Imprimatur Hic Liber cui Titulus The Project of Peace c. June 12. 1678. Guill Sill R. P. D. Henr. Episc Lond. à Sac. Dom. THE Project of Peace OR UNITY of FAITH AND GOVERNMENT The only Expedient to Procure PEACE BOTH Foreign and Domestique AND To PRESERVE these NATIONS From the DANGER OF Popery and Arbitrary Tyranny By the Author of the Countermine Is there no Balm in Gilead No Physician there Si penés singulos Jus Arbitrium erit Judicandi nihil certi constitui poterit quin potius vacillabit tota Religio Cal. Inst London Printed for Jonathan Edwin at the Sign of the Three Roses in Ludgate-street 1678. TO THE DISSENTERS FROM THE Church of ENGLAND OF WHAT NAMES or DISTINCTIONS SOEVER AS it is very Possible that nothing will be less Welcome to you than these Papers so contrary both to your Inclinations and what you believe your Interest So it may be nothing is less customary than Dedications of this Nature But since I neither propose to my self the Hopes of any Patrons Beneficence nor can submit to such unmanly Complyances as are usually the Effects of such Hopes and Expectations I have rather chosen to Address my self to you where even the Hope of a Charitable Reception is scarcely to be hoped for as the Reward of my Charity And where the Flattery of Swelling Hyperboles would prove as false and unsuccessful to me as to Millions who have made large promises to themselves of Recompences and Gratifications for that Gentiler way of Begging And of all the World it would be most Pernicious to You who have been too long accustomed to your own and the dangerous Flatteries of your Party There is nothing that is at all times more Welcome to the World than Peace Pacem te poscimus Omnes But most Men would be Conquerors and oblige the World by giving it upon their own Terms And there are but few who will be content to receive it as Christians upon God's Terms and Conditions Here I have endeavoured to Manifest the true Foundations of a solid and a lasting Peace Which are Faith Vnity Government and Obedience to the Laws of God and Men. A Peace capable of rendring the Vniverse Happy and any particular Society of Men prosperous here and Glorious hereafter in the Peaceful Regions of Joy and Immortality I am not ignorant of your Plea of Zeal and Sufferings But must the Church of England be allowed nothing for hers Has not She by your means been forced to drink the very dregs of your Animosity whilest like the Children of Edom in the day of her Calamity You cryed Down with her Psal 137.8 Down with her even to the ground Did you ever suffer such Persecution from Her as She has suffered from you Whose Zeal therefore or Afflictions must intitle them to the Character of the truer Church Would you Establish the Worship of God in Spirit and in Truth So would She only with this Difference that what you would effect by the Rude Method of Force and Violence the Power of the Sword She labours to do by the Power of Perswasion and the Spirit of Meekness as her Treatment of you now She is in Power so far from Retaliation or Revenge does abundantly testifie to the Shame of your former Cruelty and present Obstinacy and endeavours to compass and effect her Ruine Is She therefore Criminal for endeavouring that Lawfully which you would and do and as you perswade the World are bound in Conscience to do Per fas Nefas either Lawfully or Unlawfully it matters not is not the same Obligation of Conscience and far greater and a truer Conscience upon her And if one must be satisfied whose rather Hers which is True and properly Conscience or yours which is only your Private and uncertain Opinion clothed with that Venerable Name Your Way of Establishing this Worship has been notoriously guilty of Rebellion Disorders Confusion and many Evil Works The Civil State of Affairs has been ruin'd and overturn'd Houses have been made Desolate and left without Inhabitant Churches have been robbed defaced abused demolished Holy things set apart and dedicated to the Service of God and so made Holy have been prophaned The Church of England is innocent of any such Crimes The infamous Brand of Rebellion Sedition Tumults Sacriledg or Rapine were never burnt upon her hand She indeavours to prevent this for the Present and the Future by teaching all men their just Duty towards God and towards Man and obliges them to the Performance of it You call this Persecution and Hate her for it This may be Zeal in you but it is not according to the knowledg of God She imposes some Methods and certain Directions in their own Nature confessedly indifferent only in order and with no other Design than for Decency avoiding Confusion and to bring all Christians to maintain the Vnity of the Spirit in the Bond of Peace You refuse these Means and therefore the Great End of Christian Religion and Religion it self You prefer your own Way and Means before Hers and by Obstructing Peace pretend that her Impositions are inconducive to those Excellent Ends when as in Truth it is not their want of Efficacious aptness but your want of Will and your traversing them by an obstinate Disobedience that frustrates their desired Effects You quarrel her Commands and call them Traditions of Men and Will-Worship when in reality yours is so And it is perfectly because you are not permitted to have your own Wills in the Worship of God that makes you Accuse Her of what you are most horribly guilty of your selves She appoints nothing but what is agreeable to the Will and Word of God and the Primitive Usage of the Church You term those Determinations Antichristian Popish Superstitious As if God Almighty whose Word and Rules She follows where he does not please your Humour or suit your Interest or Designs were Popishly inclined As if the Scriptures in declaring for Episcopacy were Antichristian As if the best and purest Ages of the Church and the whole Succession of Saints and Martyrs were Superstitious Because many of them Bishops and all of them Worshipping God at least as to the Main according to Her Way and Method Whereas it is you that are Popish while you endeavour to Obtrude upon us your own Infallibility It is you who are Antichristian who ruine the Foundation of all Christianity Faith Government a Catholique Church Obedience Charity and Unity It is you who are Superstitious if 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a needless Fear of any thing in Religion be Superstition whilest you start at an Innocent Rite as if it were a Goblin And for fear of a Ceremony run from the Church as if it were hanted with Evil Spirits And though you strain as if you were afraid of being Choak't at these Gnats yet you can swallow the Camel of plain and barefac't Disobedience That goes smoothly over your Palate being gilded over
daily in his own person he therefore takes Care that there should be some left behind him who might and Ephesus being one of the most Populous Cities of Asia in regard of the vast Concourse of People from all Parts to the Famous Temple of Diana and there being many Congregations of Christians there he having by the space of two years continued there so that all they who dwelt in Asia heard the word of the Lord Jesus both Jews and Greeks he therefore sends for the Presbyters who resided in that City by virtue of his Apostolical Authority and there declares unto them that for the time to come they were to take that care of the Churches which he had done and that they might not do this of their own heads or fear to do it for want of a Lawful Calling and Ordination he declares the Will of God to them and that the Holy Ghost had appointed them to be Bishops So that they came indeed Presbyters to him but they went away Bishops from him and Bishops not of his own but the Holy Ghosts appointment IT is a Rule among Divines That where the Literal sense of Scripture is plain we are to follow that And that this is the plain Historical and Literal meaning of the Words without the least wresting or violence offer'd to them is most obvious and that by this Power of Episcopacy which the Holy Ghost added to their former of Presbytery they were to take the Care of the Government of the Church as well in Ruling as Instructing there are these Reasons FIRST When he sends for them he calls them Presbyters and not Bishops which if there had been no difference he might as well have done and supposing that the Holy Ghost must foresee that this Controversie would arise in the Church we cannot believe he would contribute to it by such an ambiguity but the contrary that they were only Presbyters as the Holy Ghost calls them first and then advanced to be Bishops by his appointment SECONDLY He puts the Government into their hands by resigning his own in regard he was to see them no more THIRDLY He directs them in their Office which he divides into three Particulars First Vers 28. To feed the Church of God which he had purchased with his own Blood to instruct them in the Faith and Doctrine of Christian Religion Secondly To watch against Errors and Heresies Vers 29 30 31. For I know this saith he that after my departing shall grievous Wolves enter in among you not sparing the Flock also of your own selves shall men arise speaking perverse things to draw Disciples after them therefore Watch. Now what signifies Vigilancy without Power and what Power have the Watchmen but to Admonish and Rebuke and at last to Excommunicate the Obstinate And let them shew me this Power ever Exercised in the Church by any besides a Bishop and let them take the Cause Thirdly To Exercise Hospitality to support the Poor and to remember the words of our Lord Jesus how he said It is more blessed to give than to receive According to another Precept of his in which he comprises them all For a Bishop must be blameless 1 Tim. 3.2 the husband of one wife vigilant sober of good behaviour given to hospitality apt to teach Lastly Here is no imperfect footstep of their Solemn Consecration for when he had ended his Message and Direction Vers 36. When he had thus spoken he kneeled down and prayed with them all AND to manifest that though every Bishop be a Presbyter yet every Presbyter is not a Bishop and that the Difference consists in Power and Rule which the Bishops have over the Presbyters as well as the rest of the People I doubt not to make most plain from Scripture and Antiquity For FIRST St. Paul says Expresly That it is one qualification of a Bishop 1 Tim. 4 5. He must be one that ruleth well his own house having his Children in subjection with all gravity for if a man know not how to rule his own house how shall he take care of the Church of God how shall he rule the house of God and find me but one Example in Scripture or ancient Church History where any one who was not a Bishop as well as a Presbyter ever Exercised this Jurisdiction of Ruling the Presbyters had indeed a Rule but with subordination to the Bishops 1 Tim. 5.17 18. Let the Presbyters that Rule well be counted worthy of double Honor especially they who labour in the Word and Doctrine for anciently in the Church every Priest was not a Preacher as is plain not only from this place but from the Church History but that the Presbyters might not be Exalted beyond their Bounds to think this Rule equal to that of the Bishops over the Church he allays the Tumor in the very next words and shews the the difference the subordination and subjection which they owed to the Judicature of the Bishop as Timothy was there Against a Presbyter receive not an Accusation but before two or three Witnesses which is not spoken of Private Adomnition 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 unless there be two or three Witnesses and them that sin Rebuke openly that others may fear To receive an Accusation plainly infers a superior Jurisdiction a power to hear Witnesses and according to their Depositions to rebuke openly is certainly an Effect of Authority And he follows the blow close giving him another Direction about Ordination Vers 21 22. that he should Lay hands suddainly on no man preferring one before another by Partiality So that here is a distinct Power of a Bishop from a Priest To lay on hands or Ordain to receive Accusations against Presbyters to Examine Witnesses and according to their Testimony to proceed to Judgment to give Sentence openly to Rebuke those that Sin even the Presbyters as well as others for if they may be accused and convened and found guilty of sin they also ought and may be rebuked and punished As to that place of the 5th Chap. Rebuke not an Elder it is apparently meant of those who are such by Years and not by Office Presbyters or Priests and to teach us that there is a respect due to the Reverend head Age as is plain from the words Rebuke not an Elder but intreat him as a Father and the younger Men as Brethren the Elder Women as Mothers and the younger as Sisters with all Purity This he further Explains in his Epistle to Titus Tit. 1.5 6 7. For this cause left I thee in Crete that thou shouldest set in Order the things that are wanting 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 appoint Constitute Presbyters in every City making them Bishops as I have appointed thee That Saint Paul left Presbyters there both in Age and Office no doubt can be made but yet something was wanting still and because he would not himself lay hands suddenly upon them and the Affairs of the Church
he knows more and better what he ought to do than he who has Power to Command him This is the knowledg which St. Paul says puffeth up but Charity edifieth 1 Cor. 8.1 2. And therefore he subjoyns If any man think he knoweth any thing he knoweth nothing yet as he ought to know that is if his knowledg occasions a breach of Charity he does not yet know himself or his Duty to God and Man This is so clear a Case with those of the Separation who break both Charity and Unity by their Disobedience that they must shut the clearest beams of Truth out of their Souls if they do not discover it SECONDLY An obstinate adherence to any private Opinion whereby the Peace of the Church is destroyed especially in things no ways in themselves Essentially necessary to Salvation must of necessity proceed from Pride for why should any person prefer his private Judgment before the Determination of his Superiors before that of the Catholick Church in all Ages but because he thinks himself wiser and more able to discern what is for the Publick Good than all that were before him or that are above him though hereby Solomon will tell him from the Spirit of God that he only purchases the Character of a Fool Prov. 12.15 The way of a Fool is right in his own eyes but he that hearkeneth unto Counsel is wise And therefore the Prophet pronounceth a Woe against such Woe unto those that are wise in their own eyes and prudent in their own sight Esa 5.21 Which must be meant of private persons for the Wisdom of Superiors is not so much their own as the Wisdom of all former Ages and for this Reason St. Paul commands Rom. 12.16 Be of the same mind mind not high things prompted by Pride or Ambition but condescend to men of low Estate much more to those of high be not wise in your own conceit And for Encouragement to this kind of Private Wisdom once more hear Wisdom it self speak by the wise man Seest thou a man wise in his own conceit Prov. 26.12 there is more hope of a Fool than of him And it is impossible to give any other Reason why men should not submit to Truth and their Superiors when they may be sensible to a demonstration from Reason Scripture and Experience that their private Opinions are unlawful because dangerous contrary to Charity and Gods Command but because they think such a Submission a Retractation or Compliance with Authority would be a lessening of them as to that Opinion for Wisdom and Sanctity which others attribute to them and that dangerous Flatterer Pride perswades them they are Masters of THIRDLY To indeavour to strengthen themselves by making a Party to secure them in their Disobedience and Obstinacy is the certain and unseparable Symptom of Ambition as well as Pride for if I dislike any thing I may do so to my self but to perswade others to it must have respect to a further Design and declares that I intend not only to own my Disobedience but to justifie and maintain it by Power The best Men in the World may Err privately but it is to be suspected they are the worst who make their Errors Publique to draw Disciples after them by Disobedience a man Equals himself to his Superiors for it is a plain denying their Authority over him by Obstinacy he shews his intention to stand his Ground and make good his Incroachment upon their Power and by his making of a Party he does as it were make secret Levies and inrols a Militia to defend himself from the Power of his Superiors and looks as if he meant to struggle with them not only for Precedence but Dominion I wish these were only Suppositions and that we could not from woful Experience say they are but too true but it was this very way that lately laid the Crown as well as the Mitre in the Dust too lately to give us the least reason to doubt that the same Methods may do it again if not in time prevented either by the vigilance of Authority or by reducing the disorderly and disobedient to the Wisdom of the Just and by informing their Understandings to oblige them voluntarily to abandon those Men and Principles whose Practices will infallibly lead them to these Conclusions or oblige Authority by the utmost Severities of Laws to prevent the Danger and Ruine of the whole Frame of Government both in Church and State AND as Pride and Ambition are but too visible amongst the Principles of Dissention amongst us and the principal Obstacles of our Peace and Vnity so are they no less Obstructions to a Reconciliation with the Roman Church for it is the Ambition of Supremacy over all other Churches and over all Temporal Powers and even over our Faith it self the incommunicable Prerogative of our blessed Jesus Heb. 12.2 the Author and Finisher of our Faith which has render'd all Reunion with them not only dangerous but impossible unless we will resolve by believing as that Church believes to disbelieve not only our Sense and Reason but Scripture and all Antiquity and not only those but God himself who has given us them to assist us in our Faith IT is the Ambition of the Clergy which obliges them to keep the Laity in Ignorance so blind that they are not permitted to inquire or doubt And for the Clergy as before was observed in the point of Interest they are constantly fed with the nourishment of Ambitious Thoughts hopes of Dignities and Promotions The meanest Priest or Recluse may come to be head of his House Superior and after General of his Order a Prior or Abbot and it may be a Bishop the Bishop may advance the Mitre to the Honour of a Cardinals Hat and the Red Hat may turn to the Triple Mitre and all this by being a Zealous Maintainer of the Usurped Power of that Church justifying her Incroachments upon the Crowns of Princes and the Mitres of all other Bishops Primates Metropolitans and Patriarchs owning her Monopoly of the Word Catholique avowing her Canonical and Decreed Errors for Rules of Faith and Manners and divulging her fictitious Collusions for real Miracles though to the hazard of rendring the true ones of Christ and his Apostles suspected upon which the sole confirmation of our Religion depends These are the Stairs by which men ascend to the Papal Dignity which now out-flies the Imperial Eagle as well as the smaller Royal Birds of Majesty Et Caput inter Nubila condit for to oppose any of these is a certain way to be prefer'd to the Torments of the Inquisition to be branded with Heresie and Apostacy and to Expire in Flames and Torments So that I hope by this time it is evident how pernioiously powerful the Principles of Interest and Prejudice Custom and Education Pride and Ambition are in the Minds of Men to hinder them from Embracing Truth and her Beautiful Children Peace and
affraid he had bestowed upon them Labour in Vain for that they were relapsing to Jadaism and to the observing of Days and Years according to the Mosaick Law THIS has been a Constant Quarrel amongst Christians this bred those Mortal Divisions betwixt the Eastern and the Western Churches which has almost intirely ruin'd one of them and not advantaged the other as to Truth for whilest both pretended to be the only true Church of Christ by that exclusive Arrogance they were both so far False and this Unlawful claim was the Mother of the Doctrine of Infallibility in the Catholique Church which if it be understood of any particular company of Men and not of the whole Body of the Faithful which are in all Churches have been or shall be guided by the Spirit of God into all truth must be False for whoever is infallible must be without Sin which none can be in this imperfect State For if we say we have no Sin we deceive our selves and the Truth is not in us and the Maxim is undoubtedly true Quod predicatur de singulis universalium predicatur etiam de universalibus singularium If all men are Sinners they are fallible if every man is a Sinner then are all men here in this Mortal State So that if men would with Justice and Modesty allow degrees of Truth and that every Church possessed some so long as they retain the foundation of one only true God and Jesus Christ whom he has sent whom to know is Life eternal if they would strive more for Peace and Purity than for this Supremacy and impossibility of being the only true Church they would certainly have more Truth because more Charity Peace Vnity THERE were Seven Churches in Asia though now nothing but the Names and those scarce Legible in their Ruins to which our blessed Lord commands St. John to write Rev. 1 2 3 Chapters What thou seest write in a Book and send it to the seven Churches which are in Asia unto Ephesus and unto Smyrna and unto Pergamos and unto Thyatira and unto Sardis and unto Philadelphia and unto Laodicea Every Church was a Golden Candlestick and every one had a Star which was the Angel Guardian or Governour of the Church and which Christ held in his right hand These Candlesticks were all of Gold but some more refined and purer Mettal than others the Stars were all bright and shining but some more dim and obscure than others for one star exceeded another star in glory 1 Cor. 15.41 42. even in the Firmament of the Church as well as in Heaven And doubtless if that place be true shall hereafter for so is the Resurection of the Dead From this Instance of the Seven Churches these Deductions seem evidently to follow FIRST That several Nations are several Distinct Coordinate not subordinate Churches for so the Son of God calls these Seven which yet were comprised in the lesser Asia and People of one Language though of distinct and separate Polities which seems to be that which differences Nations and not Languages SECONDLY That distinct and several Coordinate Churches may all be true Churches and Vnited in the Common Bond of the same Faith and Charity who yet may not be of equal Purity two only are here commended for their Purity viz. Smyrna and Philadelphia the other are condemned Ephesus for having forsaken her first Love her Zeal and Devotion Pergamos for the Doctrine of Balaam and for suffering the odious Sect of the Nicolaitans Thyatira for suffering Jezebel a woman to teach contrary to the Express Command of God and therefore to seduce the People by eating things offered to Idols Sardis for having a name to live but being dead Loadicea for being luke-warm neither hot nor cold a Church of Latitudinarians all these are threatned and reproved but not rejected from the name and being of Churches THIRDLY That the holy Catholique Church is composed of several distinct National Churches for we must not think the Son of God could be guilty of an impropriety of Speech he distinguishes them by the places where they were planted and by their degrees of Purity as so many several Churches without giving them any precedency on preheminence one over another he does not direct the Angels of the several Churches to Rome or Alexandria or Jerusalem or Antioch though all then famous Churches for redress of their Errors he does not send them to St. Peter or his Successors the Catholique Apostolique Roman Church as the Pillar and Ground of Truth not a word of the Sancta sedes Apostolica Petri Cathedra Ecclesia Principalis nothing of the Romanorum Fides ad quos perfidia habere non potest accessum which place of St. Cyprian the Romanists boast so much of whilest they indeavour to appropriate the word Catholique only to their Church which is as good sense as that any one man is humane Nature But for the redress of their Errors amendment of their Lives and reformation of their false Doctrines he gives them all this short Direction He that hath an Ear let him hear what the Spirit saith unto the Churches and that to every one of them distinctly so that what the Spirit of God speaks to the Churches was to be the Rule of Faith Life and Doctrine and what was it which the Spirit spake unto the Churches was ever any Tradition said to be spoken by the Holy Spirit No certainly nothing was ever spoken by the Spirit to the Churches but the Books of the Holy Canon which all Ages have consented to without the least Addition or Diminution as the late Bishop of Durham Dr. Cosins has made appear more distinctly till such time as the Absolutissima Syndus Tridentina as they call the Trent Session for some passages which seem favourable to Purgatory and Prayers for the Dead was pleased to adopt these into the Holy Canon though nothing is more evident than that till then they were Esteemed only Humane Writings and Apocryphal however hereby they have given a Specimen of the Power they pretend over our Faith for by the same Authority they may impose Aesops Fables and the Alchoran as matters of Faith Neither did the ancient Churches when Heresies sprung up resort to Rome for infallible Determinations but to Oecumenical and General Councels not Esteeming their Determinations valid neither unless agreeable to the Holy Scripture which was always accounted the Norma or Rule by which they were to be guided and at which Councels the Pope did assist not as the Head but as a Principal Member and the respect he had given him was as Patriarch of the Imperial City and the Western Churches and not as Monarch of the whole Catholick Church and even some later Councels as that of Basil have undertaken to reform Errors and Abuses and to depose the Pope being found guilty of them LASTLY It may from hence be concluded That Christ himself is the only head of the Catholick Church which is composed
of several distinct Churches who are all Members of that Mystical Body he walks among the Candlesticks he holds the Stars in his right hand The Angel of every distinct National Church is to be the mover of the Orb to guide it by the Light of Divine Truth spoken by the Spirit of the Churches the Temporal Power may be Supreme Head of the Church as they are a Society of Christian Men but neither the one nor the other can justly pretend a Power over the Angel of another Church or the Dominions of another Prince for that is the Prerogative of the Son of God who Unites them in his Right hand and who alone can challenge the Title of that Name of King of Kings and Lord of Lords NOR will this Independency of Churches one upon another which is only in point of Jurisdiction and Limits which was anciently practiced and commanded by the Decrees of Councels give the least disturbance to their Charity and Vnion so long as they maintain the same Universal Doctrine of Faith as to the substance and all acknowledge one Catholique Church and themselves Members of it Nay it is observable that this incroachment of the greater Churches upon the less and indeavouring to aggrandize themselves by imposing upon all other Churches a Soveraignty and Dominion never intended for Christian Religion and striving by force to oblige them to use their Rites and Ceremonies in indifferent Circumstantials and not only so but to receive all their Opinions as matters of Faith were the first occasion of the most remarkable Schisms and Divisions and the loss of Peace and Unity and still continue so to this very day Whereas did they all resolve to content themselves with their own Precincts and not indeavour 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and act out of their own Provinces but would permit others to make use of such indifferent Rites as the Governours of the several Churches judge necessary and expedient in their respective Charges and if any Controversies should arise in Point of Doctrine resolve amicably to compose them by hearing what the Spirit saith to the Churches and how the Universal Church has already determined in the same or like Affairs according to the Rule of Scripture would they study more to propagate Peace and Vnity than Dominion and Soveraignty to increase Piety and Purity of Life more than outward agreement of Rites and Ceremonies the ancient Happiness of the Church in her first and Vnambitious Age when the Office of Government was the surest way to Martyrdom would in a great measure be restored to the Members of the Catholique Church and there would be that Vnity which is by God Commanded and by all good Christians not only to be desired but promoted to the uttermost of their Power Were it possible that this true and ancient Temper Modesty and Moderation of Primitive Christianity might obtain in the World the Names of distinction with the occasions of them would be taken away one would not be of Paul another of Apollos another of Cephas one a Romanist another a Calvinist Lutheran Hugonot or a Zuinglian but all would be of Christ but alas what hope so long as the Church of Rome will be Vniversal and will exclude all those who Refuse the tyranique Yoak of both her Declared and Implicit Faith and to be subject to her absolute Dominion not only from the Name of Churches and being Parts of the Church Universal but from the Communion of Saints from all hopes of the Resurrection of the just nay even from her Purgatory too which is very severe if there be such a place as admits of Hope for Sinners after Death and in a word from all possibility of the Life everlasting How disterent is this from the ancient Charity and Doctrine of St. Peter and St. Paul whom they believe the Founders of their Church for they incourage us to hope we may receive the Benefit of the Common Salvation Act. 10.35 for God is no respecter of Persons but in every Nation he that feareth him and worketh Righteousness is accepted of him for with him there are no Distinctions neither Greek nor Jew Col. 3.11 to v. 16. Circumcision nor Vncircumcision Barbarian Scythian Bond nor Free but all are Christs who have put on as the Elect of God holy and beloved bowels of Mercy kindness humbleness of Mind meekness long-suffering forbearance one of another and forgiveness one towards another if there be differences as Christ also forgave us and above all things they who have put on Charity which is the bond of Perfection and whose Hearts are ruled by the Peace of God But in regard that this is to be dispair'd of and may well seem forreign to the Design of these Papers let us come to consider what Influence this ought to have upon us as to Vnity amongst our selves which without Excluding our Neighbours from our Charity though they do us from theirs and Heaven is the principal Intention of this Discourse CHAP. VI. HAVING shewn that the Peace and Vnity of the Catholick Church Militant upon Earth depends in a great Measure upon this Justice in preserving the Common Faith of Christ as the bond of Vnion not only among our selves but with that part of the Church which is now Triumphant in Heaven and in order thereunto in allowing every distinct and National Church their particular Bounds and Jurisdiction free from Incroachments and Invasion permitting them a freedom of Using such Rites and Customs in the Celebration of Divine Worship as the Governors of each respective Church shall judge to be nearest the Rule of Scripture the Constant Usage and Determination of the Catholique Church in the best Ages and of the best Men in all most conducive to the Great End of all Religion by promoting the Happiness of Mankind both here and hereafter before we proceed any further it will be requisite to answer what may and will be certainly objected by all Dissenters FOR if an Independency of Churches of Distinct Nations and Polities so long as they agree in matters of Faith may be permitted a distinct Jurisdiction different Rites and manner of Worship to the increase of Charity Peace and Unity why may not the same be likewise practised by several Churches in the same Nation To which I answer That as Vnity in point of Faith is the Bond of Vnion in the Vniversal Church so Obedience to the Supreme Government of any Nation is that which Vnites them into one Polity and distinguishes them from all other People who do not own that Subjection and Obedience And this Vnion of Obedience is also that which preserves and maintains them as well as Constitutes them a distinct Political Body from all other Nations Herein lies their Strength herein their Security their Safety and Happiness For as I may be Lawfully permitted to disobey the King of Spain or France nay and ought to do it in many Cases for the Interest of my Nation but cannot disobey my
and yet had they not so much as a Rebellious thought of Establishing Religion by force or violence CHAP. VII BY what has been said it appears that the Foundation of all Charity among Christians is built upon Vnity in Faith which is the necessary bond of the Catholique Church which is the Company of all faithful People which are have been or shall be in all Ages and Places of the World and that Vnity in Government as well as Faith is the Bond of Peace and Obedience a Duty therefore which all men owe to their Lawful Superiors as the Necessary Ligature of a National Church which being a Political Society of Religious Men does therefore require a Political Government in Religious as well as Civil affairs THE not well considering of this Difference between a National and the Catholique Church seems to be the chief Ground of the Quarrels among Christians for the Catholique Church being the Spiritual Body of Christ is United in it self and to him by the Spiritual Bond of the Catholique Faith which Faith may be kept Whole and Undefiled though there be great Differences in External Rites and Ceremonies For all Ceremonies are not fit for all Places as for Example Submerging of the person Baptized may do very well in the warm Climates but would be very hazardous in the more Northern Regions of Muscovy Rushia c. Thus we see it was adjudged in that Great Controversie about the Celebration of Easter between the Eastern and the Western Churches For when Anicetus Bishop of Rome and Polycarp Bishop of Smyrna differ'd in their Opinion about it they came to this amicable Determination that each Church should celebrate it according to their own Custom for which they gave this Reason Quia non oportet propter Caeremoniarum dissonantiam rumpere Fidei Consonantiam Ecclesiae Concordiam The Peace and Concord of the Church in the Harmony of Faith ought not to be broken for a disagreement in matters of Ceremony And because this Difference made a great Noise in the Church for many years â—â—d in regard it Confirms my Position of Vnity of Faith being the Bond of the Catholick Church and Vnity of Government as well as Faith that of a National Church I will relate the History of it in short as it is Recorded by Eusebius in his Ecclesiastical History Euseb lib. 5. c. 24 25 26. Polycrates Bishop of Ephesus and a great many of the Asian Bishops alledging the Practice and ancient Custom of St. John the beloved Disciple of our Lord who was himself Bishop of Ephesus Polycarp and several others observed Easter upon any day of the Week according to the Custom of the Jews The Christians of the Western Church observed it as we do upon the Sunday being the day of his Resurrection Upon this Victor Bishop of Rome pronounces them Excommunicate and separates from their Communion Irenoeus Bishop in Lions shews Victor his Error and that for Ceremonies and Circumstances the Vnity of the Church ought not to be broken which he manifests by the Diversity of several Churches in observing the time of Fasting before Easter some only one day some two some more to forty and yet for all this says that Excellent Father they were at Vnity one with another and as yet retain it for this Variety of Fasting commendeth the Vnity of Faith and thereupon writing to Victor he acquaints him that Anicetus Pius Hyginus Telesephorus and Xystus his Predecessors though not observing the same Custom with the Bishops of Asia yet nevertheless were at Vnity with them and sent the Eucharist unto the Brethren of other Churches that observed a Contrary Custom shewing him also how Polycarpus did not endeavour to alter the Judgment of Anicetus but told him that he ought to observe the ancient Custom of his Predecessors Upon which for the reason before-mentioned they friendly received the Holy Eucharist together the Symbol of their Vnity in Faith and parted from each other in Peace and all such adds he as held contrary Customs and Observations throughout the Vniversal Church held fast the Bond of Love and Vnity no Church endeavouring to impose upon the Liberty of others in point of Circumstances so long as they all held the Catholique Faith as the only necessary bond of Vnion in the Catholique Church and Vnity of Government as the Bond of Vnion in the several Distinct and National Churches whereof the Universal is composed and which therefore it appears had Originally a Jurisdiction among themselves over which neither Rome nor any other had a Power So that is clear that several National Churches may lawfully differ in External Rites of Government from the Catholique without the danger of Schism But now in a National Church there is a necessity of Vnity and Obedience to the Determinations of those who are the Lawful Governors of it and all Disobedience there is a Schism in regard the Peace of that Church the Order and Charity of it without this must be destroyed and therefore there is a Necessity of this Vnity in point of Government in any National Church Now every Distinct Nation as before was said being a separate Society of men Distinguished from the rest of the World by a different Government and their Obedience to it as well as by their Place of Habitation there is a Necessity that Religion should conduce all it can to the preservation of that Political Frame upon which the Well-being and Happiness of the Society depends For the Civil and Religious concerns are so mutually interwoven that no man can be a Good Citizen who is an ill Christian or an ill Christian who is Bonus Civis a good Publiquewealths-man and these do mutually support one another true Religion Improving this Interest of all Men by making the Civil part of the Polity a Duty of Religion among Christians whereas among Heathen it was only a duty of Interest and Policy For even in this sense we may truly say as our Saviour of himself Matt. 5.17 that Christian Religion came not to destroy the Law but to fulfil it to conform Humane Laws to the Rule of Divine Equity Truth and Justice and for this reason our Lord himself gave that Universal Precept to Render to Caesar his Due which also he confirmed by his Practice paying him Tribute even with a Miracle NOR do we ever find the Primitive Spirit of Christianity opposing any humane Laws or Power unless they were such as directly struck at the Root of Faith and a holy Life such as were the severe Edicts of the Persecuting Emperors to compel them to renounce and Blaspheme Christ to adore the Pagan Gods or to offer Incense to the Statues of the Emperors Nay when they were treated with more than inhumanity they never had recourse to Violence or attempted to justle the Temporal Power out of the Throne or force it to a compliance with their Wills but suffered patiently even when as Tertullian Apologizes for them they were
with the Title of Religion You call Rebellion Reformation Schism and Separation Godliness Division from the Church Communion and Union with God You put Darkness for Light and Worship the blackest Crimes and Vices in the habit of Vertue Piety and true Religon Thus whilest you spie the Moat in your Mothers Eyes and would pull that and them too out to make her see clearly you never consider the Beam that is in your own And whilest you Vehemently accuse others of Worshipping God in vain according to the Traditions of Men you never regard how you make the Commandments of God of no Effect by your Traditions Matt. 15.6 God says Honour the King and thou shalt not speak Evil of the Ruler of thy People Obey Magistrates c. Your Traditions say Dishonour him by Disobedience Insinuate Jealousies and evil Surmisings concerning him and his Government Your Actions are a thousand Tongues and every Tongue a Trumpet to Proclaim your thoughts And however with your Lips you may pretend to honour the King and with your Mouths to draw near to God your Heart is in reality far from both Your Will is your God the Idol of your Heart which you set up and Worship For what I pray is your way of Worship but Tradition from the Heads of your Party Is there ever a Word in Scripture for your long Extempore Prayers full not of Tolerabiles ineptiae with which Calvin charges our Liturgy but of Intollerable Tautologies vain Repetitions rash Expressions and indigested Matter Christ is Positive against them Use them not says he as the Heathens who think to be heard for their 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 their much speaking The Wise King who had Survey'd all the Vanities of the World makes this not only a Vanity Eccl. 5.1 2. but a dangerous Rashness and a Sacrifice of Fools And yet you use it commend and applaud it as the only way pleasing and acceptable to God Is the Scripture clear that there ought to be no Bishops in the Church Or that Lay-Elders who understand neither Sense nor it may be English and in some places who cannot write their Name should yet be impowered to Define and Determine in Matters of Faith Are you any where forbidden to wear a Surplice or to use the Sign of the Cross or to bury Christians in hope of Charity and Resurrection to Eternal Life Or to pray in set and appointed Words which is true praying by the Spirit when we pray with understanding also knowing what will be said If these be not Gods Commands or Prohibitions they are Yours and if they are not in Scripture as I am sure they are not they are not only the Commandments and Traditions of Men but of Men who have no Power to Command or Impose the most indifferent thing And yet you perswade all Men every where that they owe Obedience to these forgetting that God is to be Obeyed rather than Men and that he commands you to Obey those that have the Rule over you If you will be Followers of God as Dear Children you must if it be possible and as much as in you lies be Followers of Peace with all Men much more with your Superiors both in Church and State But this is very possible for you to do And that it is not only Possible but Honest and Necessary and your Duty the Ensuing Papers will plainly inform you To them therefore I refer you they were designed for you And if you will Esteem me your Enemy because I tell you the Truth without Flattery Interest or Partiality yet I had rather be so Esteemed than be so in Reality by Skinning over your Festred Gangreen with words smooth as Oyl Whereas in Truth it ought to be laid open to prevent the further Eating of the Canker And this is the only way that I know to approve my self to be Your most Affectionate And real Friend The Contents CHAP. I. The INTRODVCTION CHAP. II. OF the Obstacles of Truth and Peace The necessity of removing them before we can obtain the other The great value all men have for Truth and for Imposture under its Name The first Obstacle Self Interest of its prevalency upon Jews Pagans Mahumetans the Romish Church and all Dissenters p. 10 CHAP. III. Of the second Obstacle to Peace Truth and Vnity Prejudice and Prepossession of Mind The Nature and Effects of Prejudice Of Ceremonies The reason why hated Of the meaning of the word Ceremony Some Ceremonies absolutely necessary in all Religious Worship All not Popery which Papists do Of Education and Custom how they are the Foundation of Prejudices p. 25 CHAP. IV. Of Pride and Ambition most dangerous Obstacles of Truth and Peace because Vices of Temper and Inclination The Difficulty of subduing these sins of Complexion Religion made their usual disguise The danger of them manifested in a short Character of Oliver Cromwell Of the danger of these in Church-men The Methods of such Persons as are infected with them to advance themselves to dignity A way to discover such fiery spirits from the Peacable spirit of Christianity p. 40 CHAP. V. Of the necessity of Vnion That the only way to Establish Happiness in any Nation The Intent of Religion the Happiness of Mankind here in this Life as well as in a future state That the truest Religion which advances this great Intention for which God gave it Of the true Church Of degrees of Purity in Churches Of the Seven Churches of Asia Distinction and Coordination of National Churches proved Faith the Common Bond of Vnion in the Catholique Church Of the Independency of National Churches one from another in point of Limits and Jurisdiction How the Peace of the Church Vniversal is thereby preserved p. 64. CHAP. VI. Objections against the Independency or Co-ordination of National Churches Why it cannot be admitted in several Churches in the same Nation It takes away the Power and Soveraignty of the Prince It is the Ruin of the Society Of the Foreign Protestant Churches The reason of their Disunion from Rome matter of Faith not of Ceremony only or of Government p. 78. CHAP. VII Of Vnity in Government that it is the bond of a National Church as Vnity in Faith is of the Catholique The Practice of the Primitive Church Of the Difference about Easter The Opinion of Irenaeus Bishop of Lions about it A National Church an intire Polity of Christian Men. The Laws of the Church and State mutual and recipocral design the same End viz. the Happiness of the Society Disobedience to either is so to both All Society as well as Happiness destroyed by Disunion The necessity of Vnity in Government upon a Religious account No Charity without it and without Charity no Religion p. 96. CHAP. VIII Of the Power of the Keys by Excommunication and Absolution How render'd impracticable by Tollerating many Churches in the same Nation Of the Decay of Christian Piety That and the Growth of Errors must lye at the
dore of Separatists and Schismaticks who by frustrating this Power render it contemptible and set open the dore to all Impiety and Atheism p. 122. CHAP. IX Of the Necessity of Vnity in point of Government as well as Faith in a National Church upon the account of Civil Policy Such Vnity the Design of all Religion in Reference to Humane Society No Happiness without it Government appointed by God with an Intention to promote this Design and therefore Disobedience a damnable sin p. 149 CHAP. X. A further discovery of the Impolitickness of Disunion in point of Church Government No Domestique Peace to be hoped for without it but perpetual Quarrels under pretence of Religion and Conscience The Rise and Spring of Fears and Jealousies from the several Interests of Dissenters p. 165 CHAP. XI The mischief of Disunion in respect of Foreign Affairs It Weakens any Nation and Exposes them to the Arms of their Enemies Robs them of their Alliances and Confederations Interest and Mutual Support the Foundation of all Leagues Different Churches in the same Nation incline People to Democracy p. 190 CHAP. XII Of Tolleration Some Animadversions upon a Book intituled The Advocate of Conscience Liberty in reference to all Dissenters p. 203 CHAP. XIII A further Examination of the same Author in his particular Plea for the Papists A short View of and Answer to their Boasting to be our Apostles Of their Antiquity Succession Visions Miracles c. Of the Oath of Supremacy Of the Powder Treason or Fifth of November p. 229 CHAP. XIV Of the Difficulty of Vnderstanding the Modes of things sensible much more those of the Intellectual World The Vnreasonableness of Obtruding things not certain as De Fide Of Faith It must be such a Condition of Salvation as All may perform because All have a Title to the Common Salvation The Scriptures the only Rule of this Faith which is the necessary Condition of being saved Of the difference between a Rule and a Guide p. 248 CHAP. XV. Of Episcopacy Proved to be of Divine Institution and the Government appointed over the Church by the Holy Ghost The Testimony of Scripture Of Ignatius the Disciple of the beloved Apostle St. John From the constant Vse and Consent of the Church in all Ages Of Aerius the Reason of his Heresie All Hereticks against Government The Doctrine of Calvin of the necessity of some to determine Differences p. 276 CHAP. XVI Of the Judge of Controversies No Humane Authority the Judge of Faith God only Infallible That part of the Catholique Church which is Militant may Err. The difference between not Erring and the Impossibility of Erring The Rulers of the Church the Interpreters of Scripture In all things not absolutely of the Essence of Faith which nothing can be that is not Evident in Scripture either in plain Words or necessary Consequence All private men Excluded from Interpretation of Scripture p. 302 CHAP. XVII The CONCLVSION p. 317 The Project of PEACE CHAP. I. The INTRODUCTION THEY must certainly have little good Nature and far less Christian Charity who are not most sensibly afflicted for the miserable Distractions the deplorable Differences and unnatural Divisions which are among those who profess the glorious Religion of Christ Jesus That Heart must be more flinty than a Stoick's which does not bleed it self and supply the Eyes with Tears whilst Christians who by the Command of their Great but Meek and Tender Lord ought to be harmless as Doves and innocent as Lambs are transformed by preposterous Zeal and pious Pretences into Wolves and Tygres and with a fierce and savage fury mutually Worry and Devour one another nay even exceed the madness of those Brutes and devest themselves of all Humanity to put on this new Nature as they term it of Religion For Saevis inter se convenit Vrsis The Greenland Bears are kind one to another But to the shame of those who call themselves Christians but are of the Synagogue of Satan that Aboriginal Murderer men are not so modest as to be confined within the limits of making true the Horrid Adage Homo homini Lupus that one man is a Wolf to devour another but they proceed to the utmost extremity of Malice and Madness and become Homo homini Daemon Devils to damn one another not Anthropophagi or Canibals but Psychophagi feeding upon humane souls turning that innocent Wisdom of the Serpent which our Lord commands to preserve our selves into the restless Malice of the Old Serpent to destroy others Souls Bodies and Estates and to infuse the Mortal Poison of Adders which is under their Lips into the Souls of Credulous Men through their Ears and Eyes with the pretext of Piety and true Religion The Glorious Company of Saints and Martyrs now triumphant in Heaven went thither through a Red Sea of Blood but it was their own which was shed by the cruel hands of Heathenish Persecutors who did it ignorantly in Unbelief and with joy it was that they set their seal to the Testimony of Jesus and his Truth in their dearest blood Emptying their Veins that their Souls might be filled with a glorious Immortality But now Christians who all profess one Common Name and Faith think they do not set to their seal to that Truth unless they shed the blood of one another and that most commonly for differences in Opinion for Words Names Fancies and Conjectures at least if we may believe there is no more in the bottom which they conceal than there is in what they pretend openly for the ground of the Quarrel Oh Barbarous Christianity Oh Heathenish Impiety In the importunate Croud of such mournful thoughts and considerations of former Experience of our late Shipwrack and fear of future Events which the Noisy Tempest that seemed to threaten our Crazy and bruised Vessel suggested to my mind my Soul was overwhelmed with Grief and fear and ready to sink into Dispair both at the remembrance of the past and the terrible Consequences of that Inevitable Ruin which Truth it self has pronounced against a house and a Kingdom divided within and therefore against themselves and distracted by Intestin Discords THE prophetique Caution of the Apostle came presently into my mind Gal. 5.15 But if ye bite and devour one another take heed that ye be not consumed one of another I saw me thought with Horror the too plain truth of it in those once Golden Candlesticks Vid. Mr. Smiths Travels to the Seven Churches of Asia the Seven Churches of Asia who by their Discords were laid in ashes and are the habitations of Owls and Dragons or far worse Inhabitants the sordid Worshippers of that Great Imposter Mahomet I could not stand upon the Brink of such an amasing Precipice without extreme Horror nor see the Cause so Evident without a dreadful apprehension of the Tragical Issue Which made me break out into the Passionate Wish of the afflicted Jeremy Oh that my Head were Waters Jer. 9.1 2. and mine
might well stile himself with Tamerlan Flagellum Dei the Scourge and Wrath of God to accomplish his wicked Designs Which may be a Sea-mark to the Unwary to take Care of the Rock and not to Credit the charming Voice of the Syren hereafter who therefore shews her beautiful Face and sings her bewitching Airs that she may more easily Effect the desired Shipwrack HE was a Person who in the first sallies of his Youth was Debauched even to the Terror of all the Villages of the Neighbourhood who were used to give the Allarm when they saw him at a distance with Look to your selves here comes Mad Cromwel his great Frolique was the Destruction of Glass Windows which he persisted in to his last beginning with those of Cottages and not sparing at last those of Churches when his Debauchery only changed the Name but not the Nature and one was the Effect of Wine the other of his Drunken Zeal Having run the small Barque of his Fortune aground by his profusion he begun to think how to get her off again and finding that impossible he imbarqued himself into the Acquaintance and Friendship of one Tims of Cambridge an Eminently disaffected person to the King and Government and being naturally of a quick and sagacious Spirit he easily found the soft place in the head of Tims who was the head of the Faction thereabouts and believing that if he could but act a Convert to the Life he might thereby get a Livelyhood and by swimming down their stream buoy up his sinking Fortune by fishing in the Waters which they troubled he therefore joyned himself to their Congregation and because his Reformation was Miraculous he did not doubt but for the Credit he did their powerful Göspel they would pay him for a Miracle of so great use and advantage for their intended Reformation which being then a brewing he might be lookt upon as a necessary Instrument strument and skilful in the Trade of boiling up Jealousies and Fears to the highest strength of Intexication however he could not doubt but by his Credit amongst them and the Credit of the Party he might retrieve his past Losses and prop up his desperate Fortune by more desperate Principles and Practices Upon these considerations he forsook his wild and loose Companions and with an Ego non sum Ego reproves them wherever he met them he composes his Habit his Looks and Words to the Tune of the greatest Sobriety Repentance and Sanctity he frequents the Meetings and Exercises of the Godly and there by the strength of his Natural parts and that Learning which the Vniversity had unluckily bestowed upon such a Crocodile he like an apt Scholar quickly learn't from the then Nonconformists not only the Talents of making Publique and Private Harangues against the Bishops and particularly against Dr. Wren then Bishop of Ely against the Abuses of the Government the Designs of the great Ministers of State and the Prelates to introduce Arbitrary Government and swallow up Priviledg and Liberty by Prerogative to whisper the great Jealousies and Fears of the Danger of Popery but he became miraculous in the Gift of Extempore Prayer in which by the volubility of his Tongue and his great Industry and Constant Practice he arrived to that perfection as to out-do his Masters and so diligent was he in obtaining and exercising this necessary Qualifiation to recommend him to the disaffected Vulgar that being then a Farmer at Ely he was used to send for his Plough-men out of the Field to go to Duty with them and to keep them sometimes so long at it till other people having done their Mornings work were ready to come out of the Fields by which good Husbandry whatever returns he had of his Prayers he had a very slender return of his Seed which he sowed in Tears but could not reap with Joy or say it came a hundred fold into his Bosom or his Barns so that in a short time he threw the Plough in the hedge as the Husbandmen say and by the unfortunate breaking out of those Misunderstandings between the King and his Parliament he being by Tims's Party got into the House of Commons as Burgess for Cambridge and a great Promoter of those Rebellious Hostilities he betook himself to reap with his Sword in the Field of Disloyalty that Harvest of Treason which he and his Confederates of the Association had been so long sowing in the minds of a Discontented Populace He became presently one of the Heads of that Combination and by his own Gifts and those of Ireton and Peters formerly expelled from the Vniversity for a Rakehell but now converted by his voyage to New-England and returning to ruine the Old and by destroying the Hierarchy of the Church to make himself Oliver's Muphti so soon as he should come to be Englands Grand Signior by these assistances and the Art of Wheedling with fair words and long Prayers all Parties how different so ever in Persuasion he advanced himself into their Esteem and by that into the Affections and Command of the Rebel Army Whereby a Series of strange successes he appear'd the Favourite of Heaven and the Darling both of Fortune and his Party and having ruin'd the King and Loyal Party outwitted the Presbyterians and their great Patrons Essex and Fairfax men of better hands than Heads gently laid them aside as Eclipfing his Glory and Designs he then had the Game wholly in his own hand and arrived at length by the strength of Dissimulation Protestations Prayers and Arms to the highest degree of Supreme Arbitrary and absolute tyranny and wanted but little of prophaning the Imperial Diadem with his Traiterous Temples BUT what is observable of him after he had pray'd the Kings Crown off his head and his head from his Body and the power and Revenues of the Crown into his own hands then the Spirit began to fail him and he left that necessary Gift which was beneath him who was now got above all ordinances even of the House of Commons to the management of Peters Sterry and other his Domestick Chaplains By which it appears that he made use of extempore only pro tempore as a Strastagem to serve his own Designs and the Sword of the Spirit was with him always taught the good breeding to give the Wall to the spirit of the Sword Nor was he wont to go to prayer with his Legions so as to obstruct the Duty of the Day or to miss the favourable opportunity of an advantageous ingagement in the observation of which he was a Great Master and owed most of his Successes rather to his cunning than his valour and therefore he never went to wrastle with God for victory when a fair occasion offerd to wrastle with the arm of flesh IN short he made the same use of this curious Network of his pregnant Invention which'tis said a certain Cardinal did of that Net which he always used to spread upon his Table alledging for his humour
that it put him in mind of his Apostplical Function which was to be a Fisher of Men but coming to be possessed of the Triple Crown the Net was no longer seen and being by an intimate Consident demanded what was the Reason that since he wore the Annulum Piscatoris the Papal Signet of St. Peter the Fisherman he had now left off his Net He pleasantly reply'd That now he had got what he had so long been fishing for Thus did our English Massaniello by the pretence of Sanctity and Non-conformity by the help of long Prayers and a longer Sword by the promises of Liberty of Conscience Liberty of the Subject propagation of Truth and giving the Gospel a free course that it might run and be Glorified by the help of new Gospel Lights and Revelations which shone in his Army by these Arts did he advance himself to the most unlimitted Power over Laws Liberty Life Estate and Religion to that degree that a look from him like Plinies Basilisk was death even to his fellow Snakes and as if with Mithridates he had liv'd upon Poyson his very breath was Mortal not only to the Royal Party but to those who had sometime been of his own and even to bodies Politick the Conventions which he call'd Parliaments one of which Assemblies I remember exceeding the Limits he had set them a free debate being then no Priviledg of Parliament he swore by the Living God a venial sin in so great a Saint he would dissolve them and immediately sent Collonel Pride the constant Friend of his Ambition with the Janizaries of his houshold to put the bow-string of his Authority about the neck of the House which with the resignation of a Turkish Bashaw with Suchis the will of my Lord bowed the head to the execution and departed that Life without a Murmur against his Highness Artic. 3. of the Instrument that he should not dissolve a Parliament till it had sate 5 Months this begun Sept. 3. and was dissolved Jan. 10th 1654. or the lest complaint of breach of Priviledg or his Oath to the Instrument of Government that he should not dissolve them in five Months or his intrenching upon the Liberties of a Free-born People Tantum potuit Religio Suadere Malorum THIS is a sufficient Caution to all People not to trust their Lives Liberties Priviledges or Religion to the Protection of such Prayers and Pretenders to Piety Zeal Reformation and Sanctity I know such instances are rare and Ambition does not usually prove so fortunate but this it never fails of to make the Lives of those with whom it dwells uneasie to themselves and others and if it happens among men of the Church it certainly occasions great Commotions the breach of Peace and loss of Vnity And if we search the Records of Church history we shall find that most of the Schisms and Heresies which have occasioned those Great Disorders drew their Original from the Pride and Ambition of the discontented Clergy for nothing is more natural than for such Persons where want of Temper renders them most unfit for Government in the Church to be most desirous of it and to believe they best deserve it if they fail in their Expectations which it is more than probable they will being measured by the Standard of the Sober and Judicious and not by their own flattery of themselves presently they fall into discontent and endeavour to obtain that Esteem and Authority by unlawful Methods which they could not arrive at in the regular modest and peaceable ways of Order and obedience This discontent pushes them violently forward to be revenged of those who by not advancing them they think depress them or by advancing others they believe despise and disparage them and at the same time they endeavour to satisfie their Ambition and Revenge by Exalting themselves Now there are no Arts which they can more successfully use to accomplish their design than these which follow FIRST to appear more strict holy devout and righteous than those whom they call their Enemies who shall therefore be thought ill themselves for not advancing those who appear so good And by this means they shall certainly be so esteemed by such who look no further and indeed cannot discover the Depth of their hearts or the secret malice that lodges so closely there This presently creates them a Name and wins them a Party who celebrate their Fame sing Hosannas in their Praise Espouse them their Interest and their Quarrel SECONDLY That they may appear more than common and difference their Party from the rest thereby to keep them to themselves they must broach some new Doctrine or revive some old one there must be an Altar erected and though it be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 yet will there never want some who will ignorantly Worship the stranger God and entertain the Travelling Deity then must the old Rites and manner of Worship be exploded to make room for the New and though a man may truly say of them as our Saviour of the Wine the old is better than the new so unsettled unfermented and full of mutinous Spirits that it flies and froths and and foams breaks the old Bottles into which it is put yet will even this Wine upon the fret please some Capricious Palates better than the Old THIRDLY Then all those who oppose them must be exclaimed against and cryed down Especially their lawful Superiors and Governors as formal out-of-fashion-Christians all endeavours must be used to rendred them contemptible and Odious And all this must be done out of pure Zeal to Truth when in reality it is out of pure Revenge and for no other Design than that these Ambitious Spirits may satisfie their Pride by obtaining that Preheminence by fraud and force which they can never hope for by any other ways THIS is the true procedure of Pride and Ambition and which leads directly into the Red Sea of Blood I wish most heartily that all sober and considerative Persons who dissent from the Church of England and even those who are principally guilty of our Divisions would enter into a serious Examination whether there be not some of the furious Spirit which our Saviour Rebukes in his Disciples James and John Luke 9.54 55. which puts them upon Desiring fire from Heaven upon such as will not recieve them and since they cannot obtain that makes them throw about their own wild-fire to set the Church and Common-wealth into a Blaze And to help the Discovery I will give them some Indications of such a Spirit though lurking never so cunningly under the Cloak of Zeal and Piety AND first therefore Disobedience to Lawful Authority and all the ways which manifest that Disobedience whether Words or Actions are certain Symptoms of the Pride of Mens Hearts and the secret Ambition of their Minds for whosoever disobeys his Superior does at the same time despise him and whosoever despises any person in Authority does it because he is confident
Vnity To these I might add Envy the Canker of the Mind the daughter of Discontent and constant Enemy of Peace Covetousness the Root of all Evil. Envy being the shadow of Honour and real Worth and Sacrilegious Covetousness the Ravenous Harpie that preys upon the small Patrimony of the Church which usually is the great perswasive to prophane and Rapacious Natures to treat her as the Atheistical Dionysius did his Apollo who rob'd him of his golden Robe alledging it was too cold for his Godship in Winter and too heavy in Summer but because these Fall in with Interest and Ambition I will not under different Names repeat the same things over again to nauseat the Judicious and tire the indifferent Reader with reiterated Tautologies CHAP. V. HAVING thus shewn what it is that impedes our Happiness and which therefore must of necessity be removed from the Minds of Men before there can be any Possibility of their Embracing Truth Unity and Charity in the next place we come to manifest the necessity of Vnion the only Expedient which can procure the Common Happiness of Mankind Now to make this appear we must look into the Main End and Design of all Religion here in this Mortal State of Life in order to that future Condition of a Glorious Immortality and that we may the better apprehend what that is we must consider the Commands and Precepts of Religion and at what they aim And because all the Rules of our Holy Profession direct us to it we must believe that God Almighty gave us those Precepts Rules and Directions to promote our own and the Common Happiness of all Mankind even here in this present State of Life to render our short Journey through the troublesom Stage of Time more pleasant and easy till we arrive at the unchangeable Happiness of Eternity This Easiness of Mind this real Happiness of Life is only to be obtain'd by following the precepts of Justice Temperance Sobriety Prudence and the other Noble and God-like Vertues which Religion teaches for the substance of Happiness does not consist in any thing without us though there are good Circumstances but in the Innocency of Mind and purity of Life Nil Conscire sibi nullà pallefcere culpâ in our being good and doing good which is the great Employment for which we came into the World So that there is a necessity of Religion in the World in order to the happy posture of humane affairs which all Mankind desire for themselves with unlimited wishes but are too narrow in their indeavors to promote it in Common unto others That this was the Wise and good Design of the great Creator is most apparent in that even in those obscure Ages of Barbarism and Ignorance Act. 14.16 17. at which the Apostles says God was pleased to wink yet he left not himself without a Witness When in times past he suffered all men to walk in their own ways they were not without some Religion which taught them their Duty in some Measure though imperfect both to the Gods for they supposed many and also to Men. THAT must of Necessity therefore be the truest Religion and most agreeable to the Will of God which approaches nearest to this Great Design and would certainly accomplish the End for which all Religion was intended And therefore the truth of any Religion must be measured according to the Proportion which it holds to promoting Peace Unity and Charity the only ways to obtain happiness in this World as well as Faith whereby we hope to obtain the happiness of a future state And what Religion soever separates these Good Works from Faith is so far vain and destroys that Faith it seems to profess for Faith without Works is dead If therefore any Religion ruines Peace Unity and Charity we must judg it so far false and erroneous let it make never so many Boasts of holding the true Faith of Christ Of all the Religions which ever were in the World the Christian Doctrine may justly challenge the Preheminence as conducting men if they would be managed by it the nearest way to Happiness both Temporal and Eternal and among all the variety of Opinions in the Christian Religion that must therefore of necessity be the best and truest which does most powerfully promote innocency of Life purity of Mind Unity and universal Peace not by external force and violence but by the same Methods which God Almighty made use of to plant and propagate it in the World which was not by Tumults Seditions or Disobedience to the Civil Magistrate but by meekness humility Charity and a Conversation unblameable Which were the Weapons by which the Primitive Christians were taught to put to silence the ignorance of folish Men The Church indeed had a power but it was purely Spiritual and those spiritual Arms were the most powerful to the pulling down and dismantling the strong holds of Sin and therefore even while the Temporal Powers of the Earth did all they could to suppress them yet mightily did the Word of God grow and increase not by opposing Rebelling or imposing Laws upon their Soveraigns but by submitting and suffering demonstrating upon all occasions their Innocence and that they were free from any ill designs upon the Civil Government of the World or the Temporal concerns of Mankind BUT because all and every Profession of Christian Religion every Church would have us beleive this of them and that therefore every one Challenges the name of the true Church of Christ here lies the Difficulty and the niceness of the Point Which is the best and truest And because all desire the Glorious Title therefore they quarrel about it who it is that is the Spouse of Christ Whereas one would Modestly believe that to be without Spot and Wrinkle is not to be appropriated to any particular Church in which there must be Tares and Chaff as well as Wheat but to the Holy Catholick Church I do not mean of Rome for She is but one Member that glorious Company of true Believers the General Assembly of the Church which have been and shall be in all Ages of the World and out of all Nations united unto Christ their Head A Church may be a true and a visible Church of Christ and yet have many Errors and so long as they keep the foundation of Faith though they may build Hay and Stubble upon that Foundation yet I do not see how they can be denyed that Name Thus we see St. Paul writes to the Church of God which is at Corinth 1 Cor. 1.2 to them that are Sanctified in Christ Jesus called to be Saints And yet in that very Epistle he Complains of great Errors and Disorders among them Cap. 11. and an Abuse of the very Sacrament of the Lords Supper and so to the Church of the Galatians and yet he tartly calls them foolish Galatians and tells them they were bewitched into this Disobedience against the Truth and that he was
Natural Prince but to the prejudice of my Countrey and my own because I owe them no Obedience in point of Jurisdiction as I do my own King So I may for the same Reason refuse the Jurisdiction of a Forrein Church but cannot of my own which has a lawful Power over me and to which I owe Obedience because I am a Member of her Polity For every person and all Persons who live in the World must own a Subjection to the Government where they live and because that affords them Protection therefore they are to pay their Obedience both as a Duty of Gratitude the Foundation of Society and the Interest they have to maintain that Government and Power which does protect secure and defend their Lives Liberties and Estates and in effect all the Happiness of Humane Life Now since the Light of Nature Reason and Interest does oblige all men to own this as a necessary Truth and those who have opposed it have ever been esteemed the common Enemies of all Mankind Traitors not only to the Government they have opposed but to the Foundation and Principles of all Society and to the happiness of Mankind in general Therefore it is absolutely necessary in any distinct Society of Men that the Circumstances of Religion for the Substance of Faith is not in the power of any Mortal man to Alter or Establish should be adapted to the attainment of this Common Design of all Government both Civil and Religious the Happiness of the Society But this is impossible to be effected where there are many distinct Churches in the same Society For either the Supreme Authority has Power over them all or over none at all if none at all the Society is ruin'd and he is no longer King nor they own themselves his Subjects who deny his Authority and that they owe him obedience if he has Power over them it must be in Circumstantials of Government Order and the manner of Divine Worship Now either he can command them to perform these all one way and then they are no longer distinct Churches but the same or he cannot lawfully command them nor are they bound to Obey and so he is no longer their King nor they his Subjects then he obliges them by parting with his Soveraignty and they please upon that Condition that he permits them to do what they please to afford him their Subjection So that in effect distinct Churches and Independent upon the Soveraign in the same Nation which is one intire Body Politick are so many Spiritual Electors of Germany who own an Emperor in Name but are absolute in Reality and Soveraigns within their own Territories and Dominions BESIDES there is so near a Connection between all Temporal and Religious Laws the Laws of Men having their Foundation and Stability from the Original Laws of God and being only Lawful so far as they are agreeable to them that it is impossible for the most Nice Curiosity to distinguish the Limits of these two Powers the Temporal and the Spiritual Now if we suppose several distinct Independent Churches in one Nation we must suppose them to have distinct Forms of Government and it will be impossible for the Prince to make any Temporal Law which some of them may not pretend is against their Jurisdiction Let it be to raise Men or Money for the common Defence of all by War it may be an easy Scruple whether the War be Lawful whether that be his Intention whether it be for the Common Benefit and according as these distinct Churches judg it Lawful or Religious Safe or Dangerous so shall he receive their assistance So far and no farther goes their Obedience A too visible Effect of which it is to be seared we have at present when these Churches and their Jurisdiction is not by Law permitted and what might we expect if this Power which they challenge were either Tolerated or by Law Established So that if Obedience be a necessary Duty both Civil and Religious in order to the Happiness of any Society or Nation one Church owning that Subjection and Obedience in point of Government not of Faith is necessarily to be Established in that Society and Nation But I shall discourse more fully upon this Particular hereafter and therefore refer the Reader thither only I desire it may be taken notice of that the Design and Quarrel of all Dissenting Parties however they may pretend only purely Spirituals Conscience and Religion yet ends in the pretence to Soveraignty and Dominion and though it talks only of the Altar yet is level'd at the Throne and that therefore the Church of England which makes not the least pretentions to the prejudice of the Princes Right but by her Doctrine and her Practices teaches Humility Obedience and Submission to the Prince renders her true Sons the best of Subjects as well as the best of Christians and that nothing but Vnity in Government can teach men rightly to Honour the King as Vnity in Faith teaches them truly to fear God and be true Members of the Holy Catholique Church BUT secondly It will be Objected That by this Position of the Necessity of Vnity in Government and Uniformity of Worship in Rites and Ceremonies in a National Church Men will be obliged to submit to those things which are against their Consciences FOR answer to this at large I refer them to a small Treatise Intitled The true Liberty and Dominion of Conscience where they may see how they impose upon themselves and others by obtruding upon them Private Opinion or perswasion for Conscience for unless they be certain by Divine Revelation of clear Scripture or consequence of Scripture which will not admit of a Doubt that the things imposed are Unlawful Conscience is not concerned in them and it is only their Opinion which ought to submit to Publique Peace and Government which are clear and evident Commands of God If the things commanded are Unlawful shew us the Prohibition If they be not Unlawful they may be imposed for any man may by Authority be lawfully commanded to do what is Lawful for the obtaining Peace and Happiness to himself and all others of the same Society Nay he is bound in Conscience to do it BUT for a further satisfaction and a short Answer I desire it may be considered that every submission to the Judgment and practice of another who is of a different Opinion is not an Error if the thing be indifferent about which we disagree and that I may without offending my Conscience do what I am commanded though in my private Judgment I do not approve of it if by doing of it I promote Peace and shew my Obedience For where the Question is whether by not doing this I shall obey my own Judgment which doubts whether I may do it Lawfully or disobey that Power which commands me to do it which I cannot deny but has a Lawful power to command me The Resolution is easy for I am not by my
obedience to a private doubt to break a known Command of God who commands Obedience to my Superiors in all things which are not contrary to his commands and whether we should obey God or Man our selves or the Magistrates and Rulers of of the Church is no such hard Question as some people have made it BESIDES Though wilful Errors in Faith are Damnable yet Errors in Circumstances neither are nor can be so unless we make them so our selves by Disobedience to God in refusing for Peace and Vnity to submit to our Superiors which is Damnable Nor indeed can any of the several Rites and Ceremonies of Religion be properly called Errors though they be different nay contrary one to another For where there is no positive Command of God to Determine us either part is lawful or unlawful only according as it is commanded or forbidden by those who are in Authority and if it be not determined by them then as we in our own Judgment shall be perswaded that is conducive to Gods Glory and the Happiness of Mankind For whether I should pray in a Surplice or in a Cloak is not a point of Salvation for I may do it with either or neither and yet go to Heaven but Disobedience to my Lawful Superiors should they command me to pray to God in Publique in either of them is an Error in Faith for who ever is guilty of that Disobedience must either believe that God is not the Author of that Command or that it is not true which is Infidelity and Error Now let any person of Sobriety Judg whether such a Conscience is a good Conscience and void of offence to God and Men which will strain at the Gnat of an indifferent Ceremony and swallow the Camel of Disobedience And whether all good Christians ought not to joyn with the National Church in such Ceremonies and manners of Worship as admitting them to be as bad as any Ceremonies can be which are not Damnable rather than by endeavouring to avoid them and refusing to use them to run the certain Hazzard of ruining the Peace of the Church and Nation and certain Damnation by their Disobedience to the Command of God I desire to make this as clear as I can and therefore we will Instance in the sign of the Cross after Baptism This Ceremony is by many so much abhorred that they will rather not have their Children received into the Covenant of Grace by Baptism or which is the same thing have the Sacrament from those who having no lawful Ordination have therefore no Commission to go and Baptize all Nations Now supposing the sign of the Cross after Baptism a superfluous or superstitious Ceremony which yet will never be proved as by the Church explained in the Office of Baptism and the 30 Canon yet still the Use of it could not be injurious to Salvation or Damnable because it is no where in Scripture forbidden nor ever asserted to be Essential to the Sacrament Nor condemned by either Councels or the Practice of the Church in any Age but frequently used by the Primitive Christians both upon that and many other Occasions what a man may do without fear of Damnation he may do safely nor is he to be judge of the Expedience or edifyingness of the Ceremony for who made any private man a Judge over others that very capacity Excludes him from that Power But for any person to refuse to have his Child Baptized because of this Ceremony or to refuse to obey his Superiors is to make himself a Judge over them and a damnable Sin Washing with Water in the Name of the Father the Son and the holy Ghost is the Essence of the Sacrament but there are some Prayers to be made 1 Tim. 〈◊〉 For every Creature of God is sanctified by the Word of God and Prayer some Gestures some Postures to be used in such a weighty Solemnity some Praises due for so great a Benefit and these being no where directed what they shall be are left to the Care and Wisdom of the Governors of the Church who to avoid Confusion and to Establish Vnity by Vniformity to preserve the Decency of so Sacred a Duty prescribe this Form of words these Gestures and Rites and this sign as of great signification that as St. Paul says We should Glory in the Cross of Christ and receive that as a Badge or Cognizance of our Christian Profession THE same Answer will serve for all the Ceremonies which are made use of or commanded by the Church of England Nor shall we need to fear lest by this Power of the Church the Ceremonies should swell to such a bulk as to be burthensom by being too numerous since the Governors themselves are not without a Rule in this particular which is the Determination of the first General Councel at Jerusalem Acts 15.28 For it seemed good to the Holy Ghost and to us to lay upon you no greater burden than these necessary things one of those necessary things was before indifferent viz. to abstain from things strangled and St. Paul seems to make even the other about the things offer'd to Idols the same which now were made by the Councel necessary BUT supposing that there were a real Clog of Ceremonies which none can justly complain of amongst us yet would any man loose the substance for fear of the shadow refuse to Eat good and wholsome Diet because the Dish was Silver and too much Garnished and by Schism and Disobedience run the hazard of his own Soul and all those seduced by him meerly to avoid the doing of those things which if he does them cannot in the least prejudice his Salvation for these are only the Conditions of our maintaining Peace Vnity and Charity but not the Conditions upon which our Salvation depends because God has no where said he that does these things shall be damned and he that abstains from them shall be saved but he has said we must hear the Church and if she Commands this for Peace sake we must Obey lest we be justly esteemed as Publicans and Heathens BESIDES they who Command must answer to God for themselves and they who are to Obey shall not answer for the Errors of their Superiors but no man can answer to God for his disobedience against them in these Commands not only because they are not Judges whether they ought to do or not to do what they are Commanded but because there can then be no such thing as Obedience if every man may be his own Judge for what one man may do out of pure doubt or scruple of Mind thousands will pretend to do and it being impossible to discover the Tender Conscience from the Obstinate and Designing all Duty to our Superiors in the Church will be Evaded with pretence of Doubting or else consist in obeying only so far as we like the Commands which is for fear of Popery to make every Man his own Pope to dispense with the
Laws of God and Man just as they suit his Interest and his Inclination to make the Scriptures a Nose of Wax and the King and Church meer Heads of Wood and since the reason of Obedience is because we think it truth which is Commanded and that they who Command are better able to Judge for us than we our selves as being by God appointed over us for that Design should they be mistaken in what they Command yet the Judge of all the Earth who cannot do wrong would be so far from punishing that he would reward such Obedience because done according to his Command Nor shall the other for Commanding because they did it with a good Design provided when it does appear to them to be of ill consequence they cease to impose it any longer which is the true reason why many things in the service of God have been altered and abolished upon several Occasions THIRDLY It will be objected That by this Rule all the Gallicane German and other Protestant Churches who live under a Government which owns and Commands the Romish Discipline and Church will hereby be made Schismaticks to those several National Churches of which they are Members and that hereby a necessity is laid upon us to return to the Obedience of the Church of Rome for if those Churches may dissent from their National Churches and yet hold the true Faith why may not we why should their Disobedience be Lawful and ours Damnable To this I answer First That the Difference between those Churches and the National Church in which they are does not consist in Matters of Circumstance or Ceremony but in Matters of Faith and though I will neither undertake the Defence of those Churches either in Doctrine or Discipline yet I suppose they separate from the Roman Communion upon the account of the Impositions of that Church in Points of Faith such as are the Popes Supremacy never owned in France even by the Catholiques the Doctrines of Infallibility the real Presence by Transubstantiation Merit of Works and Supererogation Invocation of Saints Purgatory Adoration of Images c. and the Roman Church who imposes these as Articles of Faith is her self Schismatical if not Heretical from the Catholique Apolique Church of all Ages and therefore to depart from her where she departs from Truth is no more Heresie or Schism than it would be to depart from the Law of Moses or the Jewish Communion in Circumcision c. or of Mahomet if those were imposed as Matters of Faith by that or any other Church for the Apostles Rule holds good to the End of the World for all Christians in Matters of Faith and Manners Be ye followers of me as I am of Christ 1 Cor. 11.1 And would the Romish Church Impose no more upon Christians as necessary to Salvation than is contained in those three famous Creeds of the Apostles Nice and St. Athanasius and what is clearly contained in Scripture which have ever been the Standards of the Catholique Faith I think every good Christian over whom they may challenge a Lawful Jurisdiction ought to joyn with them in Communion of Government and even those over whom they can rightly challenge none ought yet to agree with them in the Communion of Faith Nay should they command many Ceremonies in the Service of God more than they do yet those who live in the Jurisdiction of that Church ought to submit to them for the maintaining of Unity Peace and Charity and I doubt not but the Foreign Protestants at least in Charity I hope so if there were no other matters of Difference between them would easily be perswaded to submit to all the Points of Government Ceremony and much more I remember what a Famous French Minister said to this Purpose when he was told that some of the English Nonconformists refused Communion with the Church of England because they were Enjoyned to wear the Surplice and other Vestments I wish says he that the King of France would command me to perform my Function in a Fools Coat so little did he think the outside and dress of Religion to be of the Essence of it and so necessary did he judge Obedience as well as true Faith to the Peace Unity and Happiness of the Church BUT Secondly Many of those Protestants have Licence and Tolleration given them to Celebrate the Worship and Service of God according to their own Way and by that Dispensation they are free from the guilt of Disobedience to the Civil Magistrate and for the Obedience they owe to the Church of Rome I presume they are willing to give it with all their hearts if Rome Exacted no more in matters of Faith than God Almighty requires as necessary to Salvation BUT the Case is clearly different betwixt our Dissenters and the Foreign Protestants for our Differences are or at least are pretended to be about matters of Polity and the Manner of performance of the Offices of Religion and let the Nonconformists prove us but Guilty of destroying one Article of Faith or imposing any thing to be believed or done contrary to the Scriptures and let them dissent from us in Gods Name and till they can do that their Separation will be a horrid Schism and their Nonconformity a manifest Disobedience to the Laws of God and Men. And should the Foreign Churches refuse the Communion of the Church of Rome and disobey the Princes whose Subjects they are commanding them if there were no greater Differences than Matters of Ceremony and Circumstance I doubt not but their Separation and Disobedience would deserve the same Character BUT supposing the Supreme Power of those Countries should absolutely prohibit the Protestants the exercise of their Religion I think they ought to obey and fall to the Old Arms of the Primitive Christians Prayers and Tears and not to the new Methods of Manaces making Parties and endeavouring by force of Arms to obtain that from Authority by Violence and Compulsion which they cannot by Perswasion A Practice shameful to the Protestant Cause and for any thing I can see if they Judg of all by the Example of our Dissenters more likely to perswade all Princes to Extirpate them out of their Dominions for Seditious Schismaticks and Dangerous Rebells than to Tollerate them as Innocent and Religious Christians THIS was the Custom of the Ancient Christians who Conquered more by the Cross than the Persecutors by all their Cruelty who overcame by Suffering and not by Rebelling A remarkable Instance of which we have in the Army of Julian the Apostate who were obedient to him as their Temporal Soveraign so long as he liv'd but after he had jested out his impious Soul with a Vicistî Galilaee and that Jovinianus was chosen Emperor which he refused as being a Christian and thinking the whole Army Pagans they all cried out Et nos sumus Christiani We are all of us also Christians Here were men in Arms a Powerful Number of Veterane and Victorious Legions
grown so numerous that if they should by a Common consent have deserted the Empire they would have left Desolation behind them THIS being therefore granted That our Obedience to the Laws of the Polity or Nation wherein we live so long as they command nothing contrary to the Divine Law is a part of our Christian Religion as may be easily made appear from Reason Scripture and the Practice of the best and purest Ages of Primitive Christianity even in such Constitutions as concern the Government of the Church as well as the Temporal Affairs of State which was done with great happiness to both in the Reigns of Constantine the Great and many other Christian Emperors I will therefore proceed upon this Position to shew that in Order to the happy Condition both of Civil and Religious Affairs there is an absolute Necessity of Vnity and Vniformity of Government Ecclesiastical in a National Church THIS Necessity is grounded both in the Prudence of the Lawful Policy and Religious Wisdom I will begin with the Religious Necessity WE must therefore consider the Essence the Nature the Design and the Intention of the Gospel in that part of it which differences it from all other Religions both Pagan Jewish and Mahumetan for the Intention of that must be our Great Design if we will be true Followers of Christ and not in Words profess we own him but in Actions deny him and his Royal Priesthood over us NOW the very Essence of Christian Religion consists in Love or Charity this is the New Commandment and the fulfilling of the Old and herein it is that Christianity differs from and Excells all other Religions The Heathens knew no more of this than their Interest obliged them to and therefore all those of Different Nations Manners or Religions were esteemed Barbarians and Enemies and accordingly treated and had not God Almighty permitted the Regiment of the World to be Absolute and Tyrannical this want of Charity one to another would certainly have thrown them into perpetual Civil Wars and Confusion amongst themselves there being then no Rein upon Ambitious Spirits but Fear of the Arbitrary Power and Will of their Princes which was the Supreme Law by which they Rul'd their Subjects And even the Law of Moses according to the corrupt gloss of the Scribes and Pharisees said Thou shalt love thy Neighbour and hate thine Enemy Matt. 5.43 and according to the letter of it Exacted Life for Life Eye for Eye Tooth for Tooth But when the Eternal Son of the Blessed came into the World both to Redeem it and Renew it to Exalt men who were sunk into a Degeneracy below the Beasts that Perish and to make them partakers of the Divine Nature he teaches another Doctrine very harsh to Flesh and Blood but such as would in reality make them resemble God their Heavenly Father He teaches them to Love their Enemies to Bless them that Curse us to do good to them that hate us to Pray for them that despightfully Vse us and Persecute us by which Methods we shall come to be the true Children of the true God whose Glorious Sun riseth upon the Evil and the Good Matt. 5.44 45. and whose fruitful Showers fall upon the Just and the Vnjust This Love he makes the Foundation of Religion which he was to introduce into the World proceeding from the infinite Love of God to Mankind from the God of Love and therefore he tells us that the whole Law is comprised in these two Commandments Matt. 22.37 38 39 40. to Love God and our Neighbour And therefore he does so often repeat that which he calls the New Commandment Joh. 13.34 35. A new Commandment I give unto you That ye Love one another as I have Loved you that ye also Love one another by this shall all men know that you are my Disciples if ye have Love one for another And what he taught he also confirmed by his Example In that he died for us when we were Enemies NOW the Command being Vniversal to all those who are the Disciples of Christ they who hate another because they differ or dissent from them in some things which Christ having left indifferent has therefore left to the Wisdom of those with whom he intrusted the Government of the Church to determine as they shall Judge most conducive to this great Design of Charity cannot be the true Disciples of Christ 1 Joh. 4.40 for If any man say I love God and hate his Brother he is a Lyar. And therefore the holy Apostles and particularly the beloved Disciple St. John lays such weight upon this Duty and so frequently commands it that his three Epistles are scarce any thing else but a repetition of that Command and the reasons for it which brings into mind what I have somewhere read of that Apostle that in his extreme old age residing at Ephesus and governing the Churches of the lesser Asia when he was not able to perform the Offices of the Church yet he would be carried in his chair to the Assembly of Christians where he would several times repeat this Sentence My little Children love one another and being demanded the reason of this short but Excellent Sermon he made answer to this Effect because It did comprise the sum of all Religion and that Charity would cover a multitude of other faults And therefore St. Paul doubts not to give it the preheminence above the two other principal Graces 1 Cor. 13.13 Now says he abideth Faith Hope and Charity but the greatest of these is Charity For when Hope shall be compleated by possession and Faith changed into Fruition then shall Charity be most triumphant as being the Life of Heaven and the pleasing imployment of a glorious Eternity And certainly it is this love unseigned both towards God and towards our Brethren that is so of the Essence of Religion that without both these it is but a meer Impostor for no person can truely fear God who does not smcerely love him and no man loves God sincerely who does not love his Brother also 1 Tim. 5.1 For the End of the Commandment is Charity out of a pure heart and of a good Conscience and Faith Vnfeined NOW taking this for a Foundation which no good Christian can deny I proceed to shew that it is absolutely impossible to maintain this Charity without Vnity both of Faith and Government in a National Church and to make it evident I should need no stronger Argument than what the holy Apostle St. Paul subjoyns in the words following those of his last repeated From which says he some having swerved have turned aside to vain Jangling Here is the source of all the Churches Miseries this vain jangling has ever been the occasion of all those Dissentions and Divisions those mischievous Quarrels which have not confined themselves to Words but have proceeded to the Outrages of Blows and Blood it is want of Charity and that
pure heart and good Conscience which commands Peace and forbids all Disorder and Disobedience which are destructive of it in the Church of God BUT to make this apparent so as that no Evasion may be found let us consider that Vnity of Faith is not sufficient to maintain Charity in a National Church unless there be also Vnity in point of Government for where men Live together imbodied in one political Society and are therefore daily conversant together it is impossible but they will discourse about the Modes as well as the Essence of Religion and supposing that all People had free Liberty to chuse after what manner they would serve and Worship God no doubt is to be made but every man would prefer his own choice both of Opinion and Practice before that of others and Esteem it most agreable to the Will of God and most conducive to the great Design of all Religion the Eternal Salvation of Mens Souls This undue preference of their own Way as it would naturally incline them to make as many Proselytes as possibly they could a Duty they would judge themselves necessarily and indispensably obliged to perform so would it necessarily put them not only upon defending and maintaining their own Way but of lessening and it may be debasing and vilifying all others in comparison of it Nor would others be less eager in searching out and Exposing their Errors and Defects thereby to Establish themselves and their Way of Worship in the good Opinion of their Followers to which Revenge for affront and indignity offer'd to what they Esteem most Sacred would contribute not a little so that all Religion would come to consist in frivolous and endless Disputes and Differences what kind of Breath what Tones Words Habits Gestures or Postures God Almighty is best pleased with and instead of that Charity which covers a multiude of Faults that would be the best which had the least and was best able to discover the Infirmities of all others and would seem to consist not so much in its own Excellencies or Perfections as by discovering the defects of those who did oppose it Nor would these foolish differences terminate in meer Words and Wrangles but proceed by degrees to the highest Animosities and Extremities of Hatred and such a hatred as inspires Men with the devilish Principles of indeavouring to Extirpate Root and Branch with Fire and Sword all those who differ from them it may be but in the Punctillo's of outward Ceremonies and they who shall appear most Zealous in Executing this blind and furious Rage shall be accounted most godly and Religious Murder shall be called Justice Wrong Violence and Oppression Punishments justly inflicted upon the Wicked Sacriledge shall pass for Piety and the most horrid and slagitious Enormities shall be dedicated to the Glory of God and be reputed acceptable service to him being done or however pretended with the design of propagating the Gospel rooting out Superstition False Doctrine and Heresie O meek and blessed Jesus thou innocent Lamb of God who takest away the Sins of the World is this the Religion which with thy precious blood was planted in the World and watred with the blood of so many of thy holy Saints and Martyrs Assuredly God is not in such terrible Hurricanes Whirlwinds and Earthquakes Tempests or Fires as rend the Mountains 1 Kings 19.11 12. and break the Rocks in pieces as shake and put all the Foundations of the World out of Course and consume all before them No no it is in the small still voice the calm and soft voice of Peace and Meekness that God and true Religion are to be found Alas it is not in this mans pompous breath nor that mans Eloquent Harangue that God is delighted it is not the rude and undecent Religion of him who despises all Ceremonies in the Worship of God who will not bend his knee or uncover his head for fear of he knows not what Idolatry Nor is it the over superstitious and courtly service of him who makes all his Religion groan under the Load of splendid Ceremonies that God is pleased with he has no more satisfaction in these Exterior demeanors than as the Psalmist says Psal 147.10 11. in the strength of an horse or in the legs of a man but the Lord taketh pleasure in them that fear him in those that hope in his Mercy And all these outward Demonstrations of our Worship are only valuable according to their inward intention of promoting the main Design for which he intended them which is Peace Unity and Concord among the Sons of Men. NOW this blessed Peace this happy Vnity and this Christian Concord are not to be hoped for in any National Church but by submitting to such common Expedients in the Celebration of the Publique Worship of Almighty God as by putting an End to these Differences may lay asleep all these occasions of Divisions Disputes and vain janglings and may therefore cut off the root and occasion of Quarrels about the How God shall be served And this Power must either be granted to be in the Governors of the Church and Nation or otherways all falls to Confusion For if it be not in the Church then have not any Dissenters that Power over their Churches and therefore they go about an unlawful Action and are bold Usurpers over the Christian Liberty of their Brethren whilest they go about to Establish any Government in their Congregations if it be in the Church then either that Authority is in the Church of England or She is not a true Church Let them prove that and we will fairly and quietly yield them the Cause But if the Church of England be a true Church and a true Church have such a Power then ought all who are in that Community and Nation to be obedient to her Determinations because they are within the Verge of her Jurisdiction and they who are disobedient are guilty of the breach of Vnity and Charity and Enemies to Peace and if the Author of the Epistle to the Hebrews be of any Credit they who do not follow Peace with all Men as well as Holyness and much more then with that Church which brought them forth and has nurst them in her tender Arms shall never see God And into what a desperate condition then have they reduced themselves who for want of this Charity Peace and Unity run themselves and their Disciples into the danger of being Excluded notwithstanding all their Holyness from the Glorious presence of God which in plain English is Eternal Damnation AH poor Church of England how justly mayest thou take up the Mournful complaint of God Almighty by his Prophet Isaiah Hear ô Heavens Esay 1.2 and give ear ô Earth I have nourished and brought up Children and they have rebelled against me O miserable and deceived People How vainly do you Establish your hopes of Eternal Happiness upon principles of Dissention Who are made believe no way so secure to
attain Salvation as Disobedience to the Government of the Church your Mother Who lose all Charity the substance of Religion for the Watry shadow that appears in the smooth but treacherous face of the specious words of Reformation and greater degrees of Purity not considering in the mean time that these are all the best of them but outward Forms of Godliness common to the Good and Bad but that Charity and Obedience in order to Brotherly Vnity are the Power and the Life the Soul and very Essence of all true Religion With these Religion may be false but without the other it can never be true Esay 5.21 Wo unto them says the Prophet that are wise in their own eyes and prudent in their own sight And what can be more Evident than that these People must be so to the highest degrees of Folly and Frenzy who expose the Peace and Well-fare of the Church to ruine and Distruction in complaisance to their private ill-grounded Opinions in mere matters of Indifferency who neglect a certain Duty for a Doubtful Supposition and have less Esteem for Charity than a Scruple or a Fancy who by their obstinate Practice so contrary to all Antiquity and so wholly new and therefore Vncertain set themselves in the Throne of Wisdom and Prudence much above all the Learned Pious and glorious Governors of the Church Saints and Martyrs which have been in all Ages since the Son of God laid the Foundation of it with his precious Blood Nay even above the Son of God himself who not only left that Government in his Church as shall be shewn hereafter but by the Miraculous continuance and preservation of that Government has manifested that he does approve it and that he has upheld it by his mighty Power and Wisdom LET Dissenters therefore shew us perspicuously when there was any other Government in the Church than that of Bishops Let them shew us when ever the Church was without a Publique Liturgy since that composed by St. James When ever Christians were without Priests to attend the Altar Heb. 13.10 of which they who serve the Jewish Tabernacle have no right to Eat or that these were of the Peoples chusing and not Ordained by Bishops to their Sacred Function Let them shew us where ever any person was permitted to Entertain the People with a long Extempore Prayer more to the displaying his own Abilities than to edify them more to disparage others who cannot who dare not if they can be so bold with the Dreadful Majesty of Heaven than to bring them into Charity with such Persons whose considerative Modesty stands amazed at the thoughts of the Divine Omnipotence as having been taught by the Holy Spirit Eccles 5.1 2. That God is in Heaven and we on Earth and therefore our words ought to be few and that it is a foolish Presumption to think we can please him by breaking his commands by being rash with our Mouths and hasty with our hearts to utter any thing before God for they who do so consider not that they give the sacrifice of Fools Rom. 3.8 and do Evil which an Apostle tells us we must not at any Rate be guilty of not though we may reasonably hope for a good Effect from evil Actions whose Damnation he there says is just LET them shew us these things either positively commanded of God or prohibited Universally practised by the Church or condemned or otherways let them confess that they are wiser than the Generations of their Fore-fathers in Christ wiser than the Apostles and all the holy Martyrs who with their Blood Sealed and Delivered the Truth of these things down to us And if they will call these Practices Antichristian Superstitious and Unlawful if they will tear off the Ornaments of their Mother nay and Murther her too because she will not consent to betray her self and her trust to their Novel Wisdom if they will more barbaroufly than the Roman Souldiers rend the seamless Coat of Christ to patch up another of their own Inventions we must pity them and pray for them in the Language of our blessed Jesus Father forgive them for they know not what they do Luk. 23.34 and yet even that Charity does not deprive us of using all Lawful ways and means to defend our selves from their injurious incroachments nor is it meant that our Charity ought to be so defenceless as voluntarily to Expose us to their Injustice and Cruelty And that glorious Law which commands us to love and pray for our Enemies does not oblige us to offer our throats a Sacrifice to their Swords nor are we bound to be so kind to them as to be Cruel to our selves I could heartily wish the sad Effects of the Decay of Christian Charity among us were only the Cloudy apparitions of my own fears and imaginations Airy Combats and Meteors of the Mind But alas we may but too sorrowfully invert the saying of the Royal Prophet Psal 44.7 We have heard with our Ears and our Fathers have told us nay miserable people that we are we have seen with our Eyes these afflicting Truths For no sooner was the Church of England stept out of the Errors and Darkness of Rome but the Devil the great Incendiary of the World envious of our Happiness begun to sow the Tares of Dissention among us I will not repeat the Names of those Authors of our Misery but I desire all Dissenters of what Names soever to consider what have been the Effects of these Differences which for this 80 years they have with such Hereditary Violence and Animosity maintained against the Church of England What is it that has banish't all Charity from the Minds and Lives of Men What is it that has made all those Heats Strifes and Divisions those bitter Railings that Hatred Emulation and at last Separation from the Communion of Saints which is one Article of our Faith between people of different Opinions What is it therefore that has sacrificed Faith to Opinion From what Fountain flow'd all those fearful streams of blood which so lately staind our yet blushing Fields Scaffolds nay our very Temples and Altars From what Coast blew those Whirlwinds of Rebellion and Sedition not privy but publique Conspiracy which threw down all Crowns and Mitres Churches and Palaces every thing Sacred and Civil which occasion'd the ruine of so many Millions of Souls Bodies and Estates This Cloud which was at first no bigger than a Mans hand which afterwards cover'd the face of the Heavens with Storms and Tempests Thunder and Lightning like the dismal Plague of Egypt Fire mingled with Hail was nothing but the dislike which some persons had that their sense was not made the standard of Religion and because contrary to their good liking some Ceremonies were thought fit to be retained in the Church as being of great Antiquity of Excellent Use and necessity which they would have had totally abolished THESE men whose Tempers were warmer
and Religion LOUD and clamorous are the Complaints and Declamations against the vitiousness and Debauchery of the present Age and not without too evident Truth and Reason Impiety which was formerly used to wait for the twilight dare now walk bare fac't and stare upon the Sun St. Paul says of the modest Debauchees of his Age They that are drunken are drunken in the Night but now licentious men are become so impudent as to scorn to throw the Mantle of Darkness over their vitious Intemperance that they take a Pleasure and a Pride to Riot in the day time and to affront God and Men and even humane Nature it self by their prodigious and Publique Sins and Follies They who did ill formerly hated the light but now Men study to affront it and oblige that pure and innocent Blessing to become not only a Witness but an Assistant to their Brutish and shameless Disorders and would loose their greatest pleasure should they not expose themselves and their deeds of Darkness to the discovery of the Day ALL this is laid upon the Government of the Church which though it be as innocent as the light by which they are boldly acted yet must they conspire in the guilt of these horrid Crimes if we will believe Dissenters who blush not to lay this false Accusation to the Charge of the Government that thereby they may render it Criminal and Odious and themselves and Party Clear and Innocent when as in truth and reality the Guilt of these miscarriages will be found to lie at their own Doors and let them wipe their mouths never so demurely and say they have done no Evil Prov. 30.20 with Solomon's Common Woman let them wash their hands with Pilate and say they are guiltless I doubt not to make it appear to the contrary It is a bold Charge and I know they will start at it as much as the Disciples did when our Saviour told them That one of them should betray him and be as forward as they to Cry out Is it I Who we but what if it prove true and be made good against them I will indeavour it and yet with all the Christian Compassion that I am capable of for I have no design to Expose their Persons to hatred but to bring them to true Repentance by shewing them the Danger of those Ways which with the specious shew of Righteousness and Holiness deceive them into a Contempt of the terrible Authority of the Church and others by their Example into all Sensuality and Impiety THAT Christ left to the Governors of his Church the Power of the Keys is most Evident from his own plain and clear Words For when he was to leave this World he called his Apostles to him and Then said Jesus unto them again Joh. 20.23 Peace be unto you as my Father hath sent me even so send I you there is their Mission and Commission for their Function and Government and when he had said this Matth. 18.18 he breathed on them and saith unto them Receive ye the holy Ghost there is their Unction and Ordination their ability to perform the Duty and discharge the trust reposed in them Whos 's soever Sins ye remit they are remitted unto them and whose soever sins ye retain they are retained There is the Office and the Power which was put into their hands the Expedient by which they were to govern and Rule the Church of God And though the Romanists endeavour to Monopolize even in the literal and worst sence this great Power only to Saint Peter and his Successors as they pretend the Roman Bishops only are yet nothing is more clear than that our Saviour intended them all an Equal share and a Power to derive it to their Successors in all Churches to the End of the World His gracious Promise of being with them extending unto all Times Places and Persons who should succeed any of the Apostles as well as St. Peter The Church being built not only upon him but upon the Foundation of the Prophets and Apostles Christ Jesus being himself the Chief and Corner-stone in whom and by whom the whole glorious Fabrique is Vnited and Compleated THIS Power of the Keys of binding and loosing is the Power of Excommunication of Offenders and Absolution of Penitents and is indeed all the Power which Christ left with his Church and the only Jurisdiction which the Governors can exercise in and over it For all Corporal Punishments are properly and peculiarly vested by God himself in the power of the Temporal and Civil Magistrate who carries the Sword and is ordained of God for that very purpose and Design as St. Paul acquaints us Rom. 13. for he beareth not the Sword in vain but is the Minister of God a Revenger to Execute punishment upon him that doeth Evil. AN Instance of this terrible Sentence of Excommunication we have inflicted upon the Incestuous Corinthian and that with a great Formality 1 Cor. 5.5 This is my Determination saith the Apostle In the name of the Lord Jesus Christ when yeare gathered together and my Spirit with the power of our Lord Jesus Christ to deliver such a one to Satan as he tells us in another place that he had delivered Hymeneus and Alexander to Satan that they might learn not to Blaspheme By virtue of this dreadful Power it was that the Primitive Governors of the Church even when they had no assistance but all opposition from the Secular Powers yet kept the Flock of Christ in all Obedience Subjection good Order and Discipline Then were Christians Miracles of Charity Piety and Devotion to the wondring Pagans when they were obliged to those Duties by no Humane Laws when there were no fears of Prisons Tortures Confiscations or Banishment unless for being and owning themselves to be Christians but the only fear of Excommunication and being put out of thâ— Fellowship of the Saints here on Earth and denyed Entrance into the Congregation of the Faithful of being debarred from receiving the Holy Eucharist and joyning in the publique Service and Worship of God was more forcible to make them Holy Obedient and Vnanimous than all the Torments devised by Persecution were able â—o make them Prophane or Vitious For why They did believe that unless the Governors of the Church the Successors of the Apostles did remit their Sins on Earth they should not find remission in Heaven they therefore believed it because Christ the Eternal Truth had said it They did believe that unless they were United by Communion to the Holy Catholique Church they could never hope for the Remission of Sins the Resurrection of the Body unto Life Everlasting which is the most ancient Confession of the Christian Faith and which with great probability is supposed to be delivered by the Apostles to the Church as a short sum of Faith necessary to Salvation NOR were they more fearful of this formidable Sentence of Excommunication than desirous of the Absolution of
the Church to restore them to the Honour of God Almighty after they had offended and by serious and Solemn Repentance were thought â—orthy to be readmitted into Communion And this is the other branch of the Power of the Keys and from hence arose the necessity of Confession for Christ having left a power with his Church to forgive the Penitent it was supposed that this was not to be done at random but the People looking upon the Priests as the Physicians of their Souls and as standing between God and them as Internuncij or Celestial Embassadors as St. Paul terms them when they expected Spiritual Remedies for the Diseases of their Souls they thought it necessary Especially in imminent danger of Death truly to state the Case and Condition of their Souls to these Spiritual Physicians that so they might be Judges of it and accordingly apply suitable Remedies and from hence sprung these excellent Effects FIRST Men avoided the Danger of flattering themselves into a dangerous perswasion of the Goodness and safety of their Condition and by consequence from that security and false Peace which has betrayed Millions into Eternal Misery For as nothing is more natural than for men to love themselves so nothing does more powerfully incline them to Judge favourably and with a dangerous Partiality concerning their Eternal Condition it being with Diseases of the Soul as with those of the Body where no Persons not even the Learned in the Art of Hermes when sick themselves are more incompetent Judges of their own state than those who labour under it who many times Flatter themselves with delirous Fancies of Life and Health even when they are under the Agonies of approaching Death SECONDLY Hereby many haynous sins which men commit in secret were nipt in the Blossom and believing that without Confession there was no Absolution to be expected the very fear of Discovery or of Damnation without it gave strange checks to such Tempers who had not abandoned all Modesty Nor is it to be esteemed a Wonder that Men should receive a more powerful Control from the fear of Humane Knowledg than from the apprehensions of the Omniscient Divinity since it is so well known that all men are more affected by the power of sensible Objects than of Faith and Reason and every mans own experience will convince him that the fear of Shame and Reproach upon Discovery has at least in some part of his Life been more powerful to preserve him from some Sins than all the terrors of a Future state of Misery and the witness of a little Child which might make a Discovery to the World has prevented the Execution of some wicked Designs which the Considerations of the Divine presence in all places would have had no great influence upon THIRDLY Hereby People came to have a true Love and Veneration for their Spiritual Guides a love of Reverence and a love of Tenderness looking upon them as their Spiritual Fathers and honouring them as such Then men did not set an Estimate upon them only proportionate to their abilities of making Extempore Prayers a thing wholly unknown to the first Ages of Christianity or for their gifts of Eloquent Orations in the Pulpit no more than they would do their Physicians for those Talents which though very excellent accomplishments yet were not thought Essential to their Profession nor conducive to the Health of their Patients who are not to be discoursed or courted by the power of Rhethorique into recovery but they look't upon them as those who had the charge of their Souls and that they were set by God to watch over them Heb. 13.17 as they that must give an account and for this Reason it was that they obeyed those that had the Rule over them and submitted themselves THEN was there no quarrelling no Litigious Suits at Law about the Maintenance of the Priesthood one thing and the main one which renders the present Clergy so slenderly possessed of the affections of the People but they thought with the good Apostle That those who sowed unto them Spiritual things ought to reap a share of their Carnal things and after the Maintenance of the Clergy was Established by the Donatives of their Pious Ancestors who gave those Revenues as Free Alms to God Almighty Frank Almoigne Libera perpetua Eleemosyna The Tenure of the Church and for the support of his Servants and Service they thought it no less than Sacriledge to rob God of Tithes and Offerings dedicated to the Use of those who by their Attendance upon his Altar were incapacitated to amass up Riches or even Competencies for a future subsistence as the Secular People were by several Arts and Trades Nay so cautelous and nice were they in this particular that they thought they could not dye with a secure Conscience unless they gave something by way of Compensation for Tithes forgotten to be paid in their lives an Opinion which descended down to the days of our Grandfathers as is apparent by the several Wills of ancient Date I am not ignorant that this will expose me to some Obloquy and that I shall be Censured hereby to aim at an Establishment of the Clergy in Honor Profit and Dominion or it may be I may suffer in my Reputation as going about to introduce Popery by Auricular Confession FOR the First I can make no other Vindication of my Innocence but an unfeigned Protestation with Saint Paul that according to the best of my Understanding I speak the truth in Christ 1 Tim. 2.7 and lie not and that I have no other Design either in particular or general but the Peace of the Church the Glory of God and the Salvation of all Men to which I am perswaded this would extreamly conduce and not a little to the quiet of mens Lives and advantage of their Temporal Affairs by cutting away the root of Unkindnesses about Meum Tuum betwixt the Minister and his Parishioners since we daily see not only that this is the divorce of their Affections but that this petty Sacrilegde is injurious to their Estates for what they do thus by an evil Covetousness unlawfully substract from the Established maintenance of the Clergy is usually to their treble dammage repaid to the rapaciousness of the Vnder Officers of the Law and in conclusion both parties are loosers but the greatest loss is that of Charity and mutual love one towards another AS to the accusation or suspicion of being a Papist I am as far from it and it may be farther than they who shall indeavour to fix that Calumny upon me for I neither believe with the Romish Church that it is a Sacrament and absolutely Essential to Salvation since Children who could never speak and Mutes may be saved without it neither am I for those private and Auricular Confessions or think those Pennances which are enjoyned as the consequence of them can make satisfaction for the Sins I remember very well the Scandal and
Art and Industry acquire them Nay he may by Sorcery obtain those which some People will call Divine Perfections and Gifts of the Spirit witness the late Relation of that abominable Wizzard Major Thomas Weir in Scotland and so long as people are cherished in a false Opinion that these Abilities however natural or acquired are sufficient to intitle them to the Office of the Ministry they who are possessed of such Gifts will think themselves as good and as wise and it may be Excelling them in those Talents more wise and better than their Teachers which will also incourage them not only to contemn and despise their Spiritual Guides but to invade their Office which is the prevailing Error of all or most of our Separatists and Dissenters BUT when People shall come to understand that no Man is a Legatus Natus of Heaven born a Priest or a Governour in the Church but that the Priests of the New Testament who are Priests for ever after the Order of Melchisedeck must be called of God for that no man taketh this honour unto himself but he that is called of God as was Aaron Heb. 5.4 Rom. 10.15 and that no man can preach except he be sent when they shall know that it is not these Natural Abilities and Gifts but the Power of the Keys of binding and loosing of remitting and retaining Sins which Christ gave his Apostles and they to their Successors by lawful Ordination which qualifies them for that Sacred Function then would People learn to distinguish between Pastors of Gods appointment and Orators of their own Chusing and as the Apostle Exhorts and Commands 1 Thess 5.12 13. then would they know those that labour among them and are over them in the Lord and admonish them and esteem them very highly in Love for their Works sake and then would they be at Peace among themselves THEN would they repair for help assistance and direction to the Physicians who are of Gods Institution and who have Authority Virtue and Ability to heal their Souls to bind or loose to remit or retain their Sins and no longer trust to those Mountebanks of Religion who by Antick Gestures and affected Words draw them to their Stage pretending Universal Remedies when in truth they have no Power no Virtue no Authority but delude them with Hard Words and fair Speeches making Merchandize of them crying Peace Peace where there is no Peace and slightly healing the Wounds of the Daughter of our People when as they are not able to shew any Warrant from Christ his Apostles or their Successors for their obtruding themselves into the Holy Function and important charge of being Spiritual Guides and Governors of the Church and People of God FOR Ordination by the Imposition of the hands of the Bishop and his Presbyters has in all Ages of the Church been esteemed the Door by which good Men enter into the Fold of Christ 1 Pet. 5. and take the Charge of the Sheep not by constraint but willingly not for filthy Lucre but of a ready mind that when the chief Shepherd shall appear they may receive a Crown of Glory that fadeth not away And therefore our Lord the chief Shepherd tells us He is the Door By this Door the Apostles and their Successors entred and he that entreth not by this Door into the Sheepfold but climbeth up some other way of Ambition is a Thief and a Robber THIS high Trust and Power over his Church thus committed by Christ to his Apostles and by them transmitted to their Successors for the management and governing of his Flock was therefore given to all that so they might preserve their several Charges in Peace and Vnity and that one might not bind what another had loosed that one might not Absolve where another had Excommunicated which Rule was strictly observed in all Churches however they differed in Circumstantials not admitting the Outcasts of another Church into their Communion till they had purged themselves of the Crimes objected against them if false or reconciled themselves by Repentance if true whereby they constantly maintained the Vnity of Faith abroad the Vnity of Government at home LET us now see how this Power of the Keys becomes impracticable by admitting diversity of Government in a National Church And whether they who set up Altar against Altar among us are not thereby guilty of that Licentiousness and Impiety against which they make such loud Declamations endeavouring to lay that which is the spurious Issue of their Separation at the Door of the present Governors and Pastors of the Church ALL the Power which Christ left with the Governors of his Church as before was said is the Power of Excommunication whereby Notorius Offenders and Scandalous Sinners were debarred from the Communion of Saints on Earth and without Repentance and Absolution from all hopes of Pardon here or Heaven hereafter if there be any truth or force in those Words of Christ Whose sins ye retain they are retained But now where there are Distinct Collections of Men who own no dependance one upon another but though in the same Nation yet live under different and it may be quite contrary Forms of Government one from another as before was shewn there will be a total Cessation of Charity as well as Communion And whilest these Differing Congregations of men make it their greatest endeavour perhaps out of mistaken Zeal perhaps out of some other Design of Interest or Ambition to propagate their Way and increase the Number of their Proselytes and with it the Credit and Profit of their Doctrine they will refuse none that shall desire to joyn with them and enter into their Communion and Society And the greater and more notorious Sinners they have been if they can but act their Villanies more privately and put on the Sanctimonious dress of Reformation the greater will the Miracle of their Conversion appear and the more Powerful and Efficacious will their Preaching seem which draws such Sinners to Conversion By this Means those who for any Crimes fall under the Censure of another Church and are by them rejected from Communion shall find a Sanctuary a Protection nay and it may be an Esteem in that Church to which they flye for Refuge whilest they will certainly make their inclination to that Party the principal occasion of their Excommunication and the reason of their Departure from the one and adherence to the other Nor will that Party to which they make their retreat and Application only willingly receive them but be ready to Exclaim upon the Injustice of the Censures of that Church from whence they came and their Tyrannous proceedings which they will call Persecution and suffering for Conscience-sake then will they pronounce the Nullity of all such Censures against them and notwithstanding their standing Excommunicate that by joyning with them they shall certainly be admitted into the favour of God and obtain an Interest in Heaven and it may be more certainly
men who keep up these Principles of Disunion which have such a desperate influence upon the Civil Affairs and endeavour to Ruine the State by setting up Religion and whose restless and unwearied Industry leaves no stone unmoved Nay who will move Heaven and Earth to accomplish their Design This has been observed to be the Genius of Dissenters in former Times and it is to be feared the Humor has not left them Esay 57.20 21. For they are like the troubled Sea which cannot rest but is continually casting up mire and dirt Foaming and Raging and Raving like that unstable and unruly Element to enlarge its floating and turbulent Empire by incroaching upon the Terra Firma the Peaceable Earth and one may but too truly add the Words of the Prophet There is no Peace saith my God to the Wicked Rom. 3.13 14 15 16 17 18. For their Throat is an open Sepulchre with their Tongues they use Deceipt the Poyson of Asps is under their Lips Their mouth is full of Bitterness their feet are swift to shed Blood Destruction and Misery are in their ways And the way of Peace have they not known For their Practices declare it publiquely what ever they pretend either of Innocence or Sanctity That there is no fear of God before their eyes THERE being no Differences as before was observed which do so absolutely Alienate the minds of Men as those about Religion as they are most irreconcilable therefore they are most dangerous not only to the Essence of Religion but to the Civil affairs of State for if we be divided and distracted what matters it how or by what Means The effects of these Dissentions will have the same influence upon the Publique Affairs whether they come from Religion or Ambition Either will ruine us but the former more certainly and with greater Artifice Because more insinuating and plausible in outward appearance For men who have any sense of Religion cannot but look upon it as the great concern of their Lives and the care of their Posterity to whom they desire to transmit it as well as their Estates And though it is in Charity to be hoped that many Dissenters are not aware of this dangerous Rock which lies under Water and that they have no such Ill designs yet they cannot be ignorant from former Expeence that there may be such among them now as have been formerly and that Popular and Ambitious Spirits have made use of their Zeal and Credulity to abuse them and the whole Nation into Misery and Slavery under the pretence of Liberty And that such Men will never want either Shelter or opportunity under those pretences of Religion to embroyl us among our selves or betray us to a Forrein Power so long as this Disunion continues and these Differences are incouraged maintained and daily propagated among us THIS is a season when these things would be seriously Considered by all Dissenters and if it shall appear a real Truth that this Industry in stead of promoting true Religion must promote our Ruine they ought voluntarily to Unite and return to the Obedience of the King and Church For otherways their Actions will confess what their Tongues deny and that this Reformation is in Reality the Subversion of the Government which they intend FOR what is it possible to believe or think of such Persons as with treacherous Joab 2 Sam. 20.29 call us Brethren enquire of our Health and with the right hand salute that with the left they may stab us as he did the incautelous Amasa with our own Sword under the fifth Rib. Can they be esteemed Friends to their Countrey or the Protestant Religion who through their Dissentions discredit the one and disable the other from defending it is this the way to secure us from Arbitrary Government to make the Princes Government perpetually unsafe and uneasy and almost impracticable without it by forcing him for the guard of the Sceptre to wear a Sword and then exclaim against him for doing that which they have necessitated him to do or to leave his Crown and Life and that of his Loyal Subjects to the mercy of the Sword of Rebellion Can it be probable that this should be an Expedient to preserve us from the Roman Religion to furnish them with Arguments against us that we deny the Catholique Faith in the Communion of Saints and to give them this advantage against us to say and truly that we have neither Vnity nor Charity Or can any man in his Wits believe that the best way to Establish Peace among our selves is to maintain perpetual Principles of Quarrels and Contentions Or that we are like to defend our selves from powerful Enemies abroad Enemies by a Hereditary Animosity and Enemies upon the account of Religion by worrying one another at Home No no as soon shall the Plague become an Amulet to preserve us from Contagion as soon shall Impotent men be cured by cutting their Nerves in pieces as soon shall men see clearly by putting out their Eyes and all that ever can be imagined that is not only improbable but utterly impossible come to pass as that this or any other Nation should be happy without Vnity not only in point of the Civil but Ecclesiastical Government or that Mens minds should be easy whilest the Spring of Jealousies is kept open among us and the fountain of Charity is stopt up or that we should be safe from Forrein Enemies when no man can tell who is his Friend at Home NOR in short can it be hoped that Truth and Peace should flourish in our Days when Private Opinion shall be preferred before the Catholique Faith and the practice of the Church in all Ages 1 Tim. 6.4 when Eternal Wranglings about Words and Questions whereof cometh Envy Strife Railings and Evil Surmisings shall be the great Accomplishment of Christian Religion and shall banish all Love and Charity from the minds and lives of Men. What can be the end of these Mischiefs So long as Obstinacy in our private Judgments shall be accounted a more Essential part of Religion than Obedience to Lawful Authority but what the Apostle long since by way of Caution predicted to the Church of the Galatians Gal. 5.13 14 15. Brethren ye have been called unto Liberty only abuse not your Liberty for an occasion to the Flesh but by Love serve one another for all the Law is fulfilled in one Word even in this Thou shalt love thy Neighbour as thy self But if they bite and devour one another take heed that ye be not consumed one of another Which fearful Prophecy so truly verisied and fulfilled upon that and the rest of the Asian Churches God of his infinite Goodness and Mercy avert from us by bestowing upon us this Vnity of the Spirit which is the Bond of Peace and which is certainly the true Spirit of Christian Religion and the only way to obtain that peace of God which passeth all Vnderstanding which will fill the
did not believe the Theological Point of Transubstantiation and when nothing else would do then the killing Question What say you to the Sacrament of the Altar was sure to turn them over to the Secular Power for Hereticks and it was not long before the Writ de Hereticis Comburendis brought them to their Funeral Pile But if any thing which men pretend to be matter of Faith be found by Experience dangerous to Society destructive of the Fundamentals of our Government may not we Lawfully indeavour to oblige those who own that Faith to give security that they do not believe it so as to be prejudicial to the Government such are the Doctrines of the Popes Supremacy and Power not only to Excommunicate but to Depose Princes and dispose of their Crowns that Equivocation even upon a solemn Oath is lawful a Position that Ruines all Religion and Fidelity and the very Reputation of Humane Nature And yet a Treatise I have seen written to this Purpose in the latter end of Queen Elizabeth's Reign and approved by Blackwell the Archpriest in these words Tractatus iste valdé doctus veré pius Catkolicus est c. Certissimé SS Scripturarum Patrum Doctorum Scholasticorum Canonistarum optimarum Rationum presidijs plenissimé firmat aequitatem aequivocationis Ideoque dignissimus est qui Typis propagatur ad consolationem afflictorum Catholicorum omnium piorum Instructionem This Treatise saith he is very Learned and truly Pious and Catholique Certainly therein the Equity of Equivocation is fully proved by the strongest Reasons out of Scriptures Fathers Doctors Schoolmen and Canonists and therefore is most Worthy to be Printed for the Comfort of afflicted Catholiques and the Instruction of all good People Must now the indeavouring to suppress the Authors of such Doctrine be Persecution for Conscience sake have these Opinions no Influence upon Humane Society As to the Second Note a Liberty of believing or disbelieving this or that Doctrine only in order to a private way of Worship c. Who ever denyed this Liberty Is there any Judg of thoughts of the heart besides God Is any man denyed to enjoy his private Opinion or can he be so long as it continues so But if People will Transgress these Limits and impose matters of private Opinion as matters of Faith in order to practice and such Opinions as ruine Charity disturb Peace unsettle Government must these too be Tollerated And such are the Opinions of Rome and Geneva And it is not a private but a publique Liberty which is denyed them a Liberty to Poyson Mens Loyalty and first Murder their Allegiance that they may with more ease Murder the Government A Liberty to banish Charity Peace and Vnity out of the Church to Establish true Religion without them So that if he would stick to his Demands he could no sooner ask than have such a Tolleration as is not in the Power of any Mortal Authority to abridge any man of and it is impossible for any person to suffer Persecution for his private Opinion for no man can be punished but for what is known to be his Opinion by his own Confession and when it comes to be so either by his words or Actions it ceases to be Private For suppose a man were a Mahometan but no person knew it besides himself who could tax him with it or punish him for it but if he will make his house a Mosque and endeavour to Convert others to the Alchoran to make a Party and to Erect the Crescents to pull down the Cross and the Crown would that be private or deserve Tolleration BUT to trace him he tells us p. 1. That no man has power over Conscience therefor Imposition and Violence are unlawful A very Logical Consequence No Prince has power to Punish therefore not to Tollerate neither God hath Exempted the Soul out of his Commission but not the Body Why does he then demand that which is not in their Power to Grant As for his Examples which he gives for Tolleration from Turks and Pagans they are but ill Presidents for Christians And for the Instance of Theodosius and Gratian if Socrates be to be credited it is a great Slander upon those two good Emperors Gratian indeed Secr. Ecc. Hist li. 5. c. 2. 10. at his first coming to the Crown gave Liberty that every Sect and Opinion should freely without Molestation frequent their wonted Assemblies except the Eunomians Photinians and Manichees But no sooner was he setled in the Empire God 1. Tit. 5. lege Omnes and had joyned Theodosius to him but they command that all Heresies should for ever keep Silence The same Prohibition Arcadus and Honorius continue and Augment Ibid. lege Cuncti Let all Hereticks say they understand that all places must be taken from them as well Churches as other places of Meeting as private Houses in which let them be debar'd from Service both by Night and by Day Ibid. leg Ariani and the Lord Deputy of the Province was to look to the Execution of this Law and if he permitted their Meetings either openly or secretly he was to fine for it 100 l. Theodosius the Younger whom Socrates compares to Moses for his Meekness and Excellent Nature yet with Valentinian his Cousin summing up in a Catalogue the Hereticks of that Time Commands that no where within the Roman Empire their Assemblies or Prayers should be permitted but that all Laws made to Prohibit their Meetings should be revived and made perpetual And this they did because they thought the Civil Power was obliged to Protect the Ecclesiastical and to maintain Peace in the Church of God and as our Advocate quotes the Wise Sir Francis Bacon for another purpose pag. 7. Because the Sword of Dissention ought not be put into the Peoples hands to nourish Seditions Treasons Conspiracies c. which were to dash the first Table against the second and to consider Men as Christians so as to forget they are Men which with the Gentlemans favour is not much to his advantage since these are all the Effects and necessary Consequences of Tolleration IT was the great Misfortune of the Poet Claudian that his Excellent Wit fell upon dry and barren Subjects the same ill Luck has this Writer in falling upon this Subject of Liberty of Conscience so contrary to his own and the Judgment of his Church that I shall use no other Arguments than his own Words and by turning his own Cannon upon his Castle in the Air I do not Question but to make him quit his Fortifications The Truth is I like his Title of Advocate for he proves himself one and acts the Advocate exactly making the best he can of a bad Cause but so great is Truth that it needs no other Advocate nor any better Arguments than even in speaking against her he is compelled to use for her Pag. 41. The ancient Original Fundamental Laws says he by which other Laws
that we through Patience and Comfort of the Scriptures might have hope So were the Scriptures of the New Testament given us a new Rule and a Royal Law of Liberty that we might not Glory in Men 1 Gor. 3.21 22. c. 4.1.6 neither in Paul nor Cephas But that we might esteem them Stewards of the Mysteries of God And not to think of them above what is Written Which place if throughly considered teaches us not to prefer any Man or Men above the Scripture THIS will appear further if we consider the Nature of a Rule for a Rule is the constant certain infallible unchangeable measure according to which I judg of any thing whether it be true or false And if I can but suppose what is offer'd me for a Rule to be false or if I know it is or may be false it can be no Rule because it leaves me in an Uncertainty whether I am Right or Wrong But the Scripture cannot be supposed to be false for admitting that supposition they are no longer Scriptures or the Word of God for every word of God is true Men have been are and will be Fallible Traditions are dubious and uncertain but the Word of God is tried to the uttermost and coming from the Infallible Author of all Truth is the Touchstone of the Truth of Men and their Doctrines and by that we examine by that we judg of mens Faith and actions Isa 8.20 If they speak not according to the Law and the Testimony it is because there is neither Light nor Truth in them THE Mistake seems to be in Confounding the Difference between a Rule and a Guide and they who would advance the Authority of the Church above the Scripture set the Judg above the Law and Confound him with it The Church is indeed the Guide which instructs us but if her Instructions are not according to her Rule of Scripture when we hope for Bread she gives us a Stone and instead of a Fish a Scorpion Mortal Poyson for wholesome Nourishment To Illustrate this Suppose I desire to learn the Mathematicks I therefore apply my self to a Person skilful in that Incomparable Science and intreat him to direct me He shews me Euclid's Elements as the Foundation of Mathematical Knowledg and therefore reads and explains it to me Pray now who is the Rule the Master or the Book Certainly all men who have not forfeited their Reason will say the Book is the Rule the Man the Guide and if he give me any thing for a Demonstration contrary to the Principles therein contained I know by them that he is mistaken because he he has not instructed me according to the Rule The case is the same only the Infallibility of the Scriptures is more certain being founded upon the Infallibility of God They are the Rule the Governors of the Church the Guides appointed by God for that purpose to them therefore men resort for Instruction but if they teach either what is their own or other mens contrary to the Rule they are false Guides and why so But because they give a false Rule betraying that high Trust by God reposed in them to be Eyes to the Blind and Feet to the Lame to conduct them to Eternal Bliss by the Directions of that Rule of which St. Paul says Gal. 6.16 As many as walk according to this Rule Peace be on them and Mercy and upon the Israel of God AND even they who contend so earnestly against the Scriptures being the Rule of Faith and Life ought to shew some other End and Design of the Scriptures and a better Rule and not Confute themselves and all their Assertions and Arguments by making this the Rule of Believing whilst they bring Arguments out of it against it self which they would have therefore believed because they are Scripture plainly confessing it to be the Ultimate Rule and that nothing can properly be matter of Faith but what is agreeable to it Which has made the Romish Doctors sweat and toyl so vehemently to Extort Confessions from the Scripture Tert. de Praescript adv Heretic as Tertullian says Caedem Scripturarum faciunt ad materiam suam even Murdering it almost to make it speak to their purpose And since they could not prevail with it to Depose against the Truth they have put it into the Inquisition Imprisoning it in the Vulgar Latin lest if it should get abroad and speak Truth as it would do in despight of all Opposition it would proclaim their Injustice and Violence to the meanest Capacities of the Vulgar among them who would hereby come to detect the Pious Frauds and profitable Follies which are imposed upon them as matter of Faith THE ancient Church believed the Scriptures the Rule of Faith and therefore took care to have them Translated into Syrian Chrys Hom. 1. in Joh. Aegyptian Ethiopian Persian and other innumerable Languages as St. Chrysostom testifies and Theodoret says Theod. de Cur. Graec. affect lib. 5. the Bible was Translated into all Languages used in the World Greek Latin Persian Indian Armenian Scythian Sarmatian And this seems one if not the principal Reason why the Holy Ghost did Miraculously descend in Cloven Tongues upon the Apostles inabling them to speak in several Languages for the Parthians Medes Elamites Dwellers in Mesopotamia Judea Cappadocia Pontus Asia Phrygia Pamphylia in Lybia and Cyrene Crete and Arabia heard them speak the wonderful Works of God If they might have used the Compendious way of Instructing them to believe as the Church believes and had made themselves The rule of Faith and like the Priests of Memphis delivered their Hieroglyphical Faith from one to another there would have been no need of all this or of their Pains who afterwards were so diligent to Translate the Scriptures into all Languages to instruct all Nations and to let them see there was no Cheat or Juggle in Religion by exposing it to the view of the severest Criticks CHAP. XV. I Suppose there are no Dissenters among us except those of the Roman Communion but will willingly accord the Scriptures to be the Rule of Faith and Manners And though there may be differences between us and them in some Material points of Doctrine yet the Apple of Strife is about the Government of the Church Some contending for a Parity and Equality as the Presbyterians others for an Absolute Independency of any the least Congregation of Men calling themselves a Church Others for a Democratick Anarchy as the Anabaptists and Quakers and several other Enthusiasts But all point blank against Episcopacy though hitherto they have not been able to satisfie the World for what Offence As for the Independency of Churches I shall only say in short that it opens the way to endless Separations and innumerable Errors and Hesies no man having power to Judg of them besides themselves And slies so far from the Popery of Hierarchy that it runs into a worse Extream and makes every Pastor Supreme
calling him a-away he leaves Titus a Bishop there to set in order what was wanting that was upon their good demeanour to advance them into the Power of Bishops which was wanting at St. Pauls departure and the following words make it plain that this was the thing wanting and which he appointed Titus to do By the Direction he gives about them Vers 10 11. For a Bishop must be blameless as the Steward of God a high Office and a large Jurisdiction for there are many unruly there was the Necessity of Bishops to Rule whose mouths must be stopped who subvert whole Houses teaching things which they ought not for filthy Lucres sake So that Titus was to make Bishops in that Populous Island that so they might have Authority which as Presbyters they had not to stop the mouths of the Seducers And how were these unruly Subverters to be Treated and Governed even by rebuking them sharply Vers 13. and stopping their Mouths 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 by silencing them And how could that be done but by the Authority of the Bishop who was to let them and the People know that if they persisted in their disobedience Vers 16. They were abominable and Reprobates and therefore to be cast out of the Church For though they profess to know God yet in works they deny him being abominable and disobedient and unto every good Work Reprobate Therefore abominable because disobedient Silencing then of Subverters of Houses unruly vain Talkers Deceivers is no new thing in the Church nor Bishops Persecutors for so doing Nor is there any way of stopping their Mouths in the Church but by this Authority of Excommunication and if they submit not to this all their Pretences to Godliness will not excuse them from denying him and being Reprobates because Disobedient What must we then think of those who will not have their Mouths stopped either by the Power of the Church or Civil Magistrate but in the highest degree of Unruly and Mutinous Disorder are Disobedience to both Indeavouring to draw Disciples after them that they may first take away from the Bishop the defence of the Magistrates Sword and then with Ease Extirpate Episcopacy Root and Branch Office and Name Power and Authority THUS you see that the Holy Ghost appointed Bishops in the Primitive Church you see their Office and Authority and that Presbyters were their Lawful Inferiors that they had Power to Ordain to Rebuke to acquit or Condemn to stop the Mouths of the Unruly So that here is both the Name and the Thing the Title and the Office confirmed by clear and evident Testimony of Scripture Now let us see what Obedience is due to them We intreat you Brethren saith St. Paul 1 Thess 5.12 13. and his Modest Intreaty â—â—â—y I hope without offence pass for a Command to know them that labour among you and are over you in the Lord and admonish you And to esteem them very highly in Love for their Works-sake and be at Peace among your selves How know these 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 these Rulers For they could not be ignorant of their Persons or Names but know their Office know their Power that so by submission you may maintain Peace BUT the Author to the Hebrews is plain and Positive Heb. 13.17 Obey them that have the Rule over you 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which word will carry more than some Envious People will well like of in Bishops and will not only intitle them to Rule but their Honour too as will appear to any who is not a stranger to the Greek Language For it signifies not only a bare Ruler or a Guide but a Captain and a Prince and warrants a Bishops being so in the New Testament as well as a Priest under the Old But to avoid Offence I know there are none of those Reverend Fathers of the Church but will be pleased to derive their Titles from another Fountain of Honour I speak this to shew that God Almighty by his Spirit in Scripture is pleased to Honour them with the high Character of Princes and Governors and that therefore they are not to be Vilified and Despised as sonâ—n Wanton and other Virulent Tongues and Pens too frequently do But to proceed He continues to shew what kind of Obedience this must be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 submit your selves without resisting be in Subjection And he adds the Reason For they watch for your Souls as they that must give an Account that they may do it with Joy and not with Grief Does God expect an account of Souls from these spiritual Guides and Rulers Then certainly he cannot in Justice leave them Destitute of Power and Authority to Rule and Guide as means to enable them to give a good Account of their Charge And to suppose the contrary were to suppose an End without a Way And since they have such a Charge all those who are within their respective Jurisdictions are bound to yield Obedience to them as they will answer before the Bar of Divine Justice for the Guilt not only of Destroying their own Souls but those of others whom they teach to Refuse to Obey those who have the Rule over them and are appointed Bishops by the Holy Ghost AND whereas St. Peter calls himself a Presbyter and by ranking himself among them seems to intimate they are all one this does not at all prove that he was not a Bishop too 1 Pet. 1.1 For he calls himself Peter an Apostle of Jesus Christ and his Humility in calling himself 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Chap. 5.1 their fellow Presbyter does no more prove that a Bishop and Presbyter are the same than that a Presbyter and Apostle are for though they were his fellow Presbyters yet they were not his fellow Apostles and further it appears that these Presbyters of which he calls himself a Sym-Presbyter were Bishops as well as Priests for Writing to the several Churches scattered through Pontus Galatia Cappadocia and Bithynia and calling the Governors of those Churches Fellow Presbyters argues as much but the second Verse puts it out of doubt for he says they must Episcopize 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 feed the Flock of Christ as Bishops and therefore this place will never prove that the Authority of a bare Presbyter is equal to that of a Bishop or one who was a Fellow Presbyter of Saint Peter LET us see now what the next Age thought of it I will not run through the whole Church-History but content my self with the Testimony of Ignatius who was the Scholar of Saint John the beloved Apostle and Disciple of our Lord who leaned on Jesus's Bosom and one may well suppose therefore knew his Breast and what Government his Lord appointed in the Church and had Episcopacy been Antichristian would not have failed to tell us so and when he tells us there are many Antichrists he would have told us that this was one if he had believed it to be so and
for Practice but to the Governors of the Church which all shall be bound to observe for the obtaining Peace and Vnity I have already proved who are those Governors who by the Appointment of the Holy Ghost are to Rule to feed the Flock of Christ to Watch over mens Souls as they that must give an Account to Rebuke Exhort with all long suffering but not with suffering always for if Seducers will persist in subverting houses and vain talking then by proceeding to stopping their Mouths that so they may study to approve themselves unto God Workmen that need not be ashamed rightly dividing the Word of Truth And the Temporal Power of the Civil Magistrate may assist the Spiritual to bring men to Peace Unity and Obedience to these their Guides and Governors by being a Terror to Evil doers and Encouragement to those who do well which is both the Will and the Word of God I know it will be Objected That these Intepreters of Scripture and Judges of Controversies may Err and be deceived Bishops may Err Counsels have Erred and therefore this leaves us still in an Uncertainty since it is possible that we may be misled by them and how shall we be certain they do not Err or we in following them and wherein is it Lawful to refuse to Obey them To this I answer That the Qualificatîon of such a Guide and Interpreter of Scripture as we are to expect is not such a one as cannot Err but such a one as does not Err for had God left us such a Guide besides his own Word and Will there would have been a state of Perfection attainable in this Life and by consequence an Immortality and no necessity of his Divine assistance to keep us by his mighty Power from falling through Faith unto Eternal Salvation such a Guide must have been a God Omniscient Omnipotent and Omnipresent which is as unreasonable to believe as to expect from any or all Mortal Men. And besides it is a vain and frivolous Objection for those who are under any Lawful Government to run into the most dangerous Errors and manifest breach of Gods Command by Schism and Disobedience to the Laws of Men for fear of imaginary danger of future Errors which if they shall really happen we have a plain and easy remedy against them if we know them to be such and that is in our own persons to protest against them and to refuse to Joyn with those that hold them and if we know them not to be so though we be in Error as who lives that does not Err they will do us no injury for it is obstinacy in Error and not bare Error of ignorant frailty that is damnable but we can have no Plea or Excuse to make to God Almighty for our Error of Separation breach of Vnity Peace Order Communion Division from a Church not yet convicted of any manifest Error either in Doctrine or Practice which is the Case between Dissenters and the Church of England And besides every Error in Circumstantials which does not destroy Faith or a good Life is not a sufficient and warrantable Cause for any private Man to throw off all Subjection to his Superiors for if it were there could be no such thing as a Catholique Church or Communion of Saints there being no particular Men or any Society of Men without Sins and by consequence not without Errors both in Doctrine and Practice BUT Secondly The Governours of the Church neither do nor can Err in point of Faith and Doctrine or Discipline and Government so long as they follow the Rule of the Scriptures in Cases plain and clear as before I shewed the Matters of Faith essentially necessary to Salvation are Nor so long as they Judge of such as are dubious according to their Catholiqueness in the Esteem of all Ages of the Church for no Error was ever Universal And though they may be mistaken yet do they not Err if in Interpretation of the more difficult and obscure places of Scripture they indeavour to Expound the meaning of them by others which are more clear and perspicuous following the received sense of them acknowledged so by the Vniversal Church so long as in those Interpretations there can be nothing repugnant to the Common Faith of Christians or prejudicial to Peace Charity and Practical Piety Neither can they Err as to the point of Discipline and the External Polity of the Church if in indifferent things in their own Natures and not Essentially necessary to Salvation they do not impose them as such if they follow the Direction of the General Rules of the Holy Canon that every thing be done with respect to Decency Order Edification for the avoiding Confusion and obtaining Peace Unity and Christian Love according to the Examples of the best Christians in former Ages in the Church and the Canons of such General Counsels as are not found manifestly Guilty of Partiality and Corruption in the long Train of Errors which the Indeavouring to Erect the Primacy into a Supremacy and the Supremacy into a Monarchy has brought into the Roman Church THIRDLY If the Governors of the Church Impose any thing contrary to Scripture Faith or Holy Life then do they forsake the Rule and it is Lawful and Necessary for every good Christian to forsake them for so is St. Paul's Rule 1 Cor. 11.1 Be ye followers of me as I am of God And praises them for observing the Commandments delivered to them by God But if they fall from the Faith as did the Gnosticks the Manichees the Arrians and many others we are not then to be Followers of them but Followers of God as Dear Children But if any Private man or many shall think because in some things which are contrary to their apprehension that therefore the Determinations are against Scripture and therefore their Obedience not due it is a mistake for they must be certain otherwise they are bound to be subject for if they be not certain and from the best Grounds and clear Evidences it is but their Opinion which cannot weigh enough in the Scale of Truth to warrant their Disobedience against the Publique Opinion of their Superiors but that such a Disobedience will be a certain Sin for if any or many mens Private Opininion which is private Interpretation may authorize them to renounce their Obedience to their Superiors there can never be any such thing as subjection in the World nor any Government and by good consequence No Vnion no Catholique Church and then no Faith and in short at last no such thing as Religion OTHERS will Object That hereby I seem to introduce Romish Infallibility and make our Bishops Lords of our Faith and that we had better submit to one Pope who is as free from Error as other Bishops To this I Answer That there is nothing more contrary to Sense or Truth than such an Objection For I do not make nor believe them Infallible but the Rule by
as the Opinions of private Doctors he might have said with Charity Doctrines of Devils those Incendiaries of the World and perpetual Haters of Humane Nature and Happiness but by his favour what he condemns Mariana and Suarez for teaching a Pope was so far from being of his Opinion of condemning that he commends it in the Publique Consistory Pius Quintus was his Name who when Henry the Third of France was murthered by Jaques Clement the Monk gave his Applause to the Tragedy it was Rarum insigne memorabile facinus facinus non sine Dei Opt. Max. particulari Providentia dispositione verus Monachus Fictum occiderat A rare famous and memorable Exploit and not without the particular Providence of Almighty God that the true Monk should murder the false one Well might the Painter make St. Peter's Picture blush for the Crimes of such impious Successors as this I need not repeat the Tumults of Rome nor the Wars of Italy under Pope Boniface the Eighth nor the Reign of Julius John the 12. or 22. nor all the Disturbances occasioned by the Pride and Ambition of Popes grasping at Temporal Power and Soveraignty Here is the Root of the Matter This Canon which has stood unrepealed this 600 Years is the perpetual Foundation of Papal Usurpations to which whoever does not Swear upon Occasion must be a Heretick and whoever does must if the Pope pleases be a Rebel to his Prince and against the Lord and his Christ whose Gospel teaches the quite contrary Doctrine And though notwithstanding this the Catholique Princes and even those of Italy as he says pag. 202. who live under the Pope's nose are not affraid of being Deprived or Excommunicated but are Absolute and Arbitrary in their Dominions Those last words are a good reason of their fearlessness for themselves but an ill one for their Subjects and the subsequent words which he adds a worse for both though absolutely necessary to maintain their right for they are not obliged to the Principles of the Roman Religion or their Peoples Fidelity built upon the Sacred and Solemn Oaths of Allegiance but are obliged to make the Sword give a Constant Security to the Sceptre Whilest they dispute with Sword in hand for their Temporalities So that it seems the Pope puts them upon disputing their Right and if the Sword of Princes be not longer than St. Peters the Pope has the best Argument for even the Temporalities and the Keys of the Kingdom of Heaven can open a door to the Kingdoms of the Earth Is not this a rare Principle of Peace which obliges Princes to stand continually upon their Guard against the Incroachments of the See of Rome AND whereas pag. 215. to ballance the Impious Doctrines of Bellarmine Suarez and Mariana he throws into the other Scale Luther Calvin Knox and Buchanan and tells us That their Opinions are at least as dangerous to Monarchy the difference between them being only this That whereas the former lodg the Deposing Power in the Pope only whose person is at a safe and sufficient distance at least from us the latter bring the danger home to the door of Princes and place it in the People whom they make both Parties and Judges in the Case Neither the one therefore nor the other who maintain such Doctrines fit to be Tollerated by any Prince who has not a mind to be deposed either by the Pope or the People But this distance this safe distance was a prety sweetning Parenthesis to dose a Prince with the Opium of being out of Danger As if Popes might not have as long hands now and their Bulls as long Horns as in the days of Henry the 4 th or Otho or King John And as if the Pope were not in the Case of those Soveraigns both Judg and Party particularly that of Henry where the Quarrel was whether the Pope or the Prince had the Right of Investitures of Bishops to their Temporalities BUT what if I shew him that Calvin Luther c. are as good Catholiques as he in this Point of Vesting this deposing Power in the People Vide Avent Polychron Viterben Sabellicus Nauclerus in vita Childerici and all the Historians of that Age. Pope Zachary being consulted whether Childerick being Sine liberis sine ingenio might be deposed and Pepin who was Major du palais Substituted in his room in his Answer to the Peers of France wanting a President for such Power in himself tells them at first that it was of that weight ut non auderet tam magni momenti cogitationem suscipere that he darst scarce entertain a thought of it but tells them in Conclusion That since Princes hold their Crowns and Government of the Peoples Choice in whom it resides absolutely Constituere Destituere a pretty modest word for Deposing to appoint or forsake therefore they might remove him who was unuseful and Elect him who was most Worthy So said so done See here a Lutheran Pope abandoning Supremacy for which now they contend as prò arîs and vesting this Deposing Power in the People A Position no less Treasonable than contrary to plain Scripture in a hundred places and therefore Damnable to make Princes whose Tenure is in Capite of God Almighty only become Tenants at will by Copy of Court Roll of Popular Election and Deposition If these be good Subjects good Christians who lay an Eternal Foundation for Perpetual Changes and Revolutions in Government and Governors by tossing and tumbling Crowns upon the Tempestuous Ocean of the Mobile vulgus let them be cherished let them be Tollerated LET him now which he ought to have done if he could or had meant fairly Shew in all the Doctrine of the Church of England the least Sylable that may any way be construed even by Prejudice it self to encourage Sedition Rebellion or deposing of Princes He nibbles a little at it pag. 261. with What if one should say you were Antichristian Bloody-minded Seditious c Why if he should he would be guilty of a most notorious Calumny and Falshood because he can never prove it For our Doctrine and our Practice suites with our Prayers which are Litany of Ch. of Engl. From all Sedition Privy Conspiracy and Rebellion Good Lord deliver us And if the pure Spirit of Primitive Christianity so Innocent so Vnambitious so Obedient and full of Sincerity and godly Simplicity so Pure and Peaceable and full of good Works be only to be found in the Doctrine and Practice of those who are the true Sons of the Church of England let them be accounted the best Subjects the best Christians And that therefore they deserve the Encouragement the Care and Protection of the Laws and Government and not to be given up to be Wasted Devoured and Destroyed trampled down and troden underfoot by Tolleration of those whose Principles and Practice are so directly contrary to the Peace and Prosperity of the Church and Nation CHAP. XIII THUS it appears
from the Advocates own Words that none can justly plead for a Tolleration whose Devilish Principles and furious Practices tend to the Subversion of Government which both by what has been said and by Experience the surest Demonstration in the World both Papists and other Dissenters especially Presbyterians have been proved guilty of Let us now see how he manages the Cause of his own Party for whose sake this Project of a Tolleration was principally intended as is plain by his comparing Luther Calvin Buchanan c. with Mariana Suarez and Bellarmine Whose Doctrines are at least as he says as Dangerous to Monarchy and therefore unfit to be Tollerated the one or the other LET us therefore examine the Plea of Innocency which he descends to defend in particular And as their manner always is pag. 70. he tells us That the Roman Catholique Religion was the first Christian Religion planted in our Countrey from whom we had our very Christianity Suppose it were yet Quantum mutatus ab illo The present Roman Catholique Religion is not the same which they planted But with his good leave his Assertion is contrary Pol. Virgil. Hist Angl. l. 2. not only to great Probability but to the consent of Historians for Polydore Virgil tells us Test is est Gildas Britannos jam inde ab initio arti Evangelii Christianam accepisse Religionem That our Ancestors received the Christian Faith according to the Testimony of Guildas in the very beginning of the Gospel Baronius thinks St. Peter was here Theodoret Bar. An. 58. n. 51. Theod. de curand Graec. affect l. 9. Niceph l. 2. cap. 40. Baron An. 36. n. 5. Bede lib. 1. cap. 25 26. lib. 2. cap. 2. Saint Paul Nicephorus Simon Zelotes Some Joseph of Arimathea and even when Austin the Monk came from Gregory to Convert us as they say to the Christian Faith he found a Church among us as Beda testifies Bertha a Christian Queen and at Bangor a Monastery or rather a Colledg of many hundreds who upon the Question Whether they should admit of Austin put it upon this Issue Si sit humilis admittatâ—â—â— But finding him proud and Imperious they rejected him which they durst never have done had they believed even the bare Primacy of his Master or that they were owing for their Faith and Conversion to the Roman Church I will not enter into a long dispute about Merits Pardons Purgatory Adoration of Images or Transubstantiation which were but actum agere only methinks the Apothecaries Argument deserves to be put upon the File who being pressed to believe the Doctrine of Transubstantiation told the Zealous Agressor pleasantly but truly Sir I will make a Wafer and set a mark upon it that it may not be changed you shall send it to the Pope let him Consecrate it and I will venture you a 100 l. you dare not take it Oh says the other but I dare and would well reply'd the Apothecary then I will venture a 1000 l. that you shall be dead before next Morning which if it were really transubstantiated were impossible that the poison of the Body should be the food of the Soul and Christ be made a Murderer which demonstrative Conclusion so little expected puts the Romanist a little out of Conceit with his Doctrine and struck him as dumb as the other would have done dead for all the Transubstantiation there are very gross Stories and Slanders abroad if some in the Romish Church have â—â—â—tried the Experiment and have received their Death by what was given them as the Body of Christ and the Bread of Life BUT I will observe his Method p. 166. He tells us confidently That there makes for them all that may or can be of any Christian man required Literal Text of Holy Scripture approved Tradition General Councels Ancient Fathers Ecclesiastical Histories Christian Laws Conversion of Nations Divine Miracles Heavenly Visions Vnity Vniversality Antiquity Succession all Monuments all Substance all Accidents of Christianity Here is not a word of Proof and therefore I may take the same Liberty in contradicting it if I please But to answer this There makes against them Literal Text of Holy Scripture â—usanus Ep. 2. ad Bohem. of that Scripture which a Cardinal says is a Nose of Wax of that Scripture which the Pope has Power to inlarge at his pleasure as the Trent Councel has done making the Apochrypha Canonical Of that Scripture which speaks not a single word for the Popes Supremacy Transubstantiation Purgatory Masses for the Dead Invocation of Saints Vows of single Life c. but in a thousand places against them and therefore they are obliged to fly for refuge to their Approved Traditions and set them in the Throne above the Scriptures whose mouths must be stopped by the vulgar Latin and the Vulgar confined from reading them and even these approved Traditions are most of them such as the Universal Church never knew never acknowledged Conc. Trid. Sess 4. Dec. 1. which yet must be received with the same Reverence and Affection as the Scriptures for as Baronius affirms Bar. Ann. 53. Num. 11. Traditio Scripturarum Fundamentum and the Traditions of Men are made the Foundation of Scripture and of Faith And the Canon Law of Pope Gregory XIII Dist 40. Si Papa in Ann. Margin goes higher yet and sets the Pope above them all For men rather desire to know the ancient Institution of Christian Religion from the Popes mouth than from the holy Scripture And yet all of their own Church do not approve these Approved Traditions for Basil says Basil Reg. contract p. 502. It is necessary and agreable to Reason that all men learn what is their Duty out of Scripture 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 both for the fulfilling all Godliness and lest they should be accustomed to Humane Traditions Iren. l. 3. c. 2. And Irenaeus tells us it was the Custom of Hereticks to call in Tradition to their assistance against Scripture alledging that those Truths as they called them which they held were not delivered by Writing but by word of Mouth AGAINST his General Counsels we oppose the first four and have offered a thousand times to put the Issue upon their Verdict Against Ecclesiastical Histories Ancient Fathers Christian Laws we oppose the frequent Forgeries of all these detected even by themselves and the Index Expurgatorius which Castrates all the Fathers that they may be fit Eunuchs for the Papal Seraglio the Vatican by being disabled to propagate truth For Conversion of Nations we refer them to the Acts of the Apostles for the first Age and for these last to Acosta the Jesuite and Bartholomeus Casas a Bishop in the Indies Acost de Ind. salut procurand their Conversion was such that the miserable People chose to go to Hell with their Ancestors rather than to Heaven with such Christians and if their Relations are true gives occasion to the Romanists to blush rather than boast