it stood till the year 1592. when Mr. William Perkins an eminent Divine of Cambridge published his Book called the Armilla Aurea c. containing such a Doctrine of Predestination as Beza had before delivered but cast into a more distinct and methodical Form With him as being a Foreiner both by birth and dwelling a Supralapsarian in Opinion and one who had no personal Relations amongst themselves it was thought fittest to begin to confute Calvins Doctrines in the person of Perkins as many times a Lion is said to be corrected by the well Cudgelling of a Dog without fear of danger And against him it was his order in delivering the Decree of Pedestination that Arminius first took up the Bucklers in his Book intituled Examen Pradestinationis Perkinsoniae which gave the first occasion to those Controversies which afterwards involved the Sublapsarians also of which more hereafter In the mean time let us behold the Doctrine of the ' Supralapsarians first broacht by Calvin maintained by almost all his followers and at last polished and lickt over by the said Mr. Perkins as it was charged upon the Contra Remonstrants in the Conference at the Hague Anno 1610. in these following words viz. That God as some speak by an eternal and unchangeable Decree from amongst men Arcan Dog Aat Rom. p. 15. whom he considered as not created much less as faln ordained certain to eternal life certain to eternal death without any regard had to their righteousness or sin to their obedience or disobedience only because it was his pleasure or so it seemed good to him to the praise of his Justice and Mercy or as others like better to declare his saving Grace Wisdom and free Authority or Jurisdiction Many being also so ordained by his eternal and unchangeable decree fit for the execution of the same by the power or force whereof it is necessary that they be saved after a necessary and unavoidable manner who are ordained to Salvation so that 't is not possible that they should perish but they who are destined to destruction who are the far greater number must be damned necessarily and inevitably so that 't is not possible for them to be saved Which doctrine first makes God to be the Author of sin as both Piscator and Macarius and many other Supralapsarians as well as Perkins have positively and expresly affirmed him to be and then concludes him for a more unmerciful Tyrant than all that ever had been in the world were they joyned in one A more unmerciful Tyrant than the Roman Emperour who wished that all the people of Rome had but one Neck amongst them that he might cut it off at a blow he being such in voto only God alone in opere But this extremity being every day found the more indefensible by how much it had been more narrowly sifted and inquired into the more moderate and sobert sort of the Calvinians forsaking the Colours of their first Leaders betook themselves into the Camp of the rigid Lutherans and rather chose to joyn with the Dominican Fryers than to stand any longer to the dictates of their Master Calvin These passing by the name of Sublapsarians have given us such an order of Predestination as must and doth presuppose a fall and finds all man-kind generally in the Mass of Perdition The substance of whose doctrine both in this and the other Articles were thus drawn up by the Remonstrants in the Conference at the Hague before remembred 1. That God Almighty willing from eternity with himself to make a decree concerning the Election of some certain men but the rejection of others considered man-kind not only as created but also as faln and corrupted in Adam and Eve our first Parents and thereby deserving the Curse And that he decreed out of the fall and damnation to deliver and save some certain ones of his Grace to declare his Mercy But to leave others both young and old yea truly even certain Infants of men in Covenant and those INfants baptized and dying in their Infancy by his just Judgment in the Curse to declare his Justice and that without all consideration of Repentance and Faith in the former or of impenitence or unbelief in the latter For the execution of which decree God useth also such means whereby the Elect are necessarily and unavoidably saved but Reprobates necessarily and unavoidably perish 2. And therefore that Jesus Christ the Saviour of the World died not for all men but for those only who are elected either after the former or this latter manner he being the mean and ordained Mediator to save those only and not a man besides 3. Consequenty that the Spirit of God and of Christ doth work in those who are elected that way or this with such a force of Grace that they cannot resist it and so that it cannot be but that they must turn believe and thereupon necessarily be saved But that this irresistible grace and force belongs only to those so elected but not to Reprobates to whom not only the irresistible Grace is denied but also grace necessary and sufficient for Conversion for Faith and for Salvation is not afforded To which Conversion and Faith indeed they are called invited and freely sollicited outwardly by the revealed Will of God though notwithstanding the inward force necessary to Faith and Conversion is not bestowed on them according to the secret Will of God 4. But that so many as have once obtained a true and justifying Faith by such a kind of mesistible force can never totally nor finally lose it no not although they fall into the very most enormous sins but are so led and kept by the same irresistible force that 't is not possible for them or they cannot either totally or finally fall and perish And thus we have the doctrine of the Sublapsarian Calvinists as it stands gathered out of the Writings of particular men But because particular men may sometimes be mistaken in a publick doctrine and that the judgment of such men being collected by the hands of their Enemies may be unfaithfully related we will next look on the Conclusions of the Synod of Dort which is to be conceived to have delivered the Genuine sense of all the parties as being a Representative of all the Calvinian Churches of Europe except those of France some few Divines of England being added to them Of the calling and proceedings of this Synod we shall have occasion to speak further in the following Chapter A this time I shall only lay down the Results thereof in the five controverted Points as I find them abbreviated by Dan. Tilenus accordin gto the Heads before mentioned in summing up the doctrine of the Council of Trent Art 1. Of Divine Predestination That God by an absolute decree hath Elected to salvation a very small number of men without any regard to their Faith or obedience whatsoever Arcan Dogn Contr. Remon p. 23. and secluded from saving Grace all the
regam juxta morem qui colunt honorant regunt uxores fideliter Do autem tibi dotem virginitatis tuae ducentos aureos i.e. 50 siclos quin etiam alimentum tuum vestitum atque sufficientem necessitatem tuam Cornel. Bertram item cognitionem tui juxta consuetudinem universae terrae That is to say Be thou a Wife to me according to the Law of Moses and Israel and I shall worship and honour thee according to the Word of God I shall seed and govern thee according to the custom of those who worship honour and govern their Wives faithfully I give thee for the Dowry of thy Virginity two hundred pence i. e. 50 Shekels as also thy food cloathing and all sufficient necessaries and knowledge of thee according to the custom of the whole earth A Shekel was a piece of money among the Jews amounting in our coyn to 1 s. 3 d. Judg. 14.11 1 Sam. 18.25 Ruth 4.2 Much of which form as to the main and substance of it is exceeding Ancient For in the Marriage of Sampson we find the Children of the Bride-Chamber being the thirty young men his Companions as they are there called in that of David unto Michael the Daughter of Saul the bringing in of an hundred Foreskins of the Philistins in loco dotis as the Dowry-money in that of Ruth the presence of ten men to bear witness to it Nor was this done being a business of such moment without a special Benediction For at the Marriage of Boaz to Ruth the People and the Elders said The Lord make the Woman which is come into thine House like Rachel and like Leah which two did build the House of Israel and do thou worthily in Ephrata and be famous in Bethlehem and let thy House be like the House of Pharez of the Seed which the Lord will give thee of this young Woman Ruth 4.11 12. Upon this ground it was that Marriage was not solemnized amonst them without Prayers and Blessings the form whereof in the ensuing times was this as followeth Benedictus sis Domine Deus noster Rex universi c. Blessed be the Lord our God the King of the World who hath Created Man after his own Image according to the Image of his own likeness and hath thereby prepared unto himself an everlasting building Blessed be thou O Lord God who hast Created him Moses Aaron l. 6. cap. 4. Then followeth again Blessed be thou O Lord our God who hast Created joy and gladness the Bridegroom and the Bride Charity and Brotherly love Rejoycing and Pleasure Peace and Society I beseech thee O Lord let there be suddenly heard in the Cities of Judah and the Streets of Hierusalem the voice of joy and gladness the voice of the Bridegroom and the Bride the voice of exaltation in the Bride-Chamber is sweeter than any Feast and Children sweeter than the sweetness of a song Which Prayer thus ended one of the Bride-men or Companions took a cup having before been blessed in the wonted form and drinks unto the Married-couple As for the form and rites of Burial not to say any thing either of the washing or embalming of the Corps which was common unto them with other Nations Chiristan Synagogue l. 1. cap. 6. sict 8. Paraph. 15. Diat 1. their custom was after the body was interred to speak something of the justice of God and of mans sin which meriteth death and they prayed God in justice to remember mercy This said they gave a Cup of Consolation to the sad-hearted Finally on the grave or Tombstone they caused these words ensuing to be written Sit anima ejus in fasciculo vitae cum caeteris justis Amen Amen Selah That is to say let his soul be in the bundle of life with the rest of the just Amen Amen So be it These as they were the ancient forms and ceremonies used in their Marriages and Burials so after when they had erected Synagogues in convenient places they solemnized their Marriages in a Tent Maymon cited in Fishter's defence cap. 17. set upon four Pillars near their Synagogue which shews that there was something in it wherewith the Priest or Prophet was to intermeddle and that they did esteem it of a nature not so meerly civil but that the blessing of the Minister was required unto it But it is time I now go forward to the Ages following CHAP. III. Of the condition and estate of the Jewish Liturgy from the time of David unto Christ 1. Several hours of prayer used amongst the Jews and that the prayers then used were of prescribed forms 2. The great improvement of the Jewish Liturgie in the time of David by the addition of Psalms and Instruments of Musick 3. The form of Celebrating Gods publick Service according unto Davids Institutions described by the Jewish Rabbins 4. The solemn form used in the dedicating of the first and second Temples 5. The Temple principally built for an House of Prayer 6. The several and accustomed gestures used among the Jews in the performance of Gods publick worship 7. The weekly reading of the Law on the Sabbath days not used until the time of Ezra 8. The reading of the Law prescribed and regulated according to the number of the Sections by the care of Ezra and of the 18 Benedictions by him composed 9. The Exposition of the Law prescribed and ordered by the Authority of the Church 10. The first foundation of Synagogues and Oratories and for what employments 11. The Church of Jewry ordained Holy-days and prescribed forms of prayer to be used thereon 12. Set days for publick annual Feasts appointed by the Jewish Church with a set form of prayer agreeable to the occasion 13. The form of Celebrating Gods publick Service according as it is described by Jesus the Son of Syrac 14. Jesus the Son of God conforms himself unto the forms established in the Jewish Church 15. A transition from the forms received in the Jewish Church to those in Vse amongst the Gentiles THE Nation of the Jews being thus setled into an established Church by the hand of Moses and several forms of Prayer and Praise and Benediction prescribed unto them either immediately by the Lord himself or by the Church directed by the wisdom of Almighty God it was not long before that divers other points were added by the like Authority until the Liturgy thereof became full and absolute Of these the first in course of time was the deputing of certain and determinate hours in every day for the performance of those moral duties of Prayer and Praises in which Gods publick worship did consist especially which were the third the sixth and the ninth For clearer knowledge of the which we shall add thus much that the Jews did usually divide their day into four great parts hours of the Temple they were called that is to say the third hour which began at six of the Clock in the Morning and held on
upon so plain a Revelation of Gods secret Will than take up Arms against the Queen depose her from her Throne expel her out of her native Kingdom and finally prosecute her to the very death The Ladder which Constantine the great commended to Assesius a Novatian Bishop for his safer climbing up to Heaven was never more made use of than by Knox and Calvin for mounting them to the sight of Gods secret Council which St. Paul calls 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or things unspeakable such as are neither possible nor lawful for a man to utter But of all Knox's followers none followed so close upon his heels as Ro. Crowly a fugitive for Religion in Q. Maries days and the Author of a Book called a Confutation of 13 Articles Ibid. p. 18. c. In which he lays the sin of Adam and consequently all mens sins from that time to this upon the Absolute Decree of Predestination for seeing saith he that Adam was so perfect a Creature that there was in him no lust to sin and yet withal so weak of himself that he was not able to withstand the assault of the subtile Serpent no remedy the only cause of his fall must needs be the Predestination of God In other places of this book he makes it to be a common saying of the Free-will men as in contempt and scorn he calls them that Cain was not Predestinate to slay his Brother Ibid. p. 2. ◠which makes it plain that he was otherwise persuaded in his own opinion That the most wicked persons that have been whereof God appointed to be even as wicked as they were that if God do predestinate a man to do things rashly and without any deliberation he shall not deliberate at all but run headlong upon it Ibid. p. 2. 6. be it good or evil That we are compelled by Gods predestination to do those things for which we are damned Ibid. 2.7 Ibid. 46. And finally finding this Doctrine to be charged with making God more cruel and unmerciful than the greatest Tyrant and pressed therewith by some of the contrary persuasion he returns his answer in this wise If God saith he were an inferiour to any superiour power to the which he ought to render an account of his doing or if any of us were not his Creatures but of another Creation besides his workmanship then might we charge him with Tyranny because he condemneth us and appointed us to be punished for the things we do by compulsion through the necessity of his Predestination For a Catholicon or general Antidote to which dangerous Doctrines a new distinction was devised Ibid. p. 4. 47. by which in all abominations God was expresly said to be the Author of the fact or deed but not of the crime which subtilty appeareth amongst many others in a brief Treatise of Election and Reprobation published by one John Veron in the English tongue Ibid. p. 32. about the beginning of the Reign of Queen Elizabeth which subtilty Campneys not unfitly calls a marvellous sophistication a strange Paradox and a cautelous Riddle and he seems to have good reason for it For by this Doctrine as he noteth it must follow that God is the Author of the very fact and deed of Adultery Theft Murder c. but not the Author of the sin Sin having as they say no positive entity but being a meer nothing as it were and therefore not to be ascribed to Almighty God And thereup on he doth infer that when a Malefactor is hanged for any of the facts before said he is hanged for nothing because the fact or deed is ascribed to God and the sin only charged on him which sin being nothing in it self it must be nothing that the Malefactor is condemned or hanged for By all the Books it doth appear what method of Predestination these new Gospellers drive at how close they followed at the heels of their Master Calvin in case they did not go beyond him Certain it is that they all speak more plainly than their Master doth as to the making of God to be the Author of sin though none of them speak any thing else than what may Logically be inferred from his ground and principles And by this book it appeareth also now contrary these Doctrins are to the establish'd by the first Reformers in the Church of England how contrary the whole method of Predestination out of which they flow is to that delivered in the Articles the Homilies and the publick Liturgy and witnessed too by so many learned men and godly Martyrs Which manifest deviation from the rules of the Church as it gave just offence to all moderate and sober men so amongst others unto Campneys before remembred who could not but express his dislike thereof and for so doing was traduced for a Pelagian and a Papist or a Popish Pelagian For which being charged by way of Letter he was necessitated to return an Answer to it which he published in the second or third year of Queen Elizabeth In which Answer he not only clears himself from favouring the Pelagian Errours in the Doctrine of Freewill Justification by Works c. but solidly and learnedly refuteth the Opinions of certain English Writers and Preachers whom he accuseth for teaching of false and scandalous Doctrine under the name of Predestination Ibid. p. 10. Rom. 5. for his preparation whereunto he states the point of Universal Redemption by the death of Christ out of the parallel which St. Paul hath made between Christ and Adam that by the comparison of condemnation in Adam and redemption in Christ it might more plainly be perceived that Christ was not inferiour to Adam nor grace to sin And that as all the generation of man is condemned in Adam so is all the generation of man redeemed in Christ and as general a Saviour is Christ by Redemption as Adam is a condemner by transgression Which ground so laid he shews how inconsistent their Opinions are to the truth of Scripture who found the Doctrine of Election and Reprobation on Gods absolute pleasure by which infinitely the greatest part of all mankind is precedaniously excluded from having any part or interess in this Redemption reprobated to eternal death both in body and soul as the examples of his vengeance and consequently preordained unto sin as the means unto it that so his vengeance might appear with the face of Justice Which preordaining unto sin as it doth necessarily infer the laying of a necessity upon all mens actions whether good or bad according to that predeterminate Counsel and Will of God so these good men the Authors of the books before remembred do expresly grant it acknowledging that God doth not only move men to sin but compel them to it by the inevitable rules of Predestination But against this it is thus discoursed by the said Campneys that if Gods Predestination be the only cause of Adams fall and filthy sin Ibid. p. 51. And
be placed according to ancient custom at the East end of the Chancel and railed about decently to prevent base and profane usages and where the Chancel wanted any thing of repairs or the Church it self both to be amended Having thus shewed his care first for the House of God to set it in good order the next work followed was to make his own dwelling House a fit and convenient Habitation that to the old Building he added a new one which was far more graceful and made thereto a Chappel next to the Dining-room that was beautified and adorned with silk Hangings about the Altar in which Chappel himself or his Curate read Morning and Evening Prayer to the Family calling in his Labourers and Workfolks for he was seldom without them while he liv'd saying that he loved the noise of a Work-mans hammer for he thought it a deed of Charity as well as to please his own fancy by often building repairing to set poor People a work and encourage painful Artificers and Tradesmen in their honest Callings Yet after his death his Eldest Son was sued for Dilapidations in the Court of Arches by Dr. Beamont his Fathers Successor but the ingenious Gentleman pleaded his cause so notably before Sir Giles Swet then Judge of the Court that he was discharged there being no reason or justice he should be troubled for Dilapidations occasioned by the long War when his Father was unjustly turn'd out of his House and Living In July 1630. he took his Degree of Batchelor in Divinity His Latin Sermon was upon these words Mal. 4.19 Facim vos fieri piscatores hominum Upon the Sunday following being the time of the Act he Preach'd in the Afternoon on Matth. 13.25 In Feb. 13. A. D. 1633. He took his Degree of Dr. in Divinity an honour not usually in those days conferr'd upon men of such green years but our young Doctor verified those excellent words of the Son of Syrach That honourable Age is not that which standeth in length of time nor that is measured by number of years but Wisdom is the grey unto men and an unspotted life is an old Age Wisd 4.8 9. He entertain'd some hopes that Dr. Prideaux his animosities in so long a Tract of time as from 1627. to 1633. might have cooled In his first Disputation he had insisted on the Churches Visibility and now he resolved to assert and establish its Authority and to that purpose made choice to answer for his Degree upon these three questions viz. An Ecclesia habeat Authoritatem In determinandis fidei controversus An Ecclesia habeat Authoritatem Interpretandi S. scripturas An Ecclesia habeat Authoritatem Decernendi Ritus Caeremonias All which he held in the Affirmative according to the Doctrine of the Church of England in the 20th Article But Dr. Prideaux was as little pleased with these questions and the Respondents stating of them as he was with the former And therefore to create unto the Respondent a greater odium he openly declared that the Respondent had falsified the publick Doctrine of the Church and changed the Article with that sentence viz. Habet Ecclesia ritus sive caeremonias c. which was not to be found in the whole body of it and for the proof thereof he read the Article out of a Book which lay before him beginning thus Non licet Ecclesiae quicquam instituere quod verbo Dei scripto adversetur c. To which the Respondent readily answered That he perceived by the bigness of the Book which lay on the Doctors Cushion that he had read that Article out of the harmony of Confessions published at Geneva A. D. 1612. which therein followed the Edition of the Articles in the time of King Edward VI. A.D. 1552. in which that sentence was not found but that it was otherwise in the Articles agreed on in the Convocation A. D. 1562. The Respondent caused the Book of Articles to be sent for out of the Book-sellers shop which being observed by the Doctor he declared himself very willing to decline any further prosecution of that particular But Dr. Heylyn was resolved to proceed on no further Vsquedum liberaverit animam suam ab ista calumnia as his own words were At the coming in of the Book the Respondent read the Article in the English Tongue viz. The Church hath power to decree Rites and Ceremonies and Authority in Controversies of Faith c. Which done he delivered the Book to one of the Standers by who desired it of him the Book passing from one hand to another till all men were satisfied The Regius Professor had no other subterfuge but this He went to prove that not the Convocation but the High Court of Parliament had power of ordering matters in the Church in making Canons ordaining Ceremonies and determining Controversies in Religion And he could find no other medium to make it good but the Authority of Sir Edward Coke in one of the Books of his Reports An Argument that Dr. Heylyn gratified with no better answer than Non Credendum est cuique extra suam artem For these things and the Professors ill words in the former Disputation Dr. Heylyn caused him to be brought before the Council Table at Woodstock where he was publickly reprehended And upon the coming out of the Kings Declaration concerning lawful sports Dr. Heylyn translated the Regius Professors Lecture upon the Sabbath into English and putting a Preface before it caused it to be Printed a performance which did not only justifie his Majesties proceedings but took off much of that opinion which Dr. Prideaux had amongst the Puritanical Faction in those days A. D. 1634. The grievances which the Collegiate Church of Westminster suffered under the Government of John Lord Bishop of Lincoln then Commendatory Dean thereof became so intolerable that Dr. Heylyn with Dr. Tho. Wilson Dr. Gabriel Moor and Dr. Lud. Wemys with other of the Prebends drew up a Charge of no less than 36 Articles against the Bishop and by way of complaint humbly Petitioned his Majesty for redress of these grievances Whereupon a Commission was issued out to the Arch-Bishops of Canterbury and York the Earl of Manchester Earl of Portland the Lord Bishop of London and the two Secretaries of State Authorizing them to hold a Visitation of the Church of Westminster to examine the particular Charges made against John Lord Bishop of Lincoln who afterwards calling the Prebends to meet him in the Jerusalem-Chamber desired to know of them what these things were that were amiss that so he might presently redress them But to that Dr. Heylyn replied that seeing they had put the business into his Majesties hands it would but ill become them to take the matters out of his into their own Amongst other grievances the Bishop had most disgracefully turned out the Prebends of the great Seat or Pew under the Pulpit Dr. Heylyn being chosen Advocate for his Brothren did prove before
of men 4. The like by Bardesanes and the Priscilianists the dangerous consequents thereof exemplified out of Homer and the words of S. Augustine 5. The error of the Maniches touching the servitude of the Will revived by Luther and continued by the rigid Lutherans 6. As those of Bardesanes and Priscilian by that of Calvin touching the Absolute Decree the dangers which lie hidden under the Decree and the incompetibleness thereof with Christs coming to Judgment 7. The large expressions of the Ancient Fathers touching the freedom of the Will abused by Pelagius and his followers 8. The Heresie of Pelagius in what it did consist especially as to this particular and the dangers of it 9. The Pelagian Heresie condemned and recalled the temper of S. Augustine touching the freedom of the Will in spiritual matters 10. Pelagianism falsly charged on the Moderate Lutherans How far all parties do agree about the freedom of the Will and in what they differ OF all the Heresies which exercised the Church in the times foregoing there never was any more destructive of humane Society more contrary to the rule of Faith and Manners or more repugnant to the Divine Justice and Goodness of Almighty God than that which makes God to be the Author of sin A blasphemy first broacht in terms express by Florinus Blastus and some other of the City of Rome about the year 180. encountred presently by that godly Bishop and Martyr S. Irenaeus who published a Discourse against them bearing this Inscription 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Viz. Hist Eccl. Euseb l. 5. c. 14. 19. That God was not the Author of sin And he gave this Inscription to it as the story telleth us because Florinus not content with those Vulgar Heresies which had been taken up before would needs break out into blasphemous Phrensies against God himself in making him the Author of all those sins which lewd men commit Which Doctrine were it once admitted not only the first sin of Adam but all the sins that have been hitherto perpetrated by his whole Posterity must be charged on God and he alone must be accountable for all Murthers Robberies Rapes Adulteries Insurrections Treasons Blasphemies Heresies Persecutions or any other Abominations which have been acted in the world since the first Creation For certainly there can be no reason why every man may not say on the committing of any sin whatsoever it be as did Lyconides in Plantus when he defloured old Eudio's Daughter Deus mihi impulsor fuit is me ad illam illexit it was God alone who tempted and provoked them to those wicked actions What Arguments the good Father used to cry down this Blasphemy for a Heresie is a name too milde for so lewd a Doctrine I cannot gather from my Author but such they were so operative and effectual in stopping the current of the mischief that either Florinus and the rest had no followers at all as most Hereticks had or such as never attained to the height of their Masters Impudence And so that damnable Doctrine the Doctrine of Devils I may call it seems to be strangled in the birth or to be buried in the same grave with the Authors of it never revived in more than thirteen hundred years after the death of Irenaeus when it was against by the Libertines a late brood of Sectaries whom each of the two opposite parties are ashamed to own This taught as did Florinus Calv. Advers Libertl c. 12. in the Primitive times Quicquid ego tu facimus Deus efficit nam in nobis est That whatsoever thing they did was Gods working in them and therefore God to be intituled to those wicked actions which themselves committed The time of their first breaking out affirmed to be about the year 1529. The Founders of this Sect Loppinus and Quintinus Flemmings both and this Prateolus affirms for certain to be the Progency of Calvin and other leading men of the Protestant Churches They came saith he Eschola nostrae tempestatis Evangelicorum Bellarmin somewhat more remisly Prateol Elench Haeve in Quintino Bellar. Omnino probabile est eos ex Calvianianis promanasse and makes it only probable that it might be so but not rightly neither The Libertines breaking out as before was said Anno 1527. when Calvin was of little credit and the name of Calvinists or Calvinians not so much as heard of And on the other side Paraeus Professor of Divinity in the University of Hidelberg writing some Animadversions on the Cardinals works assures us that they were both Papists acquaints us with the place of their Nativity and the proceedings had against them Nor was Calvin wanting for his part to purge himself from such an odious imputation not only by confuting their Opinions in a set discourse but making one Franciscus Porquius a Franciscan Fryer to be a chief stickler in the Cause Against which I know nothing that can be said but that the doctrine of the Libertines in this particular doth hold more correspondence with Calvins principles than any of the received Positions of the Fryers of S. Francis But whether it were so or not I shall make this Inference That the Doctrine must needs be most impious which both sides detested which the Papists laboured so industriously to father on the Schools of Calvin and the Calvinians no less passionatly to charge on some of our great Masters in the Church of Rome But so it is that though the Impiety was too gross to appear bare fac'd yet there have been too many both in the elder and these latter times who entertaining in their hearts the same dreadful madness did recommend it to the world under a disguise though they agreed not at all in that Masque or Vizard which was put upon it Of this sort Manes was the first by birth of Persia and Founder of the damnable Sect of the Manicheans Anno 273. or thereabouts This Wretch considering how unsuccesfully Florinus had sped before in making God who is all and only good to be the Author of sin did first excogitate two Gods the one good and the other evil both of like eternity ascribing all pious actions to the one all Sins and Vices to the other Which ground so laid he utterly deprived the will of man of that natural liberty of which it is by God invested and therefore that in man there was no ability of resisting sin or not submitting unto any of those wicked actions which his lusts and passions offered to him Prateol in Elench Haer. in Marich Condendebant item peccatum non esse à libero arbitrio sed à Daemone capropter non posse per liberum arbitrium impediri as my Author hath it Nor did they only leave mans will in a disability of hindering or resisting the incursions of sin but they left it also under an incapability of acting any thing in order to the works of Righteousness though God might graciously vouchsafe his assisting grace making no
difference in this case betwixt a living man and a stock or Statua for so it follows in my Author Sed nullam prorsus voluntati tribuetant Actionem nec quidem adjuvante spirity sancto quasi nihil interesset inter statuam voluntatem In both directly contrary to that divine counsel of S. James where he adviseth us to lay apart all filthiness and superfluity of naughtiness and to receive with meekness the ingrafted word which is able to save your souls Chap. 1. ver 21. That of S. Peter exhorting or requiring rather That we work out our salvation with fear and trembling And finally that golden Aphorism of S. Augustine si non sit liberum arbitrium quomodo Deus judicabit mundum With what justice saith the Father can God judg or condemn the world if the sins of men proceed not from their own free will but from some over-ruling power which inforc'd them to it Others there were who harbouring in their hearts the said lewd opinions and yet not daring to ascribe all their sins and wickednesses unto God himself imputed the whole blame thereof to the Stars and Destinies the powerful influence of the one and the irresistable Decrees of the other necessitating then to those wicked actions which they so frequently commit Thus we are told of Bardesanes Quod fato conversationes hominum ascriberet That he ascribed all things to the power of Fate August de Haeres cap. 25. Ibid. cap. 15. 70. And thus it is affirmed of Priscillianus Fatalibus Astris homines alligatos That men were thralled unto the Stars which last S. Augustine doth report of one Colarbus save that he gave this power and influence to the Planets only but these if pondered as they ought differed but little if at all from the impiety of Florinus before remembred only it was expressed in a better language and seemed to savour more of the Philosopher than the other did For if the Lord had passed such an irresistible Law of Fate that such and such should be guilty of such foul Transgressions as they commonly committed it was all one as if he was proclaimed for the Author of them and then why might not every man take unto himself the excuse and plea of Agamemnon 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 It was not I that did it Homer Illiad but the Gods and Destiny Or if the Lord had given so irresistable a power to the Stars of Heaven as to inforce men to be wickedly and lewdly given what differs this from making God the Author of those vitious actions to which by them we are inforced And then why might not every man cast his sin on God and say as did some good fellows in St. Augustines time Accusandum potius esse Autorem syderum August de Gen. ad lit lib. 2. c. 27. quam commissorem scelerum That he who made the Stars was in the fault not the men that did it But this absurdity being as much cryed down by Augustine and other learned Writers of those elder times as the impiety of Florinus had been before were either utterly extinguish'd or lay concealed for many hundred years together Amongst the philosophical Heterodoxies of the Roman Schools that of the Maniches first revived by Martin Luther who in meer opposition to Erasmus who had then newly written a Book De Arbitrio libero published a Discourse intituled De Arbitrio servo In which Discourse he doth not only say That the freedom ascribed unto the Will is an empty nothing Titulus nomen sine re a name of no such thing in Nature but holds expresly that man is drawn no otherwise by the grace of God than Velut inanimale quiddam No otherwise than as a sensless stock or stone the Statua of the ancient Maniches in the great work of his conversion to a state of Righteousness And though Luther afterwards conformed his Judgment in this Point unto that of Melancthon as appeareth by the Augustan Confession in drawing up whereof he is acknowledged to have had a principal hand yet was he followed in this first Errour as in almost all the rest of his extremities by the rigid Lutherans headed by Flaccus Illyricus and his Associats in the City of Magdeburg at his first separation from the Melancthonian Divines who remained at Wittenberg and had embraced more moderate and sober counsels of which more hereafter But Luther shall not go alone and not take Calvin along with him how much soever they might differ in some other Points Luther revived the Error of the Maniches in denying all freedom to the will especially in matters which relate to eternal life and Calvin will revive the Errors of Bardesanes and Priscillian in charging all mens wicked actions on the Stars and Destiny not positively and in terminis I must needs say that but so that he comes close up to them to Tantamont ascribing that to the inevitable Decrees of Almighty God which Bardesanes attributed to the powers of Fate Priscillian Clolarbus to the influences of the Stars and Planets For if God before all Eternity as they plainly say did purpose and decree the Fall of our Father Adam Vt sua defectione periret Adam In the words of Calvin Calv. instit lib. 3. c. 23. sect 7. V. Synod Rom. There was in Adam a necessity of committing sin because the Lord had so decreed it If without consideration of the sin of man he hath by his determinate sentence ordained so many millions of men to everlasting damnation and that too necessario and inevitabiliter as they please to phrase it he must needs pre-ordain them to sin also there being as themselves confess no way unto the end but by the means The odious Inferences which are raised out of these Opinions I forbear to press and shall add only at the present That if we grant this Doctrine to be true and Orthodox we may do well to put an Index expurgatorius upon the Creed and quite expunge the Article of Chrins coming to Judgment For how could God condemn his Creature to unquenchable Flames or put so ill an Office upon Christ our Saviour as to condemn them by his mouth in case the sins by them committed were not theirs but his or punish the for that himself works in them unto which rather he decred them before all Eternity Falgent ad Monimum Nothing more true than that excellent saying of Fulgentius Deus non est eorum ultor quorum est Autor That God doth never punish his own actings in us Such were the men and such the means by which the blame of sin was transferred from man and charged on the account of God either expresly and in terms or in the way of necessary consequence and undeniable Illation by which lost man was totally deprived of all abilities for resisting Satan or otherwise concurring with Gods grace in his own conversion Nor wanted there some others in those elder times who did
ascribe so much to mans will and the powers of Nature as to make Gods Grace unprofitable or at least unnecessary in either of the Acts aforesaid The Fathers generally which lived before the starting of the Pelagian Heresies declared themselves so largely if not lavishly also in the present Point that the greatest Patrons of Free will in the Church of Rome were fain sometimes to qualifie their expressions and put a milder sence upon them than the words import For being to deal with the fatal necessity of the Pagans on the one side and the impiety of Maniches on the other side they gave themselves such liberty in advancing the powers of Nature as might best serve to the refelling of either Adversary not dreaming then that any Heresie could arise in opposition to the free Grace of God to the advancing of free will above all degrees of power and possibility But on the contrary Pelagius a Britain born either misguided by the lavishness of their expressions or otherwise willing to get a Name unto himself by some new Invention ascribed so much unto the freedom of the will in all Acts of Piety Vt gratiam Dei necessariam non putaret as Vincentius Lirynensis telleth us of him This man associated with Caelestinus and Julianus two of his Companions whom he had either drawn into the same Opinion with him or found them ready of themselves to promote the work began to spread abroad their Errours about the year 405. Amongst the which those that especially concern this purpose are these two that follow August Tom. 2. Epist 106. Viz. 1. Non esse liberum Arbitrium si Dei indiget auxilio quoniam in propria voluntate babet unusquisque facere aliquid vel non facere 2. Victoriam nostram non ex Dei adjutorio esse sed ex Libero Arbitrio That is to say 1. That there is no freedom of the will if it stand in any need of Gods assistance because every man hath it in the power of his own will either to do a thing or not to do it as to him seems best And 2. That our Victory over sin and Satan comes not of any help which we have from God but our own free will Add unto this that which must follow of necessity from the former Principles Orationes quas facit Ecclesia pro infidelibus aliis peccatoribus ut convertantur sive pro fidelibus ut perseverent frustra fieri That is to say That the Services of the Church which are made either for the conversion of the wicked or the perseverance of the Just are but labour lost because say they our own free will is able of it self to attain those ends and therefore it is to no purpose to ask those things at the hands of God which we may compass of our selves Quod ad illa omnia sufficere dicant nostri Arbitrii liberam potestatem Prattol Elench Heret in Pelag ita non opus esse à Deo petere quae nos ipsi consequi possumus as my Author hath it whose words I have laid down at large that we may see how much the world was carried to the other extream how much the Truth was lost on both sides and yet how easie to be found by those who went a middle was in the search thereof For looking on these last opinions as they stand in themselves we may affirm of them in general as Augustine doth particularly of the Stoical Fates Nil aliud agere nisi ut nullus omnino aut rogetur aut colatur Deus They seem to aim at nothing more than the utter abolition of the Worship and Service of God But these Pelagian Heresies did not hold out long being solemnly condemned in the two Affrican Councils of Cartbage and Milevis confuted by St. Augustine with great care and diligence and finally retracted by Pelagius himself in the Synod of Palestine So that the Heresie being suppressed the Catholick Doctrine in that Point became more setled and confirmed by the opposition such freedom being left to the will of man as was subservient unto grace co-operating in some measure with those heavenly influences And so much is confessed by St. Augustine himself where he asks this question Quis nostrum dicit quod primi hominis peccato perierit Arbitrium de humano genere August l. 1. contr Epist Pelagi cap. 2. Doth any man saith he affirm that free will is perished utterly from man by the fall of Adam And thereunto he makes this answer Libertas quidem periit per peccatum sed illa quae in Paradiso fuit habendi plenam cum immortalitate justitiam That is to say Freedom is perished by sin but it is that freedom only which we had in Paradise of having perfect righteousness with immortality For otherwise it appears to be this Opinion that man was not meerly passive in all the Acts of Grace which conduced to Glory according to the memorable saying of his so common in the Mouths of all men Qui creavit te sine te non salvabit te sine te That he who first made us without our help will not vouchsafe to save us at the last without our concurrence If any harsher expressions have escap'd his Pen as commonly it hapneth in the heats of a Disputation they are to be qualified by this last Rule and by that before in which it was affirmed That God could not with justice judge and condemn the World if all mens sins proceeded not from their own free will but from some over-ruling providence which inforc'd them to it After this time we meet with no such Enemies to the Grace of God no such Advancers of mans free will and the power of Nature as might intitle any man to the Crime of Pelagianism It cannot be denied but that Illyricus and some other of the rigid Lutherans upbraided Melancthon and all the Divines in a manner both of Lipsique and Wittenberge with teaching that a man by the powers of Nature may yield obedience to the Word embrace the Promises and make no opposition to the workings of the Holy Ghost as hath been noted by Lyndanus Lindan in Dial. 21. But then it must be granted that when their works came to be weighed in the Scale of the Sanctuary it will be found that they speak only of such a Synergie or co-operation as makes men differ from a sensless stock or liveless statua in reference to the great work of his own conversion And thereupon we may resolve that at the last the Church in general concentred upon these Propositions 1. Man in the state of corruption hath freedom of will in Actions natural and civil 2. That considered in the same estate he hath free will in matters moral And 3. That man hath free will in Actions of Piety and such as belong unto his salvation that is to say Being first prevented by Gods Grace and having afterwards the assistance and support thereof which
in a time when he is not predestinated seeing he is always so and generally the divided sense hath no place where the accident is inseparable from the subject Therefore others thought to declare it better saying that God governeth and moveth every thing according to its proper nature which in contingent things is free and such as that the act may consist together with the power to the opposite so that with the act of predestination the power to reprobation and damnation doth stand But this was worse understood than the first The other Articles were consured with admirable concord Concerning the third and sixth they said it hath always been an opinion in the Church that many receive divine Grace and keep it for a time who afterwards do lose it and in time are damned Then was alledged the example of Saul Solomon and Judas one of the twelve a case more evident than all by these words of Christ to the Father I have kept in thy name all that thou hast given me of which not one hath perished but the son of Perdition To these they added Nicholas one of the seven Deacons and others first commended in the Scriptures and then blamed and for a conclusion of all the Fall of Luther Against the sixth they particularly considered that Vocation would become impious derision when those that are called and nothing is wanting on their side are not admitted that the Sacraments would not be effectual for them all which things are absurd But for censure first the Authority of the Prophet was brought directly contrary in terms where God saith That if the Just shall abandon justice and commit iniquity I will not remember his works The example of David was added who committed Murther and Adultery of Magdalen and S. Peter who denied Christ They derided the folly of the Zuinglians for saying the Just cannot fall from Grace and yet sinneth in every work The two last were uniformly condemned of temerity with exception of those unto whom God hath given a special Revelation as to Moses and the Disciples to whom it was revealed that they were written in the Book of Heaven Now because the Doctrine of Predestination doth naturally presuppose a Curse from which man was to be delivered Hist of the Council fol. 175. It will not be amiss to lay down the Judgment of that Council in the Article of Original sin which rendred man obnoxious to the dreadful curse together with the preparatory Debates amongst the School-men and Divines which were there Assembled touching the nature and transmitting of it from Adam unto his Posterity and from one man to another Concerning which it was declared by Catarinus That as God made a Covenant with Abraham and all his Posterity when he made him Father of the faithful So when he gave Original Righteousness to Adam and all man-kind he made him seal an Obligation in the name of all to keept it for himself and them observing the Commandment which because he transgressed he lost it as well for others as himself and incurred the punishment also for them the which as they are derived in every one and to him as the cause to others by vertue of the Covenant so that the actual sin of Adam is actual sin in him and imputed to others is Original for proof whereof he grounded himself upon this especially that a true and proper sin must needs be a voluntary act and nothing can be voluntary but that transgression of Adam imputed unto all And Paul saying that all have sinned in Adam it must b e understood that they have all committed the same sin with him he alledged for example that S. Paul to the Hebrews affirmeth that Levi paid Tyth to Melchisedeck when he paid in his great Grandfather Abraham by which reason it must be said that the Posterity violated the Commandments of God when Adam did it and that they were sinners in him as in him they received Righteousness Which Application as it was more intelligible to the Prelates Assembled together in the Council than any of the Crabbed Intricacies and perplexities of the rest of the School-men irreconcilable in a manner amongst themselves so did it quicken them to the dispatch of their Canons or Anathamatisms which they had the Notions in their heads against all such as had taught otherwise of Original sin Idem sol 181. than was allowed of and maintained in the Church of Rome but more particularly against him 1. That confesseth not that Adam by transgressing hath lost Sanctity and Justice incurred the wrath of God Death and Thraldom to the Devil and is infected in Soul and Body 2. Against him that averreth that Adam by sinning hath hurt himself only or hath derived into his Posterity the death only of the Body and not sin the death of the Soul 3. Against him that affirmeth the sin which is one in the beginning and proper to every one committed by Generation not imitation can be abolished by any other remedy than the death of Christ is applied as well to Children as to those of riper years by the Sacrament of Baptism ministred in the Form and Rite of the Church CHAP. III. The like Debates about Free-will with the Conclusions of the Council in the Five Controverted Points 1. The Articles against the Freedom of the Will extracted out of Luer's Writings 2. The exclamation of the Divines against Luer's Doctrine in the Point and the absurdities thereof 3. The several Judgments of Marinarus Catarinus and Andreas Vega. 4. The different Judgment of the Dominicans and Francisans whether it lay in mans power to believe or not to believe and whether the Freedom of the Will were lost in Adam 5. As also of the Point of the co-operation of mans Will with the Grace of God 6. The opinion of Fryer Catanca in the point of irresistibility 7. Faintly maintained by Soto a Dominican Fryer and more cordially approved by others but in time rejected 8. The great care taken by the Legates in having the Articles so framed as to please all parties 9. The Doctrine of the Council in the Five controverted Points 10. A Transition from the Council of Trent to the Protestant and Reformed Churches THese Differences and Debates concerning Predestination the possibility of falling away from the Faith of Christ and the nature of Original sin being thus passed over I shall look back on those Debates which were had amongst the Fathers and Divines in the Council of Trent about the nature of Free-will and the power thereof In order whereunto these Articles were collected out of the Writings of the Lutherans to be discussed and censured as they found cause for it Now the Articles were these that follow viz. 1. God is the total cause of our works good and evil and the Adultry of David the cruelty of Manlius and the Treason of Judas are the works of God as well as the Vocation of Saul 2. No man hath power to think well or
rest of man-kind and appointed them by the same decree to eternal damnation without any regard to their Infidelity or Impenitency Art 2. Of the Merit and Effect of Christs Death That Jesus Christ hath not suffered death for any other but for those Elect only Ibid. p. 29. having neither had any intent nor commandment of his Father to make satisfaction for the sins of the whole World Art 3. Of Mans Will in the state of Nature That by Adam's Fall his Posterity lost their Free-will Ibid. p. 33. being put to an unavoidable necessity to do or not to do whatsoever they do or do not whether it be good or evil being thereunto Predestinated by the eternal and effectual secret decree of God Art 4. Of the manner of Conversion That God to save his Elect from the corrupt Mass Ibid. p. 41. doth beget faith in them by a power equal to that whereby he created the World and raised up the dead insomuch that such unto whom he gives that Grace cannot reject it and the rest being Reprobate cannot accept of it Art 5. Of the certainty of Perseverance That such as have once received that Grace by Faith can never fall from it finally Ibid. p. 47. or totally notwithtanding the most enormious sins they can commit This is the shortest and withal the most favourable Summary which I have hitherto met with of the conclusions of this Synod that which was drawn by the Remonstrants in their Antidotum being much more large and comprehending many things by way of Inference which are not positively expressed in the words thereof But against this though far more plausible than the rigorous way of the Supralapsarians Gods love to Mankind p. 45. it is objected by those of the contrary persuasion 1. That it is repugnant of plain Texts of Scripture as Ezek. 33.11 Rom. 11.2 John 3.16 2 tim 2.4 2 Pet. 3.9 Gen. 4.7 1 Chron. 28.9 2 Chron. 15.2 Secondly That it fighteth with Gods Holiness and makes him the cause of sin in the greatest number of men 1. In regard that only of his own will and pleasure he hath brought men into an estate in which the cannot avoid sin that is to say by imputing to them the transgression of their Father Adam Ibid. p. 53. And 2. In that he leaves them irrecoverably plunged and involved in it without affording them power or ability to rise again to newness of life In which case that of Tertullian seems to have been fitly alledged viz. In cujus manu est ne quid fiat Tertul. l. 2. contr Marcion c. 22. ei deputatur cum jam sit That is to say In whose power it is that a thing be not done to him it is imputed when it is done as a Pilot may be said to be the cause of the loss of that Ship when it is broken by a violent Tempest to the saving whereof he would not lend a helping hand when he might have done it They object thirdly That this doctrine is inconsistent with the mercy of God so highly signified in the Scriptures Gods love to Mankind p. 62. in making him to take such a small and speedy occasion to punish the greater part of men for ever and for one sin once committed to shut them up under an invincible necessity of sin and damnation For proof whereof they alledge this saying out of Prosper viz. Qui dicit quod non omnes homines velit Deus salvos fieri Ibid. p. 64. sed certum numerum praedestinatorum durius loquitur quam loquutum est de altitudine inscrutabilis gratiae Dei That is to say He which saith that God would not have all men to be saved but a certain set number of predestinate persons only he speaketh more harshly than he should of the light of Gods unsearchable Grace 4. It is affirmed to be incompatible with the Justice of God who is said in Scripture to be Righteous in all his ways according unto weight and measure Ibid. p. 65. p. 67. that the far greatest part of man-kind should be left remedilâ—sly in a state of damnation for the sin of their first Father only that under pain of damnation he should require faith in Christ of those to whom he hath precisely in his absolute purpose denied both a power to believe and a Christ to believe in or that he should punish men for the omission of an Act which is made impossible for them by his own decree by which he purposed that they should partake with Adam in his sin and be stript of all the supernatural power which they had in him before he fell And fifthly It is said to be destructive of Gods sincerity in calling them to repentance and to the knowledge of the faith in Jesus Christ Ibid. p. 58. that they may be saved to whom he doth not really intend the salvation offered whereby they are conceived to make God so to deal with men as if a Creditor should resolve upon no terms to forgive his Debtor the very least part of his debt Ibid. p. 76. and yet make him offers to remit the whole upon some conditions and bind the same with many solemn Oaths in a publick Auditory The like to be affirmed also in reference to Gods passionate wishes that those men might repent which repent not as also to those terrible threatnings which he thundreth against all those that convert not to him all which together with the whole course of the Ministry are by this doctrine made to be but so many acts of deep Hypocrisie in Almighty God though none of the maintainers of it have the ingenuity to contess the same but Piscator only in his Necesse est ut sanctam aliquam si mutationem statuamus in Deo which is plain and home And finally it is alledged that this doctrine of the Sublapsarians is contrary to the ends by God proposed in the Word and Sacraments to many of Gods excellent gifts to the Sons of men to all endeavours unto holiness and godly living which is said to be much hindered by it Ibid. p. 91. and tend to those grounds of comfort by which a Conscience in distress should be relieved And thereupon it is concluded that if it be a doctrine which discourageth Piety if it maketh Ministers by its natural importment to be negligent in their Preaching Praying and other Services which are ordained of God for the eternal good of their people if it maketh the people careless in hearing reading praying instructing their Families examining their Consciences fasting and mourning for their sins and all other godly exercises as they say it doth it cannot be a true and a wholsome doctrine as they say 't is not This they illustrate by a passage in Suetonius Sect. de vit Tyb c. 69. p. 180. relating to Tyberius Caesar of whom the Historian gives this note Cire à Deos Religiones negligentior erat quippe addictus
bring them to utter tuin if justly and in time they did not provide against it So that King James considering the present breach as tending to the utter ruin of those States and more particularly of the Prince of Orange his most dear Ally he thought it no small piece of King-craft to contribute toward the suppression of the weaker party not only by blasting them in the said Declaration with reproachful names but sending such Divines to the Assembly at Dort as he was sure would be sufficiently active in their condemnation So that part of the Argument which is borrowed from the States themselves it must be proved by some better evidence than the bare word of Mr. Hickman before it can deserve an Answer the speech being so Hyperbolical not to call it worse that it can hardly be accounted for a flower of Rhetorick The greatest trouble which the States themselves were put to in all this business was for the first eight years of it but the hearing of Complaints receiving of Remonstrances and being present at a Conference between the parties And for the last four years for it held no longer their greatest trouble was to find out a way to forfeit all their old and Native Priviledges in the death of Barnevelt for maintenance whereof they had first took up Arms against the Spaniard In all which time no blood at all was drawn by the Sword of War and but the blood of five or six men only by the Sword of Justice admitting Barnevelts for one Whereas their Wars with Spain had lasted above thrice that time to the sacking of many of their Cities the loss of at least 100000 of their own lives and the expense of many millions of Treasure And as for Barnevelt if he had committed any Treason against his Countrey by the Laws of the same Countrey he was to be tryed Contrary whereunto the Prince of Orange having gotten him into his power put him over to be judged by certain Delegates commissionated by the States General who by the Laws of the Union can pretend unto no Authority over the Life and Limb of the meanest Subject Finally for the conspiring of Barnevelts Children it concerns only them whose design it was Who to revenge his death so unworthily and unjustly contrived and as they thought so undeservedly and against their Laws might fall upon some desperate Counsels and most unjustifiable courses in pursuance of it But what makes this to the Arminian and Remonstrant party Or doth evince them for a turbulent and seditious Faction not to be suffered by any Reason of State in a well-ordered Commonwealth Barnevelts Kindred might be faulty the Arminians innocent or the Armanians faulty in their practice against the life of the Prince of Orange under and by whom they had suffered so many oppressions without involving those in their Crimes and Treasons who hold the same Opinion with them in their Neighbouring Churches The reason is because there is nothing in the Doctrine of the Arminians it as relates to the Five points in difference which can dispose the Professors of it to any such practices And therefore if the Arminians should have proved as turbulent and seditious as their Enemies made them yet we were not to impute it to them as they were Arminians that is to say as men following the Melancthonian way of Predestination and differing in those points from the rest of the Calvinists but as exasperated and provoked and forced to cast themselves upon desperate courses Quae libertatis arma dat ipse dolor in the Poets language But so some say it is not with the Doctrine of the other party by which mens actions are so ordered and predetermined by the eternal Will of God even to the taking up of a straw as before was said ut nec plus boni nec minus mali that it is neither in their power to do more good or commit less evil than they do And then according to that Doctrine all Treasons Murders and Seditions are to be excused as unavoidable in them who commit the same because it is not in their power not to be guilty of those Treasons or Seditions which the fire and fury of the Sect shall inflame them with And then to what end should Princes make Laws or spend their whole endeavours in preserving the publick Peace when notwithstanding all their cares and travels to prevent the mischief things could no otherwise succeed than as they have been predetermined by the Will of God And therefore the best way would be Sinere res vadere quo vult in the Latin of an old Spanish Monk to let all matters go as they will since we cannot make them go as we would according to that counsel of the good old Poet. Solvite mortales animos Manil. de Sphe lib. curisque levate Totque super vacuis animum deplete querelis Fata regunt Orbem certa stant omnia lege That is to say Discharge thy Soul poor man of vexing fears And ease thy self of all superfluous cares The World is governed by the Fates and all Affairs by Heaven's decree do stand or fall To this effect it is reported that the old Lord Burleigh should discourse with Queen Eliz. when he was first acquainted with the making of the Lambeth Articles Not being pleased wherewith Hist Artic. Lambeth p. 6 7. he had recourse unto the Queen letting her see how much her Majesties Authority and the Laws of the Realm were thereby violated and it was no hard matter to discern what they aimed at who had most stickled in the same For saith he this is their Opinion and Doctrine that every Humane action be it good or evil it is all restrained and bound up by the Law of an immutable Decree that upon the very wills of men also this necessity is imposed ut aliter quam vellent homines velle non possent that men could not will otherwise than they did will Which Opinions saith he Madam if they be true Frustra ego aliique fideles Majestatis tuae ministri c. then I and the rest of your Majesties faithful Ministers do sit in Council to no purpose 't is in vain to deliberate and advise about the affairs of your Realm Cum de his quae eveniunt necessario stulta sit plane omnis consultatio since in those things that came to pass of necessity all consultation is foolish and ridiculous To which purpose it was also press'd by the Bishop of Rochester Oxon and St. Davids in a Letter to the Duke of Buckingham concerning Mountagues Appeal Ann. 1625. Cabuba p. 116. In which it is affirmed that they cannot conceive what use there can be of Civil Government in the Common-wealth or of Preaching and external Ministry in the Church if such fatal Opinins as some which are opposite and contrary to those delivered by Mr. Mountague shall be publickly taught and maintained More plainly and particularly charged by Dr. Brooks once Master
turneth his faced for the time and as long as he so doth so should they more and more â—â—ir us to cry unto God with all our heart that we may not be brought into the state which doubtless is so sorrowful so miserable and so dreadful as no Tongue can sufficiently express nor any heart can think for what deadly grief can a man suppose it is to be under the wrath of God to be forsaken of him to have his holy Spirit the Author of all goodness to be taken from him to be brought to so vile a condition that he shall be lâ—ft meet for no better purpose than to be for ever condemned to Hell for not only such places of David de shew that upon the turning of Gods face from any persons they stall be lâ—ft bare from all goodness and far from hope of remedy but also the place rehearsed last before of Isaiah doth mean the same which sheweth that God at length doth so fosake his unfruitful Vineyard that he will notonly suffer it to bring forth weeds bryars and thorns but also further to punish the unfruitfulness of it he saith he will not cut it he will not delve it and he will command the clouds that they shall not rain upon it whereby is signified the teaching of the holy Word which St Paul after a like manner expressed by planting and watering Meaning that he will take that away from them so that they shall be no longer of his Kingdom they shall be no longer governed by his holy Spirit they shall be put from the grace and benefits they had and ever might have enjoyed through Christ they shall be deprived of the heavenly light and life which they had in Christ whilst they abode in him they shall be as they were once as men without God in the world or rather in a worse taking And to be short they shall be given into the power of the Devil which beareth the rule of all men which be cast away fro God as he did in Saul and Judas and generally in all such as work after their own wills the Children of wistrust and unbelief let us beware therefore good Christian people lest that we rejecting or casting away Gods Word by which we obtain and retain true faith in God be not at length cast so far off that we become as the Children of unbelief which be of two sorts far diverse yea almost clean contrary and yet both be very far from returning to God the one sort only weighing their sinful and detestable living with the right judgment and straitness of Gods righteousness be so without content and be so comfortless as they all must needs be from whom the Spirit of counsel and comfort is gone that they will not be persuaded in their hearts but that either God cannot or else that he will not take them again to his favour and mercy the other hearing the loving and large promises of Gods mercy and so not conceiving a right faith thereof make those promises larger than ever God did Trusting that although they continue in their sinful and detestable living never so long yet that God at the end of their life will shew his mercy upon them and that then they will return And that both these two sorts of men be in a damnable estate and yet nevertheless God who willeth not the death of the wicked hath shewed means whereby both the same if they take heed in season may escape The first as they defend Gods rightful justice in punishing sinners whereby they should be dismayed and should despair indeed as touching any hopes that may be in themselves so if they would constantly and stedfastly believe that Gods mercy is the remedy prepared against such despair and distrust not only for them but generally for all that be sorry and truly repentant and will therewithal stick to Gods mercy they may be sure they shall obtain mercy and enter into the Port or Haven of safeguard into the which whosoever do come be they before time never so wicked they shall be out of danger of everlasting damnation as godly Ezekiel saith What time soever a sinner doth return and take earnest of true Repentance I will forgive all his wickedness The other as they be ready to believe Gods promises so they should be as ready to believe the threatnings of God as well believe the Law as the Gospel as well that there is an Hell and everlasting fire as there is an Heaven and everlasting joy as well they should believe damnation to the threatned to the wicked and evil doers Ezek. 3. as salvation to be promised to the faithful in Word and Works as well they should believe God to be true in the one as the other And for sinners that continue in this wicked living they ought to think that the promises of Gods mercy and the Gospel pertain not unto them being in that state but only the Law and those Scriptures which contain the wrath and indignation of God and his threatnings which should certifie them that as they do over-boldly presume of Gods mercy and live dissolutely so doth God still more and more withdraw his mercy from them as he is so provoked thereby to wrath at length that he destroyeth such presumers many times suddenly for of such St Paul said thus When they shall say it is peace there is no danger then shall sudden destruction come upon them 1 Thess 5. let us beware therefore of such naughty boldness to sin For God which hath promised his mercy to them that be truly penitent although it be at the latter end hath not promised to the presumptuous sinner either that he shall have long life or that he shall have true Repentance at the last end But for that purpose hath he made every mans death uncertain that he should not put his hope in the end and in the mean season 〈◊〉 to Gods high displeasure live ungodlily Wherefore let us follow the counsel of the Wise man let us make no tarrying to turn unto the Lord let us not put off from day to day for sudenly his wrath comes and in time of vengeance he will destroy the wicked let us therefore turn betimes and when we turn let us pray to God as Hosea teached saying Forgive ad our sins receive us graciously Hosea 14. And if we turn to him with an humble and a very penitent heart he will receive us to his favour and grace for his holy Names sake for his Promise sake for his Truth and Mercies sake promised to all faithful Believers in Jesus Christ his only natural Son To whom the only Saviour of the world with the Father and the Holy Ghost be all honour glory and power world without end Amen These are the very words of the second Himily touching falling from God in which we have many evident proofs not only that there is a Falling and a frequent Falling but also a Total yea a final
fry in Hell and that he made them for no other purpose than to be the children of death and hell and that for no other cause but his meer pleasure sake and so say that God doth not only say but will swear to a lye For the Oath should have run thus As I live saith the Lord I do delight in the death of man Secondly it doth not by consequence but directly make God the Author of sin For if God without eye to sin did design men to hell then did he say and set down that he should sin for without sin he cannot come to hell And indeed doth not this Opinion say that the Almighty God in the eye of his Counsel did not only see but say that Adam should fall and so order and decree and set down his fall that it was no more possible for him not to fall than it was possible for him not to eat And of that when God doth order set down and decree I trust he is the Author unless they will say that when the Right honourable Lord Keeper doth say in open Court We order he means not to be the Author of that his Order Which said he tells us Thirdly Ibid. p. 135. that it takes away from Adam in his state of innocency all freedom of will and Liberty not to sin For had he had freedom to have altered Gods designment Adams liberty had been above the designment of God And here I remember a little witty solution is made that is if we respect Adams Will he had power to sin but if Gods Decrees he could not sin This is a filly solution And indeed it is as much as if you should take a sound strong man that hath power to walk and to lie still and bind him hand and foot as they do in Bedlam and lay him down and then bid him rise up and walk or else you will stir him up with a whip and he tell you that there be chains upon him so that he is not able to stir and you tell him again that that is no excuse for if he look upon his health his strength his legs he hath power to walk or to stand still but if upon his Chains indeed in that respect he is not able to walk I trust he that should whip that man for not walking were well worthy to be whipt himself Fourthly As God do abhor a heart and a heart and his soul detesteth also a double minded man so himself cannot have a mind and a mind a face like Janus to look two ways Yet this Opinion maketh in God two Wills the one flat opposite to the other An Hidden Will by which he appointed and willed that Adam should sin and an open Will by which he forbad him to sin His open Will said to Adam in Paradise Adam thou shalt not eat of the Tree of good and evil His Hidden Will said Thou shalt eat nay now I my self cannot keep thee from eating for my Decree from Eternity is passed Thou shalt eat that thou may drown all thy posterity into sin and that I may drench them as I have designed in the bottomless pit of Hell Fifthly Amongst all the Abominations of Queen Jezabel that was the greatest 1 Kings 21. when as hunting after the life of innocent Naboth she set him up amongst the Princes of the Land that so he might have the greater fall God planted man in Paradise as in a pleasant Vineyard and mounted him to the World as on a stage and honoured him with all the Soveraignty over all the Creatures he put all things in subjection under his feet so that he could not pass a decree from all Eternity against him to throw him down head-long into Hell for God is not a Jezabel Tollere in altum to lift up a man ut lapsu graviore ruat that he may make the greater noise with his fall But he goes on and having illustrated this cruel Mockery by some further instances he telleth us Ibid. p. 140. that the Poet had a device of their old Saturn that he eat up his Children assoon as they were born for fear least some of them should dispossess him of Heaven Pharaoh King of Egypt had almost the same plea for he made away all the young Hebrew Males lest they should multiply too fast Herod for fear our Saviour Christ should supplant him in his Kingdom caused all the young Children to be slain those had all some colour for their barbarous cruelty But if any of those had made a Law designing young Children to torments before they had been born and for no other cause and purpose but his own absolute will the Heavens in course would have called for revenge It is the Law of Nations that no man innocent shall be condemned of Reason not to hate where we are not hurt of Nature to like and love her own brood 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 saith the holy Ghost we are Gods Kindred he cannot hate us when we are innocent when we are nothing when we are not Now touching Gods Glory which is to us all as dear as our life this Opinion hath told us a very inglorious and shameful Tale for it saith the Almighty God would have many souls go to Hell and that they may come thither they must sin that so he may have just cause to condemn them Who doth not smile at the Grecians Conceit that gave their God a glorious title for killing of flies Gods Glory in punishing ariseth from his Justice in revenging of sin and for that it tells us as I said a very sad and unpleasant Tale for who could digest it to hear a Prince say after this manner I will beget met a Son that I may kill him that I may so get me a name I will beget him without both his feet and when he is grown up having no feet I will command him to walk upon pain of death and when he breaketh my Commandment I will put him to death O beloved these glorious fancies imaginations and shews are far from the nature of our gracious merciful and glorious God who hath proclaimed himself in his Titles Royal Jehovah the Lord the Lord strong and mighty and terrible slow to anger and of great goodness And therefore let this conceit be far from Jacob and let it not come near the Tents of Joseph How much holier and heavenlier conceit had the holy Fathers of the Justice of God Non est ante punitor Deus quam peccator homo God put not on the person of a Revenger before man put on the person of an Offender saith St. Ambrose Neminem coronat antequam vincit neminem punit antequam peccat he crowns none before he overcomes and he punisheth no man before his offence Et qui facit miseros ut miseratur crudelem habet miserecordiam he that puts man into miseries that he may pity him hath no kind but a cruel pity The absolute decree of Reprobation
touching the subversion of Nineveh the other of her conversion kept within the heart of God Whereupon he changed the sentence pronounced but not the counsel whereunto the sentence weas referred 3. If you consider Nineveh in the inferiour cause that is in the deservings of Inineveh it shall fall to the ground but if you take it in the superiour cause in the goodness and clemency of Almighty God Nineveh shall escape Lastly the judgment was pronounced with a condition reserved in the mind of the judge Nineveh shall be overthrown if it repent not Now he that speaketh with condition may change his mind without suspition of lightness 2 Cor. 1. As Paul promised the Corinthians to come to them in his way towards Macedonia and did it not For he evermore added in his soul that condition which no man must exclude if it stand with the pleasure of God and he hinder me not Philip threatned the Lacedemonians that if he invaded their Country he would utterly extinguish them They wrote him no other answer but this If meaning it was a condition well put in because he was never like to come amongst them Si nisi non esset perfectum quidlibet esset If it were not for conditions and exceptions every thing would be perfect but nothing more unperfect than Nineveh if this secret condition of the goodness of God at the second hand had not been So far this Reverend Prelate hath discoursed of the nature of Gods decrees and accommodated his discourse thereof to the case of the Ninevites Let us next see how far the principal particulars of the said discourse and the case of the Ninevites it self my be accommodated to the Divine decree of Predestination concerning which the said Reverend Prelate was not pleased to declare his judgment either as being impertinent to the case which he had in hand or out of an unwillingness to engage himself in those disputes which might not suddenly be ended All that he did herein was to take care for laying down such grounds in those learned Lectures by which his judgment might be guessed at though not declared As Dr. Peter Baroe of whom more hereafter declared his judgment touching the Divine Decrees in the said case of the Ninevites before he fell particularly on the Doctrine of Predestination as he after did And first as for accommodating the case of the Ninevites to the matter which is now before us we cannot better do it than in the words of Bishop Hooper so often mentioned who having told us that Esau was no more excluded from the promise of grace than Jacob was Pres to his Expos on the ten Commandments proceedeth thus viz. By the Scripture saith he it seemeth that the sentence of God was given to save the one and damn the other before the one loved God or the other hated him Howbeit these threatnings of god against Esau if he had not of his wilful malice excluded himself from the promise of grace should no more have hindred his salvation than Gods threatnings against Nineveh which notwithstanding that God said should be destroyed within forty days stood a great time after and did penance Esau was circumcised and presented unto the Church of God by his Father Isaac in all external Ceremonies as well as Jacob. And that his life and conversation was not as agreeable unto justice and equity as Jacobs was the sentence of God unto Rebecca was not in the fault but his own malice Out of which words we may observe first that the sentence of God concerning Esau was not the cause that his conversation was so little agreeable to justice and equity no more than the judgment denounced against the Ninevites could have been the cause of their impenitency if they had continued in their sins and wickednesses without repentance contrary to the Doctrine of the Gospellers in Queen Maries days imputing all mens sins to Predestination Secondly that Gods threatnings against Esau supposing them to be tanta-mount to a reprobation could no more have hindred his salvation than the like threatning against the Ninevites could have sealed to them the assurance of their present destruction if he had heartily repented of his sins as the Ninevites did And therefore thirdly as well the decree of God concerning Esau as that which is set out against the Ninevites are no otherwise to be understood than under the condition tacitly annexed unto them that is to say that the Ninevites should be destroyed within forty days if they did not repent them of their sins and that Esau should be reprobated to eternal death if he gave himself over to the lusts of a sensual appetite Which if it be confessed for true as I think it must then fourthly the promises made by God to Jacob and to all such as are beloved of God as Jacob was and consequently their election unto life eternal are likewise to be understood with the like condition that is to say if they repent them of their sins and do unfainedly believe his holy Gospel The like may be affirmed also in all the other particulars touching Gods decrees with reference to the Doctrine of Predestination which are observed or accommodated by that learned Prelate in the case of the Ninevites had I sufficient time and place to insist upon them CHAP. XIX Of the first great breach which was made in the Doctrine of the Church by whom it was made and what was done towards the making of it up 1. Great alterations made in the face of the Church from the return of such Divines as had withdrawn themselves beyond Sea in the time of Queen Mary with the necessity of imploying them in the publick service if otherwise of known zeal against the Papists 2. Several examples of that kind in the places of greatest power and trust in the Church of England particularly of Mr. Fox the Martyrologist and the occasion which he took of publishing his opinion in the point of Predestination 3. His notes on one of the Letter of John Bradford Martyr touching the matter of election therein contained 4. The difference between the Comment and the Text and between the Author of the Comment and Bishop Hooper 5. Exceptions against some passages and observations upon others in the said Notes of Mr. Fox 6. The great breach made hereby in the Churches Doctrine made greater by the countenance which was given to the Book of Acts and Monuments by the Convocation An. 1571. 7. No argument to be drawn from hence touching the approbation of his doctrine by touching the approbation of his doctrine by that Convocation no more than for the Approbation of his Marginal Notes and some particular passages in it disgraceful to the Rites of the Church attire of the Bishops 8. A counterballance made in the Convocation against Fox his Doctrine and all other Novelisms of that kind IT was not long that Queen Mary sate upon the Throne and yet as short time as it was it gave
every Kingdom when they are solemnly assebled whom he condemns as guilty of perfidious dissimulation and the betrayers of the Subject Liberties whereof they are the proper and appointed Guardians if they connive at Kings when they play the Tyrants or wantonly insuit on the common people This is the gap through which rebellions and seditions have found to plausible a passage in the Christian World to be dethroning of some Kings and Princes the death of others For through this gap broke in those dangerous and seditious Doctrines that the inferiour Magistrates are ordained by God and not appointed by the King or the Supream Powers that being so ordained by God that are by him inabled to compel the King to rule according unto justice and the Laws established that if the King be refractory and unreclaimable they are to call him to account and to provide for the safety of the Common-wealth by all ways and means which may conduce unto thepreservation of it and finally which is the darling Doctrine of these later times that there is a mixture in all Governments and that the three Estates convened in Parliament or by what other name soever we do call their meeting are not subordinate to the King but co-ordinate with him and have not only a supplemental power to supply what is defective in him but a coercive also to restrain his Actions and a Corrective too to reform his Errors But this I give you now in the generals only hereafter you shall see it more particularly and every Author cited in his own words for the proof hereof Many of which as they did live in Calvin's time and by their writings gave great scandal to all Sovereign Princes but more as to the progress of the Reformation so could not Calvin choose but be made acquainted with the effects and consequences of his dangerous principles Which since he never did retract upon the sight of those seditious Pamphlets and worse than those those bloody tumults and rebellions which ensued upon it but let it stand unaltered to his dying day is a clear argument to me that this passage fell not from his Pen by chance but was laid of purpose as a Stumbling-block in the Subjects way to make him fall in the performance of his Christian duty both to God and man For though the Book of Institutions had been often printed in his life time and received many alterations and additions as being enlarged from a small Octavo of not above 29 sheets to a large Folio of 160 yet this particular passage still remained unchanged and hath continued as it is from the first Edition of it which was in the year 1536 not long after his first coming to Geneva But to proceed in our design What fruits these dangerous Doctrines have produced amongst us we have seen too plainly and we may see as plainly if we be not blind through what gap these Doctrines entred on what foundation they were built and unto whose Authority we stand indebted for all those miseries and calamities which are fallen upon us Yet to say truth the man desired to be concealed and not reputed for the Author of such strange conclusions which have resulted from his principles and therefore lays it down with great Art and caution Si qui and Fortè and ut nunc res habent that is to say Perhaps and as the World now goes and if there be such Officers as have been formerly as the three disguises which he hath masked himself and the point withal that he might pass away unseen And if there be such Officers as perhaps there are or that the world goes here as it did at Sparta or in the States of Rome and Athens as perhaps it doth or that the three Estate of each several Kingdom have the same authority in them as the Ephori the Demarchi and the Tribunes had as perhaps they have the Subject is no doubt in a good condition as good a man as the best Monarch of them all But if the Ephori the Demarchi and the Tribunes were not appointed at the first for the restraint and regulating of the Supream Powers as indeed they were not and if the three Estates in each several Kingdom have not that authority which the Ephori and the Tribunes did in fine usurp and the Demarchi are supposed to have as indeed they have not perhaps and peradventure will not serve the turn The Subject stands upon no better grounds than before he did Therefore to take away this stumbling-block and remove this rub I shall propose and prove these three points ensuing 1. That the Ephori the Demarchi and the Roman Tribunes were not instituted at the first for those ends and purposes which are supposed by the Author 2. If they were instituted for those ends yet the illation thereupon would be weak and childish as it relates of Kings and Kingdoms And 3. That the three Estates in each several Kingdom without all peradventures have no such authority as the Author dreams of and therefore of no power to controul their King Which If I clearly prove as I hope I shall I doubt not but to leave the cause in a better condition than I found it And in the proof of these the first point especially if it be thought that I insist longer than I needed on the condition of the Spartan Ephori the Roman Tribunes and the Demarchi of Athens and spend more cost upon it than the thing is worth I must intreat the Reader to excuse me in it I must first lay down my grounds and make sure work there before I go about my building And being my design relates particularly to the information and instruction of the English Subject I could not make my way unto it but by a discovery of the means and Artifices by which some petit popular Officers attained unto so great a mastery in the game of Government as to give the Check unto their Kings Which being premised once for all I now proceed unto the proof of the points proposed and having proved these points I shall make an end Haec tria cum docuero perorabo in the Orators Language CHAP. II. Of the Authority of the Ephori in the State of Sparta and that they were not instituted for the ends supposed by Calvin 1. The Kings of Sparta absolute Monarchs at the first 2. Of the declining of the Regal power and the condition of that State when Lycurgus undertook to change the Government 3. What power Lycurgus gave the Senate and what was left unto the Kings 4. The Ephori appointed by the Kings of Sparta to ease themselves and curb the Senate 5. The blundering and mistakes of Joseph Scaliger about the first Institution of the Ephori 6. The Ephori from mean beginnings grew to great Authority and by what advantages 7. The power and influence which they had in the publick Government 8. By what degrees the Ephori encroached on the Spartan Kings 9. The
exactly though at the first he seemed to think that it was very well compounded of the three good Forms yet upon full debate thereof he concludes at last 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Aristot Polit. l. 2. c. 4. that the Dominion of the Ephori was an absolute Tyranny Assuredly had they lived to have seen that day wherein the Ephori embrued their hands in the blood of their Princes under pretence of safety to the Common-wealth they would have voted it to have been a Tyranny in the highest degree and then the most unsufferable Tyrants that ever wretched State groaned under For though the Kings of Sparta were so lessened by Lycurgus Laws that little more was left unto them than the name and Title yet they were Kings and held so sacred by their Neighbours even their very Enemies that none did ever offer to lay hands upon them in the heat and fury of their fights Plutarch in Agis Cleom. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 out of the reverence they did bear to those beams of Majesty which most apparently shined in them The Ephori being grown to this height of Tyranny were the more ready for their fall which followed not long after that most barbarous fact upon the persons of their Princes The Kings had long since stomached them and their high proceedings Id. in Agesil bearing 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a kind of Heritable grudge betwixt them as my Author calls it ever since they took upon them to controul their Masters but either wanted opportunity or spirit to attempt any thing to their prejudice and therefore thought it safer to procure their favours than run themselves upon a hazardous Experiment Pausanias the 20. of the Elder House was the first that ever did attempt either by force or practice to subvert the Office the insolencies of the which were then grown so great that being a stout and active Prince he was not able to endure them That he had entertained such thoughts is affirmed by Aristotle where he informs us that Lysander had a purpose to take away the Kingly Government or rather to acquire it to himself as we find in Plutarch 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Id. in Lysandâ—o Aristot Polit. lib. 5. c. 1. and that Pausanias had the like to destroy the Ephorate But what he failed to bring about his Successors did at last accomplish Of which Cleombrotus and Agis joyning their hands and heads together did proceed so far that going into the Market place well attended by their Friends and followers they plucked the Ephori from their seats and substituted others in their rooms whom they conceived would be more pliant to their prefent Enterprises which was the first actual attempt Plutarch in Agis Cleom. that ever had been made against them by the Kings of Sparta But evulgato imperii Arcano when so great a mystery of State was once discovered that the Ephori were but mortal men and might as easily be displaced and deposed as any of the other Magistrates Leonidas immediately upon his restitution to the Kingdom made the like removal and displaced those who had taken part against him with the former Kings Id. ibid. So that the ice being broken and the way made open Cleomenes son unto Leonidas had the fairer way to abrogate the Office utterly which at last he did For being a brave and gallant Prince and seeing that the project he was bent upon for the reduction of the Common-wealth to its primitive honour could not be brought about but by their destruction he fell upon them with his Souldiers as they sat at supper and killed four of them in the place the fifth escaping shrewdly hurt to the nearest Sanctuary Id. ibid. That done he went into the Market place and overthrew all the Chairs of the Ephori saving only one which he reserved for himself as his Chair of State and sitting in the same in the sight of the people gave them an account of his proceedings and the reasons which induced him to it Declaring how the Ephori were at first appointed by the Kings themselves that for long time they governed only 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as the Kings Ministers and no otherwise that many years after this Asteropus one of the Ephori building upon a new foundation and being the first Author of that dangerous change they took the Government unto themselves and exercised the same in their own names only that though they had usurped a power which belonged not to them yet had they managed it discreetly the might perhaps have held it longer and with better liking but that licentiously abusing the authority which they had usurped by suppressing the lawful Governors ordained of old by taking upon them to banish some of the Citizens and to put some to death without law and justice and finally by threatning those who were desirous to restore the Government to its antient Form they were no longer to be suffered that for his part he should have thought himself the happiest King that ever was if possibly he could have cured his Countrey of that foul affection withou grief or sorrow but being it was not to be done that way he thought it better that some should be put to death than the whole Common-wealth run on to a swift destruction This said he presently dissolved the Assembly and seriously betook himself to the Reformation which formerly he had projected and in short time reduced the people to the antient Discipline the staee and reputation of the Common-wealth to its ancient height Thus have we made a brief discovery of the Spartan Ephori upon what grounds first instituted and on what destroyed by what foul practices and unlawful means they gained the Sovereignty of the State and by what they lost it how and by what degrees they came from low and mean beginnings to so strange a Tyranny and with what suddenness they lost their power and their lives together But in all this there is not any shew or colour for that which is affirmed by CALVIN no ground for nor verity at all in that Assertion that the Ephori were at first ordained to oppose the Kings to regulate their proceedings and restrain their power but rather that they were ordained as indeed they were to curb the Senate to be the Ministers of the Kings and subservient to them to sit in Judgment for them and discharge such Offices as the Kings pleased to trust them with in their times of absence If Calvins popular Magistrates have no more Authority than the Spartan Ephori according to the rules of their Institution they will have little colour to controul their Princes and less for putting a restraint on the Regal power The most they can pretend to must be usurpation and that will hold no longer if it hold so long than they have power to make it good by blood and violence which I hope Calvin did not aim at And if they have no other ground
without incurring the crimes of Treason or Disloyalty not only to oppose but resist them in it The like to which occurrs for the Realm of Hungary wherein K. Andrew gives Authority to his Bishops Lords Bonfinius de Edict publ p. 37. and other Nobles sine nota alicujus infidelitatis that without any imputation of Disloyalty they may contradict oppose and resist their Kings if they do any thing in violation of some Laws and sanctions In Poland the King takes a solemn Oath at his Coronation to confirm all the Priviledges Rights and Liberties which have been granted to his Subjects of all ranks and Orders by any of his Predecessors and then adds this clause quod si Sacramentum meum violavero incolae Regni nullam nobis obedientiam praestare tenebuntur which if he violates his Subjects shall no longer be obliged to yield him Obedience Which Oath as Bodin well observeth Bodin de Rep. lib. 2. cap. 8. doth savour rather of the condition of the Prince of the Senate than of the Majesty of a King The like may be affirmed of Frederick the first King of Danemark who being called unto that Crown on the ejection of K. Christian the 2d An. 1523. was so conditioned with by the Lords of the Kingdom that at his Coronation or before he was fain to swear that he would put none of the Nobility to death or banishment but by the judgment of the Senate that the great men should have power of life or death over their Tenants and Vassals and that no Appeal should lie from them to the Kings Tribunal nor the King be partaker of the confiscations nec item honores aut imperia privatis daturum Id. ibid. c. nor advance any private person to Commands or Honours but by Authority of his great Council Which Oath being also taken by Frederick the second made Bodinus say that the Kings of Danemark non tam reipsa quam appellatione Reges sunt were only titular Kings but not Kings indeed Which Character he also gives of the King of Bobemia Id. ibid. p. 88. But in an absolute Monarchy the case is otherwise all the prerogatives and rights of Sovereignty being so vested in the Kings person ut nec singulis civibus nec universis fas est c. that it is neither lawful to particular men nor to the whole body of the Subjects generally to call the Prince in question for Life Fame or Fortunes Id. ibid. p. 210. and amongst these he reckoneth the Kingdoms of France Spain England Scotland the Tartars Muscovites omnium pene Africae Asiae imperiorum and of almost all the Kingdoms of Africk and Asia But this we shall the better see by looking over the particulars as they lie before us But first before we come unto those particulars we will look backwards on the condition and Authority of the Jewish Sanbedrim which being instituted and ordained by the Lord himself may serve to be a leading Case in the present business For being that the Jews were the Lords own people and their King honoured with the Title of the Lords Anointed it will be thought that if the Sanhedrim or the great Council of the seventy had any Authority and power over the Kings of Judah of whose jus Regni such a larger description is made by God himself in the first of Sam. cap. 8. the three Estates may reasonably expect the like in these parts of Christendom Now for the Authority of the Sanhedrim it is said by Cardinal Baronius that they had power of Judicature over the Law the Prophets and the Kings themselves Baron Annai Eccl. An. 31. sect 10. Erat horum summa autoritas ut qui de lege cognoscerent Prophetis simul de Regibus judicarent Which false position he confirms by as false an instance affirming in the very next words horum judicio Herodem Regem postulatum esse that King Herod was convented and convicted by them for which he cites Josphus with the like integrity I should have wondred very much what should occasion such a gross mistake in the learned Cardinal had I not shewn before that as he makes the Sanhedrim to rule the King so he hath made the high Priest to rule the Sanhedrim which to what purpose it was done every man can tell who knoweth the Cardinal endeavoureth nothing more in his large Collections than to advance the dignity and supremacy of the Popes of Rom. But for the power pretended to be in the Sanhedrim Id. in Epist dedicator and their proceedings against Herod as their actual King Josephus whom he cites is so far from saying it that he doth expresly say the contrary For as Josephus tells the story Hyrcanus was then King not Herod and Herod of so little hopes to enjoy the Kingdom that he could not possibly pretend any Title to it But having a command in Galilee procured by Antipater his Father of the good King Hyrcanus he had played the wanton Governor amongst them and put some of them to death against Law and Justice For which the Mothers of the slain 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 did often call upon the King and people in the open Temple 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. that Herod might answer for the murther before the Sanhedrim Joseph Antiq. Judic l. 14. cap. 17. Which being granted by the King he was accordingly convented by them and had been questionless condemned had not the King who loved him dearly given him notice of it on whose advertisement he went out of the Town and so escaped the danger This is the substance of that story and this gives no Authority to the Court of Sanhedrim over the persons or the actions of the Kings of Judah Others there are who make them equal to the Kings though not superiour Magnam fuisse Senatus autoritatem Regiae velut parem saith the Learned Grotius Grotius in Matth. cap. 5. v. 22. And for the proof thereof allege those words of Sedechias in the Book of Jeremy who when the Princes of his Realm required of him to put the Prophet to death Jerem. 38.5 returned this Answer Behold he is in your hand Rex enim contra vos nihil potest for the King is not he that can do any thing against you Which words are also cited by Mr. Prynne to prove that the King of England hath no Negative Voice but by neither rightly For Calvin who as one observeth composed his Expositions on the book of God according to the Doctrine of his Institutions would not have lost so fair an evidence for the advancing of the power of his three Estates Prynne of Parl. pt 2. p. 73. Hookers Preface had he conceived he could have made it serviceable to his end and purpose But he upon the contrary finds fault with them who do so expound it or think the King did speak so honourably of his Princes ac si nihil iis sit