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
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
repugnant to good Government Certainly those Princes are much very much to blame and guilty of a great sin that neglect to preserve that Jurisdiction and Power that God and the Governed have given them because their Authority is given unto them not for themselves but for the benefit of the People they being the depositaries the Custodes and Executors not the Patrons of that Authority to change impeach or diminish it at their own Will and pleasure Wherefore it is a gross ignorance and a most wretched sin not to maintain that which God hath conferred upon them and Princes are not peradventure guilty of a greater sin and offence before God than out of an ignorant Zeal to have suffered so great a part of their power to be usurped from them by Ecclesiasticks and that they are no longer able to rule their people committed to their Charge without admitting and intermixing an Ecclesiastical Government to bear some sway of which all Popish Princes are highly guilty The long negligence of Princes in this particular hath been pernitious to the true legitimate Church of God truly so called and to all Ecclesiastical Order and happily the true Original found of all those mischiefs which by gradations hath brought into the Church the most Worldly politick and selfish Government that ever was and thereby busied the Ecclesiasticks in things not only different but also contrary to the Instituted Ministery of Christ keeping Christendom in perpetual discord and even the Divisions that are at this day amongst Christians so irreconcileable by any other means than the Omnipotent and miraculous hand of God which were not bred so much by Obstinacy in diversity of Opinions and Contrariety of Doctrine as from the strife about Jurisdiction which after by degeneration and growing into Factions hath taken up the Mask of Religion And it is observable that the best Princes from time to time have been they that have kept their Jurisdiction most intire and the negligent Princes they that have given away or lost a great part or by their Insufficiency suffered others to Usurp or Metamorphize it with a deformation from its purity which it first had in the Church And for a probate of this it is not necessary to run back to the examples of the Constantines the Theodosioes the Justinians whose Laws and Codes whoever will read shall find this to be true but to those that are nearer to our own Age and to those whom the Roman Church this day acknowledgeth to be even the Basis of their Temporal Greatness Charles the Fifth Philip the Second and other Catholick Kings It will be hard to find such a Government amongst Christians which at some time or other hath not suffered by Encounters with the Court of Rome about its Jurisdiction It was about 1100 years since the abuse of imploying Spiritual Arms to Worldly ends crept in to maintain their usurped Powers whereby they have given an Eternal Scandal to Religion and are now grown so Kâ—gnaviter impudentes That the Catholick Religion with them is no other but what their own pride ambition interests will and pleasure do dictate Memorials are in all Histories of the lamentable Tragedies that have succeeded when Popes have proceeded to Excommunicate Princes and publish Interdicts against Kings and States and what hath been the occasion of the quarrels but Jurisdiction witness the centum gravamina of Germany During the Quarrels between Pope Paul the Fifth and the State of Venice there wanted not Writers that reckoned up the intollerable oppression of Princes by Popes who both in times past and present make lamentable and continual complaints of them A Catalogue of which Books may be seen at the end of the Memoires of Philip de Canay and also in Goldastus The dayly vexation which they have by the Nuntioes treating with Princes as imperiously and insolently as if they were his Slaves carrying alwayes before them the Medusaes head Pretence of Religion to fright the fearful and such as do not dive and penetrate into the depth of their Secrets the Arcana of the Papacy which happily the profoundest Polititians are not able to do so dark are their works and so deep even unto Hell do they dig to hide their Councils a shrewd sign that they are deeds of darkness and cannot abide the light They farther shewed that nothing would content the Pontificians but the Servitude and Subjection of all Italy at least So easily and ordinarily is Religion made a Stalking Horse or Instrument of the greatest wickedness by those who are either fallen from Truth or else fascinated by some more potent error suffering themselves to be guided or blinded by corrupt and worldly Byasses Paul the Fifth was so bent upon his own Jurisdiction and of that Pontificial Chair that his great design was to Establish a Congregation in Rome whose only study and charge should be to consider of the means whereby Ecclesiastical Authority might be maintained and enlarged and to mortifie the presumptions of Secular Princes In order whereunto he sent into all Courts and Kingdoms such Nuntioes and Agitators as were inclinable to like thoughts His Nuntio in Venice was so passionate in this Cause that he blushed not to say unto the Duke in full Assembly that Almes and other works of Piety the frequenting of Sacraments and all other good and Christian Actions ad nihilum valent ultra were nothing available if men did not favor the Ecclesiastical liberty these were his words And in his ordinary discourse would often say that Christian perfection doth not consist in Almes-Deeds and Devotions but in exalting the Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction which is the true Cement of that perfection No wonder that the Nuntio was so peremptory when the Pope himself would say that he was placed in that Chair for to sustain the Jurisdiction Ecclesiastical that he would not endure Secular Princes to Judgâ— Ecclesiastical Persons who are not subject unto Kings and whom they cannot Chastise tho they be Rebellious that he had power over all and could deprive Kings and to this end had Legions of Angels for his aid and assistance that tho he should lose his skin yet would maintain the Cause of God and his own Reputation and in defence whereof he would think himself happy to lose his blood Trim Tram like Master like Man Moreover they are arrived at the Quintescence of Policy as to maintain in all places a terrible faction and pay them with the Purses of that State whereof they Plot the utter Ruine Whither all these Doctrines tend he that will but open his eyes may see even to make the Pope the Head and Confaloniere the chief Standard-bearer of the Church and Emperors Kings and Princes their Caudataries only to carry their Traines after them In plain English if these Doctrines be received as true and Censures and Excommunication of any force or virtue as they are but mear vanity and Bug-beares All Princes were in a sad condition nay utterly undone both in
to the judgments of their Auditors and I never heard that Protestant Divines did ever pretend to greater Abilities than they had or to any Infallibility and if we poor Laicks should not be left to our own free judgments and examinations what better choice can we make than to philip Cross or Pile whether to be Prelate Presbyter Independant Quaker or Phanatick Protestant or Papist Turk or Jew Wherefore hath God differenced us from Bruits by giving us light of Reason and of Conscience if others must have the guidance and custody of them and we be led Captive by the Reason and Conscience of other men We ought no more to rely on another man's light of Reason or of Conscience than on another man's eyes to see or legs to walk withall This were but to put a Cheat upon our selves and to cast the care of our Faith and Religion upon others as if not worthy our own care or concern or as if we be seduced they not we were to answer for it God's Precepts were not given to Popes Prelates Priests Councils Synods or particular Churches or to great Clarks only but to every Individual and every man ought to act according as he is perswaded in his own Heart we are Disciples only not Slaves Besides are not Laicks Priests also Is it not Gospel He hath made us Kings and Priests to God and his Father Rev. 1.6 and for certain the Holy Ghost and Learning are not the Clergies Peculiar § As to the Romish Clergy I have much more to say unto them not expecting any just or fair dealing from them for that they have treated us far worse than the Aegyptians did the Israelites for they held them in Bondage but four hundred and thirty years but the Roman Pontiffs have evilly treated us more than that time twice told treated us indeed after a very strange rate as if we could not tell ten or as if we did not know our right hands from our left Treated us as the Philistines did Sampson put out our eyes and then make sport with us our understandings must be captivated to the Popes bare ipse dixit whether with or against Reason or Scripture or indeed against our very Sences and we must be content to be led blindfold into the Abyss of ignorance and destruction where Abbaddon reigns and made believe it is our happiness so to be as if ignorance in good earnest were the Mother of Devotion Dominus Deus noster Papa like God on mount Sinai thundring out his Interdicts that none presume to go up into the Mount nor yet to touch but the border of it not so much as to peep into the Scripture without leave forsooth least we be shot thro with the dart of Ex-communication or drawn into the Inquisition tho all Scripture was given indifferently to all Men by Christ and his Apostles as their only Patent and Evidence for their Inheritance reserved for them in Heaven and is in its own nature profitable for Doctrine for Reproof for Correction for Instruction for Righteousness 2 Tim. 3.10 and tho we are commanded to search them for that in them we have eternal Life 5 John 39. But this ought to be no wonderment to any that they who have kept us blindfold so long should yet desire to keep us hood-winkt still Heroick and publick spirited minds tho long plaid upon and abus'd with shadow of Reason and usurped Powers will at length find words and reasons to ease and right themselves Every Man is too apt to indulge his own fancy and opinions yea and intitle God and his Word to the favouring of them also we shall be all saved or damned according to what our selves not what our Priests do believe and practise Publick refutation of errors tho long received and tho contrary to the design and interest of some and those no small ones hath in its own nature more of Candour and sweetness than of Gall and ought so to be esteemed He doth too proudly scorn his own imperfections and corrupted nature that blusheth to think that he can err and as they betray too much selfishness and weakness who dare not write or speak Truth so do they much more that for ends not good are afraid that Truth should come to light Nature hath not left the most beautiful flesh and blood without some moles some blemishes The Church on Earth tho lovely yet is not without her Naevi some blackness with her oomeliness and to flatter her Children in them is worse than to write a Satyr against them As Revenge is not more due to any Injuries than unto those that are committed against the Church so no Benefits are more valuable than those that are done unto the Church In all Writings great care ought to be taken to write nothing that might give offence nor to omit any thing that can be said in defence of Truth without suffering our Pens to run riot in any thing which by interpretation might be drawn into offence altho the malicious subtilties and prevaricating Wits of some hath made it appear that there can be nothing so moderately spoken which is not subject to depraved expositions My main design is to discover Truth sine formidine oppositi without respect or dread of any interest or party Amicus Praesul Amicus Presbyter Amicus Independens sed magis amica Veritas I am not ignorant how imprudent it is to disoblige or anger great Men or any Party or indeed any number of men I have tasted of that sowr grape already tho by endeavors only to find out Truth by discoursing of it but that Spirit is wretchedly mean that dares not write or speak Truth without a sneaking and pitiful Apology If we had those hungring thirsting and most ardent affections to all sincere uncorrupted and heavenly Truths which are proportional to that Spirit of Christ which is or ought to be in us there would not be such bitter Contests and Animosities as are amongst us for trivials things rather respecting Interest and Domination than the sincere Word of Truth which adds value and honor to every Asserter thereof but receives no value from any Man I have endeavoured quantum in me to do that right to all Perswasions as to urge what may most conduce to the making good of the same and what their cause will rationally bear and that in terms plain and perspicuous without School-tricks If I have missed of my aim the Reason is at hand Bernardus non vidit omnia no more Oraculous or infallible than themselves They that see best see at best but thro a Glass darkly even the Scribes the Wise and the Disputers of this World are many times both far from Certainty and far from Truth and no wonder Hath not God made foolish the wisdom of this World 1 Cor. 1.20 Elias cum venerit solvit dubia THE SUMME Of Mr. J. M. His TREATISE MR J. M. in his Treatise of Civil Power in Ecclesiastical Causes denies the
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
private resolutions can abrogate the Laws of a Nation wherein he lives For as Civil Law being the Act of a whol Body Politick doth therefore overrule each several part of the same Body so there is no reason that any one Common-wealth it self should to the prejudice of another annul that whereupon the whole world hath agreed Now as there is great cause of Communion and consequently of Laws for the maintenance of communion amongst Nations so amongst Nations Christian the like in regard even of Christianity hath been always adjudged needful And in this kind of correspondence amongst Nations the force of General Councils doth stand For as one and the same Law divine is unto all Christian Churches a rule for the chiefest things by means whereof they all in that respect make one Church as having all but one Lord and Lawgiver Christ one Faith one Baptism Jam. 4.12 Eph. 4.5 So th◠urgent necessities of mutual communion for propagation of the Gospel and for preservation of unity in these things as also for order in some other things convenient to be every where uniformily kept maketh it requisite that the Church of God here on earth have her Laws also of spiritual commerce between Christian Nations Laws by vertue whereof all Churches may enjoy freely the use of those reverend religious and sacred consultations which are termed Councils General a thing whereof Gods own blessed Spirit was the Author a thing practised by the holy Apostles themselves a thing always afterwards kept and observed throughout the world a thing never otherwise than highly esteemed of till pride ambition and tyranny began by factions and vile endeavours to abuse that divine Invention unto the furtherance of wicked purposes But as the just Authority of Civil Courts and Parliaments is not therefore to be abolished because sometimes there is cunning used to frame them according to the private intents and interests of men over-potent in the Common-wealth so the grievous abuse which hath been of Councils should rather cause men to study how so gracious a thing may again be reduced to the first perfection than in regard of the stains and blemishes sithence growing be held for ever in extreme disgrace What hath been here affirmed of the Laws of Nations in general and of General Councils to make the thing we treat of more evident and reasonable the same reasons are as applicable and adequate to all intents and purposes of every particular Kingdom and Government and runs parallel throughout all Laws both of Church and State made by every particulat Church and Nation and it cannot be otherwise without shaking and hazarding the very foundation of all peaceable and good Governments in the World For should it be in the power of any small or greater numbers less than the whol to confederat and avowedly to act contrary to publick established Sanctions either of Church or State what issue could be expected but abominable disorder and confusion and every man to do what seems best in his own eyes as once in Israel when there was no King for as the Civil Laws of every Nation so of England are made for the whole Kingdom primarily and to the particular Divisions and Fraternities secondarily and obedience is yielded unto them not as Eastern or as Western Northern or Southern men but as Subjects of the same Kingdom So the Laws of Christ are given to the whole Church primarily and yet they oblige every particular Church to the observation of them but not because in such a particular congregated Brotherhood but because Subjects of Christs visible ministerial Church I am verily perswaded that it cannot demonstratively be made appear by any that every congregated Church in the best and purest times after the days of the Apostles was a Plenipotentiary Church unto it self to all intents and purposes I must confess that they would very much have obliged us if they had at any time given us any one instance of such a Church but they having not yet done it I take it for granted that it is not to be done though if such an instance could be made yet the posture of Ecclesiastical persons and affairs being so much different now from what it was then may quite alter the case I must confess it cannot reasonably be imagined that it could then be otherwise because in those days all Kingdoms and Governments were so far from being friends to Christianity or Christian Churches that they were all Persecutors thereof and therefore not possible that there should be any National Churches and happily were none till the lays of Constantine the first Christian Emperor § Their Maxim or Position is this viz. 1. That they who are called out of the world by the ministry of the Gospel as all Christians are have power given them by Christ being a competent number to gather themselves together in his name 2. That a Church so gathered becomes a Body or spiritual Corporation and being joyned thus by mutual assent of each person have power one over another as in all Fraternities and liberty from Christ to choose their Officers censure Offenders make Canons and Orders in Circumstantials for the regulating of their affairs § Unto the first part of their Position I can so far subscribe that it is tru that where but two or three whether with or without a Priest are gathered together in Christs Name the presence of Christs Spirit is by promise annexed unto them Matth. 18.20 and the particular Assemblies of Christians were thereby intended and approved by Christ viz. to have communion in the publick exercise of holy duties mentioned Act. 2.42 46. viz. breaking of bread and prayer But that it doth describe or purport a mutual agreement which doth formally constitute them a Church Independent without any regard had to the National Church wherein they live is not so very clear the Text not warranting the same in the least if it do then every Family by the same Text might claim Independency § As unto the other part of the Position I can by no means submit without very great qualifications But if the second part of their Position be tru of every particular Assembly it must necessarily be much more tru of the whole or National Church for which they were primarily given and ordained and unto other Churches under the same Government but secondarily and subordinat Moreover consider the Original Commission for gathering of Churches Go teach all Nations and baptize them in the Name of the Father Son and Holy Ghost Matth. 28.19 which Commission was before the Church was cantonized into divisions and subdivisions by publick Authority or the Independent Congregational Fraternities set up by any particular men The distinction of Churches fell out naturally and necessarily as this or that City or Nation was here or there converted by some one or other of the Apostles and their Successors and so division of Churches came secondarily for convenient administration of Ordinances and communication of
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
Faith the same Doctrines and Worship and the providence of God having called and sixed them here as if to this great work of Preaching the Gospel designed their Mouths cannot justly be stopt but upon some politick Accounts and reasons of State only Prudence not Conscience is then to be the guide of Councils For Example If a Presbyter hath swallowed a solemn League and Covenant so solemnly that he cannot nor will not renounce it what should the Government do Indulge those that will not protect that It portends a dangerous Reserve a sower Leaven Tinder in the Bosom apt to take sire apt to relapse into the same prodigious mischiefs Is it not much more agreeable to sound reason that the Royal Son should pare the Nails of those that cannot disgorge themselves of that fatal Covenant which introduced those Premises which yielded that sanguinary Conclusion which made the Father a Glorious King by bringing of him to the Block Conscience of factious Priests or of Covenanters in such cases is not adust in any measure Adaequate in the Ballance against the safety peace and quiet of Crowns and Kingdoms for that we have no Lydius lapis no infallible touch-stone to discover whether Consciences are truly weak or only pretended to be so the searcher of hearts only knows that insallibly And if pretence may be a just excuse to warrant disobedience unto established Sanctions Laws would then be no Laws at all for he that would might and he that would not might choose whether he would obey or no for that no Man can distinguish between real and pretended Scrupulosities That some should be indulged and others not ought to be no cause of complaint neither for that every thing is n t convenient for every Body nor for every Sect and State the same Legislators that have power to Indulge some may by the same right forbid others and indeed make any Laws convenient For the Common-wealth ought to be always kept in a quiet and peaceable temper even ad pondus if possible enough This only by way of Hint and Caution that there be great waryness and circumspection in granting and denying Indulgences If Priests otherwise Orthodox and worthy be silenced for such or the like reasons this ariseth not from the discipline of the Church nor from the Nature of Lyturgies but from the Government of the State What Must there then be no relief for scrupulous and tender Consciences that cannot renounce Covenants or comply with Innocent Ceremonies and Commands yes if they are truly so and do not enter-sere with the Established Government of Church and State 1. Consciences really and truly Scrupulous and tender if they break not out into overt act are not within the Magistrates Province but if rashly without consideration of obtaining or foresight of peril or perturbation of the Church or State they will adventure to take Solemn Leagues and Covenants to introduce a separate Mode or Government in Church or State contrary to that already established by the Magistrate then they most properly come within his verge and cognizance 2. Consciences ought generally not to be forced nay cannot whilst they are in their proper circle but are to be gained and reduced by dint of Argument and force of Truth by moderate connivence and by the use of good Instruction and perswasion 3. Consciences when they rove and become excentrick moving beyond their proper circle and bounds and being out of their proper Sphear tend and prove to be matter of Faction loose their proper Nature and forfeit their just Priviledges and Prerogatives then and not till then the civil Magistrate may take notice and justly restrain or punish their undue practises and contempts if such though guilded most speciously with pretences of Conscience and Religion § As happily their opinion is not so infallibly orthodox who affirm that all Church Discipline and Reformation must be after one Platform and that they which will perfectly reform must bring and reduce the form unto the State which it was at in the days of the Apostles A thing in the opinion of Judicious Hooker neither possible nor certain nor yet absolutely convenient For that which was used in their dayes the Scripture he saith doth not fully declare so that making those times the Rule and Canon of Church Government they make a Rule which not being possible to be fully known is as impossible to be fully kept so happily their opinion is as little Orthodox and as little convenient who deem it no good policy to alter or innovate any thing in Church affairs or to endeavour to reduce it to that State wherein it stood in the dayes of the Apostles the one opinion conducing to bring Reformation to Anullity the other to an Impossibility In elder times soon after the dayes of the Apostles and more especially after Constantines dayes there were imperfections no doubt and warpings from the Apostolical Rules and practises and happily in some things greater than in the present Antiquity therefore ought not so to be revered and adored as that something in these latter Ages may not be reputed better and more convenient there being no necessity that the same publick things should be always ordered in one and the self same manner but as times have mutations so it may be sit to alter or change the Government of Church or State It is possible that the Antient manner of Governing may not be profitable except the Antient state of the Church do return also But if Antiquity must be so revered as not to admit of the least Innovation then without all peradventure that Government which Christ and his Apostles instituted and lest unto his Church must necessarily be the most Antient and have the fairest pretence unto Jus divinum for its justification and then for those very reasons ought to remain unto this very day unalterable and all other Modes and Forms can be but Prudential only and at the discretion of the Church rightly so called And there can be no doubt but that Christ left such a Government to his Church as might be exercised in any Kingdom Christian or other without enterfering or clashing with the Civil Government of any Nation or Kingdom wheresoever the Apostles and their Successors in all Ages and Countries should preach the Gospel and gather Churches And that the self-same Government is plainly set down in the new Testament and that it was instituted by the Apostles and that the Antient Fathers after their example did prosecute the same for about 250 years after Christ with great success and increase of Converts unto Christianity And such Government being practicable then notwithstanding the great enmity that all Nations and Governments had even unto Christianity it self there can be no doubt and no reason can evince but it may be as practicable now which is the opinion of very many and those not Phanaticks And then Independents will have very fair and antient Records to shew for their Congregational way if
these are executed by the power of the Judge who enforceth submission so those only by the will of the Guilty to receive them who refusing them the Ecclesiastical Judge remaineth without execution and hath no power to enforce but to foreshew the Judgment of God which will follow in this Life or the next This kind of Proceedings and this kind of Judicature was according unto Christ's Institution and would not enterfeer with any Civil Government Christian or not Christian and unto which the Apostles did conform and which lasted some Centuries of years in the Church and was esteemed by the Saints of those more pure times the Judgment of Charity not of Jurisdiction because they did thereby charitably not judicially or magisterially reconcile the persons compose the differences and rebuke the Sins and Vices of the Believing Brethren and did thereby prevent the Scandal and Reproaches that otherwise they and their Religion would have been exposed and liable unto from Unbelievers This kind of Judicature was so far from being essential or peculiar unto the Bishops and Presbyters as that the least esteemed in the Church were as capable of it as the greatest indeed any that were wise and able to judge between the Brethren rather than to suffer them to go to Law before the Vnbelievers 1 Cor. 6.4 5 6. The Apostles who had greater Abilities and understood their Commission better than ever any Pope did refused to take this Charge upon themselves as being not fit for Preachers of the Gospel to take any Civil Employment that might any way impede the main End and Design which was to give themselves continually to Prayer and to the Ministry of the Word and by reason whereof they could not serve God in that whereunto they were chiefly called without distraction and therefore for the same reason would not serve Tables but would have such Duties devolved upon others Acts 6.2 3 4. Nay Paul most solemnly professeth that Christ sent him not to Baptize but to Preach the Gospel 1 Cor. 1.17 So wholly did he devote his Service to the exact performance of his Commission Of the same Opinion was the Bishop of Aiace in the Council of Trent who in the Debate of Residence which he held to be Jure Divino complained that the cause of their Non-Residence was that the Bishops did busie themselves in the Courts of Princes and in the Affairs of the World being Judges Chancellors Secretaries Councellors Treasurers there being few Offices of State into which Bishops have not insinuated themselves though forbid by St. Paul 2 Tim. 2.4 who thought it necessary that a Souldier of the Church should not entangle himself with the Affairs of this Life that he may please him who hath chosen him to be a Souldier therefore he moved that the Council would constitute that it should not be lawful for Bishops or others who have Cure of Souls to exercise any Secular Office or Charge In the Ecclesiastical Laws there is a whole Title to this effect Ne Clerici vel Monachi Secularibus negotiis se immisceant And St. Chrysostom hath a long Discourse In Decretal in Mat. Hom. 26. Consid 1.24 complaining of Clergy-men leaving the Care of Souls become Proctors Economists c. practising things unbeseeming the Ministry Though the Papalins cannot deny these to be great Truths yet in this as in divers other Cases they please themselves with false Glosses upon plain Texts of Scripture asserting most Magisterially for their Justification the Popes Authority to dispense not only with Humane but Divine Laws that in Humane Laws his Authority is absolute and unlimited because he is superior to them all and therefore when he doth dispense though without any cause the Dispensation notwithstanding was to be held for good and that in Divine Laws he had power to dispense but not without a Cause alledging St. Paul for their justifications 1 Cor. 4.1 Who saith that the Ministers of Christ are the Dispensers of the Mysteries of God and that to him the Apostle the Dispensation of the Gospel had been committed 1 Cor. 9.17 And that howsoever the Popes Dispensation concerning the Divine Law be not of force yet every one ought to captivate his Vnderstanding and believe that he hath granted it for a lawful Cause and that it is Temerity to call it into question Hist Conc. Trent 675. Bonny Glosses I must confess and well calculated for the Zenith of the Popes Altitudes and Authorities but they are quite contrary to Apostolick Doctrine and the Conclusion drawn hath no warrant at all from the Text for the Text doth not prove a power of Dispensation to be in the Bishop of Rome i.e. a Disobligation from the Law and Commandments of God and the Gospel as the Popes would have us believe but only a power to dispense i.e. to publish and declare the Divine Mysteries and Word of God which is perpetual and remaineth inviolable for ever according to Eph. 3.2 8 9. Eph. 6.19 Col. 1.26 c. 4.3 What is this but to wrest and pervert the very Words and Sense of Scripture and as much as in them lieth to make a new Gospel as they made a new Creed at Trent In Human Laws happily a Dispensation may lie for that the Law-makers are subject to infirmities and fallibility and unable to foresee all Cases and future Accidents and Occurrences which when they come to be discovered and known may justly admit of some Exceptions and Dispensations But where God is the Law-giver from whose all-seeing Eye nothing is concealed and by whom no Accident is not foreseen the Law can have no Exception no Dispensation for that by such Dispensation the strength of all Gods Laws is taken away made null and in truth escheated into the Breast and Power of the Popes Holiness From such corrupt Glosses it is that there are few or no Cardinals without many Bishopricks how incompatible soever they are together Hence also the Use of Commendaes and Vnions for Life Administrations at first invented probably for good ends by which against all Laws many Benesices were given to one person alone really with appearance that he had but one only Therefore the Law of God and Nature ought not to be esteemed as a common written Law which in some Cases happily may be dispensed withal and made more gentle for that all his Laws are even Equity and Justice it self Besides the Pope who takes himself to be the great Dispenser Paramount cannot in any case free him that is bound Paul was obliged to preach the Gospel as being called thereunto and so was Peter and all the rest of the Apostles and all the Bishops and Priests are no otherwise sent and called than to preach the Gospel and feed Christ's Flock as all the Apostles were which includes the Pope himself if he be Peters Successor yea a necessity was laid upon him yea wo unto him if he did not preach the Gospel 1 Cor. 9.16 And therefore he most earnestly desires
the Ephesians c. 6.18 19 20. that they would always pray with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit and watch thereunto with all perseverance and supplication for him for what I pray that he might have a Dispensation not to preach or not to attend his Flock and be Non-resident or having put his hand to the Plough that he might look back or that he might have great Employments in Civil Affairs in Princes Courts that would necessarily hinder his preaching Nothing less What then Even that Vtterance might be given unto him that he might open his mouth boldly to dispence and make known the Mysteries of the Gospel for which he was an Ambassador Eph. 6.18 19 20. The like unto the Colossians c. 4.2 3. And did not the same Paul most solemnly and most severely charge Timothy before God and the Lord Jesus Christ who shall judge the quick and the dead at his appearing and his Kingdom to preach the Word to be instant in season out of season reprove rebuke c. 2 Tim. 4.1 2. By which it demonstratively appears that in St. Paul's Grammar and Construction to dispense and make known are Terms Synonimous and Equivalent maugre the false Glosses of the Papalins And when think you would Paul unto whom by Revelation was made known the Mystery of Christ whereof he was made a Minister that he should preach among the Gentiles the unsearchable Riches of Christ and to make all men see what is the Fellowship of the Mystery c. Eph. 3.2 3 8 9. or any other of the Apostles have besought Peter or any of his Successors of Rome for a Dispensation not to Preach They were better taught than so than to take other Civil Employments which must necessarily hinder them from preaching and declaring the Mystery of the Gospel for in true understanding to be a Priest and not to preach is to be no Priest having as much as in them lies un-priested themselves after the Character imprinted for Christ never gave any Authority to his Ministers but what was meerly and purely Spiritual Yet so it was that the Judgment of the whole Church or Congregation as is necessary and natural to all Societies Civil and Ecclesiastick for the sake of Order was fit to be conducted and managed by some one who should preside and guide the Actions and Deliberations propose the Matters and collect the Results of the Assembly which Care being always due to the most worthy and best qualified person for such an Action was mostly committed to the Bishop not of right but of choice § This kind of Judicial Proceeding was observed and kept on foot unto the Year 250 Ep. 5. f. 12 13 14. as is plainly to be seen by the Epistles of St. Cyprian who in the matter concerning those who did eat of Meats offered to Idols and subscribed to the Religion of the Gentiles writeth to the Presbytery that he doth not think to do any thing without their Counsel and the Consent of the People and writeth to the People that at his return he will examine the Causes and Merits thereof in their Presence and under their Iudgment And he wrote to those Priests who of their own heads reconciled some that they should give an Account unto the People Soon after this time of the Day these kinds of Proceedings begun to lose of their Purity and Simplicity and to degenerate into Empire For indeed as before so more especially and more confidently soon after Constantines Days and Donations the succeeding Bishops not without some Artifices and some Usurpations quickly began to set up for themselves and indeed in short time mounted so high that they became suspected of Princes and terrible to the People their Tribunals became a common Pleading-place having obtained Execution by the Ministry of the Civil Magistrate Petr. AErodius and to obtain the Name of Episcopal Jurisdiction and Episcopal Audience and the like This Rome was not built in one Day nor in one Age the Piety and Charity of that more pure Age made them and their Judgments to be had in great veneration which insensibly was the Cause that the Church in the truest sence not regarding the Charge given and laid upon them by Christ and his Apostles did supinely leave the Care to the Bishops who readily and with great care embraced it and soon erected their Tribunals This kind of Judgment though it were not like to the first in regard of the former viz. to determine all by the Opinion of the whole Church yet it had some semblance with it and Constantine finding some Ease and Conveniency to have Causes determined by the Authority of Religion added this to his other Powers granted to them viz. That no Appeal should lie from the Sentence of the Bishop and Valence the Emperor inlarged them in the Year 365. But those Judicial Proceedings and Negotiations did not please the best and most pious Bishops being of St. Pauls mind who deemed such Employments and Powers not fit for a Preacher of the Gospel and therefore would not take such himself But Arcadius and Honorius 70 years after the Law of Constantine finding the Bishops to degenerate and to abuse their Power revoked that Law in part ordaining that they should judge Causes of Religion not Civil except by consent and that they should not be thought to be a Court which not being observed in Rome by reason of the great power the Bishop there had Valentinian being there in the Year 452. did renew it but the succeeding Emperors restored some part of it and Justinian established unto them a Court and Audience c. By which means and gradations the Popes had got the Knack of encroaching and were thereby the better enabled to crave and get more and that not without making the world believe that those and more were their due and that not Jure Ecclesiastico only but Divino also a Band so sure and strong that it would hardly be loosed though Posterity should find Inconveniences and would redress them 200 years were not fully elapsed ere they claimed absolutely all Judicature Criminal and Civil over the Clergy and in some things over the Laity also pretending the Cause was Ecclesiastical Besides they contrived another kind of Judicature which they termed Mixt whereby they hooked in all Judicature to themselves so that after the Year 1050. having with much Art and Industry Monopolized all the Causes of the Clergy to themselves and very many of the Laity under the Title of Spirituality and almost all the rest under the Title of a Mixt Judicature and placing themselves above the Secular Magistrates upon pretence of Justice denied they were at length so bold as to say that the Bishop had the power to judge not by the grant or favour of Princes or by the will or concession of the People or the whole Church or by Custom or Vsage but that it was essential to the Episcopal Dignity and given to it by Christ whereby
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
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
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
were altogether unacquainted with the Doctrines of Ecclesiastical greatness Liberties or Licence rather Immunities and Jurisdictions that are now claimed by the now degenerate and Bastardized Romanists who tho of Rome yet are not true Romanists indeed who under a Spiritual pretence but with a secret ambitious end and desire of Worldly Wealth and Domination would free themselves from the obedience due unto the Prince and by false insinuations take away the love and reverence due by the people unto their Prince and cement it unto themselves And to bring these things to pass they have lately invented a Doctrine of Vniversal Monarchy and have erected an Order of Jesuits and a Court of Inquisition whose main concern and design is to maintain the Popes Power to be above that of Kings which Doctrine was unheard of till the dayes of Hildebrand I. Gregory the Seventh 1073. neither is there any Book found concerning it till about the year 1300. then did they begin to write of it scatteringly Vide Gold astum but there were not above two Books which treated of nothing else but this until about the year 1400. and three until the year 1500. after this the number encreased a little but it was tolerable But after the year 1560. this Doctrine began to encrease in such manner that they gave over writing of other Doctrines and little was printed in Italy but Books in diminution of Secular Authority and exaltation of the Ecclesiastical The Confessors likewise need no other learning to be approved of whence is universally spread a perverse opinion that Princes and Magistrates are humane Inventions yea and Tyrannical that they ought only by compulsion to be obeyed that the disobeying of Laws and defrauding the Publick Revenues is no sin and he that doth not pay if he can but fly from it remains not guilty before God And contrarywise that every beck of Ecclesiastical persons without any other thought ought to be taken for a Divine Precept and binds the conscience And this Doctrine above all others is the chiefest cause of most or of all the Inconveniencies which have happened in these latter Ages In Italy Books that defend the Princes Temporal Authority and affirm that Ecclesiastical Persons are also subject to publick Constitutions and punishable if they violate the publick tranquillity these are condemned Books and suppressed more than any others They have gelded the Books of Antient Authors by new Printing of them and taken out all which argue or plead for Temporal Aurhority so that if in Authors we find no good Doctrine favouring Temporal Authority we know who hath taken it away If we find any that exalteth the Ecclesiastical we know who hath put it in and in truth we can be assured of the truth of no Book that hath been under their censures And it is also most evident that those who desire to have an unquestionable liberty to brand the lawful Temporal Power and that Doctrine which opposeth it self to their attempts with the name of Tyranny do design that under pretence of Religion they may become Arbitrators of all Government From henceforth these Doctrines and Tenets did wonderfully increase and multiply spawning out others as prodigious and Monstrous as themselves so that in the Sixteenth Century and in the dayes of Paul the Fifth more especially they arrived unto most admirable perfection for in his dayes Books were Printed as one well observes by hundreds Padre Paolo nay by thousands the purports of which being summarily collected by a diligent Observator and Contemporary of the same time he hath Recorded them to be that the Temporal Power of Princes is subordinate to the Power Ecclesiastical and subject to it consequently that the Pope hath Authority to deprive Princes of their Estates for their faults and errors which they commit in Government yea tho they have not committed any fault when the Pope shall judge it fit for the good of the Church that the Pope may free Subjects from their obedience and from their fidelity which they owe unto their Princes in which case they are obliged to cast off all subjection and even to pursue the Prince if the Pope command it and altho they all agreed to hold these maximes yet they were not all at Accord touching the manner for they that were touched with a little shame said so great an Authoriy did not reside in the Pope because Jesus Christ had not given him any Temporal Authority but because this was necessary for the Spiritual Wherefore Jesus Christ giving Spiritual Authority had given also indirectly the Temporal which was a vain shift seeing they made no other difference than of words But the greater part of these men spake plainly that the Pope hath all Authority in Heaven and Earth both Spiritual and Temporal over all Princes of the World no otherwise than over his Subjects and Vassals that he might correct them for any fault whatsoever that he is a Temporal Monarch over all the Earth that from any Temporal Soveraign Prince men might appeal to the Pope that he might give Laws to all Princes and annul those which were made by them for the exemption of Ecclesiasticks they all with one voice denied that they held it by the Grace and Priviledges of Princes altho their Laws to that purpose Constitutions and Priviledges be yet extant but they were not agreed how they had received it some of them affirming that it was de Jure Divino others that it came by constitutions of Popes and Councils But all consented upon this that they are not subject to the Prince no not in case of Treason and that they are not bound to obey the Laws unless it were vi directivâ And some passed so far as to say that the Ecclesiasticks ought to examine whether the Laws and Commands of the Prince be just and whether the People be obliged to obey them and that they owe not unto the Prince either contributions customs or obedience that the Pope cannot erre or fail because he hath the assistance of the Holy Spirit and therefore that it is necessary to obey his Commandments whether they be just or unjust That to him appertains the clearing of all difficulties so as it is not lawful for any to depart from his resolution nor to make reply tho the resolution be unjust That tho all the World differ in opinion from the Pope yet it is meet nevertheless to yield to him and he is not excused from sin who follows not his advice tho all the World judge it to be false Their Books were full also of such other Maxims that the Pope is a God upon Earth a Son of Justice a light of Religion that the Judgment of God and the Pope is one and the same thing as also the Tribunal and the Court of the Pope and God That to doubt of the Power of the Pope is as much as to doubt of the Power of God And it is notable what Cardinal Bellarmine hath