically dissemble his Religion to please his Prince Example is so powerful a motive that it is said to compel 2 Gal. 14. Peccant magistratus cum minis paenis alios peccare non prohibent 13 Nehem. 17.21.22 If Nebuchadnezar erect his prodigious Idol and upon pain of a Fiery Furnace require all to worship it all People Nations and Languages are presently upon their faces If persecution be but threatned Demas-like we presently forsake the fellowship of Saints and imbrace this present world On the other side rewards of honour and preferment will cause some Balaam-like to run and ride and become more sensless of Gods wrath and indignation than
for Supremacy over Causes and Persons Ecclesiastical and Civil but let them accompt it their most Supreme Service to attend on that Supremacy so shall more honour and sanctity pass from Pope and Presbyter to Kings and Emperors and more efficacy and vertue from Kings to Ministers more Grace and happiness from both to the People § Excommunication The main Argument used both by Pope and Presbyter to raise the Miter and Consistory above the Crown is drawn from the power of the Church in Excommunication which Sword Church men only claim and wherewith they think they may as freely strike Princes as Princes may strike them with their Temporal Sword of both which a word in general and also in particular as it relates to Princes Excommunication that great Popish and Presbyterian Thunderboult and Diana of their Discipline claimed to be their due Jure Divino and so highly exalted by them that it is not more monopolized nor advanced higher at Rome than it would be here by them within their Precincts if not curbed by the Civil Magistrate so apt it is to be tyrannically abused by Pope and Presbyter for experience tells us that if they might have their Will they would by virtue thereof put such a Spiritual Pad-lock upon the Temporal Sword and by their In ordine ad Spiritualia take such fast hold of it themselves that if they and Christian Princes should chance to differ they may be sure so long as their Doctrine concerning it will be believed to have the drawing of it themselves and leave poor Christian Princes to whom the Sword of Right more antient than Papacy or John Calvins Presbytery more properly belongs to defend themselves with the Scabbard for which several of them have paid dear witness amongst others those 17 Scotish Ministers who being convented before the Council of Scotland for holding a solemn Assembly at Aberdeen without the Kings leave 2. July 1605. utterly denied the Authority both of King and Council in that behalf affirming that in matters Ecclesiastical they neither ow nor ought to acknowledge themselves in any subjection either to the King or to his Council and that all spiritual differences should be tryed and determined by the Church meaning thereby themselves the Clergy for which cause and for denying the Kings Supremacy 6 of the chief of them were arraigned and condemned at Blackness in Scotland January 10. 1605. and how insolently some of the same Tribe vsed King James more than once he himself hath published in Print and their imperious exhorbitances may be read as in several other Books so in Presbytery Displayed printed 1644. and how they used King Charles the first I. M. hath demonstrated in his Tenure of Kings therein manifesting that they founded the Premises that enabled the Phanaticks to conclude that sanguinary and unparalled Catastrophe And that their good deeds also may be remembred we do recount them to have been very instrumental in the restoration of the Son which is some kind of expiation for their injuries done unto the Father Some and those of no small esteem in the Church are of opinion that the exercise of Excommunication was then only needful when no visible Church had any legal or civil remedy to preserve its unity or purge it self of gross Offenders or that the right or power of Excommunication which the Apostles and immediate Successors had did utterly expire when once whole Cities and Common-wealths became Christian and were enabled from the Supreme Civil Magistrate to punish Offenders and to enact coercive and penal Laws and other means necessary for the spreading and promulgating of the Gospel Sure I am that experience hath made it more than probable that after the Church and Common-wealths were so linked and interwoven together that every Member of the Common-wealth was enforced to become a Member of the Church and to be so admitted by the Church Governours the edge of this spiritual Sword was very much abated and the force of former spiritual Ordinances became stifled with the multitude of those persons against whom they were directed whether the defect be in the power it self or in such as have but to do not use it as they ought certain it is that this branch of discipline is not in our days so effectual as in former times it hath been The meer spiritual Power with which alone the Apostles and their Immediate Successors were endued was of greater efficacy than both the remainder of the like spiritual Power in Dermier Bishops and Pastors and all the strength of secular Civil Power wherewith Princes States or Kingdoms since the mutual incorporation of Common-wealths and Churches have as they were in conscience and Jure Divino bound assisted Prelates and Church Governours of this nature seems to be the Apostolical Rod. 1. Cor. 4.21 wherewith Paul threatneth the Corinthians whereby is meant as he explains himself 2. Cor. 13.10 ch 10.16 ch 13.2 To use sharpness to revenge all unrighteousness not to spare all which are expressions of a certain miraculous vertue of impossing punishment Thus Annanias and Saphira fell down dead 14. Acts 13. Elymas was smitten with blindness 1. Tim. 1.2 Himeneus Alexander and the Incestuous Corinthian were delivered to Sathan 1. Cor. 55. § To deliver to Sathan was plainly a point of miraculous Power which inflicted torment on the Body such as Saul in former times felt after his departure from God as Chrisostome and other Fathers interpret This is certain when the earthly powers used not their right of punishing God had given them to purge and defend the Church what was wanting in human aid God himself supplied by divine assistance After the Emperors took on them the Patronage of the Church whose office was to punish them that troubled the Church without or within the forenamed divine punishment expired And most properly that divine execution of revenge was the jurisdiction of God not of Men because the whole work was Gods not the Apostles God that he might give testimony to the truth of the Gospel preached as at the Apostles Prayers or presence or touch he healed diseases and cast out Divils so at their imprecation commanded men to be vexed with Diseases and seized by Divils Nor did Paul more by delivering men to Satan than did Peter and John by curing the lame man who say they did nothing by their own Power Acts 12. and ascribe the whole effect to God At the Prayers also of the Church did God often shew the like signs of his displeasure therefore are the Corinthians 1. Cor. 5.2 blamed that they mourned not to the end the Incestuous person might be taken away from among them And to the same effect is that wish not command of the Apostles to the Galatians 5.12 would they were cut off that trouble you This kind of Excommunication if it may be so called was a Corporal punishment and there is no appearance of any internal obduration by the binding power of Pope or Presbyter and
the Jewish Church is not so well known in our days as when our Saviour spake the words we may justly be excused if we plead and demur thereunto Take Text and Context together Moreover if thy Brother shall trespass against thee go and tell him his fault between thee and him alone if he shall hear thee thou hast gained thy Brother v. 15. But if he will not hear thee then take with thee one or two more that in the mouth of two or three witnesses every word may be established v. 16. And if he neglect to hear them tell it unto the Church but if he neglect to hear the Church let him be unto thee as a Heathen man and Publican v. 17. Verily I say unto you whatsoever ye shall bind on earth shall be bound on Heaven and whatsoever ye shall loose on Earth shall be loosed in Heaven v. 18. Again I say unto you if two of you shall agree on Earth as touching any thing that they shall ask it shall be done for them of my Father which is in Heaven v. 19. For where two or three are gathered together in my Name there am I in the midst of them v. 20. What is here meant by the Church whether the Church of Christ then only in fieri not yet planted as some would have it or the Jewish Church then planted and setled or the Civil Assemblies that God ordained in the Commonwealth to govern his People and determine their Quarrels breeds great Questions amongst Divines themselves which alone is some Justification to us if we make further Enquiry and try Spirits especially having a Command so to do and to beware of false Prophets The Reason that prevails with some to believe that the Church of Christ is not by these words meant are 1. This was a Direction to the Jews serving them for their present State and Time 2. Christ had then no Church in Jewry to which they might address themselves and complain for he ever preached in the Synagogues and Temple whither all that would resorted John 18.20 Much less did he gather Churches sapart from the Jews to receive and consider and redress the Complaint and Injuries of their Brethren and if he did yet is there not one Syllable in the Text to induce us to believe that such Church or Assembly was constituted only of Ecclesiasticks of Popes or of Presbyters or that it was to continue and remain in force for ever in the Church 3. The Matters to becomplained of are of that nature as Priests of Christ may not challenge Judicially and Authoritatively to hear and determine Private Wrongs and Offences betwixt man and man must be redressed by compromise or judicially by Laws and consequently belongs to the Civil Magistrate The Church of Christ quatenus a Church hath no Warrant to make Laws or give Judgment in Civil or Private Wrongs and Trespasses and therefore I suppose that no Clergy except the Romish will pretend to this Christ himself when he was desired to make peace to end a Strife about parting an Inheritance answered Man who made me a Judge or Divider among you Luke 12.13 14. What Christ refused as no part of his Calling the Bishops Pastors and Presbyters of his Church must not challenge as annexed to their Commission and Vocation The Disciple is not above his Master Luke 6.40 Mat. 10.24 As his Father sent him so sent he them John 20. â—1 but not with a farther or larger Commission 4. That Church is here spoken of which abhorred Ethnicks as unclean persons and shunned all Society with Publicans but neither Christ nor his Church did ever so therefore the Church of Christ is not probably meant by these words Let him be to thee as an Heathen and a Publican for they never refused nor declined to converse with either To the Baptism of John came the Publicans Luke 3.12 and were received of him Our Saviour was accounted a friend unto them Mark 11.19 Matthew the Apostle was chosen sitting at the Receipt of Custom Mat. 9.9 Zackeus a chief Publican was the Child of Abraham Luke 19.9 The Publican that prayed in the Temple was justisied before the Pharisee Luke 18.14 and told by Christ that they should go into Heaven before the Scribes and Elders that despised them Mat. 21.21 The Publicans then were Members of Christs Church and Inheritors of his Kingdom and therefore by slying and sorsaking the Fellowship of Publicans the Church of Christ could not be described nor thereby meant The like may be said of Ethnicks and Gentiles who though they were Strangers to the Commonwealth of Israel when as yet they knew no God yet never were they persons excommunicated and since the Incarnation of Christ they became partakers of this Promises and true Members of hiâ— Catholick Church so that this can be no Rule for Christs Church to ground Excommunication upon nor yet to measure persons excommunicated by Gentiles and Publicans seeing that amongst the Jews Publicans believed and entred the Kingdom of God and after the Rejection of that Nation the Church of Christ consisted chiefly if not wholly of Gentiles and Ethnicks converted Others argue thus 1. They were Jews to whom Christ spake 2. Bidding them tell it to the Church he sends them to some Judge or Judicature to which they could go and were bound to obey 3. It is certain the Mosaical Judicial Law was then in being and to them obligatory and stood so till Christs Death he and his Apostles living under the Obligation of it 4. They say for certain the Christian Church was not then Constituted so that it is irrational if not ridiculous to say that he sends them when he bids them tell it to the Church to any Episcopal Presbyterian or Independent Judges when there were no such things in the World 5. It is then evident that he sends them there to some Jewish Judges to whom they could go and were bound to obey And the Jews had then as also before and after three Courts of Judicature 1. The Supreme the Sanhedrim which sate only in Jerusalem 2. The Consessus-viginti-trium-viralis which consisted of 23 persons in greater Towns and Cities 3. Consessus trium-viralis wherein the Judges were only three and such a Judicature they had in all lesser Towns and every one of those Courts was usually called Ecclesia a Church so that to those so opinionated it seems certain that the Persons and the Cause an Action of Trespass only considered it was the Consessus triumviralis he sends them unto The Christian Church say they cannot for the Reasons above-said be meant in those Words Tell it to the Church though with the same Breath they cannot deny but acknowledge that wherever Christ taught and converted men there was a Christian Church yet say that while he lived it was under the Legal Oeconomy and not that of the Gospel for that when our Saviour spake that the Sacrament of Baptism which only makes a Member of the Christian
p. 369. taken away these words is no Riddle their Excuse is ready at hand viz. That they are not in the New Testament but of many other words which are found in the Breviaries and not in the New Testament it is said they come ex Traditione Apostolicâ and so they will tell us that however the Evangelists do not affirm it yet it comes by Tradition that old and bold Imposture that these words were directed to Peter Now then here ought to be some distinction by which there may appear a difference between this Tradition and the others which when it is made yet all will be too little to excuse that for many hundred years it was not so read and consequently so believed of all Catholicks for so many Ages that it was spoken particularly to Peter Dic Ecclesiae So that they must needs equivocate in the Noun Church and interpret it Dic tibi ipsi i.e. Tell it to thy self To this purpose we have a more signal corruption not of their Breviary but of the Gospel it self For in the Gospel Translated into Persian by Xauerius it is added after Dic Ecclesiae and if he refuse to hear the Church then tell it Romano Pontisici to the Pope of Rome and if he refuse to hear him let him be an Heathen c. yea yet farther it will be a Sence so palpably wrested to understand by the Church one sole Person and that not so much because the Noun it self cannot bear it as for that Christ himself interpreting it in the words immediately following saith Vbi sunt duo vel tres Where there are two or three gathered together c. So that it is apparently cleared that he understood by the Church a Congregation of two or three at the least assembled in his Name But grant them what they vehemently contend for viz. That Christ said to Peter himself Tell the Church yet for that very reason Peter himself was sent unto some other persons constituting a Church and therefore by the Term Church Peter could not possibly be meant or intended § It is objected out of John 9.12 That the Scribes and Pharisees did in Christs time thrust such as they deemed Offenders out of their Synagogue which they will needs have to be Excommunication and that the same power was bequeathed unto the Church Christian is Mat. 15.20 That they did so may be true but that they had good warrant so to do out of Moses I find not A Separation of the Leper from the Company of men and of the unclean from coming near the Holy Places are things Moses prescribeth but Excommunication no where that I know of A Bastard might not enter into the Congregation of the Lord unto the Tenth Generation Deut. 23.2 Nor yet the Ammonites or Moabites v. 23. But the Children of the Edomites and Egyptians were received in the Third Generation v. 8. Aliens were not admitted to be of the Number of the Lords People and any Uncleanness of the Flesh did separate for a season the Jews themselves from approaching near to the Congregation or Tabernacle of God but neither of these is Excommunication The Strangers which were not yet admitted could not be rejected the Natural Insirmities and Uncleanness of the Body as Leprosie Pollution Touching of the Dead c. are made Remembrances of our Corruption not Causes of Excommunication For greater Sins committed God appointed Corporal punishments for Wrongs he required Recompence for smaller Matters he accepted Sacrifices of Confession and Repentance other Censures in Moses I know none at least that will amount unto Excommunication The casting of Men out of their Synagogues was first devised by the Pharisees to serve their proud and aspiring humor for that the chiefest power of the Sword was translated unto Strangers and the highest Dignity remained unto the Sadduces Jos Antiq. lib. 18. c. 20. and though sharply pursued by them against Christ and his Disciples yet was it no spiritual course but rather a temporal loss of all such Honours Offices Priviledges and Freedoms as the parties had in Church or State where they lived and a plain adjudging them to imprisonment Scourging and such other Chastisements as the Synedrion by their Laws might and did inflict unto which I presume no Ministers of the Gospel will pretend or lay any claim St. John reports c. 19. v 38. That Joseph of Arimathea was Christs Disciple but secretly for fear of the Jews And c. 12.42 That many of the chief Rulers believed on him but because of the Pharisees they did not confess him lest they should be cast out of their Synagogue now Believers in Christ could be in no dread or fear of the Spiritual Curse and Excommunication of the Pharisees for that they excommunicated themselves when they forsook the Jewish Church and became Christians they better understood their Interest in Christ than so wherefore this casting out of the Synagogue if not wholly Civil yet at least was intermixed with the Civil Regiment and the terror thereof wholly proceeded from the power of the Sword confirmed by God to the Council and Elders of that Commonwealth which the Pastors of Christs Church may not usurp nor challenge unless the Civil Magistrate do Counsel and Authorize their Doings and if so yet questioned by some As for that other Phrase viz. He shall be cut off from the midst of his People so often used in the Law and so often and strongly insisted upon by some to express a kind of Excommunication and Anathematization I must take leave to dissent from them also that are so perswaded of the Sence of this Exposition Moses himself not the Rabbins is the best Expositor and out of him not out of them Proofs are to be sought In Levit. 18. God threatning Incest Adultery Sodomy Buggary and Offering Children unto Moloch concludeth v. 29 that whosoever shall commit any of these Abominations shall be cut off from among the People i.e. shall die the death as is expressed Levit. 20.3 4 17. Whoever shall give his Children unto Moloch shall die the death the People of the Land shall stone him to death and if the People of the Land kill him not then will I set my face against that Man and his Family and cut him off So for Incest they shall be cut off in the sight of their People i.e. openly put to death So likewise for any wilful breach of Gods Law The person that doth ought presumptuously c. therefore shall he be cut off from among his People i.e. suffer death When this kind of Speech is referred to the Magistrate then Execution is enjoyned when to God then it is a Commination denounced that he will plague and root them out and their Remembrances from the People of God Nahum 3. Jer. 11.22 23. Ezek. 14.8 13 21. Ezek. 21.28 The Separation mentioned Ezra 10.8 11 12. And Nehemiah's chasing away some that married strange Wives Nehem. 13. were joyned with Forfeitures of all their Goods
smiting their Bodies separating them from the People and chasing them from the place pulling off the hair and taking an Oath of them by God not to commit the like do plainly shew the Civil Use of the Sword in the Princes hands not the spiritual force of the Word in the Priests Mouth and therefore the one can be no Argument nor President for the other § Unto me the most Natural and Genuine Sence of Mat. 18.15 22. seems to import The proper sence of Mat. 18.15 22. that Christ well knowing that his Apostles and Disciples which were to survive him and whom he intended to Commissionate to Teach and Baptize all Nations and to gather a People unto himself by declaring the Mind and Will of his Father by preaching his Gospel and that out of the very bosom and bowels of Kingdoms and Commonwealths which then were and also likely so to continue for many Generations then to come prophane and sworn Adversaries to his Gospel and unto the Preachers and Embracers thereof and consequently would be in as great dangers and Troubles as Sheep among Wolves and therefore his all-seeing Wisdom thought fit to prescribe them such a Government and Discipline which they might exercise among themselves in much peace and quietness suitable to the Gospel of Peace and without any noise or disturbance to the Magistrates or Subjects of any Nation or Kingdom or to the Government thereof how wicked or adverse soever they should be to Christ and his Kingdom and therefore here he prescribes them some Rules more particularly relating unto private Offences which must needs be whilst men are men If thy Brother shall trespass against thee c. 18. v. 15 c. The Party grieved must be Man not God If thy Brother trespass against thee not against God reprove him The first Admonition must be secret and friendly as between Brother and Brother between thee and him alone Again if the wrong-doer repent himself the Sufferer must forgive him and not seven times only but seventy times seven v. 21 22. and elsewhere viz. Luke 17.3 4. This together with the Lords Prayer teacheth us to forgive the Sins that are committed against our selves but we have here no directions nor power to remit other mens sins and harms much less to remit and pardon the Injuries offered unto God 2. If he repent not we must yet give him a second Admonition with one or two witnesses before we tell it to the Church and if he then repent we must then also forgive These be no Precepts for open and notorious sins dishonouring God and scandalizing his Church for such the Rule is given 1 Tim. 5.20 Those that sin rebuke openly that the rest may fear but for private Trespasses between man and man This is no Judicial proceeding in Episcopal Audience in the Conclave or Consistory but a charitable warning in secret by him alone that is grieved and oppressed with wrong or reproach This is a general Duty binding every Christian and not a special Authority to Popes and Presbyters There is no Command that the open and scandalous Sinners should be reproved in secret or twice admonished before they be censured by the Church The incestuous Corinth had neither private nor double warning before he was delivered to Sathan by the Church according to St. Paul's Advice Though Christ declined intermedling with the Judicial part of ending Controversies and differences between man and man yet he prescribes them Rules to compose them themselves 1. By private admonition of the Party grieved 2. By admonition of two or three of the Brethren of the Church 3. If they prevail not then to communicate the wrong done to the Church i.e. to the whole Congregations of Believers whereof both Parties are members and not to the Pope or Priest whereof not one plain Syllable in the Text so that not only by the mouth of two or three witnesses only but also by the testimony and admonition of many even of the whole congregated Church every word may be established that by such publick reproof the wrong-doer might be brought to repentance and amendment 4. If he neglect all private and publick admonition then let him be to thee as a Heathen-man and a Publican i.e. do not own him to be of your Congregation but pursue and prosecute and implead him as thou wouldst do an Ethnick or Publican or any one that is not of the Christian Church and Congregation in any of the Courts of Judicature of that City and Kingdom wherein they live Christ for the Honour and Glory of his Gospel would have none of his to be wrong-doers or be given to strifes and debates or to go to Law before the unbelievers as it is in 1 Cor. 6.1 2 8. If ye have Judgment saith he for things pertaining to this life what then Tell the Pope and his Cardinals nothing less but set them to judge who are least esteemed in the Church in which Rank I dare not place either Pope or Presbyter lest they bring their Action of Scandalum Magnatum for my so doing and make them Judges of your Causes and Quarrels where by the way it is observable that the Word Church in this place also doth not signifie the Pope nor yet the Presbyters only but the whole congregated Church the Sequel will clear it Is it so that there is not a wise man among you no not one that shall be able to judge between his Brethren but Brother goeth to Law with Brother and that before the unbelievers v. 5.6 Where the words Brethren a Wise man not one Vnbelievers are general and indesinite Terms and not limited to Ecclesiastics Then certainly Christ never meant that the Members of his Church should for private Trespasses complain to the Pope or his Parish-Priests and that they should have power sufficient to hear and determine all such Matters as were so offered unto them and to excommunicate those that would not stand unto their Sentence and Determination that would have been an Infringement and incroachment on the Magistrates Office for the Matters of Complaint are of that Nature that the Ministers of Christ might not challenge to hear and determine they were forbid it Man who made me a Judge or Divider over you Luke 12.13 14. And as his Father sent him so sent he them John 20.21 and consequently did belong to the Civil Magistrate Besides neither in Mat. 18. nor yet in 1 Cor. 6. the Word Church whether thereby should be meant Jewish or Christian can possibly signisie the Priests of either or at least not exclusive the Laity whatever the scope and drift of these two places are it cannot be to Authorize the Clergy to intermeddle with matters pertaining to the Magistrate and to exclude those from the Society and Communion of the Saints and Sacraments that obey not their resolution If Excommunication or Binding or loosing be to be proved out of Mat. 18. as the Papalins and Presbyters would have it yet it is
they put such a Hook in the Noses and such a Yoke on the Necks of Laicks and Civil Magistrates that the Papalins themselves have never since been able to shake it off unto this very day And though the Laws of the Emperors remain in the Codes of Theodosius and Justinian and in the Capitulars of Charles the Great and Lewis the Debonaire and though all Stories both Ecclesiastical and Prophane do shew how when and by whom these Powers have been granted adding the Reasons and Causes yet so demonstrable so notorious a Truth hath not had such power but that a bare Ipse dixit of the Popes without any proof at all hath been able to overcome it which the Canonists have so far maintained as to declare those Hereticks who do not suffer themselves that have been thus long blindfold to remain hoodwinkt still Though the Light of this Truth was not so extinguished but that both Learned and Pious men in those very first times did oppose their Doctrine viz. That no Civil Magistrate could meddle in any of those Causes which the Clergy had appropriated because they are Spiritual and that Laicks are uncapable of things Spiritual yet the opposition of the better who had the Truth on their side could not overcome the greater part and so upon the Spiritual Power given by Christ to the Church to bind and loose and upon the Institution of St. Paul to compose Contentions among Christians without going to the Tribunal of Infidels in tract of time and by many gradations a Temporal Tribunal hath been built by their own Industry Arts and Ambition and for their own Use Ends and Interests more remarkable than ever was in the world or can be parallell'd for thereby they have erected Regnum in Regno raised to themselves an Empire independent of the Commonwealth and which is more intolerable established on such grounds such as Jus Divinum is it which have so prevailed with such admirable success that it hath given the Pope of Rome as much at once as former Bishops were getting in 1300 years before and all this by making not the Power to bind and loose the foundation of Jurisdiction but the power of seeding and so affirming that all Jurisdiction was given the Pope by Christ in the person of Peter when he said to him Feed my Sheep § But to return to the other Branch viz. Excommunication Excommunication for the lawful force and use whereof they also plead strongly out of the same Chapter Matth. 18.17 If he neglect to hear the Church let him be to thee as a Heathen man and Publican of which a little more here pretending also that the Antient Writers lean very much that way It may be so yet happily if their full scope sence and meaning were fathomed and comprehended and not this and that Scrap and Sentence here and there expunged and picked out and wrested to serve a turn against the Meaning of the Fathers happily they would not be found so clearly on their side as they ween for but be it so that Excommunication may hereout be drawn and deduced yet certes it must then also be of the same Nature as binding and loosing is of in the same place and will then also belong to Privateers For they belonging both unto one thing and unto the same persons by the self-same words will naturally and necessarily fall into the same Predicament and then the meaning of those words are no more but Pursue them in those Courts that thou wouldest a Pagan and Publican that should do thee wrong and what affinity hath this with Excommunication used in the Church of Rome or else those words may be understood of a private forsaking of all company with the wrong-doer as thou wouldest shun Pagans or Publicans until he repent and reform himself which if you please to call Excommunication be it so but then also it belongs to every Individual of the Church and not unto Ecclesiasticks only and is sutable to many other Precepts of the Apostles viz. to withdraw our selves from every Brother that walketh disorderly 2 Thes 3.6 14 15. 1 Cor. 5.11 13. but that they should be kept from the Word and Sacraments and that Divine Service must cease if an obstinate excommunicate person will not quit the Church there is not any one plain Text nor Syllable in the whole Bible This is an Excommunication of their own making not of Christs Institution And yet Excommunication was declared by the then Brethren Presbyters in the Ordinance of Aug. 29. 1648. to be shutting out of a person from the Communion of the Church but what Warrant out of the Word of God they had so to do non constat Other Expressions and Powers there are recorded in Scripture of which they make use for the founding and upholding of Excommunication as the Delivery unto Sathan 1 Cor. 5.5 as Hymenaeus and Alexander and the Incestuous Person were the striking of Ananias and Saphira dead by Peter and of Elymas the Sorcerer blind by Paul owning himself to have vengeance in readiness against all disobedience 2 Cor. 10.6 and his professing that he will not spare 2 Cor. 13.2 As also when some for abusing the Lords Supper became weak and sick and fell asleep or became dead These and the like might have been Arguments for the like Powers had they not died with the Apostles but with Excommunication they have no Analogy no Resemblance they were Arrows indeed in the Quivers of the Apostles Tokens as one of them expresseth 2 Cor. 12.12 of an Apostle wrought with Signs and Wonders and mighty Deeds but no Arguments for Excommunication whereby it is evident that in their Days when as yet there were no Christian Magistrates to punish the Sins and Offences of the Brethren the power of God sometimes by himself sometimes by his Apostles did afflict and punish the disobedient more or less grievously according as their Sins were more or less heinous that thereby they might learn not to blaspheme nor yet to detain the Truth of God in unrighteousness and that the rest might fear to provoke his Wrath and Indignation by like Sins and Uncleanness For without all controversie the Delivery unto Sathan the smiting some with Death and others with Blindness and Sickness were Corporal punishments and of a far different Nature from that of Excommunication even according to their own shewing there being not any other punishment belonging to the essence of Excommunication but the sole debarring from the participation of the Word and Sacraments § However let us a little consider the Delivery of the Incestuous person unto Sathan 1 Cor. 5. of which no small use is made to justifie Excommunication Take the Story as it lies plainly in the Text without any Vizards or Equivocations St. Paul understanding that there was such fornication at Corinth as was not so much as named among the Gentiles viz. that one should have his Fathers Wife wrote unto them his first Epistle and
vel indignos recusandi quod ipsam videmusde divina Authoritate descendere ut sacerdos plebe praesente sub omnium oculis deligatur c. whereby it appears that the supream Power of choosing such Priests as are worthy and refusing unworthy doth principally rest in the People And he speaketh of Bishops particularly although in the words alledged he mentioneth Priests and withal it is not only St. Cyprians Epistle but the Epistle of thirty six Bishops and written to the Common People of Leon Asturia and Emerita Vide his 14. Epist of his 3. Lib. such Authorities we may alledge but not mystical and enforced Explications nor yet wrong Conclusions from right Premisses The Faithful Flock of Christ ought to resemble Sheep indeed in humility and innocency yet ought they not to be so sheepish or sottish as to decline the Authority which Christ their great Shepherd hath bestowed on them either of choosing them a Good or of judging a Wicked Shepherd St. Austin proves unanswerably that Doctrines are to be grounded on the Literal Sense of the Scripture and not on any Mystical Interpretation In this equivocating Art of Sophistry Bellarmine hath shewed both in this Subject as in others his great dexterity first to settle with the Reader the Relation which the Holy Church hath towards the Divine Majesty and then to conclude on the Relation towards the Pope such false Sophistry such disingenuity becomes not so great a Prince so great a Scholar as himself but the Parisians no Protestants conclude that God hath called the Church to the Faith and his Worship and that he hath placed Christ over it for an Head for ever who first himself did govern it on Earth in the days of his Flesh but being ascended into Heaven doth rule it with inward influence and assistance invisible unto the end of the World It is true that the Church is not a Common-wealth as Venice or as Geneva which give as much Authority as themselves please to their Dukes and Princes nor a Kingdom which may change the manner of governing it neither invisibly nor visibly because that Christ hath prescribed the manner much less is it such a Kingdom as England which hath a Blood-Royal where the Kings succeed by Birth neither as some other by Testament but as touching the Inward Government and meerly Spiritual it is not like unto any because it hath a perpetual Immortal and Eternal King who only knows the Heart and tries the Reins In the visible Government it hath a Ministry whose Authority was instituted by Christ and independing of the Church but as concerning the Application of this Authority unto this or that Person it is elective or depending of it Wherefore when he alledgeth I am constituted a King by him Our Lord God shall give him a Kingdom Luke 1.32 and 12.32 You chose not me but I have chosen you John 15.16 Thou hast made us to our God a Kingdom All these places and such like others are meant of the Invisible Spiritual and Interior Kingdom where the Pope hath no regiment nor influence at all but Christ is all in all governing by his Spirit and according to the Council of his own Will Thus he having laid down and proposed to use a Proposition or Doctrine quodammodo and in some sense true and having Validity under the Covert of an Universal yet having applied it to wrong Particulars it hath lost its Energy and Effort and its fallacy is discovered A piece of Artifice and Skill that runs through the Veins and Lines of most Popish Writers in the Controversies between us and them and what else is this but to make Lies their refuge and under Falshood to shelter themselves If Popes may now excommunicate as they pretend yet this concludes not that they may excommunicate Princes or Magistrates or whole Common-wealths The Primitives of old did use excommunication very sparingly and moderately and with great prudence and policy and with great respect to the good of the Church And therefore be the Power what or where it will St. Augustine holds an Excommunication against a Multitude though it were for some notorious and manifest sin too sacrilegious pernicious impious and insolent Lib. 3. contra Ep. Permen 23.4.4 c. non potest And Thomas putteth a Question whether any generality may be excommunicated and he answereth himself No and produceth Reasons for the same concluding that the Church appointeth with great Providence that no Community might be excommunicated And all other Divines with one accord determine the same And also Pope Innocent the 4th in the Chap. Rom. saith In Vniversitatem vel Collegium proferri sententiam Excommunicationis penitus prohibere de Sentent excom in 6. We must know that it is of worse consequence and example where â—t is used against Princes than divers other Bodies and Societies in as much as one Prince is of more consequence and power than thousands of other Lay-men We know also that in all Judgments there is a necessity of a Legal Trial to precede Conviction And that great Multitudes may be convented examined sentenced and punished with less disturbance of Peace less violation of Majesty than those that sway the Ball-Imperial Besides if the condemnation of Princes might be upon due Trials without violence yet the execution of the Sentence would produce more monstrous events in them than in private Men for how shall the People honour obey and reverence him in the State as Gods Lieutenant whom they see accursed cut off and abhorred in the Church as the Devils Vassal upon the excommunication of Princes whole Nations have been interdicted witness England Venice and other in the times of several Popes whole States subjected to ruine the Innocent with the Obstinate the Princes with the People all have have been sacrificed to Blood-thirsty-Popish-Priests under pretence of obedience to the Holy Catholick Church In what Code of the Ancient Church can it be found where any such strange kind of punishment was ever instituted as that for the offence of a few many Millions of Souls should be accursed cast out of the Church and in Popish construction damned How can they call that Power Apostolical that punisheth in this manner seeing the Apostolical Power was given for edification and not for destruction And yet so precipitate have some Popes been as to excommunicate whole States and Kingdoms Surely therefore we ought not so tamely to acquiesce on the bare ipse dixit of the Clergy pleading in their own Cause and for themselves only exclusive the Laity Certainly it is too small a security for so great a concern therefore let us a little examine what they urge for this exorbitant Power § If Kings be not this way punishable then they are no other way which is mischievous in the Church Sol. The Jewish Kings were as great and scandalous sinners as Kings-Christian now are yet God assigned no Rulers Spiritual for their Castigation and we must suppose that if it had
but with great and exquisite Judgment the which wanting Power only takes no effect The Canonists themselves say That the Power of Binding and Loosing is intended by a Key not erring and Pope Leo expresly affirmeth it in a Canon speaking of this Priviledge given by St. Peter Manet ergo Petri privilegium ubicunque ex ipsius fertur aequitate Judicium nec nimia est vel severitas vel remissio ubi nihil erit ligatum vel solutum nisi quod Beatus Petrus solverit aut ligaverit 24. q. 1. c. Manet § Of old the Holy Bishops did preach and teach Princes that they having two Callings the one of Christians the other of Princes were bound in both of them to serve God as Christians in observing the Divine Precepts as every other private Person but as Princes to serve God by ordaining just and good Laws and directing their Subjects to Piety Honesty and Justice by having his Eyes on the Faithful of the Land that they that excel in Vertue and Piety may dwell with him by not countenancing wicked Persons by erecting publick Places of Worship and as much as in them lyeth by chalking out a High-way of Holiness throughout their Dominions by their Good and Pious Example that way-faring Men though Fools might not erre therein by punishing all such as transgress Gods Commandments especially those of the Decalogue wherein those that sin against the first Table which more immediately concern the Divine Honour are worse than those that sin against the Second which concern Justice amongst Men Wherefore Kings are more bound to punish Blasphemies Heresies and Perjuries than Murders and Thefts For this cause were divers Laws made against such Crimes as are Registred in the Justinian and Theodosian Codes imposing on the guilty Pecuniary Mulcts Banishment Privation of Part or of all their Goods according to the Circumstances of the Offence the execution of which Laws are committed to their Secular Officers And accordingly this our Kingdom from its Original of being Christian hath been accustomed to sentence and punish in case of grievous offence any Person Ecclesiastical of what Degree or Order soever by which means it hath hitherto preserved the Ancient and Independent Liberty of its true Dominion and Empire § Every Criminal Judgment hath three parts 1. For Example Criminal Judgment hath three parts The Cognisance of the Cause 2. The Cognisance of the Fact 3. The Sentence 1. For Example In the Judgment of Heresie or the Cognisance of the Reason is whether such an Opinion be Heretical or no 2. The Cognisance of the Fact is whether the Person so accused or denounced hath defended or held the same 3. The Sentence consisteth either of Absolving or Condemning The first Cognisance what Opinion was Heretical was mostly Ecclesiastical but not absolutely exclusive of Secular Learned Men appointed by the Emperors And when there grew any difficulty of some Opinion the Emperor did require the Judgment of Bishops and if need were did call Councils For the Cognisance of the Fact whether the accused Person were Innocent or Guilty that he might have the punishment ordained by the Laws of the Emperor and the Sentence of Condemnation or Absolution did all belong to the Secular Power Thus were matters ordered for Causes of Heresie c. in the Church under the Roman Empire until about 800 Years after Christ when the Eastern Empire being divided from the Western this Form rested in the Eastern till the end of it In the Western the Princes needed not make any Laws nor take much care about this Business seeing for the space of 300 Years from 800 to 1100 there were very few Hereticks found in those Parts and when any Case did happen which chanced but very seldom the Bishop did judge of it in the same manner as he proceeded against Ecclesiastical Persons as against Infringers of Holy-days Breakers of Fasts and such like judging and punishing them themselves in those Places where they had Jurisdiction granted them by the Princes and where they had not the like Power they did implore the Secular Aid to punish them After the Year 1100. by reason of the continual differences which for about fifty Years before had been between the Emperors and Popes and lasted afterwards for a whole Age until about 1200 Years with frequent Jars and Wars and the wicked life of the then Clergy there did arise an infinite number of Hereticks as the Papists are pleased to call them whose most common Heresies were against the Popes Authority and where the Multitude of them exceeded there was a forced Toleration About this time of the day Pope Innocent the fourth subtilly designed by introducing the Inquisition Inquisition more Authoritatively to deprive the Civil Magistrates of their Rights over Causes and Persons Ecclesiastical to whose Judgment was committed the punishment of Heresie c. by the Ancient Laws of the Empire and by the Laws of Frederick the second and by particular Statutes which each City was forced to make for the preservation of their own indubitable and independent Right of Governing Ecclesiastical Causes and Persons according to their great Charter from Heaven But the Pope sinding great opposition from all Places he offered one Expedient which in shew made the Civil Magistrate the Inquisitors Companion but in Substance and Effect his Lacquey This Opposition grew so strong and was so universal that the Pope could not introduce his Tribunals Inquisitory except it were in the Provinces of Lombardy Romania and Marca Trevisana nor in them neither for all his Bulls and severe Edicts as he desired no nor yet as he did without great reluctancy and opposition from the Civil Magistrates though in those three Provinces his Authority was very great they having no Prince and each City governing it self and where the Pope also had a part because he had assisted them in their late Wars And although the said Frederick Anno 1244. set forth four Proclamations receiving the Fathers Inquisitors into his protection and imposing the Penalty of Fire the first Law that imposed death upon obstinate Hereticks for which kindness and assistance of his he was admirably well requited by the same Pope who first excommunicated and then deposed him and as Hier-Marius reports corrupted one to poison him which not taking effect corrupted another to strangle him so that Alexander the fourth his Successor Anno 1259. and Clement the fourth 1265. were constrained to moderate the Edicts of Innocent the fourth And four other succeeding Popes employed themselves in overcoming the difficulties which thwarted them in setling the Inquisition After some moderation it being setled in those three Provinces it afterwards crept into Tuscany and so into Arragon and into some Cities of Germany and France out of which it was soon exiled and in Arragon they were reduced to a very small number Into the Kingdom of Naples it was not brought there being little correspondence between the Popes and the Kings thereof In the
their Vocation yet not so tyed as it were by a perpetual and unalterable Law that they may not be at Liberty to alter their Condition when just Cause so requireth and this he makes good by way of instancing the Condition of Servants with words of Consolation that though they are Servants to men yet they being once made partakers of that Grace of Christ may notwithstanding in Spirit and Truth serve the Lord Christ whose Service is perfect Freedom and withall teacheth that Liberty being far more Excellent and Commodious than Bondage is rather to be chosen when opportunely it may be had But in all this not one Syllable towards the making good of his Assertion viz. A Freedom from subjection to the Authority of Men c. He then proceeds to affirm that the same Rule is given out as to our duty and deportment in reference unto both these viz. the two parts of liberty divided by him as before which he endeavours to provo by Gal. 5.1 and 1 Pet. 2.16 but with what success will appear upon their Scanning stand fast therefore in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made us Free and be not intangled again with the Yoak of Bondage Gal. 5.1 I most willingly confess the force that this place hath for the justifying of his first part of Christian Liberty but as to the Justifying of the second part I conceive with submission to better Judgments that it is of no validity at all The Liberty here mentioned by Paul the Apostle of uncircumcision besides the general Intendment and respect it had to the general Freedom from the Obligation Bondage and Curse of the Law purchased by Jesus Christ it did more particularly respect Circumcision a part of the Mosaical Law which might have been performed in Titus as it had been before in Timothy had not saith Paul false Brethren who came in privily to spy out our Liberty which we have in Christ Jesus that they might bring us into Bondage Gal. 2.4 Bondage What Bondage Subjection to the Authority of Men commanding Lawful things about the Worship of God Nothing less but Bondage by binding them to a necessary observance of the Ceremonial Law by teaching the necessity of Circumcision which before Christ was a Sacrament and a Seal of the righteousness of Faith Rom. 4.11 But after the death of Christ till the destruction of the Temple it was a dead Ceremony yet some time used as a thing indifferent After the Destruction of the Temple when the Church of the New Testament was planted amongst the Gentiles it was a deadly Ceremony and ceased to be indifferent imposing it upon him and Titus making it a meritorious cause of Salvation and teaching Justification and Salvation was partly by Christ and partly by the Law thereby intending to overthrow the Gospel of Christ Gal. 1.7 against this Bondage this Doctrine Paul Preached behold I Paul say unto you that if ye be Circumcised Christ shall profit you nothing Gal. 5.2 that is if you be Circumcized believing that Circumcision shall be a Meritorious cause of your Salvation and go back from your Christian profession and Liberty Christ shall profit you nothing And that which Paul saith here of Circumcision in particular he means generally of the whole Law for I testifie again to every Man that is Circumcised that he is a Debtor to do the whole Law Christ is become of no effect to you whosoever of you are Justified by the Law ye are fallen from Grace v. 3 4. Therefore saith Paul stand fast in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made us Free and be not intangled again with the Yoak of Bondage v. 1. That this is the most natural and genuine if not only sence of this portion of Scripture will not I think be denied by any Protestant but what farther use he can make of this for the Justifying his Second part of Christian Liberty without stretching and wresting the words beyond their meaning is past my understanding I am sure it is not safe nor warrantable to impose any other sence on the Apostles words than what he meant and is clear and evident After such a deceitful way of handling Scripture it would be no hard task to prove by Scripture that there is no God that Prophets are Fools and that Spiritual men are mad Hos 7. But we proceed to his other places of Scripture which are but two more and examine if he hath dealt any more candidly in alledging them viz. 1 Pet. 2.16 and Acts 15. which we will examine as they lye in Order the first of them is that of St. Peter which he hath only quoted as he hath done the rest in Figures and not set down at length without making any Application of them the words are As free and not using your liberty for a Cloak of malitiousness but as the Servants of God But by what construction to make this Text favour or make good his Assertion viz. A freedom from subjection to the Authority of men as to any new Imposition in or about the Worship of God I must confess my Self to be Impar Negotio and I believe it to be past his Skill also without wresting the words beyond their Natural meaning However I will give my Essay by declaring the plain genuine sence of the place and freely leave the Reader to Judge and make out the rest This Verse is relative being the Close or Period of somewhat before prescribed but more especially of the three last Verses immediately going before which relates unto and respect obedience and submission to Government The Text and Context lye thus together Submit your selves to every Ordinance of Man for the Lords sake whether it be to the King as Supream or unto Governours as unto them as are sent by him for the punishment of evil doers and for the Praise of them that do well for so is the will of God that with well doing he may put to silence the ignorance of Foolish men as free and not using your liberty for a Cloak of malitiousness but as the Servants of God Honour all Men Love the Brother-hood fear God honour the King 1 Pet. 2.13.17 The Apostles when they Preached the Gospel-Doctrine of Christian Liberty At which false Teachers in those dayes did and some in these our dayes do take advantage from the very name of Liberty to teach the new Converted Christians under that pretence to despise their Governours and Government did take and amongst them our Apostle doth here take occasion from that ground to endeavour to prevent the abuses and misconstructions of the Glorious and wholsome Doctrine of Christian Liberty by teaching that Christian Subjection and obedience under the term of well-doing was very consistent with the Doctrine of Christian Liberty and therefore he shews it to be the will of God that they should submit to every Ordinance of Man that by such submission such well doing they may put to silence the ignorance of Foolish Men viz. false Teachers
do thwart the designs and interest of some that never think they have Domination enough must there not therefore be a slacking of some severities when for want thereof the peace of the Church is thereby endangered Indeed Pope Adrian the 6th in his Letter dated 25 of Nov. 1552. to the Dyet at Noremberg by his Nuntio advised sar otherwise in the cause of Luther exhorting them to proceed unto sharp and fiery Remedies to cut the dead Members from the Body as Antiently was done to Dathan and Abiram to Ananias and Saphira to Jovinian and Vigilantius and as their Predecessors did to John Husse and Jerom of Praghe in the Council of Constance whose example in his esteem they ought to follow He Wrote Letters also almost to all the Princes of the same purport and tenour terming Martin a Phanatick or Frantick Man The same Council did his Nuntio most vehemently reinforce unto them by 7 mighty reasons as he thought mentioned in his instructions But when he endeavoured to give them satisfaction as to Reformation of the Centum gravamina of the scandals and grievances of the Church and Court of Rome Preached against by Luther and spoken against by all the Empire He was then of another mind and then forsooth the Disease being inveterate and multiplyed it was necessary to proceed slowly in the Cure and to begin from things of greater weight to avoid confounding of all by desiring to do all together and the Court of Rome only was to reform them and they were to rest content with promises only so that Centum gravamina were but gently to be touched not to be rooted out no need of quick and sharp Remedies for the extirpating of them but the Dyel well observing that the Nuntio took wrong measures of good and evil only as they had relation to the Profit Honour and Power of the Court of Rome and not to the necessities of Germany and to the advancement of true Religion and Piety and deeming that the conservation of the peace of Church and State ought rather to incite to do the good that is easie to be executed than to support the evil that is hard to be indured they resused to use such Keen Remedies and that for most weighty and urgent reasons § The plain and demonstrative truth and medium is that as whatsoever is absolutely necessary for real advance and propagation of the Gospel or for the Establishing or well Governing of the Church of the New Testament ought strictly to be asserted so about things indifferent or that are of a middle nature between sit and necessary and not absolutely so there ought to be no Strife no Contention no Crusadoes no Inquisitions no unreasonable severities used considering that Non-Assenters are Heirs of the same Common Salvation and who otherwise do agree in the Fundamentals of the same Common Faith in one Kingdom there being no Reasons that the Consciences of Men sound in Doctrine and Holy in Life and Conversation and willing to Conform tho not to every petit Ceremony yet without any scandalous difference should be Rackt and Ensnar'd by Oaths and Subscriptions unto things doubtful not absolutely good nor yet absolutely necessary and without which the Doctrine would be as pure and the Polity as Excellent as now it is Imposition of such severities for such things where Episcopal Government bears Sway seems to me to disparage and debase even that most Excellent Regiment it self as if that could not Subsist or Flourish except the Mouths of some other Learned and Painful Labourers and Husband-men in Gods Vineyard be Sealed up by Wiles and Snares Certainly Episcopal Government stands not upon such Lame Crutches as that the abatement of some few Rigors in things at best but Indifferent should endanger thereby the overthrow thereof it needs not Certainly it needs no such Artifices for its Establishment it being no more for the Support and Honour of Episcopal Government to have Men Preaching the sincere Word of Truth and living accordingly to be silenced and accounted their Opposites Than it is to have some Conformists to assert it with their Tongues and with their Pens and yet be a reproach to it by being Dumb by their Non-residency by their Lives and Conversations or that it is for others to Drink Swear and Prophane to avoid the Name and Censure of being Puritanical or Presbyterian and that they may be reputed Prelatical But be it a great sin in the Governors and Fathers of our Church to be instrumental to stop the Mouths and hinder the use of Gospel Talents in many of the Inferior Pastors upon slight and slender occasions yet it is a greater Crime for such Inferior Pastors to deprive themselves and their Flocks of the same Gospel Priviledges upon the same or like niceties for that they ought to be more unwilling to separate themselves from the Communion of the Church to which they are called by stopping their own Mouths than to be cut off from the Commonwealth wherein they live It is impossible but that Offences must come 17 of Luk. 1.18 of Mat. 7. and therefore it is impossible that all visible Ministerial Churches or the Polity of them should be pure and uncorrupt or that all should be Israel that are of Israel and therefore some unworthiness in Members and some Corruptions in Officers and some Offices in the Church tho not absolutely necessary may with good Conscience be born withal and that some Errors at least in the Discipline and External Rites may be tollerated seeing there may be the Temple of God tho Prophaned A Holy City without a Wall A Field of the Lord tho the Enemy Sow Tares Look back and Consider that the Jewish Church was stained with almost all Enormities of a higher Nature both for Manners and Faith and yet unto the same all Israelites and Jews whatsoever without difference were Compelled by King Josiah and others when the People of God Worshipped the Calf in the Wilderness when they Adored the Brazen Serpent when they served the Gods of Nations when they Bowed themselves to Baal when they Burnt Incense and Sacrificed unto Idols and for which Gods Wrath was Kindled against them and the Prophets justly Condemned them yet there was pure Corn tho mingled with Tares A Church of some sound tho mingled with some unsound Members which will be unto the Harvest untill the end of the World till the Angells the Reapers come and gather the Tares to be Burned with unquencheable Fire Therefore all Parties and Men of different perswasions ought seriously to Consider that the best Men are but Men at the best alike Subject to Passions and Frailties to have their Affections misperswaded and their Judgments misguided some to have knowledge without Zeal others to have Zeal without knowledge that the greatest Clerks are not always the Wisest men and therefore that both they that have and they that have not the truth or best Pollity on their side in Differences and Disputes of
this Nature which concern chiefly if not meerly Polity and Regulations Rites and Ceremonies ought to be so Charitable one towards another as to believe that they all holding fast as they all do the main Principles and Doctrines of the Gospel that they err only by misconstruction and that each others Errors are not concerning Fundamentals but Discipline only and those also purae negationis and not pravae dispositionis and therefore may live peacibly and holily here under either Government and may hereafter meet in the presence of God and see his Face with Comfort whosoever should submit to other § Consider again that those Churches which were Founded and Governed by the Apostles themselves and where they Preached and Resided were not exempt from Imperfections perhaps as great if not greater than those now in the Church of England whereof the Epistle to the Gal. gives a clear Testimony but more clearly 1 Cor. 1.12 and 1 Cor. 3.4 5. As to their Charity they are Taxed that some of them adhered to Paul some to Cephas others to Apollos with a Schism and express Renting of the Seamless Coat of Christ. And as for Opinions and Doctrines there were some that denyed the Resurrection 1 Cor. 15.12 As for Peace and Concord they drew their Pleadings and Differences before the Tribunals of Insidels 1 Cor. 11.8.9 1 Cor. 6. As for manners they had Fornication among them and such as was not so much as named amongst the Gentiles 1 Cor. 5.12 As for Customs the Supper of the Lord was converted into Banquets where some were Drunk and others Hungry nay there were Heresies and Schisms among them also 1 Cor. 11.20 21. c. And all this while the Apostle acknowledgeth them to be a true Church and a Body of Christ and did not silence himself but continued labouring by his Preachments Fastings and Prayers to amend them and yet he lived under a Government Averse even to Christianity it self How ought we then to stand fast and comply and dispence with some irregularities in the Church where God by his singular Grace hath setled us altho in the Government thereof there have been and still are Imperfections and Abuses which are also by tract of time converted into marvellous grievances For reason of State and of good Government its good to be observant of all established Sanctions and tho many Novelties of Reformations do arise yet to accommodate our selves with readiness unto them howbeit we do not much approve of them because things of Custom have their Remedies but Innovations are never without their mischiefs against which it is very hard to find a Remedy § Edification in the Indisputable truths of Faith and in the Indispensable duties of Life being the main end and Objects of Church Government and Discipline its Honour enough for Episcopal Government to enforce Gods Commandements only there being no necessity of enjoyning more than what the Apostles did in plain and perspicuous terms without making use of obscure Allegorical and Metaphorical Expressions for Exorbitant Powers for Excommunication Censures and God knows what Yet Be it as some Dissenters would have it that all Men professing the Gospel of Jesus Christ have an undoubted Right and Priviledge to Assemble and Associate together to Pray Preach and Perform Gospel Ordinances without Assenting or Consenting nay contrary to the Approbation and Commands of the Civil Magistrate nay and that by a Paramount Power derived even from Christ himself and all this not without the Warrant of this Demonstration that except it had been and were still so the Gospel could never have been Preached to all Nations then mortal Enemies to Christ and his Gospel nor could yet be Preached where the unknown God is only Worshipped Be it so as in truth it is so that the Preachers of the Word of Salvation and the Administrators of the Sacraments being things Commanded them by God ought not to be forbidden by men and are so far exempt from Humane Law that the Prohibition of them is of no Force or Virtue it being in such Cases better to obey God than Men. 5 Act. 22. and for that no Mans right ought to be denyed him either in things Civil or Spiritual for fear they should abuse it for that then no mans right shall be preserved safe unto him Be it so I say even as they would have it yet as surely and as undoubtedly the Caesars have their Patent their Charter and Charge from the same Paramount Power for the Countenancing and Propagating the Gospel and supervising the Professors thereof and they have a Pastorship to give an Account of as well as those of the Clergy and therefore they ought to be as scrupulously careful and as Zealously watchful as themselves Was it not Prophesied of David a King 34 Ezek. 23. I will set up one Shepherd over them and he shall Feed them even my Servant David he shall Feed them and he shall be their Shepherd and I the Lord will be their God and my Servant David a Prince among them v. 24. and was he not taken accordingly from the Sheepfold to Feed Jacob his People and Israel his Inheritance and he Fed them according to the Integrity of his Heart and guided them by the Skilfulness of his Hands 78 Psal 70.71 72. Besides were this Objection of greater Force than in truth it is yet it hath no place in this Kingdom for that such Liberty of Assembling is not only not denyed but permitted Countenanced nay Commanded and Churches separated for that very end and purpose only that what Talents what Light soever the Complainants may have they may not hide them under a Bushel or in a Conventicle but may manifest them publickly to all Commers But if under this their great Gospel Priviledge and under the Shelter of indiscreet Niceties they will meet in Private and thereby give a jealous State great Cause only to suspect that they do it that thereby they may the more opportunely Foster and Foment a Party Averse to present Established Constitutions of Church and State then certainly Caesar hath as undoubted a Gospel Power and right to Prevent Inhibit and punish Transgressors If their Doctrine be sound and good why should they not have Churches if not why should they be permitted in Corners Look but a little back and consider if the late times have not given too great cause of fears and jealousies to a Wise and Christian State to use all just endeavours to prevent the like for the Future Consider also what moved our fore-fathers to make severe and Sanguinary Laws against Papists was it not because they were troublers of our Israel working like Moles under Ground endeavouring the Ruin of our Church and State If some may be suffered tho but by Connivence to break thro small Laws both themselves and others will thereby be encouraged to set the greater at nought Herein I desire to be rightly understood not as if I Pleaded for a general Tolleration nothing less
a sin as great as the former not to wrest and misapply the New Testament only but to hook in the Old Testament also by Head and Ears to serve a wicked turn and to make that intend the Pope also questo dispregiare Dio nel suo Vicario si chiama da Samuel Profeta 1 Sam. 15.23 una sorte d' Idolatria And this despising God in his Vicar is called by Samuel a kind of Idolatry If one should retort and say that so to expound Samuel is a kind of Nonsence what could be said against it The Text and Story is so well known that it requires no repetition There Samuel as a Prophet by Gods express Precept sharply rebukes Saul telling him that Obedience was more acceptable to God than Sacrifice and that it was as the sin of Idolatry not to rest upon his Commandment And shall Bellarmine now put a humane Precept subject to errors in the Ballance with an express Precept from God by a slight of wresting of Scripture Impune Can any Man that hath any spark of Grace bear it with patience that Humane Precepts should be thus equalled with Divine It is horrid Impiety thus to match and rank any man with God Almighty It is Gospel-like to perswade due obedience and reverence to the word of God in the Mouths of Prelates but to enhaunce and inlarge it beyond its just bounds is rather to abuse and villifie than advance it Who can but wonder and stand amazed that Samuel above 1100 years before there was any Pope or Prediction that there should be one or any description what manner of Person this omnipotent Vicar should be should yet by saying that not to obey Gods express Precept delivered by the mouth of his Prophet is as it were Idolatry should thereby intend the Pope And that Bellarmine should conclude from hence that to despise God in his Vicar is called by Samuel a kind of Idolatry Put all this together 1. That Samuel spake of Saul a King because thou hast rejected the word of the Lord not of a Pope or of his Vicar he hath also rejected thee from being King 2. That under the Law God had no Vicar 3. That Peter was Christ's first Vicar according to their own Confession 4. That the Authority of a Prophet in the Old Testament was Infallible yea even in the least things 5. That Christ's Vicar in the New Testament may by their own Confession err except in matters of Faith è Cathedra With what colour or shew of ingenuity or reason can this their great Goliah Bellarmine aver that Samuel terms this despising of God in his Vicar a kind of Idolatry Deus bone Unto what Absurdities will not Pride Ambition Interest drive men unto Now as Jannes and Jambres withstood Moses so do these also resist the truth men of corrupt minds reprobate concerning the Faith But they shall proceed no farther for their folly shall be manifest unto all men as theirs also was 2 Tim. 3.8.9 without doubt one abuse of Power and Authority gives a greater Scandal to the World and is a cause of greater mischiefs than a hundred disobediences of the subject and the person of the Superior as more eminent is much more bound by his greater obligation to God to do his duty quo major sum eo plus laborabo ut Sol. § Tho it cannot be denied that to err manifestly against the Scriptures be the most dangerous and greatest blindness that can possibly besall any Christians and the greatest Chastisement that God can impose in punishment of them whosoever shall make use of the Divine Authority to serve their own turns in any Worldly Interests yet so Cative is their Zeal of inlarging the greatness and Impery of the Roman Pontiffs that Bellarmine and his Crew make no bones of wresting and perverting any Scripture Old or New to make it serve their turns as hath been Intimated before Bellarmine to prove the Pope's Power to be a Supream Power given of God Mat. 16.10 John 21.16 examined he produceth Mat. 16.19 whatsoever thou shalt bind c. and whatsoever thou shalt loose c. and that this power is universal and over all Christ's Sheep he produceth John 21.16 Feed my Sheep which Texts taken in their true and right sence we heartily imbrace i.e. bounded and limited unto things only belonging to the Kingdom of Hâ—â—â—â—n and â—â— the Edification of the Church according to Evangelical Rules Hebr. 5.1 2. c. For every High Priest taken from among Men is ordained for men in things pertaining to God that he may offer both gifts and Sacrifices for sins c. But from hence to ground a new term of Vniversalium and by this ambiguous term to extend and strain it even to Worldly matters is a Doctrine not true nor peaceable nor according to Christ's meaning Nay Pope Gregory Lib. 7. Ep. 30. held this very word Vniversal supercilious and in very great Jealousie when he was first stiled Papa Vniversalis and said it was a proud Title and imported as much as if he were the only Bishop and no other man Bishop but himself And so to have Authority most Universal is sec quid to say that there is no other Authority but it For if the stile of Papa Vniversalis according to Gregory take away all other Bishops a most Universal Authority Pari ratione must needs take away all other Authorities Now to prove this Vniversal Authority it is said to Peter Matth. 16.19 and in his person to all Popes whatsoever thou shalt bind c. and whatsoever thou shalt loose c. ergo their Authority is most Universal Be it so but then by the same Logick in Matth. 18.18 it is said to all the Disciples and in their persons to all Priests their Successors whatsoever ye shall bind c. and whatsoever ye shall loose c. ergo there shall be sundry most Vniversal Authorities which implies a flat contradiction jam sumus ergo pares Indeed the Whatsoever is Vniversal but it is bounded and restrained by the words before viz. the Keys of the Kingdom of Heaven so that what pertains to the Kingdom of Heaven was committed to Peter and to the other Apostles but what pertains to the Kingdoms of the Earth Christ never committed to him and consequently to no Priest or Bishop or Pope whatsoever The Genuine sense of this Text is before delivered The other proof by feed my Sheep is also Vniversal in respect of my Sheep but God denieth by Ezek. 34. that to eat the Fat and to feed themselves and to Cloath themselves with the Wool is to feed his Sheep he denieth that to kill them that are fed that to domineer over thom with force and with Cruelty is to feed his Sheep he denieth that to eat up the good Pasture themselves and to tread down with their feet the residue of the Pastures that to drink up the clear water and to foul the residue with their feet is