natural Allegiance of his consciâ—nce towards Christ and the Truth and his outward duty to his Governours and Fathers at home violating the fift commandment with a Pharisaical corban saying to their peculiar Fathers it 's given to Rome whatsoever you might be profited by us following uncertain traditions before Gods express Law and teaching for Doctrines the commandments of men as our Saviour himself hath timely detected and forwarn'd against this Holy fraud Math. 15.5 for by the same reason that every good wife is to know her own Husband from another and every good Subject his own King from a Forreigner or Usurper and every Souldier his own Commander and Colours by the same duty and conscience every English Christian is to follow his own Church in Christ before another for obedience misplac'd is but Godly transgression or Traiterous Loyalty to the disturbance of the publick besides its own shame and prejudice And by submission to Governours and Synods they were heal'd of the Pelagian Heresie which most annoyed this Church next to Romish Inroades that trode down the whole field and sowed their tares and superstitions from year to year among our best corn this made also our Church to under go several variations about the observation of Easter as times required As for the Arian Heresie and venome which began to Breath a little in these parts upon h Usher p 197. Gratians toleration of divers opinions in Religion it found not the air to agree with it neither did Pelagius or Morgan though born in Brittain and as it is said i idem p. 207. the same day St. Augustine was born in Africk suck k idem p. 215. 224. Pelagii Epist ad Demetr or Propagate his Heresie here but fell into it at Rome by finding Christians to come short of Heathens and abusing Grace to Libertinisme and Wantonness for otherwise he was in great esteem and veneration for his learning and Sanctity with the chief l Usher 221.214 Fathers of the East and West St. Augustine and St. Chrysostom and in the East m Usher p. 215. ended his days having never return'd to his own Country but his Heresie came to be spread here nevertheless in those parts especially that were reduc'd by the Saxon Conquerour by the means of n Bed lib 1. c 17. Agricola a French man the Son of Severianus a Pelagian Bishop and in the rooting of it out amongst the Brittains left behind in Lhoegr Germanus and Lupus French-men likewise did good service as by Neutrality they were better fitted as for instance their first and main success in disputation was about o M. Westm p. 446. St. Albans where Gildas and such as he durst not approach for the Enemy as his complaint is taken notice of by p Camden in St. Albans Camden there being their chiefest Champions sent hither from the Gallican at the request of the Brittish Church signifying her distemper and troubles quaâ—primum fidei Catholicae debere succurri that the Catholick Faith should be assisted as soon as might be such was the loving Communion then between this and that Church and still might be especially with the soundest and learned'st part thereof under frown for Orthodoxy if he who now letteth were once taken fully out of the way 2 Thess 2. But it recover'd it self again after Germanus his time till St. David newly ordained Bishop by the Patriarch of Jerusalem in a publick Synod whereto he was invited held in Wales against it gave it q Usher p. 474. its final overthrow and was made Arch-Bishop of St. David in the same Synod thereupon For the Easter Controversie which was the only materiall point Augustine had to object for the other about Baptism was meer Ceremony and since lost in oblivion it consisted of two parts Doctrinal and Astronomical Doctrinal as in the early Controversie between the Churches of East and West wherein it is most probable the Brittains followed the East before the Synod of q Concil Arelat Can. 1. Arles and Nice determined otherwise and Astronomical between Augustine and the Brittains at this time being much the same difference between stylo veteri stylo novo in our days which the Ignorance of Augustine made to be a Catholick tradition derived from St. Peter and the chief ground and pretence of quarrel to disturb our Churches St. Paul dehorts Christians from observing dayes and Months and times and years Gal. 4 10 very agreeably to the Christian Hypothesis whereby this present world or the old Creation hath its end and period in the death of Christ Sacramentally to our Faith and r 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Chrys T. 5. Edit Savil. Hom. 53. p. 357. time its Concomitant twinne hath the like end and period with it by consequence Wherefore if ye be dead with Christ from the rudiments of the world why as though living in the world are ye Subject to Ordinances for properly a Christian as a Christian lives not in this world but in Eternity or to use the Apostles expression his 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 his Conversation and Scene of living is not on Earth but in Heaven with Christ at the right hand of God Phil. 3 20. Col. 3.1 Which Doctrine highly Suits with the nature and genius of the immortal Soul all whose Acts of vice or virtue though as born in the body within the virge of time and place they are Temporal and transitory yet as they are the free-born off-springs of the Soul they carry the features and signatures of Eternity upon them being Eternal as their Parent in the memory of their guilt or merit Not as if the old Creation wherein we still live in the flesh 2 Cor. 10.3 were wholly consumed and transubstantiated in the sight of our rational faculties which a moral Philosopher would justly deride as madness in those that should maintain it but that the whole sublunary and moral nature of all its parts is to be elevated and consecrated to Heavenly uses in this state of Grace and nearer access to God wherein the Church as a new Creature by faith now stands Rom. 5.21 2 Cor. 5.17 Therefore old things are passed away behold all things are become new We Christians eate and drink and obey and rule and mourn and rejoyce and observe dayes and times and feasts as well as the Jews or Heathens did but in another World by faith between the heart and the Lord in whom times persons and degrees and differences of persons meet in one as the whole Hemisphere in the candle of the eye or Diameters in their Center In the World men are Greeks or Barbarians bond or free Male or Female but in the Church Christ is all and in all For as in a degenerate Church or false Christian the present World or his Interest and profit is all in all and Holy Church and Religion and God and Christ and Faith and Sacraments are all Hypocritically and profanely named and used in
OF THE HEART AND ITS Right Soveraign AND ROME no Mother-Church to ENGLAND OR AN HISTORICAL Account of the TITLE of our BRITTISH CHURCH And by what Ministry the Gospel was first Planted in every County With a Remembrance of the Rights of JERVSALEM above in the great Question Where is the true Mother-Church of Christians By T. J. of Oswestry in the County of Salop sometime Domestick and Naval Chaplain to His Royal Highness the Duke of York Rom. 8.31 If God be for us who can be against us London Printed for Edw. Foulkes and are to be Sold by T. Basset at the George in Fleet-street 1678. To His Royal Highness JAMES Duke of York and Albany c. May it please your Royal Highness AS the Peace of Kingdoms which your Royal Highness excellently knows and the duty and safety of Subjects together with the great ease of Princes consist in one short easie rule and equitable well maintain'd and practic'd The submission of the Creature to its Creator or the Obedience of Inferiours in the low condition of the one to their respective Superiours over them in the Authority and high Character of the other so it may be affirm'd that the Peace and welfare of the Church depends no less upon the like lesson and method For what are Conventicles Schismes Heresies Idolatries which disturbe the Peace and destroy the being of the one but like so many Riots Factions Seditions Treasons which alike undermine and overthrow the Constitution of the other so that in short the Disturbers of the World are those alone who disobey Superiours Who in the time and under the covert of Peace are of two sorts such as undutifully despise the right or treacherously erect a wrong Sovereign over themselves The first are those who from Avarice or Pride or Ambition by craft or force disobey the Laws and usurp and encroach upon the Rights and Prerogatives of their lawful Governours where every inconsiderable Inceptor and Puny Recusant is a Cromwel or Lucifer in his path and tendency The next those who through fear or easiness will admit or submit to any wrong pretender in his usurpations and believe the Serpent against God And then it cannot be expected but that they who mistake their Sovereign in the first place will mistake their Loyalty in the next And Allegiance misplac'd shall make men Rebels as much as the failer or subduction The prime indispensable â—charge therefore first of Heaven's King next of every King on Earth that represent him is that known Commandment Thou shalt have none other Gods but me The Peace therefore of Churches and States manifestly consists in two points 1. In the exact knowledge and discovery who are our right and lawful Superiours on Earth 2. In exact obedience perform'd to their Laws and wills and no other Nor to them acting beyond their Sphere and usurping upon Gods Rights in Heaven under whom all Earthly Superiours and Inferiours are equally fellow-subjects And not to be allowed the liberty of eyes and understanding or private judgment to discerne between right or wrong Leaders which is of such temporal concern and preservation to every man in this World nor between the will of God and his Creature where they interfere which is of such Eternal moment in the other wherein lyes the Radical errour of some Modern Christian Heathenism were to be depos'd from being men any more or reduc'd to an Eternal non-age and inability to discern between good and evil and fitter therefore to be governed than to govern either themselves or others Having therefore for the establishment of Friends and the comfort of Regular and recovery of Irregular and seduc'd sufferers for Religion bestowed endeavours to distinguish the several parts of Divine and Human Soveraignty whereon the Peace of Communities and the Salvation of Souls depends being as manifestly distinguishable as Heaven and Earth or Soul and Body and stated also and evinc'd the Title of Right Mother-Church to our own Brittain though it s known a Harlot can bid fair for a true Mother where she lights not on Solomons for Judges and where she does be willing the Child be divided into Sects and parcells which she is not like to enjoy to her self entire and sufficiently demonstrated to any whose invincible minds and Spirits are unreduc'd from their Loyalty to God and truth That Popery in its Leaders is an uniform invasion and in its followers a necessary disobedience to right Soveraigns in Heaven and Earth and Protestancy in its Principles to be safe and clear from such disorders I judg'd fit to dedicate the Argument to whom it was duty to present the first Copy to your Royal Highness my Gracious Prince and Master having afore-hand weighed and consider'd as I ought it would make for your Highness Honour and publick love either at home or abroad in the disjunctive whatever were its resentment or success At home with God and the Countrey if it serv'd in the least to fortifie your Royal Breast against temptations or at least with Forreign Lords of Celestial Crowns and Canonizations against whose Sacred Avarice and Catholick canting for Tribute and subjection and other Politick Arts which are not unknown and infallible errours and Idolatries which are not unconfuted such plain and manifest Truths from clean hands and ends could so little prevail though seconded with the sense of the whole Nation and the rights of this ancient Apostolical Church undoubtedly Senior if not Mother to Rome it self Withall the Subject being of the Heart and Conscience and comprizing as the heart doth in a narrow Room a competent stock of Divine Rules and measures to judge of Truth and about Church matters seem'd therefore the fitter present for a Prince so nigh to Soveraign who is a Nation contracted in one man And Princes like God whom they represent delight in hearts And no Prince in Story was ever the Darling of more English Hearts than your R. H. and strange and unjust it were you should suffer any abatement of that Glory for no other reason but your exalted superlative zeal for God and your Conscience above Crowns or Kingdoms being the highest strein and pitch of sublime and transcendant Honour that Mortality could ever exert or phancy and higher still if that zeal were well guided with discretion as the Apostle requires and not taken upon undue trust whereof if there were not some manifest cause to doubt or fear none were more inexcusable and worthy to be deserted forever by Your R. H. than him who having had once the honour to adhere to you in your military dangers should want a heart at last to follow you in your Ecclesiastical motions after truth my more proper Element and Profession Having therefore as I ought doubted my self not a little and reviewed my Principles upon this occasion and with best endeavours of Brain and Knee studied to know the Truth and Gods mind herein with a heart resolv'd to be of its side to my power against the
useful to all and to one another when united and confederated together in lawful bands and Brother-hoods as I need not prove your vocation and establishment to be which is founded not only upon the indispensable needs of men but the express allowance also and the approbation of Laws both Humane and Divine It is not Wealth or Gold or Purse makes Interest and Power but men and friends as Cicero observes in his offices for those without these would little avail to our aid or comfort neither are we ever sure of men to be on our sides or fully to be trusted in till first we are sure of their hearts and nothing more wins and binds the hearts of men unto us than our hearts to them whether with our gift or without nothing so charms the heart of another as a heart to meet it as no loss more weakens and dethrones than the loss of hearts Now this communion and fellowship of hearts and souls is no where so to be learnt or acquired as in the School of Christ who is the sole legislator and judge of Souls and hearts I 'le Instance therefore in a concise description of a true and false Brother or member of this or that Society whether greater or smaller according to the Christian pattern and the Apostical rule of my Text to point but at the one or the other is sufficient praise and reproof for either A right Brother then of his Society is him in a word that is true hearted which no man ever was or will be without discharging every duty that lies upon him out of conscience to God and his Saviour he considers aright his livelihood and priviledge his love and honour from that Company or Charter to which he relates and his duty arising from his priviledge and the blessing of Heaven showring upon him and his while he conscientiously performs his duty He considers that by being of a Society he hath a new and a larger self than before being co-extended and co-multiplied according to the number and considerableness of the whole Brotherhood whereof he is and with this new-self a new-self preservation by consequence and a larger care doth grow upon him before he was but one and had but one to care for now he is grown into hundreds and hath hundreds therefore to love and tender even as he is tendered by them For it 's manifest the whole body owns the concerns of every the least member belonging to it and if a toe be but crushed the pain goes to head and heart and all He conceives it therefore but equity and reason that he should answer love with love that his gratitude should indent with his advantage from his Society yea that his returns of love should exceed his receipts like the good ground that repairs an handful of seed with an Harvest He loves therefore every Brother of his community equall yea above himself or his own single concern therein being thus match'd and exhausted in his disbursments and duty towards any one what stock hath he left to answer the love of the whole community who are hundreds of friends and defenders of him who is but one against them here he finds himself insolvent and over match'd with love and studies to get out of debt but cannot and gladly would he meet some streit or tryal or expence some happy kind of prejudice or honourable undoing of himself to do them some publick good and to testifie his preference of them by prostration and an humble annihilation of himself before them this is but the temper and due disposition of every member towards the publick good and preservation of that Body or Community whereof he is all true and Generous Spirits have their greatest wish and bliss when an opportunity is offered them to preserve and defend their Country though with the manifest hazard of their lives Dulce decorum est pro patriâ mori and so it is and ought to be in some parallel proportion in every lesser Corporation It is not only the duty but the delight of every genuine member thereof to Sacrifice his whole private interest therein for its publick welfare when necessity shall require and a greater allegiance to a greater Society or stronger relation shall not countermand him Thus he lives and thus he dies and when he dies his whole Society die with him in grief and sorrow for the loss of so dear a Brother so true a heart yea they will not suffer him to die nor his name to see corruption but attend him solemnly to his grave loaded with respect and mourning What to leave him there behind them No but to combat death for his rescue and to raise him from the dead in the strength of their love to which nothing is impossible and to bring him back into a life of honour and immortality in their hearts and memories this life of honour and good name being a new life and better than natural life it self in the sense of civilized mankind But he is before-hand with them being pre-embalm'd and secur'd against all assaults of death by his brazen wall the Testimony of a good conscience for a good conscience is infinitely better and more durable than a good name This is the Original life of honour to which that from our neighbours is but the Counterpart and eccho subject to mistakes both of love and malice But his blessed Saviour who is greater than his conscience is as much before-hand with him in point of life to be restored as he was with them his merciful Saviour graciously considers this poor man in all his toyl and imployment his heart did ever aim at me and shall I do nothing for him in his low condition now he is given by all for lost he considers when his feet travell'd toward his Patients his heart the same time travell'd towards Heaven and God that he tender'd the lives and purses of his charge the bills and reputation of his directors the orders and weal of his Society either his obedience to it or place of trust in it which all carry some equivalence to life all from his heart and conscience doing as he would be done by in the sight of Christ his Lord and Judge extracting by Divine Chymistry some service and worship to his Saviour out of every imployment on Earth Christ therefore owns him to have been his Minister and Servant all the while and not the Communities Now to be provided for and considered by a bountiful Master who hath ability and inclination to effect it to some purpose and this good and faithful Servant shall now enter into his Masters joy and be crowned with that astonishing bliss and Immortality to which all honour and good name here below so much valued in the world were but empty shadows and chances and peace of conscience it self which passeth all understanding but a short glimpse and fore-tast Dearly beloved and honour'd let me leave this lesson in your mind In
Impostures are less tolerable than the open Treason of a Cromwell or the Tyranny of the Turk because men may easier endure to be robbed than to be cheated and deprived of their purses or Estates against their will than of their Honour and understanding with consent And as it hath been largely proved that Popery consists in evident disobedience and Rebellion against the Right Heir and Soveraign of the heart And Papists in a greater concern to jump exactly with the old Sexton whose Clock went truer than the Sun so positively also further to clear and evince the Truth to be on the Protestant side in this main point and Issue which is the hinge of the Controversie between us I shall also instance how we Protestants Loyally adhere to our Right guide and Judge and how the heart in all our principles relies on God and none else and on Christ who is the sole foundation of the Church 1 Cor. 3 3 11. and the Rock whereon it is built against which the gates of Hell can never prevail Math. 16.18 We build our Faith upon the Holy Scriptures which are Gods word for hearts to rest on whose Divine Authority themselves dare not deny without being the most convicted Hereticks that ever disturbed Gods Church in any age however they Blaspheme and traduce them before the Vulgar We come to know the Scriptures to be Gods word being not present our selves at passages by the Testimony and tradition of others such a Testimony as is also Divine or nearest to Divine to be relied on by the heart Not upon the Testimony of the Church of Rome by any means who hath so much cracked her credit by legending forgeing expurgating c. for it were a great fault as well as folly in us who profess our Devotion to God and the Truth to confide in the Father of lies or such his followers but upon our own honest Christian Ancestors with other Churches especially the Primitive when most pure and Holy and therefore likest to God and to be believed by consequence from the heart and the rather when seconded with the Testimony of the Holy Spirit to Holy Livers who is God We believe our sences in their own Sphere in many points against the whole world because we believe God in them with our hearts who made our sences and speaks through them Prov. 20.12 We believe beyond sence and can see things absent as if they were present to us when we have Gods word to assure the same to our Faith and consequently to our hearts and can discern Christ present in the blessed Sacrament and the Bread to be present nevertheless in different respects and be assured of both in our hearts through the evidence and strength of God in whom our Faith and sences act and move But in a Religion without the heart as is the Roman It is hard if not impossible to conceive or imagine how any Sacrament of Bread can be at all amongst them without Transubstantiation in the Elements who will not and cannot admit of any other change by the heart and Faith which are not much in use in that Church in this or any other part of worship which shews the root and occasion of that monstrous errour in that carnal Catholick Church which cannot distinguish between the objects of sence and Faith and is observ'd to Apostatize herein from their own Antient Mass which doth We believe plain and manifest Truths of Scripture without need of guides against the Glosses or Sophistry or Authority of the whole world to the contrary for we believe God himself in them with our hearts who requires and deserves to be so believed because God himself leads us by the hand as it were yea with both hands in plain Texts of Holy writ on the one side and his manifest Instincts of good and evil on the other in such manifest duties And when God himself doth speak all the world must hold the tongue while the Sun is above the Horizon Stars and Candles which answer to guides and supplies abscond and give way Hawks and all other Birds quit the Air where the Eagle Towres what Stupidity were it in a man of years and knowledge of the City to ask the way from Charing-Cross to Temple-bar out of Reverence to his guide and distrust of himself in things obscure and Controversiall wherein neither we nor others can clearly and assuredly discern Gods mind and will for the heart to acquiesce in here we make use of Candles and guides and especially our lawful Superiours who are Gods deputies to direct us and all others that resemble God in their gifts or years or places or Major vote For the next to God is as God unto us when God himself cannot be heard and our hearts can rest on them but not with equal assurance as on plain and manifest duties as their importance also is not equal for there is a greater respect of the two due to the Principal than to his deputy In like manner in all Indifferent matters which are the proper Province of the Magistrate for where Scriptures end there humane Laws begin where God withdraws there his Deputies step in we submit to the determinations and publick orders of our lawful Governours as to Gods voice and Authority out of the obedience of our hearts to Christ present in our Superiours to our Faith and regard to the Churches peace which is his image and darling And they that refuse to submit and conform do it in adherence to their conscience as they pretend now conscience without a Rule is an Atheist as is the heart without the Lord and of no use like a Sun-diall in the dark It is not conscience but the Quakers dark-light within and the Rule is Christs Will or to come nearest to his Will which is the utmost satisfaction of the heart now whether we keep nearest to Christ in adhearing stiffly to private fancy or submitting modestly to publick Authority and Major vote is the Question which St. Paul puts of question 1 Cor. 14.33 For Christ is where peace and humility and order is and not where pride and strife and division are and are ever like to be while each prefer themselves not only before their equals which is pride but their Superiours likewise which is disobedience and contempt of Christ in his Magistrates added to it which all true Christian hearts will avoid more than death as being not from God as Papists truly object And so we Protestants hold no Principle or Opinion but what agrees with the mind of God and Christ which was the Rule and measure that was to be agreed upon by both to arrive at Truth and endeavour always to approve our hearts to Christ who alone is their Judge and Soveraign and no mortal man whatsoever believing and considering that as there can be no sin or vertue where there is no Law so a Law were to no effect or purpose without a Judge to reward and punish the observers
or transgressors of that Law and Law-giver there is but one who can save and destroy James 4.12 The blessed Lord Jesus Judge of quick and dead at the last day whose deputies on Earth in the Interim are consciences in Private souls and Magistrates and Governours in publick bodies who are as the souls of such bodies whether Temporall in Externall or Ecclesiastical in more Internall matters and concerns who are all both Private and publick conscience Subject and accountable unto him who alone is Judge and Soveraign And therefore we can do nothing against Christ upon any mans Authority whatsoever and being found faithful to him the sole and Supreme Judge and Soveraign of our souls we trust to be found Gods Catholicks though we are but Hereticks to the Pope who is not our Judge rejoycing in mans aspersion while we have Gods Absolution to wipe it off for not he who commendeth himself is approved but whom the Lord commendeth 2 Cor. 10.8 SECTION II. Of the true Mother Church in particular to all Christians in respest of their In-side and RomesVsurpation HAving shewed that no Christian Churches or persons are subject to the Pope while himself is not subject to Christ the right Superiour and Soveraign over all nor bound to offend against Christ to please his pretended Vicar all being bound to withdraw their Communion from him who shakes off the undoubted Soveraign over all I will further shew that though the Church of Rome were sound and un-corrupt in its Doctrines and Loyalty which it is very far from yet it neither is nor was ever any mother Church to our British Church nor can have any right or title to its subjection or obedience It never had any Original motherhood or superiority over us of right nor in fact at any time but by the Concession of our Princes imposed upon by its arts which they may justly recal and take away at their pleasure as hath been done So it appears it's themselves that necessitate us to desert their Communion out of Christian Loyalty to our Saviour by them first deserted and deposed in a treasonable manner and his glorious Majesty chang'd into the similitude of a Calf or a Mortal Creature that perisheth which is the first spring and root of the rest of their desperate and monstrous Errours which bear the manifest spots and tokens of Antichristianism in the strength and infallibility of their Delusions Though we can and ought to bewail and compassionate their condition and slavery yet to return to their bosome as to a Mother Church we understand not how it is our duty or sober obedience were it sound or healthy yet we doubt not but she hath angl'd several sincere and ignorant and unwary Sons of this Church with that bait We confess we have been pin'd and stary'd under her for hundreds of years as under a hard and cruel Stepmother while harbour'd by the Fathers of our Countrey imposed upon by her inchantments whose issue by her as by a second venter upon her divorce became appurtenant to the Father and are incorporated with the first stock and Family but sure we are she never teemed of our Brittish Churches who never were the Daughters of her womb nor sucked our first milk from her breasts For whether their inside or their outside or extraction be consider'd they appear to have no descent from Rome Neither can they instance or insist upon any other point or manner of Pedegree and derivation of one Church from another For as it is with every private man if his inside and Soul and Spirit be examined whence it came it came from above from the Father of our Spirits Heb. 12.9 and to return in peace to him that gave it is its utmost aim and bliss Eccles 12.7 If the outside or his body it came from the Earth whence it was first taken and whither it must return If his intermediate descent he springs and proceeds from Fathers and progenitors of the Flesh and owns their superiority and Discipline and honours their names and memories So it is with all Churches and Christian Societies By our inside we are not from below or from beyond the Sea but from Heaven Jerusalem above being our mother and Jesus our King the King and Lord of Souls By our outside we are under our own Kings and Governours on Earth as our Nursing Fathers and Mothers according to the Holy Prophecy As to our descent Old Christian Britannia is our Mother to whom the Antient Church of Rome is Junior in the Faith and much more any of her Perking Daughters or Clergy which shall be further proved in every particular And first as to the inside of all Christian Churches and of the Church of Rome it self if she will be a Church of Christ and of thousands in her that have not bowed the heart to any but to Christ known to God There is no Mother-Church to be accounted of but one only the Spouse of Christ expressed by name in Scripture Heb. 12.22 Not the City of Rome who rather is under ill report in them but the City of the living God The Heavenly Jerusalem which Gal. 3.26 is by the Apostle Stil'd the Mother of us all and which is free and answering unto Sarah whereas Jerusalem on Earth answers Hagar in her servitude and yet Jerusalem below is more a Mother of all Christian Churches than Rome it self or any other here below for Rome her self had her extraction thence her St. Peter and his Chair and the Gospel and Christ himself she and all must derive originally from Sion And if the Mother be not free much less her Daughters for no Soul or Church can be said to be free in her exile and servitude whiles she serves any other but her own natural Prince who is Christ alone the High Priest and Bishop of our Souls who is at the right hand of God in that Heavenly City and Assembly of the Faithful For Christ is the sole Monarch and Legislator in this Spiritual Kingdom and none are free Subjects here but those who obey him alone and no other Controller His will alone is the Law and measure of good and evil and duty and transgression He enacts and repeals and dispenses and absolves he alone can search and reward and punish Souls The everlasting concerns of Eternity and the secrets of mens hearts transcend all humane authority and cognizance and reach No secular Powers are to tread within this Temple but are to stand without in the Court though Christians and in the further Court of the Gentiles if Heathen or Antichristian Christs Deputies and delegates in this Heavenly work and Province are all Bishops and Curates who by their life and Doctrine set forth his true and lively word and rightly and duely Administer his Holy Sacraments who yet have no power or property or Authority but from him Neither is the word they preach 2 Thes 2.13 nor the Sacraments they administer 1 Cor. 4.1 nor the Absolution they
example before men belongs to Christian Kings to regulate by discretion with the advice of their Clergy Numb 27.21 Mal. 2.7 for their Transitory Nature makes them more allyed to this present world where Kings are Soveraigns than their bare Connexion to Holy duties doth make them appurtenances to the other immortal world where Christ only Raigns and Rules For Instance whether it be more decent to perform Divine service in a Gown or Surplice or in a Cloak or Querpo whether with the people having all their Hats on as do the Jewes or the Minister as the French or all bare both Minister and People as usually amongst us whether kneeling or sitting be the best and seemliest postures at several Offices before men for it is clear before God that the heart is all in all whether a Bason at the Ministers Elbow be more comly than a Font or whether the Font stand best in the Chancel with the other Table for the other Sacrament or at the Church door in token of our entrance by it Whether the Cross may be used in Baptism or the Ring in Marriage Whether the King have not power to found and endow Churches and to alter Sees and to translate the Metropolitan from one place to another as he thinks fit for any new convenience or redress These things are nominally spiritual but really secular and belong to Christian Temporal Jurisdiction which no way intrenches herein upon Divine Institution or Soveraignity which hath left out such matters and causes free for Christian Kings to regulate even in the Church and Temple as did the Kings of Israel The Church being part of their state and Province where Kings and Subjects are Christian and the one to order every thing to the Lord Christ whose Deputies and Vicars now they are and the other to obey them in all such their Orders from the heart as to the Lord Neither is there any peril of Soul or Salvation by such transitory matters as wears and postures of the Body where they are not ordained for to honour or acknowledge Idols and false Gods there may be great danger in contention 1 Cor. 11.16 and disobedience to those Divine and Eternal Laws which command obedience and Conformity to humane Neither are the Circumstances of Religion made equal hereby to the substantial parts thereof being observed to such several Ends and intents sufficiently distinct and different as are the Authorities that appoint both the one and the other God himself in those and Kings as his Deputies and delegates in these though many mens too much placing their Heaven and zeal and humour and scruples upon Ceremonies and shadows make them substances as to themselves For the difference between Time and Eternity or the Body and the Soul or sense and faith or word and sword or Heaven and Earth or peace of Conscience and the peace of the Kingdom is not more fixt and manifest and unconfounded than is that between the inside and outside of the Church the one lying within the Perambulation and Jurisdiction of Divine Soveraignty the other of humane neither of the Popes over us in England nor the latter but only there where he is a Temporal nor the former even at Rome it self where so he is And O! the Unchristian Arts and Methods that have been us'd by Popery all along both above and under-board according as it was high or low to wrest this Ecclesiastical Supremacy and Prerogative from Christian Kings which is their manifest and undoubted right and chiefest Glory in their Temporal Crowns and a peculiar Talent for their management in order to an Eternal Sometimes openly and above-board by an impudent pretence of Plenitude of Power when they had none at all they have eagerly endeavoured to hook unto themselves our Kings Royal Priviledges about Investures and nomination of Bishops and the Crowns off from their heads which is too well known For any ones Temporal right that had any reference or Relation towards the Church was straightway the undoubted Appurtenance of St. Peters Chair under that pretence they caus'd King Henry the Second in the Controversie about the exemption of the Clergy which was an absolute invasion of his Royal Government and Authority to be whipt and stript by his Subjects like a Malefactor in Bridewell for the good of his Soul and in breach of his Royal Trust and Dignity to allow Appeals to Rome to heal his wounded Conscience Their poisoning Attempts and Invasions and Powder-plots against Queen Elizabeth and King James are fresh in Memory When open Arts can do no good they 'l work their Ends in Masquerade and smaller undertakings Here possessing Quakers and raising Sects to resist and Blaspheme our Religion and Government There endeavouring to get more considerable Instruments into power to promote their Romish Interest in Protestant Shapes with greater succcess and lesser noise because less discern'd to corrupt our hopeful Clergy and destroy honest men under-hand and imbroile the Nation by widening the differences between Protestants which were ready to close and multiplying Non-conformists whether they would or not For it is obvious and easie to observe that all or most of our Presbyterian Dissenters of the younger sort throughout the Nation did see their Errour and desert their Party upon the Restauration of our Church And that the Elder sort were no less convinc'd from the experience of late confusions but that it was harder for the one than for the other in point of Reputation to change and walk contrary on a suddain to their former Actings And the secret enemies of our Protestant peace and union laid hold of this advantage as Non-conformists alledge and cast in politick Provisoes and obstructions to make their Repentance harder still if not impossible to the trouble of our Government and the joy of Rome Some ambodextrous Pens like Mountebanks upon a Stage shall publickly wound and confute and presently heal and defend the Church of Rome as faithfully as any of her own Inquisitors and as safely as any of our own Authors by this double stile falling fiercely upon their first Deserters and such as begin to espy and loath any of its grosser Errours enough in time if not so carefully prevented and discourag'd to cause a general defection throughout the host because they are not perfect Protestants in a moment able to see and relinquish all her Corruptions at first waking And therefore the sincere Irish Clergy shall be rigorously chid for beginning an Orthodox Allegiance in disobedience to their Church and violation of their Oaths And the Jansenists for defending Catholick Doctrines with the like sincerity to Christ and dis-rellish to the Pope And the Distinguishers of the Church of Rome from its more corrupt Court as Pestiferous and rash beginners or some Ho-body Hoyes and no right Sons of the one Church or of the other against all Principles of Christian Charity which forbids to quench the smoaking Flax or break the bruised Reed as also against common humanity and
with the first in its adversity and contempt For every Religion expresses what honour it hath for the Deity it worships by the respect and honour it enjoyns to be paid to its Ministers and Attendants And amongst all degrees of Christians from the lowest to the highest neither Christ nor his Ministers can be said to be either lov'd or honour'd where both are not lov'd and honour'd equally if not above themselves And no man can despise the Ministers of his Religion without despising his Religion nor despise his Religion without despising himself for where is a man's self more than in his God or Idol If Christ and his Religion be to be honoured it is to be invited to sit equal with us in our Feasts if not above wherein no Church is more proportionable than this of England which hath its Minâ—stry so adequate and comporting with the several degrees and conditions of its Laity like Arteries with the veins along the body from the toe to the head But now far otherwise is it amongst Christians Teachers and Disciples when the world hath possessed their hearts And Christ dwells but at their tongues only many there are besides Quakers it is to be feared that would be well contented to be without any Gospel at all on condition to be Tith-free and judge no sort of men better to be spared or retrenched in this Commonwealth than Christs Ministers And if they had Power enough in their hands would judge an 100 l. per annum to be revenew enough or two much for any Bishop to support himself and Family and to keep Hospitality and relieve the poor and strangers and to defend the Church against its Enemies and not 10000 l. per annum too much for themselves to spend upon their lusts and Vanity And in some Nations the Lay sort Raign and Rule and the Clergy hold the stirrup or serve under revocable pay like other workmen and trained thereby to be as observant of the state as of God neither hath the degenerate Clergy been behind in over-reaching to the degenerate Laity in grudging and subducting especially in the Roman Church who conceived she never had enough untill she had all not only their Lands but their Liberties and all became her Tenants or Vassals or tributaries from the Plow to the Throne Now how would these two contrary lusts tear and destroy one another if God had not raised Kings to preserve the peace between them How would Religion and good literature all fall to the ground and Atheism and Barbarism or equivalent Ignorance and superstition come again in their place if Kings were not Nursing Fathers to secure their Rights and Defenders of the Faith to maintain their Priviledges and quietness to correct on the one hand the Idolatrous Avarice of some hard hearts who would starve the Lord Christ to cherish their Lord Mammon And to check the Hypocrisie and worldliness of others on the other hand who Christopher-like carry Christ upon their backs to begg mens hearts who make use of Purgatory and the world to come to gull men out of this present who call all men to be their Paymasters for the unvaluable unrequitable mysteries of the Gospel which they at best but counterfeit and make them Vassals for ever afterward upon the score of that Tribute and acknowledgement who claim a Supremacy over Princes not upon the score of the Pulpit and the Eternal obligations thereof which they quit but upon the score of their Chairs which was borrowed from the Throne and intended it should return to its subordination thereunto Though Spiritual Graces wherewith they are ill stock'd are above all Temporal reward as much as Salvation is above an Earthly Crown yet it doth not follow that the Instruments and conveyers of Grace are Superiours here in in this world to all that receive it by their Ministry The message and Author is but not the messenger Kings hear Gods word as Subjects to Christs whole word it is but not as Subjects to those that Preach it but their Masters rather It is an ill and Un-evangelical Inference and too much savouring of Antichrist from Spiritual Doctrines to raise Secular Superiority and to make wordly Rule and Ambition the chief end of the everlasting Gospel Ego Rex meus was a perfidious Traiterous crime in Wolsey to transfer his Masters honour and Soveraignty upon himself which is their great Disease at Rome and constant Boldness upon Christ A Pursiveant though sent from a King to Arrest a Peer is not Superiour in quality thereby to the Peer although his Authority and errand be we may as well conclude all Centinels to be Generals of the Field or every Chaplain declaring Christ will in a Sermon before the King to be Primate of the Church and every Christian who Conquers the world by his Faith to be Emperour of this world as Popes to be Supremes in Christian Kingdoms and Churches over mens souls and bodies because they are the Servants and Officers of Christ who is When St. Ambrose boldly durst suspend his Soveraign and Theodosius meekely yielded to the censure of his Subject there was no Superiority either lost or got by this in either both doing their parts of Servants herein the Bishop of fidelity about his Master's mysteries the Emperour of Submission to his Saviours Steward All orders and degrees in the Church are every one in the Postures of Servants to Christ and Servants to another for Christ his sake 1 Cor. 3.22 and he alone the only Master and Soveraign Math. 23.8 In this world it 's true it 's otherwise where some are Servants others are Masters some Rulers and others Ruled all to be regarded as unto Christ in their several Superiorities by Christians who are to serve and obey them all from the heart upon Christs account in addition to their Civil obligation which is correlative to their Civil Superiority for as we are Christians we serve none but Christ and those that Rule and Govern if Christians do it as his Servants and Pious Kings have justly esteemed it to be a greater Dignity to be Servants of Christ than Soveraignes of this world Whosoever therefore misguides or mis-governs his Inferiour or wrongs or deceives his Neighbour or disobeys or dishonours his Superiour Christian violates his Faith and duty first to his Heavenly Soveraign in his heart before he wrongs any other on Earth by his outward Act. And it is our concern and honour as to detect and shun all such as are Traytors and Faithless to our Saviour so dearly to embrace and love them from our hearts that are true But though Kings meddle not with the Substantialls of Religion or the rights of Christ yet with the out-side or Circumstantials that fall within their charge and cognizance they well may and must whatsoever in Church matters is of Temporal not of Eternal moment neither determined by Christ nor necessary to Salvation but conducing only to Order and Peace and Decency and good