publick conscience which he is bound to have as a publick person conforme to Law for he sitteth not upon the Tribunall as a private but as a publick Person not as Iames or Charles but as King Iames or King Charles So in this there is no policy as this malignant spirit calumniateth I omit here his deepe policy in comparing the Civill Magistrate 1. King Parliament c. with a Dogge 2. And the Presbytery with an Ape whether this be not prophanation and impiety at least and that in a pretty high degree I submit to the judgement of those whom it so nearely concerneth if they be Apes I wonder you will call them Brethren VVhat brother Ape and so Apes your selves according to your Tenet so let the Conclusion hold for you but we deny the Antecedent in so far forth as applyed to Presbyterians M. S. Obj. 3. Surely the frame and constitution of Presbyterie is exactly calculated for the Meridian of this present World And indeed A. S. himselfe is somewhat ingenuous in acknowledging that this Government hath little or no relation unto or compliance with the World which is to come professing p. 13. the externall peace of the Church to be the adequate end thereof The Argument will be thus That Government whose adequate end is the externall peace of the Church hath no compliance with the world to come but is calculated for the Meridian of this world But Presbyterian Government is a Government whose adequate end is the Externall peace of the Church as A. S. confesseth p. 13. Ergo The Presbyterian Government hath no compliance c. A.S. To be short here Note when I say that the peace of the Church is the adequate end of Church-Government 1. That by the Church-Government I meane not the Church according to her essentiall but to her accidentall or visible forme 2. And consequently that by Government I meane not the internall Government which belongeth to her in respect of her essentiall but the externall which belongeth to her by reason of her accidentall or visible forme the first is proper to Christ or God in Christ who only hath a domination over our soules But the second he exerciseth by the Ministery of men 3. That by the peace of the Church I meane not a worldly but a spirituall peace or quietnesse voyd of Ecclesiasticall trouble by corruption of Doctrine Discipline or manners for in the midst of wordly troubles and persecutions this peace may be had neither can there one word of all this be denyed since our dispute here is only about the visible Church 4. That by the word end I mean't not 1. Finem ultimum simpliciter sed in suo genere i. e. not the ultimate end absolutely but in its owne kind nor 2. Finem operantis Artificis or operis but Artis Operationis not the end of the Agent of the Artist or of his worke but of the Art or Habitude whereby he operateth and of his Operation Nor 3. the externall end of Government such as is the World to come or eternall life but the internall end which is her peace and quietnesse which however it be an externall accident of the Churches Essence yet it is the intrinsecall end of her externall Government Nor 4. the common end of Government which is the end of other things also as the World to come which is the end of our Faith Charity of all Christian vertues of Discipline and Government also but the proper and particular end thereof 5. Non finem obtinendum solum but producendum And I could not nor should have taken it otherwise as this man most impertinently would have me to doe for things are defined notified and distinguished by their internall proper ultimate ends in suo genere and that are to be wrought and not by their extrinsecall common absolutely ultimate ends c. as the Philosophers doe teach us So I answer that the Proposition is false for Church-Government may have the Externall peace of the Church for its adequate Intrinsecall proper ultimate end in sno genere and for the end of Government and Discipline which is finis producendus And the World to come for its Extrinsecall common absolutely ultimate end for the end that is to be obteined and end of the Agent and of his worke And if it be objected that the adequate end of Church-Government should containe in it selfe all its ends and consequently the life to come I answer that that is most false for it containeth only its partiall ends 2. If it be the Internall end it containeth not the Externall end thereof If it be the proper end it cannot containe the common end but the common end containeth it neither is it needfull that it containe the mediate and ultimate ends or the ultimate absolutely and the ultimate in its own kind or sort for only it containeth in it the partiall ends such as are not subordinate as the mediate and ultimate end or as the ultimate absolutely and in its own kind or sort And the reason of it is this because as partes and compartes so partiall ends are coordinate and opposed one to another and not subordinate as the mediate and ultimate end or as the ultimate absolutely and in its own kind as the Externall peace of the Church and the VVorld to come Object 4. The sum of M.S. his discourse p. 33. § 5. and p. 34. commeth to this If the civill Magistrate hath not a Directive power in the Church but the Church-Assemblies have it alone then the Church-Assembly must have the gift of Infallibility A.S. This is a Papisticall Argument whereby the Iesuites prove that the Romish Church cannot erre But I answer him and Papists both Ans 1. I deny this connexum for a Directive power may be where there is no infallibility 2. The Independents arrogate to their Congregationall Churches and Presbyteries a Directive power without any gift of infallibility 3. They grant a Directive power unto the Civill Magistrate whom they grant to be fallible 4. And howbeit the Civill Magistrate be fallible yet they will not grant that the Presbyterie may or should iudge over him no more can the Civill Magistrate judge over the Presbyterie however it be fallible 5. For by the same reason any man might judge them both since they are both fallible 6. Howbeit any Iudge either Secular or Ecclesiasticall be fallible yet must they be obeyed till judicially they be convicted of error otherwise controversies should never be ended since wee have no infallible Iudge or Iudgement in this life unlesse God extraordinarily should reveale it to us Object 5. After such stuffe as we have seen M. S. p. 34. § 2. guesses what I meane by a Directive power and brings three acceptions of it but all short of what I meane The first is that it may signifie a liberty or power of considering advising and proposing of what may be expedient to be done in matters of Religion and for the
executive power of the Civill Magistrate in matters of Religion Here he imployeth neare upon foure pages in quarto in a very small Print about things that are nothing at all to the purpose 1. In threatning the Parliament with Gods most heavy judgements in case they meddle themselves with any executive or coercive power against his new canonized Independent Saints He supposeth them 1. to be Saints 2. Those little ones Matth. 18.6 He telleth them is were better a Milstone vvere hanged about their necke then to meddle vvith one of these little ones and that because the Holy Ghost prophesieth of the putting dovvn of all rule and all authority and povver by Christ for he must reign till he hath put all his enemies under his feet 1 Cor. 15.24 25. this argumentation will hold if ye suppose the Independents to be Christs little Saints and the King and Parliament to be his Enemies in case they meddle with them in hindring them to set up their Sect but to the contrary Gods Saints as themselves in case they suffer not Presbyterians or any others no more then the Independents doe in New England so the Independents shall reigne over us all 2. In guessing what I meane by the word Church whether a Church in folio or in decimo sexto I have fully expounded it howbeit not in so chosen new Divinity termes in folio and decimo sexto So I come to the rest of his Reasons CHAP. VIII Wherein are answered M. S. his Objections 25 26 27. Ob. 25. M.S. VVHen Parties pretend to be offended with the Church or the Church judge any thing amisse the Civill Magistrate may command the Church to re-examine its judgement c. What reason then hath he to be so invective against the Apologists p. 49. 50. for holding that Kings or Civill Magistrates are above the Church A.S. Answ 1. The question is not whether the King and the Civill Magistrate be above the Church or not VVe grant that the Civill Magistrate is above the Church as having a supreame Politicall or Civill power Imperiall Regall Aristocraticall or Democraticall yea altogether independent upon all the Powers of this World and only dependent upon God according to the Lawes of the State wherein he ruleth yet not Spirituall Ecclesiasticall or Intrinsecall to the Church but Secular and Extrinsecall In his Office he is not subordinate or Vicegerent unto Christ as Christ but as God not in his Royall or Divine office whereby he ruleth his Church but in his Divine Nature or Power whereby he ruleth the World not in his particular Providence about his Saints but in his generall about all men and States not according to the Covenant of Grace if he be considered only as a Magistrate for then only they who are in this Covenant should be Magistrates but of Nature for if Adam had continued in the state of innocencie we should have had Magistrates without any Mediator or Covenant of Grace A. S. will easily grant you that the Civill Magistrate is above the Church only he denies that he is above the Church by any spirituall or Ecclesiasticall power as Independents hold but by his Civill and secular Authority which is not subordinate to Christ as Mediator as King or Head of his Church His power over the Church is not intrinsecall as ye hold but extrinsecall as we confesse 2. It is also false that I inveigh against the Apologists p. 49. 50. unlesse Reasons be Invectives I pray the Reader to look the place to the end he may see how little Conscience these men make of untruths and if there be any Invectives there I am ready to suffer 3. This Argument being put in forme will be thus They who may command the Church are above the Church The Civill Magistrate may command the Church Ergo The Civill Magistrate is above the Church Answ If the words command and to be above be taken for to command and to be above Externally and Politically I grant you all the Argument viz. That the Civill Magistrate is above the Church extrinsecally and Politically But if ye take both the words viz. command for an an internall and Ecclesiasticall command that is within the Church and the word above for above Internally and Ecclesiastically in a Church-way I deny your Minor If ye take the one word one way and the other another way I deny your first Proposition M.S. Ob. 26. p. 44. § 7. If the Civill Magistrate hath power to command the Church to revise her judgement when she judgeth any thing amisse surely he hath power to examine and judge of her proceedings and consequently hath a Directive power in matters of Religion But the first is granted by A.S. his concession Ergo so must the second A.S. Answ 1. I answer to your Proposition that in the same way the Civill Magistrate hath power to judge or a Directive power in matters of Religion he hath power to command Now his power to command as I have said is only Politicall Civill and Extrinsecall Ergo such also must be his power to judge or Directive power in matters of Religion viz. Civill Politicall and Extrinsecall to the Church howsoever Intrinsecall to the State for as he hath a Civill Royall Imperiall or Aristocraticall power to command so hath he a Civill Royall Imperiall or Aristocraticall power c. to judge and to direct him in his Commands unlesse he command without judgement But I deny that this concludeth that he hath any Ecclesiasticall or Spirituall power that is Intrinsecall to the Church or Church-Officers who governe the Church 2. This Argument concludeth not an Executive power which is the Title of the Chapter and that which he intendeth to prove This is like to Montagnes Discourses who sundry times hath one thing in the Title and another in the Chapter M. S. Obj. 27. p. 44. sect 7. § 3. being put in forme will be thus They who may determine and judge amisse should not compell or make the people under their Government to sweare obedience or subjection unto their Orders which yet by your owne confession they doe But your Presbyteriall Assembly may determine and judge amisse Ergo. A.S. Answ 1. The Proposition is false 2. Or if it be true I subsume But the Civill Magistrate both in Ecclesiasticall and State matters may judge amisse Ergo the Civill Magistrate should not compell the people under his obedience unto his Order Ergo the Parliament should not compell or make any man to sweare the Covenant Ergo The Independents should not have taken the Covenant because that the Parliament might determine and judge amisse 3. By this reason a man must be tolerated in rejecting all Confessions or Faith because they who contrive them may erre 4. In New-England since they may erre they can compell no man to your Religion but must tolerate them which ye will never grant 5. I deny the Assumption 1. For our Churches compell not the people to sweare obedience or
of the Christian Church 2. Because a Pagan qua talis knoweth not the Principles of Christian Religion and consequently wants the Directive power without the which he can never well or justly use the Imperative or Executive power 3. Because without the knowledge of our Religion he can neither direct nor act any thing about the Church or for the Church but by conjecture or guessing at it 4. Because God never ordained any such Externall power for Pagans about the Church 5. To end my answer to this Argument Where learned M. S. to desire him that denieth any thing to prove his negation Nonne Affirmantis est probare The Scripture conteineth not formall rules or testimonies of meere Negations or of things that are not but of Affirmations and things that are Now M.S. that affirmeth a thing to be might more easily have found authorities for it in Scripture if any such had been then we for things that are not It is enough for me to say that the Scripture that conteineth all things needfull to salvation conteineth no Extrinsecall power in actu exercito for Civill Magistrates that are not Christians M.S. But hath not then an Heathen or Heterodox Magistrate power to doe good to the Church A.S. Ans 1. The Heathen Magistrate hath a Naturall but not a Morall publique power or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to doe good to the Church 2. Or if he hath it he hath it not in actu exercito as I have already proved 3. Or if he hath it so he hath it not to doe good to the Church in quality of a Church for neither can he know or love the Church in quality of a Church but of men or members of the State for the Church in quality of a Church is no wayes the object of his Knowledge or Will He may doe it as an Asse that carrieth the corne to the Mill or as Caiaphas who judged that one man must dye for the People but knew not what he said He cannot doe it by any power Intrinsecall to the Church as M.S. pretends And howbeit I should grant unto a Iew or a Pagan a Civill power to doe good to the Church both in actu signato and exercito yet from thence cannot be concluded an Intrinsecall or Ecclesiasticall power belonging to a Iew a Pagan or to an Antichristian to rule the Church Internally M. S. p. 48. § 13. of this Chapter durst not answer A.S. what he meaneth by the Civill Magistrate upon whom he would seem to bestow such a power but in stead of Answer racketeth it back to him with jeering and babling But I answer him 1. that Quaestio Quaestionem non solvit one Question satisfieth not another 2. I answer that the Magistrate who I beleeve should have such a power in actu exercito must be such as is not a professed Enemy to the true Religion at least in quality of a Magistrate or in his Lawes And so it is false that M.S. saith of the King for in quality of King he hath professed Presbyterian Discipline in Scotland in as much as he confirmed it by his Authority so hath he done in England in favour of the French Dutch Italian and Spanish Churches so did King James by his Divines approve the Presbyterian Discipline at the Synod of Dort So M. S. sees how much he hath deceived himselfe in looking for 20 Distinctions of me to answer him to this Question We answer him candidè in all simplicity and feare not to declare to the World what we hold as the Sectaries doe M.S. p. 49. § 15. Was it not lawfull for them i. e. unchristian Kings to interpose with their Authority that the Churches of Christ in their Dominations might lead a quiet and peaceable life in all Godlinesse and honestie If not then was that exhortation 1 Tim. 2.2 to be laid up in Lavender for some hundreds of yeers after it was given or else the benefit and blessing the obtaining whereof by prayer is made the ground of the exhortation must have been made over in the intentions of those that had so prayed unto their posterities after many generations A.S. 1. This Argument proveth not that any Magistrate either Christian or other hath any Intrinsecall power in the Church either Directive or Executive 2. It proveth not that an unchristian Magistrate hath any power in actu exercito in the Church 3. As for that Text 1 Tim. 2.2 the sense of the Text is that we should pray for the conversion of Kings to the Gospel which appeareth evidently by the Apostles reason v. 3. 4. For saith he this is good and acceptable in the sight of God v. 4. who will have all men saved and come unto the knowledge of the truth And another reason v. 6. For Christ gave himselfe for all men And another v. 7. Because the Apostle is a Preacher of the Gospel to all men Now these words That we may lead a quiet and peaceable life in all Godlinesse and Piety expresse finem intentum sed non eventum not the Event but the End intended by the Christians who prayed for they obteined not in those times a quiet or a peaceable life under the Heathen Kings 2. Neither prayed they here that any Nero should have had the Government of the Church in his hand for they obeyed him not neither in Doctrine nor in Discipline M.S. p. 50. § 17. doth nothing but repeat what he hath said viz. That the Civill Magistrate in taking away Superstition and Heresie had need of some other security then the Synod can give him A.S. The Civill Magistrate as a Christian man must learne Gods will by all the meanes that God hath appointed him viz. 1. By reading of Scriptures 2. Comparing one Scripture with another 3. Conferring in private about Scriptures of any difficulties he hath with other Christians of whom he may learn any thing 4. Hearing of Sermons 5. As a Magistrate he must have a Politicall prudence and knowledge of Scriptures to direct him in judging about Superstition Heresie and matters of Religion 6. He must serve himselfe of prayer and all the rest of the meanes that God hath ordained him 7. Neither say we that he must be directed by a Synod alone This is one of the meanes that God hath ordained him in his Providence but not all as this M. S. falsely would perswade the Reader if he be not altogether impertinent Whether in the Militant visible Church there should be any Subordination in Ecclesiasticall Judicatories CHAP. I. Containing the State of the Question TO the end we may the better and more easily resolve this Question it will not be amisse to note concerning the word Church 1. That we mean not here the Triumphant Church in Heaven but the Militant upon Earth 2. That it is not meant touching the invisible Church viz. The Church of Beleevers compounded of men and women endowed with Justifying Faith which is invisible to us but of the visible Church
a number 3. Howbeit they could have received such a number yet could not such a number have all heard a Minister Preaching yea though he had the voice of a Stentor such as were not all the Apostles for St. Paul had his voice very weak His Letters say they i. e. his Adversaries are weighty and powerfull but his bodily presence is weak and his speech contemptible 2 Cor. 10.10 5. Howbeit they could have all met together to hear the Word yet could they not meet together to participate of the Lords Holy Table for in those times the Custome was to Communicate at Table sitting according to the Custome of other Orientall people in circle every one having his hand upon his fellows breast and their feet without which 8120. could not so conveniently do in one room 6. Put the case they could have all heard the Word and Communicated at the Lords Table together yet could they not so conveniently have voted in Ecclesiasticall Senates or Iudicatories as they pretend every Member of the Church hath power to do and as they do actually in case of Appeal from the Presbytery unto the people For I put the case that those 8120. should have gathered together to judge in some matter of Doctrine or Censure and that every one of the people should have employed one fourth part of an hour in delivering of his judgement whereas I le warrant you some of them might employ a whole day and at night say little to purpose this voting would take up 20. or 30. hours Put the case again they should sit four hours every day which hardly every Trades-man can spare it should amount to 507. dayes which is almost two yeers omitting the Lords dayes so in gathering their votes once onely there would be spent nigh upon two yeers But what if there should fall in many put the case ten or twelve incidents and that some of this Reverend Synod would protract the businesse as some do here to spin out time as we understand When should these businesses be decided Again What if some of the people peradventure some considerable number should be absent for appearingly they could not ever all be present could any judgement given in their absence binde them to condescend unto it If it could it should be but a very blinde obedience if not there must of necessity be matter of Schisme which per se would ordinarily fall out in such a Constitution of an Independent Church Many things will happily here be replied about divers compendious wayes of gathering of suffrages as in divers Senates as amongst the Romans Athenians the Parliaments in France in Venice c. but to no purpose for this extravagant fashion of voting of so great multitudes wherein every one pretends a liberty or licentiousnesse rather in prophecying whereunto such wayes of gathering of suffrages can no wayes be applyed Some will answer 1. That this Church Acts 1. was an extraordinary Church compounded of Apostles who were extraordinary Ministers Inst The Text sayeth not that it was extraordinary or compounded of Apostles alone 2. The Apostles were onely twelve but this Church was of ten times twelve i. e. of one hundred and twenty Acts 1.15 and eight thousand more 3. The twelve Apostles could not make it extraordinary in number in such a manner as that they could not meet together in one place for they were but twelve who might have been received in as small rooms as other men Some will answer 2. It may be said That the Church Acts 1. was but of one hundred and twenty persons Inst I reply But that of one hundred and twenty persons and that of 8120. persons was all one formally and they differed onely in their matter as an Infant and a Man of fourty yeers 2. That it sufficeth that a Church according to Gods Ordinance may be compounded of so many persons as are incompatible with the Constitution of an Independent Church 3. And howbeit it be not Acts 1. yet Scripture Acts 2. and 4. is no lesse Canonicall then Acts 1.4 and yet that passage Acts 1. doth the businesse for that Church provided a Minister for all the Churches of the World which is more then any Independent or Congregationall Church can do And whosoever calls this Assembly or the Acts thereof extraordinary yet may not the Independents do so since that from this place some of them as Robinson Insti p. 168 169. proves an ordinary power in the Church to ordain and depose Her Officers the which proof should be very ridiculous and impertinent if from an extraordinary Church or an extraordinary Act they should infer an ordinary Church or an ordinary Act of an ordinary Church It should be all one as if they should prove That Independents have power to raise the dead because the Apostles had such a power 3. Arg. Act. 5. After that visible judgement of God that befell Ananias and Saphira vers 5 10. Beleevers were the more added unto the Lord multitudes both men and women vers 14. The number of the Disciples were much more multiplied cap. 6. v. 1. in Hierusalem greatly and a great company of the Priests were obedient to the Faith ver 7. who could not all meet together Arg. 4. Act. 6. v. 1. When the number of the Disciples was multiplied there arose a murmuring of the Grecians against the Hebrewes because their widowes were neglected in the dayly ministration whereupon there were appointed 7 Deacons for all the Churches of Iudaea and sundry others for the Church was compounded of people of divers Countries Act. 2.9 10 11. This Argument proveth very probably that at Hierusalem there was more then an Independent Church since it ordained Church-Officers for sundry Congregations or at least for a Church which could not meet in one place CHAP. IV. The same Doctrine proved from Act. 13.14.15 and 16 chap. of the Church of Hierusalem and Antioch Arg. 5. SO Act. 15. in that dispute of S. Paul and Barnabas with some Pharises converted to the Faith about Circumcision and the Observation of the Ceremoniall Law at Antioch it was resolved that the question should be determined by the Church that was at Hierusalem as it was From whence I argue thus That Church to whose judgement other Churches submitted themselves and which gave out Decrees or Sentences to be obeyed by other Churches was more then an Independent Congregationall Church But the Church that was gathered at Hierusalem was a Church to whose judgement other Churches submitted themselves or to which they were bound to submit and which gave out Decrees or Sentences to be obeyed by other Churches Ergo The Church that was gathered at Hierusalem was more then a Congregationall Independent Church The Major is certaine for no simple Congregationall Church can give out Decrees and Sentences to be obeyed by other Churches nor will other Independent Congregationall Churches submit thereunto The Minor is certaine 1. For The Church of Antioch determined that Paul and Barnabas
lesser Sanedrim unto that of the great one as has been proved by Mr. Rutherford Gillispy Hearl c. Art 1. and 2. 3. The Representative Church or first Generall Councell at Jerusalem had Power and Authority over all the Churches of the world since it gave them a Minister viz. Mathias Ergo All other Churches in their Iudgements and Power of creating such a Minister were subject unto it Object If it be said That it was an extraordinary Councell 1. Because it was indicted and convocated by Christ 2. Because it was compounded of extraordinary Persons 3. Because the Persons received extraordinary gifts there 4. Because it was in the birth and beginning of the Church Reply The Scripture saith not That it was Extraordinary As for the the Proofs I answer to the first 1. That howbeit it was indicted and convocated by Christ yet was it not indicted and convocated in an extraordinary way 2. That a Councell may be extraordinarily indicted and convocated and yet be ordinary in its proceedings 3. That the Indiction and Convocation of a Councell is Extrinsecall and Antecedent to a Councell because that it is before that the Councell be and therefore cannot make it Intrinsecally extraordinary when it is existent So Adam was made in an extraordinary way of Earth and by creation and Eva of Adams Rib and yet they were not extraordinary persons in their nature existence conservation or accidents 4. Neither read we that it was convocated in an extraordinary way 5. Neither can it be extraordinary because it was convocated by Christ for by the same reason all that ever Christ did to men should have been extraordinary To the second I have already answered To the third I answer 1. That the extraordinary gifts were personall only and belonged unto the materiall parts of the Councell and not to the form thereof and therefore could not make it formally extraordinary in quality of a Councell for formall denominations are not taken from the matter but from the form so if there be six or seven Ecclesiasticall persons assembled to dinetogether we call it not an Ecclesiastical Assembly 2. I answer That these extra ordinary gifts were subsequent unto the Councell or at least to that Ecclesiasticall proceeding in the election of Mathias Now that which is subsequent to any thing cannot denominate it formally or at least in the time precedent when the Subject precedeth such a subsequent Adjunct or Circumstance See more concerning this Argument heretofore To the fourth I answer 1. That all that which was in the birth and infancie of the Church was not Extraordinary for by that reason the Preaching of the Gospel and the Administration of the Sacraments should have been Extraordinary 2. Things that are Ordinary must have a beginning 3. And howsoever at their beginning they be Extraordinary in respect of time because before their beginning they were not Ordinary but out of the precedent order yet they are Ordinary in respect of Gods Ordinance or Law which is ordinatio rationis that should be ordinary in Gods Church Object If it be yet said That Mathias was an Extraordinary Minister and his Vocation Extraordinary I answer That all that is true and yet in this Extraordinary Vocation there was something Ordinary viz. The Nomination and Election or Admittance of him to be a Minister of the Church according to the Independents opinion otherwayes their Argument should be very impertinent in proving from hence the power of the people in choosing their Ministers That which there was Extraordinary was not done by the Councell and therefore could not make the Councell Extraordinary As much may be said of that Councell that created seven Deacons for many Churches 5. But principally we will urge that businesse of Antioch in that difference betwixt St. Paul and Barnabas on the one part and some Pharisees converted to the Christian Faith on the other Hereupon it was resolved that Paul and Barnabas should go up to Jernsalem unto the Apostles and Elders about that question v. 2. they were sent by the Church of Antioch v. 3. they were received by the Church and by the Apostles and Elders of the Church at Jerusalem v. 4 the Assembly being gathered at Jerusalem the Cause was heard v. 4.5 considered v. 6. discussed v. 7. voyced v. 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 judged v. 22. the Iudgement or Decree of the Councell or Assembly sent to Antioch from the 22. v. to the 30. read and obeyed by the Church at Antioch c. v. 31. Here is the Church of Antioch judged by a superiour Church at Ierusalem an Appeal formed or interjected from the one to the other received by the other judged and obeyed And therefore it cannot be denyed but there was some Subordination betwixt these two Churches and that the one had authority over the other To this Argument some answer 1. That if it prove any thing it can only conclude an Appeal from one Parish Church or particular Congregation unto another since the Church of Antioch and of Hierusalem were no other then Parish Churches Rep. 1. This Answer cannot hold 1. Because no such thing can probably be collected out of this Text or of any other in Scripture and therefore it may be as easily rejected by us as it is alleadged by them 2. Because hardly can it be proved that in those times Churches were divided into Parishes 3. Because an Appeale cannot be from one Parish or Congregationall Church unto another since their authority is equall but only from an inferior to a superior Church or Judicatory 4. Because if it was from one particular Congregation to another then that Congregation from which it was appealed was not compleat in its Judgement but had need of some Extrinsecall power which is against the Tenets of Independents themselves 5. Because if we might appeale from one particular Congregation to another how much more from a particular Congregation unto a Synod wherein the Spirit of God and especially that of Prophecie doth more abound 6. Because the Apostles in Hierusalem were not members of any particular Church 7. Because if the Assembly at Hierusalem had been a particular or Congregationall Church it could not have given out a Decree which should have bound so many Churches to obedience viz. those of Antioch Syria and Cilicia v. 23. 2. It may be otherwayes answered That it was an Appeale but not to any Ordinary but an Extraordinary Church viz. to that of the Apostles and that for these Reasons 1. Because it was Extraordinarily gathered 2. By Extraordinary persons 3. It was compounded of Extraordinary persons viz. the Apostles 4. Because this Appeale was to the Apostles who were infallible and Extraordinary Ministers 5. Because it was in the birth and beginning of the Gospel Rep. 2. This Answer cannot hold 1. Because the Scripture declareth not that this Church or Assembly was Extraordinary 2. Neither is it a satisfactory Answer whenever
under the notion of Apostles and Church-Ministers endowed with extraordinary gifts and namely of Infallibility governed the whole Church extraordinarily so doe Generall Councels endowed with ordinary gifts govern it ordinarily 14. I would willingly enquire of the Independents to what Church were added so many thousands that were baptized by the Apostles and added unto the Church in one day Whether to a Particular Congregation or to a greater Ecclesiasticall Consociation It could not be to a Particular Congregation 1. For the Reasons I have already produced 2. Because the Apostles were not Particular but Universall Ministers set over the Universall Militant Church and therefore in vertue of their charge admitted them to be Members of all the Churches whereof they were Ministers 3. Because they were of divers and sundry Countries neither is it credible that to be a Member of the Church they were bound to quit their Countries and to stay at Hierusalem howsoever so long as they did stay there they might participate as well of all the rest of Gods Ordinances as of Baptisme Ergo they were added to some greater Consociation viz. to that and to all those whereof the Apostles were Ministers for out of all doubt the Apostles who baptized them could not refuse to admit them unto the Lords Table wherever they celebrated the Sacrament If it be answered That this Argument only proveth a greater Reall but not a greater Representative Church I reply That directly only it proveth a greater Reall viz. an Vniversall Militant Church but yet by consequence it proveth also a Representative Church of the same extent for every Reall Church may be represented in its Commissioners or Messengers as ye call them that meet in a Synod If it be yet answered that this may prove a greater Representative Church but not endowed with any Authoritative power I reply It is a power of Iudging which must be Authoritative and cannot be meerly Consultative such as is that of every Tinker who may give counsell to a Church and that of one Church which hath power to give counsell to a thousand yea to ten thousand represented in a Synod for particular Churches being parts of the whole Provinciall Nationall or Universall Militant Church must be subject to the whole for it is a Maxime in Philosophie that Totum non subjicitur parti sed pars toti Item Totum non regitur motu partis sed Pars Totius And they distinguish between the Universall and Particular Inclination of things and tell us That a part doth sometimes quit its Particular Inclination to be ruled according to the Inclination of the whole as when water which according to its Particular Inclination descends yet to avoid the vacuum whereof might ensue the overthrow of the world against its Particular Inclination but according to its Universall Inclination as it is for the Totall it ascends And so it is or should be in Politicall and all Spirituall Consociations for the parts cannot be conserved but in the whole The Politicians also tell us that Lex paerticularis cedit generali so Laws that concern Particular Cases or Consociations must give place to the generall Law of more generall Cases and Consociations for the generall good of Consociations is to be preferred before the Particular good of Particular Persons or Particular Consociations 15. All the Churches here upon Earth make up one Republike tyed together by Faith Charity and other Particular Christian vertues as that in Heaven another Now it is a Maxime in Politicks Salus Reipub. suprema Lex esto Ergo There must be one Law common to this whole Christian Republike If so Ergo There must be some visible Iudges to judge according to this Law otherwayes in vain should we have it Now this visible Iudge can be no other but a Synod For if ye say it is Christ then we cannot be legally Iudged according to this Law till the day of Iudgement when Christ shall Iudge the quick and the dead which is most ridiculous 16. C. C. acknowledgeth That by Baptism we are made Members of the Universall Militant Church and consequently Subjects of some Christian Republike Ergo There are some Iudges to judge such Subjects But those Iudges are not in one Particular Church for by Baptism as he sayeth They are not admitted to the societie of any Particular Church Ergo They must be judged by some greater Representative Church which must be either Classicall Provinciall Nationall or Oecumenicall 17. It is a generall Rule of S. Paul in matter of Church Government That the Spirits of Prophets be subject to Prophets 1 Cor. 14 32. Which cannot at all or at least cannot easily and commodiously be obtained in the Independent Opposition or Coordination as in some Subordination of Ecclesiasticall Assemblies or Iudicatories for when all are equall there is no subjection of one to another 18. This Doctrine of Subordination of Inferiour Ecclesiasticall Iudicatories to their Superiours with a Coordination of Inferiour Iudicatories or Ecclesiasticall Assemblies amongst themselves is most convenient to the nature of the Sacraments in receiving unto them all such as are our Brethren in Christ whereas a meer Opposition Independency or at most a Coordination of Churches founded on a meer will and charitie without any Law is repugnant to it in so far forth as it debarreth from them such as are worthy to be received 19. The Apostle commands That all things be done decently and in order 1 Cor. 14.40 And telleth us That God is not the Author of Confusion but of Peace Vers 33. Now where there is no Subordination of Ecclesiasticall Judicatories When none of them is subject one to another but they are all equall when one Church be she never so corrupted in life and Doctrine hath as great Authority over all the Churches of the World represented together in a Synod be they never so sound in their life and Doctrine as they all have over her What can be done decently and in order I adjure you all tell me in Conscience Whether ye think that God can be the Author of any such order or rather of so abominable a confusion 20. I could shew how that this Subordination is most convenient and the contrary Independency Opposition or Coordination of Churches founded on mans meer will is most repugnant 1. unto the perfection that appeareth in all Gods Works both in those of Nature and of Grace 2. To Gods Truth and Wisdom in giving no better means for redressing of Offences 3. To his Iustice in making of Laws that cannot suppresse Heresies and all sort of wickednesse in disordered Churches 4. To his Mercy that in furnishing us so graciously so many means and helps to Salvation he should have given us this Independent Anarchy to crosse them all yea to lead us irresistibly to Hell 5. To his Providence in providing of means so disproportionate and incommensurated for so excellent an end viz. for the peace of the Church means more fit to trouble then to
Churches are Schismaticall for some diversity of Opinion for that belongeth rather to Heresie then to Schism Nor 2. that it is a Schism because that it is tolerated or not tolerated for Toleration is a Consequent of Schism and Extrinsecall to it The true Reason wherefore it is a Schism and they Schismaticall is because it is a breach of Charity in that they separate themselves from the Communion of the true Church yea and from all the true Churches in the World both in Sacramentall Communion and that of Discipline Neither is it a Schisme because that it is a separation from Presbyteriall Churches precisely under the notion of Presbyteriall but of true and Orthodox Churches which presse them no wayes to be Actors in any thing against their Consciences But M. S. in despite of all reason will prove that I cannot convict the Independents of Schisme and that by this his most seriall Argument which here I put in forme with all the force it can have He that knoweth not what is Schism cannot convict the Independents of Schism But A. S. knoweth not what is Schisme Ergo A. S. cannot convict the Independents of Schisme The Major is certain The Minor he proveth thus He that knoweth not what is the Church knoweth not what is Schisme or a rent of the Church For Rectum est Index sui et obliqui and entia privativa Cognoscuntur ex suis positivis c. But A. S. knoweth not what is the Church for he sayeth we know not wherein consists its Essence p. 21. Ergo A. S. I answer to the first Argument that the Minor is false as appeareth by the Difinition that I have given of it both in my Annotations upon the Apologeticall Narration in my Answer unto a Libell of C. C. and he retofore somewhere in this Booke against the which M. S. had nothing to reply To the confirmation of the Minor I answer that if by the word knoweth M. S. meaneth a distinct knowledge of the Essentiall parts of the Church the Major is false for Schisme is not a renting of the Essentiall parts of the Church or of its transcendentall or Metaphysicall Vnity but of its integrant parts and integrant Vnity for the first cannot be destroyed so long as it is a true Church And Schismaticall Churches may have their transcendent unity verity and goodnesse howsoever they loose their integrant unity verity and goodnesse If by the word knoweth he meane any knowledge of the Church either confused or distinct whereby we may know the Church by her externall Causes her integrant parts her Accidents c. The Minor is false for not onely A. S. but little Children at Schoole have such a knowledge of the Church which they learn in their Catechismes And by any such confuse or distinct knowledge of the Church by her Causes Accidents or Effects c. we may confusedly or distinctly know what is Schisme howbeit not Essentially As for the Confirmation of the Minor By my words I sayd not there that I knew not what the Church is confusedly or distinctly by her Causes integrant parts her Accidents c. But that we know not distinctly the Essences of things as distinguished from their Accidents as the Reader may see if he looke in my Booke for there in that page 21. I speake in formall termes of that which is Essentiall to the Church Now if M. S. pretend to any such profound knowledge of things we must confesse him to be an other Epistemon Doctor du Molin Professor in Divinity at Sedan holds the same Tenet in his Thesis de Summo Bono So did the other Professors of Divinity there for they say that no Creature neither in this life nor in the life to come yea not the very Angels know the Essence of any thing And from thence they conclude that we shall not see the Essence of God in the life to come The which Assertion howsoever I confesse it to be true de hominibus viatoribus yet can I not beleeve it to be true de Angelis viatoribus and much lesse de Angelis aut hominibus comprehensoribus M. S. should have done better to have Answered my Reasons that I bring there pag. 21. then so against the light of his Conscience to scratch at a known truth Neither can I beleeve him to be so ignorant as not to know and acknowledge the truth of it in himselfe however out of desire of Contestation he manifests the contrary But M. S. to the end he seeme not altogether impertinent proveth it by an Argument taken ab Exemplo or by an imperfect Induction if it be not a Pari or from them altogether I cannot beleeve saith he that he should perfectly know the nature of darknesse that is ignorant of what belongeth to the nature of light Nor that he should know what a Schisme or Rent meanes that knowes not what belongs to the nature of Vnity and Entirenesse of the Body for Rectum est index sui obliqui and Entia privativa cognoscuntur ex suis positivis A.S. We know not perfectly the nature of Light and consequently we know not perfectly the nature of Darknesse if to know perfectly be taken for a distinct knowledge of its Essence as distingnished from its Accidents onely we know light imperfectly by its externall causes by its effects by its subject adjuncts c. and not essentially And as for your first Maxime Rectum est index sui obliqui it is true sed non per distinctum aliquem conceptum sui essentialem as Philosophers say Your second Maxime whomsoever you imitate in that Expression is improper for Privations are not properly Entia privativa but Entium privationes not Essences or Beings but negations of Being neither is Darknesse any thing but a negation of something viz. of Light so Poverty is not a thing but a want of some thing viz. of Riches 2. But I will pardon him this mistake howbeit it were true yet followeth it not that if I know a Privation by the Positive Forme which it destroyeth that I know that Forme essentially by its Essence and in it selfe I know the Forme only accidentally or by its extrinsecall causes or by its Existence 3. Item So we conceive Privations under the notion of Negations or destructions of the Existences rather then of the Essences of things or at most as destructions of the Existence primario and of the Essence secundariò if they be destroyed by Privations Neither can I beleeve that the Fire burneth and destroyeth immediately the Essence of a Man or any part thereof for the Reasonable soule is spirituall and cannot be burnt so is the other part of his Essence viz. his materia prima incombustible yea naturally incorruptible and as for the Physicall essence of the whole man when M. S. shall declare wherein it consists I shall dispute with him But silly man with this babling Logick knows he not that Accidents are never defined by their Essentiall
Communion 2. If you cannot shew any materiall difference in Doctrine and other things yea ye confesse your selves that it is not great ye cannot separate your selves from us in Sacramentall Communion and Discipline 3. Neither hitherto have ye shewn any practise in Sacramentall Communion wherein ye differ from us for we have no Idolatry among us and men openly vicious are not admitted to the Lords Table among us Neither can any particular man abstain from Sacramentall Communion in a Church upon pretext that this or that man is vicious for it belongeth not to him but to the Rulers of the Church to judge of particular mens lives whether they be in a State to Communicate or not No more appertains it to one particular Church to judge of the Members of another particular Church Wherefore that not being their Act it cannot be imputed to them and consequently they have no Reason in such a Case to be so scrupulous M. S. his second Answer is Howbeit they be bound to one Communion and Discipline yet would they be led to it by light and not by fear A. S. 1. There is light enough shewn you if ye wil open your eyes to see it And we desire you not to joyn in this Unity out of any fear of men but of God 2. Howbeit you cannot see the Light yet no Approbation Consent or Positive Permission or Toleration should be granted you to live in Darknesse much lesse to erect Schools and Synagogues of Darknesse 3. The Parliament and all good men I am confident will tolerate you in your Darknesse till Jesus Christ enlighten you if ye can be content to live in quality of private men and not erect Churches and Schools to blinde others Neither can they grant you any thing more for howsoever they cannot compell your Consciences yet mast they hinder you to undo other mens Consciences in sowing of your Tares and wilde Oats M. S. 3. Answer That duty which lieth upon all Christians to have but one Communion and Discipline among them is no Dispensation unto any Party or number of them to smite their Brethren with the fist of uncharitablenesse or to dismount them from their Ministeriall standings in the Church because they will not or rather cannot knit and joyn in the same Communion and Discipline with them A. S. 1. You are very ingrate unthankfull unto the Parliament and your Brethren of the Assembly Ye have experimented no uncharitablenesse from any of them Hitherto they have dealt with you in all meeknesse and brotherly affection 2. None of you have been put out of your Ministery for your Opinions howbeit many of you have merited it for your insolency and malepertnesse in erecting of new Churches and Sects against your own Tenets for ye maintain that a Church cannot be erected without the Magistrates Consent and the Right hand of Association of Neighbour Churches which ye have not had in your Churches here in Old England 3. But wherefore may not Sectaries be dismounted who mount so high at their own hand 4. If ye will not joyn with the rest the Churches of this Kingdom and submit to the Parliament and the Church of God here but be Eus per se Ens independens and have particular Priviledges beyond the rest of the Subjects ye may be gone and stay there from whence ye came ye may goe to New-England and mount as high as pleaseth you there Only trouble not the Church and Kingdome here and the Church and Kingdome will not trouble you there 4. The Church here doth you no wrong only she mainteineth that your Tenets are contrary to Gods Word and confesseth That if the Parliament will tolerate you it may but that in so doing their Iudgement is since they are commanded to give it that it is flatly against Gods Word And I may say such a thing might breed ill blood of Friends make Enemies and peradventure undoe the State and who knoweth if it should please God in his mercy to end this War but it might make a Sacrifice of all such as should have hand in it All Christians are bound in Conscience to oppose such Licentiousnesse and Libertinisme in Religion M. S. his 4. Answer is that those of his Sect are kept under Hatches and oppressed A. S. Unto this we have answered and in this they do as Children that weepe before they be whipt A. S. 14. If visible Churches have Disciplines or Government different in their Species then the Churches must be different in their Species also But the consequent is false Ergo So is the Antecedent So Churches have not different Disciplines and Governments The Connexion in my Argument is proved because all collective Bodies that are governed are differenced in their Species by their specificall Governments as we see in Civill Government in the Constitution of States Kingdoms and Republicks The Assumption is proved because the visible Church is but one Church in its Species M.S. jeeres jeasts and flouts this Argument he makes as though he helpt it but it is strong enough without his help the matter being sound enough and the Syllogisme in forme M. S. His first Answer is that from hence cannot be gathered that the Apologisme is not tolerable A. S. This is not the Conclusion that I have to prove for I never reade in Scripture or else where of any Ecclesiasticall Discipline or Government named Apologisme Away then with your new coyned tearmes of Apologisme and Quinque Ecclesian Ministers c. The Conclusion that I have to prove is this Presbyterians and your Independent Churches have not according to Gods word or should not have different Disciplines which any Neophyt in Logick can easily deduce by the power of Syllogismes For it is known in Logick that a Syllogisme that can inferre an universall Conclusion may inferre all the particulars of that universall Conclusion as when I conclude that all men have reasonable soules I conclude that Peter Paul and John have reasonable soules so then when I conclude here universally that no Church hath or should have different Disciplines Ergo Presbyterians Independents and other Churches should not have different Disciplines or Government I conclude there must be but one Church and one Government what ever it be If the Lord be God then follow him But if Baal then follow him So if Presbyterian Discipline or Government be Gods follow it if Independents Discipline be Gods follow it and no other Let not the Child be devided in two as the false Mother that had stolen the Child would have had it but let it live as the true Mother desired No more Pluralities I pray of Disciplines then of Benefices Let no man bargain about Government Let Gods Ordinance hold what ever it be and whereever Independent Government be whether in Aries Taurus Cancer or Capricorne ye may goe there and enjoy it peaceably We only speak of the Discipline of Christs Church in England what it should be M. S. It followeth not from hence
that therefore that Government which is more generally established and practised in the World should be that specificall Government whereby it ought to be governed A. S. Neither intended I to inferre or conclude any such thing Only I say that whatever the Assembly conclude or the Parliament establish in the State yet according to Gods Word Pluralitie of Ecclesiasticall Disciplines or Governments can no wayes be concluded or established and consequently ye goe against Gods Word in pleading for it And therefore all is lost that you build thereupon I cannot better answer your comparing of me with Herod then to slight it with the rest of the overflowings of your Call One good Argument would help your Cause more then a hundred Injuries Is this the Independent Power of Pietie you talk so much of Unto M. S. his 2. Answer I grant him That before he and his Colleagues be sufficiently informed of the lawfulnesse of any Government that in Gods mercy shall be established they are not bound to obey much lesse ought they to be scourged as he speaketh But when they are sufficiently informed of the lawfulnesse of it I meane sufficientiâ morali which is all that Men can furnish them but not Physicâ which is only in Gods hands they must obey and no wayes plead with all Hereticks and Schismaticks non-Conviction and pretended Conscience and Toleration and want of Authority in the Civill Magistrate to punish them They must obey as well as the false Prophets and Schismaticks of the Old Testament M.S. 3. Answ The servants of Christ should not fall foule for uniformitie in Discipline and the greater eat up the lesse God hath provided other meanes A. S. If divers Disciplines be established by Law the good Ministers must tolerate that which they cannot mend and serve themselves of all the means they can according to Gods Word to reduce their Brethren to the right way But if they be not yet established none but one should be approved by the servants of God and the Civill Magistrate in imitation of Moses or rather of God is bound in duty only to admit one and that the most conform to Scripture unlesse he will bring in Factions and Schismes both into Church and Commonwealth and that principally when any of them may be dangerous for both as Independencie which may prove more dangerous then seven Heresies But in all this M.S. answereth not my Argument formally but most ridiculously grants the Premisses and denieth the Conclusion A. S. 15. Neither Christ nor his Apostles ever granted any Toleration to divers Sects and Governments in the Church Wherefore then will ye be Suiters for that which they never granted M. S. here neither denieth the Antecedent nor the Consequence of this my Argument but singeth his old song That neither Christ nor his Apostles did ever grant a power to a major part of Profossours in a Kingdom or Nation to grind the faces of their Brethren either because they could not conform their Judgements with them or because they kept a good Conscience A. S. 1. We grant you all that 2. Neither are your faces grinded 3. Much lesse grinded for non-conformitie of your Judgements with theirs or keeping of a good Conscience 4. Your Conscience is very ill that will not be informed of the Truth 5. We have told you that Anabaptists Separatists and others like unto you pretend the same thing 6. Ye furnish us here an Argument against New-England men in their proceedings with Godly Ministers here 7. Live quietly and trouble not the Church nor the State and ye may live here a peaceable life without any trouble to your Consciences 8. But it is a foolery in you to think that your faces are grinded because your Brethren will not consent that ye erect a Sect have Pulpits allowed you to beat down the Truth They are bound in Conscience to resist you as ye take your selves bound to resist them 9. If you think your faces grinded here you may be gone and live in contentment there from whence ye came 10. And yet howbeit your Brethren of the Ministeris take not upon themselves any thing but to resist you with the Arms of the Spirit yet must you thinke that the Civill Magistrate hath no lesse power over you here then your Civill Magistrate hath over Sectaries in New-England 11. But it were better for you Brethren to take a resolution to live with us in unitie under such a Discipline as may be concluded and setled in the feare of God But cannot you live in this World unlesse you give a Law to all the World What you say of Presbyterians in assuming of something imperious c. is but a Calumny M.S. 2. answers my Argument with a Question Whence we have a Toleration of our Presbyterian Discipline A. S. 1. It is a Maxime in Philosophie that Questio questionem non solvit one Question solves not another 2. I answer That we have its institution from God in his Word as we have already demonstrated it and He in instituting of it hath ordained that it be not only tolerated but also received and preached through all the World as I have already proved 3. In France it was brought in by Christs Ministers established by a Protestant King and some others before him who had some taste of the Gospel 4. It hath been there established by the Law of the Kingdome and the Protestant Armies which God blessed under a Protestant King against the Pope the Papists and Jesuites who would have pulled the Crown off his head to set it upon Don Philips that so fighting for his Crown he might also fight for that of Christ Iesus and establish it gloriously in his Kingdome And all this may be easily confirmed by the French History and sundry Edicts in favour of Protestants It is an untruth that ever it was tolerated by the Romish Church for they imployed all their endeavours to oppresse it yea against all Law They are bound to their King who is also bound to them for fighting for his Cause In England it is established as I have sundry times told you in the French Dutch Italian and Spanish Churches by the Kings and Parliaments Authority And how it hath been established in Scotland it is better known then I can declare it viz. by Civill and Ecclesiasticall Authority M. S. his 3. Answer or Objection against my Reason commeth to this That by the same Reason Papists will not tolerate Protestants whom they hold for Schismaticks A.S. 1. This is only said but not proved 2. They neither tolerate Hereticks nor Schismaticks when they can hinder them 3. The Papists hold not us simply for Schismaticks but also for Hereticks 4. And consequently if your Argument hold That we must tolerate whatsoever they tolerate since they tolerate us in quality of Hereticks in their judgement we must also tolerate Hereticks yea Iewes also and permit them Synagogues as they doe yea we must tolerate an hundred Religions as
as a Nurse of the Church in compelling them by the Civill power to obey the Church But in both these punishments viz. Spirituall and Temporall it is not for the Sinner to judge whether or no he be sufficiently convicted since he being a Party cannot be Iudge in his own cause but it is the part of the Ecclesiasticall Senate to judge whether he be sufficiently convicted in foro Ecclesiastico and of the Civill Magistrate to judge whether he be sufficiently convicted in foro Civili in that whereof he is to judge To your 2. Answer I reply That by Brownists Independents Anabaptists c. I meane not the names but the things signified by such names A.S. Neither hath the Church of Goda custome to be contentious 1 Cor. 11.16 This I brought to prove that Schismes are not to be tolerated for they breed Contentions in Churches M.S. 3. But he doth not say that these Churches of God had any custome to erect a Presbyterian throne or a combined Eldership amongst them to keep them from Contentions A. S. I answer you M. S. that I must endure your impertinencie 1. For if you had frequented our Presbyteries you should have seen that they have no Throne 2. You might have seen that by this Argument I intended not to prove a combined Presbytery as you call it but the intolerablenesse of a toleration of Sects I prove sufficiently elsewhere what you can desire about the subordination of Ecclesiasticall Judicatories A. S. Neither permitteth the Apostle Schismes M. S. saith that he hath already answered this A. S. saith that he hath replied to M. S. his Answer A.S. We must not quit our mutuall meetings as others doe and as must be done in a publike Toleration Heb. 10.25 M. S. We understand not your words A. S. But they are the Apostles words 2. And my Argument may easily be formed by any Logician against Toleration It will be thus What maketh us to quit our mutuall meetings as others doe is not to be tolerated But Schismes and Heresies make us to quit our mutuall meetings Ergo They are not to be tolerated M.S. We doe not know what quitting of meetings there is like to be more under a publique Toleration then is for the present A.S. So he seemeth to deny the Minor but I prove it for in tolerating of Schismes we see that men being deceived by the Schismaticks doe quit the meetings of the Church to which before they were joyned And we see how the Independents frequent not willingly our Churches and will not all joyne with us in our meetings at the Lords Table Neither beleeve I that any of the five Apologetick Ministers have ever communicated in our Assemblies since this Parliament A. S. 18. Because that M.S. chargeth my 18. Reason with Atheisme I will put it in forme That which per se giveth offence unto Papists and others or that exposeth the Protestant Churches unto the calumnies of Papists should not be granted by us But the Toleration of many Sects doth so Ergo it is not to be granted The Major is certaine for it is scandalum datum which all Divines doe condemne The Minor I prove it for it giveth and the Papists thereupon take too just a cause of Scandall or Offence and indeed it cannot but be a just subject of Offence by to open to be reproached with such an innumerable number of Sects to the renting of Christs Churches in peeces M. S. to this answereth not but propoundeth some Questions 1. Will you saith he redeem your self out of the hands of the Papists calumnies by symbolizing with them A. S. I Answer 1. That it is no symbolizing with Papists if we tolerate not Hereticks and Schismaticks for you have already confessed that in your particular Churches you tolerate them not and yet you beleeve that your Churches symbolize no more with them then ours 2. It is a strange thing if my Argument be Atheologicall if it prove that Atheists and such as deny the Trinity and the Incarnation of the Son of God are not to be tolerated If such an Argument be Atheologicall in your judgement I am assured that all Theologues will conceive better of it then of this your Theologicall Answer Neither have I forgot my 11. Reason for you symbolize with them in their Popery and I in true Theologie viz. in maintaining the Unity of the Church with Saint Paul as you symbolize with Sectaries in maintaining the renting of the Church by Schismes If you had shewen any Contradiction in my words I had either answered it or if I could not I should have rendered my self to the truth But M. S. will not prove it but terrifies me as a Child with his great words It seemeth saith he Contradictions Inconsistencyes Impertinencyes Vn-intelligibilities sence non-sence any thing nothing c. A. S. All this is no sence nothing but words and wind of Goodwin As for the 19th Reason he remitteth us to the former Question to seeke an Answer A. S. 20. If it i. e. Toleration be granted it cannot but be thought that it hath been granted or rather extorted by force of reason and that all the Assembly were not able to answer our Brethren whereas indeed their Opinions and Demands are against all Reason as sundry of themselves could not deny and had nothing to say save onely that it was Gods Ordinance which yet they could never shew out of Gods Word On the contrary if it be refused it will help to confirme the Churches and the people in the truth M. S. In substance 1. denieth that a Toleration will seeme to be extorted if it be granted A. S. But if a thing so absurd and against all Piety be granted by so venerable an Assembly wherein things are carried by Reason it cannot seeme but extorted by Reason M. S. saith that I tell the Assembly that howsoever their Consciences might savour the Independents in point of Toleration yet their credits and reputations would suffer by it A. S. It is false there is no such expression in my Booke it is not my expression but M. S. his fiction and imposture Neither should the Assembly in my poore Opinion so easily suffer themselves to be intreated for ill neither is there any mercy in tolerating and not suppressing of Schismes and Heresies as M. S. beleeveth M. S. denieth that their Opinion and Demand is against all Reason but I have sundry times proved it viz. Because by such a Toleration of Independency all sorts of Heresies will creepe into the Church and it is most absurd that there should be no Ecclesiasticall power to represse the Heresies and abominable sins of seven or eight wicked Fellowes whereof a particular Independent Church may be compoed in case they fall into Heresie or such abominable sins Whereas M. S. saies that it is not like that so very learned men c. such as are the 5. Apologists should rise up to defend an opinion so contrary to all reason A.
That Conscientia erronea ligat sed non obligat an erroneous Conscience bindes a man so up that it hindereth him to do the good but it obliges him not to do the ill that it dictateth Neither is this the Question Whether an Heretick is bound to beleeve what the Magistrate willeth him to beleeve But whether he should have power to erect Churches against the Orthodox Religion as the Independents would And whether or no the Civill Magistrate can hinder him by his Civill Power from so doing Now the Argument proveth not the Negative part neither doth the Civill Magistrate compell private men to beleeve but not to trouble the peace of the Church in setting up of others without his permission M. S. his fifth Reason If the Civill Magistrate hath an actuall Coercive power to suppresse Schisms and Heresies c. because he is truely a Christian then Christianity changeth the propertie and tenour of his Magistracy and that for the worse for in vertue thereof he acquireth a power to crush his Subjects for the exercise of their Conscience yea to persecute the Saints which he had not before If so Christians have little reason to pray for his Conversion But the Consequent is false Ergo. A. S. 1. I deny the Consequence of the Proposition for both the Christian and Unchristian Magistrate have the actuall Coercive power howbeit they have not both actually the act of that Power for both the one and the other hath that Morall power in actu signato or the Remote power but the Christian Magistrate onely hath it in actu exercito i. e. The immediate Authority to exercise it because he hath or should have or is supposed morally to have all things requisite to the exercise thereof So is it not in a Pagan for he hath not the knowledge of the Gospel whereby he should exercise it nor the will to exercise it justly which is presupposed to it so he hath as it were potestatem sed caret usu potestatis as a Childe that hath a reasonable Soul and all the reasonable Faculties that a man hath but he hath not the use of Reason or of those reasonable Faculties he hath facultatem quasi ligatam as he who cannot see for a tye that he hath in his eye 2. I deny that Christianity changeth his power to worse for it is not as you say to crush good but to mend and reform ignorant and ill men and to chastise them Nulla enim potentia ad malum the Apostle telleth you that he is the Minister of God to thee for good Rom. 3.4 Rulers are not a terrour to good works Wilt thou then not be afraid of the Power Do that which is good Vers 3. M. S. his sixth Argument That power is very dangerous to a Magistrate to own in the exercise whereof he may very easily run an hazard at least in fighting against God or in plucking up that which God hath planted or in pulling down that which God hath built But such is that power of suppressing Schisms Heresies c. Ergo. The Assumption he proveth it because the Opinions that he sees by other mens eyes to be schismaticall may be the wayes of God 1. Because the judgements of these men are not Apostolicall 2. Frequent experience shews that a Minor part yea an inconsiderable number of godly Persons in a Church may have the minde of God in some particularities before the Major part have it 3. It seldom or never falleth out that any truth which hath for a long time been under Hatches and unknown to the generality of Ministers in a Church hath been at the first and on the sudden revealed either to the Generality or to the Major part of them Ergo. A. S. I answer 1. to the first It is no more dangerous then the Magistracy it self so as if it be dangerous to own the Magistracy so is it likewise to own that part of it whereby in vertue of his Civill Power he ruleth the Church civilly and so all the Argument may be granted and the greater that the danger is to own it the greater a great deal should his circumspection be 2. If this Argument hold it will conclude no lesse against the Civill and Ecclesiasticall Government of the Old Testament and that of the Civill Magistrate of New England also 3. I may deny the Major for if he accept of the Magistracy it is a far greater danger not to accept this part of the charge for there is a necessity laid upon him in vertue of the Magistracy to accept it as the principall part thereof 4. The greater that the danger and difficulty be so much the greater is the vertue in exercising of it and the greater will the retribution be for it 5. It is not very dangerous to own the charge but not to exercise it faithfully 6. To the Assumption I Answer That it is but one of M. S. his may be 's quod nihil ponit in re The Confirmations of it also contain but may be 's Their judgements I grant you are not Apostolicall 1. But no more are the judgements of your particular Congregations 2. Or those of the King and Parliament or of any mortall men at least ordinarily and yet notwithstanding they are lawfull 3. Neither is it needfull that they be infallible but without fault onely To the second proof 1. It is but a may be which yet may not be 2. And it is extraordinary 3. And howbeit it were so ordinarily yet followeth it not that your Independents are such 4. If it were so Gods truth Ordinarily should not prevail 5. All Schismaticks and Hereticks who are few in number may say as much So Mistresse Hutchinson in New England I le warrant you said no lesse To the third 1. I deny that the truth whereof we dispute hath been under the Hatches as ye pretend 2. All Hereticks and Schismaticks say the same 3. And in all these his Reasons he argueth evermore a facto ad jus from the Fact to the Law and from that which is to that which should be and from that which may be to that which is The Authority of Gamaliel Act. 4. is but of a prophane Politician who would rule the Church and Religion according to Politicall Ends. M. S. 7. Reason That Power which was never attributed to the Civill Magistrate by any Christians but onely by those that had very good assurance that it should be used for them appertaineth not to him by divine right But that Coercive Power in matters of Religion for the suppressing of Errours Schisms Heresies c. was never attributed to the Civill Magistrate by any Christian but onely by those that had very good assurance that it should be used for them Ergo. A. S. I answer That if the word Power in the Major and Minor be taken for an Ecclesiasticall Power which is intrinsecall to the Church I grant you all the Argument neither concludes it any thing against us But if it
the Magistrates authority can be no more intrinsecall unto the Church then the Magistrate himselfe is And if it be said that the Civill Magistrates authority is intrinsecall unto the Church but not the Civill Magistrate I answer That then the Church hath the civill Magistrates authority and not his person so the Church hath the Magistracy and not the Magistrate and so the Church has civill viz. Imperiall Royall or Despoticall authority over the subjects But that cannot be said for it is Treason Christs Kingdom is not of this world and the Church beareth no materiall sword 39. The Intrinsecall way to governe Christs Church is convenient unto Gods wisdome since it is an act of wisdome and divine providence But an Intrinsecall power granted to Heathen and Antichristian Christians and Magistrates to govern Christs Church is not convenient unto his wisdome but repugnant unto it for it is as if he should choose a Wolfe to keepe the Lambs and a Kite to shelter the Chickens which are not meanes convenient unto such ends 40. Such a sort of Government is repugnant unto Gods mercy towards his Church for how is it credible that he who has given Christ his onely Sonne for his Church to redeeme her should give her Antichrists and Pagans to leade her away from Christ to Antichrist yea to the Devill and Hell it selfe from which he hath redeemed her 41. I might here aske what Magistrate has this Intrinsecall power whether the Supreame or the Subalterne If the Supreame then he has such an authority in the Church as in the State viz. Monarchicall Despoticall Imperiall Royall c. Aristocraticall or Democraticall so the Government of the Church is not one but manifold and may change and be diversified as the governments of this world If the Subalterne has it also then it must be derived unto him from the Prince or Soveraigne Nulla enim potestas nisi in Principe aut a Principe there is no power but in the Prince or from the Prince so Ecclesiasticall charges shall be venall or saleable as Subalterne Magistracies in some Kingdomes are where the only way to be preferred unto them is that notable Maxime of old Judas Quantum mihi dabitis CHAP. III. The second Conclusion about the Extrinsecall power of the Civill Magistrate in Ecclesiasticall matters proved by Scripture Conclus II. THe Civill Magistrate hath an extrinsecall both Directive and Executive power about the Church whereby not onely he may rule it by Politicall Lawes as Pagan but also as Christian because he is or should be a Nursing Father of the Church Esay 49.23 who 1. is bound to admit in his Kingdome the true Church and true Religion 2. He has power not to admit it to reject it yea when it is not received or approved and confirmed by his secular and civill authority to reject it and exile it however he do it not as a Nurse of the Church 3. If the Church be corrupt and Church Officers negligent in their charge and will not reforme it he may command yea compell them to do it Or if they will not he may extraordinarily do it himselfe 5. When the Church is Reformed he may command them when they are negligent to be diligent in their charge 6. If they oppresse any man in their Ecclesiasticall judgements and censures against the Lawes of the Kingdome he may desire them yea command them to revise their judgements and in case they reforme them not command them yea compell them by his civill power to give him satisfaction according to the Lawes of the Kingdome if they derogate not from the Law of God 7. He may yea he is bound to provide sufficient maintenance for the Ministers of the Churches and to take a care that their meanes be not delapidated and that they be not Sacrilegiously robbed of them 8. And what here I say of the Church I say also of Universities and Schooles that are the Seminaries of able men for the Church 9. He may grant unto the Church some Liberties Priviledges or Immunities as sundry Princes have done and confirme them by Law as we see in the Civill Law 10. He is bound with his Civill power to maintaine the Order and Discipline of the Church and consequently 11. To hinder all disorder in it And 12. By his Civill Authority to compell all refractory persons to obey the Church And 13. To banish and exile all Sects Schismes and Heresies as we may see by sundry of the Roman Lawes and especially in the first 13. Titles of the first booke of Instinians Codex in the Pandects and else where All this we grant to the Civill Magistrate and if the Quinq Ecclesian Ministers with the rest of that Sect contest it not we need not to prove it only we say that he doth all this by a Civill and Secular Supreame Imperiall Royall Aristocraticall or Democraticall Legislative and coactive Power armed with the sword howsoever extrinsecall to the Church but more Absolute Independent and Potent in suo genere then any Ecclesiasticall Power whatsoever which is Intrinsecall to the Church which is no waies Absolute nor Independent but Dependent no waies Coactive by Externall force but Spirituall meerly Ministeriall howsoever imperative in the name of God that cannot make any Lawes but of things meerely Circumstantiall much lesse abrogate the Lawes concerning the constitution and Government of the Church already made by God in his Word Now that the Magistrate hath an extrinsecall Power over the Church in compelling all refractory persons to submit themselves to her just commands since M. S. seemeth to question it and desireth a proofe of it I am ready to satisfie his desire herein Wherefore I prove it 1. From sundry examples of the Iudges and Kings of the people of God in the old Testament Exod. 32.27 Moses commanded the Levites to kill about three thousand of the Ring-leaders or principalls of those that adored the golden Calfe in the performance of which service the Text saith that they consecrated themselves unto the Lord verse 29. 2. Deut. 22.11 to the end of the Chapter we read how the rest of the Tribes of Israel resolved to warre against Reuben Gad and the halfe Tribe of Manasseh for building of an Altar as they believed in transgression against the Lord which they would not have done had they not conceived it to be just 3. Iudg. 6.31 Ioash ordained thus He that will plead for him i. e. Baal let him be put to death 4. 1 Kings 15.12 Asa removed all the Idols that his fathers had made 13. And also Maachah his mother even her he removed from being Queene because she had made an Idoll in a Grove and Asa destroyed her Idoll and burnt it by the brooke Kedron Here Asa punisheth his owne Mother for Idolatry and destroyeth her Idoll so no doubt may the Civill Magistrate doe with all false Doctrine Worship and Discipline false Doctors Worshippers and Church Governours he may abolish them and
§ 2. They who are Party cannot be their Parties Judge since they are all equals Et par in parem non habet imperium and to be both Iudge and Party in one cause cannot be granted to those that have no authoritative power one over another as A.S. himselfe affirmes But the Assembly are those who are Party to the Independents and nothing else but their equals Ergo the Assembly cannot be their Judges A. S. Ans A Party cannot judge a Party I distinguish for either this Party is only pretended and so I deny the Major or reall and then this reall Party either compeareth in some personall or reall actions of his owne alone or in some cause of publick concernment if he compeare under the first notion the Major is true but the Minor is false for the Members of the Assembly compeare not in the Assembly for any personall or reall action of their owne alone or of particular concernment if he compeareth under the second notion the Major is false unlesse yee have sufficient cause to forsake him for Iudge 2. Item If it be a Party that hath no power over the Party in such a cause the Major is true but the Minor is false for the Assembly in matters of Discipline hath power over all the Independents in England viz. to condemne their Tenets according to Gods VVord If it be a party that hath power over the Party in such a cause as a Iudge the Major is false and so it was reasoned and this your Tenet judged and condemned in the Arminians as I hope it shall be in this Arminian and the Independents in this Assembly 3. It is false that parties are equals when the one hath power over another or when the one that is pretended to be party judgeth not in a matter concerning himselfe but the publick 4. For if that should hold the parties of the Independent Churches might reject the judgement of whole Churches yea of all the Churches of the world pretending them to be parties 5. Yea for the same reason they might reject the Iudgement of the Parliament 6. This Argument proveth not the question viz. that the Parliament hath an intrinsecall directive power in matters of Religion or an Ecclesiasticall power to judge in matters of Religion 7. It is a very proud and Independent expression of yours when you say that the Synod and all the Churches in the Christian world are but the Apologists equals you will finde them I hope in God their Judges and yet they are put in authority by the Parliament to represent the whole Church of England which is more then such an inconsiderable number of Independents M. S. Ob. 17. p. 37. § 2. If all Churches vvere equall as for ought I know or for any thing A.S. alledgeth to the contrary they are there can be neither superiours nor inferiours and consequently no obedience or disobedience But the first is true A. S. Ans 1. This proveth not that the Parliament hath any intrinsecall povver in the Church much lesse any directive intrinsecall povver 2. Only it pretendeth to prove an Independent Povver in the Church which taketh away their directive povver of the Civill Magistrate and the Parliament for if their Churches depend not of any superiour how can they depend upon the Parliament or any other Civill Magistrate I deny the Assumption viz. that all Churches are equall but he proveth it because they are such for ought he knoweth or that A. S. alleadgeth to the contrary Ansvv 1. This is but to confesse your ignorance 2. I deny the Consequence for it may be otherwise howbeit he be ignorant of it 3. Neither is his knowledge the measure of divine or naturall verity but to be measured by them 4. Howbeit A. S. should say nothing to the contrary yet the contrary may be for A. S. hath not said all things that may be said upon this or any other subject and there be thousands who can say more and better then he yea many have said more and better 5. It is an untruth also that he hath said nothing to the contrary for he might have seene something to the contrary in his Observations and in his Answers to a Libell and if that be not enough he hath more in this Booke 6. When he saith that A. S. argueth so it is an untruth for neither hath A. S. the Assumption nor the Conclusion in the 38. page of his Observations cited by him for he destroyeth the Consequent to destroy the Antecedent whereas M. S. poseth the Antecedent to infer the Consequent M. S. Ob. 18. If Iustice consisteth not in an Arithmeticall but Geometricall proportion then is there no reason that peremptoriousnesse of Vote how Arithmetically soever priviledged but weight and worth of Arguments should carry it against them But the first is true Ergo the second also A. S. Ansvv This Argument with its peremptorious censure of a pretended peremptoriousnesse of Votes Arithmetically priviledged seemeth to censure the Parliament which ordained that that should be offered unto them as the Iudgement of the Assembly vvhich the major part assented unto i. e. that that was judged by Plurality of Votes 2. If by peremptoriousnesse of Vote he meaneth Plurality of Votes I deny the consequence or connexion for when things are fully ballanced by reason in any Assembly it is more probable that that is most true that is carried by plurality of votes and that Geometricall proportion wherein consisteth distributive Iustice may be more easily found out by Plurarity of votes then by fewer votes otherwise it were a folly to vote any thing for wherefore vote they any thing in any Assemblies but that it may be judged by plurality of votes 3. And the Apostle willeth that the spirit of Prophets be subject to the Prophets Neither is it credible that the Major part will submit unto the lesser part 4. And we would willingly know of you Sir how things are ordinarily carried in your Assemblies whether things being debated and every mans Reasons heard the Major part submitteth to the lesser or the lesser to the Major or whether that is thought truth that the Major or Minor part Voteth 5. If by peremptoriousnesse of votes you mean a bold and imperious carrying of things by plurality of votes without reason I shall readily grant you such Assemblies are unlawfull neither is there any such established amongst us neither hath the Parliament established any such Ecclesiasticall Assembly here neither doth the Assembly arrogate unto it selfe any such unjust power if this Argument hold it shall beate downe as well the proceedings of the Parliament and all Civill Iudicatories wherein things are carried by Plurality of votes as those of the Assembly wherefore all the Civill Powers in the world will doe well to take notice of this peremptorious censure of them all for if it stand they must fall and doe homage to the Independent Churches Besides this I know not what he meaneth by Arithmetically
There was no other way in the Old or in the New Testament there is no other in Civill Judicatories there can be no other found in this world And to end this Argument I ask you What if a man be oppressed in one of your Churches as it is possible a man may be as well as in one of ours unlesse ye have the power of Piety in a more Independent degree yea beyond all flesh and blood in any juncture of time to come and afterward he complains to Neighbour Churches and they oppresse him by their Judgements What other remedy can he have but patience and to appeal to the Judge of quick and dead or else acquiesce to the sentence or at least suffer it For a man cannot sin in meer sufferance for actuall sin materially is ever more an action of the will or a voluntary omission of some action M. S. Ob. 30. p. 46. sect 2. What power is Intrinsecall to Religion it is Intrinsecall to the Church But the Civill Magistrates Power is Intrinsecall to Religion for A. S. sayeth That the Parliament pretends no Directive power in matters of Religion but an Executive power onely viz. In matters of Religion Ergo The Civill Magistrates power is Intrinsecall to the Church A. S. Answ What ever may be said of the Proposition I deny the Assumption and to the confirmation thereof I answer 1. That when I say the Civill Magistrate hath power in Religion the word in signifies about for Religion signifieth the object of the Civill Magistrate and so we speak ordinarily as when we say A rich mans heart is in his Money and Riches so in here signifieth not an Intrinsecall but an Extrinsecall Denomination as when I say The Sun is seen the Attribute in this Affirmative Proposition is said to be in the Subject not by any Intrinsecall Inherence or Denomination but by an Extrinsecall Adherence Attribution or Denomination This little Childish Sophistication is more worthy of some young smatterer in Logick then of a Divine or any Conscientious man It is not possible that M. S. could be ignorant of this and therefore in this Dispute if he have any power of Piety I desire more Conscience and Sincerity in him I may also say That the Civill Magistrate hath an Extrinsecall power in the Church if the word in there signifie a bare Attribution or Extrinsecall Denomination as it is ordinary amongst Divines Philosophers and common people and yet I confesse it is more properly said about Religion and about the Church as Apollonius observeth and as I have expressed my self but then there should have been a concurrence of in 's which would have made my Expression obscure for then I must have said The Civill Magistrate about matters of Religion hath an Extrinsecall power as also about the Church as this Professor of Eloquence would have me to speak which kinde of Expression I beleeve few or none could have understood If the Independent cause depend upon such ridiculous puntillio's and be so Independent upon good reason I know not of the two which is better Dependency or Independency M. S. Ob. 31. p. 46. sect 11. The power of Citation is Extrinsecall to the Church The power of Citation is Ecclesiasticall Ergo Some Ecclesiasticall power is Extrinsecall to the Church A. S. I distinguish the word power of Citation for it is either Ecclesiasticall which is proper unto the Church viz. In Church Officers gathered together in an Ecclesiasticall Assembly And this is both in and about the Church or Civill which is proper to the Christian and in some way to a non-Christian Magistrate where by his Civill power he maintaineth the Church and this is out of the Church in the Magistrate and yet about the Church which is its object And so I answer to this silly Argument That it is captious and grounded on an Equivocation for it taketh the power of Citation in one signification in the Major viz. For a Politicall power of Citation and in an other in the Minor viz. For an Ecclesiasticall power of Citation 2. Or if it be taken in both for an Ecclesiasticall power then the Major is false for Christ gave it to the Church to which it is Intrinsecall and not to the Civill Magistrate 3. Or if it be taken in both for a Civill power then the Minor is false for the Civill power of Citation is not in the Church but in the Magistrate neither ever gave Christ it as Mediator either to the Church or to the Civill Magistrate but God by Christ as God gave it onely to the Civill Magistrate And the Peece whereof the Presse as M. S. sayeth hath been lately delivered sayeth no other thing then I say if M. S. his Diana of Ephesus can permit him to understand it or he do not willingly dissemble his understanding of it M. S. If a Classis shall cite or excommunicate a Member of a Church against the judgement and consent of the Elders of that Church let all the World judge whether that be not an Act of Externall power without the Church A. S. This Argument is ridiculous 1. For it proveth not that which is in question viz. That the Civill Magistrate hath an Ecclesiasticall or Intrinsecall power in the Church 2. Onely it proveth that the Church hath an Authority that in some respect may be called Extrinsecall 3. But to take away this Equivocation and many others and to explain more fully this question note again 1. That the Church may be considered either according to its Reall and Naturall or according to its Morall being 2. That the Church according to its Morall being I speak of the Representative is either Particular of one Parish or Congregation or more Generall as a Classicall or Synodall Assembly 3. Note that the particular Church may be considered either Absolutely and in it self alone without any reference to a Classe or a Synod whereof it is a part or Relatively with a reference to the more Generall Church viz. a Classis or Synod whereof it is a part or in quality and under the notion of a part in so far forth as by some formall or virtuall Assent it hath once Covenanted to be a part of such a Classis or Synod and Stipulated to send its Commissioners to such Classicall or Synodall Meetings 1. If then we consider Citation or Excommunication with reference to the Church either more Generall or Particular according to its Naturall being it may be Extrinsecall to them both for the Act of Citation or Excommunication is not really produced or pronounced according to its Naturall being by the Church considered under the notion of its Reall being but by one man as all wise men will grant 2. If they be taken morally according to their Morall being grounded on some Covenant then the Acts of Excommunication and Citation are not Extrinsecall to the more Generall Church since they are exercised by Her power and consent 3. If they be considered with
and certaine others of them should goe up to Hierusalem unto the Apostles and Elders about that question Act. 15.2 2. Because the judgment of the Church of Hierusalem is called a Sentence v. 19. A burden To lay no greater burden upon you v. 28. Item Decrees and Ordinances They delivered them the Decrees to keep that were ordained for the Apostles and Elders which were at Hierusalem cap. 16. v 4. 3. Because not only the Church or Churches in Antioch but also all those of Syria and Cilicia were bound to obey them since they were delivered them by the Apostles Evangelists and Disciples to keep cap. 16.4 4. Because the stile of the Epistle and of the Iudgement argueth authority over the Churches As that Act. 15.24 To whom we gave no such commandement Ergo They had power to command them to preach And the Pharises appearingly pretended to have had some such commandement from that Church at Hierusalem as some inferre from this Text. Item It seemed good to the Holy Ghost and to us to lay upon you no greater burden then these necessary things Act. 15.25 5. Because they commanded the Churches some things indifferent in themselves as to abstaine from meats offered to Idols and from blood and from things strangled v. 29. What may be answered to this Reason we shall God willing see hereafter Arg. 6. The Church of Antioch is one and yet it is probable that there were many Congregationall Churches there for many of the Jewes and Religious Proselytes at Antioch followed Paul and Barnabas Act. 13. v. 43. And the next Sabbath day came almost the whole City together to heare the Word of God v. 44. And the Word of the Lord was published throughout all the Region v. 49. so that there were many that professed Christ So there were certaine Prophets and Teachers as Barnabas Simeon Lucius Manahem Act. 13. v. 1. and sundry others which had come down from Iudea Act. 15. v. 1. Now it is not credible that where there were so many Beleevers and so many Preachers but there must have been many Congregations and yet they are all called one Church Act. 14. v. 27. CHAP. V. The same Doctrine proved by the Church of Corinth 1 Cor. 1. 2 Cor. 1. Act. 18. and of Ephesus Act. 19. Arg. 7. SO 1 Cor. 1.2 2 Cor. 1.1 the Church of Corinth is called a Church There Paul reasoned in the Synagogue every Sabbath day and perswaded the Jewes and the Greeks Act. 18.4 And Crispus the chiefe Ruler of the Synagogue beleeved on the Lord with all his house and many of the Corinthians hearing beleeved and were baptized v. 8. And the Lord spake by vision to Paul saying I have much people in this City v. 10. Paul continued there a yeere and six moneths v. 11. God promised him that no man should set on him to hurt him v. 10. The Iewes that had made an insurrection against him v. 12. were drawn from the Iudgement seat by Gallio the Pro-Consul or Deputy of Achaia v. 18. Sosthenes the chiefe Ruler of the Synagogue beaten away by the Greeks v. 17. This Gallio was not Pauls or the Christians enemy as appeareth by all his proceedings v. 12 13 14 15 16 17 18. where it is to be observed that Corinth was the Metropolis of Achaia so potent and opulent that it might have disputed the Empire of the World with any other which the Romans reckoned only three in the World fit to do viz. Carthage Corinth and Capua Now since the City was so great so rich so populous and S. Paul by so speciall a manner of Divine providence and promise assisted there so as that Crispus the chiefe Ruler of the Synagogue was converted Gallio the Proconsul became Pauls friend and peradventure not far from the Kingdome of Heaven S. Pauls credit so great that the Iewes were drawn from the Tribunall seat and Sosthenes beaten away so many Corinthians converted and that he abode there so long What a number in all probability must have been converted Out of all doubt more then could conveniently meet together in one house to participate of all Christs Ordinances And it was not Pauls custome to stay long in any place where the Gospel was much contradicted or prospered not as we may collect from the 6. verse of this chapter and from chap. 19. v. 9. Arg. 8. We may prove as much from the 19. chapter concerning the City of Ephesus where I pray the Reader to consider how Ephesus was a very potent rich and populous City of Asia minor of great Trading in regard of its situation betwixt the South and West it being the way to saile from Syria and Egypt into Greece and Macedonia For all these reasons it was very famous as also for the Temple of Diana its Idolatry and many curious Arts there professed as Naturall and Diabolicall Magick the profession whereof some Independents as it is related by M. S. use it should seeme now and then to consult about men of Letters and their Books in these calamitous times of Reformation About that time that S. Paul taught there there was one Apollonius Thyanaeus who as it is related of him erected a Schoole of Magick there who by the voice of Birds knew their very imaginations and desires c. This man was Christs and S. Pauls enemy as it is related of him We have also an Adage in Erasmus Ephesiae literae which were some Magick characters and words which made such as caried them victorious in all they undertook See more about them in that Adage in the Title Imposturae Without doubt Paul converted here more then could meet in one Congregation and yet it is called a Church 1. At his first entry by the imposition of his hands he gave the Holy Ghost unto 12 Disciples or rather it was given them by Jesus Christ upon the imposition of his hands so that they spake with Tongues and prophesied v. 6. and so there was now a good number of good Instruments 2. He disputed boldly in the Synagogue for the space of three moneths perswading the things concerning the Kingdome of God v. 8. which he could not have done unlesse he had had many good friends there 3. Afterwards daily in the Schoole of one Tyrannus for the space of two yeeres v. 9.10 which without doubt he had not continued to doe so long if the Gospel had not had great fruits there for so soon as some spake evill of it in the Synagogue the Text sayes He separated his Disciples from it I know that there is some dispute about these words 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in Schola Tyranni cujusdam v. 9. some thinking that Tyrannus is a proper name others that it is a common name signifying some great-man of great credit and authority as some great Lord perchance and Schola may signifie a Schoole is a Hall or place of recreation such as Noblemen use to have But however it be taken this Text proveth plainly that
Partie judged 6. The Compromissory Arbiter judgeth not according to the Law but according to equity but in all Ecclesiasticall judgements he that judgeth must judge according to the Law or Gods Word Ergo He that judgeth in Ecclesiasticall judgements cannot be a Compromissory Arbiter who onely properly is an Arbiter in so far as an Arbiter is distinguished from a Iudge 7. The Iudgement of a Compromissory Arbiter cannot hold nor oblige me to obedience since it is not grounded on publike Authority but on the will of the Parties who qua tales are private persons But the judgement of the Church of Jerusalem can and must hold and oblige all the Churches of that time to obedience according to that which the Councell intended by the Iudgement 8. Compromissory Arbiters onely judge of the Parties which compromise to submit themselves to their judgement But the Church Apostles and Presbyters at Jerusalem judged not onely of the Parties that compromissed to submit unto them but of all the Churches as the Text telleth us 9. In Arbitrary judgements ordinarily they are the Parties that make choice of their Arbiters and not a third that ordaineth them as the Church of Antioch did in this Case in sending this Message or Ambassage to Ierusalem 10. Whether it was an extraordinary Counsell or judgement of Arbiters yet followeth it not that such judgements of themselves are ill or against Gods Word since God never ordained nor the Apostles ever made choice of any breach of Gods Law or of any disorder to establish any order in his Church by for God needeth not the Devils help to do his Work he can do it himself without him 11. If they were Compromissorii Iudices then particular or Parishionall Congregations may combine themselves together in a consociation and give power to Classes and to Synods to be their Iudges which is the practice of all the Reformed Churches 5. It may yet be answered That in all this proceeding there was no Reference or Appeal no Arbitrary judgement nor any Counsell concerning the Church of Antioch but onely an examen of a Message sent or pretended to have been sent from Jerusalem viz. Of some Pharisees Members of the Church of Jerusalem who pretended to have had charge from the Apostles to urge the Circumcision and the Observation of the Ceremoniall Law as may be collected from verse 24. Rep. 1. This is not true 1. Because all this is said without Scripture 2. And vers 24. it is not said That these Pharisees pretended to have had any such charge from the Apostles but the Apostles say That they gave them no such command But this Argument may seem somewhat weak for howsoever the Text have it not in terminis yet seems it to follow of the Text by a Morall necessity for that expression To whom we gave no such commandment seemeth to presuppose some pretention of a commandment on the Pharisees part 3. And howbeit it is said That they went out from the Apostles yet is it not said they were Members of the Church of Ierusalem 4. Neither read we That there was any dispute about their Message or Commission but about their Doctrine 5. Because the Sentence or Decree is onely about their Doctrine 6. Because in that Decree not onely the Pharisees are sentenced but all the Churches upon which the Observation of the Canons of the Apostles is enjoyned onely there is a word in passing said of the Pharisees but however it be that was no way the principall Question Finally here cometh in M. S. in an ordinary Independent way never proving any thing Positively that they beleeve for in this point they shew themselves the weakest of all Sectaries but ever more denying what we prove which requires no great abilities as is known and confessed amongst all men that do but pretend to learning neither can they do otherwayes for they will not be tyed in time to come to any Positive Doctrine no not so much as to that they hold at this present for any thing I can collect from the Apologeticall Narration onely they stand stoutly to some Nego's and will that we prove all and they nothing at all He telleth us then in the third Chapter of his Book that before this Argument of ours Acts 15. can hold we have ten Particulars to prove 1. That the Apostles sate here in quality of Apostles 2. That this Councell had their state and set times of meeting 3. That they had Authoritatem Citationis 4. That the Members of this Synod were sent hereunto by the particular Churches over whom they claimed jurisdiction 5. That onely Church-men had power to sit there 6. That it had as well power to make Laws of things indifferent as to impose things necessary 7. That the Churches of Syria and Cilicia had their Delegats sitting there 8. That Paul and Barnabas sate as Commissioners for the Church of Antioch 9. That ordinary Synods may proceed as they did in saying It seemed good c. 10. That these words in the close of the Epistle ye shall do well verse 29. did import some intimation That if they did not submit some further course must be taken with them Item In this Chapter he telleth us That Presbyterians agree not about the Pedigree of their Government and to tell us all this he imployeth no lesse then ten Pages in Quarto in a very small Print As for the first we have already proved it sufficiently and attend his reply As for that ridiculous demand of his that we prove That the Apostles waved and silenced the Spirit of Infallibility Answ They might have it and not wave it howbeit they sate not there in quality of men that had it for the Elders that had it not sate there in the same quality with them Some dispute also 1. Whether the Apostles in all times and in all places and upon all occasions yea sleeping and sick had the gift of Infallibility in actu secundo so that their will could not hinder the Externall Act. See the Example of Nathan S. Peter Thomas c. who had the gift of Infallibility in actu primo but sundry times they had it not in actu secundo 2. Some doubt also what is the gift of Prophesie or Infallibility Whether it be liker unto an Habitude which is a Permanent quality or to a Passion or Afflatus which is not Permanent but suddenly flies away To the second 1. It is but a circumstance of time which followeth necessarily of the substance of the thing 1. For if Councells sit they must sit in some time but in what time whether once twice or thrice a yeer that depends upon other Circumstances as of Church opportunities and exigences of the Civill Magistrates Permission c. 2. In things Circumstantiall Discipline depends on the Law of Nature according to the Apologists own Confession To the third It may be necessarily inferred of the Authoritative power for where there is an Authoritative power to judge and censure
there is evermore an Authoritative power of citation and calling of all those who are within the compasse of such a jurisdiction for citation is a medium whereby we come to judgement and it is a maxime most certain that Media accipiunt suam necessitatem a fine finis mediis conciliat amabilitatem To the fourth Some think it very probable that Paul and Barnabas were sent thither from Antiochia but Paul was not Minister of any particular Church no more was Barnabas for any thing we read in Scripture and therefore appearingly they could not be sent from Antioch a their particular Ministers but since they were also Universall Ministers they might receive a particular Commission from particular Churches since the Apostolate the charge of an Evangelist and Prophet contain in themselves virtually the charges of ordinary Ministers If it be said That they were Party and therefore could not sit as Judges It may be answered That men cannot be taken for Party when they compear before the Synod and when they are taken for Party by Innovators and Sectaries onely and persevere in the Doctrine already received in the Church for if that were admitted That every man promiscuously might be taken for Party then might a Felon or Traytor take all his Judges for Party and so never be judged and therefore in Iudgement when any one will decline the Sentence of his Iudges and take them for Party his Reasons are examined and considered whether they be of force and validity or not 2. It may be that they were chosen to be Members in the Synod before that this dispute fell out 3. It is not needfull that we prove all singular Circumstances from Scripture It will serve our turn if we prove That it was some Occumenick Nationall or Provinciall Synod from whence we may infer by necessary consequence that Commissioners were sent from particular Churches thereunto Now whether S. Paul and Barnabas were there in quality of Commissioners it is not needfull to know 4. This Assembly was a Generall or Nationall Assembly as we have proved Ergo Either it was a set Assembly as the Popes Consistory or as a Chapter or such as we have taken it for But ye deny the first two Ergo Ye must grant the third or give some other 5. Ye your selves admit Synods to which particular Congregations send their Commissioners Delegates or Messengers call them as it pleases you Ergo Ye cannot deny them If ye deny their quality or power to judge that is another question which is different from this To the fifth I prove it For no man hath power to judge in Ecclesiasticall Causes but they who have the abilities such as are onely Church Officers because no man can take this office but he who is called as Aaron such as are not every one of the people amongst whom as ye say many have not confidence enough but are timorous and others are rude or impertinent If ye had answered all my Book ye might have found more Reasons but of this you are like to hear more God willing in a particular Question To the sixth This Councell imposed upon the Church some things indifferent of their own Nature as that of abstaining from blood and things strangled for howsoever they were necessary necessitate praecepti in so far as commanded yet were they not necessary in themselves or necessitate medii and so they are called in the Text things necessary partly necessitate praecepti partly of conveniency or remedy for to avoide offence Some call it necessitas non facti sed facientis when the thing of it self is not needfull but the Agent maketh it necessary to himself as we do in abstaining from things whereat our Brethren may take offence howbeit we give them none 2. Your Independent Church taketh that Authority unto her self as when she ordains a certain day and a certain hour for her Sermons and meetings Wherefore then may not a Synod do it 3. The Church by Gods Authority may ordaine of things Necessary so may she of things Indifferent when they may conduce to a thing that is necessary Nam media accipiunt necessitatem à fine 4. For howsoever some things be indifferent in generall yet are they not such in particular in matter of Practice for then they become necessary because of some particular determinations and references that they have to some good ends in respect of time place persons c. 5. This is but one only Point of Presbyterian Government and not all and howbeit ye should gaine all this as ye doe not yet would it not follow that the Presbyterian Discipline were absolutely to be condemned To the 7. The Proofs of the 4. may prove this also 1. For if it was a Provinciall Nationall or Generall Synod or Councell every Church concerned therein must have had their Commissioners 2. Ye your selves acknowledge Synods to have a Synodicall authority howbeit not as we and thereunto ye send your Messengers as ye call them and therefore what right ye claime to send your Messengers the same had the Churches of Syria and Cilicia to send theirs to Hierusalem but if they did it not the more were they to blame for such neglect Now it sufficeth me to prove that they had power and were bound to send their Commissioners thither To the 8. I answer 1. It is not needfull we prove that Paul and Barnabas were Commissioners at Hierusalem for the Church of Antioch It may be that they were their Commissioners it may be that they had some others 2. It sufficeth that they had power to send their Commissioners thither and were bound to doe it And this bindeth them to submit themselves to their Decrees 3. This Disputer is absurd whereas he will oblige us to prove every particular yea individuall Circumstance It is a common Maxime that de singularibus non datur scientia The Scripture obligeth us not to know all the singular Circumstances of every thing it propounds but it delivereth us Documents of all things necessary unto Salvation which either contain formally or from whence may be concluded all that we are bound to know either directly or indirectly and per deductionem ad impossibile mediately or immediately To the 9. I answer that every particular Minister may preach and admonish in the name of God for they are all Ambassadours of God We are Ambassadours for Christ as though God did beseech you by us We pray you in Christs stead be ye reconciled to God 2 Cor. 5.20 It is also said that the Lord did work with them Mark 16.20 and that they are co-operators or labourers together with the Lord 1 Cor. 3.9 Since therefore they are Gods co-operators or labourers with the Lord and the Lord with them yea in their Deliberations Iudgements and Preachings wherefore may they not say it seemed good to the Holy Ghost and to us viz. to the Holy Ghost as the prime cause and to them as to his Ministers and Ambassadors
by them Neither see I what more our Brethren grant to all the Churches of the World over one But the Presbyteriall Government is subject to none of these inconveniences for the collective or combined Eldership having an Authoritative power all men and Churches thereof are bound by Law and Covenant to submit themselves thereunto Every man knoweth their set times of meeting wherein sundry matters are dispatched and all things caried by Plurality of Voyces without any Schisme or Separation 10. This Government viz. Iedependency is a Power wherein the Party is judged if he will and so the Iudgement of the Iudges suspended upon the Iudgement of the Party judged which is most ridiculous without any example in Civill or Ecclesiasticall Iudicatories a Iudgement not very unlike to that which is related of a merry man who said That he had the best and most obedient Wife in the World because saith he she willeth nothing but what I will And as all men wondred at it knowing her to be the most disobedient yea saith he but I must first will what she willeth else she wills nothing that I will 11. This sort of Government is unjust and unreasonable for not only the Party judgeth its Party but also inslicteth the same punishment viz. Separation upon all offending Churches whatever the offence be great or small in case of non-satisfaction whereas all Punishments should be commensurable unto the severall Offences 12. And so ye seem to approve the Opinion of the Stoicks who held all sinnes to be equall since ye inflict the same punishment upon them all 13. Not only this Discipline cannot be easily put in execution in great Kingdomes as England wherein all the Churches offended cannot so easily meet together But also 14. Because the person offended after he hath represented his grievances unto the Church and that Church hath received satisfaction he may goe to another and so continually in infinitum to the Worlds end evermore taking those Churches for the Party that judge it which is most absurd and foolish 15. What if the Party offended be poore and have not the meanes to post up and down from neigbour-Church to neighbour-Church to pray them to make the offending Church to give an account of her Iudgement Much lesse to attend upon their uncertain conveniencie Here will be found true Pauper ubique jacet Whereas in Presbyteriall Government the Party offended may be easily redressed and get satisfaction as not having need so to post up and down to be at so great charges or to attend their conveniencie for by a simple Appeale he may binde the Church offending to appeare at the day appointed 16. What if there should fall out an hundred such offences in a short time Must so many Churches evermore gather together for every one of them apart 17. What if Churches be poore and cannot be at so great expence Then in that case it should seem there is no Order to meet with Offences I may adde these following Reasons 18. This Independencie maketh all the Churches of Christ like so many Scopae dissolutae loose Broomes that have no tye or band to hold them together and so destroyeth the unity of the Militant Church 19. The very word Independencie applied to men how much more the thing signified thereby should be odious to all Christian ears as being proper to God Almighty How proud abominable is this expression We seven men who constitute this Church we will not depend on all the Churches of this World We will not depend on any create Ecclesiasticall power yea not upon all the Angels in Heaven and men upon Earth but will be Independents and have others to depend upon us 20. If so what is the cause that ye oppose the Kings Majesties Absolute or Independent power in State matters Truly this being only Secular cannot be so dangerous as the other viz. as Yours for this only may be prejudiciall to our Bodies or States but Yours may kill millions of Soules neither is the Kings Authority more limited in the State then yours is in the Church 21. What will ye that where-ever there is 7. or 8. of you combined together to make up a Church ye shall depend on no man but have an independent and absolute power to bring into the Kingdome whatever Heresie ye please to blaspheme God and so vi irresistibili with the Arminians to goe to Hell If so God have mercy on you But it may be said that the Civill Magistrate may hinder them But M.S. will answer 1. That he should not punish any man for Religion 2. That the Civill Power is of another sort then Ecclesiasticall 3. What if the Civill Magistrate be not a Protestant or what if he be a profane man 4. Howbeit he were a Protestant and a good Christian yet should it follow that the Church-power is neither sufficient nor perfect in suo genere since it must have recourse unto the Civill Magistrates power which is of another nature and extra hoc Genus CHAP. III. M.S. his Evasions refuted and my Arguments made good and first those that he bringeth against the third Argument M.S. answereth not all nor any considerable number of my Arguments as he confesseth himselfe but scratcheth at a few of them whereby he weakens them not but overthroweth the Government of all States That of the Church of the Old Testament the Practice of the Apostles and Apostolike Churches and the fundaments of Independent Government it self as God willing we shall see hereafter The first of my Reasons that he snaps at is the 3. viz. This Remedy viz. of non-Communion is not sufficient nor satisfactory because all Churches according to your Tenets be equall in authority Independent one of another and par in parem non habet imperium none hath power or authority over his equall How then could any Church binde any other to any such accompt but out of its freewill as a party may doe to its party M. S. 1. Suppose that course which the Apologists insist upon be not in the eye of reason a means sufficient to such a purpose yet if it be a meanes which God hath authorized for the effecting it it will do the deed A.S. It seemth that M.S. would fain enter into the Lists against Reason it self but he must know that Gods Ordinance and Reason are not opposite one to another since he who is the author of Nature is the Author of Grace also neither as Author of Nature sights he against himself as Author of Grace 2. It is a Maxime of Popery and Lutheranisme to oppose Nature Grace 3. Christ and the Apostles served themselves of Naturall Reason in Scripture 4. And out of the case of supernaturall revelation above it which cannot be contrary unto it it must be beleeved 5 He supposeth that Independency and withdrawing and renouncing all Christian Communion with such Churches untill they repent is a sufficient meanes authorized by God which hitherto appeareth not yea
of the Presbyterian Remedy against such mischief or of the mischief it self for we must never in any Case accept of malum culpae such as is the acceptation of Apostasie or Heresie in a whole Church 4. Neither is there any nor have you yet shewn any Inconveniency in the Presbyteriall way But we have shewn many as Reall in the Independent way as those are imaginary that you attribute to the Presbyterian way 5. All the Inconveniency that this man pretends to be in the Presbyterian way is Dependency of particular Congregations upon Superiour Assemblies viz. Classes Synods c. Or Subordination amongst Ecclesiasticall Iudicatories for this Sect must be altogether Independent and every one in their Churches supreme Ecclesiasticall Judges and their Churches supreme Ecclesiasticall Iudicatories be they never so Hereticall or prophane But this Inconveniency may be pressed home again 1. For there is Subordination among their particular Congregations and their Synods onely they hate the Authority of Synods 2. There was a Subordination of Authority in the Old Testament 3. So is there in Civill Government And whatsoever Inconveniency they presse against us it will hold in all the rest as we shall see hereafter God willing 4. If such a Dependency or Subordination be any Inconveniency then God is the cause of it as we have heretofore fully demonstrated it M. S. Delinquency of whole Churches is not an every dayes Case no more in the way of Congregationall then of Presbyteriall Government A. S. 1. It may be as ordinary a Case in the Church as that of Inferiour Iudicatories in the State 2. And it fell out amongst the Arminians and us 3. So did it amongst your Churches in Holland 4. So doth it betwixt you and us since ye are become Sectaries 5. So doth it among all Churches that become Hereticall or Schismaticall and the Orthodox Church and the Apostle telleth us that there must be Heresies 1 Cor. 11.19 So it is not so extraordinary a Case as you M. S. make it And therefore there must be an Ecclesiasticall Ordinance for it as well in the Church as in the State 1. Unlesse you say That God is more provident for the State then for the Church or more negligent in his care of the Church then of the State 2. There was a remedy for such Cases in the Old Testament as I shewed you in my Annotations wherefore not also in the New Testament 3. Howbeit it be not an every dayes Case yet the Independents have a remedy for it viz. The Sentence of non-Communion whereof I may say as much as he sayes of Excommunication for the Independent Churches could not pronounce such a Sentence unlesse they had or pretended to have an Authoritative power to do it for it belongeth to the power of the Keyes 4. It is or may be more ordinary amongst the Independent Churches then among ours 1. Because of their Independency and want of Superiour Ecclesiasticall power to keep them in order 2. Because they tye the Members of their Churches never to quit them without the Churches consent whereof they are Members which may breed quarrels betwixt two Churches if a Member of the one without her consent joyn himself to the other 3. And this may be confirmed by the Examples of those most bitter quarrels betwixt two of your Churches and their Pastors in Holland as it is related by Master Edwards in his Antapologia but according to ordinary Providence no such thing can fall out among our Churches and if it should fall out we have a present remedy viz. a Classe which may be gathered within the space of four or five dayes if that do not the businesse we may gather a Synod or a Superiour power which cannot Morally be contemned among us by any Inferiour power as the equall power of Independent Churches may by their equall If it fall out extraordinarily amongst us we have an ordinary remedy for such an extraordinary Case And howbeit it were extraordinary and very rare yet should there be a remedy provided for it so soon as once it falleth out for it is a Case that bringeth a very great mischief with it viz. The revoult of a Church or many Churches that is an inconvenience yea a mischief a thousand times worse howbeit it should fall out but once in an Age then all the droppings of Master Goodwin or all the inconveniencies that can be alleadged against a constant remedy were they as reall as they are fictitious and imaginary Thirdly M. S. answereth my first Argument They that implead the Congregationall way for being defective suppose that God hath put a sufficiency of power into the hands of men to remedy all possible defects errours and miscarriages of men whatsoever But that is untrue Ergo. A. S. I answer They suppose not that God hath put into their hands a sufficiency of power to remedy all defects and miscarriages whatsoever or all possible absolutely but ex suppositione finis obtinendi i. e. that may conduce to obtain the end that God hath commanded us to intend and to tend unto for since his will is that spirituall diseases be cured it must consequently be to give the remedies necessary or sufficient to obtain such an end or cure 2. I suppose not that God hath given us all means sufficient Physicè but moraliter i. e. that are morally sufficient and whereby morally we may be convicted of sin if we use them not as cured of our ill if we use them 3. I suppose that they must be sufficient according to Gods ordinary providence whereby he governeth ordinarily his Church and not absolutely 4. As sufficient as in the Civill State or as in the Old Testament at least since the Government in the New Testament is as perfect as in the Old and not simply or absolutely And so the Assumption is false M. S. proveth that this inconveniency presseth as well the Presbyterians as the Independents If your Supreme Session of Presbyteries should miscarry saith he and give us Hay Stubble and Wood instead of Silver and Gold what remedy A. S. This is a very extraordinary Case yea the most extraordinary that can be imagined viz. That all the Churches both in Superiour and Inferiour Judicatories should so miscarry and yet if a man have used all possible means and this miscarry also which is more then any ordinary Case we may say 1. that we have had all means that are morally possible and that no more can morally be desired 2. We have had all the means and if we served our selves of them all till we came to this extraordinary Case we are excusable 3. We have had all the means possible according to Gods ordinary Providence 4. All means that they had in the Old Testament or that they have in the State 5. I answer that this Supposition may as well be propounded against Gods Providence in the Government of the State and of the Church of the Old Testament as against that
be discussed in those Iudicatories 3. They have more in our way for they have our Confession of Faith and our Discipline written or in Print and may study it every day at home which is not usuall amongst the Independents who are never resolved neither in their Confession of Faith nor in their Government neither will they have any one common to all their Churches If private Christians desire more then this they may goe to the Universities 4. This Argument striketh at the Government of the State that of the Old Testament and at the proceedings of the Apostles Act. 15. and 16. M. S. his 6. Arg. in substance is that the Premisses whereupon Conclusions are grounded cannot be so well known and examined in Classes and Synods as in an Independent Congregation wherein the matter is passed Ergo it should be judged there and not in Classes Synods c. A. S. 1. This Argument as the rest concludes as well against the proceedings in Civill Iudicatories that of the Church of the Old Testament that at Antiochia and at Hierusalens as against the Presbyterian way 2. Amongst us the businesses are first examined before the Parochiall Presbytery or Session where all the Premisses may be as well tryed as in the Independent Congregation and in case of Appeale they may be carried to the Classe or Synod 3. What if the difference be betwixt two divers Churches or two persons of divers Churches and the premisses be Actions or Offences committed out of both the Churches then in such a case the businesse cannot be proved in any of the Churches what if the businesse need no proofe but be some scandalous Doctrinc M. S. addeth that for brevities sake he would not strengthen his Arguments as he might A. S. And in this we praise his prudence in publishing unto the world such frivolous Arguments yea that have not so much as any apparent probability in them Whether an Independent Government ought to be tolerated in this Kingdom TO the end we may proceed cleerly in this Question it is to be noted That by this Kingdom I mean the Kingdom of England wherein this Government hath never yet been received 2. It is to be noted That a Toleration is either positivè whereby Positively by Law Actuall Consent Approbation or otherwayes we receive or give way to any thing or negativè when neither by any Posicive Act Law Actuall Consent or Approbation we give way to any thing but onely actually we oppose it not make no Law against it dissent not reprove it not c. Again Both the one and the other is either of particular men or of Churches And again That of particular men either simply to enjoy their Consciences in not obliging them to be Actors in any thing against the light thereof or to give them leave freely to discourse upon all occasions with others concerning their Tenets yea though it were to seduce them 3. It it is again to be noted That by Independent Government I mean that whereby every particular Congregation is so governed that every Member thereof hath an hand in it and all the parts of it and so as not to acknowledge any Ecclesiasticall Power in this World above it The State of the Question then is Whether such Independents should have any Positive or Negative but principally a Positive Toleration not onely for their Persons but also for their Churches in this Kingdons wherein they are not yet admitted M. S. with the rest of his Sect the Brownists Anabaptists Antinomians Familists Arminians Servetists Socinians and other Sects in this Kingdom maintain the affirmative But the Orthodoxes stand for the negative The Reasons for the Orthodox Part may be these that follow 1. Such a Toleration cannot but open a door to all sorts of erroneous opinions M. S. denieth this Assumption for saith he by the same Reason he that receiveth one discreet Servant into his House must receive all Prince Ruperts Troops to rack and manger with him A. S. But M. S. understands not or takes upon him that he understands not my Argument for my meaning is not as he misconstrueth it That by the same Reason all other Sects must be admitted which is my fourth Reasonâ—â— a pari but that Independency being once received into the State it will per se and naturâ suâ of it self open a door to all sorts of erroneous Opinions which is an Argument not a pari as the other but a causâ ad effectum for if the Independent Churches acknowledge no superiour Ecclesiasticall Power and that the Civill Magistrate in good conscience cannot punish them then in case any or many of them fall into Heresie it will open a door to Heresie 2. M. S. answereth That a Toleration of Independency will be an effectuall means of chasing away of erroneous opinions A. S. This is but a strong imagination of M. S. which may as easily be denied by us upon our Reason here above alleadged as it is boldly asserted by him without any Reason at all As for that which he citeth out of my Book that I acknowledge them for men of Abilities sufficient enough to dispute their Opinions A. S. I have answered this sundry times 1. It is but a judgement of one man 2. But a judgement of Charity which howbeit it be Practically true yet oftentimes it proveth Speculatively false 3. It is not a certain but a probable judgement whereof he doth not well to brag so much 4. Howbeit they may not want Abilities to dispute probably yet may they want Abilities to demonstrate their opinions Theologically Yea neither all they nor ten thousand such as M.S. with them shall ever be able to bring any strong Argument for any one of their Tenets that they hold against us 5. If they have so great Abilities to dispute their opinions the Devill hath yet greater Cannot able Lawyers dispute very well a very ill Cause Know ye not what is said of a very able man Vbi benè nemo meliùs ubi malè nemo pejùs Truely ye dispute with such heat and ardency for the Independent learning and godlinesse that it seemeth almost the onely quarrell ye have against us whether ye be the learnedst and godliest men in this Kingdom or not You and they seem to maintain the affirmative at least concerning the last part of this Thesis if not both and scarcely see we any Book of Independency set forth wherein we see not great complaìnts that their Abilities are not high enough prized And what they say of their pretended piety all the World knoweth whereas your pretended Adversaries speak never a word but of the Cause unlesse they be provoked by the vain and exorbitant praises that ye ever and anon undeservedly bestow upon your selves 6. But how able soever you or they be yet for them it is cleer the Assembly hath divers times put them to a non-plus 7. And if they be so able what other reason can there be that they plead no
non-Communion or Schism So your Supposition is false viz. That I suppose that the ground of such a refusall of Communion consisteth onely in difference of Iudgement for I suppose that the ground of it may be a breach of Charity and in particular persons a vicious life 2. M. S. should have done well to declare us here in particular what is the nature or particularity of this difference betwixt us and them for we cannot in practicis dispute accurately upon Generalities so abstract from all Particularity If it be replyed That it is because we admit vicious persons unto our Communion I have answered it in my Annotations whereunto he pretends to answer He should have refuted my Reasons here as also sundry others in Master Rutherfords Book whereby he demonstrates how ridiculous and frivolous this pretext is Neither is it needfull that I should repeal them to swell up a Book with them M. S. his second Answer If there were so many and great differences amongst the Members of the Church of Corinth as you speak of and yet Paul no wayes perswaded the Major part amongst them to cast our cut off or suppresse the Vnderling Parties but exhorted them to mutuall Communion why do not ye the like A. S. We cast you not out nor off but ye run away we exhort you but ye will not obey ye slight and contemn your Mother that begot you and when the House of God is to be Reformed ye will have all things according to your fancy or ye will be gone and renounce your Mother O what sort of Children and Domesticks of the Faith are ye M. S. his third Answer He denyeth the Assumption viz. That there was greater difference amongst the Members of the Church of Corinth then betwixt the Independents and our Churches A. S. I prove it for both they differed in Articles of Faith some of them denying the Resurrection the Doctrine of the Law and Sacraments some of them joyning the Law with the Gospel and Circumcision with Baptism And in Charity some crying up some Apostles and Pastors and rejecting of others others of the same Church being of contrary mindes and wills without any Separation in Externall Communion either in Sacraments or Government for any thing we read in Scripture A. S. 11. Reason in Substance is this That the Opinion of our Brethren symbolizeth much jumpeth in conceit and that they sympathize with the Donatists who separated themselves from other Churches under pretext That they were not so holy as their own neither is their Discipline unlike to that of the Convents and Monasteries amongst the Papists which professe all one Doctrine but are independent one upon another c. M. S. Answer 1. Symbolisa Theologia non est Argumentativa A. S. But this Argument is taken a Simili and holds quia similium eadem est ratio viz. In eo in quo similia sunt Now they are blamed in separating themselves from the rest of those that professe the same Doctrine as if they were holier then the rest Ergo so are the Independents to be blamed for the same Reason His Instances are childish and fond for Angels and Devils agree not in that which is blameable in Devils for that agreement should be an impeachment both to their Holinesse and Happinesse 2. Neither agreeth A. S. with Nestorius in making way to any Heresie of his own as Nestorius wherein he was blameable 3. No more is it to the purpose that ye are not like to Monks for their Paunches idlenesse or in their Buildings howbeit some of them be as lean and as busie in their own way as any of you Independents can be in yours Neither is it a sin to be fat Onely I compare you with them in that wherein we all blame them viz. In separating themselves from others under pretext of greater holinesse To his Answer to the third point I reply That I make not this comparison betwixt the Donatists and the Apologists as M. S. sayeth here but betwixt them and all those that are of the Independents opinion And so to his first Answer I reply That however some of the Apologists of whom alone I speak not have not Churches yet have they the same opinion concerning the Separation of their Churches from others that professe the same Doctrine and that under pretext that they are holier then the rest Secondly M. S. answereth That neither in substance nor truth doth it touch any of them or their opinion 1. For they do not separate from other Churches but onely in such opinions and practises wherein they cannot get leave of their Consciences to joyn with them A. S. I have proved that it touches them in truth and as for his proof the Donatists did just so Whereas M. S. saith That they of the Presbytery differ in Opinions and practises one from another A.S. 1. It is true but that is in things that are not very materiall 2. Or if they be materiall they are particular Opinions of particular men that are not known not of whole Churches nor approved by whole Churches 3. And howbeit some of them though very few differ in some practises which are not materiall yet is it not so much they that make these differences as that they are compelled by others to suffer them as they have declared themselves in their Letters sent to the Assembly 4. That small difference breeds no Schism or Sects among them but they entertain mutuall communion together both in Sacrament and Government and they admit one another unto their Synodall and Sacramentall Communion so do not Independent Churches amongst themselves nor with ours M. S. 2. Argument for this his Assertion is because A. S. himself and his Party do separate themselves from the Church of Rome because they think not that Church to be so holy as their own A. S. 1. We separate not our selves from the Romish Church because of greater or lesse holinesse in our Church or in particular Persons then in theirs but because we conceive that the Romish Church erreth in Fundamentalls 2. Not onely committeth but also 3. Teaches Idolatry and 4. compelleth men against their Conscience to commit and professe it 5. Neither did we separate from the Papists but they separated from us and did cast us out of their Church and persecuted us to death so that neither could we entertain Communion with them without loosing both body and soul 6. Neither yet separate we from any Church that holds the same Doctrine with us 7. Neither beleeve we that any Church holding the same Doctrine with us can morally fall into Idolatry or urge us to be Actors against our Consciences in any Idolatrous Act And this Liberty of Conscience Independents may have in our Churches 8. We pray you also to declare unto us what Heresie Idolatry or great vice you see taught or approved of amongst us that should compell you to quit our Churches as we found amongst the Papists and then your Argument
fain know what I meane to do with this Story A. S. Since he pretends so great dulnesse I have put the Argument in Forme for him and shewed him how I serve my selfe of it to confirme my Minor by M. S. proveth that this Story cannot serve me for saith he i. e. A. S. doth not approve of those proceedings viz. of the Independents of N. E. A. S. It is all one for I argue onely ex Concessis which maketh it an Argument ad hominem and sheweth how that in so doing and by such Suing for a Toleration here yee stand not to your own principles but change them with the Climate whereof I say what a very grave President of the Court of Parliament of Paris said to the Iesuits upon the like case The Lord keepe me from men that have one faith on the one and another on the other side of the Alpes So I to you God keepe me from Men who maintaine some Principles in America or New England and the contrary in Europe or in Old England I pray you holy Fathers drinke together and agree before ye come to put us here in combustion M. S. Is the man so full of the spirit of Reprehension against such practises and yet so full of the spirit of imitation i. e. If A. S. reprove such practises he should not imitate them A. S. I have answered 1. That my Argument proves not what I should do but what yee should not do It is Argumentum ad hominem 2. I Answer again that we persecute not Independents as you say but hinder them to sow their Tares They have never been nor are they nor are they ever like to be persecuted by the Parliament as I hope I hope the Independents will have more Conscience then to give just occasion unto the Parliament to punish them but if they continue in their pertinacy and the Parliament refuse then to grant them a Toleration it will no more be a Persecution then it would be to hinder men to blaspheme Gods Name 3. I cannot imitate them for I have no power or authority as those whose practises I refute Onely I pleade for the Truth and shew what should be done 4. Howbeit I had authority amongst the Dependents as they have amongst those pretended Independent Creatures yet could I not imitate them in refusing of a toleration for the case would not be the same or alike 5. And I grant you that if the Cause ye maintain were as just as it is unjust those of New England should do well to refuse us a Toleration 6. And yet could they not so justly refuse us our demand as we refuse you yours for the Presbyterians who were Suitors for a Toleration in New England were onely Suitors for Presbyterians and those very few in number whereas M. S. and his Collegues plead for a Toleration of all sorts of Independents yea of all the Sects of the World for any thing we know In the same Sect p. 103. He condemneth such practises in his Brethren of New England in saying that in such proceedings they justified not themselves in the sight of God viz. justitia causae 7. Neither doth either God or our Conscience judge us in such proceedings i. e. Condemne us for we judge according to Gods Word that divers Sects which yee would have Tolerated are not to be Tolerated but that they are all to be suppressed 8. Whereas he sayeth that I am more of the Opinion of the Independents of New England then the Apologists I am glad that he is ashamed of his Fathers And I agree with them in this that Hereticks Schismaticks and Idolaters are not to be Tolerated by the Church of God which the Independents of Old England deny most boldly What yee say of the Independent Apologists that they professe not persecution meerly for little differences in point of Discipline I Answer 1. They do well to professe it since their power as yet is very small But what they may professe if they can get any power into their hands we know not 2. Onely we say that the American Independents who are Ejusdem speciei with you so soon as ever they had authority did other wayes then yee say the Apologeticall Independents do professe without authority 3. And it may be that they being Ministers will professe it but will you assure us that your Magistrats who are Independents shall professe the same M. S. Addeth if they did so for want of light must this be a band of conscience upon them to bow down their backs and to suffer Presbyterian greatnesse to go over them as stones in the street A. S. In a word this is to deny the consequence of my Major which I have confirmed But I Answer 1. The Question is not of Presbyterians neither did I speake of them in my Argument 2. The Presbyterians yea their Nationall Churches inflict none but spirituall punishments which every Congregationall Independent Church compounded peradventure of seven or eight idle Fellowes onely arrogate unto themselves 3. What you say of the want of Light in the Independents of New England it is ridiculous for they say that they have more Light then all the Quinqu ' Ecclesian Ministers and will hold you as blind as yee hold them No wonder that so Independent Lights be so contradictory one to another 4. I wonder how yee can call that rather a Presbyterian greatnesse wherein the Spirit of Prophets submit unto Prophets and the lesse unto the greater Light then that wherein six or seven silly Fellowes and a little Independent Minister be they never so erronious in their Opinions and execrable in their lives will not submit unto the whole Christian World M. S. Again he sayes p. 104. that out of feare they are Suitors for a Toleration if they do not bestir themselves by some means or other to prevent it A. S. This is not Metus justus sed injustus qui non cadit in virum constantem It is not a just but an unjust feare that becometh not men but Children who feare their own shadowes at Noone-day Some men do feare flies and such is your feare for it is a Maxime of our Discipline that men should not be compelled to be Actors in any thing against their Conscience and this might suffice to put you out of feare which if it cannot do we cannot cure Pisanders feare What ill usage have you received here of the Parliament that should make you so fearefull What you meane by your meanes to prevent it I know not unlesse they be those that some of the People offered who were so capable of new impressions that the 5. Apologists mention in their Apologie or that other viz. That the Independent party did offer to entertain 4000. men in these Wars provided they might have had liberty to have made choyse of their Commanders What he sayes in the rest of this § in his 4. Answer is but a tale and is sundry times answered As for that
not for us to distinguish or restrain it He is the Minister of God for good Vers 4. Ergo For this good viz. to have a care of Religion and to punish such as trouble it by their Schisms and Heresies And therefore 6. I deny the Consequence For Posito uno Medio non negantur reliqua It followeth not That if God serve himself of some means in the Church Ergo He serveth himself of any other means viz. of Civill Authority about the Church and out of the Church That were as if I should say The internall Causes as Materia Forma are necessary to the Generation of a man Ergo The Externall as the Efficient and Finall viz. God and man are not necessary M. S. 2. The Ministers of the Church must perform their Office with meeknesse 2 Tim. 2.24 Ergo They must not threaten men with delivering them over to the Civill Magistrate A. S. I answer to the Antecedent They must perform their duty not onely with meeknesse but also with severity when necessity requireth it as we see in Saint Paul 2. The Text 2 Tim. 2.24 speaketh onely of meeknesse in teaching In meeknesse saith the Apostle instructing those that oppose themselves if peradventure God will give them repentance 3. It onely saith that they must use meeknesse when men are docilo when there is any hope of Repentance and not with pertinacious Heretiques and Schismatiques of whom we cannot expect Repentance 4. I deny the Consequence When the Ministers of the Church threaten them to deliver them over unto the Civill Magistrate they may do that also with meeknesse Neither is such a proceeding contrary to meeknesse for the meekest man of the World may accuse his Party before the Civill Magistrate and yet not be thought inhumane or cruell 5. Thus All being beaten down all that he builds upon this ruinous Foundation must needs fall to ground M. S. his third Reason That which is a speciall gift of God and whereof no man is capable by his own industry the want of it being in it self a judgement of God and withall no wayes prejudiciall or hurtfull unto others should not expose him to further punishment and misery But Repentance to the acknowledgement of the Truth is a speciall gift of God and the want thereof a judgement of God c. Ergo. A. S. 1. I deny the first Proposition For if he be bound to have it and had the faculty and sufficient means to have had it and to keep it after that he had it or might have it and if by his own fault he want it he cannot excuse himself neither from the Obligation to have nor from the Punishment due to him for the want of it as our Divines teach against the Arminians 2. I deny the Assumption for it is prejudiciall to others by the ill example he gives and by the malice proceeding from thence that induces others to the same sin to false Doctrines Schisms and Heresies 3. This Argument proveth not M. S. his Thesis viz. That the Civill Magistrate should not punish Heretiques and Schismatiques or that they should be tolerated in the State And therefore 4. we may grant him all the Argument Neither doth the Civill Magistrate punish any man for want of Repentance or for his ignorance which are in the minde and will and consequently unknown to him but for the pertinacious Externall Profession of them in so far forth as they trouble the peace of the Church and the State Neither refuseth he to tolerate ignorance or want of repentance yea if there be nothing worse in them both the Civill Magistrate and the Ministers of Christ must pitty them and travell for their instruction and amendment This is far from proving either a Toleration of the Publike Exercise of Hereticall Doctrines or of Schisms or that the Civill Magistrate hath not power to punish them M. S. his fourth Reason being put in Form will be thus That which maketh men worse and Hypocrites to professe outwardly what they beleeve not in their Consciences is not lawfull But Externall Compulsion of Hereticks Schismaticks c. in matters of Religion made by the Civill Magistrate is such Ergo It is unlawfull and consequently not to be tolerated A. S. I answer to the first Proposition If it make men worse per Accidens not of it self but in vertue of some Accident annexed to the person that becometh worse it is false If it do it per se by its own vertue and efficacy it is true But then the Assumption is false for the Civill Magistrate in punishing Hereticks and Schismaticks c. maketh them not worse per se for neither is it finis Operantis or Operationis since neither he intends to make them worse but better nor tends his Operation i. e. his Iudgement and Command to make them at all ill much lesse to make them worse since the effect of it per se is onely to imprison their bodies to fine them or if they merit it to exile them or take their lives which produceth no morall ill but a great good viz. a hinderance of them to vent abroad their Heresies and Schisms So it maketh them not Hypocrites per se but onely they per se make themselves Hypocrites They are bound to suffer themselves to be taught the Truth so to beleeve it and so they shall not be Hypocrites M. S. replieth That he stands already engaged in a greater band hereunto viz. His peace with God and the safety of his Soul then suffering temporally from the Civill Power A. S. Your erroneous Conscience can breed no true and reall Obligation or Engagement against God 1. For you are bound and obliged to God to cast away your Ignorance and ill Conscience 2. What if your Erroneous Conscience dictate you that you must kill the King as that of Ravalliack did to him in France to kill Henry the fourth and that of the Jesuites and Priests in England did them to blow up the Parliament and many Papists of their own Religion Must you I pray obey the dictate of such a Conscience 3. Away with such wicked Consciences and to the Law and Prophets if you be a Protestant 4. Either that band is laid upon you by God or the Devill But it cannot be laid upon you by God for he cannot lay a band upon you to serve the Devill or to despight himself for so he should be the Author of sin nor by the Devill for then the band laid upon you to serve him should be greater then that which God hath laid upon you in his Word to serve him It may be said That so long as my Erroneous Conscience lasteth I must obey it A. S. I answer you must obey it as he who is captive under sin must obey sin being a slave unto sin that hath voluntarily rendered him such but he unjustly rendered himself a slave to sin and unjustly in vertue thereof remaineth a sinner and obeyeth it Some will Answer 7.
King qua talis be a Ruler of the Church or have any intrinsecall authoritative power to rule it he should have the same right to it that he hath to the State or Kingdome so some Kings as in Hereditarie Kingdoms should be Kings and rulers of the Church by birth 24. Some by Warre Invasion or usurpation which is a pretty way to obtain power in the Church 25. By money in buying of a Principallity and so by direct Simony 26. By trooquing and exchange 27. A Woman since she may be Queen might be a Church Ruler and so speake in the Church which St. Paul directly prohibiteth them 28. A Prince being a known Atheist or a Magician should have an internall power to rule the Church and so be a member thereof for his Atheisme and Magick could no more hinder him from being a Ruler in the Church then in the State Neither is it possible that the Ruler of a Church or of any other Society should not be a member thereof if so the Church should be very well guided and have holy members But this is against the principles of Independency for they will acknowledge no man for a Member of their Church unlesse it appeare that he have the power of Piety and of Sanctifying Grace 29. Children and Babes who may be Kings should be Rulers of the Church So they who have not the use of reason should rule the Church without reason And if it be replied that they might guide the Church by their Counsell and other Officers Answ 1. God is not served by Commissioners and Proctors in the Church as in the State Whatever charge God layeth upon Church-men they must carrie their own burden themselves and not lay it upon others 2. By the same reason other Ministers of the Church might doe the like and so they likewise might be born Gods Ministers as the King and so have need of no vocation at all but every man according to his phantasie might exercise his gift of Prophecy just for all the world as they doe amongst the Independents 30. Yea mad men might rule the Church since their madnesse hinders them not to be Kings when they have right to the Crowne so might mad men be Preachers also for if madnesse hinder not a Prince or a King to be a Ruler in the Church or any other to rule the Church no more should it hinder any other Minister to be a Preacher since there is the same reason for them all 31. It is a commandement of the Apostle 1 Tim. 3. That no man be admitted a Iudge in Christ Church but after due examination viz. of their life and Doctrine But Magistrates and especially the supreme Magistrate in taking the word in a large signification are not so admitted and some of them cannot be so admitted as Princes who are Infants mad c. 32. Whosoever hath any Ecclesiasticall power must be called of God as Aaron Heb. 5.4 and Christ took not this honour but after a lawfull vocation But Princes and Magistrates are not so called of God as Aaron 33. He who hath any intrinsecall power in the Church must first accept of it and have some internall vocation before that he have it But many Magistrates accept not of it nor have they any internall vocation as Papists who will not accept of it neither have they any vocation to it 34. If the Civill Magistrate have any such power either he hath it as a Magistrate as a Christian or as a Christian Magistrate But he hath it not as a Magistrate for as a Magistrate only he ruleth the State and not the Church and if he had it as a Magistrate all Magistrates yea Nero Julian the Apostate should have it as we have proved Not as a Christian for then every Christian should have that power yea a Cobler as well as a King nam quod convenit alicui qua tali convenit omni Nor finally as a Christian Magistrate for as a Christian Magistrate he hath no more then as a Magistrate and a Christian Now he hath it not as a Magistrate and a Christian for Christianity augmenteth not the power of a Magistrate since it is not of the same kinde for if it should augment it or increase it it should be some part or degree of Magistracie which is false Neither if it could be augmented or increased could it receive any increase but either extensive or intensive in its parts or quantity or in its degrees But since Christianity is not a part or a degree of Magistracy nor Magistracy of Christianity the one cannot increase or augment the other 35. If we should have a Toleration of all sorts of Religions put the case of 365. as M. S. wisheth and that the King were Iudge in all then he must have an intrinsecall power in all those Religions and all the severall Churches that professe them and consequently he must be a member of every one of them and so of 365 Religions For whosoever hath an intrinsecall power in the Church or is a Governour of it must be a member yea the principall member of it But the King must not be of so many viz. 365 Religons Ergo 36. If the King be not of all those Churches Religions then either he must be of one or none of them If of one of them only then he shall be partiall in judging and ruling them all and so an incompetent Iudge If of none so indeed he shall be indifferent and impartiall but a very dangerous man of no Religion at all and so cannot be a competent Iudge unlesse he be of no Religion at all But it were better to quit such a power then to have it upon such termes 37. We have examples of Kings punished for interposing themselves in matters of Religion which cost some of them no lesse then their Crowns as we read of Saul 1 Sam. 13.8 9 c. Others were strucken with leprosie as Vzziah for undertaking to sacrifice And howbeit that before he had been a glorious and a triumphant King yet for that act was he strucken with leprosie by God and opposed by Azariah with fourscore Priests valiant men who thrust him out from thence so dwelt he severall in a house being a Leper for he was cut off from the house of the Lord. All this saith the Text and no lesse 2 King 15.5 2 Chron. 26.16 17 c. 38. The Civill Magistrate may be received unto the Magistracy before he be a member of the Church for the Independents receive no man yea not the Kings Majesty and the Parliament to be members of their Church but after a long tryall Yea however they professe the Orthodox Religion and live Christianly not giving offence to any man Ergo in such a case the civill Magistrate is out of the Church and so must his authority be and consequently neither he qua talis nor his authority is intrinsecall unto the Church so long as he is out of the Church for
they have entred into the same Covenant stand equally obliged to reform Religion according to their power Now God hath given them the power to reforme it in punishing Hereticks and Schismaticks according to their demerits which if either We or They doe not we are forsworne and God one day will call us to an account CHAP. IV. Containing our Adversaries Evasions NOw what sayes M. S. to all this who was so desirous of some proofes from Scripture His first Answer is That A. S. bringeth those Examples for want of better Arguments A. S. Rep. 1. And so he jeereth Gods Word 2. Wherefore are not Arguments drawne from Gods Word good enough in matter of Religion 3. These Examples are approved in Scripture and therefore may very well have the force of a Command M. S. 2. His second Answer is that none of the good Kings of Iudah ever offered any violence to the true Prophets of the Lord. A. S. Repl. Neither say I any such thing only I say they had a Royall or Politicall Power which was extrinsecall unto the Church or of another nature as your Apologists speake to conserve the true Religion and in case of corruption to reforme it M. S. his third Answer proves nothing for the persecuting annoying crushing disgracing banishing fining the Apologists whom himselfe more then once or twice acknowledgeth for very Pious Godly and Learned men A. S. Neither bring I them to prove any such thing I hope they shall prove no false Prophets Hereticks Schismaticks to be so dealt with 2. Only I bring these Passages to prove that the Civill Magistrate may and is bound in duty to punish all false Prophets Hereticks and Schismaticks whoever they be And howbeit they could perchance finde favour enough to establish themselves in one time by a Princes Authority yet notwithstanding all that another or the very same Prince upon better information yea or a subsequent Parliament may nay ought to revoke any such favour so granted them and to punish the Sectaries as those good Kings did Whereas he saith that I acknowledge the Apologists for Pious Persons I Answer Heretofore I judged so of them by a judgement of Charity which beleeveth all things but I would pray him and them both under pretext of such a charitable Iudgement of mine not to be too licentious in broaching or publishing of erronious Opinions least they make me to write some Booke of Retractations which he and they will certainly force me to doe if they continue Neither shall I be ashamed if they deceive me but I hope better things of them And God forbid that they should goe on upon his violent course rather to sufferdeath then to change God change his heart and I hope in his Mercy he shall doe it M. S. 4. He saith Neither did any of those Kings ever compell any man to the Iewish Religion nor yet to professe the Iewish Religion against their judgements A. S. They could not compell their heart or will but at leastwise they hindred them from the Externall Acts of idolatry and other Religions so far forth as death could hinder them as appeared from all those Texts They could also compell their externall actions read the members of their body to give no offence unto the Church of God If they could not cut off an ill will yet could they cut away an ill tongue M. S. 5. Answereth It was permitted to Persons of other Nations to live amongst them without being Circumcised yea or without smarting for want A. S. But he bringeth no Text of Scripture to prove that when the Iewes were a free people and had good Rulers they then permitted any such uncircumcised men to live amongst them 2. Neither doth this any thing against my Argument which only proveth a Politicall Power in the Civill Magistrate who is Extrinsecall to the Church whereby he might punish Idolaters false Prophets and Priests for their Idolatries false Doctrine and Worship 3. If he did it not he sinned against the Covenant 4. However such might live amongst them for some time uncircumcised yet could they not be Inhabitants or true Denizens without Circumcision 5. Much lesse was the Religion of uncircumcised Persons tolerated amongst them in the times of good Judges or Kings as appearech by all those Texts 6. But least of all had they power to write Bookes against their Religion as the Independents doe here in face of the Parliament and the Assembly against ours 7. Yea they could not so much as take a stranger to their Wife as we read Ezra chap. 9. and 10. and in the Covenant Neh. 10. ver 30. and 13.23 24 25. where it is said that Nehemiah smote them for such Marriages and pluckt off their haire v. 27 28. And Ezra chap. 10. made them to put away their strange Wives and such as were borne of them Wherefore then may not the Christian Magistrate doe as much M. S. 6. Answ Nor doe we ever read that ever they attempted any thing against any Sectaries or Schismaticks as A. S. would call them which yet abounded in great variety and numbers amongst them as Scribes or Pharisees or Herodians or Persons of any other Sect in the Profession of the Iewish Religion that lived peaceably in their State Idolatry and Idolaters were as it seemes the adequate Object of their coercive power in matters of Religion A. S. Repl. But we read that they attempted something against false Prophets if death be any attempt against them as all the Texts cited by me shew evidently 2. I deny your Consequence we read it not Ergo it was not for we cannot argue à testimonio negativè yea not of Scripture unlesse it be in things necessary to salvation such as are not Histories of particular facts 3. The cause wherefore we read it not is because under good Iudges or Kings they were never tolerated ill Kings would not punish them but their examples are not to be drawne in Consequence 4. As for the Scribes Pharisees and Herodians no wonder if they were not punished 1. For these Sects begun very late not long before the comming of Christ when the Religion was mightily corrupted which Christ came to reforme 2. Because the Iewes were not then a free people neither had they the Civill Power absolutely in their owne hands 3. They had no good Rulers 4. No more were the Sadduces punished who denyed Gods Providence the Resurrection of the Body the Immortality of the Soule and all spirituall natures as some testifie of them and yet they were more punished by Gods Law then Idolaters since their errour was greater so should the Herodians have been punished since they tooke Herod to be the Messias and that he should come againe after that he had been strucken by the Angell and yet they were not punished 5. The Idolaters were to be punished and yet they lived in profession of the Iewish Religion for they apostatized not It is false that the Idolatry was the adequate Object
Ecclesiasticall matters even no more then to the meanest of the people Truely they are much beholden to you for your great liberality And if so ride on in despite of King and Parliament to your beloved Conventicles Neither can I finde in these passages Deut. 7.5 and 12.2 3. or Deut. 13. any such thing viz. that it was the generality of the Church or Nation of the Iewes that were invested with it for God never invested the confused multitude in any judiciall or authoritative power CHAP. V. Wherein the same Conclusion is further proved by Reasons NOw after these Testimonies out of Holy Writ I bring these Reasons following grounded upon it and 1. That power which the Civill Magitrate had in the old Testament and is not abrogated in the New may yet continue in the New or the Civill Magistrate may have it in the New But the power to punish Hereticks and Schismaticks is a Power which the Civill Magistrate had in the Old Testament and is not abrogated in the New Testament Ergo the power to punish Hereticks and Schismaticks is a such a Power he may Civill Magistrate may have in the New and so in vertue of Power which the punish them The Major is certaine for there is no other true way to make it not to continue but only the abrogation As for the Minor the first part of it is certaine as appeareth by the Texts of Scripture already alleadged The second Part may easily be proved because only the Ceremoniall Law which contained the shadow of things to come was abrogated in the New Testament The Morall Law was not abrogated so farre forth as it is a Rule of obedience nor as it bindes us thereunto No more is the Politicall Law in quality of Politicall for by the same reason Christ should have over-thrown and abrogated all the Politicall Lawes and policies of the world But that is false for Christs Kingdome was not of this world and he submitteth himselfe unto the Politicall Law of the Jewes yea unto that of the Romans also established amongst the Jewes So did Paul and the Apostles who pleaded their causes before Heathen Magistrates I appeale unto Caesar saith Paul Non auferet mortalia qui regna dat Coelestia 2. Yea if the Jewes had received Christ for their Messias I doubt not but the Politicall Law of Moses in quality of Politicall should have continued amongst them and the Civill Magistrate amongst them should have punished Hereticks Schismaticks Idolaters c. in the New Testament as they did in the Old Neither is there any reason wherefore Christ or his Apostles should have hindred him by his Politicall power to maintaine the Christian Religion in the New Testament as before he did in the Old 3. And it may be further confirmed because the greater the favours be that the Civill Magistrate hath received of God in the New Testament then in the Old so much the greater obligation is laid upon him by his Power to maintaine Gods Cause and Religion 4. And the holier our Covenant is and the further it surpasses the Old so much the greater should the Civill Magistrates care be to maintaine it by his Civill Power 5. If it were not so the State of the Church in regard of the Civill Magistrate should be worse in the New then in the Old Testament for then he maintained it by his Civill Power and by the sword and now he doth it not nor yet hath the power to doe it 6. Is not this plaine Anabaptisme to approve the authority of the Civill Magistrate in the Old Testament and to reject it in the New for as the Anabaptists reject it wholly in the New Testament so doe the Independents in part yea in a great part viz. in that which concerneth the defence of the Church in punishing Hereticks Schismaticks Idolaters c. 7. He who should be a Nurse and a Tutor of the Church in the New Testament should defend her by all his power But Kings and Princes and good Magistrates should be such as we may see in all the Examples heretofore alleadged and in Pharaoh and Esay 1.49.22 where it is promised that Kings shall be Nurses of the Church 8. What if forraigne Princes would invade the Church of God may not godly Princes in such a case justly defend it and represse them by the sword wherefore then may they not doe the like to their owne Subjects who will trouble her peace and by so doing compell them to their duty 9. Doth not the Civill Magistrate this in New England wherefore then may he not doe it in Old England unlesse forsooth the Majestaticall presence of five or six Independent Ministers here be capable to dazle and discountenance him here whereas they receive all their lustre and influence from him there or that as Monkes and Friers yee plead pro immunitate Clericorum or that the ridiculous thunder-bolts of Master Goodwins pretended Judgements of God be capeable to dash it all in pieces here 10. If the Civill Magistrate have not a sufficient Power to punish Idolaters Hereticks and Schismaticks for Religion then all the Roman Lawes in the Code made against Hereticks and those of this Kingdome made against Iesuites Monkes and Priests must be unjust yea the Iudgements given out against them since this Parliament begun are unjust and if so you would doe well to tell them of it If we beleeve these American Christians the Parliaments Lawes are little lesse then tyrannicall 11. That for which all Princes are commended in Scripture that all good Princes should doe and for which they are discommended that should they not doe But for punishing of Idolaters Schismaticks Hereticks c. all Princes that did so in Scripture are commended and for sparing of them are discommended Ergo all good Princes should punish Hereticks c. and not spare them The Major is certaine the Minor is sufficiently proved by the Examples of all the good Kings of Juda and of Iehu 12. They are bound to punish all such as trouble the peace of the State Ergo they are likewise bound to punish such as trouble the peace of the Church for who ever troubleth the peace of the Christian Church troubleth also the peace of the State when the State is Christian 13. If the Civill Magistrate be not bound by his Office to punish Hereticks Schismaticks c. he is bound to tolerate them all and so to tolerate all Independents all Brownists Anabaptists Familists Socinians c. yea some who deny the Immortality of the Soule that hold a generall Resurrection of all Beasts as well as of men yea of all that ever have been since the Creation of the world or shall be to the day of Iudgement peradventure of Lice Flyes VVormes c. and so he shall doe well to Licence the Bookes of such subjects till Master Goodwin alias M. S. resute them for he findes no other remedy in Gods Word but to refute such Bookes If we beleeve this new
The taking away of evill the conservation of order and unity and to avoyd Schisme 2. Neither did Christ by his death obtaine for us an immunity from all obedience or an independent licentiousnesse to doe ill 3. And this is the Holy Ghosts reason in that same place And thou shalt put away the evill from Israel And all the people shall heare and feare and doe no more presumptuously ver 12.13 which obligeth us as well unto obedience under the New Testament as those of the Old Testament 25. So we have an Example of Corah Dathan Abiram and On who were Independents and for their independency and not subjection unto the authoritative power of Moses and Aaron were severely punished by Moses and perished miserably We might bring many reasons of the Holy Ghost himselfe wherefore the Civill Magistrate must punish Idolaters false Prophets or Hereticks c. 26. Because Gods people is an holy people to the Lord. 27. Because they know that God is faithfull and keepeth his Covenant Deut. 7. and 13. Neither can any man blame such Arguments but those who will blame the Holy Ghost his Arguments for they are not mine but His. CHAP. VI. Wherein are answered M.S. his Reasons that he hath Chap. 1. And first the first sixe NOw I will propound M.S. his Objections whereof many conclude that this Intrinsecall power not only doth belong to the Civill Magistrate but also to all the members of the Church M.S. then p. 33. § 2. argueth 1. thus By such an umpirage and decision as this between the Civill Magistrate and himselfe viz. A.S. with his fellow Presbyters hath he not made the one Judex and the other Carnifex the one i. e. the Civill Magistrate must give the sentence the other must doe execution Answ A.S. 1. There is no decision at all between the Civill Magistrate and A. S. for A. S. is but a private man neither Magistrate nor Church-Officer 2. Neither are the Presbyters his fellow-Presbyters since he is no Presbyter These then in the beginning are manifest untruths 3. Neither can this decision in granting an Intrinsecall povver both directive and executive to the Church and an Extrinsecall to the Civill Magistrate viz. which is extrinsecall in respect of Ecclesiasticall povver but intrinsecall to Civill povver make the Church or Ecclesiasticall Assembly a Judge and the Parliament or Civill Magistrate a Hangman to remember his most humble respects unto the King Parliament and all the Iudges of this Kingdome For the Ecclesiasticall Assemblies as it is the common opinion of all our Divines cannot judge of the Civill Magistrate his duty 2. Neither have they ever been so foolish as M. S. most passionately and impudently calumniateth them here to command him any thing 3. They acknowledge most willingly that the Church being materially a part of the State is subject to Civill Government 4. That the Church which is the Kingdome of Christ hath no Civill power since it is not of this World Joh. 18.26 5. That the Civill Magistrate commanding and compelling such as be refractory and disobedient to the Church must not see with the Churches eyes but with his own Civill or Politicall eyes 6. And that in so doing he obeyeth not the Church or any Ecclesiasticall power but God whose power he exerciseth in the State as the Ecclesiasticall Assemblies doe exercise Christs power in the Church 7. Yea more that sometimes the Civill Magistrate may not punish those who are disobedient to the Church viz. if thereupon may follow the undoing of the State c. 8. For the same reason it is most untrue that the one giveth out the sentence and the other must doe execution 9. And moreover because they are two severall Iudicatories they are both independent one upon another howsoever both divers wayes subject one to another for the Civill Magistrate is subject in a spirituall way to the Church He must learne Gods will by the Ministers of the Church who are Gods Ambassadours sent unto him He must be subject unto Ecclesiasticall Censures as we see by the Examples of the Kings in the Old Testament and Theodosius the Emperour in the New So the Church againe is subject not in a Spirituall but in a Civill way to the Government of the Civill Magistrate as all Protestants and Ministers themselves confesse and plead for it against the Romane Clergie in favour of the Civill Magistrate 10. The Civill Magistrate hath power not to receive into the State all that which the Church judgeth fitting He may irresistably hinder it if he will 11. If he be Carnifex because that he commands it to be put in execution he should be Carnifex when ever he should command his own judgements to be put in execution 12. So should Independents be Carnifices when either the Civill Magistrate or the Church commands them to doe their duty 13. The Carnifex or Executioner pronounceth not a sentence as the Magistrate M. S. Obj. 2. pag. 33. The Civill Magistrate is much beholding to the Presbyter for giving him a Consecrated sword to fight the Presbiterian battels and for perswading of him to pull out his own eyes upon this presumption that he shall see better with his A. S. As able as this man is in jeering and calumniating as unable is he in arguing against this truth especially if he have no better arguments in his Budget by way of Reserve then what he brings here all he saith is utterly false 1. The Presbyterians have none but spirituall battels to fight 2 Cor. 10.3 4. the weapons of their warfare are not carnall 2. They doe not warre after the flesh neither wrastle they against flesh and bloud but against the Rulers of the darknesse of this world against spirituall wickednesse in High Places their sword is the sword of the spirit Eph. 6.12 And therefore they cannot nor pretend they to give him this spirituall sword they cannot quit it much lesse can they give him the materiall sword which is none of theirs to give for he hath it of God he is the Minister of God Rom. 13.4 avenger to execute wrath upon him that doth evill 2. It is false that the Presbyterians perswade him to pull out his ovvn eyes or to see vvith theirs 1. For they teach him to learne the Gospell by reading the Word and hearing it Preached by the Ministers thereof according to Gods Word and not by every Cobler as amongst Independents in exercising their gifts 2. And afterwards to see and judge by his owne eyes 3. They say and Preach that it is a great sin in him if he judge with any other then his owne eyes 4. He must judge according to the Lawes of the State otherwise he doth not the part of a Iudge 5. Yea if his judgement dissent from the judgement of the Law we know well enough he ought to quit both his owne judgement and that of the Church and to judge against his owne private conscience according to the Law and his
but to live together as Moses and Aaron both looking to one end but each one of them with their owne eyes the one with a Politicall the other with a Spirituall or Ecclesiasticall eye And this appeareth by those words of the Ordinance during this present Parliament or untill further order be taken Now if this Order were full what needed the Synod attend for a further Order Neither is there any man of judgement that can blame the Parliament in all this yea howbeit it should extraordinarily doe more in this extraordinarily miserable estate of Religion when now Sathan hath so manifest and palpable an entrance into the Church of God under so many ill-portending shapes as of Independents Brownists Anabaptists Socinians c. they had need take upon them for the defence of the Church more then in ordinary cases they doe 7. Only I adde a word viz. that these words as they pleased by plurality of Votes are not in the Ordinance but are an addition of M. S. in contempt of the Synod as if the Members thereof voted not according to Scripture but as pleased themselves And 8. that in case of difference in Opinion it is not ordained that they represent their Opinions and the reasons thereof to either or both the Houses to the end that they may judge of the matter but that they may finde out some further direction whereby the Assembly may judge it 9. Yea there is another Ordinance since the printed Ordinance whereby it is ordained that all things agreed upon and prepared for the Parliament should be openly read and allowed in the Assembly and then offered as the judgement of the Assembly if the Major part consent see how the judgement of the Major part of the Assembly is here declared by the Parliament to be acknowledged as the Decision of the Assembly which M. S. will not stand unto Object 9. In enjoyning them in case of difference of opinions between them to present the same together with the reasons thereof to both Houses they did every whit as much A.S. Answ 1. I deny that they who enjoyne in case of difference c. have an Internall power in the Church much lesse an internall Directive power 2. This injunctiō was not in reference to the Intrinsecal power of the Church which is evermore within the Church but to the Extrinsecall power about the Church i.e. to that of the Magistrate whose power is without the Church howsoever within the State and in so far forth as the Parliament by Civill Law intended to approve and confirme the Ecclesiasticall Law 3. Item it was to see if by any meanes and wayes of meeknesse it could perswade a few men of your Sect to submit themselves unto the Order and Government that God hath established in his Church as they have done you many other favours which you too much undervalue arguing from this favour as from a Law to that which is or should be ordinary Iustice And yet they ordained that what is caried by plurality of Votes in the Assembly should passe as the judgement of the whole Assembly Object 10. M.S. In their nominating and calling such and such Ministers and not others to be of the Assembly they acted the same power A.S. Answ That is also Extrinsecall since it was not in but out of and before the Assembly 2. And extraordinary 3. And yet very ordinate and ordinary for this extraordinary state of the Church in this Kingdome when such a swarme of Sects are crept in some comming from New England others from the Netherlands and others from other places For if every one of them should have had entry into the Assembly what should have become of us 4. Neither doth this prove any Directive power in the Church in teaching c. as I said that should belong unto the Magistrate M.S. Ob. 11. In framing the temper and constitution of the Assembly allaying it with such and such Members of their own they steered the same course A.S. Answ 1. This cannot conclude any Directive Ecclesiasticall power that belongeth unto the Parliament 2. These Members of their own who did sit in the Assembly if they had any Vote did not sit there in quality of Members of the Assembly for then every Member of the Parliament might have sate there but in quality of extraordinary Ecclesiasticall persons according to this extraordinary state and exigence of the Church 3. If they had no Vote at all and yet sate they were not Members of the Assembly but this was a speciall priviledge granted unto the Members of the House which in other places likewise is granted unto persons of meaner rank yea unto Strangers as we may see in the Church of Scotland in their Generall Assemblies 4. Or rather they sit there in name of the Parliament to procure by their Civill power the Externall order that should be in such Assemblies But this is no Ecclesiasticall or Internall power in the Church but Externall about the Church such as the French Kings Commissioners who are sometimes Papists have in our Protestant Nationall Synods in France and yet are not Members of our Synods there neither Vote they neither pretend they to have any Intrinsecall power there for then they should professe themselves thereby to be Protestants only they have power to oppose things that they beleeve to be prejudiciall to the King or the State 5. Neither beleeve I that they vote in points of Doctrine 6. And if they vote in matter of Government they doe it in quality of Ruling Elders either extraordinary or ordinary in vertue of some virtuall election made by the Synod or by the Synods toleration or approbation for no man can rule the Church intrinsecally but he that is intrinsecally a Church-Ruler or Officer as I have proved it heretofore M.S. Object 12. Lastly in their messages or Directions sent unto them from time to time how to proceed what particulars to wave for the present what to fall upon and debate To hasten the issue of their Consultations with the like What doe they else but claime and exercise such a Directive power in matters of Religion A.S. Answ To proceed to wave particulars to debate things and consult of them in the Assembly argueth an intrinsecall directive power proper unto the Church but to send Messages proveth it not at all to be in the Parliament but in the Church and that the Magistrate by his Civill power can command the Church to use its Ecclesiasticall power 2. For the Magistrate may command the like thing to every Guild or Common-Hall in the City touching their own professions Neither can it thereupon be inferred that he hath an Intrinsecall Directive power in such Trades CHAP. VIII Wherein are answered his 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20. Arguments M.S. p. 37. § 1. Ob. 13. BUt if the Parliament have no calling from God to judge of matters between the Apologists and their Brethren the Assemblers I would willingly know who hath
A.S. Answ The Parliament hath power and a calling to judge Politicè about the Church and Church matters What Decisions and Constitutions of the Church Assemblies they will approve or disapprove what Religion Doctrine and Discipline they will admit or tolerate in the State But they have no calling or Directive Authoritative power in the Church to judge this or that to be the true Doctrine or Discipline this belongeth to Church-Officers Yet they have a private judgement of Discretion about such matters as other Christians and a publique Politicall Authoritative judgement and a coactive Politicall power to compell the Subjects to admit in the State such or such a true Doctrine or Discipline of the Church howbeit not to beleeve it or to love or approve it in their judgement or will M. S. Ob. 14. asketh Whether it be reasonable that the Apologists matters yet remaining undecided and unjudged between them and their Brethren should suffer as men convicted only because their Adversaries and Accusers the Brethren ye know of are more in number then they and will needs continue Adversaries to them A.S. Answ 1. Though yee vaunt evermore of your sufferings we have never seen them 2. These whom ye unjustly call your Adversaries have suffered much more then you and yet publish it not unto the World 3. It is absolutely false that ye suffer 4. And yet much falser that ye suffer as men convicted 5. And yet falser that ye suffer because your Adversaries are more in number And 6. falsest of all that only ye suffer for that 7. Men that suffer are not honoured as ye are neither receive they so great favours Presents and Benefices as ye doe 8. It is a great sufferance to the Church of God to be calumniated and upbraided by so contemptible a number of Ministers and to see so many Libels printed against her by those of your Sect. 9. It is false that ye are not condemned for the Church of England and all other Protestant Churches in approving the Presbyterian Government as we said heretofore could not but disprove and condemne you all who condemn it 10. Neither doth all this prove a Directive Ecclesiasticall power belonging to the Civill Magistrate 11. Ye have no Adversaries here but your False Opinions 12. Neither are your Brethren Adversaries to you but to your erronions Opinions which are a thousand times more your Adversaries then they 13. And both ye and any of us must legally suffer according to our demerits when we are sufficiently convicted and condemned by plurality of Votes in foro externo as ye are already in very many things for this is the way of all Civill and Ecclesiasticall Judicatories Neither can Independents change it 15. Ibid. M.S. reasoneth thus If our Saviours testimony concerning himselfe in his own cause was not valid how much lesse the testimony of any other yea of a thousand in any matter that concerneth themselves and consequently that of our Brethren in the Synod But the first is true Joh. 5.31 If I beare witnesse of my selfe my witnesse is not true i. e. it is not in a formall and Legall interpretation true but you may reasonably wave it A.S. Ans 1. Either Christ here speaking of his own testimony speaketh of himselfe according to his Divine to his Humane or according to both his Natures Item 2. Either he speaketh of its validity in it selfe or in respect of the Iewes to whom he did speak and who should have admitted of it Item 3. Either of his publique and judiciall or of his private testimony 1. If in the first Proposition we take our Saviour according to his Divine nature or according to both viz. as Mediator the Assumption is false for there Christ speaketh not of himselfe according to his Divine Nature or to both or as Mediator for under that notion he is Iudge of quick and dead and Christ sayes Ioh. 8.14 that if he testifie of himselfe his testimony is true 2. Or if he speak of himselfe under this notion then he speaketh not of his testimony as it is in it self but as it is in respect of them who received it not viz the Iewes and unbeleevers who received it not as the testimony of God or of the Mediator however it was such for they knew him not Ioh. 8.15.19 but they judged according to the flesh neither knew they him nor his Father And if they had known the King of Glory they had never crucified him And then the Proposition is false for it followeth not that if Christs testimony who is God was not acknowledged as valid by those who knew it not Ergo the testimony of a Presbytery or Synod should not be acknowledged by such as are subject thereunto and know it for by the same reason two or three idle fellowes should not beleeve the testimony of your Presbytery or Assembly 3. I retort then the Argument If Christs testimony was not legally valid in his own cause Ergo Yours in your Presbyteries and Assemblies is not legally true or valid in your own cause when ye judge in matters of Faith and and Discipline But the first is true Ergo the second also 4. If Christ be here taken according to his Humane Nature then either he is taken according to his Humane nature as it is in it selfe without sinne or as it was in the Pharises estimation If in the first way the Assumption is false for there the Pharises took Christ for a sinfull man and who can deny but that the testimony of a man in the state of integrity is valid 5. If it be taken in the second way I deny the first Proposition for the testimony of Iudges in judging according to Law in things that concerne not so much their persons as the Society that they represent in judgement as the Assembly and all Ecclesiasticall Iudges doe is to be preferred before the testimony of any particular man 6. And if this Maxime of the Independents hold the judgement of no Civill Magistrate yea not of the Parliament it selfe shâ—ll hold if any of them or any Dâ—linquent take the Parliament to party in any businesse The Parliament will doe well to take notice of such Independent Maximes 7. But this was the Arminians way at the Synod of Dort to the end they might decline the judgement of the Synod and he is an Arminian who propounds this Argument who of late is become an Independent I â—eare they mean to unite the two Sects in one 8. Christ was not here speaking of himselfe how far forth his testimony and judgement might hold in a judiciall way whereof we speak here but in a private way for this action was not judiciall but a particular discourse 9. Neither are the businesses now in hand at the Synod of particular but of publike concernment viz. the Church wherein the Church that is Iudge cannot be taken to party however ye call her a crowd wherein many particular persons are concerned M. S. Ob. 16. p. 37.
That Power is either Imperiall Royall or Magisteriall such as Emperours Kings or Lords have over their Subjects as that of the Civill Magistrate or Ministeriall such as State-Ministers have under their Masters or Lords as that of Ambassadors Pursevants c. Finally it must be observed That as Power so punishments inflicted by Power are either Civill or Ecclesiasticall Civill punishments are such as are inflicted by the Civil Magistrate and are often times corporall as Mutilation Stigmatizing and Death c. sometimes Pecuniary mulcts sometimes Infamy c. Ecclesiasticall punishments are altogether Spirituall consisting of Censures Suspension from the Lords Table and Excommunication These things being presupposed By the word Church here must be meant the visible Militant Church and principally the Representative Church in Presbyteries Classes Synods 2. By the word Subordination must be meant a Subordination of Power and Judgement 3. By Power must be meant a Morall Ecclesiasticall Imperative and Ministeriall Power in Iudging Commanding and Inflicting of Spirituall punishments onely and not an Imperiall Magisteriall or Royall Power whereby the Church may command in a domineering way or compell mens bodies or punish them by inflicting any Corporall punishment on them or imposing any Pecuniary mulcts as the Independents most craftily go about to perswade the World The Independents then deny That there is any Church furnished with any Authoritative or Imperative Power save onely the Parishionall or to speak in their own Terms the Congregationall Church And therefore they renounce all Classicall and Synodicall Churches or if they do acknowledge them they allow them no Authoritative or Imperative but a Consultative Power onely or a Power to counsell one of their little Congregations compounded happily of seven or eight persons what they think fittest to be done so that this petty Congregation may either accept or reject their Counsell at their own likings and pleasure so as in conclusion they acknowledge no Authoritative or Imperative Ecclesiasticall power above that of their little Congregations for they maintain that every Church be it never so small yea though it be composed but of seven or eight persons be it never so Erroneous and Hereticall is altogether Independent in its Iudgement upon all the Iudgements of all the Churches of the World be they never so Iust and Orthodox and consequently that what ever they teach how Heretically soever and what ever they do be it never so wicked that all the Orthodox Churches in the World have no Authority of God to Censure or to Excommunicate or so much as to command them other wayes then any one private man might do an other i. e. By way of Counsell which they may either follow or reject at their pleasure The Orthodox and Reformed Churches especially of Scotland France the Netherlands c. on the other part hold That there is and ought to be Subordination amongst Ecclesiasticall Judicatories viz. That Nationall Synods are above Provinciall Synods these above Classes and Classes above Presbyteries or Sessions and that the Superiour Judicatories have a Ministeriall Authoritative or Imperative but no Magisteriall Despoticall or Imperiall Authoritative power over the Inferiour that are subordinate unto them Item That they may inflict upon Inferiour Churches in case of Disobedience Spirituall though no Corporall punishments or Pecuniary mulcts or such like Civil punishments CHAP. II. Containing some imaginary and ridiculous Contradictions objected by M.S. to A.S. removed BUt before I prove my Conclusion I must pray the Reader to re-marke in passing the falschood and manifold cavillations whereby this M.S. saluteth him in the entry of this Question for this is his safest way for the present howbeit it cannot but prove damnable in the end 1. He saith that Presbyterians agree not about the Author of this subordination of Ecclesiasticall Judicatories and Presbyterian Government whether it be juris Divini or Humani As if some of them esteemed it to be juris Divini others juris Humani Ecclesiastici others juris Naturalis others partim juris Divini partim Naturalis aut mixti 2. He saith that A.S. contradicteth himselfe in the same manner For refutation whereof I need not but to propound our Opinion which is thus 1. All the Presbyterian Discipline and specially subordination of Ecclesiasticall Iudicatories quoad Essentialia aut Substantialia in its Essentiall parts is juris Divini aut Naturalis i. e. authorised by Gods Divine Law or by the Law of Nature 2. Presbyterian Discipline quoad accidentalia circumstantialia i. e. in its accidentall or circumstantiall parts it may be juris Humani Neither believe I that there is any great dispute amongst us and the Independents about these Positions unlesse M.S. make it Neither know I what can anger him in all this save only this that we give him no subject of quarrelling us It may be and it seemeth that he finds fault with the first Proposition wherein I say it is either juris Divini aut Naturalis And that he will have no Doctrine of Faith or Discipline that is juris Naturalis i. e. grounded on the light of Nature But 1. What if the Scripture presuppose the truth of some Principles known by Nature dare he reject them 2. Some of them are as certaine as any Article of Faith as for example this The one part of a Contradiction is true and the other false and this Twise ten are twenty And yet none of them hath any formall Patent from Gods Word 3. If God be as well the Author of Naturall as of Divine truth wherefore will ye reject Naturall truth 4. All men are bound to beleeve all Naturall truths when they are sufficiently manifested unto them or at least not to dissent from them because we must not lye as we are taught by the 9. Commandement which not only forbiddeth us to misbelieve or contradict any Supernaturall but also all Naturall truths sufficiently manifested unto us 5. But what reason hath this M.S. to reject Naturall truths when there is nothing in Scripture to the contrary 6. Yea by the Law of Nature I am bound to be ruled by them in case the Scripture reveale me nothing above Nature yea I am not bound to goe above them but in the cases that Scripture revealeth unto me 7. What Law we were bound unto in the Old Testament and is not abrogated in the New that Law are we bound to follow as a rule of direction in the New yea in Church-Discipline But the Law of Nature is a Law whereunto we were bound in the Old Testament and is not abrogated in the New Ergo The Law of Nature is a Law that we are bound to follow as a rule of direction in the New Testament yea in Church-Discipline 8. It is holden amongst Protestants for an indubitable and supernaturall truth that Christs body cannot be in two places at one time which neither M.S. nor all the Independent wit in the world is able to prove unlesse they suppose this Principle of Nature
viz. One individuall Body actually existent cannot at one time be in divers totall places to be true For the Scripture poseth it not formally but presupposeth it to be true Now I pray you M.S. shew me wherein any Presbyterians contradict these Assertions that I have laid down you name none and therefore I am not bound to answer Only you say I contradict my selfe But wherein Because saith M.S. I say p. 27. § 3. 1. Subordination between superiour and inferrour Ecclesiasticall Iudicatories is partim juris Divini partim Natura lis aut mixti 2. This Subordination c. needs not any patterne expresly and formally from Christ It sufficeth that it have one from Nature p. 36. § 2. 3. And yet we can shew a patent for it not only from the Law of Nature which should suffice but also from the Law of Grace in the Old and New Testaments 4. It is only from God that can give power to any man in his Church pag. 48. 5. Only Gods Word is the rule or measure in matter of Ecclesiasticall or Presbyteriall Government p. 61. 6. Combined Presbyteries judge of Points of Doctrine and Discipline already revealed in the holy Scripture and give us new Ecclesiasticall Lawes of things indifferent p. 34. Answ In my second Proposition he putteth Patterne for Patent 2. Here in all these Propositions there is no contradiction neither sheweth M.S. wherein it consisteth here It may be partim juris Divini and partim Humani 1. In respect of its divers parts whereof some may be revealed in Scripture and some proved by Naturall reason 2. In respect of the same parts which may be both known by Nature and by Divine revelation or some supervenient Divine Ordinance So Divines hold that we know God to be both by Naturall Knowledge and Supernaturall Revelation 3. In so far forth as that which is juris Naturalis is also juris Divini when jus Divinum supposeth jus Naturale for in such a case jus Naturale becommeth Divinum not Thetically but Hypothetically not by any formall Divine Position but by some Divine reall Supposition as I shew it cleerly in that passage of my Book that he citeth p. 36. These three last Propositions contradict not the rest For in the 4. Proposition p. 48. of my Book I speak not of the ground of Ecclesiasticall Discipline nor of it all only I say that it is not in Church-Ministers power to transferre the Ecclesiasticall power unto the Civill Magistrate Which contradicteth not the first three In the 5. Only Gods Word c. But 1. Gods Word there must not be taken strictly for that which is Gods Word formally in terminis Theticè but in a more large signification 1. For Gods Word formally or by consequence 2. In terminis aut in sensu 3. Theticè aut Hypotheticè by some Position or Supposition 3. If ye take Gods Word in the last sense then Discipline or Government must be taken for Discipline in its essentiall and principall integrant parts and not in all its accidentall and circumstantiall parts Neither is it needfull that we have any particular rules from Scripture for every circumstance of Doctrine or Discipline As for example That Sermons should be on such or such Week-dayes so long viz. an houre or two houres long in the morning or afternoon That Ecclesiasticall Senates should sit once a day once a week or once a moneth In the 6. Proposition 1. Discipline there must be taken for Discipline quoad Essentialia Substantialia Necessaria and not quoad Accidentalia Circumstantialia Contigentia Indifferentia as appeareth by my words in the last part thereof New Ecclesiasticall Lawes in things indifferent c. 2. Holy Scripture must be taken in a large signification as I have already declared for so only is it taken by our Doctors when we prove against the Papists that it is the only Rule of Faith In the 2. Position when I say Subordination needeth not c. the word needeth must not be taken for necessarium absolutè or quoad esse but secundum quid ad bene esse not to its being but to its well-being for howbeit Christ had not given us any patent of Subordination in Ecclesiasticall Judicatories in the Gospel yet the Law of Nature and the Scripture of the Old Testament had been sufficient to direct us therein and had bound the Church of the New Testament to the Presbyterian Government And this M. S. acknowledgeth himselfe howbeit not without some Comedian jeeres more ordinary with him then any apparent Reason and confesseth that the words following in the 3. Proposition declare it But put the case that Presbyterians differed as he saith whether it be juris Divini Naturalis aut Humani as they differ not for any thing I know or have read Yet they agree in this That it is Juris Confesse this and ye may live in a Fraternall communion with us for the Difference viz. If one say it is juris Divini another Naturalis another Ecclesiastici will not breed a Schisme for it is not a Dispute de re sed de modo rei to know whether it proceedeth from God as Author of the Law of Nature or of Grace by a Naturall or a Positive Law Much lesse materiall is it to know whether it be in Scripture explicitè or implicitè formaliter aut per consequentiam in terminis aut in sensu et consequenter Theticè or Hypotheticè CHAP. III. Containing the Arguments whereby we prove the Opinion of the Orthodoxe Churches against the Independents borrowed from the Old Testament THe Arguments that might be brought for the Orthodox Churches against all Sectaries are many whereof I will touch a few some from Scriptures of the Old and New Testament and others from reason founded on Scripture but to proceed more cleerly I intend to prove 1. That in Scripture there is more then a Congregationall Independent Church 2. a Subordination of Churches and that in Authority Whether in Scripture or in Reason we find more then a Congregationall Church We affirme and prove it thus 1. Such a Church and Church-government as was amongst the people of God in the Old Testament and is not abrogated in the New may be admitted amongst his people in the New But a Church and Church Government more then Congregationall and Independent was amongst the people of God in the Old Testament and is not abrogated in the New Testament Ergo A Church and Church Government more then Congregationall and Independent may be admitted amongst his people in the New Testament As for the first Proposition I beleeve our Adversaries will not deny it for if it was in the Old Testament it was either by Gods Ordinance or by his Approbation If God ordained it how can they abolish it If he approved it how can they reprove it And for the Assumption I prove it 1. For they had a Nationall Church God dealt not so vvith every Nation Psal 147.19 20.
Deut. 4 5 6 7 8 9 10.13 14 20.23.33 34.37 Deut. 7.6 7 8 9 10. Deut. 10.12.15.21 Deut. 26.17 18 19. Deut. 28.9 10. Deut. 29.13 14 15. And Deut. 32. vers 8 9. c. When the most High divided to the Nations their Inheritance when he seperated the sons of Adam Iacob was the Lot of his Inheritance c. Amos 3.2 You onely have I known of all the Families of the Earth Deut. 39.29 Happy art thou O Israel who is like unto thee O People saved by the Lord the shield of thy help and who is the sword of thy Encellency 2. Because Independents define a Congregationall Church a number of men Covenanted together to participate of Gods Ordinances viz. the hearing of the Word the receiving of the Sacraments c. in some one place every Sabbath day But all the Church of the Jewes could not meet in one place in such a fashion as every man will easily grant Ergo 3. Because the great Sanedrim at Jerusalem judged of all Ecclesiasticall Causes throughout all the Kingdome 4. Because the People of God besides their Assemblyes in the Temple which was an holy place common to all their Nationall Church had their particular Conventions in particular Synagogues And however men may doubt of these Synagogues whether they were exinstituto divino or not and of the time when first they began yet can it not be denied but if they were not divinae institutionis they were at least divinae approbationis 1. For they are no where condemned in Scripture 2. But Christ and his Apostles approved them in that they went ordinarily to them disputed and expounded Scripture in them 3. And submitted themselves unto the order and Discipline established therein Answ But the Independents will say that the Nationall Church is abrogated in the New Testament Iust 1. Then it is their part to point us to the place in the New Testament where it is abrogated 2. It cannot be abrogated in the New Testament for those Ordinances only of the Old Testament are abrogated in the New that belonged unto the Ceremoniall Law But to have a Church or a Church Government more then Congregationall per se or considered in it selfe belong not to the Ceremoniall Law Ergo The Major is certaine I prove the Minor 1. For it might have been even in the State of Integrity without the Ceremoniall Law 2. And so indeed it was after the Fall before ever Moses his Ceremoniall Law was made 3. And that is not meerely Ceremoniall whereof we may evidently give naturall reason or that which is evidently grounded in naturall reason or at least in so far as evidently grounded in naturall reason since it is meerely Positive But supposing that there is a Church of God to have a Church or a Church Government more then Congregationall and Independent is evidently grounded in naturall reason or a thing where evidently we may give Naturall reason c. as wee shall see hereafter Ergo 3. Only those things of the Old Testament are abrogated by the New which were shadows of things to come viz. of Christ Reall or Mistycall But such a Church i. e. more then a Congregationall Independent Church was not a shadow of things to come in Christ c. Ergo The Major is certaine for the things commanded or approved in the Old Testament belonged either to the Morall or to the Ceremoniall or to the Judiciall Law As for the things of the first sort they are juris naturalis and consequently perpetuall which are not abrogated and of themselves were not shadows of things to come As for those of the Judiciall Law of themselves they are not shadows but belong unto Civill Government which Christ abrogated not since his Kingdom was not of this world and if the Jews had submitted themselves to Christ and had been freed from externall oppression it is probable that they should have enjoyed their own Government according to the Judiciall Law so far forth as Judiciall neither was it his aym to overthrow any worldly States Policies or Politicall Laws Christs Kingdom was and is compatible with all the Kingdoms and States of the world if they will not destroy it and he will let them reign over mens bodies and purses if they can let him reign over their Souls These that were commanded in the Ceremoniall Law were indeed shadows but such was not a Church more then Congregationall To all these Reasons some have answered That they would have it proved by Scriptures of the New Testament just 1. But wherefore prove they their opinion by the Old Testament if they will not permit us the same liberty 2. Our former Reasons have sufficiently proved That proofs taken from the Old Testament should hold in all that which is not abrogated in the New 3. If in this Subject they reject the Scriptures of the Old Testament as the Jews in all things that of the New there will be two Errors Diametrically opposite the one to the other theirs and the Jews But to give them more contentment we will prove it likewise by Texts of the New Testament and first from that of the Acts Chapters 1 2 4 and 5. 2. A Church compounded of 8120. is more then a Parishionall or Congregationall Independent Church But the Church of Jerusalem Acts 1.15 Acts 2.41 Acts 4.4 was a Church compounded of 8120. yea of more as appeareth by Acts 5.14 26. Ergo The Church of Jerusalem was more sure then a Parishionall or Congregationall Independent Church The Major Proposition is certain for the Independents define their Church which Christ in his Gospel hath instituted and to which he hath committed the Keyes of his Kingdom the Power of binding and loosing the Tables and Seales of the Covenant the Officers and Censures of his Church the Administration of his publike Worship and Ordinances Caetus a company of Beleevers meeting in one place every Lords day for the Administration of the Holy Ordinances of God to publike Edification The Way of the Church of Christ in New England The due Right of Presbyteries Chap. 1. Prop. 1. From hence I argue thus The Church whereunto cannot be applyed this Definition because of its multitude is more then an Independent Congregationall Church But a Church compounded of 8120 is a Church whereunto cannot be applyed this Definition c. Ergo. The Major is certain The Minor I prove it for 8120. could not meet together every Lords day in one House c. For in those times Christians had not yet any Temples but gathered together in particular Houses which could not receive them all 1. Because they were not ordinarily spacious as great and rich mens Houses for as the Apostle sayeth There are not many wise men after the flesh nor many mighty nor many noble called but the foolish weak base and despised things of the world 1 Cor. 1.26 27 28. 2. Howbeit they had been spacious as rich mens houses yet could they not have received such
further confirmed by sundry other Texts of Scripture and 9. by Act. 20.7 8 9. There was such a throng at St. Pauls Sermon which he made in an upper Chamber in the night upon occasion of his departure from Troas that Eutychus and doubtlesse also some others were forced to sit in the windows note that this was in the night what a throng might there have been had it been on the Day time out of all doubt the Chamber would not have held them all but certainly they could not meet every Lords-day in any one Roome such as were their places of meeting in those times and consequently there must have been there more then one of the Independent Congregationall Churches 10. We have also cleer Texts of Scripture to prove that the Church is taken for a greater then for any Independent Congregation as Act. 8.1 And at that time there was a great persecution against the Church that was at Hierusalem This Persecution was not against one onely Independent Congregationall Church but against the whole Churches of Iudea 11. So in the same Chap. vers 3. Saul made havocke of the Church And chap. 9.1 breathing out threatnings and slaughter against the Disciples of the Lord now of this Church some members were in Damascus v. 2. so he sayes of himselfe I persecuted the Church 1. Cor. 15.9 Phil. 3.6 from whence I argue thus The Church that Saul persecuted was greater then a particular Congregation or an Independent Church But the Church here meant is that which Saul persecuted Ergo The Church here meant is greater then a particular Congregation The Minor is certain the Major I prove it for he persecuted not one onely particular Congregation but that wherever there were Disciples of the Lord chap. 9.1 in Hierusalem chap. 8. vers 1.3 and in Damascus chap. 9. v. 1.2 12. And Act 12.1 Herod the King stretched out his hand to vex certaine of the Church Here the word Church must signifie more then a particular Congregation for Herod did it to pleasure the Iewes which he could not have done in vexing the members of one particular Church alone 2. Because here must be meant the Church whereof Peter was a Member v. 3. which was not one particular Church alone but that of all Judea since Peter and John had a particular Vocation Mission or Commission to teach there as Paul to the Gentiles Gal. 2.7 or rather of the whole Militant Church of their time since they were Apostles or Vniversall Ministers of the Gospel 3. Because if the Church here signifie a particular Church whereof Peter and Iames were Members then that Church might have deposed them of their Ministery For the Independents grant this Authority to their Churches over their Pastors And if it be said that they have it over particular but not over universall Pastors as the Apostles Ergo. If they acknowledge them to be universall Pastors they must have universall Flocks or Churches so there was an universall Militant Church upon Earth whereof they were Pastors in their time which is more then a particular Congregation 4. Put the case they had been but Ministers of particular Churches or Congregations yet must the word Church there signifie a Church whereof they were both Members for such a Church is meant here v. 7.2 3. But such a Church must be more then a particular one for it must containe both their Churches and Persons since they are called some of the Church i. e. of one Church 13. So vers 5. But Prayer was made without ceasing of the Church unto God for him i. e. for Peter who was in Prison And out of all doubt this was not one onely Independent Church but all the Churches that knew of Peters imprisonment and depended upon him as upon their Pastor 14. Give no offence neither to the Jewes nor to the Gentiles nor to the Church of God 1 Cor. 10.32 which cannot be a simple Independent Church but all the Churches we converse with 1. for Charity bindeth us to give no offence to all or any of them 2. Because this Church is called the Church of God which cannot be restrained to one particular Church if they be all the Church of God 3. Because it is opposed to the Iewes and the Gentiles 15. Because the Church wherein God did place Apostles and Evangelists 1. Cor. 12.28 was not an Independent Congregation but more for they were universall Ministers of the Militant Church of their time now if there be an universall Militant Church through all the world how much rather may we admit a Provinciall or Nationall Church 16. I had rather speak five words saith St. Paul with my understanding in the Church then c. 1. Cor. 14.19 This Church wherein the Apostle desires to speake is more then an Independent Congregation for he was not tyed to any particular Congregation 17. The Apostle willeth women to keepe silence in the Churches 1. Cor. 14.38 and these Churches are called the Church It is a shame for a Woman to speake in the Church vers 35. which cannot be a particular Congregation for he willeth them not to speake in any Church We may bring many other Passages of Scripture and Reasons but because they serve both for this and the next Conclusion therefore to decline repetitions we remit them unto that Conclusion CHAP. VII The Second Conclusion concerning the Subordination of Authority in the Church SEcondly I say Conclus that betwixt the Churches of God there should be some Subordination in authority i. e. such as wherein the judgements of inferior Churches and their proceedings may be subject unto the judgement of the Superiour Church whereunto they are Subordinate And this may be proved sufficiently from all the Testimonies of Scripture aleadged for the former Conclusion For if there be a Church more then a particular Congregationall viz. Provinciall or Nationall out of all doubt the particular Congregations must be subject to them 1. because a part is subject unto the whole as the hand unto the whole body nam pars magis sui totius quam sui item because the part is for the whole as a medium for its end now the Mediums must be subject unto their Ends and not the Ends unto their Mediums and Media commensurantur finibus non fines Mediis neither shape we the horse back for the saddle but the saddle for the horse his back so the government of particular Churches must not be shaped or framed according to their particular exigencies and conveniencies alone but according to that of the whole Provinciall Nationall and Universall Militant Church here upon Earth in such a manner that it hinder it not 2. Particularly it may be proved from the Custome of the Old Testament which is not abrogated in the New for therein the Iudgements of Synagogicall Assemblies were subject unto that of the middle Sanedrim and that of the middle to that of the Supreme or if there were onely two that of the
yea if it seemeth good to the Holy Ghost it should seem good to all his Ministers 2. And I pray you M.S. when it seemeth good to an Independent Minister to declare the Doctrine that denieth Christs Divinity hereticall whether think you seemes it not good to God and to the Holy Ghost also and if it seem good to both why may not the Minister say It seemeth good to God and to me also to declare this Hereticall 3. And if that is bound or loosed in Heaven which the Church bindeth or looseth on Earth wherefore when they bind or loose sinners may they not say It seemeth good to God and to me also to loose this sinner To the 10. I answer It is altogether ridiculous for this one particular expression conteineth not all the expressions that are used in Ecclesiasticall Iudgements the Church useth not evermore Comminations in her Iudgements but against such as are disobedient and that after sundry Admonitions Neither is every Iudgement or Law evermore expresly Penall as ye might have learned both out of your Civill and Canon Law CHAP. VIII Wherein the same Doctrine is further confirmed by Reason THis Subordination of Ecclesiasticall Iudicatories may be likewise proved by the practice of the Old Testament for in the Old Testament there were Synagogicall and Synedriall Iudicatories amongst them there was a Subordination and from the first they appealed to the second neither find we ever that God abrogated it since it was not Ceremoniall as I have shewed 2. It may likewise be proved from the Subordination of Civill Iudicatories in all great Civill States and there is a like reason for them both 3. If it be granted that there are Ecclesiasticall Assemblies greater in Authority one then another as appeareth by all these former Texts either this inequality of Greatnesse or Power is by Co-ordination or by Subordination But it cannot be by Co-ordination for one co-ordinate Power hath no power over the other as that of Hierusalem had over the rest of the Churches in giving them a Pastor Act. 1.2 6. chap. and Lawes and Commands Act. 15. 16. Ergo It must be by Subordination And then the power of the subordinate Church is under that of the superior Church whereunto it is subordinated as in Civill Iudicatories subordinated one to another 4. If there were no Subordination of Ecclesiasticall Iudicatories in matters of Power and Authority or their Authoritative Power then any particular Congregation by an irresistible power in despite of all the Churches of the the World might establish amongst themselves all sort of most damnable Heresies commit all sort of sinne and uncleannesse and so infect all the World with their wickednesse and no Churches or Christians qua tales could hinder them or say to them even as the Pope pretends they cannot say to him Domine quare hoc facis 5. But can our Adversaries risen up of the new shew any such Government as theirs in the Church of God in any time since Christs Incarnation yea from the Creation of the World to this time wherein there was no Subalternation but a meer Independency amongst all Ecclesiasticall Iudicatories We could wish they would shew us the Institution of it in Scripture where any where Christ commanded that all Churches should be altogether Independent and consequently Incorrigible Where at any time he granted them such a Licenciousnesse of power to go irresistably to Hell What an abominable Licenciousnesse is this to plead on this manner for all sort of Independency and of Ecclesiasticall Impunity in doing of all sort of wickednesse and mischief 6. The want of this Subordination taketh away all sort of remedy against the offences of particular Congregations 7. It destroyeth the Unitie of the Militant visible Church both Provinciall Nationall and Universall which cannot appear but in a Provinciall Nationall or Universall Synod or Councell 8. And consequently the visibility of the Church for she is not visible but in her Symbole or Confession of Faith and Canons of Ecclesiasticall Discipline as appeareth by the Symbole of the Apostles 9. To take away such Representative Churches as Synods is to destroy the Externall Church-Communion of Saints or the Communion of Saints amongst divers Churches which cannot so well appear as in Synods where their Reall Communion one with another is best represented for if particular Churches be destroyed by persecution and a little remnant escape as sometimes it falleth out upon the Turks Invasion and the Papists Massacres as wofull experience hath furnished us but too many examples in Germany France England and elsewhere what Externall Union or Communion of Saints can appear amongst you since in such a case ye will neither receive men in age to the Lords Table nor the children of such Martyrs to Baptism and so all the recompence they can have amongst you for all their sufferings for the Name of Christ is That they are like to be utterly excluded from all Church-Communion whatsoever 10. So this is a very poor comfort for Martyrs who having suffered much in their own persons lost their wives children and goods for the good Name of Christ shall no more now be esteemed Christians after all their sufferings whereas they were thought to be of the very best before that time 11. Such a Subordination of Representative Churches in matter of Government is a means very necessary to conserve the Churches for by the Authoritative power thereof Churches are kept in Order Unitie and Union and so preserved as we see in France Holland Scotland and elsewhere ever since the beginning of the World whereas by the contrary Independent way consisting of dis-union they may easily be destroyed as we see in the innumerable number of Sects that in a short space of time have sprouted out of the Independent Sect no lesse opposite one to another then to us 12. If there be no Subordination of Ecclesiasticall Assemblies but every one be Independent and every member of the Church have a vote in all Ecclesiasticall matters and be made acquainted with all that passeth as amongst the Independents hardly can the Counsels and the Resolutions that are taken for mutuall conservation be kept secret but they will every houre be betrayed and so the Church given up to her Enemies which appearingly cannot so easily fall out in the Synodicall way wherein 20. 30. or 40. only and those of the best sort and the wisest men are acquainted with the businesse for in all morall probability it is not credible but 20. 30. or 40. may better keep a businesse secret then 20000. or 30000 whereof the Churches that they represent may be compounded 13. Since Christ ordained Universall Ministers to rule over the whole Militant Church and all the particular Congregations thereof wherefore should there not be some unity of Government amongst them and wherefore may they not all depend on one Councell as well as on one man certainly there is the same reason for both for as the Apostles
of the New Now answer me What if the great Sanedrim had miscarried in the Old Testament as some times it did or the Parliament and the Kings Counsell in the State what should be be done in such a Case And then I shall answer you the other It is a foolery to dispute against Gods Ordinance 6. I answer That in such an extraordinary Case which goeth beyond all particular Laws and Orders established in the Church viz. When all the ordinary Seers become blinde or mislead the Flock there being no ordinary we must have recourse to such extraordinary remedies as are most convenient or at least not repugnant to Gods Word and attend upon Gods extraordinary Providence The Provinciall Synods may refuse to put in execution the Acts of the Generall Assembly so may particular Churches for they are not bound to be Actors for the generall Assembly in any thing against Gods Word 7. But what if in your petty Congregations of seven or eight persons four persons or peradventure all the Congregation miscarry What shall be done You will happily say 1. Seck Counsell But if all the Congregation be corrupted none of them will ask counsell but they will all rather lurk and hide their Tenets as the Independents do here at the Synod If you say again Other Churches that are offended may complain to Neighbour Churches But what if they know not their Tenets What if the Delinquent Church will not own them but Iesuitically elude all Interrogatories as the Antinomians the Independents and all other Sectaries do here What if they own them What can the Churches offended do for M. S. will tell you they cannot be Iudge since they are Parties or if they judge they can but judge as so many Lackeys or Foot-Boyes They have no more Authority to command that Delinquent Church then that Delinquent Church hath to command them all Object But they will pronounce a Sentence of non-Communion against Her Answ So will she against them and what then What remedy for all this disorder that is not taken away by all this but still increaseth It may be yet said they may go to the Civill Magistrate A. S. But that is no Ecclesiasticall remedy and M. S. will tell you 1. as well as I have done that so the last resolution of Ecclesiasticall and Spirituall Judgements should be in the secular power which he holds impossible 2. Yea in the power of a Pagan or Antichristian Christian 3. And I must say That things are never resolved but into their own Principles and such is not Politicall Authority in respect of Ecclesiasticall 4. So you have not entirenesse of jurisdiction as M. S. and the rest of the Independents pretend in his first Reason 5. So you are put to trouble and charges which is against your other Reason So 6. you are subject to Strangers which destroyeth your other Reason for you hold for Strangers all such as be not of your particular Congregations as your Reasons hereafter following fully declare 7. You are not ruled within your selves which destroyes your other Reason So 8. you shall not be judged by your own Pastour which is another of your Reasons 9. You shall be judged by one who appearingly cannot fall in the same Case and so it destroyes your other Reason 10. The party being tender Foreheaded might be changed into a stone before Medusa's Head as you say in presence of strange Faces and of his Betters which destroyeth again another of your Reasons I might bring many more Inconveniences against him which he bringeth against us as destructory to the sweet Liberties and Priviledges of the Church But I must be short Onely I adde that to speak morè humano it is not credible That all Inferiour Iudicatories will or dare be so impudent as to miscarry in any thing so manifestly contrary to the common Tenets or Practises of the whole Nationall Church for the Inferiour Iudicatories will evermore fear in case of their unjust Iudgement to be condemned and censured in the Superiour and the Supreme it self may fear That if they judge any thing amisse their Iudgements will not be approved and put in execution in Particular Churches and in all humane probability they are like to be crossed M. S. asketh what if an Occumenicall or Generall Counsell erre A. S. His suppositions are so extraordinary that they cannot belong but to Independent M. S. And yet what I have already said may satisfie this also Onely this man intends to defame Gods Ordinances and his Word as insufficient to rule the Church and so he may take the Bishops and Papists by the hand And I ask what if a Parliament erre What if the great Sanedrin had erred in the Old Testament What if the Councell at Jerusalem had erred Answer me this and then I shall answer you The rest of this Section p. 77. containeth nothing but Repetitions big Words but no Reason CHAP. IV. The justification of A. S. his Reason How Presbyteriall Government is not subject to such Inconveniences as the Independencie VVHereas in my ninth Reason I shew That the Presbyteriall Government is subject to none of these Inconveniences c. Here M. S. answereth 1. Here is a remedy indeed against some inconveniences A. S. I willingly accept of this your confession M. S. But whether the inconveniences be not much better then the remedy adhuc sub judice lis est A. S. So it is a doubt in M. S. his conceit Whether it be not much better to tolerate yea to admit and permit a thousand Heresies and Blasphemies and to let whole Churches go to Hell then to submit to Presbyteriall Government such as we have defined it 1. To let a Church be Hereticall then to be reduced to Christ by any Ecclesiasticall power meerly Spirituall and Ministeriall or any other such as was in the Old Testament or as is in the State M. S. What if your combined Eldership hath neither footing or foundation in the Word of God A. S. What if it have foot and foundation on the Word of God What if we have proved it already What if it had no foot in Gods Word but were no way repugnant unto it Yet were it not in such a case to be rejected but by a thousand fold to be preferred before Independency whereupon follow so many abominable absurdities so repugnant to Gods Word yea unto Naturall Reason M. S. It is not the serviceablenesse of it against a thousand such inconveniencies as were mentioned that will justifie it and this he proveth by the examples of Sauls offering Sacrifice 1 Sam. 23.9 13 14. Of Vzzah in putting forth his hand to the Ark. Peters zeal in drawing his sword And addeth That the Popes absolute Authority is as Soveraign a Remedy against all these Inconveniencies as Classique Authority A. S. 1. I argued not from meer inconveniences but from conveniences and the want of inconveniences and repugnancy to Gods Word to justifie our Government and from inconveniences
to refuse yours Neither can a Negative Thesis be otherwayes proved but by a Medium that is repugnant either to the Attribute or to the Subject of the Question So this your Censure is very ridiculous absurd and impertinent 2. I have proved it to be conform to Gods Word 3. It is not credible but that Government is most convenient to Gods Word which is most convenient and commensurate unto the end That God commands us to intend and to tend into neither can I beleeve that God hath ordained us any means that are not fit and proper for the end that he intends or commands us to intend for that were repugnant to his Soveraign Wisedom 4. And as for your Examples they are not to the purpose for all these facts of Saul Vzzah c. were contrary to Gods expresse command neither were they convenient to the end intended by God or that we should tend unto viz. Filiall Obedience to the command and the Typifying of Christ and his Benefits The example of Saint Peter was 1. a manifest breach of the sixth Commandment in killing a man without publike Authority 2. It implyed an act of diffidence and of too great confidence as if Christ had had no other means to deliver himself but his sword in this Peter trusted too much to his own sword and too little to Gods Providence 3. It contained an act of Precipitation and too great boldnesse and rashnesse in drawing his sword in his Masters presence without yea against his Masters will and command 4. It was repugnant to the end for which Christ came into the Word viz. Christs death and the Redemption of mankinde by it whereof Peter before that time had been so oft advertised c. So is it not in Presbyteriall Discipline Neither is there any damnable Errour or Heresie in Consistoriall Government as in the Papacy We say not that any of our Assemblies are Infallible as the Pope pretends himself and his Generall Councell to be neither pretend we That our Assemblies have any despoticall or lordly domination over the Church as the Pope doth we say not That our Assemblies are above Gods Word as they do These comparisons of M. S. are no lesse then blasphemous And here I must advertise the Reader That all the Presbyteriall Assemblies together take no greater Authority over the Church then six or seven Independent Tinkers an Hangman with them together with one of their Ministers do over the flock The Independent Preacher with his six or seven persons are liker to the Pope and the Consistory of his Cardinalls because of their Independency then any of our Churches which are all Dependents and subject to Superiour Authority M. S. pag. 79. § in his second Answer telleth me That he cannot inform himself 1. What A. S. means by Authoritative power 2. Or from whence our Churches have it A. S. I have 1 fully declared in my Annotations and here above what it is 2. And from whence it proceedeth It is a Ministeriall power to command such as are subject thereunto which bindeth or obligeth them to obedience and whereby in case of disobedience they may inflict Spirituall punishments It is of God or from God and therefore lawfull Now whether it be of God as Author of Nature or of Grace by the Law of Nature or any Positive Law Naturall or Supernaturall it is not a Question de re sed de modo rei not of the thing it self but of the manner thereof Grant me either that it is lawfull or deny it If it be a lawfull power it is of God for there is no lawfull power but of God Rom. 13.2 Grant me the thing and afterwards I shall dispute with you de modo rei They have it not of the Parliament nor of the State as you pretend for secular men cannot give any Spirituall power into the Church they have it of God and by Gods Word directè or per consequentiam and in some things per non repugnantiam It is an untruth in M. S. in his third Answer whereas he sayeth that I seem to imply That the Church hath this power from the Law of the State for howbeit the Civill Magistrate by his Laws put a Politicall Obligation upon Christians to obey the Churches Spirituall Authority which is from God yet is not his Civill Authority the cause of the Churches Spirituall Authority or of the Obligation whereby a Christian is bound to obey the Church for howbeit there were no Civill Magistrate or howbeit he should dissent from such an Obedience yet should the Church have Spirituall power and all the Members of the Church in a Spirituall way should be bound to Obedience But what then doth the Civill Magistrates Law Answ It puts a new Bond or Obligation upon the Members of the Church and bindes them again by a Civill Authority Extrinsecall to the Church to a Spirituall Obedience who heretofore were onely bound by a Spirituall Obligation so he bindes them to a Spirituall Obedience but not spiritually as the Church Authority doth but onely materially and that by Civill Authority So the Ministers of the Gospel or rather God by them oblige and binde the Subjects in the State in a Spirituall way by Gods Word to obey the Civill Magistrate or Politicall and Civill Obedience but not Politically or Civilly but Spiritually so it followeth not That the Civill Magistrate hath power to form Ecclesiasticall Government onely it followeth That in a Politicall way he may oblige or binde men to obey it No more followeth it that I resolve Church Government into the humors wills and pleasures of the World c. Onely it followeth That the Civill Obligation laid upon men to obey the Church so far forth as Civill must be finally resolved into the Civill Magistrates power and not into his humours as M. S. most contemptuously speaketh of him M. S. his fourth Answer is in retorting my Arguments 1. What if a Particular Congregation under the jurisdiction of your Eldership reflecting upon the Oath or Covenant it hath taken for subjection thereunto as likewise upon all other ingagements that way as unlawfull shall peremptorily refuse to stand to the awards or determinations of it what will you do in this Case Will you Excommunicate this Church The Apologists in their way do little lesse or will you deliver them brachio seculari To be hampered and taught better then it seemeth you can teach them by Prisons Fines Banishments c. Churches had need take heed how they chuse men for their guardians that will so dispose of them if they please them not 2. And what if in the Session of your combined Eldership there be no such thing as Pluralitie of Votes concerning the Excommunication of such a Church Is not the remedy you speak of now in the dust A. S. To the first Quaere I answer That we must do by Spirituall power in the Church that that the Civill Magistrate doth by the secular power in the
State in such a Case 2. The Ministers in the New Testament must proceed spiritually against all Delinquent and Impenitent persons as the Ministers in the Old Testament did against theirs according to Gods Word unlesse such a proceeding be abrogated in the New Testament 3. They must do as M. S. hath taught us as they do against particular persons in commensurating the punishments to the sins i. e. They must proceed by particular Admonitions and Censures against lesser sins in private or before the Presbytery by suspension from the Lords Table against greater sins by publike suspension or lesser Excommunication against greater sins and by the great Excommunication against the greatest sins 4. M. S. confesseth That the Apologists in their way do little lesse A. S. If so then they do a little worse then the Presbyterians and so they quit a little M. S. his own rule whereby he willeth them to proceed as against particular Persons 5. If all this suffice not it is the Civill Magistrates part to proceed against them as Troublers of the Peace of the Church and consequently of the Christian State and not to permit them to erect a new Sect as it is ordinarily practised amongst the Independents of New England 6. They must be punished for their Perjury and for the breach of their Covenant but none of those punishments can be inflicted but after sufficient conviction at least Morally in foro externo And such punishments are the fittest for them after such a conviction when they pertinaciously resist the Spirit of God for such men fear more the Gibbet then Hell-fire What you say of your second Chapter it is sufficiently answered What you say of Churches That they had need to take heed how they chuse men for their Guardians c. If by those Guardians you mean the Civill Magistrate it is not wisely said of you If Church-Ministers they must choose such as will delate pertinacious sinners to the Civill Magistrate To your second Question What if in the Session c. Answ 1. What if it be so in your Assemblies or Synods 2. If it be any inferior Ecclesiasticall Iudicatory they must remit it to a superior ever till they come to some wherein the Votes may preponderate And if in the supreme Iudicatory viz. in a Nationall Assembly the Votes preponderate not concerning the Excommunication of such a Church which is very extraordinary she cannot be excommunicated and yet if her opinion or sin be condemned the combined Eldership may inflict some lesser Spirituall punishment and if such a Church continue still pertinacious the Civill Magistrate may proceed against her in a Civill way as we have said Neither is this a compliance with Papists in quality of Papists but in so far forth as they agree with Scripture 1. For so proceeded the Church of the Old Testament 2. So proceeded the Church of the New Testament in the times of good Emperours as under Constantine the Great Theodosius c. 3. So proceed they at Geneva 4. So in the Netherlands 5. So the Independents of New-England 6. So should M.S. rather doe then to tolerate open Blasphemers of the blessed Name of God 7. Darest thou M. S. so openly plead in favour of Paganisme of all sorts of Heresies and mischiefs and for all sort of impunitie for them all 8. The Truth falleth not to the dust in such a case but sinne is punished but not in such a degree as it should be To the second Inconveniency that I object against the Independents § 4. viz. That the Independent Churches offended if they judge the offending Church they should be both Judge and Party M. S. replieth p. 80. § 3. When your combined Eldership proceedeth against a particular Church amongst you upon offence taken is not this Eldership as well Party as Judge A.S. My Argument implieth the Solution of this Objection viz. That the combined Eldership cannot be Party in such a cause because it hath an Authoritative power over the particular Church howbeit Spirituall and Ministeriall as the Parliament over particular Judicatories in the Kingdome but Parties look one to another as par parem and not as superior inferiorem 2. Neither can any man or Consociation take his ordinary Judge to Party unlesse he have some particular Exceptions against him 3. I propound you the same Question concerning the particular Tribes and the Synagogicall Judicatories amongst the people of God in the Old Testament when the great Sanedrim took offence at them or at their Iudgements whether the great Sanedrim was not both Iudge and Party Or rather whether under the notion of Offence taken it was not to be considered as a Party and under the notion of Authoritative power as a Iudge 4. I propound it of the State whether the Parliament may not be considered as Party being offended at any particular Consociation and as Judge in quality of the Representative Body of the whole Kingdome or if it be evermore needfull that some particular Person or Persons compeare in quality of Party against particular Consociations or Townes 5. In your particular Congregations may not your Church under divers notions be considered as Judge and Party or may every Delinquent take your whole Presbytery or Congregation to Party 6. Did not the Arminians serve themselves of this Independent Argument against the Synod of Dort to decline the Synods power and were not both they and this their Argument condemned by the judgement of the Synod as very absurd and unapt 7. This Argument concludeth against all the superior Powers of this World Again M.S. 1. telleth us that this Authoritative power of combined Presbyteries over Congregations is not from above A. S. But we have proved it to be from above and from God as Author of Nature and of Grace See the Question concerning the Subordination of Ecclesiasticall Judicatories 2. Core Dathan and Abiram objected no lesse against Moses and Aaron yea as much may be objected against God himselfe who is Iudge and Party and Iesus Christ who is Party and yet shall judge the quick and the dead For if Criminals may so escape they will not faile to take their Iudges evermore for Party M. S. To hold that all those that have an Authoritative Power over men may lawfully in vertue of such a Power be both Iudges and Parties is to exalt all manner of Tyranny c. by Law for so in Church and State men invested with such a power may be their own carvers and serve themselves of the estates liberties and lives of those that are under them how and when and as oft as they list Adde But the Consequence is false Ergo so is the Antecedent A.S. I deny the Consequence for they have not an absolute but a limited power according to Law and not to their own particular but publike will or in quality of publike persons whose wills are declared in or restrained according to Law Neither commandeth Carolus the Kingdome qua Carolus but
absolutely able enough to preach rather then to live without Gods Ordinances altogether So David wanting Bread did eate of the Shew-bread and a man in case of necessity may take other mens meate and eate it rather then starve 2. I distinguish the Consequent she hath it evermore in such a cause i. e. in case of necessity when she can have no help of Neighbour Churches I grant it all otherwayes I deny it M. S. desireth to know by what right Neighbour Churches by their presence can take such a right from her A. S. Neighbour Churches by their presence take no right from her but by their Neighbour-hood give her or rather adde unto her a new right to Rule her selfe more perfectly and to help to Rule Neighbour Churches also which she could not do before so it is not Jurisdictionis diminutio sed ampliatio it is no diminution but an augmentation of power intensivè or in certitude within her selfe and extensivè in respect of other Churches so it is a Blessing of God added to that Church and no power or abilitie but a lacke of power a weakenesse an unpowerfulnesse as I may so say and infirmity taken away it is not to take away what she had but to give her a power or helpe that she had not being alone Even so as when two or three Regiments coming to joyn with one or two others against their common Enemy these two or three Regiments take no power or force from the one or the two precedent Regiments but help them and make them more able to beate the Enemy M. S. Those that God hath put together let not man put asunder But God put together a single Congregation and an entire Iurisdiction Ergo A. S. That Text in the first Proposition is to be expounded of those onely that are put together by Marriage but if you take it Universally it will be found false for God hath put a Tree and the Branches thereof together and yet I trow you will not say a man may not cut a Branch off from a Tree 2. I answer if God hath put them together in all cases it is true but the Minor is false If God hath onely put them together in some particular Case then they may be separated in an other Case 3. I answer to the Minor If by an entire Iurisdiction be meant a supreme Ministeriall Jurisdiction absolutely such as should be in Synods to the well-being of the Church it is false for it wants a Synodall Jurisdiction If by an entire Iurisdiction be meant entire secundum quid in suo genere per accidens in some way in its own kind and by Accident it is true for such a Iurisdiction is onely Congregationall or Consistoriall and so perfect in that kinde and supreme by accident for want of Neighbour Churches so it is entire in that kinde but not absolutely as it should be in Case of Neighbour Churches Master Mather and Master Thomson in their Answer to Master Herle argue thus The power that floweth immediately and necessarily from the very Essence of a Church cannot be separated from the Essence of a particular Church But such an entire power of Iurisdiction floweth from the very Essence of a Church Ergo A. S. 1. I deny the Minor for that which belongeth to any thing ex instituto floweth not from its Essence But so it is of the entirenesse of Jurisdiction it belongeth not to the Church by nature but by will and Law viz. by Gods Ordinance 2. If it flowed necessarily from the very Essence of every Church then could not God change it for God cannot destroy nor change the proper Accidents or take them away from their subjects But the consequent is false for since Iurisdiction belongs to the Church by Gods freewill he may as freely take it away from the Church and change it as he bestowed it upon the Church 3. Yea God hath actually changed it for all the Militant Churches since the fall of Adam viz. Before the Law under the Law and under the Gospel are of the same nature and Species or the same in substance and onely differ in Circumstances and yet they have had divers sorts of Iurisdiction and Governments which could not be if it flowed immediately and necessarily from its Essence 4. Put the Case it flowed from its Essence as it doth not yet this entirenesse of jurisdiction should onely be entirenesse of Consistorian or Parochiall jurisdiction which is entire in its own kinde but not of Synodall jurisdiction yea not so much as of your Synodall power in defining dogmatically the points of Doctrine M. S. his second Argument If a Church yet single be invested with a power of jurisdiction within it self and should be cashiered of this power by the rising up of more Churches neer unto her then that which is intended by God as a Table should become a snare unto her she should suffer losse and have sorrow from those by whom she ought to be comforted But the first is true Ergo. A. S. I deny the Consequence neither hath M. S. proved it The Reason of this my Negation is because she is not ensnared but drawn out of the snare by the rising of such Churches which can help her and counsell her and reform her Iudgements conjunctly with her self in case of aberration neither should this be any just matter of sorrow unto her if she should sorrow at it her sorrow should be unjust and wicked and at Gods Ordinance 2. I deny the Assumption for the Consistorian power that such a single Church had before the rising of such Neighbour Churches is not cashiered by their rising but a more eminent viz. A Classicall or Synodall Power which she had not is superadded unto her Consistorian or Parochiall power whereby it is mightily perfected CHAP. VI. M. S. his third Reason answered M. S. THirdly If a single Church should suffer losse of so considerable a priviledge as entirenesse of Jurisdiction is by the multiplication of Churches neer unto her then cannot this Church pray for the Propagation of the Gospel in places neer to it but she must pray against her own comfort and peace which is a fore temptation upon her either to pray very faintly or not to pray at all for such a thing But the consequent is false Ergo. A. S. I deny the consequence of the first Proposition for the rule and measure of our Prayers is not our priviledge and jurisdiction but Gods glory and the Salvation of our souls revealed in Scripture which may be very well obtained without any power of jurisdiction as we see in Women and it seems that M. S. will not pray for the prosperity of Jerusalem unlesse God grant him an Independent power of jurisdiction therein 2. I deny the Assumption for by the multiplication of Neighbour Churches that single Church suffers no losse of the Parochiall jurisdiction that she had for she retains it but she receiveth more power in becoming a
from amongst their Brethren So were the Rulers over Thousands Hundreds Fifties and Tens answerable to our Provinciall Synods Classes and simple Presbyteries Under Augustus the Senate of Rome made Herod an Idumean King of the Iews And he as afterward some of the Governours and Proconsuls of Syria made and deposed the High Priests according to their pleasure so that all this time almost the Government of the Iews was ever Tyrannicall and so a punishment rather then any mercy of God here promised As for the Text Ezek. 27.8 it is not said That all things that are here related are mercies of God but that Tyrus gloried in them Vers 3. 2. Neither were they Governors of one Independent Consociation as amongst the Independents but here there were Superior and Inferior Iudicatories as amongst the Protestant Churches To that Text Ioel 2.17 Give not thine heritage to reproach that the Heathen should rule over them Wherefore should they say among the people Where is their God I answer This is only a Prayer that the Heathen rule not over Gods people and if there had been any of them tolerated among the people of God as M. S. pretends this Prayer would as well hold as if they had not been amongst them but had lived as strangers in other Countries and it appeareth cleerly by the Reason that is added Wherefore c. i.e. lest thy Name be dishonoured by such reproaches as if our God could not deliver us or as if we had not a God to deliver us And howbeit it were so great a blessing evermore to have Government within themselves yet can it not be meant of Independent Government in every Colledge or Consociation without any subordination to superior Iudicatories as M.S. hath to prove To the Text Deut. 17.15 One from amongst thy Brethren thou shalt set King over thee thou mayest not set a Stranger over thee which is not thy Brother I answer 1. That this is not a Morall but a Positive Law for in Elective Kingdomes they choose Strangers to be Kings and in so doing they sinne not against the Morall or the Law of Nature 2. That this Commandement is only conditionall grounded upon the condition conteined in the beginning of the Verse viz. That only they should establish him for King over them whom the Lord their God should choose 3. Neither was this Government independent in every Town or particular Congregation or without subordination as among the Independents but according to the Law of Nature and Grace with some subordination and dependence of inferior Iudicatories upon some superior 4. By a stranger here I beleeve that he meanes principally a stranger in Religion and consequently by habitation because it is added that is not thy Brother item because he was to have a copy of the Law to read it and learn to feare the Lord his God to keep all the words thereof which the Heathens could not doe Or 5. The reason may be because God was minded to tye the Crown to one Family viz. to that of Iudah 6. Neither was it lawfull for them to choose any Brother or Countryman of theirs but him only that was of the Tribe of Iudah at least after the Promise made unto David and that for a speciall Reason viz. to the end wee may know CHRISTS Descent c. After these silly Objections that this M.S. hath brought he objects to himself But Pastors and Elders of neighbour Churches are not to be looked upon as Strangers but as Brethren And he might have confirmed it for there is no distinction betwixt the Iew and the Greek Rom. 10.12 and answers That they are Brethren in respect of the unbelievers and yet have more of the relation of Strangers to them then those that were as it were of the same domestique Society with them and therefore subjection unto them must have lesse of the Blessing and more of the Curse then Subjection to their own A. S. I answer 1. in matter of Argumentation to prove a Categoricall and Absolute Proposition we use not these as it were or Metaphoricall termes for they are termini diminuentes and if it be only as it were Ergo it is not really 2. I pray you M.S. tell me if a man that is not of your Congregation and hath more Faith or at least professeth more then one of your Congregation What reason that he should rather be a stranger unto you or lesse your Brother in Christ then he who hath lesse Faith 3. Should not he that hath a greater union with Christ which undoubtedly he hath by his greater Faith have a greater union with you I see that he shall be least beloved of you who is most beloved of Christ and of whom Christ is most beloved 4. And so you esteem it a greater curse to be subject to those who have more Faith and a greater blessing to be subject to such as have lesse Faith and haply none at all Siccinè soles beare Amicos M. S. 3. Reason The Grant of Government and Rule within themselves unto Townes and Corporations was ever esteemed a matter of speciall Grace and favour from Princes and hath sometimes been purchased with great sums of money by the Inhabitants A. S. What followeth Ergo so must it be in the Church if ye conclude any thing at all 1. So you are the Disciples of Simon Magus 2. That Grant of Government within themselves was no Independent Government as amongst the Independent Churches for then they must have been Soveraigns 3. I retort the Argument In all such Priviledges of Incorporations there is evermore a Subordination of Government as among the Protestant Churches Ergo so should it be among you if you will imitate them or will have this Argument to make any thing at all for you 4. Neither could it be a speciall Grace if it be independent for Grace is only amongst the superior and the inferior dependent upon his superior 5. Such a Grace should take away the Subjects subjection and so of a Prince make no Prince for no man is Prince but he upon whom the Subjects depend CHAP. VII M. S. his fourth Reason answered M. S. FOurthly and lastly Reason it selfe faith he demonstrates Entirenesse of Government to be a sweet Priviledge and Benefit to a Particular Church A. S. Ans 1. As if all he had said hitherto were without Reason he now commeth to his Reasons which are very irrationall 2. It is sweet to the Flesh but not to the Spirit if a man be lead by the Spirit of God 3. If it be only a Priviledge Ergo it s a cleer case you have it not by Law M.S. 1. Reason to confirme this Assertion First in case a man be questioned he saves a proportion both of time and labour in respect of what he must undergoe if he were to make his Answer at a Consistorie further off A. S. Ans 1. He answers first in his own Parish in his own particular Consistorie and so saves his time
differences but evermore by their Externall Causes or by their Accidents and sometimes by their Opposites and Negations of some other things The very Apprentices in Logick know thus much 4. But if we know the Essences of things in themselves as this M.S. pretends if he say any thing to purpose how is it that there is so great debate about them as 1. about the soule of a man whether it be spirituall or corporall 2. About the totall Essence of a man whether it be the Soule alone his Soule and Body the Soule and its materia prima the union of both the image of God Religion or some other thing And to urge this more home upon your Example of the Light If we know the Essences of things distinctly and in themselves as I said what is the cause of so great a diversity yea of so great a contrariety of opinions about its Essence or Nature How is it that some Philosophers hold it to be in some Predicament others to be in none some to be a Substance others an Accident some to be a spirituall substance others to be a Body others neither viz. neither to be a corporeall nor a spirituall but a spiritalis substantia others the presence of a luminous body others a reall colour others an apparent colour others a spirituall Quality some a naturall power others a sensible quality If we knew it essentially and distinctly in it self and not meerly accidentally we could not so doubt of its Essence wherein it consists But it seems that this Man Doctor Holmes and some of that Sect are as Hereticall in Philosophie as Schismaticall in Divinitie and so they have conspired with as little successe against Naturall as against Divine truth M.S. sayes that my meaning may be that if a Toleration be granted for Independencie the Practice of it should become a Schisme from the Presbyterian Church A.S. No such thing but I maintain that Independencie is already at least materially yea Formally ratione Formae essentialis in foro Conscientiae interno a schisme from all the true Churches in the World since they willingly have separated themselves from them all in matter of Sacramentall Communion as also in that of Discipline And you should have done well to have answered this which no doubt you met with in my former Book and not oblige me to repeat it here It will also be a Schisme ratione Formae Accidentalis externae in fore externo from the Church of England if in Gods mercy any other Discipline then Independent be established in it So is it also in respect of the Presbyterian Church which is already established in France Holland c. yea and here in England in the French Dutch Italian and Spanish Churches So is it in respect of the Church of Scotland the Discipline whereof is approved by the King which ye have all sworne to maintain But sayes he we have no Presbyterian Church among us and so if a Toleration be granted before such a Government be established it is apparently 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 out of the reach of such an imputation for ever A. S. 1. It is false that we have no Presbyterian Church among us We have it in the French Dutch and other Churches wherewith the Church of England professed evermore a Sacramentall Communion which the Independents break 2. Whether it be granted by the Parliament or not that hinders it not from being a Schisme for the Toleration of the Parliament is altogether extrinsecall to Schisme and there were Schismes in the Primitive Church without any Toleration of the Civill Magistrate 3. His Supposition is impious and ridiculous for Toleration according to M.S. his judgement is evermore of some reall or at least of some apparent Evill Now can the Parliament or the Assembly of Divines in good Conscience tolerate an ill Government before that they establish any good one Is not that to begin with the Devill to serve him before that we serve God Should not the Parliament begin with You as the most considerable Party A. S. his 4. Reason If a Toleration be granted to our Brethren I cannot see how it can be well denied to other Sects M.S. answereth that Bernardus non videt omnia A.S. But I pray you then Father Epistemon that sees all things make me by some Reason or other to see how it can be denyed to other Sects for there is the same Reason for a Toleration of them all M.S. bringeth this Reason He saith he that keepeth a doore with lock and key and bolts to it may let in one man that knocks without letting in all commers A.S. But if the other knocketh also wherefore will he not open to him and let him in as well as the other If he open not there is no Reason but Will that keeps him out so there is the same Reason but not the same Will for both it is a meere Prosopolepsiia or Acceptation of persons which is not well done If it be said that other Sects differ more from us then the Independents Ans 1. It is all one Magis minus non mutant speciem in matter of Toleration 1. For then all must be tolerated howsoever some more some lesse 2. And some of our Brethren viz. M. S. grants all the Argument 3. And if we distinguish so they must declare and expound cleerly what Sects and what Opinions are to be tolerated and what not which will be a Question inextricable which no mortall man appearingly is able distinctly to determine M. S. answereth not to any of my Reasons only he is offended that I say it is a Question inextricable c. He sayes then 1. That I prevaricate with my own Cause but wherein here altum silentium 2. He saith that I put the Magistrate to a stand whether he should tolerate Presbyterian Government or not But I have already answered 1. That it is already approved here in England in the French Dutch Italian and Spanish Churches 2. That the English Divines in the name of all this Kingdom approved it in Holland 3. That the Kings Majestie confirmed it in Scotland 4. That we entertain Sacramentall Communion with all the Protestant Reformed Churches and that the Independents alone do quit it 5. That all the three Kingdoms and the Independents with them by their Covenant and Oath are bound to maintain Presbyteriall Government in Scotland 6. And they are bound to Reform the Church of England according to the example of the best Reformed Protestant Churches and namely that of Scotland which all have onely Presbyterian Government 7. And we have sufficiently confirmed it by sundry Testimonies of Scripture and other Arguments grounded on Scripture 8. Neither is this his Question to the purpose for quaestio quaestionem non solvit I ask him what Sects are to be tolerated in a Kingdom wherein the true Doctrine and true Discipline according to the publike Judgement both of the State and of the Church are established
I maintain that no other according to Gods Word should be tolerated The Independents maintain that theirs should be tolerated I reply if so why not others also To this M. S. can say nothing but will is the cause of it and that Presbyterianism according to this Reason cannot be tolerated I have proved the contrary and am ready to grant that if it be a Sect as theirs is or if the Church and State judge it to be repugnant to Gods Word it should not be tolerated but so have they not done yea they have declared the contrary the Parliament in their Covenant and the Assembly in giving thanks to the Scots Commissioners for their Book 9. And to be short I adjure thee M. S. by the reliques of thy Conscience and pray all men fearing God to declare whether or not in taking of the Covenant and in swearing so solemnly according to their power to put down Popery Prelacy and all Schisms they intended to tolerate them all as M. S. maintaineth they should do M. S. asks me what Opinions donandae sint Ecclesiâ A. S. If the Question be what Opinions are to be approved in the Church in foro externo my Answer is onely such as are approved by publike Ecclesiasticall Authority according to Gods ordinary Providence If the Question be what Opinions are to be tolerated then either you mean to be tolerated in the Church by publike Ecclesiasticall Authority or in private persons If the first I answer None but such as Gods Word tolerateth and the Church judgeth to be true or not repugnant to the Word If the second I answer That that depends upon the Circumstances of Time Persons Place and other c. 1. No false Opinions are to be tolerated by any positive Toleration Consent or Approbation 2. If men erre for want of light much may be tolerated negativè i. e. In not proceeding severely against them till they be sufficiently convicted in case they give no offence to the Church of God but if they give offence they must be punished condignly and after a sufficient morall Conviction they may be punished condignly both by the Church and the Civill Magistrate if they continue and become pertinacious And because I adde That the lesse the difference be the greater is the Schism M. S. pag. 89. Answer 5. telleth us That the man speaking of me knoweth not what Schism is A. S. It a strange thing that having given so cleer a Definition of Schism he should so doubt M. S. Either grant my Definition to be true and so grant that I know it or deny it and I shall God willing make it good But it is but a small matter what I know or know not whether I be ignorant or not for that is no wayes materiall or to the purpose The lesse I know and the more ignorant I am the more easie is it for such an Epistemon as M. S. is to refute me Come to the point I pray thee good M. S The reason of this my Assertion is this viz. The lesse the difference be betwixt Independency and the true Discipline that is to be established whether it be Presbyteriall Government or any other the greater is the breach of Charity and Ecclesiasticall Communion in making so great a Schism and Separation from the true Church of God for so small a matter If it be so ye your selves must make a Separation among your selves for every trifle wherein ye differ in judgement either in Doctrine Discipline or Holinesse of life one from another which ye do not or if ye be minded to do so ye must make all men in your Churches of your minde in every Opinion ye have or else I pray tell me for what Opinions ye are minded to make a Schism and what not A. S. his third Reason God in the Old Testament granted no Toleration of divers Religions or Disciplines Ergo It is not to be granted in the New since the New Testament requireth no lesse Union among Christians then the Old among Jews M. S. p. 89. Answ 1. 1. denyeth the Consequence and the Proof brought by me he granteth So my Conclusion must hold Onely he saith it is ill applyed but it is applyed by way of Argumentation whereof he would have done well to have shewn the defect M. S. pag. 90. and 91. Answ 4. yet doth it not require That he that is stronger should cudgell him that is weaker A. S. God be thanked ye need not much complain of any cudgelling that ye have yet received since this Parliament neither need ye to fear it in time to come if ye force not a new Religion upon the Kingdom against their will or if ye will submit unto lawfull Authority and not make your inconsiderable number the Judges of all this businesse against the Laws of the Kingdom And what you said in your second Chapter we have shewn how absurd it is and how horrible impieties will follow upon your Tenets M. S. p. 89. in his 1. and 2. Answers to the Consequence is That it followeth not Dare you say in matters of knowledge authority and power Ero similis Altissimo remember the fall of the Son of the morning A. S. We pretend not to be like unto God in these considerations in going against the Command as Lucifer but in holinesse as he is holy which cannot be without obedience as in the good Angels Now ye confesse your selves That God hath onely commanded one Discipline and Government in the Church under the New Testament how are we then Lucifers in desiring this onely and no other to be admitted of in the Church How do ye then plead for the Introduction of any other then the true Discipline If Baal be God serve him but if Jehovah be God serve him So if Independency be the Ordinance of God let it be admitted and no other and so of Presbyteriall and all other Government We impose none but desire that the true Discipline may be sought for and afterwards imposed by the Parliament and the Church by each of them according to their Vocation M. S. his second Answer p. 89. is That he denyeth the Antecedent of my Argument or rather distinguishes it viz. That in the Old Testament it was not granted in terminis but in sensu or by consequence for this must be the other part of his Distinction because he prohibited all manner of violence and oppression and charged the rich not to enslave the poor A. S. Reply 1. This is no Law of Ecclesiasticall Government or of Toleration of Heresies Schisms or divers Disciplines in the Church but a Morall Law and a part of the sixth Commandment in not offering violence to the weaker And of the eighth Thou shalt not steal forbidding all sort of Extortion against the poor Now ye are not poor neither is there any man either of the Parliament or Synod about to take your Purse M. S. Yet the Equity and spirit of such Laws extend to spiritualls A.
will have some force otherwayes it hath none at all M. S. 3. Reason If they do not think their Presbyteriall Churches more holy then the Congregationall they are far more guilty of Schism then their Brethren i. e. then Independents For then they are at liberty in point of Conscience to come over and joyn with them whereas the other are in bands and fetters of Conscience and can passe unto them Their Brethren would come to them but cannot they can come over unto these but will not It is the Will and not the Act that maketh Schism and Separation A. S. 1. But if they think not their Presbyteriall Churches more holy all your Argument is ridiculous 2. And I must confesse that M. S. with his Faction are very slight who can make very few Arguments that have any appearance of reason unlesse they be grounded upon their pretended holinesse and that this be supposed as a Principle of Independent Divinity What Seneca saith of Presumptuous Scholars Multi ad sapientiam pervenissent nisi se jam jam pervenisse putassent may be more justly said of your ridiculous Sect changing onely sapientiam in veram pietatem aut vitae sanâ—â—â—iatem 3. Howbeit ye were holier then we yet could we not come unto you and that not so much because ye are not holy as because we finde in your Opinions a great folly yea by consequence more Impiety and Heresie then in sundry Hereticall Churches as we and many others also have elsewhere shewed 4. But can you think that to pleasure every Melancholious brain that differs not from us in Doctrine if he be lesse vicious then others howbeit no wayes more vertuous but onely in opinion concerning Discipline in case that under pretext of Conscience he will not submit unto our Churches that presently all our Churches must submit unto him Or were it not better that he and all his should be sent into America a while till their brains may be brought to better temper We cannot be so foolish as to come unto so inconsiderable a Party whose opinions too are yet unknown And of those that are known some more dangerous then many Heresies 5. What should we have to do with men who plead on this manner for impunity for all sin and Heresie should we admit into our Churches an Anarchy and give power to ignorant Fellows to Preach and make Ministers shall we grant unto women the shingling or gingling of the Keyes of the Church to serve my self with the trim and fine termes of Independent Divinity 6. It is a silly affected distinction of M. S. to say that it is the Will and not the Act that maketh a Schism It is both for Schism is an Act of the Will or a voluntary Act It must be Actus Voluntatis elicitus aut imperatus M.S. 4. Answer That he seeth not wherein the Apologists symbolize with Convents c. A. S. I have shewn it 1. In their Separation from others under pretext of greater Holinesse then other men have 2. And because every Order is Independent one of another just as your Congregationall Churches the Members whereof have no more Communion with Churches amongst us or amongst themselves then the Monks of one Convent with those of another Convent M. S. 5. You couple your self with these Popish Convents implying that your Presbyterians have their Soveraign Judicatory as they A. S. We have no supreme Iudicatory but that of the living God If we have Superiour and Inferiour Iudicatories and the Papists also neither we nor they precisely are to be blamed in that but so far forth as they have the Pope one man for supreme Iudge and Head of the Church which is proper to Christ In that they prove that he is the Antichrist And as it is great pride in them to make him with his Consistory supreme Iudge over the Universall Church So is it a peece of extraordinary pride and self-wit in your Churches that ye constitute sometimes seven or eight simple Fellows how Hereticall soever be their Doctrine and how abominable soever their life supreme Iudges Gods immediate Lievtenants and Independent of all the Iudgements of all the Churches of the World how Orthodox soever be their Opinions and how pious and holy soever be their Practises But against such a Subordination of Ecclesiasticall Iudicatories as we have according to Gods Word no man can take just Exception M. S. saith That he hath answered my twelfth Reason and I have shewed how Absurdly he hath answered A. S. 13. Argument M. S. with his Logico Divinity by a Doctorall priviledge under pretext to reform my Argument deformeth and disfigureth it altogether by his Additions and Confusions in making it Hypotheticall whereas it is meerly Categoricall If he had desired to put it in Form he needed not but to have added or expressed the Proposition which was onely suppressed in this manner They who have but one God one Christ one Lord and one Spirit who are one Body who have one Faith and one Baptism whereby they enter into the Church should have one Communion whereby to be Spiritually fed and one Discipline to be ruled by But we all i. e. Presbyterians as ye call us and Independents we have but one God one Christ one Lord and one Spirit c. Ergo We all i. e. Presbyterians and Independents should have but one Spirituall Communion whereby to be Spiritually fed and one Discipline to be ruled by And from this he inferreth very well Ergo The Independents are not to be tolerated viz. In their Schism Separation or non-Communion M. S. grants all the Argument and afterward distinguishes the Conclusion which is an odde manner of answering of Arguments and proper to his Sect But we must take of ill pay-masters what we may He saith then 1. My Conclusions do not follow from my Premises A. S. But the Argument is in Form If it follow not shew me what fault there is in the Form of it M. S. 2. jeereth the termes of my Argument in calling them one one and one and my multiplied unity and so jeereth the Holy Ghost himself from whom I have borrowed them Eph. 4. Rom. 12. 1 Cor. 12. and 8. 1 Tim. 2.5 I might have added more unities as that we should with one mouth glorifie God Rom. 5.6 we are one Bread 1 Cor. 10.17 we drink in one Spirit vers 13. we are all one in Christ Gal. 3.28 one Law-giver and Iudge Jam. 4.12 Christ prayeth that we may be all one anomgst our selves and one in the Father and the Son John 17.22 23. M. S. his first Solution then is That we ought all to have one Communion and Discipline but not that that is of Classique Inspiration no more then that of Papall or Episcopall Recommendation A. S. 1. At least of this viz. We should have one Communion and Discipline it follows That there should be no Schism or Toleration granted that may make a Schism in the body and dissolve our
he sayes in the next § of my feare it is a just feare grounded upon experience But M. S. Replyeth 1. That some Independents hold that all Sects and Opinions are to be Tolerated as A. S. relateth Ergo In that case his Sect may be secured also A. S. I Answer to the Antecedent And that We feare also viz. That ye would Tolerate all Sects which we will not Tolerate 2. VVe cannot be secure among all Sects for there be some that will not Tolerate us 3. Ye speak so but for the present but if ye had power we know not what ye would do It were better not to Tolerate Sects when we can hinder them then to bring them in amongst us to tolerate us and to give us so just a cause of feare 4. I said onely that there be some of you who would Tolerate all Sects who peradventure are the far lesser part and should not prevaile in their Voices 5. And we know not upon what tearmes they would tolerate us if they were the strongest 6. Neither can your pretended probity secure us we see the Examples and have the experience of your mercilesse Pitty in New England ye are all ejusdem farinae and Caelum non animum mutat qui trans mare currit And what I said of your Piety it can serve you little 1. For I spake but of a few of you viz. of the 5. Apologists 2. Because it was but a judgement of Charity wherein I may be deceived yea wherein I have been deceived 3. Good men sometimes may for want of light be dogged enough to use your own tearmes as ye grant your selfe of your New England Independents Unto his 3. Reply That a poore Toleration is far from Superiority it is true But from a Toleration it is to be feared ye goe further And if ye can get the Civill Magistrate drawn into your Faction as in New-England ye may be as dogged in a short time as they are To the 4. Reply That he thinketh not that I know any such Island It is a wonder that he knoweth it not as well as I but it is little to purpose No more is his Answer for it is but a currish jeere and toucheth not the Argument at all He puts in 5. a Jeere for a Reason God have mercy on the silly Argumenter A. S. My 17. Argument was That the Scripture forbiddeth all Toleration of Sects Revel 2.20 1 Cor. 1.12 3.3 11.16 18 19 20. Heb. 10.25 Gal. 5.12 M. S. his 1. Answer The Scripture doth not forbid all nor any such Toleration as the Apologists desire And remitteth us to his Answer unto my 15. Reason And I remit the Reader to my Reply To the Text of the Revelation 2.20 he saith That by the Toleration of Jezabel is not meant ◠Civill or State-toleration but an Ecclesiastique or Church toleration A. S. Howbeit formally there only be meant an Ecclesiastique Toleration yet by Consequence it reaches to a State Toleration 1. For whatsoever the Ecclesiasticall Senate or Presbytery is bound not to tolerate but must suppresse in the Church that the Civill Magistrate or Senate is bound not to tolerate but must suppresse in the State since he is a Nurse of the Church and a Keeper of the two Tables 2. And so did the Judges and the Kings of Gods people 3. And so doe the Christian Independent Magistrates in New-England 4. Neither is the Christian Magistrate lesse bound to put it out of the State then the Presbytery to put it out of the Church 5. And I would willingly know of the five Apologists their judgement upon this Point neither beleeve I that they dare say or at least doe beleeve that he is not bound to suppresse all sort of Sects that creep in into the Church when the whole Kingdome professeth the true Religion and Discipline 6 However M. S. say that they desire only a toleration for themselves and their Churches in the State yet he pleadeth for a toleration for all Schismaticks Hereticks and Idolaters that may spring up either in their own or any other Church 7. Neither can the Civill Magistrate if he follow Gods Word grant a Toleration without the consent of the Church if he judge it is not corrupted 8. And a Magistrate should be worse then mad that should permit a Sect to come into the Kingdome to preach down the Gospel which he beleeveth 9. Neither can he be Orthodox and tolerate a new Sect unlesse he tolerate us to believe that he is either corrupted by monies or some other way so to doe M.S. his 2. Answer p. 105. is That since only the Church of Thyatira is here charged with this Toleration evident it is that the power of redressing emerging enormities in a Church in every kind is committed by Christ to every particular Church respectively within it selfe and so that they must be cut off only by the particular Church which is troubled by them if there be no remedy otherwise A.S. 1. At least then thus much I gaine by this Argument as you confesse That a particular Church must cut off such as trouble her and consequently is bound not to tolerate them 2. For the same reason other Churches must not tolerate them since they are all sister-Churches Ergo no Church must tolerate them Ergo no member of the Church must tolerate them If no member Ergo the Civill Magistrate in quality of a member of the Church must not tolerate them or he must tolerate them against his Conscience And what he cannot tolerate in the Church as a member of the Christian Church that can he not tolerate in quality of a Christian Magistrate in a Christian State if he can hinder it And if he hath power to punish such as trouble one particular Church how much more hath he power to punish such as trouble all the Churches in the Kingdome as Schismaticks and Hereticks The Civill Magistrate then by consequence may cut them off from the State As for that Question which M. S. moveth here about the Independent power of particular Congregations it is not to the purpose and we discusse it more at large in its own place A.S. There must be no such speeches among us as I am of Paul I of Apollos c. M.S. We joyn heart and hand with you A. S. And I with you so they must not be tolerated when they can be hindred M. S. addeth here a But 1. Every man that saith I am of Paul or I am of Apollos is not to be taught to speak better by fining imprisoning un-Churching or the like but by soundnesse of Conviction A. S. I answer as I have sundry times done Sinners according to the Doctrine of our Churches are 1. To be heard 2. To be sufficiently convicted 3. After sufficient conviction if they be pertinacious to be punished condignely by Ecclesiasticall Censures viz. suspension from the Lords Table or Excommunication And afterward the Civill Magistrate is to doe his duty
S. It is more like that learned men of great abilities should do so then ignorants that have not the abilities The Devill is learneder then they all and yet susteineth as absurd Opinions Divine Plato as learned as they defended the Community of Wives of Children and Goods Zeno did maintaine that there was no moving at all So did sundry great Philosophers maintaine great Errors and great Divines as Origine and sundry of the Fathers strangely mistooke sundry things If-they be so Learned I may say of them what an other said of a very Learned man Vbi bene nemo meliùs ubi malè nemo pejùs where they do well no men do better where they do ill no man doeth worse For Optima cum degenerant fiunt pessima as the Philosophers tell us If formerly I gave them so great praises it was out of Charity which they should not take in rigore justitiae And I must tell you that I have been grievously censured for that my Charitable judgement and that by very learned and godly Divines both here by word of mouth and by some others abroad by Letters which I could easily shew if occasion required What if my Charity gave them as great praises as they were capable of However it be great men may have great Errours what if there be a great Pride with great Learning since it is most certain that Scientia inflat Neither for all their Plea for the power of godlinesse amongst them above all the World and that they do what Flesh and Bloud can do in any juncture of time to come must they pleade that they are without sin I thought not that such praises would so have puffed them up as to have made them thus bragging in their Writings For if they answer not my commendations of them they affront me and then I shall pray them not to be proud of my praises but to merit them And I shall intreat others to pardon my mistaken Charity Bring not my Charity by any meanes for an Argument against me Beleeve I pray you that praises signifie rather the vertue that should be and that we expect of men then that that evermore is If you and they will not be such as I take you to be you must give me leave to take you for such as ye are As for the Protostants in France their example of Suing for a toleration of their Religion serves you nothing 1. For they have obtained it as I told you by the sword in fighting for their Protestant Prince against Papists 2. And their Discipline opens not a gate to all Heresies and Licenciousnesse as yours 3. And if they had had no greater difference with the Papists then the Independents say they have with us they had never been so mad as to have either fought or sued so long for it 4. They were compelled to Idolatry and to be Actors in the damnation of their own souls against the light of their Consciences but ye can say no such thing for your selves neither is it more reason that such Protestants as ye are should be rather tolerated by Protestants for your Discipline as I have sundry times said openeth a door to all Heresies and Corruptions that Satan can invent it is worse by consequence a hundred times then either Popery or Arminianism are formally As for your eminent deserts and merits 1. I know them not 2. As some Independents may merit and deserve well of the State so may others demerit as much 3. But no man can merit a licentiousnesse to be wicked and to bring a mischief upon the State and Church both such as a Toleration of all Sects and Heresies would bring If you cannot submit unto a common Government of the Church as others and live more humano it is against all reason that ye should be tolerated neither must Religion be framed according to your Accommodation as you pretend but your Accommodation rather according to Religion To your Demand about those that are of my Iudgement they needed not to be suiters for a Toleration for the Discipline that they suffered for was already established by Law As for the rest of this Section it containeth onely his proud Iudgement of my Reasons and some fooleries which I hold it not worth the while to take notice of To your secondly I answer that those of whom I say that sundry of themselves could not deny it c. are not the five Apologists but others Independent Ministers and some of the ablest among them whom I did entertain upon that discourse And M. S. himself telleth us Suppose that course or means which the Apologists insist upon be not in the eye of reason or humane conjecture a mean sufficient for such a purpose yet if it be a means which God hath authorized for the effecting it will do the deed Here he mistrusteth the reason and appealeth to Gods Word whereof we see nothing here 3. M. S. saith that they have shewn it from Gods Word but God and men it seems are not yet agreed to have it so generally seen as is to be desired A. S. Neither is it shewn neither can it appear Nam non entis nulla sunt accidentia things that are not have no Accidents neither can they be seen And what men can agree unto I know not for some times they dream that they see things that are not But sure I am that God will never agree that it be according to his Word And what you say of your hope all the Kings of the World cannot hinder you to hope for no man is without all hope but the damned souls in Hell Onely this I say That of your hope you may say O spes inanes M. S. To that where I say the refusall of a toleration will help to confirm the Churches and the people in the Truth He answers That he knoweth not in what truth Therefore I tell him that I mean the Truth of our Discipline and the Truth how intolerable is a toleration of Sects and of so dangerous a Sect And the reason is because that if ever the rest of the Churches or the People see so venerable and learned an Assembly condescend to such an absurd Opinion and Demand they will not beleeve that it is so absurd as it is For many men are led by Authority and take many things upon the trust of great men or when they see such an Assembly condescend unto such errours they will not be so diligent to enquire for the Truth as otherwayes they might be A. S. 21. Argument Neither can it viz. Toleration but overthrow all sort of Ecclesiasticall Government for a man being censured in one Church may fly to an other and being again suspended in that other fly from thence to another and so scorn all the Churches of God and their Censures and so this Order by necessary consequence will breed all sort of disorder M. S. Answereth 1. That he joyeth that I Prophesie that the Independent Government
will overthrow all other Government and addeth Faxit Deus A. S. 1. My words contain no prophesie but a consequence 2. I said not that the Independent Government which is no Government but aequivocè as canis coelestis is canis but that the toleration of Independent Government would overthrow all Government 3. In the 2. § of that Page 110. he acknowledgeth his mistake because of my following words And so this Order by necessary Consequence will breed all sort of disorder To this M.S. answereth 1. That it will not breed the disorder of oppressing Consciencious men for Conscience sake A. S. 1. All sort of disorder must not be taken pro singulis generum sed pro generibus singulorum 2. The Syncategorema all there signifies onely a great number of disorders 3. No more doth the Presbyterian Order oppresse Consciencious men or do any thing that you tell there 4. Howbeit it breed not those disorders which you mention there yet it breedeth sundry other disorders which we have already demonstrated 5. It oppresseth Consciencious men 1. In hindering them to get their Consciences fully satisfied in a higher Indicatory 2. By an absolute authority of seven or eight idle yea peradventure debauched Knaves who howbeit their Opinions were never so Hereticall and their practises never so tyrannicall will not submit but oppresse men better then themselves compell them to be gone from their Congregation and so undo them 3. In making them to attend peradventure a yeer or two before they will meet with other Churches to have their unjust Iudgement judged and reversed of which practises see sundry very strange Stories in Master Edwards Book who knoweth them intus in cute which one of their Sect writing in their favour not many dayes ago doth ingenuously confesse They make not indeed men to walk sundry miles for what they might have at home but they sundry times oppresse them at home and undo them for what they might have gotten within a few miles for the hundred part of the losse that they suffered at home whereof see Master Edwards his Antapologia 2. M. S. denieth that they may run from Church to Church But I prove it for if other Churches be Independent of all Authoritative Power they may admit them and howbeit they could not run from Church to Church yet could they set up a Church themselves compounded of seven or eight debauched Fellows like unto themselves as they do here in London M. S. scorneth to answer the rest of my Reasons amounting to the number of seven under pretext that I say that I omitted them but however I omit them the judicious Reader will do well to take notice of them M. S. in all this Chapter bringeth but one onely Text of Scripture for his Opinion and that not by way of Argument but of Answer to one of my Arguments but in the beginning of it he hath some ten frivolous Arguments grounded on the corrupt Reason of his own brains which I will here set down in order and answer them hoping through Gods Mercy that the very weaknesse of the Independents Reasons howbeit we brought no Reasons at all against them would evidently shew how sleight their Opinions and how fond their conceits are M. S. Suppose the Opinion maintained in the latter part of the second Chapter were waved and such a Coercive Power in matters of Religion as A. S. contends for allowed in the Magistrates hand yet that any man should plead for the drawing of his sword against those men c. And a little after that any I say on this side of malignancy should consult the sorrow trouble disgrace suppression ruine of men so holy so harmlesse of such eminent desert in the Cause of Religion State Kingdom me thinks should exceed the line of Humanity and be thought some Inspiration or Suggestion from the great Enemy of mankinde A. S. 1. This Discourse seemeth to imply two Arguments First Men very holy very harmlesse of very eminent deserts in the Cause of Religion State Kingdom should not receive sorrow trouble disgrace suppression or ruine But we the Independents are such Ergo. M. S. his second Argument They who plead for the drawing of the sword consult sorrow c. against so holy men c. have some Inspiration from the Devill or great Enemy of mankinde But A. S. pleads for the drawing of the sword c. Ergo. To the first Argument I answer 1. In generall That I am sorry that this M. S. will hazard the Independents honour in so weak an Argument for if I deny the Minor they will presently cry out that I offend their pretended Power of Piety their harmlessenesse c. And therefore not to offend them I will not say that they are not such Onely I say that whosoever pleads for a Toleration of all damnable and most detestable Hereticks such as deny the Trinity the Incarnation of the Son of God his Mediatorship who call him a Knave and an Impostor who died for us all as this M. S. doth here in his Book can neither be holy nor harmlesse 2. I deny the Major if it be taken absolutely without any distinction for if the Righteous turn from his righteousnesse and do the thing that is wicked he shall die therein Ezek. 33.28 So they are not to suffer for their harmlessenesse and eminent gifts but for something worse 3. I must say That the Minor smelleth somewhat the Pharisee who seemed just in his own eyes And to say nothing else we can produce you a great number of Independents and Independent Ministers no better then other mortall men To the second Argument I answer to the Major 1. They have some inspiration c. if they consult sorrow against them for their holinesse it is true But the Minor is false for I never pleaded any sorrow against them for their holinesse neither am I minded to plead any sorrow or the drawing of the sword against them but onely against such who are turbulent and trouble the Church and State who erect Churches in despite of the Parliament or overthrow the Kings the Parliaments and all Civill Magistrates Authority about the Church and Religion I will not answer unto this Independents Injuries when he calleth all those Malignants who plead for the Civill Magistrates Power as I do and men inspired by the Devill Onely this I say That if such men who curb so the Kings the Parliaments and all Civill Magistrates Authority in such a manner should be protected and maintained by them as they pretend they should be and vaunt they will be which yet I hope shall never be that turdus sibi malum cacat and that they are worthy to drink such as they brew M. S. The Independents have such a considerable strength if not of evidence yet of reason for what they practise and professe A. S. Ergo I know not what I think he would infer they should not suffer sorrow but be tolerated A. S. 1.
be taken for a Politicall Power that is extrinsecall to the Church whereby he punishes Hereticks and Schismaticks by Civill punishments the Minor is false as I have already shewed by my Arguments And what he saith of my tendernesse c. it is but Language instead of Reasons 2. If the Extrinsecall power be taken for a remote power or in actu signato the Minor is false neither proveth he it but we have proved the contrary for both Pagans and Christians have it If it be taken for a neerer Immediate power or in actu exercito the Minor is true of the Vnchristian but false of the Christian Magistrate as I have told you again and again and proved it 3. But is not this Power granted to the Civill Magistrate by the Christians of New England 4. And was it not granted him in the Old Testament M. S. 8. Argument The exercise of a Coactive power of the Civill Magistrate against Hereticks Schismaticks c. in matters of Religion tends directly to prevent hinder or suppresse the growth of the Knowledge of God and Jesus Christ in the Church and State and the Reformation of Doctrine and Discipline Ergo It is not of Divine Institution A. S. I answer 1. I deny the Antecedent or I distinguish it if it do all that per accidens I deny the Consequence if per se the Antecedent is false But M. S. proveth his Assumption in substance thus When the Civill Magistrate holds any thing in Religion it is a great temptation and discouragement upon the Subject to search out the Truth in Scripture for if he finde it against the Tenets of the Civill Magistrate one of two things must follow Either out of fear of punishment he withholdeth the truth in unrighteousnesse and so hath God and his own Conscience for his Enemy or else he professeth it and so hath his bones broken for it So these two dangers may tempt him not to read the Scripture A. S. 1. This proveth not that thing which is denyed 2. I deny that the power of the Civill Magistrate since it is onely to good Rom. 13. can per se cause any such Temptation 3. Howbeit a man discover any Truth in Scripture against the Tenets of the Christian Magistrate that he needs to fear any such thing for the true Christian Magistrate will not be so barbarous against the Truth howbeit he think it to be an errour for he may be curious to learn it and if he that hath found it be prudent and not turbulent he needs not to suffer for it M. S. 9. Argument The exercise of a Coactive power in matters of Religion which A. S. and many others pin upon the Civill Magistrate tends to the gratification of Satan and of carnall and prophane men Ergo It is not of God A. S. I deny the Antecedent for then it should be a gratification of Satan to punish Hereticks and Schismaticks and so to destroy his Kingdom which is mainly up held by them But M. S. proveth it 1. For many of those that are like to suffer by it are men of good Conscience and truly fearing God as the Apologists and men of their Iudgement A. S. 1. We see no appearance that those your men of good conscience are like to suffer howsoever they have very highly offended against the Civill Magistrates Authority and some of you as one M. S. in the first Edition of his Book writes that the name of Steuart hath been funest to England in King James and King Charls 2. If they suffer I le warrant you it will never be for their good Conscience but for some worse thing Again M. S. for fear that we should deny them to be men of good Conscience proveth it by two Reasons 1. Because A. S. confessed it But this hath been sundry times answered 2. Because it is not ordinary that men of loose or no Conscience should delight to swim against the streams of greatnesse or pluralitie in matters of Religion A. S. But the Devill hath his own Martyrs as God hath his And one Vaninus an Atheist in France chose rather to die then to renounce his Atheism and so was drowned for his thus swiming against the streams of greatnesse and plurality M. S. proveth the second part of the Assumption viz. That such a Civill Power in the Civill Magistrate about matters of Religion is a gratification of ignorant and carnall men because they desire alwayes Sects and Opinions in Religion to be suppressed save onely that which shall be authorized and practised in the State for so they shall not be much troubled to seek it they know not where or amongst whom A. S. 1. And if the true Religion be to be established in the State wherefore are they not to be gratified therein What greater crime is it in them then in good men to desire the true Religion to be established in the State and all Sects and Heresies to be suppressed 2. Are they ignorant and carnall who desire one onely and that the true Religion to be established and they onely learned and spirituall that desire many Sects and Heresies whereby the good Name of God is blasphemed to subsist 3. If that be ill I am affraid the next word will be that you will say God did not well in establishing the true Religion amongst his people and in suppressing of Sects 4. And no better do your Independents in New England in suppressing of all Sects save their own If this be a crime I pray God we be all criminall and that God have no greater crime to charge us with 5. But desire you M. S. to have many Sects and Heresies in the Kingdom to shew your great Learning in refuting of them as the Souldiers would have the War to continue to shew their valour and therein to finde their preferment I pray you not to be offended with us if we desire to be gratified with the most ignorant in suppressing them and in establishing the true Religion So the Parliament and Synod are ignorant for this is their desire M. S. 10. Argument That power which in the use of it directly tends to defile the Conscience of men is a power from beneath and not from above But such is the Coercive power in matters of Religion wherewith A. S. would fain befriend himself with the Civill Magistrate Ergo. The Major I grant it The Assumption if it have any sense is this in substance When a man is deeply threatned in case he shall not comply with the State in their Religion against his Conscience 1. Either God leaves such a mans Conscience to it self and it is hardned 2. Or by reflecting upon what it hath done it brings it self into grievous Agonies of which it never recovers afterward A. S. This is a very strange Case of Conscience viz. That M. S. his and such like Independent Consciences are so tender and delicate that they are sorely wounded if they may not have a liberty to become
Hereticall and go to the Devill But I answer 1. The Assumption is false for the Externall Coactive Power that A. S. grants unto the Civill Magistrate is onely to represse Hereticks and Schismaticks after that they are sufficiently convicted by the Church in an ordinary way or by others in an extraordinary way when the Church is negligent in her duty 2. Neither doth M. S. his Confirmation or Case of Conscience conclude any thing against that which A. S. sayes And as for his Supposition either that Conscience whereof he speaketh is right or erroneous If it be right the Civill Magistrate should not presse it against its light or if he happen to do so it is not by Power but by abuse of Power And in such a case he who hath his Conscience well informed must resolve himself to be quiet in case the Civill Magistrate oblige him not to be Actor in any thing against it But if such a man any other or others with him will rise up within the Kingdom or come from Forraign Countries and urge their Religion upon the State and establish it without permission of the Magistrate or against his Laws then their Consciences cannot be right for wherefore should the King Parliament and State be rather bound to admit such mens Religion without sufficient conviction then they to admit his Religion And in such a Case the Civill Magistrate so long as such persons as urge their Religion upon him convict not sufficiently his Conscience may with a good Conscience punish them severely yea with good Conscience cut off their Heads If such a mans Conscience be erroneous the Civill Magistrate doth him no wrong to endeavour that he who hath it be sufficiently convicted and if after sufficient conviction he will not be quiet especially when he is not obliged to be Actor in any thing against his pretended Conscience but will still trouble both Church and State wherefore on Gods Name should he not be punished 2. Is it not better that such a man should perish then that he should make thousands to perish 3. Ravalliack in France and the Monks and Fryers that kill Kings pretend evermore Conscience as the Independents do and yet the Civill Magistrate puts them to death 4. If any mans Conscience which God forbid should dictate him to kill the King and blow up the Parliament should such a man be tolerated under pretext of his tender Conscience 5. Is it not a sin to have an erroneous Conscience And is not he that hath it bound to reform it and to suffer for it in case he reform it not when he hath sufficient means to do it 6. But must every man that doth ill be presently believed when he saith that he hath such a Conscience 7. All this long Sermon of M. S. proveth not that the Magistrate directly and per se but rather that the man himself hardeneth his own Conscience for there is no created Power that directly per se and Physically can work upon a mans Conscience it can onely move it morally in propounding of Objects to it or in Reasoning and yet every true Christian hath a sufficient power to resist such motions which is sufficient to make him in-excusable 8. Neither can his erroneous Conscience excuse him unlesse that its Errour be Invincible Antecedent and he no wayes the cause of it but if it be Vincible Concomitant or Subsequent and he himself the cause of it then it excuseth him not but is a sin and aggravates the sin that proceedeth of it at least extensivè if not intensivè For in such a case it is not his erroneous Conscience that is the cause of the sinfull action of his Will but his sinfull Will that is the cause of his erroneous Conscience 9. The Civill Magistrates threatning per se and directly maketh not his Conscience erroneous but found it such 10. Neither is it the cause that he goes against it For whether ye consider the Civill Magistrates Intention his Iudgement or the Execution of it in such a case they cause no ill but good for his Intention is onely that they be gained to Christ and that they seduce not others His Iudgement condemneth onely their Opinion and commands a punishment answerable to their Sin whereby onely they are hindered to continue in their Heresies or Schisms or to seduce others No more doth the Execution of his Iudgement Ergo. 11. And I pray this new Casuist to tell me whether in some Cases it were not a lesser Sin for a man to go against his erroneous Conscience then to follow its Dictates Whether it were not better for him to sit at home against the Dictate of his Conscience then to go to a Pagan Church and there to adore a Crocodile or a Toad according to the Dictates of it So we see how licentious and detestable this Conscience is that Independents plead so much for that thinketh that it cannot sufficiently enjoy its liberty unlesse that all Schismaticks Hereticks Jews Mahumetans and Idolaters have a free liberty of their erroneous Consciences to adore a thousand Gods yea a thousand Devils a Jupiter a Bacchus a Venus a blinde Fortuna and to Preach such Abominations and that the Civill Magistrates power be ever curtaled or rather altogether taken away in matters in Religion I will not call this a madnesse but I am well assured that many are recommended to the Churches Prayers that are not half so sick either in Soul or Body as these men are in their Consciences Wherefore all that I have more to say unto them shall be onely this The Lord have mercy upon them Christian Reader HAving been desired by some Friends to give a short Discourse of the Independent Government I am resolved to present thee with this following Epitome which sundry have oftentimes required of me The Independent Church is so called because that no particular Congregation amongst them how small how Hereticall and vicious soever it be will depend upon or submit to the Judgement of any other Church yea not to that of all the Churches of the World how Orthodox and holy and how true and just soever their Judgement be They define it Coetus Fidelium a Company of Beleevers meeting in one place every Lords Day for the Administration of the Holy Ordinances of God to publike Edification So according to this Definition neither the Catholike Church which we beleeve in the Creed nor any Nationall Church can be a true Church since they cannot meet together every Lords Day in one place In the Efficient Cause of the Church I see no great Difference betwixt us and them save onely this That they hold it necessary to the Constitution of a Church and of every Member thereof that they all joyn in a particular Church-Covenant as they call it different from that of Grace revealed in Scripture wherein they all swear to live in the Faith and in subjection to all the Ordinances of God cleaving one to another as Members
of one Body and not to depart from the said particular Church whereof they become Members without the consent thereof The Antecedents of this Covenant are 1. Sundry Meetings together of such as are to joyn in it till such time as they may all have a sufficient proof and tryall of the spirituall estate one of another 2. The Civill Magistrates Consent to set up their Church 3. The Consent of Neighbour Churches 4. They ordain a solemn Fast and after Prayers and Sermons one in the name of all the rest propounds the Covenant 5. And they all take it The Consequents of it are 1. The Right hand of Fellowship which is given them by the Neighbour Churches 2. Those who joyn in Covenant are exhorted to stand fast in the Lord. 3. Followeth a Prayer made to God for pardon of their Sins and acceptance of the People We condemn not all Church-Covenants but we cannot approve this of the Independents 1. Because it is not commanded in Scripture 2. We finde no example of it in Scripture 3. And therefore it is nothing else but an humane Tradition 4. Because all or almost all the Covenants concerning Religion that we read of in Scripture are of those that are already and not of those that are to be Members of the Church 5. Because we are in Covenant with God before ever we come to be of Age I shall be thy God and of thy Seed Gen. 17.7 Item Be baptized for to you and your Children the Promise is made Acts 2.38 And from hence all Protestants prove the Baptism of Infants against Anabaptists 6. Because those that were Circumcised in the Old and that are Baptized in the New Testament are Members of the Vniversall Church without any vocall Covenant as double C who is one of these M. S. ses as I hear confesseth freely Ergo They must be Members of some Particular Church for how can they be in the Vniversall Church and out of all Particular Churches So a man might be in the World and in no part of it or out of all the parts of it 7. Because if Children Circumcised or Baptized were not in the Church their condition should be no better then that of Jews and Pagans which can be no great Consolation to any Christian Parents 8. If a man of one Church should take to Wife one of another a hundred miles distant from him she must adhere to her Husband live with him and so quit her own Church and be out of all Churches like a Pagan for she cannot be admitted to the Church whereunto she goeth but after a long tryall So to be married she becometh as a Pagan 9. Such an Oath or Promise is not lawfull for a man may have just Causes which are not evermore to be declared to a whole Church that may oblige him to go and live elsewhere in an other Church 10. Because the Apostles Evangelists and their Followers could not lawfully enter into any such Covenant since they were Vniversall Ministers consequently Members of all the Churches of the World 11. Neither could they make such a tryall of three thousand persons that in seven or eight houres time were added unto the Church Acts 2.12 Such a Covenant includeth a tacite Schism and Separation from all the Churches of the World 13. Neither did the Apostles and other Ministers of the Church for the first three hundred yeers require the Civill Magistrates Consent to set up their Churches 14. Neither is it necessary to the Internall Constitution or Conservation of it since it is Extrinsecall to the Church 15. And some times it is impossible to be had as when he is a Pagan or an Antichristian Christian The Finall Cause of their Church they pretend to be 1. Gods glory 2. The Salvation of the Church and every Member thereof 3. The Internall and Externall Acts of mutuall Communion in Faith and Charity The Matter of their Church they hold to be such Persons as can give some particular Evidences of saving Grace and of their Election and who enter into Church-Covenant together such as may be Arminians as Master Goodwin alias M. S. And as for the Members of other Churches whether they be Dependents or Independents they will not admit them to the Lords Table nor Baptize their Children upon any Letters of Recommendation that they can bring from other Churches yea howbeit they give a sufficient account of their Faith and live without giving any offence at all to any man and so they hold them little better then Pagans The Integrant p rts of this Church are the Flock or People and the Rulers viz. Preachers Teachers Ruling Elders and Deacons They admit none to be Ruling Elders but such as Preach yea to the People they give liberty to Preach also and so quite confound the Offices of Preachers and Ruling Elders which the Apostle distinguishes Rom. 12. 1 Cor. 12. Eph. 4. 1 Tim. 5. Matth. 18. So they confound the charge of the Pastor with the duty of the Sheep and a Ruler with him that is ruled The Form of their Church seemeth to consist in their Church-Covenant The Accidents of it are 1. The number viz. the smallest seven Persons and the greatest as many as can conveniently meet in one place for the Administration of the Holy Ordinances of God 2. Their Doctrine which may be Arminian as appeareth by M. S. alias Master Goodwin who holds very many Arminian Tenets as Justification by Faith as it is an Act or Quality c. Item As some testifie of him A sleeping of the Soul 3. They have no common Confession of Faith or Platform of Discipline in their Churches neither will they have any yea they will not have any constant Confession of Faith or Platform of Discipline in any Particular such is the Liberty or rather the Licenciousnesse of their Faith and Discipline 4. The power to Teach which they gram as I have already said not onely to Preachers but also to Ruling Elders and some of the People 5. The power of the Keyes which they put in the hands of the People yea of the most ignorant impertinent and insufficient of them who have power to create their own Ministers to examine their Doctrine and sufficiency and afterward to admit them to the Charge But whether they have 1. Abilities 2. And prudence enough to do it 3. Whether Christ have committed the Keyes unto them 4. Whether they can do it without confusion 5. Whether they had it in the Old Testament I leave it to any judicious Readers consideration 6. Yea some of them in the Synod grant unto Women some sprinkling I beleeve as some corrected them there they would have said the gingling of the Keyes but of this spinking sprinkling or gingling of the Keyes we read nothing in the Word of God 7. They hold the Object of Excommunication onely to be errours of the Minde against the common and uncontroverted Principles and of the Will against the common and universall practises of Christianity and both against the Parties known light So hardly can any man be Excommunicated 1. For we cannot well know when a man goeth against the common Principles of Christianity since no man can well define them 2. Muchlesse when he goeth against the light of his Conscience or 3. against the common practises of Christianity which are not well known 4. According to this Tenet we cannot Excommunicate Socinians Arminians and other Hereticks and therefore M. S. is admitted to be a Minister in one of their Churches 5. Howbeit they acknowledge no man in their Parish to be a Member of their Church yet can they very well and in good Conscience take a Benefice were it never so great yea of 300 400 or 500 l. a yeer 6. They beleeve that the Civill Magistrate should not and consequently hath no power to punish Idolaters or Hereticks were their Heresie never so great And first so be it said without Blasphemy God should have been in the wrong in commanding it in the Old Testament Secondly And it were very strange that a man should be punished for offending a man and not for blaspheming the good Name of God Thirdly So he should be punished for calling some Independents Knaves but not for calling Jesus Christ the Sun of God and the Redeemer of our Souls a Knave FINIS
we bring passages of Scripture to prove our Opinion that they answer us that they are of Extraordinary things and practises unlesse the Scripture â—â—clare them to be such or that they go beyond the generall Rules commanded in Scripture 3. Because here the proceedings are conforme to those that we have in other Scriptures as in the Old Testament c. As for the Reasons to the first I answer that it cannot be proved that it was extraordinarily gathered 2. And howbeit it had been extraordinarily gathered yet the proceedings therein might have been and were ordinary 3. Because the gathering or indicting of an Assembly is Extrinsecall unto an Assembly and antecedent to it and therefore cannot make it Intrinsecally extraordinary in its proceedings 4. It is onely circumstantiall which cannot make it extraordinary quoad substantiam sed quoad modum and that modus also is Extrinsecall and not so much a manner of being of the Assembly as of him or them who indict or gather it To the 2. Extraordinary Persons who gather an Assembly are not sufficient to make an Assembly extraordinary 1. For then all the Churches gathered by the Apostles had been extraordinary which is most false 2. If they made it extraordinary they must have imparted unto it some extraordinary quality which they did not or at least which appeareth not from Scripture and so it must be holden as if it were not for Scripture is onely a Rule to us in that which it sayeth and not in that which it sayeth not To the 3. Because it was compounded of extraordinary Persons viz. Apostles This answer satisfieth not the Argument 1. It is ridiculous to call all extraordinary that maketh against them 2. Because it was not compounded of the Apostles alone but also of the Elders vers 2.3 3. Because not onely the Apostles but also the Elders judged the businesse v. 2.3 4. Howbeit this Appeale was to the Apostles yet was it not to them in quality of Apostles neither are we bound to beleeve it since the Scripture hath no such thing of it 5. If it had been to the Apostles in quality of Apostles or men who were infallible then could they not have appealed from Paul at Antioch to the Apostles at Hierusalem since he was as infallible at Antioch as they all at Jerusalem 6. The judgement of the Elders had been superfluous for the judgement of the Apostles alone and their Letter alone had sufficed as Canonicall Scripture to direct them at Antioch in their Proceedings What needed they adde a fallible judgement to that that was infallible or mans judgement to Gods and yet they contented not themselves with that of the Apostles alone 7. If this Assembly at Jerusalem had been extraordinary and infallible because it was compounded of extraordinary Persons viz. of Apostles Ergo. so was that of Antioch because there was St. Paul an Apostle 8. By the same reason it must have been ordinary and fallible because it was compounded of ordinary and fallible persons viz. the Elders 9. If the Apostles had been there in quality of Apostles and infallible Ministers what needed they so long to consult and dispute in the Assembly v. 10 A simple Decision without any Consultation might have sufficed for Disputes and Consultatioâ—â— amongst men are not of things which they hold altogether certain and out of doubt but of things uncertain and doubtfull 10. I deny the Consequence viz. That if a Councell or Assembly be compounded of extraordinary Persons Ergo it is extraordinary for by the same reason if there were seven or eight Apostles dineing or sleeping together it should be an extraordinary and Apostolicall dinner or sleeping 11. Neither are all things that are done by extraordinary Persons extraordinary for the Apostles did eate drinke and sleepe neither yet was that Extraordinary Eating Drinking or Sleeeping but ordinary as in other men 12. Because the Apostles were materiall parts or members of the Assembly their gifts as infallibility and offices were personall and denominated themselves onely and not every Assembly wherein they were or might be for as the Forme that denominateth their persons belongeth onely to them so doth the denomination proceeding from it 13. Because the parts of Assemblyes and Consociations may have contrary Formes and denominations secundum entiatem as we see in Republicks for the whole Republick may be rich and potent and the members thereof very poore because of the great Tributes they pay to the State and the Statepoor and the members or Subjects rich because of the Subjects great Trading and profit and their small Contributions to the State So in the Church in an Ecclesiasticall Assembly of Prophets as that of Achab there may be one Prophet infallible yea if there had been 400. yet that Councell had been as it was fallible because of the Plurality of the votes of the false Prophets so an Army of 40000000. of Pigmees and Dwarfs is a great Army and every one of them a little man To the 3. I have already answered To the 4. Answ 1. It was not to the Apostles in quality of Apostles as I have proved it 2. Because it was also to the Elders 3. I deny the consequence for by the same reason it should be ordinary since it was to the Elders who were ordinary Ministers To the 5. 1. I deny the consequence for all things that were in the begining of the Church were not extraordinary since many of them continue now as ordinary 2. Because if it be extraordinary because it was in the beginning of the Church Ergo all that we have in Christian Religion must be Extraordinary since there is no thing in it but it had a Beginning so Faith Justification the Sacraments and all the Ordinary Ministers of the Church should be extraordinary since they have a beginning with the Church 3. Howbeit it was Extraordinary in respect of Time as all things at their first Beginning yet was it not Extraordinary in respect of Gods Law which ordains it to be ordinary Answ 3. This Argument may be other wayes eluded in saying that this businesse was not judged at Hierusalem by way of Appeale but by way of Councell not by Judges but by Friends and Brethren Rep. But this Evaston is no better then the rest 1. Because the Text conteineth no such thing and we cannot take it upon their word no more then they will take it upon ours unlesse we prove it as we here doe 2. Because heretofore we have shewn many yea almost all the conditions necessary to an Appeale whereof the rest may be inferred by necessary consequence 3. Because S. James who as some Divines conceive was the Moderator or Praeses of the Assembly saith not My Counsell is but My Sentence is which is not the stile of a Counsellour to a friend but of a Judge 4. The Judgement in the Text is called a Decree 5. If it had been but a Councell the Pharisees might as well yea more easily have