they had put on they not living to the adorning but to the shame of the Gospel This is the Summ of the Discipline and Government that Christ left to his Church for ought appears by any plain Scripture And what need of more or other For if the Ministers of the Everlasting Gospel have free liberty to Instruct break Bread exhibit the Sacraments and Pray the Civil Magistrate hath sufficient Power by God's own Ordinance to order all the rest And their Commission extends no farther viz. Go ye and teach all Nations baptizing them in the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you Matth. 28.19 20. Cura Animarum Salvation and Damnation of Souls being of Everlasting consequence and of the highest concern in the World to every individual is beyond all peradventure and contradiction the main Duty and Glory both of Priest and Prelate and to be apt to teach to be instant in season out of season to reprove rebuke and exhort with all long suffering and doctrine 2 Tim. 4.1 2. for hereunto most especially and if not onely they are called as was Aaron and if not called unto this Duty they are called unto none by any Patent or Commission from Heaven This was the Government the Apostles used and left no other and the Gospel prospered under it then and why it should not prosper under it still no reason can be asscribed however let us trace the steps thereof and see by what vile arts and means it became degenerated into meer worldly Forms set up for meer worldly Ends and Interests In the Days of our Saviour whilst on Earth there was a common Purse which Judas carried which was always filled and supplied with the free-will Offerings of pious devout Princes and of private Persons who plentifully contributed their Temporal Riches to the Churches which was first instituted kept and distributed for two Ends only viz. First For the Necessities of Christ and his Apostles Preachers of the Gospel Secondly For Alms for the Poor which was distributed as the Lord commanded by Judas who was a Thief and usurped to himself the said Goods common to the Apostolical Colledge and was so Covetous that he sold to the Jews the very Person of Christ When Christ was ascended into Heaven the Holy Apostles in the Church of Jerusalem kept on foot the same Holy institution and for the self-same Ends viz. for the Necessities of the Ministers of the Gospel and for Alms for the Poor the Faithful in those Days making all their Goods common sold their Possessions for the same Purse or Stock and Uses So that the Community of the Church was not distinct from the particular of each faithful Man Yet this Custom of having all things in common went not out of Jerusalem And in other Churches planted also by the Holy Apostles this Custom was not observed neither did it last long in Jerusalem Whereupon 26 Years after Christ it is read That the publick was distinct from the private every one knowing his own but the Money being common in that Church as in others founded in Oblations which placed in common served onely for the Ministers and for the Poor The first Day of the Week which for that cause was called the Lord's-Day the Faithful met together and each one offered that which he had set apart of the foregoing Week for the Necessities of the common which was administred and distributed by the Apostles themselves for a short time after the Ascension whence arose murmurings and discontents and many dissatisfactions some thinking they were neglected and had too little and that others had too much which gave great trouble and distractions to the Apostles which they considering and finding that they could not attend this perfectly together with Preaching the Word of God they resolved to stick close to the Ministery of Preaching and Teaching and Praying continually and therefore appointed for this Office of having care of Temporal things another sort of Ministers Deacons quite disserent from that we see done in these Days wherein the Pope and Chief Prelates of the Church attend the Government of Temporal things and the Office of Preaching and Teaching and the Doctrine of the Gospel neglected and left unto Friars or Brethren and inferior Priests in the Church Wherefore they directed the Brethren to look out among themselves from the body of the Faithful Seven Men of honest report full of the Holy Ghost and Wisdom whom they appointed for that Ministery that they might give themselves continually to Prayer and to the Ministery of the Word And wheresoever they founded a Church they also appointed Deacons in the same manner and to the same Ministery As also they ordained Bishops and Priests and other Ecclesiastical Ministers Fasting and Praying preceeding And the common Election of the Faithful following after observing inviolably this order never deputing any Man to any Ecclesiastical Charge who was not first Elected by the Universality of the Church which is of all the Faithful together This Custom was observed not only during the life-times of the Apostles but even about two hundred Years maintaining the Ecclesiastical Ministers and the Poor also with the publick Stock raised by such Oblations And the fervent Zeal and Charity of those Times was so great that the Oblations amounted to very great Summs In the Church of Rome that rich City Marcion about the Year 170 gave a free-will Offering at one time of Five thousand Crowns of Gold in the Church of Rome who afterward holding Erroneous Opinions in matters of Faith he was expelled from the Congregation and all his Money restored to him This rich City grew so rich by those Oblations that after Two hundred and twenty Years the Roman Emperours coveted them Whereupon Decius the Prince arrested St. Lawrence a Roman Deacon to take the Ecclesiastical Treasures from him but he being aware thereof distributed them all suddenly and so disappointed the Tyrant The Church thus abounding in Riches the Clergy began then to degenerate and to live at ease not being content with the daily Food of the Church but would have their separate shares every Day or Month or longer and live where they pleased which tho' it declined from the Primitive Perfection was yet winked at by the Fathers but it rested not here for the Bishops began to fail the Poor of their due and kept more for themselves and so growing Rich with the Goods of the Church dealt also in Usury to increase in Riches and withall leaving off the Care of Teaching the Doctrines of Christ and busied themselves in getting Pelf of which St. Cyprian complains in his time Tho' the Church possessed so much Wealth yet it had no settled or stable Goods at the first Yet in France and in Italy some left or gave stable Goods to Churches which in the Year 302 were all confiscated by Dioclesian and Maniminian tho' in France
any Foreign State or Power Upon this Popish Foundation which hath not the least ground in Scripture stands our Darling Ecclesiastical or Church-Discipline and Regiment a meer Popish Relick and Hierarchy set up only not to minister unto but to domineer contrary to Christ's Precepts and Examples And our Ecclesiasticks have not as yet made it their concern or business to endeavour a farther Reformation thereof tho' designed even from the beginning of the Reformation in Henry the Eighth's Days but are very well pleased to eat the Fat and drink the Sweet thereof And tho' they know that their Incroachments and Usurpations have been all got by Popish Priest-craft and by which they have for above 1000 Years cajoled and fooled both Crowns and People out of their just Rights and subjected Caesars and great Princes and Principalities to their own Empire And instead of a pure Gospel Government have Established to themselves a mighty Throne of Iniquity and Abominations fitted for Pride Domination self-ends and Interest c. Which Priest-craft togegether with Antichrist began to work in the Days of the Apostles even from Judas's Purse and continues to this very Day which is demonstrably made out as by many Histories so more punctually and particularly by Father Paul s Treatise of Beneficiary matters shewing how and when and by what Priest-craft all their Acquisitions Friars Annals Arms Spiritual Benefices Unions and Vacancies of Benefices Canons Cardinals Coajutors Commendam's Election of Bishops and Priests Exemptions Goods Ecclesiastical Appeals Monks Monasteries Indulgencies Investitures Pluralities Non-residence Excommunication Episcopal Audience Absolutions Dispensations Prebends c. were acquired used and abused A foul Mistake and Crime to think to Establish the Church with good Government taken from human Reason as if t were a Temporal State The Church and Kingdom of Christ as it is more Excellent than any other Kingdom in the World the Scepter of Righteousness being the Scepter of his Kingdom and to which Kingdom all other Kings and Princes ought to bow down and be subservient so it and the Government thereof differs from all other Governments and Kingdoms First It hath but one Head and that not by Election or Succession but by everlasting Continuation Secondly This Head chose his Church or Kingdom and not the Church him John 15.16 Luke 32.23 Thirdly The Laws of this Kingdom are more excellent and more unchangeable than the Laws of any other Commonwealth or Kingdom as being the Dictates and Precepts of Christ the onely and Eternal Head and are the unchangeable Copies and Expressions of his Immutable and most Holy Will Fourthly The Obligements and Conformity of every Member thereof unto these Laws are far more strickt and severe than in any other Commonwealth or Kingdom viz. That every one should love his Lord and King above all and his Neighbour and fellow Citizens as himself should abstain from all appearance of Evil and resist unto Blood striving against Sin c. Fifthly In the visible Government of his Church and Kingdom he hath appointed a Priesthood by irrevocable Ordination in which it is dissimular to all Temporal Governments as Officers of his Church and Kingdom to continue after his Ascension viz. Priests and Bishops and soon after his Ascension the Apostles added Deacons also by Ordination What Powers Christ gave them what Duties be obliged them unto are visible by their Commission written in great and indelible Characters viz. Go teach all Nations baptizing them in the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you and so I am with you to the end of the world Matth. 28.19 20. and they were to Preach not themselves but Christ Jesus the Lord and themselves the servants of his Church for Jesus sake 2 Cor. 4.5 This is the Summ of their Commission and Authorities that Christ left them Christ well knowing that his Apostles and Ministers and their Successors were to gather him a Church from among both Jews and Gentiles all bitter Enemies to him and his Gospel and to Establish it in the Bosom of their Kingdoms did prescribe them such a Government and Laws as they might any where execute peaceably without prejudice to the Subjects of any Commonwealth or Kingdom either in their Lives or Fortunes no other Subjects being subject unto that Spiritual Regiment but onely such as embraced the Christian Religion In this Christian Church Christ ordained Officers to Teach Baptize Ordain and Administer his Sacraments but for what concerned Honesty and Dishonesty doing Good and working Wiekedness and breaking the Laws of Morality Christ gave many general Rules and Precepts to the whole Church who were to Govern its own Body and the Officers thereof and not the Officers the Church or Body viz. to love one another even our Neighbours as our selves c. And if any did trangress the Laws not peculiar to them as Men but as Christians if the Offence were private then they were privately to be admonished If publick then they that transgressed openly were to be rebuked openly but if after Friendly Admonitions and Reprimands private and publick they still continued incorrigible then not to own them as Brethren nor keep company with them with such no not to cat and in sine pursue and proecute them as Publicans and Heathens i. e. Sue them in the Civil Courts And this is the Summ of the whole Government and Discipline which Christ left to his Church and any other there is not extant in Scripture nor is there need of any more or other as is hinted before Let the Pope Prelate or Paesbyter demonstrate any other Form of Church Government if they can they know they cannot but they will pelt us with Stories of another Government and of its Antiquity and general Use thereof for many Ages Be it so let them derive it as high as they can from that very Day and Date the very beginning of Popish Priest-craft will appear which by good management heaping Pelian upon Ossa now one thing and then another it early arrived at that monstrous heap of Irregularities nay Impieties it is now at in the Irregular use of the same in both Churches Take it as it is with the best Construction can be made of it What Concord what Agreement had it with the Government set forth in the Gospel even the same that Light hath with Darkness and Christ with Belial To Day to burn Books and Tenets of Men as pious and learned and having as precious Souls to save as themselves and to morrow suspend and extravagantly punish Ministers and others for writing Rebukes of Sin or not reading a Book of Sports or for Lecturing Excommunicate others for not paying Fees or not observing the Orders of their Courts and of their Officers Chancellors Surrogates Archdeacons Officials Sumners c. And if an Excommunicate Person come into the Church in the time of Divine Service the Celebration thereof is to
in Parliament 4 Car. for that they tended to alter and subvert the whole Frame and Fabrick of this State and Commonwealth that they tended to infuse into the Conscience of his Majesty the perswasion of a Power not bounding it self with Laws which King James in his Speech March 21. 1609. to the Parliament calls Tyranny with Perjury he endeavours to perswade the Conscience of the Subjects that they are bound to obey commands illegal yea he damns them for not obeying them he robs the Subject of the Property of their Goods and seeks like Faux and his fellows to blow up Parliaments and Parliamentary Power c. That they hold it a great presumption for a private Divine to debate the Right and Power of the King which is a matter of such high Consequence as to be handled only in Parliament and that with moderation therefore upon the whole matter he was censured to be Imprisoned during the pleasure of the House Fined 1000 l. to make his submission at both Bars suspended three Years from the exercise of his Ministry disabled to have any Ecclesiastical Government or Secular Office for ever disabled to Preach at Court his Book to be burnt in London and in both Universities and the re-printing thereof to be inhibited by his Majesties Proclamation Notwithstanding all these Censures Reprimands and Judgment of Parliament yet such Juglers were the mighty Church of England Priests and Prelates and such was the Prevalency Potency and Impudency of the then Court Clergy no Nathaniels that they procured their Royal Pardons of all Errors heretofore committed by them either in Speaking Writing or Printing and Manwaring was immediately presented to the Rectory of Stampford Rivers in Essex and had a Dispensation to hold it together with the Rectory of St. Giles's in the Fields Rushwerth's Collect. when as the justness of the Nation required their severe Reprimands nay their Punishments nay the Muzling of their Mouths These and their Abettors no Nathaniels Bishops of London Durham Rochester Oxford and others being of the same Quire and Chorus sung the same Tune and boasted themselves to be the true Church of England Men but the Archbishop-Abbot though Primate and Metropolitan of all England and multitudes of others both Bishops Priests and Lay much more Loyal and more True Church of England Men than themselves were branded for not being right Church of England Men and reviled as Puritanical Factious what not Under which Notion the Archbishop Abbot suffered being disgraced at Court commanded to withdraw into the Country Sequestred c. Whoever will seriously consider how Industriously Active and Instrumental the Bishops then in Vogue who were the Bishops of London and his Complices viz. Durham Rochester Oxon. St. Davids and others were to procure Dr. Alexander Leighton a learned Scotch-man Mr. Burton B. D. Mr. Pryn Barrister and Dr. Bastwick to be so inhumanly censured in the Star-Chamber and High Commission viz. Imprisoned Fined Whipt Pillored Ears cut off Cheeks branded with other Severities fitter for Infidels nay for Brutes rather than Christians and for what not truly for Crimes scarce Peccadilloes but rather for Rebukes of Sin as their Works do testifie in respect of what abominable Doctrines their own Priests preached countenancing and preferring those that Preached them espousing their Cause as their own and so became participes criminis tho' against the Interest and Sense of the whole Kingdom assembled in Parliament whereby and by their being a constant dead wait for the Court against the Kingdom they brought so great a Disdain and Contempt on their Hierarchy and those Courts that the Nation was not able to bear them and was forced to take away both these Courts and their Priviledge of Sitting in the House of Lords On which I shall only Remark thus much viz. That those Ecclesiasticks that preached Prerogative highest tho' to the ruine of the Nation and tho' condemned by the whole Kingdom in Parliament and that severely and with high Resentments yet when the Parliament was up Bishop Laud and his Complices no true but Mungril Church of England Men so improved their Interest at Court that they were preferred and others that did but Write and Preach against their violent and unconscionable Proceedings were barbarously censured and used which the Parliament so laid to Heart that they took away both these Courts And when those Three viz. Prin Bastwick and Burton returned from their designed perpetual Imprisonment they were met and caressed all along the Road and received by the City with great Joy and Acclamations And some while after Bishop Laud came to his unhappy Doom how deservedly I judge not If so to countenance and prefer those that Preach Doctrines so destructive to whole Nations and to Persecute learned and pious Men by the Character of a right Church of England Man I must confess that I cannot distinguish between Nathaniels and those that can swear by the Lord and Melcom I Appeal to the whole World whether of those two Contemporaries Archbishop Abbot or Bishop Laud were the Nathaniel the truest Church of England Man Abbot refusing and Laud granting an Imprimatur to Sibthorp's Sermon which was condemned to be burnt and yet Abbot Discountenanced Sequestred sent into the Country c. and Laud advanced Besides I verily believe that it cannot be proved by any plain place of Scripture that there is any Power under Heaven Ecclesiastick or Civil that hath lawful Authority to forbid any Man lawfully qualified to Preach the Gospel or to Prosecute any Man for denying submission to the use of Ceremonies no ways Essential to the Salvation of Souls If so what are we modestly to think of those Ecclesiasticks and their Adherents that ever since the Reformation Persecuted our Dissenters for Non-conforming to such commands What made so many of our Learned Pious Conscientious Clergy and Laiety Orthodox both in Life and Doctrine cry Migremus hinc and plant themselves in Foreign Barbarous Countries but Persecutions for their Consciences and for Rebukes of Sin rather than for any Crimes or Sins And yet their Persecutors had the Impudency of Abab the son of Omri who did evil in the sight of the Lord above all that went before him to tax them for Troublers of Israel when themselves Abab-like troubled it for they medled not with the Conformist but the Conformist with them not considering that Christ came to take away the heavy Yoke of Jewish Ceremonies and he and his Apostles never used nor prescribed any other and why any other Authority should impose any other Ceremonies and compel Obedience to them whereby they require other Conditions of Gospel-Communion than ever Christ himself did or his Apostles after him is past all Understanding They would oblige us to shew us by any one plain place of Scripture that Christ hath given any Charter to his Church or to any Officers thereof to require more Ceremonies to be admitted into his Fellowship and Worship than he himself hath done or to
deny their Communinn that are as capable of Heaven without the use of them as themselves with the use of them To the Council met at Jerusalem Acts 15. consisting of Apostles and all the faithful in the Church and to the Holy Ghost it seemed good to lay upon them no greater burthen than things necessary yet some of our Mungril Church of England Men taking themselves to be wiser than either the Apostles or the Holy Ghost have dared to impose Ceremonies and Observances no way necessary nor conducing to the Saving of Souls or Edification yea and more strictly requiring Conformity unto them punishing more severely the breach of them than the breach of Gods Precepts Tho' to err manifestly against the Scriptures be the most dangerous and greatest blindness that can possibly befal any Christian and the greatest Chastisement that God can impose in punishment of them whoever shall make use of the Divine Authority to serve their own turns in any worldly Interests yet so active is the Zeal of Priests of enlarging their own Phylacteries their Greatness and Impery that they make no Bones of wresting and perverting any Scripture Old or New to make it serve their turns which in plain English is to make Godliness wait upon Gain Pride and Ambition Let us now also add and consider the grand Pique these Priestly Court Parasites pure Church of England Men have had against Puritans the sober and thinking part of the Nation and Puritanism of old and the same under the names of Whigs and Phanaticks the Arts and Tricks they have used to suppress the Purity and Power of Religion by reviling their Persons decrying and suppressing Lectures on the Week-days Sermons on Sundays in the Afternoon and Conventicles and giving encouragement to Idleness Looseness and Prophaness in the People Witness the Book allowing Sports on the Lord's Day Printed 1633. and the Countenance given thereto by the then Court Prelates and Prelatical Priests who procured a Royal Proclamation to justifie the same And Archbishop Laud sequestred Mr. Wilson four Years for not Reading that Book and prosecuted him in the High Commission Court for not Reading the Prayers of the last Edition commanded by the Archbishop Nalson 571. Who yet Countenanced Publick Sports on the Lord's-Day by the Examples of the Reformed Churches beyond Sea and for the Publick Dances of our Youth upon Country Greens on Sundays after the Duties of the Day so Bishop Bramhall otherwise a pious Person and stout assertor of the Protestant Religion against Popery who sees nothing in them but innocent and agreeable to that under sort of People who likewise takes the promiscuous License to unqualified Persons to read the Scripture to be far more prejudicial nay more pernicious than the over rigorous restraint of the Romanists p. 641 642 643. This may be the Court Dialect and Prelatical Gospel but certainly not Apostolical for the same Equity for keeping the Sabbath strictly yea very strictly not Jewishly Ceremonious is as incumbent and obliging unto us under the Gospel at this Day as to the Jews under the Law I cannot understand such Liberty to be keeping of the Sabbath but rather a polluting of it Isai 56.2 6. Keeping of the Sabbath is not to rest only from bodily Labour but to abstain from doing our own pleasures and our own ways and not speaking our own words Isai 58.13 14. and abstaining from the delights of Sin as well as from the Works of our ordinary Callings What! weary of strict keeping the Sabbaths here and yet presume on the expectation of an Eternity which shall be nothing else but Sabbaths Certainly our Sabbaths here are but an Earnest and a Pledge of that Eternal Sabbath which we desire to Celebrate with Saints and Angels in Heavenly Places I wonder how so Pious a Prince and of such mighty Insight and Understanding could be so imposed upon by his Prelates and to Countenance such a Book by his Proclamation I wonder also how Bishop Bramball could shew such dislike of unqualified Persons Reading the Scriptures when to search them is a Precept Universal and to judge of Doctrines also and whereas there 's nothing in them of absolute necessity to Salvation to be believed but what is very obvious and intelligible to every indifferent capacity Bold Church of England Men that dare to be wiser than Almighty God by taking upon them to foresee Dangers that God never did foresee and to prevent them by such Methods as thwart God's own Appointments Beyond all peradventure such Doctrines such Practices such Methods can never conduce to the Benefit and Service of God's Holy Church and Chosen or to the Putity or Propagation of the Gospel but are rather a muzling of their Mouths who should tread out their Corn which should bring forth the food of Life Everlasting unto the People However tho' there have been such Priests and Prelates that have so acted yet I am not of their Opinion who therefore deemed them Papists in Heart No no some of them have given abundant Testimony to the contrary by their worthy Works as of Archbishop Laud Bramball and others But it is too plain that they improved what Interest they had at the upper end of the World towards tho Setting up and Advancing the Power Impery and Grandeur of the Church Men and to keep the Laiety under and did not improve their Interest towards advancing the Purity and Simplicity of the Gospel or towards the making of a high way of Holiness through out the Land that way-fairing men though fools might not err therein Isai 35.8 that being certainly their greater Duty to have bestowed themselves and their Interest on the benefit and Service of the Church rather than of the Pride and Ambition of Church Men. Thus much by way of Caution to prevent the like for the future being of Opinion that the Persecuting Dissenters and Conventicles is as National a Sin as Drinking Drabbing and Swearing and ought to be as nationally to be lamented both by Clergy and Laiety For I must confess my self absolutely ignorant of any one thing or signal Constitution from the very beginning of the Reformation to this very day to which the Dissenters were required to conform and submit that was essentially necessary either to the Salvation of Souls or to the more pure and sincere Preaching of the Gospel unto which they deenid their Conformity or Submission They would yet very much oblige us if they would make known unto us such Constitutions if any such there be for if in truth they have not been such then the Imposers not the Dissenters are the Separatists and Schismaticks for tho very self same Reasons that the Papists are Schismaticks not Protestants And I am afraid that it is not Conscience but finister ends that makes Prelates contend so out of measure for things no way Essential to Salvation According to St. Cyprian In sinu sacerdorum ambitio dormit ibi sub umbrâ recubat in Secreto Tholami
is not necessary for the Raising of Aids and Subsidies Rush 602. An. 1628. That there was a general fear of secret Working and Combination to introduce into this Kingdom Innovation and change of our pure Religion by Persons much favoured and advanced not wanting Friends even of the Clergy near to your Majesty namely Dr. Neal Bishop of Winchester and Dr. Laud Bishop of Bath and Wells who are justly suspected to be unsound in their Opinions that way It being generally held to be the High-way to Preferment and Promotion in the Church many Scholars do bend the course of their Studies to maintain those Errors that their Books and Opinions are suffered to be printed and published and others written against them and in defence of the Orthodox Church are hindered and prohibited And we find that there hath been no small labouring to remove that which is the most powerful means to strengthen and increase our own Religion and to oppress Popery which is the diligent Teaching and Instruction of the People in the true Knowledg and Worship of God and therefore means have been sought out to depress and discountenance Pious Painful and Orthodox Preachers peaceable in their Disposition and Carriage and yet their Preferment of such is opposed and instead of being encouraged they are molested with vexatious courses and pursuits hardly permitted to Lecture 602 632 634. 1628. Tantum Religio potuit suadere malorum Quae peperit saepè scelerata atque impia facta 195. And our high and mighty Church of England Men did in our memories so superciliously manage their own haughty Resolutions that they necessitated the Parliament to take away their High Commission and their Parliamentary Priviledge forbidding them to meddle with any Temporal Affairs And I do not find that they are grown much more prudent yet for that they manage themselves in this intricate juncture of time at such a rate that all Mens Mouths are ready and stand half cockt against them and I fear may in time provoke the Parliament to do the like or more again they monopolizing all Government over others of themselves which is far from being Apostolical for in the Apostles times and divers Ages after all the People being under the inspection of one Bishop vulgarly the the Pastor of a Parish were wont to meet together not only for Worship but other Church Administrations all publick Acts passed at the Assemblies of the whole People they were consulted with their concurrence was thought necessary and their presence required that nothing might pass without their Cognizance Satisfaction and Consent This was observed not only in Election of Bishops Priests and Officers but in Ordination and Censures in Admission of Members and Reconciling of Penitents and in Debates and Consultations about other Emergencies but not one plain word in Scripture that one Apostle was subject to another nor one gathered Church subject to another or that any Man had lawful Authority to forbid Assembling of the Brethren together whether with or without a Priest In summ when Priest-craft had enlarged their Territories beyond their ancient Bounds which was but one Parish or a select Number scarce exceeding 150 or 200 unto many whereby they became Cardinals and Diocesans c. They thereby cajoled the People of their undoubted Rights and Priviledges and necessarily introduced an essential change of the True and Primitive Government of the Church set up by Christ and set up one to fit their own turn and ends In the very next Ages succeeding the Apostles and so for 400 Years and more one Parish or single Congregation was thought sufficient for one Bishop or Pastor so that as Christians multiplied so separate Congregations Bishops or Pastors so that there were as many Pastors or Bishops as there were several Congregations or Churches in a Province and not one Church or Congregation subject to the Laws Usages or Ordinances of any other No Churches gathered by St. Paul were subject to those gathered by St. Peter nor è contra of them or of any other of the Apostles or of any Churches gathered by their Successors Hence came several and diversity of Rites and Usages in the Ancient Churches without being accounted Schismaticks Separatists Non-cons or Phanaticks and with perfect Love Unity and Uniformity because they held the same Faith and Doctrine And 150 or 200 Souls was thought as many as one Bishop or one Pastor could take charge and give a good account of So that a single Congregation or gathered Church was esteemed a competent Charge for an Episcopal Pastor for the Episcopal Churches were daily multiplied and each Church had Power to govern and order it self and so followed such orders as every Church or gathered Congregation thought fit without being obliged to conform to those of any other Church or Congregation they had no Rule or Order in things of this nature requiring observance or did they regard such Uniformity as later Ages have been fond of to the prejudice of the Unity and Peace of the Church even to the persecuting of Righteous Men in our Kingdoms none of those Churches used the same Prayers all of them had not the same Creeds they had not the same Rites in Baptism or the Lord's Supper nor the same way in Confirming Marrying or Burying they used not the same mode either in reading the Scriptures or Singing they observed not the same methods in admitting Members or preparing them for the Communion neither proceeding to Censures or reconciling Penitents they differed also in their Habits and Postures they varied in their Fasts both for time and manner and observed not the same Festivals This was the Uniformity of the more Pure and Primitive times and no Persecution ensued no Appeals allowed from one Bishop or one Congregation to another So that the Uniformity the latter Ages have been so fond of is a down-right Novelty and Innovation which hath broken the Bond of Charity and Unity and instead thereof hath brought in Animosities Divisions and Separations nay Persecutions on God's Holy People very unworthy and unbeseeming Christian Pastors to make such actings more their business than the suppressings of Sin and promoting of real and strict Holiness All this and much more is so plain in ancient Writers that none but Novices and Chits in Story can be ignorant hereof If you will believe one of the greatest Prelates of the West and at no less than 600 Years distance from Christ In una fide nibil officit Sanctae Ecclesiae diversa consuetudo saith Gregory the first where there is one Faith it s no harm to the Church if there be diversity of usages i. e. the Church hath no harm for want of Uniformity And before him Innocent the first who lived about the Second Century in his Epist ad Decen writes that diversè in diversis locis vel Ecclesiis obtineri aut celebrari videntur To the Justification whereof and to the constant Practice thereof even from the Days of the Apostles unto
this very Day gives abundant Testimony the Churches of the Vaudois called Waldenses Albigenses poor Men of Lyons Chaignard Tramontani Lollards Siccari Fraticelli Gazares Turlepini c. and for their Simplicity Purity and Sincerity termed Evangelical having been for many Hundreds of Years injured reproached despised banished excommunicated anathematized Goods confiscated tortured wearing Miters in derision reviled spit upon Ears cropt their Flesh pincht off with Princers drawn with Horses drag'd up and down broiled roasted stoned to death burnt drowned dismembred smothered in Caves by hellish Papists c. who have preserved themselves from the infection of External Ministries of other Churches defiled with infinite human invention It being the Tenth Article of their Belief viz. That the inventions of Men are an unspeakable abomination before God And their custom is That if any of their Barbes their Pastors shall fall into any foul or unclean Sin he is cast out of their company and forbidden the Charge of Preaching They Teach also Article 15. That because the differences of Ceremonies Customs and Rites which are used in several Churches and are not prejudicial or hurtful to Piety they ought not to be offended one with another or contemn hate and persecute one another And Ph. Melancthon is of the same mind in his Epistle to Mr. Benedict and the rest of the Waldenses viz. that no difference and variety of Rites and Ceremonies ought to disunite our Minds Now if the Churches of the Valleys have been Celebrated through all Ages of the Church as they have been and are yet even to this day as the Worshippers of God in the greatest Purity and Simplicity and nearest the Purity and Simplicity of Christ and his Apostles and the least tainted with Romish Superstitions and human Inventions with what Face can Protestants Persecute Protestants for things indifferent desiring to Worship God in the same Simplicity Purity and Sincerity If the true Church of England be to be known by her Faith Doctrine Articles and Sacraments then beyond all contradiction the Non-con Presbyters and Independants are more truly right Church of England Men maugre all the Obloquies and ungrounded Prejudices against them than those that so imperiously appropriate and usurp that Name to themselves and happily a more sincere Homogeneal part of the Church Catholick without infringing Unity of Faith or true Doctrine But if Ceremonies or Usages not prescribed nor used by Christ or his Apostles in the purest Times must make the distinction then certainly their Non-conformity is more agreeable to the Practice of Christ and his Apostles and the Primitive Times than the Ceremonial Usages and Practices of these later Ages for it must appear upon due examination that there was not one Ceremony either used or commanded in their times and yet Converts as many and then it will certainly and undeniably follow that all those Ceremonies introduced since are Innovations and consequently those that impose them on Severities and Censures are the Innovators and Separatists I had almost said Schismaticks tho' some with Brows of Brass have cast those odious Names on the Presbyters and Independants For those that impose Rites and Ceremonies no ways Essential to the saving of Souls on Penalties and Severities especially unto Silencing and Suspension to which conscientious Persons cannot submit must be the Schismaticks or else our Separation from Rome can hardly be justified If such Tenets and Practices must be the Test and Character of true Church of England Men I must confess my self not as yet so well qualified and I believe few others yet are more true Church of England Men for indeed I have no mind to make Religion lackey and hunt after earthly ends and purposes lest by pertaking with other Mens Sins I should receive of their Plagues also but by such Practices it is plain that they are not all Israel which are of Israel The true Church of England Men are Men of better Principles and more Honesty both Bishops and others who do comply conscientiously with the Innocent Ceremonies of our Church without Reviling Slandering Persecuting or Disturbing those who do as conscientiously Preach the same Gospel in Sincerity tho' in Conventicles without any Ceremonies as Christ and his Apostles did That the Churches of Christ are miserably rent and torn cannot be denied and that the breaches thereof hath proceeded from the Pride Ambition Laziness Uncharitableness and Contentions of the Clergy have been the chief cause thereof is as true The renting of Christ's seamless Coat began even in the days of the Apostles who rebuked them who said I am of Paul I am of Apollo and I of Cephas and I of Christ as if Christ had been divided 1 Cor. 1.22 And therefore Paul besought them by the Name of the Lord Jesus Christ That they would all speak the same thing and that there be no divisions amongst them but that they be perfectly joyned together in the same mind and in the same judgment ver 10. For whereas there is among you envying and strife and division are ye not carnal and walk as men Who then is Paul and who is Apollo but Ministers by whom yee believed 1 Cor. 3.3 4 5. And it is well known that the wisest and most peaceable Men tho' of different Perswasions as protestants Papists and others are of Opinion that Constantine and other Pious Emperours endowing the Clergy with great Powers Priviledges Honours Offices Dignities and Preferments hath been the occasion of the Pride Luxury Tyranny Uncharitableness and Laziness of the Clergy and consequently the bane and destruction of true Holiness Purity and Simplicity that ought to be in the Clergy they being as Baits Snares Allurements and Temptations to seek and hunt after them and so to neglect to seek the Kingdom of God in the first place as they ought to do I may also say with many other wise and peaceable minded Men as a very great truth That as through pride cometh contention Prov. 13.10 so through the Pride and Haughtiness of the Clergy more havock hath been made of Love Charity Purity Sincerity and Simplicity of the Gospel than all the bloody Persecutions that have been in the World It is the Opinion of learned and judicious Mr. Jo. Hales in his Tract of Schism That were Liturgies and publick Forms of Service so framed as that they admitted not of particular and private Fancies but contained only such things as in which all Christians do agree on And the event shall be that the Publick Service and Honour of God shall no ways suffer Whereas to load our Publick Forms with the private Fancies upon which we differ is the most sovereign way to perpetuate Schism unto the Worlds end Prayer Confession Thanksgiving Reading and Exposition of Scriptures Administration of Sacraments in the plainest and simplest manner were matter enough to furnish out a sufficient Liturgy tho' nothing either of private or Church Pomp of Garments of prescribed Gestures of Imagery of Musick of matter concerning the
Dead of many Superfluities which creep into the Churches under the name of Order and Decency did interpose it self For to charge Churches and Liturgies with things unnecessary was the beginning of all Superstition and when scruples of Conscience began to be made or pretended then Schisms began to break in If the Spiritual Guides and Fathers of the Church would be a little sparing of incumbring Churches with superfluities and not over-rigid in either reviving obsolete Customs or imposing new there were far less danger of Schism or Superstition and all the inconveniences likely to ensue would be but this they should in so doing yield a little to the Imbecillity of Inferiors a thing which St. Paul would never have refused to do Mean while wheresoever false and suspected Opinions are made a piece of the Church Liturgy he that separates is not the Schismatick for that is a like unlawful to make Profession of known or suspected Falshoods as to put in practice unlawful or suspect Actions Much of the same Opinion is Bishop Usher If at this day we should take a Survey of the several Professions of Christianity that have any large spread in any part of the World as of the Religion of the Romans and the Reformed Churches in our Quarters of the Egyptians and Ethiopians in the South of the Graecians and other Christians in the East and should put by the Points wherein they differ one from another and gather from one Body the rest of the Articles wherein they all did generally agree we should find that in those Propositions which without Controversie are Universally received in the whole Christian World so much Truth is contained that being joyned with Holy Obedience may be sufficient to bring Men into everlasting Salvation His Sermon on Ephes 4.13 preached before his Majesty 1624. If our Ecclesiastical Grandees in the last Reformation of our Liturgy had been of St. Paul's mind as they ought to have been and not abuse their Power in the Gospel who though he was free from all Men yet made himself Servant unto all that he might gain the more to the Jew a Jew to them that are under the Law as under the Law to them that are without the Law as without the Law being not without Law to God but under the Law to Christ To the weak as weak and was made all things to all men that by any means he might save some And this he did for the Gospel sake 1 Cor. 9.18 23. And by his so doing he gave no offence neither to the Jews nor the Gentiles nor to the Church of God but he pleased all men in all things not seeking his own profit but the profit of many that they might be saved chap. 10. ver 32 33. There had been no complaining of our Prelates nor any matter left to pick quarrels withall and the Kingdom much happier than now it is which Doctrine of Compliance is to be understood only of things indifferent And our Non-cons desire but the like in things indifferent Sure if St. Paul so much a more excellent Person than our Pontiffs held it his Duty thus to comply it would be no disparagement to our Prelates to do the same Certainly none will dare to aver That our Conventicles quatenus Conventicles are unlawful but unlawful only upon Presumptions and ungrounded Prejudices and Surmizes that their Non-conformist Teachers mostly Presbyterians or Independants do teach or foment Rebellion Schism Faction Now if in truth they are not guilty of such Crimes but their good Conversation is falsly abused by them 1 Pet. 3.16 What have such Conformist Church of England Men to answer for themselves that so slander them by laying such Crimes to their charge as they are no ways guilty of and in their Pulpits out of which nothing should be Preach't but what is as true as Gospel One Mr. J.T. in his Sermon on Eccl. 10.20 pag. 29 31. hath so hard thoughts of them as to believe That we shall never be free of a Plot if not against the Lafe of the King yet against the Peace and Honour of his Government so long as there is one Conventicle in England left And that as it is Death by the Laws of this Nation for a Popish Priest to be seen upon English Ground so it would be very well if it were so for a Non conforming one too Very Ghostly Councel to come from a Ministor of the Gospel of Peace I could wish that he and those of the like Junto did understand their Priesthood as it ought to be understood then they would Preach things that now were Holy Pure Peaceable and of good Report without such Trash This Gentleman is not alone in these stabbing Censures there are more of his Quire that sing to the like Tune a temper very ill becoming Preachers of the Gospel of Peace One other Mr. M. B. commonly known in the University by the Character of his Majesty's D ee Chaplain was turned out for what it 's a shame to tell tho' since crept in again in his Sermon on Luke 19.14 tells us That among Phanaticks a new Nick-name for old Puritans their Loyalty is Rebellion and their Religion is Treason and whose very Gospel is the Mystery of Iniquity and that amongst Phanaticks and Atheists transformed into malitious Fiends by the Hellish divinity of that Monster of a Priest the Author of Julian the Apostate whose whole Book it as great an Apostacy from the Practice of the Primitive Christians the Precepts of Obedience delivered by Christ and his Apostles and Christianity it self as ever Julian was guilty of pag. 19. As false a Scandal as a Priest of Baal could pulpit These are your Boanarges pure Church of England Men in their right Colours and Pontificalibus Nay the unclean Spirits like the Frogs that came out of the mouth of the Dragon and out of the mouth of the Beast and out of the mouth of the false Prophet which are the Spirits of Devils which go forth unto the Kings of the Earth c. Rev. 26.13 14. who are not content falsly to Calumniate the Non-cons only but to Stigmatize also true Nathaniels Witness M. B. charging as a profligate Wretch and mercenary Scribler the late Writer of Julian the Apostate of which Charge the generality and best and wisest both of Clergy and Laiety do now acquit and justifie him to be the more Orthodox by their Pulpits Prints and Practices Sure sure Pulpits were never designed to spit Venome nor fulsly to Calumniate any especially for Printing and Publishing Gospel truths as that of lawful Resistance and Passive Obedience which Doctrines the generality of the Nation Lords Commons Bishops Priests Clergy and Laiety now own and practice and which was ever the Doctrine of the Church of England and of all sound Divines tho' metamorphosised and misrepresented by some Mungril Church of England Men as thwarting their sublunary designs of Pride Ambition Covetousness Honours and Preferments very ill becoming that most
Eyes before they go about to remove the Motes that are in their Brothers Eyes Should I rake as some naked Truths have done into the Bosome of their Regiment of their Church Discipline I doubt it would be found so foul as not to be swept cleansed and purified but by the Beesom of destruction by reducing it to what it was in the Apostles days and purest times which might easily be done if Priests were more Heavenly than Earthly minded and would first seek the Kingdom of Heaven under which easie Government the Gospel flourished tho' all Nations and Kingdoms were accursed Enemies thereunto and would flourish now again with greater Purity than now it doth did not our Tory Ecclesiasticks disdain and think it too mean and below them to live the life of the Apostles and as Christ himself did who tho' being in the Form of God and thought it no robbery to be equal with God yet made himself of no Reputation and took upon him the form of a servant and to Minister and not be administred unto Remember the Reprimand and Counsels that Christ himself gave to James and John who sought high things but it shall not be so among you but whoever will be great among you let him be the Minister Math. 20. Mark 10. Luke 22. However let us consider what Government Christ left to his Church and trace that as far as we can that we may see how well it hath been observed or how far degenerated The Church the Kingdom of our Lord Jesus Christ is the most glorious State in the World formed in the Council of God before the Creation of the Heavens founded on the Cross of his Son in the fulness of time governed by his Eternal Self quickned by his Spirit the most valued of all his Jewels the last End of all his Works and the onely Scope of all his Marvels a State not mortal but endureth for ever against which the Gates of Hell shall not prevail It is the House of Almighty God the Temple of his Holiness the Pillar of his Truth the Dwelling-place of his Grace and Glory This Church this Kingdom tho' it is not of this World yet it is first chosen gathered erected and established in this World not by the Wisdom of the mighty Potentates of this World viz. Kings Emperors and Armies but by the Preaching of the Gospel by Fishermen and other illiterate and mean Persons and would have its Administrations without Temporal or Secular mixtures of human Power or Policy as so much as of inticing words lest his People should thereby be beguiled Col. 2.4 but chose rather by the foolishness of Preaching to propagate his Gospel and to confound the wise and the mighty things of the World So Paul 1 Cor. 2. my speech and my preaching was not with inticing words of man's wisdom but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power v. 4. That your Faith should not stand in the wisdom of Men but in the power of God ver 5. However we speak wisdom among them that are perfect yet not the wisdom of this world nor of the Princes of the world ver 6. but we speak the wisdom of God in a mysterie even the hidden wisdom which God ordained before the world unto our glory verse 7. Which none of the Princes of the world knew c. The way and manner of propagating the Gospel and gathering of Churches from the beginning was after this sort and manner viz. Christ after his Ascension having given them their Commission Matth. 28.19 20. and having filled all the Apostles with the Holy Ghost according to his promise Acts 1.8 and endued them with tongues they departed and separated and gathered several Congregations or Churches so that the sound thereof went into all the Earth and their words unto the ends of the World Rom. 10.18 which was after this manner viz. Christ after his Glorious Resurrection having led Captivity Captive be gave gifts unto men and called some to be his Apostles some Prophets some Teachers and Pastors c. who after they had chosen Matthias in the room of Judas the Traitor and cloven Tongues like as Fire having sate vpon each of them and all filled with the Holy Ghost and having preached the Gospel at Jerusalem and thereabouts the Word of God and Number of Disciples daily increasing from 120. to 3000. and more for which they being persecuted by the Chief Priests and Sadduces because they taught the People and preached through Jesus the Resurrection of the Dead which seems to be the same Year that Christ was Crucified viz. An. Aet suae 33. and 18. Tiberius scourging some and killing others Which Persecution occasioned divers of the Brethren to withdraw themselves into Neighbouring Places and Countries which gave occasion to the Gospel to be more universally spread throughout Palestine the Apostles yet remaining in Jerusalem Acts 8. who afterwards dispersing themselves also spread the Gospel into all Nations after this sort and manner viz. when a certain Number of Brethren being Converted and well Instructed in the true Faith agreed among themselves to build or hire a Temple Tabernacle or House for their joint meetings and exercising their Religion hired a Priest and constituted a Church and as the Number encreased so that the Church and Priest being not sufficient for them all those who were most remote did build another and fit themselves with more conveniences About the end of the First Century or beginning of the Second for good order and concord and for civility and respect they did bear to their Bishop or Priest custom began to include his consent also which in process of time soon degenerated into Luciferian Usurpation by the oblique Artifices of the Priests or Bishops of which Rome in process of time taking hold made great use to the abusing of the Power of the Brethren and to incroach upon the Priviledges of the Body of the Church It is not unworthy of our further observation That all his while the Apostles and their Successors were Independent one of the other and so were their several and select gathered Congregations And tho' there were Thousands of Churches gathered by the Apostles and their Successors yet there are no foot steps remaining that the Churches gathered by any one Apostle or Bishop or Presbyter were subject or did depend on any one or more Churches gathered by any other or more Apostles The like is as true after the death of the Apostles That no one Church by what Apostle soever gathered was left subject to any other Church gathered by any other Apostle no nor yet subject to any other Church of their own converting and gathering but every Church was to be governed by its own peculiar Body observing Gospel Precepts viz. to love one another to do all things decently and in order c. Tho' the Pope hath usurped a monstrous Supremacy over all Churches yet how and when and by what Artifices and Tricks the Popes
Prophets that divine for money and pimp for domination Mich. 3.11 and Demas-like forsake the fellowship of Saints and embrace this present World So that unless the Apostles return from Heaven or that Christ himself come again in Person and lasn them as he did the Buyers and Sellers out of the Temple I see small hopes of Establishing the Government of the Church on a right Basis If they would be active in good earnest to divest themselves of all Temporal Domination and Jurisdiction and content to be reduced to the life and practise of the Apostles as they are to persecute their fellow Members for Conventicling we might be happy Yet I must do the right Reverend Author of Naked Truth that right That if the Ecclesiasticks were all of his mind and first seek the Kingdom of God it would easily be done and I do with him humbly conceive That the Bishops with the rest of the Clergy are bound in Conscience to implore the Assistance of both Houses of Parliament to Petition his Majesty for the Redress of the Abuses by Pious Laws settling the Church Government in the Primitive Purity and Authority which most evidently was very great and as greatly reverenced Bishops and Priests being the Persons to whom Christ and his Apostles committed the Souls of Men bought with his most precious Blood Therefore I think they do such Clergy-men not Priesthood not Episcopacy not true Church of England Men no wrong who esteem them as they manage their matters the very worst Interest that Protestant Kings and Kingdoms have but that of the Papists These Animosities and Differences have been ever since the beginning of the Reformation between the Conforming and Non-conforming Clergy and I may truly prophesie ever will be so long as Conscience shall be on the Earth and as long as Ministers will not be Servants but Lords over Gods heritage and will not condescend to let things made by God Almighty indifferent so to be and remain the Reasons are pregnant for that Conscience will be Conscience while the World stands and therefore there ever will be Scrupulonties and Obligations upon Conscience which are greater than all other Obligations in the World And therefore King James the First would say and that truly That the Puritans were never to be obliged and for that Reason Whereas if things indifferent might so remain and the Conventiclers permitted to preach in publick to take away all Fears Jealousies and Suspicion we should be all at quiet for then there would not be left so much as the pretence of Religion to occasion Dislentions or Quarrels Besides it is the time-serving Clergy only the Drones that vilifies and abaseth that caluminates and disturbs the Dissenters and not the Dissenters them EXtremities used against them at their Instigation Silencing Imprisoning Excommunicating making use of Laws against them that in their primary 35 Eliz. simple and sincere Institution were intended and enacted against Papists only and they not proceeded against so violently according to those very Laws in full force against them as against the Non conformists who have been Indicted under the Notion of Popish Recusants and Penalties levied upon them and the Papists either totally connived at or remissly prosecuted many Crimes through ungrounded prejudices laid to their charge as disturbing of the Government which they abhor and teach not of which they are no otherways guilty than by that Logick that the Fox his Earon his Head were Horns meer Surmizes Calumnies and Libels and nothing proved but that contrary to a human Law they following the Command and Example of Christ and his Apostles meet and assemble together to keep a more intimate near and dear Communion with their and our God and with one another and to make Peace and Reconciliation with God whilst they are yet in the way yet in the possibility of Salvation whcih Law in it self is null and void because it contradicts the Law of God which Commands all Men every where to call on the Name of the Lord Jesus and all Priests to teach all Nations Baptizing c. and to preach in every Church in season out of season c. to reprove exhort rebuke with all long-suffering and doctrine 2 Tim. Is not this with the Priests of old and the Captain of the Temple to be grieved at the heart that they teach the People and therefore laid hands on them and put them in hold and like Elymas the sorcerer being full of all subtlety and all mischief children of the Devil enomies of all righteousness never ceasing to pervert the right ways of the Lord Act. 4.2 and 13.10 But lying lips shall be put to silence which speak grievous things proudly and contemptuously against the righteous Psalm 31.18 It was St. Paul's Glory that Christ was preached any way though through strife or vain glory and I fear it is the glory of the more violent and haughty Tory Church of England Party as the road to Preferment to decry Conventicling and Preaching contrary to such a Law and to stop the Mouths of them that would Preach whereby they intitle themselves to the Character of the Shepherds described and deciphered Isai 56.10 11. Consider that in Preaching contrary to such a Law they do no more than what Christ and his Apostles did in their Days The Rulers of the Jews offended with Peter 's Sermon imprisoned him and John and having strictly examined them and commanded them not to speak at all nor teach in the Name of Jesus Did they therefore forbear Preaching or were they obedient to such Commands of the Rulers I tell you nay but answered and said unto them Whether it be right in the sight of God to bearken unto you more than unto God judge ye and continued speaking the Wrod of God with great boldness Acts 4. The like did the rest of the Apostles even from house to house though accused of turning the World up-side down and of doing contrary to the decrees of Caesar yet preaching the Word of God boldly Act. 17.26 Either the Author to the Hebrews Preacht false Doctrine when he exhorteth us to consider one another to provoke unto Love and to good Works not forsaking the assembling of our selves together as the manner of some is And so did St. Paul when he wrote his Chap. 14. to the Corinthians wherein he adviseth all to desire Spiritual gifts but rather that they may prophesie that they may speak unto men to edification and exhortation and comfort when the Church is come together in one place with particular Directions how all should behave themselves in such Assemblies that all may profit with a general Rule that all things be done decently and in order Either I say these Apostles taught false Doctrines in so Teaching or else they that preach and prate against such Assembling as the manner of some is are false teachers I know no medium take it as you please Can it it be imagined that if St. Paul who rejoyced
King James the Parliament sitting Dr. Harsenet Bishop of Chichester Preached a Sermon at Whitehall upon Mark 12.17 Give unto Caesar c. wherein he insisted that Goods and Money were Caesars and therefore they were not to be denied unto him at which the whole Parliament stormed and took great Offence which that wise and peaceable Prince endeavoured to calm and qualifie by moderate Exposition thereof to the Lords and Commons for that purpose Assembled in the Banquetting-House viz. That the Doctor meant it according to the Laws and Customs of the Country wherein they did live This did mollifie but not satisfie and therefore the Sermon was burnt to satisfie their Indignation against such vile and destructive Doctrines for which he was well rewarded by being translated to Norwich Rush 177. then to York a shrewd sign that such Doctrines did please the Court tho' not the Parliament Likewise Mr. Ric. Montague who 21 Jac. printed an Answer to the late Gag of Protestants and about 22 Jac. printed another Book Entituled A Treatise of the Invocation of Saints 1 Car. 1. he printed another Entituled An Appeal to Caesar which Books contained so many Erronious and false Doctrines contrary to the very Articles agreed on in the Convocation held at London 1562. that they disobliged the whole Nation so much that the Commons House exhibited Articles against him 1 Car. and prayed that he might be punished This Cause began 21 Jac. when he had published a former Book called A new Gag for an old Goose and was then questioned in Parliament and committed to the Archbishop of Canterbury and ended in an Admonition only given to Montague by the Archbishop who disliked that Book and thought to suppress it but could not It was printed and dedicated to the King and his Cause was recommended to the Duke of Buckingham by the Bishops of Oxford Rochester and St. Davids all mighty Church of England Men not Puritans whereby they espoused it as their common Cause and Concern and Montague is made his Majesties Chaplain yet his Majesty was so just and prudent as to leave him to the Parliament which did not please the Bishops and the Commons House did exhibit Articles against him and prayed his Book might be burnt and himself punished but the Bishops prevailed so much with the King on their own behalf that he was made first Bishop of Chichester and then Bishop of Norwich and his Book only called in by Proclamation yet so as all Answers thereunto by Preaching or Writing were forbidden For the several Answers made by Dr. Featly Dr. Gâ—ad in their Parallels by Mr. Burton Ward Yates Wetton Rouse in a Book called King James's Religion were all suppressed and some of the Printers questioned in the High Commission and Montague had a Royal Pardon which was inquired into 4 Car. by the Commons House In the same Parliament a Petition was exhibited from some Booksellers and Printers in London complaining of the restraint of Books written against Popery and the contrary allowed of by the only means of Dr. Land Bishop of London and divers of the Printers and Booksellers were sent for by Pursevants for Printing Books against Popery and the Licensing is only restrained to the Bishop of London and his Chaplains Ph. de Comines complained That tho' the King of France had a wise Council yet they rid all upon one Horse And must we be Priest-ridden by a Bishop and his Chaplains Upon which Mr. Selden declared That there was no Law to prevent Printing of any Books only a Decree in Star-Chamber and he advised that a Law might be made concerning Printing else one may be Fined Imprisoned prisoned and his Goods taken from him by vertue of such Decrees which is a great invasion upon the Liberty of the Subject About the same time also came out Cosins his Book of Seven Sacraments containing strange things against whom the Commons House exhibit 21 Articles whereof one was for calling some Gentlewomen Whores and Jades and Pagans and for tearing some of their Clothes when they were in their Seats in the Church because they would not bow to the Altar nor at the Name of Jesus c. Nalson 789. About this time the Clergy had wrought themselves with great Power and Interest at Court which encouraged the Inferior Clergy to great boldness and to pulpit any thing that might please as the very Road of Preferment Teach for Hire and Divine for Money Another that did appear bare faced and without any Vizard was one Sybthorp Vicar of Brackley scarce Batchellor of Art who preached Feb. 22. 1626. at Lent Assizes at Northampton on Rom. 13.7 Which Sermon called Apostolical Obedience tho' full fraught with many Theses destructive to all human Society yet had such countenance from the Court-Clergy that they procured his Majesty to send to the Archbishop of Canterbury to License it for the Press for the better grace of the business which his Majesty did feveral times by Mr. William Murrey but the Archbishop like a true Nathaniel refused to give it an Imprimatur but not without great Reasons humbly submitted to his Majesty for his so doing It was afterwards carried to Dr. Worrall Chaplain to the then Bishop of London who having hand over head Licens'd it afterward took advice of Councel who told him That if all in that Sermon were true there was no meum tuum left to Subjects and that he might be called to an Account for it and hanged Whereupon he blotted out his Name again and the Book was afterward Licens'd by Laud then Bishop of London who gave it a great and stately Allowance and caused it to be dedicated to the King and published upon his Majesties Commission for the Raising of Money by the way of Loan which was by such Royal Authority to give greater countenance thereto It taught that the King's Duty is to direct and make Laws that nothing may excuse from Active Obedience but what is against the Law of God or Nature or Impossible That all Antiquity was absolutely for Absolute Obedience in all Civil and Temporal Things Laud also allowed the Book called The Seven Sacraments with all its Errors which were afterwards expunged Another bold faced Priest that did appear about the same time was Dr. Manwaring who promoted the same Design in two Sermons preached before the King and Court at Wintehall called Religion and Allegiance in which he declared That the King was not bound to observe the Laws of the Realm concerning the Subjects Rights and Liberty but that his Royal Will and Command in imposing Loans and Taxes without common consent in Parliament doth oblige the Subjects Conscience upon pain of Eternal Domnation that they who refused to pay this Loan offended against the Law of God and the Kings Supreme Authority and became guilty of Impiety Disloyalty and Rebellion and that the Authority of Parliament is not necessary for Raising the of Aids and Subsidies c. for which he was impeached
fraudulenter occultar nihil intentatum praetermittit 442. About the Year 1558 there being a Custom among the People of Paris in the Summer Evenings to go out of the Suburbs of St. German in great Multitudes to take the Fresco and to Solace themselves with divers kinds of Sports those of the new Religion instead of doing so began to sing the Psalms of David in French Verses the Multitude first laughed at the Novelty then leaving the Sports joyned themselves unto the Singers And the number of those who came to that place began to increase more than usually whereupon the Pope's Nuntio told the King of this Novelty as of a thing pernicious and dangerous because the Ministeries of Religion usually Celebrated in the Church in the Latin Tongue by Religious Men only were put into the Mouths of the common People in the Vulgar Language which was an invention of the Lutherans telling him that if he did not resist the beginnings in a short time all Paris would be Lutherans the King gave order that the principal Authors should be proceeded against wherein they went not very far having found Anthony King of Navar and his Wife in that Number but for hereafter it was forbid upon pain of Death Trent 410. Thus you see how both the Hugonots and Papists behaved themselves beyond Sea and that the King and Queen of Navar were not ashamed to Conventicle openly nor of Christ nor of his Words lest Christ should be ashamed of them when he shall come in his own Glory and in his Fathers and of the Holy Angels Luke 9.26 not ashamed to search the Scriptures in their own Language because commanded and because in them is eternal life John 5.39 This Nation and Government did presume at least that such solemn Rebukes such severe Reprimands as the Preachers of such Doctrines received from the whole Kingdom represented in Parliament by King Lords and Commons Clergy and Layety should have forewarned and discouraged all the succeeding Clergy for ever Preaching such destructive Doctrines again of which we now see and feel the smart and sad effects which our prudent Predecessors did foresee and would have prevented by their timely Rebukes and Precautions but they have not prevailed In the Church of Ephesus there were those that boasted themselves to be Apostles but being tried by the Angel of that Church were found Lyars Is it not so with us Have we not many that boast themselves to be the only true Church of England Men that if tried by our Angels would be found but Mungrils nay Lyars making Kings glad with their Wickedness and Princes with their Lyes Hos 7.3 But the Works and Labour and Patience of our true Church of England Men true Nathaniels indeed cannot bear such Church of England Men as are so evil as to dare to Preach and Print such enslaving Doctrines Nay now at this very Day it s a shame to tell how such false Prophets use the Church of the Great God by making Her a very Tool and Slave to serve their own turns and to bring their own ends about not caring what havock they make of the Purity and Simplicity of the Gospel Mr. Clifford on Psalm 51.4 pulpits That Kings as such are above the Law have Power to Dispense with the Law at their Pleasure and alter Religion at Pleasure pag. 7. Mr. J. T in his Sermon on Eccles 10.20 declares That Resistance in all Cases and in all its Degrees and Circumstances absolutely unlawful because it supposes an Appeal of the People from the King to themselves and makes them Judges of their own Causes for to place Sovereignty and the last Appeal in all the People together is perfect nonsense because all the People will never be of one mind while the World stands pag. 8.9 and I will add nor all the Clergy And yet he is so ingenious as to confess That the Interest of a Nation is to be preferred before the Interest or Welfare of one Man according to John 11.49 50 51. It is expedient for us that one man dye for the People and that the whole Nation perish not So that we have a sure word of Prophesie that it is the Testimony of God himself That a greater Interest of Mankind is to be preferred before a lesser pag. 20 21. As perfect nonsense as this Priest is pleased to make Appeals unto the People to be yet so wise were the Roman State above Fifty Years before Christ's time and so careful of their own Happiness Rights and Interests that they thought it even then a most prudent Law And therefore Publius Valerius caused it to be an Establish't Law That Appeals should be allowed from any Magistrate to the People Livy lib. 3. n. 8. And that no Man should offer to make any Magistrate without liberty of Appeal and if he did it should be lawful to kill him Ibid. lib. 3. n. 34. For which prudent Law they honored him by adding Publicola to his other name What the Power of the First Kings were appears for that Ephron Chief Prince of the Children of Heth would not grant Abraham the possession of a Sepulchre in the Land of the Children of Heth but in the presence and with the approbation of the Children of Heth before all that went in at the gate of his City Gen. 23. Nor would Hamor Prince of the Country make a League with Jacob but by the consent of all that went out of the gate of his City Gen. 34. because all the great Concerns of the Governed was referred unto the Common Council and consent of the People which in those Empires was easily done which commonly was circumscribed within one or few Cities But when Kings began to enlarge their Territorios so that all the People could not Assemble in one Place without danger of confusion there were ordinarily instituted Tribunes of the People or Officers of the Kingdom or of the Governed to assist and defend the Rights and Priviledges of the People granted to them by the Law of God and Nature and upon great Exigences great Assemblies of the Sages of the Governed were assembled as an Epitome of the Universal People were extraordinarily congregated to consider and consult thereof In the Israelitish Kingdom which by consent and judgment of all Politick Writers was the best constituted Government of the World was the same order observed the King had his particular Officers and the Kingdom theirs Seventy one Elders their Captains chosen out of every Tribe which both in War and Peace should take care of the whole Magistrates also in singulis Municipiis that as they were to take care of the whole so the several Officers were to take care of their particular Cities and Charges over which they were set For David called all the Congregation when he desired to Invest Solomon in his Kingdom when he had restored the Policy of that Nation to have it examined and approved 1 Chron. 19. So when David was to fetch back
offend in Doctrine than in Discipline Sure much Learning or Haughty Pride and Ambition Self-ends and Interest hath made these Men mad And so fulfilled the Prophecy of Hosea 9.7 The Prophet is a fool and the Spiritual man mad Sure God hath turned these wise Ecclesiastical Polititians backwards and made their knowledge foollish Isai 44.25 However I will say thus much to them That Liberty of Conscience is undeniably the right of every true Believer viz. to judge of such things as belong chiefly to the knowledge and service of God whether they are above the reach and light of Nature and therefore liable to be variously understood by human Reason or enjoyned or forbidden by Divine Precept and to follow that full perswasion whereby every one is assured that his Belief and Practice as far as he is able to apprehend is according to the Will of God and his Holy Spirit within him which undoubtedly we ought to follow much rather than any publick Conscience or Law of Man Magistrate or not Magistrate as both the Word of God bids us and the very dictate of Reason tells us Acts 4.19 Whether it be right in the sight of God to hearken unto you more than unto God judge ye And we have no other outward Divine Rule to judge by than the Scriptures nor no other within us but the illumination of the Spirit so interpreting that Scripture as warrantably only unto our selves which commands us to search the Scriptures daily whether those things are so Acts 17.11 and gives us Reason also let every man prove his own not his Magistrates work and then shall he have rejoycing in himself alone and not in another tho' publick Conscience for every man shall bear his own burden Gal. 6.4 5. Is it not false Doctrine in the Papists to teach that Believers only as the Church believes are discharged in God's Account Is it not the general consent of sound Protestants that neither Traditions Councils nor Canons of any visible Church much less any Edicts of any Magistrate or Civil Session but the Scripture only can be the final Judge or Rule in matrers of Religion and that only in the Conscience of every Christian to himself For if the Church be not sufficient to be implicitly and blindly believed as certain it is not what can there else be named of more Authority than the Church but the Conscience than which God only is greater 1 John 3.20 But if any shall pretend that the Scripture judges to his Conscience for other Men as this proud and saucy Politician doth he makes himself greater than the Church Scripture or Consciences of other Men a presumption too high for any mortal since every true Christian able to give a reason of his Faith hath the word of God before him the promised holy Spirit and the mind of Christ within him 1 Cor. 2.16 A much better and safer guide of Conscience than this Polititian in publick Conscience who in this is no less a Pope than the Pope at Rome The Spiritual man judgeth all things but himself is judged of no man 1 Cor. 2.15 And is not the Pope deservedly esteemed Antichristian for appropriating to himself such Infallibity over both Conscience and Scripture Whether tends all this but to make themselves to have Dominion over our Faith and Lords over God's Heritage which the Aposties utterly disclaimed and accounted themselves only helpers of cur joy and to be feeders of the flock not by constraint but willingly 1 Pet. 5.2 3. 2 Cor. 1.24 If Bishop Saunderson can judge The Word of God doth expresly forbid us to subject our Consciences to the Judgment of any other or to usurp Dominion over the Consciences of any other Saunderson's 10 Lectures 1660. v. 3. Lect. 30. § p. 103. None but God alone hath Power to impose a Law upon the Conscience of any Man to which it ought to be subjected as obliging by it self For there is but one Law-giver who can both save and destroy James 4.12 not one picked out amongst many not one above many but one exclusively i. e. one and but one onely who art thou that dost judge another It doth not belong to thee to thrust thy sawcy Sickle into the Harvest of another Man much less to fling thy self into the Throne of Almighty God to him it belongeth alone to judge of the Consciences of Men to whom alone it doth belong to impose Laws on the Consciences of men which none can do but God alone Conscientiis Dominari velle est Arcem Coeli invadere said Maximilian the first To exercise a Domination over Consciences is to invade the Power of Heaven He is a plunderer of the Glory of God and an usurper of that Tower that is due unto him that claims a right to the Consciences of Men or practise an usurpation over them v. Lect. 4. § 9 10 11. He tells us moreover That if Princes will be Resolute and if they will Govern so they must be they may easily make the most stubborn Consciences to bend to their Resolutions pag. 271. Princes must be sure to bind on at first their Ecclesiastical Laws with the straitest knot and afterwards keep them in force by the severity of their execution pag. 221. So easie is it for Men to deserve to be punished for their Consciences that there is no Nation in the World in which were Government rightly understood and duly managed mistakes and abuses of Religion would not supply the Gallies with vastly greater Numbers than Villanies pag. 223. Brave Doctrines for a Tory Church of England Man to Preach impuné Sure this Anonimus Ecclesiastical Polititian would make a brave Mufty or Inquisitor General or a Compito with a Dog-whip in his Hand which would affright worse than the Inquisition and make many much honester Men than himself know sorrow in abundance These and many more Positions of the same complexion are the Farci of that Pestilent Book which well becomes a thorough-paced Church of England Priest such Positions and Doctrines brings contempt on such of the Clergy as being a reproach to any Church and which the Church of England doth not Teach and which are so vile that they much more deserve Fire and Faggot than those burnt in Oxford July 1683. but instead thereof he was made a Bishop Whether tends all this treacherous dealings with the People of God Whilst like the Ministers of Jeroboam ye lay such Snares in Mispah and spread such Nets upon Tabor teaching and perswading Kings to use Laws Menaces and Subtilties to force and confine the People to Regal and State Religion be it true or false or at least to force them to dissemble or to walk in a neutrality or indifferency between God and Baal or else to make the Souls of Men and God's Glory subordinate to the Lusts and Risings of Kings and Priests who Balaam-like for the hope of Honour or Preferments or like Micha's Levite for a little better reward crouch and cringe and
become more sensless of God's Glory Wrath and Indignation and the eternal Welfare of the pretious Souls of God's own People than was Balaam's dumb Ass The fatal mischief of such base Flattery and of such Pulpit Laws and Doctrines as it was foreseen punished and declared to tend to the ruine of this or any other Nation by the Wisdom of our Sage Predecessors so we did see it was fairly fulfilling in our late Days and times Such was the Imprudence nay Impudence of the then Court Clergy favourites and sycophants in those Days that tho' Sibthorp and Mainwaring were by King and Parliament so severely doomed to be punished yet no sooner was the Parliament up but by the Interest of those fawning time-servers the said Mainwaring and Sibthorp were preferred and Archbishop Abbot frowned upon because he would not License such pulpit destructive Doctrines And it is such only of the Clergy and other lewd Priests that are in contempt and vile esteem with the Nation whilst others true Church of England Men indeed are as highly in their Esteem and Veneration Thus to discover Crimes of some Priests is not to Calumniate the Church of England but that she may be purged of such Vermin The Reverend Dean of Rippon in his Sermon on 1 Kings 8.66 is of like Mind and Principles who therein declares That be the Kings Heart inclinable to any Religion or none yet it leaves him no Rival none to contradict him for he is made our King by God's Law of which the Law of the Land is only declarative Kings must not be upbraided with their Promises which Promises are Donatives and it is reason the Donor should have the explaining of his own Mind that the King is major universis as well as singulis that the sole Legislative Power is lodged in the King and to him belongs the Interpretation of all Laws and Dispensing with them and that he may make a grant with a non obstante to them c. Pure Doctrine for a Reverend Dean to Preach and yet this pure Mungril Church of England Man preferred to be Bishop of Chester for these abominable Doctrines Whoever will seriously consider and compare those dismal Preachments and Prints destructive to all human Societies which our high Church of England Men pulpitted and printed heretofore and how highly they were disgusted by several Parliaments the greatest Wisdom of our Nation and dissatisfied therewith and how they stigmatized those very Doctrines and condemning the Authors of them to mulcts and punishments and yet when those Parliaments were up those very false Teachers were carressed with Pardons and Preferments whoever I say will compare those Doctrines with those Mr. Samuel Johnson printed and maintained even to the undergoing of Inquisition Torments and which the present Parliament and generality of the Nation now own justifie and practise with their Lives and Fortunes must confess that both the Reward and Punishment of the one and the other were mightily misplaced It is yet fresh in our own Memories when our Clergy were much more modest when but one Temporizing Sibthorp and another Court-Parasite Mainwaring durst Pulpit or Print such Doctrines under the Sacred Title of Apostolick Obedience Licens'd by the then Bishop of London and for which they received the just Censures of the King and the whole Kingdom in Parliament which in the truest sense is the Church or rather the Representative Governing part both of Church and State the Bishops and Priests being but Officers thereof which they do not love to hear of but now Confidence nay the Brow of Brass is the Temper and Complexion of very many Pulpits which Thunder every where with such Documents and Outcries as the High-ways to Preferments always having their Mouths half-cockt to let fly at all their gain-sayers not only in the Pulpits and Prints but also in all publick places and Meetings as Coffee-Houses Westminster-Hall Court of Request Lobbies in Parliament-time can witness whereby they have obtained a new name of Tory Church of England Men. They scorn to consider the black Characters they were then stigmatized and branded with by former Parliaments as serpens qui devorat serpentem fit Draco that they tended to the alteration and subversion of the whole Frame and Fabrick of the State and Common-wealth That they tended to the seducing of the Conscience of the King to increase his Royal displeasure against his Subjects to scandalize impeach and subvert the good Laws and Government of the Kingdom and Authority of Parliaments to avert his Majesty's Mind from calling of Parliaments to alienate his Royal Heart from his People to cause Jealousies Sedition and Divisions in the Kingdom c. Besides these Characters they held it a great presumption for a private Divine to debate the Right and Power of the King which is a matter of such a nature as to be handled onely in Parliament and that with moderation and therefore the said two Sermons called Religion and Allegiance were adjudged to be called in and burnt by the King's Proclamation the Author to make his submission and acknowledgment of his Crime to the imprisoned during the pleasure of the House to be fined 1000 l. suspended for three Years from the Exercise of the Ministery disabled to have any Ecclesiastical Dignity or Secular Office and for ever disabled to Preach at Court A better Example to imitate and follow than either Fire and Faggot or the Address of the Universities or the Pulpit Doctrines of the 9th of September 1683 wherein both King Nobles Prelates and People were interessed in that Judgment Were such Tenets of such ill consequence by the Judgment of the whole Nation in those Days and are they not the same now where 's the difference The violation offered to plain Texts of Scripture by perverting the true and natural sense and meaning of them by such of the Clergy a Generation of Men that under the umbrage of that Sacred Canopy of Religion as being appointed Teachers and Ministers of the Gospel indued with the Power of Ordination set up for themselves in an opposite and distinct Interest separated from the rest or Body of the Church whereby they erect regnum in regno against the Purity and Sincerity of Religion and Interest of Mankind and this they have been upon the catch to compass by little and little almost ever since the Apostles Days and that by sinister means hath been the occasion of all Misgovernments by ascribing Divine Power to Kings and that they are accountable to none but God for any male-regiment False Prophets not considering if Rulers hearken to Lyes and such are all false glossers on Texts of Scripture all his servants will be wicked Prov. 9.12 such-like of the Clergy are the Time-servers and Court-Parasites that draw odium and contempt upon that Sacred Profession that ought to be had in Reverence by all the Sons and Daughters of Men. I could wish that they would first pull out the Beams that are in their own
have usurped and monopolized it to themselves Histories are full and plain It is no less worthy of our observation That the Diocesses or the Provinces of the Pastors and Teachers whether Bishops or Presbyters of the several congregated Churches did not extend beyond one Church one Altar or one Parish i. e. such a Number of Christians as might all assemble and meet to Confer Hear and Communicate one with another for mutual Edification so that every Bishop or Presbyter might take Cognizance of every Man's Life and Conversation and of the Spiritual state of every individual Soul of such congregated Churches And One hundied and fifty Souls were thought by St. Chrysostom and others as many as one Pastor could well and more than he could without great labour discharge v. his Homil. in Ignat. Paulinus Bishop of Tyre in Constantine's time had but so many under his Episcopal charge as the Panegerist in Eusebius informs us as he could take a Personal notice of their Souls and accurately examine the inward state of every one acquainting himself throughly with the condition of all those Souls that were committed to him As Christ's Church and Kingdom excelleth and differeth from all the Kingdoms of the World so doth its Government because it was to be gathered and established in all other Kingdoms accursed Enemies thereunto therefore Heavenly Wisdom it self appointed and ordained such a Government for his Church as it might exercise in any Nation by its own Spiritual Laws without the help of human Mixtures Superstructions or Politicks and without interfering with their Government or with their Laws or prejudicing their Civil Rights What alterations or additions have been made to this Government in any Nation that Nation hath thereby as much as in them lies reproached that Wisdom which is from above and pure and out of the proud conceits of their own Wisdom and Politicks and out of their own covetous and ambitious Projects and out of the mean conceits of the Purity and Simplicity of the Gospel have scorned to subscribe and submit to Gods own Appointment not contenting themselves to be Servants and Ministers of the Church as Christ himself and as the Apostles were but will be Masters Lords Dukes Marquisses Earls Princes Judges Cardinals Pontiffs what not over their Flocks and over all the Kingdoms of the World whereby they demonstrated their own Wisdom and Politicks to be Earthly Sensual Divellish As if Christ in whom are hid all the Treasures of Wisdom and Knowledge did not know what Government was fittest and best for his Church and Kingdom who chose to establish it not by high and mighty Powers Princes Potentates and Pontiffs but by mean and inconsiderate Persons Fishermen Tent-makers and the like to magnifie the Power of his Grace and thereby to confound the Wisdom of the Worldly Wise But so it shall not be among you but whoever shall be great among you shall be your minister And whoever shall be chiefest shall be servant of all For even the Son of Man came not to be ministred unto but to minister Mark 10.43 44 45. To this Government Christ inseparably and indispensably annexed this great Prerogative and Priviledge viz. Liberty of Preaching and Propagating his Gospel to all Nations when he said Go teach all nations c. and that beyond all contradiction of any Person or Power whatsoever King or Pontiff with a command that Kings should be their Nursing Fathers What were they but the Chief Priests Scribes and Elders that questioned Christ Prince of all the Kindoms of the earth Rev. 1.5 and to whom God had given the Heathen for his inheritance and the utmost parts of the earth for his possession Psal 2.8 when he Taught in the Temple and Preached the Gospel by what Authority he did those things and who it was that gave him that authority Luke 20.1 2. And did not Christ disdain to give them a satisfactory Answer as Persons medling with that they had nothing to do with all And are not those in our Days as sawcy and insolent as those proud Priests of old were who endeavour to muzzle the Mouths of those that should tread out their Corn and bring forth the food of Life unto the People and that for things only indifferent no ways Essential to Salvation And not only so but Persecuting them by Suspensions depriving them of their Liberty Maintenance and Benefit by Mulcts Imprisonment c. Plagues little inferior to those of the Hellish Inquisition a Sin as National as Drinking Drabbing Swearing or the like and requires as National Publick and Solemn Humiliation for it as for those other Crimes In the Days of Edward the VI. and Queen Elizabeth the Dissenters of those times insisted mainly That no Reformation of Church Discipline and Government could be perfect unless reduced to that state it was in in the Apostles Days This the Wisdom of those times thought neither possible nor certain nor absolutely convenient because what was used in those Times the Scripture fully declareth not so that making their Times the Rule and Canon of Church-Polity is to make a Rule which being not possible to be fully known is as impossible to be fully observed So Judicious Hooker However let us trace those Times as far as we can Without all peradventure and beyond all contradiction Christ knowing that his Messengers which he sent to gather a People to himself out of Jews and Gentiles Heathens Publicans and Sinners by perswasive means only were to build up his Church within the Bosoms of Kingdoms avowed and accursed Enemies to his Gospel he therefore gave them such Doctrines and such Commissions for Doctrine and Discipline as they might any where Publish and Exercise in a quiet and peaceable manner the Subjects of no Commonwealth or Kingdom being any where therein concerned in Goods or Persons by virtue of that Spiritual Regiment whereunto Christian Religion once embraced did make them liable The Documents Powers and Directions are recorded sparsim in the Gospel but more particularly in the 18th of Matth. viz. If thy Brother transgress against thee what then go and tell him his fault between thee and him alone If he hear thee thou hast gained thy Brother but if he will not hear thee what then then take with thee one or two more that in the mouth of two or three witnesses every word may be established and if he shall neglect to hear them what then tell it to the Church i. e. to that whole congregated Church or Assembly whereof thou and he are Members what then if he neglect to hear them let him be to thee as an Heathen or Publican i. e. pursue him in the Courts of Civil Judicature as thou wouldst any other that is not a Christian i. e. as a Publican or Heathen or any other wrong doer not to own them as Brethren nor to keep company with them with such no not to eat with them as not being worthy the Name and Profession of Christians which
the Emperors Decrees were not executed by the bounty of Constance Cloro Caesar who governed it But a while after Constantine and Licinius granted freedom of Religion to the Christians approved of the Ecclesiastical Colledges called Churches granted generally throughout the Empire that they might gain and acquire stable Goods as well by Gift as Testament exempting also the Clergy from personal publick services that they might attend the Duties of Religion more constantly But the Clergy made so ill use of these Favours that Princes were forced to regulate them by Laws in the Year 370 Which St. Jerom confesseth to have been a Remedy against the Corruptions entred amongst the Clergy which was of getting Temporal Estates But that Law not being sufficient to suppress their greediness of getting Temporal Estates another Law was made Anno 390 to the same end and purpose this excess of getting was so unpleasant to St. Austin who lived in those Days that he openly declared against them saying The Ecclesiastical Ministry consisted not in getting and distributing much but in getting and distributing well Likewise he abhorred the new indirect ways they had found out of increasing their Stock and would never permit them in his Church and often declared in his Sermons That he had rather live on the Primitive Oblation than to have a care of Possessions which hindred from attending intirely upon the Principal Charge of a Bishop i. e. Spiritual things Notwithstanding all Laws Reprimands and Checks yet the Ecclesiastical Goods increased excessively above what it ought but the ancient manner of Governing and Distributing lasted till the Year 420. both the Oblation and the Ecclesiastical incoms from real Estates were in common and governed by Deacons Sub-Deacons and by other Assistants and distributed for the maintenance of Ecclesiastical Ministers and of the Poor The Colledge of Priests and the Bishops were the Superintendants so that the Bishops disposed of every thing and the Deacons executed it But after France Spain and Africa were divided from the Empire the Churches were differently governed The Eastern Church retained the common Government but in the Western the Bishops by Administrators and Superintendants made themselves Masters and to govern the Goods of the Church Arbitrarily from whence arose Confusions in the distribution of them and the Buildings fell to ruine and the Poor neglected and forsaken For which cause about the Year 470 in the Western Church it was ordained that the Ecclesiastical Goods should be divided into Four parts which alteration was also soon abused And also other changes made in the Government which in and through all things proved contrary to the Ancient as also the manner of chusing Ministers was instituted by the Apostles That Bishops Priests and other Ministers of God's Word and the Deacons Ministers of Temporal things should be elected by the Universality of the Faithful and should be ordained by the Bishops with laying of Hands on the Head a thing which lasts without alteration to this Day Which Custom continued about 200 Years The Bishops were chosen by the People and ordained by the Metropolitan in the presence of all the Com-provincial Bishops or else by their Consents c. And afterwards many Provinces for a better Form of Government were subject to one Primate whose Consent was also required for Ordaining Then the Priests Deacons and other Clergy Men were presented by the People and ordained by the Bishop or else nominated by the Bishops and with the Consent of the People ordained by him An unknown Man was never received neither did the Bishop ever Ordain one who was not approved of and commended or rather presented by the People and the Consent of the People was judged so necessary that Pope Leo the First treated amply that the Ordination of a Bishop could not be valid nor lawful which was not required by the People and by them approved of which was the Opinion of all the Saints of those times A thing worthy to be noted now a Days when that Election is declared to be illegitimate and null where the People have any share Thus is seen how things in the Government of the Church are degenerated from what they were in purer times even quite contrary that now accounted lawful which was then accounted wicked and that now unjust which then was reputed holy The Clergy finding the sweet and great Advantages of the Favours granted by Princes did improve them to the uttermost but by such means as were not pleasing to the Faithful of which St. Austin and St. Chrisostom greatly complained in their times For they increased the common Stock by undue practises and distributed over much to themselves and neglecting the Poor And their Wealth so vastly and unjustly increasing they instituted new kinds of Government which they changed at pleasure until at last it came to that we see at this Day Not content with the old ways of getting about the 500 Year another sort of Religious Colledges called Monasteries were erected Monkery began in Egypt about the Year 300 and from thence past into Greece whereby St. Basil at the Year 370 it was formed in the manner which yet continues But in Italy about the Year 350 it was brought to Rome by Athanasius but had little encouragement till about the Year 500 when St. Equitius and St. Benedict gave it a settled Form The Institution of Equitius increased but little but that of Benedict spread it self all over Italy and beyond the Mountains The Monks in those Days were not Ecclesiasticks but Seculars and in the Monasteries without the Cities they lived on their own Labour Arts and Husbandry together with some addition out of the publick Oblations and were governed by the Abbot The Abbot Tritemius makes Account that Monasteries of the Benedictine Monks were 15000 besides Prepositures and lesser Convents The Monks themselves chose their own Abbots by this time the Bishops by tricks and cunning Artifices became absolute Dispensators of the Fourth part of the Churches Goods which made the haughty Clergy mind Temporal Goods more than Spiritual and to make themselves Eminent and Popular whence arose Discords Seditions Tumults and Blows to the great Disturbance of Civil States especially about the Election of Clergy Dignitaries which Primarily at the first Institution was in the People beyond contradiction but afterwards by the cunning craftiness of those that lay in wait to deceive it was sometimes in the Clergy sometimes in the Prince sometimes in a mixture one chusing and another confirming as the Interest and Power of the one or the other could prevail Elections being then used not as the end of Divine Service but for secular Interests and worldly Ends. Antiquity knew of no distinction between Ordination and Benefice and Ordaining was then the same thing as to give an Office and the right of having ones livelihood from the common Goods of the Church But afterward through Wars and Confusions the Clergy being driven from their Ministries had recourse and retired
When Paul writ his Advice about the incestuous Person he directed his Epistle unto the Church of God which is at Corinth to them that are sanctified in Christ Jesus called to be Saints with all that in every place call upon the Name of the Lord Jesus Christ our Lord both theirs and ours They perverted the Spiritual Arms of Excommunication which was used only for the Correction of Sinners into the defence of their Temporal Possessions The Law of Tithes is indeed Mosaically Divine but not a Law naturally Divine nor Christian and it obliged only that People at that time now it obligeth none In the many Troubles and Uproars occasioned by the Bishops confederating with the Popes against the Emperor the Bishops obtained the Publick Incomes and the Regal Rights or Duties and when the Differences were composed they had taken so firm Possession that the Princes were necessitated to grant them in feudo that which de facto they had usurped to themselves by which they acquired also the Titles of Dukes and Marquisses and Earls Many of them are still in Germany remaining such both in Name and Fact but in Italy in Name only The Canonists say That the Poor are obliged to pay Tithes for that which is given them by Alms in Begging at Doors and the Harlots are bound to pay Tithes of their gain by Whoredom The greatest and most frequent Legacies and Gifts are from Harlots Prohibitions for Alienating which were made against Clergy-men in favour of the Laiety are turned about against the Laiety in favour of the Clergy The Popes never failed to get any Abuse whatever to be justified by Doctrines Tho' the Popes ought to feed and not share the Sheep yet they make themselves fat with the chiefest of all the offerings of Gods holy Church and People 1 Sam. 2.29 Having thus briefly declared the Government of the Church in general which is more at large set forth by Padre Paolo that incomparable Servite in his Treatise of Beneficiary matters let us consider how the Government of the Church of England now stands In brief thus First In the British times before the Conversion of the Saxons the particular modes of Administration as all things else concerning the British Church are very obscure But this is clear enough That the Popes Tyranny and Usurpation being then unborn and Princes enjoying their whole Power both in Ecclesiasticks and Civils nothing was ordained without their Authority and Permission who yet gave large Powers to their Clergy both for Debating and Judging in their own Consistories things proper to their Care and Inspection as at large appeareth in the Imperial Constitutions of Theodosius Justinian and others Seconldy The English Saxons Church being planted by Augustine the Monk through the care and direction of Gregory the Great did bear a respect to the Roman See but owned none of its Authority and Dominion in Ecclesiastical matters The Bishops and others of the Clergy assembled often and made Ecclesiastical Laws and Constitutions but not without the License and Allowance of the Kings who by their own Authority indeed by Ecclesiastical Usurpation and Tyranny enacted also many things of Religious and Ecclesiastical Practise as appeareth largely in the Saxon Laws collected by Lambert and others and Sir Henry Spillman's Councels Thirdly For about 1000 Years after Christ the English Church refused thus the Roman Yoke till that proud Priest Thomas Becket Archbishop of Canterbury first was so bold as to shake off the King's Rule and Authority in matters Ecclesiastical denying him Obedience without the Condition of Salvo Ordine suo and so as much as in him lay destroyed the Liberty of the English Church and the King's Prerogative This appeareth from Anselm's 36 Epist to Paschalis Matthew Paris and others Peter Pence indeed were formerly paid out of respect to the Bishops of Rome but the Pope never obtained the Investiture of Bishops and the right of receiving Appeals and consequently that Soveraignty and Headship over the Church till such time as Becket being killed Henry the Second to get Absolution subjected himself and his Kingdom to the Roman Jurisdiction about An. 1172. Fourthly This Foreign Authority was after 200 Years restrained by the Statute of Praemunire and other Acts of Parliament yet the Pope still kept his Foot here tho' not his Body or rather his Hand which scraped up a World of Treasure The Canon Law was the Law of the Church Archbishops without the King's leave assembled their Provincial Synods the Decrees of which bound all Men by no other Authority than that meerly Ecclesiastical and provided that they were not contrary to the Jus commune as it is called of the Pope rather than that of the King Great were the Priviledges and Exemptions of the Clergy from Secular Courts and Jurisdictions as is to be seen in Articuli Cleri and other old Laws and the History of those times abundantly testisie Fifthly This Exorbitant and Foreign Power was in part banished by Act of Parliament in Henry VIII his time Now it s provided that the King should be ordained Supreme Head or Chief and Supreme in Ecclesiastical Affairs as the Jewish Kings of old and the Ancient Christian Princes were and it is made High Treason to deny it Now consideration being had of the old Canon Law it was considered how to reform and reduce it to such a temper as would sute with this new Alteration and it was then thought fit that it should rather be quite Abolished and a new intire Body collected for the Government of the Church Sixthly To this purpose it was Enacted that Thirty or more Persons should be deputed by the King to make this Collection But it being better to live where nothing than where every thing is lawful they were not so rash to run down Root and Branch and take away the old Building before a new one was modelled and therefore till this Model should be prepared and confirmed in Parliament it was Enacted That the Canon or Ecclesiastical Laws should stand in the same force as formerly they did at that time except in such Cases wherein they thwarted the Laws of the Land Seventhly This new body of Ecclesiastical Laws was by Edward the Sixth attempted and an Essay made by Dr. Haddon since printed by the name of Reformatio Legum Ecclesiasticarum but never was perfected nor confirmed by Act of Parliament and therefore the Canon Law is still in force as formerly but where it contradicts the Law of the Land Thus is the Crown with much ado pluckt out of the Paws of the Ecclesiastical Man of Sin and restored in Parliament to its Ancient Rights in matters Ecclesiastical It being by Act of Parliament Established That the Clergy should not Assemble without the King's License and Authority By all which it appears That the Kingdom the Church of England now hath a Supreme independent Right and Power within it self to make Coerceive Laws for the Welfare of it self without running to Rome or to
cease and a World of such-like Fopperies A special Gospel Government that Ecclesiasticks need be so fond of Can this be a Gospel-Government that conduces to no good end but to bring Grists to their Mills and an odium upon themselves and render them in some sense worse than the Furies of Hell who only torment the guilty but these vex the very Souls of Men as Righteous as themselves Which Government was partly obtained by Antichristian Popish Priest-craft partly by the supineness and negligence of the Brethren of former Ages of their own Rights and Priviledges partly by the Crast and Subtilty of proud covetous and ambitious Popish Clergy and partly by the carelesness of Princes who not willing to trouble themselves with the Care of Religion devolved it upon the Bishops and Priests by whom they were easily out-witted and seduced and so set up for themselves I wonder what plain Text of Scripture ever gave the Priesthood Authority to make Canons curse and suspend to impose and regulate to bind and punish the Body of the Church which in plain English is putting the Cart before the Horses the Church being to Regulate its own Concerns and Body and the Officers thereof and not the Officers the Body for by the Judgment of St. Cyprian The Praclice of the purest Times which were freest from corruption even when Holy Martyrs were Bishops was that Pastors were subject to the Censure of the Church If this business were seriously inquired into it would appear that there would be no need at all of this Ecclesiastical Government by Priests as distinct from the Civil Christian Government and if there be yet the Body is to govern and regulate it self and not the Clergy and Officers thereof the Body Either this their Government is to be found in the New Testament or it is not if it had been there it would have appeared long ago in the Contests between the Bishops and the Presbyterians But by both their Writings it manifestly appears That neither the one Government nor the other as it is now practised is to be found therein nor any other Government than what I have succinctly deseribed What strange Priests are these thus to usurp wrong Powers and make so very ill use of them and yet expect to be had in Reverence of them over whom they so Tyrannize by continuing the Usurpation of such wrong Powers got by Priest-craft in Evil and Popish times How can they expect that we should hearken to and believe them Preaching Self denial and Reformation to us when they hateo to be reformed themselves They are called to be Priests and Bishops and make their boasts of God that they know his Will and approve the things that are more excellent and considently brag that they are Guides to the Blind Lights to them that are in Darkness Instructers of the Foolish and therefore you who teach others why teach you not your selves You that make your boasts of the Law through breaking of the Law dishonorest thou God Rom. 2.17 32. is not this with â—emas to love the present World and with Diotrephes to love Preheminence and Domination All Histories both Sacred and Prophane swell with Out-cries and Exclamations against them as the Disturbers of the common Peace of all Europe as the Authors and Instruments of all Uproars Seditions Confusions and Wars Our own Church of England Men and Bishops boasted and signalized our first War 1639 which was the Spawn of all that hath followed by the name of Bellum Episcopale and not undeservedly Which Royal Army tho' in its march they injured no Body but rather inriched all places yet so averse was that War to the Genius of both Nations that none of them could bid us God speed as if God had stirred up the Spirit of these Nations as he did the Spirits of Pul and Tilgah Pilnesar Kings of Assyria whereby vex Popult became vox Dei and it thrived accordingly If this their Government now in use be not to be sound in Scripture as for certain it is not what is it else than for the Ecclesiastical Hierarchy to make the Souls of Men subordinate to their Pride and Impery and to intitle God himself to be the Author of all their Usurpations and to cast upon him the Shame and Dishonour of all their Oppressions and Violencies by gilding over all their Impieties with the Varnish of Religion and by assuming the Coverture and Canepy of Prety for a Cloak for their Impieties The Pagans were more modest towards their Gods accounting Dissimulation meer Imposture Have they made it their Business or improved their Interest since his Majesty's Restauration to restore that Tuesdays Sermon at Court which the Holy Martyr most Religiously observed Have they countenanced Lectures on the Week-days and Sermons in the Afternoon on the Sabbath-days Run through all the Counties of the Nation and matter of fact will clear the point I appeal to God and their own Consciences and to vox Populi for the truth hereof What violent suppression hath there been of Conventicles and Persecution of the Conventiclers happily as great if not greater than the Inquisition abroad tho' used in purest times by Christ and his Apostles and recommended by them to all the faithful in general by as true Jure Divino Precepts as Priests and Bishops have for their teaching all Nations by Matth. 28.19 and other plain Scriptures To this Divine Prerogative and liberty of assembling of the faithful in general for mutual and reciprocal Prophecying Edification Consolation Conferring and Communicating their several and diversities of Gists and Graces their own mutual progres growth and failings of their designs for Heaven and to participate of each others Advisoes and Prayers and how to behave themselves therein As this is a Divine Prerogative given to all the Faithful by the Gospel so they may make use thereof in any Nation without asking leave of any body and no Power ought to hinder them nor can they hinder it without Sin to this signal Priviledge St. Paul gives abundant testimony 1 Cor. 14. This Epistle was written not to Priests in particular but to the Church of God in general to them that are sanctified in life called to be Saints with all that in every place call upon the Name of Jesus Christ our Lord both theirs and ours 1 Cor. 1.1 wherein all the faithful whether Prtests or not Priests are commanded to follow after Charity and desire spiritual Gifts but rather that they may Prophesie By Prophets in this place are meant all Believers in general those within the Pale of the Church excluding those only without as unfit to judge such matters and by Propherying here is not meant the Gifts of Prediction or fore-telling events or things to come but speaking unto Edification Exhortation and Comfort If therefore the whole Church not Priests only come together in one place and all speak c. ver 23. and all prophesie ver 24. and every one of you hath a
Prophesie but of the Press also A shrewd sign that they disguise the truth and are afraid to be discovered and that they do distrust the Judgment of the World upon such their Actions For it is a derogation to Faith to dread the publishing of Truths All the World hath ever complained of the Vices Incroachments and Male-government of the Clergy attributing the cause of all State Distempers to be that the Clergy did creep into and busie themselves in the Courts of Princes and in the Affairs of the World being Judges Chancellors Secretaries Treasurers What not there being but few Officers of State into which some Ecclesiasticks have not insinuated themselves and crept in which is to ridicule Religion and shamefully to confound Spiritual and Temporal things together which is altogether Unapostolical This I am sure is forbidden by St. Paul and the whole tenor of the Scripture who thought it necessary that a Soldier of the Church should abstain from Secular imployments 2 Tim. 2.4 for Christianity is a continual Warfare they would take it very ill if one should say that Priesthood were not Jure Divino and happily well they may and I doubt they will take it as ill if we say that because it is Jure Divino therefore no Priest from the Presbyter to the Pope ought to busie themselves or take any Secular Imployment that may any way impede their daily Ministrations distract or avert their Thoughts or necessarily enforce their absence Vid. Canon Apost 7.80 And in the Ecclesiastical Laws there is a whole Title Ne Clerci vel Monachi secularibus negotiis innisceant Pope Clement the Seventh to serve a turn made all demonstration that he had laid aside all thoughts of Temporal things I could wish our Priests would do it in good earnest And St. Chrysostom hath a long discourse complaining of Clergy-men leaving the care of Souls and become Proctors Economists c. Preaching things unbeseeming the Ministery And it is not only against Precept Divine but against Moral and Natural right as appeareth Luke 10.7 and Matth. 10.10 1 Tim. 5.18 It is the labourer the workman not the lasie drone and loyterer that is worthy of his hire his meat and his reward It is they who minister not they who do not minister about holy things that have right to live of the things of the Temple and they that wait not they that do not wait at the Altar not at the Court or on secular Imployments that have right to be partakers of the Altar for the Lord hath so ordained that they which preach not they who preach not the Gospel should live of the Gospel 1 Cor. 9. 13 14. For Priesthood was at first instituted not for Honours nor for Dignities nor for Rewards as now used and have been so used many hundreds of Years but for Ministeries and Charges called by St. Paul Works and those that excrcise them called by Christ Workmen tho Priest-craft hath turned them into Benefices For Priests are most properly God's Workmen And St. Paul's practice was anserable to his Doctrine and the charge is given Rom. 12.7 8. to wait on that office whereunto we are called whether to prophecy let us prophecy according to the proportion of faith or ministery let us wait on our ministery or be that teacheth on teaching c. Where there is a Commandment there lies a Bond upon the Conscience to do To Preach the Gospel there is a Duty ever binding a Minister with a woe annexed if he Preach not Moreover the work of Preaching is so much more excellent above all other Acts of the Ministery that for my part I cannot imagine what that great and important business of the Ministery can be to which it can become preaching to submit I am sure not Sacraments and if not Sacraments I am sure nothing more excellent Christ sent me not to baptize but to preach the Gospel 1 Cor. 1.17 he might as well have said not to domineer not to do any thing in this sense comparatively as he desires to be understood Besides is there any thing more honourable Hear the same Apostle 1 Tim. 5.17 the Elders that rule well are worthy of double honour Call it Reverence or Maintenance or both however a specialty in it belongs to them that labour in the Word and Doctrine And it is most certain that more sound honour is to be gained in the Hearts of the People by Preaching than by all outward helps whatsoever What say I honour amongst Men yea more comfort to their Consciences and glory in God's Kingdom Hear Solomon Prov. 11.30 he that winneth Souls is wise and Daniel 12.3 they that turn others to righteousness shall shine as the Stars in the firmament And Paul 1 Thess 2.19 What is our hope our joy our crown of rejoycing are ou not it in the presence of our Lord Jesus Christ at his coming What comfort like this when a Minister comes before the Lord the great Shepheard of the Sheep with the word of Isaiah applied to our Saviour Lo me and the Children thou hast given me Isai 8.18 the Sons and Daughters which by thy blessing I have begotten unto thee in the Gospel One of the Apostles on whose Shoulders lay the care of all the Churches yet denounces woe to himself if he preach not the Gospel And Timothy hath that charge laid on him with an heavy adjuration to preach the Word 2 Tim. 4.1 2. Besides their very Priesthood obligeth them to be Watchmen and therefore to watch continually on their Ministry and if any of their Flock miscarry thro' their unwatchfulness their blood will be required at their hands and they cannot be ignorant that Sathan with millions of sins and stratagems are ever besieging inticing clamoring haling rebelling intruding with Love with Strength with Law with Arguments with Importunities always importuning and diverting their Flocks from the right way and therefore they ought always to stand Sentinel to forewarn and help Certainly if the Apostles were so Puritanical so Phanatical so Whiggish and so scrupulous of entertaining any Imployment tho' never so Pious and Charitable that might any way in the least hinder the main end of their Duty viz. to preach the Gospel I humbly conceive that our Bishops and Priests accounting themselves successors of the Apostles and sent as they were sent ought also to follow their Doctrine and Examples as well in this particular as in any other And sith the Lords provision for Levites was so made that they might attend the Altar and wait continually on the Sanctuary without the distraction and cumber of any civil Imployments I cannot see how plunging conflicting earthly Imployments can consist with the duty and charge of a Minister and execution of his Commission seeing to preach the Gospel being a duty ever binding Ministers with a Woe annxed if they preach not Woe to the idle shepherds if they preach not Ezek. 34.2 as heavy as to those that are at ease in Sion They cannot
to other Churches where they were received as their own Clergy and sometimes when some Minister of their own died a stranger if eminently worthy succeeded in his Ministry and was then said to be Incardinated whereas he that was first exalted to an Office was said to be Ordinated or Ordained but he who was disposessed of his own and provided with another was called Incardinated This began in Italy Hence in process of time came Cardinals from Parish Priests to be now equal to Kings and had their maintenance out of the common Stock accordingly of which there were Episcopi Cardinales Presbyteri Cardinales Rome and Ravenna being then the richest Churchs received most of the eminent strangers and therefore they had most Cardinals and they chose the most eminent Men strangers and were called Cardinals In Rome the name remains to this Day in Ravenna it lasted until 1543 and then was taken away by Paul the Thid. It is wonderful to see how from such a low beginning they have grown to such an excessive height even from that which had neither Degree nor Order in the Church but brought in by chance or rather by Clergy-craft and subtilty is raised to be so Supreme in the Church as we see it now a days Aequiparantur Regibus was the common saying of the Court Innocent the Fourth Anno 1244 gave them the red Hat and Paul the Second gave them the red Cap the Regulars excepted which was also granted to them by Gregory the Fourteenth Tho' at first none were Ordained without a Title which continued until a little before the Year 500 yet afterwards the Bishops Ordained without a Title or any Office and therefore without Benefice which sort of Clergy in progress of time grew so excessively numerous that thence arose a Multitude of Indecencies Irregularities and Scandals which did more especially arise from the desire of many to become Clergy men for increase of their Livelihood and to enjoy the Exemptions granted by Princes the other from ambitious Prelates desiring to have a multitude of Subjects whom they might command which disorder yet remains and makes the People loose their great Respect for Religion and their Charity Before the Council of Trent such Bishops swarmed but now much lessened Tho' so great Inconveniences and Irregularities arose by Ordaining without a Title yet the Jesuits will have it that the Pope may Ordain without any Title either true or feigned whereby the Reverence to that Order hath abated in respect to that it had when Ecclesiastical Orders were only Ordained to Offices for which reason all them resided and dwelt upon their Charges which could not be left vacant there being none to supply them all being occupied in their own Likewise the distinctions of Benefices Compatibile Incompatabile found out only to cheat the World was then unknown whether fatter or leaner the Possessor was obliged to serve it personally without Unions Reserves Commenda's and Devices found out only by Clergy Craft to avoid the old and best Canons and to bring all into the Popes Power There were many Provisions made by divers Princes to prevent the many Abuses occasioned by the Ambitious and Covetous Clergy but all in vain Clergy-craft quickly found out Distinctions and Subtilties and coined Evasions to avoid both Canons and Laws made for Redress of such and other Abuses which were before the Year 800. About which time Charlemagn having reduced under his Obedience Italy France and Germany reformed in some measure the Abuses in Ecclesiastical Affairs reducing them to an Uniformity which in divers places have been variously used renewing many of the old Canons and Councels worn out of use by Clergy Craft and making of Ecclesiastical Laws for the distribution of Benefices as they ought and partly restored unto the Parishes the Possessions which the Bishops had usurped unto themselves Ordaining that every Priest should have a sufficient Benefice according to that saying Beneficium datur propter officium He restored also to the Monks that Power of chusing their own Abbot He Established also That the Bishops ought to Ordain those Priests who were presented by the People of the Parishes He Established also the Pope of Rome in like manner as he had been instituted when the Emperors of the East had the Dominion over Rome viz. That the Pope should be Elected by the Clergy and the People and the Decree of the Election should be sent to the Emperour upon whose Approbation the elected was consecrated but to the Honour of the Clergy be it remembred there was never any Law made to remedy any of their Abuses but they soon found out a way to evade them About this time the Custom of giving Tythes unto Parish-Churches passed out of France over into Italy which soon were abused as well as other Provisions made by the free-will Offerings of the Faithful and so are to this Day But what should I say more of their Abuses in other things as of Abbies and Abbots Monkery and Monasteries Annates universally reputed grievous and condemned yet justified by some their Arms Spiritual Expectancies or Reversions Benefices Pluralities Comenda's Unions Reservations Cardinals Coajutorship Decretals Donations Elelection of Popes Priests Bishops and Deacons Exemptions Mendicants Regresses Indulgences Quindeniums Investitures Reserves Pensions plentitude of Power Non-obstante's Devolution Canons Dominion of Goods Ecclesiastical Resignations Renuntiations Alienations Reservations Symony Vacancies Titles of Dukes Marquisses and Earls given to Bishops c. but that the Clergy in those times did abuse that Power they had in the Gospel endeavouring rather to acquire Empire Grandeur and Temporal Estates by any indirect means than with Paul to have made the Gospel of Christ without charges by preaching the Gospel willingly A woe always attending the neglect thereof though they which minister about holy things ought to live of the things of the Temple and that they which wait at the Altar ought to be partakers of the Altar 1 Cor. 9.13 16 17 18. It is an Observation of godly Men That in those times the Court would never be induced that a gainful Abuse should be abolished or corrected until it had prepared a greater and more profitable one So great Authority tends to no good because it appears thereby that almost all the Abuses have been introduced From hence proceeded the Commendums Pensions Regresses Unions Resignations Expectancies Reservations yearly Payments Quindeniums and other kinds which no Man defends The Government of the Church was first Democratical all the Faithful being present in the chiefest Councels and Deliberations Thus we see that all were present at the Election of Matthias unto the Apostleship and in the Election of the Six Deacons and when St. Peter received Cornelius a Heathen Centurion unto the Faith he gave an account of it to all the Church Likewise in the Councel celebrated in Jerusalem the Apostles the Priests and the Faithful Brethren were present and the Letters were written in the name of all the Three Orders