earnestly desired it Nor did the Antient Churches grant it to any other Nor would so much as receive Oblations for maintenance of Ministers from others Chap. II. That Christ instituted such a Church-Form § 1. THat Christ instituted such a Kingdom or National Church I prove as followeth 1. He was by the Prophets still described as such before his coming as was to be the King of Israel and Israel under him a National Church Moses was King in Jesurun Deut 33. 5. and said A Prophet shall the Lord your God raise up to you like to me viz. that was a Prophet and King Melchizedeck was the Type of Christ that was King of Salem and Priest Psal 110. Heb. 8. David was herein a Type of Christ and Christ was promised to sit on his Throne Psal 2. 6. Yet have I set my King on my holy Hill of Sion Ezek. 37. 24. David my Servant shall be King over them and they shall all have one Shepherd c. My Servant David shall be their Prince for ever So v. 27 28. so Hos 3. 5. Exod. 19. 6. Ye shall be to me a Kingdom of Priests Dan. 2. 44. Mark 11. 10. Psal 33. 12. Blessed is the Nation whose God is the Lord. 2. Christ is proclaimed the King of the Jews and claimed that title and their subjection to him Matth. 2. 2. 27. 11. Mark 15. 2. He was of the Line of David and had right to his Kingdom He was scorned and crucified for that claim Mat. 27. 29 37. Mark 15. 9 12 18 26. Luke 23. 37. John 19. 21. The People acknowledged him King by their Hosanna He destroyeth them as Enemies that would not he should Reign over them Luke 19. 14 27. 3. He laid the Foundation of his offered National Kingdom among them He owned the Title and chose twelve Apostles in relation to the twelve Tribes and the seventy Disciples related to their great Council He would Preach to none but Israel till they rejected him He would have gathered all Jerusalem and her Children as the Hen gathereth her Chickens but they would not Mat. 23. 37. He destroyed them for refusing him 4. He commissioned his Apostles to stay at Jerusalem till they rejected them They made up the broken number of twelve as related to the twelve Tribes by Matthias though Joses and others had also followed Christ 5. He appointed them to Preach the Gospel to Nations and to disciple Nations Mat. 28. Mark 16. 6. He planted the Gentiles into the same Olive-tree that the Jews were broken off from Rom. 11. 7. The Jews had not been broken off from their National Church-state but for unbelief Rom. 11. 8. He translated the Kingdom from them to a Nation that would bring forth the fruits of it 9. In due time the Kingdoms of the World were made the Ringdoms of the Lord and of his Christ Rev. 11. 19. 10. Kings are to be the Churches Nursing Fathers 11. All Power in Heaven and Earth is given to Christ Mat. 28. and by him Kings Reign He is King of Kings and not of single persons only 12. But what need there any other proof while all Christians confess that All Kings are bound to be Christian Kings and to promote Christianity to their Power and all Magistrates and Subjects to be Christians And are not they then bound to be Christian Kingdoms and that is National Churches § 2. When he had prepared them to be voluntary Subjects by the Preaching of the Gospel and the Church came to maturity Christ actually set up National Kingdom-Churches and Ruled by Constantine successive Christian Princes And Heaven and Earth rejoyced that he had taken to him his great Power and Reigned and that the Kingdoms of the World were become his Kingdoms Rev. 17. 18. 19. Infancy is fitter for Instruction than to Govern Man is made to use Reason but he useth little in Infancy or till maturity That which was first in intention is last in execution Mature Reason in Man and Princely Government in Kingdom-Churches was first in intention tho' not in execution Who would wish that Pagans had still Reigned What Christian wisheth not that the Persians Indians Turks Tartars c. were all Christian Kingdoms Why else do the Millennies hope for such a state of holy Government § 3. Obj. But tho' there be no doubt of the command institution and duty what hope have we of the constitution and event that Kingdoms should become Christian Ans Our Question is of the Institution and Duty confess that and let us do our endeavour 2. Is not this a Christian Kingdom while King and Subjects are baptized professed Christians Are we a Protestant Kingdom and not a Christian Kingdom And are not others such Obj. But these be mostly but nominal Hypocrite Christians Ans They are visible professed Christians The Corn is not without Straw and Chaff Do you look for Kingdoms that consist only of the sincere Obj. But Churches must consist only of those that seem sincere Ans All seem sincere that profess sincerity till it be by tryal and witness publickly disproved There are several degrees of seeming some by fuller evidences than others but all that Vow it and stand to that Vow do seem and profess it till disproved Obj. But how prove you that a Christian Kingdom is a Church Ans Doth your Question mean de Re or de Nomine I told you what I mean by a Church no other than a Christian Kingdom consisting of a Christian Soveraign and Christian Subjects worshiping God in confederate particular Churches ordinarily will you deny the Being or the Duty of such If it be the Name 1. The word Ecclesia is used for even common Assemblies and therefore much more for Christian Societies 2. The Israelites were called The Church in the Wilderness much more when more fully stablished 3. If you have any reason against the Name disprove it 4. If the Name be all the difference call it as you please But make it not your pretence that only Priests are persons Holy enough to be Heads of Churches and not Kings and therefore that it is no National Church that hath not a Clergy Head Monarchical or Aristocratical for that 's the Popish Doctrine which I have confuted Chap. III. In the Execution Judea was such a Church § 1. IN the Execution of his Institution Christ in the time of Constantine and after made Judea it self a National Church as far as a Province of the Empire may be called a Nation The Empire as Christian headed by one Christian Soveraign and materiated by Christian Subjects obeying Christ both singly and in sacred Assemblies under their Bishops or Elders was all one National Church that is One Christian Kingdom long before promised by Christ and prepared for But as the Emperors allowed some Provinces to have subject tributary Kings and others to enjoy most of their Antient Laws and Liberties so they might secundum quid be called Kingdoms and National Churches
for such Communion But National Provincial or Diocesane Communion is but by distant agreement in the same Profession among persons perhaps many hundred Miles distant that never see each other And the Ministerial Work doth accordingly differ Dr. Hammond maintaineth that in Scripture times there were no Bishops that had any more than a Congregation to whom he Preached and Personally Officiated Chap. VI. Who must be the Lay-Members of National Churches § 1. INfidels and Heathens may be free Members of a Kingdom as a Kingdom and in a Kingdom as Christians may be tolerated when they cannot be cured And may be used as Inferior Officers in such secular affairs as they are capable of But a Christian Kingdom and Church as such consisteth of no Denisons Burgesses or men free and empowered in matters of Religion but only such as are Baptized or openly professed Christians and their Children and are not proved to have nullified that profession by Heresie or such sin as rendreth their profession incredible and invalid And all these Baptized Visible Christians must be taken for such Members § 2. Where the Essentials of Christianity are Visibly Professed there may be a great difference of Members in Gifts and Soundness Some may be Eminently Laudable and Useful and some may be so Faulty as are fit for Rebuke and Punishment and yet all Members § 3. The Priviledges of some that are not Disfranchised or Excommunicate may yet be suspended while they are under trial For as nothing but Capital Crimes or Excommunication for Impenitence after due Admonition doth cut them off so while they have rendered this justly questionable just Legal Tryal must needs suspend their questioned right till Judgment decide it whether they be impenitent or not or their Crime be Capital § 4. In the Jewish State many hainous Sins were to be punished with Death As Murder Blasphemy Worshiping False Gods drawing men from the true God Cursing Parents Willful and Obstinate Gluttony and Drunkenness and Debauchery after Parents Patient endeavours to reform them Adultery Incest Sodomy some Perjuries And dead men can be no Church Members on Earth Therefore this Death for Sin was an Excommunication and more Therefore they that Plead that any such should be tolerated because the Jews were often such and not Excommunicated is to plead the example of Criminals against the express Letter of the Law and argue à facto prohibito contra legem prohibentem And whether Mr. Galaspi and others have proved any more than Church-Suspension against any but those that were to be put to Death I leave the Reader to consider § 5. It is a Controversie whether the Church be in the Common Wealth or Kingdom or the Common Wealth in the Church And the former is by most asserted Ans 1. Under Infidel or Heathen Kings that are out of the Church themselves the Church is in the Common Wealth 2. And under Christian Kings or other Soveraigns the Particular Churches are in the Common Wealth as parts in the whole 3. And as the Common Wealth is taken so largely as to comprehend Pagans in Inferior Magistracy as in the days of the first Christian Emperors there the Church is in the Common Wealth But take the Common Wealth as meerly and truly Christian and it is the same thing with the National Church and one is not in the other being but two Names for one thing § 6. The appropriating the Name of the Church to the Clergy as distinct from the Laity is the Plot or Part of Popish Tyranny and Fallacy Implying falsly that the National Church must be specified and unified by a Priestly Head Monarchical or Aristocratical and that a King is not a person sacred enough to be the Supream Head in his own National Church Nor the people Holy enough to be its Materials As if Lords Commons Citizens and other Lay Christians were no parts of the Church when Great Magistrates are Nobler parts than a multitude of Ignorant Vicious Curates and Priests § 7. From this Cheat they have claimed the sole Power as of Divine Right of making Canons that shall be obliging Laws and of being the sole determiners of Religious Cases Too many Presbyterians and Independants are for this Clergy claim calling only the Ministers work the exercise of Christs Kingly Office But the Frenchified Prelatists much more § 8. Hence is the common sence and abuse of the distinction of Civil and Ecclesiastical Government intimating that Kings are not to Govern the Church not meddle beyond Civil and Secular concerns But of this before § 9. The power of the Sword or force belongeth only to the Magistrate to be used by him as Judge and not as the Clergies Lictor or Executioner the Bishops and Clergy have no forcing Sword power unless the King give it them for which mostly they are unmeet having proper work enough of their own Tho some cases may be excepted Chap. VII What is the Confederacy or Concord needful to a National Church § 1. AFfirmatively 1. A Baptismal Confederacy to be all the true Subjects of one God one Christ and Holy Ghost against the Devil World and Flesh § 2. 2. A Consent to live as Christians in Love to one another and to addict our selves to the good of one another specially to the welfare of the whole Body and to do as we would justly be done by § 3. 3. To be all the Loyal subjects of one Christian Soveraigns Power § 4. 4. To be all for the publick Worshiping of God and our Redeemer in Christian Assemblies guided and ruled by Christian Pastors or Bishops qualified and described by Christ in his Word the instituter of the Pastoral Office and not of any new sort of humane Ministry or uncapable persons that are wanting in any thing essential to the Office § 5. 5. To take the Sacred Scripture for the Word of God and the sufficent Rule of Divine Faith and Holy living And to profess an explicite Belief of the Creed as it was transmitted to us from the Apostolick Churches and to take the Lords Prayer for the summary rule of our desires and hopes and the Decalogue as owned and expounded by Christ for the summary rule of our Obedience with the Sacraments instituted by him § 6. 6. To profess Obedience to true Authority in Parents Magistrates and Pastors and all true Governours so far as they are empowered by God and to obey God above all and no men against him and his Laws And Rulers to profess to obey God and Rule as his Ministers for the Common welfare and to promote the obedience of Gods Laws § 7. 7. For Magistrates Pastors and Parents to profess their endeavour to promote the true Preaching of the Gospel and the transmitting of it in Purity to Posterity and to encourage and not unjustly forbid or hinder the publication and practice of it § 8. Negatively 1. It is not meet that this confederacy so appropriate the Body of the National Church to any one
OF National Churches Their Description Institution Use Preservation Danger Maladies and Cure Partly applied to England Written by RICHARD BAXTER for promoting peace when the pacifying Day shall come by Healing their Extremes that are willing of Peace and Healing And for the fuller Explication of the Treaty for Concord in 1660 and 1661. and of the Kings Gracious Declaration about Ecclesiastical Affairs for which he had publick thanks by them that afterward rejected it And for further Explication of his Treatise of Episcopacy and many others written for Peace and rejected Rev. 11. 15. The Kingdoms of this World are become the Kingdoms of our Lord and of his Christ and he shall Reign for ever and ever Chap. 19. 16. King of Kings and Lord of Lords Matth. 5. 9. Blessed are the Peace-makers for they shall be called the Children of God Jam. 3. 17. The wisdom that is from above is first Pure and then Peaceable c. London Printed by T. Snowden for Thomas Parkhurst at the Bible and Three Crowns the lower end of Cheapside 1691. THE EPISTLE TO THE READER Reader THIS short Discourse cometh not from the expectation of pleasing any of the Extremes the Tyrannical or the Confounders And therefore in a Time and Countrey where those that escape Extremes are few it must expect but the private approbation of those few But those few and their Cause are so considerable as that if God mean not to forsake the Land they may yet become the Agents and stamina of a happy concordant Reformation Of which in the appearance of Second Causes there is yet no great prospect nor like to be unless God cause the Supreme Power by Wisdom and Righteousness or by their own constraining Interest and Necessity to drive the Worldly Unpeaceable Sort to obey Healing Precepts for their own Advantage contrary to their Temptations and Inclinations If such a day come when I am dead these Principles will be of use They are not lately taken up by me as you may see in my Five Disputations of Church Government c. in my Treatise of Episcopacy Nonconformity stated c. and in our frustrated Treaty for Concord 1660 1661. In the state that we are in while we have none to whom we have any Call or Hope to address our selves for publick Concord let us keep our selves from the guilt of unpeaceableness and bear the Slanders and Wrongs of false Accusers and thank God for checking the Power of Persecutors and let us make peace among those that we may speak to with any hope and wait on God till he shew us whether he be saving or forsaking the Land and the rest of the Reformed Unreformed Churches And to them that will be offended with me for saying so much for Bishops and Archbishops let them know that this Book is but an Attendant on a bigger written against a Foreign Jurisdiction or Popery which sheweth that I am no more for the Extremes of others ' than of theirs As also my Treatise of Episcopacy hath shewn And here I have proved that Popery is but a Fabrick built on the Ruins of National Churches or Christian Kingdoms And if it ever fall it must be by their Restoration The Lord pity the Blind Malignant Self-destroying World and prepare us better for a better Society London March 26. 1691. Richard Baxter LET the Reader note that § 7 8 9 and 10. of the XII th Chapter are misplaced and must be read as the end of the IX th Chapter The rest of the Errata's I have not time togather THE CONTENTS CHap. I. What a National Church is Ch. II. That Christ Instituted such a Church Form Ch. III. In the Execution as well as Embrio Judea was such Ch. IV. Particular Churches and Pastors how far Essential to a National Church and what are its Materials Ch. V. The Pastors or Bishops of National Churches are to be of three Ranks Apostolick Successors Ch. VI. Who must be the Lay-members of National Churches Ch. VII What is the Confederacy or Concord needful to a National Church Ch. VIII How far this Confederacy and Concord bindeth the Members of a National Church to Conformity Ch. IX That Christ hath Instituted no Ecclesiastical Government in Man of any larger extent than National much less Universal nor of Foreign Jurisdiction And that the French Aristocracy with the Popes Primacy and Patriarchate is as bad as Papal Monarchy Ch. X. Whether Universal Church Government more than per partes be of Apostolick Succession Ch. XI Whether National Church Primacy or Aristocracy infer Universal Ch. XII 1. Whether the Romans Church Policy should be chosen as strengthning the common Christian Interest 2. Whether Protestants Differences and Divisions make the Roman way of Concord necessary 3. Whether Protestants or Papists have more Errors Chap. XIII What are the Dangerous Diseases of a National Church Chap. XIV Whether the Present Church of England be of a sound Constitution and what is Necessary to its Welfare Safety Strength and Peace Chap. XV. The Case answered Of Tolerating Dissenters from the Laws or Customs of a National Church Books Printed for and Sold by Tho. Parkhurst at the Bible and Three Crowns in Cheapside near Mercers Chapel Baxter's Catholick Theology plain pure peaceable for Pacification of the Dogmatical Word-Warriours in three books Folio His Church History of Government of Bishops and their Councils Abbreviated Quarto His true History of Councils enlarged and defended Quarto His Treatise of Episcopacy Quarto His Saints Everlasting rest in four parts Quarto His Paraphrase on the New Testament Quarto His Life of Faith in three parts Quarto His answer to Dodwel and Sherlock Quarto His Catholick Communion in five parts Quarto Catholick Communion doubly defended c. Whether Parish Congregations be true Christian Churches defended against both Extremes Unnecessary Divisions Quarto His Apology for Non-Conforming Ministers Quarto His Naked Popery c. Quarto His Treatise of Knowledge and Love Compared c. in two parts Quarto His English Non-Conformity as under King Charles the second and King James the second truely Stated and Argued the Second Edition Quarto His Treatise of Self-Denial Octavo His Defence of Non-Conformists Plea for Peace Octavo His Full and Easy satisfaction which is the True and Safe Religion Octavo His Key for Catholicks opening the Juglings of the Jesuits Octavo His Catechizing of Families Octavo His Scriptures Gospel Defended and Christ Grace and free Justification vindicated against the Libertines Octavo His Two Disputations of Original Sin Octavo His Cain and Abel Malignity that is Enmity to Serious Godliness c. Octavo His Call to the Unconverted to turn and live c. Octavo His Glorious Kingdom of Christ described and clearly vindicated c. Quarto stitcht His Reply to Mr. Beverly's Answer to my Reasons against his Doctrine of a thousand years Quarto stitcht His Farewel Sermon prepared to have been Preached to his hearers at Kederminster at his departure but forbidden Quarto published
though they were but Provinces and parts of the Imperial Church And thus Judea became a National Church § 2. It is past question that many Kings who had given up their Kingdom to the Pagan Beast followed the success of Constantine and afterward did give up their Power to Christ yet no Kingdom was wholly converted at once nor of many years But yet while the Soveraign Power and Confederate Christian Pastors and Subjects had the chief Power it was truly a Christian Kingdom For the Form in capable matter doth denominate And tho' many Heathens were long permitted in Government that doth but prove that the Kingdom had two sorts of free Subjects one sort that were Christians and so were the chief Members who in all matters of Religion were exempted from Pagan Judicatures and the other Heathens who had a freedom in things secular § 3. Judea then was more eminently Christian than any other Nation of no greater extent There were Arch Bishops and Bishops and Presbyters and after a Patriarch And there were more Monasteries and Religious Societies and more Temples built there than in any Countrey that was no greater And more Christians flockt thither from other Nations out of a veneration for the place And indeed it was the Mother-Church out of which all other Churches sprang Therefore if any Province might be called a National Church it was Judea § 4. This was when the Fulness of the Gentiles came in that is when the Gentile Empire turned Christian And so the Gentile Powers turned Christian provoked the Jews to emulation and requited them by becoming Nursing Fathers to them and bringing their Glory to Jerusalem And so all Israel was saved that is the body of Abraham's natural Seed and also the faithful Gentiles that were the spiritual Seed were unitedly gathered to Christ § 5. Obj. But they were mostly Gentiles that then dwelt there And that proveth no Conversion of the Jews Ans The scattered Jews were in many Countreys of the Roman Empire And most of them had neither mind nor means to return to a small and barren Land But as many as were willing and were zealous for their Countrey did live there and none were forbidden And it is far most probable that the most that were there left were such as kept their old Habitations And the most that were kill'd were the military part In the days of Constantine and after their Churches flourished And what greater encouragement could they have now to return were they converted than they had None would make them go against their wills If Gentile Christians and Jews were there mixt they did the more fitly suit a Catholick Church-state when Moses Policy and their Peculiarity ceased Should they in the feigned Fifth Monarchy-state be confined to that Countrey which is like our Wales how contemptible a Nation would they be in comparison of what Constantine allowed them both in Judea and throughout all the Empire No Nation was wholly converted at the first and if the Christian Jews that lost their name being Catholicks had no great mind to go to Judea it is no wonder Chap. IV. Particular Churches and Pastors how far essential to a National Church and what are its materials § 1. THere is more essential to a National Church than the meer Formal Cause or Soveraign Matter is essential as well as Form Yet not all parts of the Matter neither though all be parts Integral As in the Body a man cannot be a man without a stomach liver and lungs and heart but he may without a finger or a hand or leg § 2. I doubt not but I have proved that the Soveraign Magistrate is the Formal Humane Head of his Kingdom and as Christian of the Kingdom as Christian And nothing remaineth disputable but de Nomine whether a Christian Kingdom must be named a Church which Custom Etymology and Scripture put past question Our Civilians such as Dr. Zouch Dr. Rich. Cousins c. and our Lawyers say trulier than most have believed that the King is persona mixta Custos utriusque Tabulae and Head of the Church as a Christian Kingdom And for want of knowing this and the true nature and bounds of his Office how foully many have miscarried I have shewed 1. Those called Erastians carry it too far and give the Magistrate part of the Office of the Pastors even the Keys of Admission into the Church as a Church and of Excommunication which God hath put into the hand of the Pastors by as immediate a Commission as he hath put the Sword into the hand of the Magistrate And by this over-doing they undo They would ruine the Prince on pretence of defending his Power For all Authority hath also Obligation to duty And must Princes and Magistrates be put on the task of trying the Faith and Repentance of all that are to be Baptized Confirmed Absolved or Excommunicated Then they must leave their own Calling for they will here find work enough This is like the Separatists making the People Judges by which they would undo them calling them from their Callings to take on them a work of which they are uncapable and about which they will never long agree and making them responsible to God for all their Male-administration As if the King must not only be Governour of Physicions but must be a Physicion himself and give Medicines and be answerable for the Patients lives Or must be a Schoolmaster because he governeth Schoolmasters And this puts them on a necessity of casting out true Discipline and holding the Opinion that Sacramental Communication should be common to the Godly and the openly Wicked as being a Converting Ordinance and that Excommunication is but Tyranny Just as those Diocesans that will have no Bishops but one over a thousand or many score or hundred Parishes by pleading for their sole Episcopal Power take on them the sole Obligation to Episcopal duty and so make themselves responsible for that work which requireth many hundred men and under themselves while they undo the Churches and leave all true Discipline undone and mock not God but men and themselves with names and ceremonious shadows 2. And the Papal and French Prelatists have by this Ignorance got a fixed false Opinion that as Pastors are the Constitutive Heads of Particular Churches so they must be of National Churches and that every National Church must be unified and specified by one Clergy Soveraignty in one person or in a Colledge or Aristocracy Or else that a Christian Kingdom is not properly a Church because it hath not a Priestly Head It 's true that it is not univocally a Church of the same species or rank as a Pastoral Church is but is more eminently and as fitly called a Church as Israel was 3. And the Independent Separatists and Anabaptists for want of understanding this as I said before cry down National Churches with scorn and run away from National Concord into endless Divisions and Sects while at the
same time they pray and wait for National Churches in the Millennium as the Fifth Monarchy And none of them will deny it to be the Duty of all Kings and Kingdoms to be Christians and so that Christian Kingdoms are Christ's Institution and Command § 3. But the Soveraign is the Judge what Pastors and Churches he shall allow and maintain as parts of the National Church or Kingdom As the Colledge is to judge who is fit to be a Physicion and the Patient who shall be his Physicion and the trusted Physicion what Medicine he shall give But the King to judge whom he will allow in his Kingdom and to make Laws forbidding poisonous Drugs and abuses of Physicions Even so the Ordainers are Judges who are fit to be Pastors and the People whom they will trust their Souls with as their Pastors and the trusted Pastors to judge what Doctrine to Preach and whom to receive to Communion or to Excommunicate but the King to judge whom he will allow maintain or tolerate as Members of the Christian Kingdom or National Church § 4. That all essential parts of a National Church are not the Form that denominateth as aforesaid needs no more proof than that Matter and Privation by which Aristotle meant Dispositio Materiae receptiva are not the Form of a Natural Body So that Confederate Pastoral Churches are necessary yea essential matter of a National Church or Christian Kingdom when it is past being a meer Embrio or unshapen Mass and is come to be a well shapen Politick Body Till then it is but as the body in the womb while the punctum saiiens first maketh the Heart Eyes Brain and Arteries before it hath made the Stomach Liver Lungs and Intestines It is not yet come to shew what Christ's Institution of a Church was § 5. But our great Controversies are I. Who be the Organical Pastors that must make up a National Church II. Who must be the Lay-members of those Churches III. What that Confederacy must be that must unite them IV. How far the Members are bound by that Confederacy And because Ignorance hath made these Points of so much Controversie and Consequence I will open them distinctly By which I conjecture it will appear that Dr. Stillingfleet differed but about the right wording of the definition of a National Church Chap. V. Of Pastors or the Bishops of National Churches that they are to be of Three ranks § 1. THat Pastors are the prime necessary part of the Matter of a Kingdom-Church tho' not the Unifying Form is plain in Scripture and in the nature of their Office and of a Church § 2. The Independent Separatists therefore shew gross Ignorance when they make a meer Community unorganized to be a Church in sensu Politico and then must have a Lay-man that was of the Universal Church before to be by the Peoples Votes chosen a Member of that Church while it hath no Pastor and then chosen their Pastor after Whereas a meer Community is no more a Political Church without a Pastor than a Community is a Kingdom that hath no King individual or collective existent or virtual Or than this can be a School without a Schoolmaster or a Family without a Head of it § 3. As Nature first formeth by the Soul and Spirits ex materia seminis the heart and prime organical parts and by them formeth all the rest and last of all formeth the Stomach and Intestines to be the Organs of future nutrition and then putteth in the nutriment which in the Chicken is the Yelk of the Egg the bodily stamina being first made of the white and then closeth up the before enclosed stomach upon that food so Christ did first by his Calband Spirit make some prime organical General or Indefinite Ministers and by them make others fixed in particular Churches and Offices and by them edifie and feed and perfect the Body by their Official Ministration and fit the people to digest the received food for their continued nutrition And as the King first maketh General Officers for his intended Army and then by them or immediately commissioneth Generals and Captains to raise their several Regiments and Companies and doth not make the common Souldiers before the Officers that are to Rule them so was it done by Christ at the gathering of his Church But when a Church is gathered or an Army raised they are not to be dissolved or disbanded when the Pastor the Captains or Generals die but continue in the existent state of a Community and the state of a Virtual Policy till a Pastor or Ruler be chosen because the Legal Institution de specie keeps up a virtual or intentional Policy still § 4. Christ's first Instituted Officers were Apostles and after the Inferior Official Disciples immediately from himself to convert Souls and make them fit matter for his Kingdom-Church and these were afterward to gather into distinct regular Congregate Churches such as were so converted by their Ministry and to place fixed Elders over them § 5. These Twelve Apostles and Seventy Disciples were first instituted in and for a National Church state Christ found the Jews under a National Form and therefore did not at first change that Form but only changed the Laws and Ordinances made for their Infant state of peculiarity which he had fulfilled for them they being but a Paedagogy to lead to and till Christ § 6. It 's plain that the number of Twelve and Seventy were chosen as related to the Twelve Tribes all then in being and known and of the Sanedrim or great Council And therefore a National Form of Church-Officers and not yet Universal nor Congregational § 7. Therefore Christ himself would not Preach beyond the Tribes of Israel nor give the Childrens bread to Dogs till he was finally rejected by the Children of the Kingdom and ' so the Kingdom taken from them and given to a Nation that would bring forth the fruits of it And he forbad his Apostles to go among the Gentiles and confined them to the lost Sheep of the house of Israel § 8. It is plain that Christ would have this just number of twelve kept up in relation to the twelve Tribes till the Kingdom was taken from them because one and but one was to be chosen in Judas room and so the due number of the Twelve to be kept up This proveth the Institution of a disparity of Ministers § 8. The Keys of the Kingdom were given first to the Apostles before the empowering of the seventy and that as to distinct superior Officers And the word Keys signifieth Government when Christ is said to have the Keys it is expounded by his opening and no man shutteth and shutteth and no man openeth The Government was laid on his shoulders as King and Counseller Isa 9. 6 7 8. And as his Father gave the Keys and sent him so he sent his Apostles and gave power to them § 9. But there is no doubt but this Power
Party or Sect though it should be or thought to be sounder or better than the rest excluding any that have all the necessaries before named though they have many tolerable errors and imperfections § 9. It is not lawful to make things unnecessary to be taken or used as necessary to the National Church Unity Nor to make snares and impose them by such needless Laws to silence or eject any true and tolerable Ministers much less the soundest imposing things sinful or needless or that are unfit to be the Conditions of Unity and so unavoidably excluding capable Conscionable worthy men for want of complying with those terms is the commonest cause of Schism in the Christian World and the effect of Ignorance Pride and Tyranny none being more worthy to be excluded than such Schismatical excluders that make the Laws that should be the bonds of Concord to be the greatest Engines of Division § 10. The present Orthodox Protestant Nonconformists are as truely Members of the Church of England justly so called as any Diocesans or Conformists in the Land and if they be not better confuted than hitherto they have been they may truely be said to be the soundest most judicious and most conscionable and the most peaceable Members of this Church And to deny such Nonconformists to be true and honourable parts of the Church of England is but such an effect of Ignorant Arrogance and Slanders as is the shame of the speaker and implieth some dishonourable definition of the said Church And they that make their mutable Forms and Ceremonies essential to the Church make a Ceremony of the Church it self and cannot answer the Papists that challenge us to prove its antiquity Our Liturgy is not so old as Luthers time As Rome by claiming to be the whole Church hath made many think that it is not so much as a part so Conformists calling themselves the whole Church of England hath tempted many to take them for no part § 11. But yet unsound and hurtful Members may be restrained and corrected when they are not silenced or cast out And proving them true parts doth not prove them to be sound parts or such as must not be rebuked But tender avoiding sin by preferring Gods Law before Mans and founding our Concord on Christs instituted capable terms and not on the Sand of ensnaring humane Impositions is far from being the mark of unsound Members Yet meerly to tolerate them to Preach in deep Poverty that deserve most encouragement is not free from Injury and Schism Chap. VIII How far this Confederacy and Concord bindeth the Members of a National Church to Conformity to the common sence and practice § 1 VVHoever is convinced that Christian Kingdoms or National Churches are of Christs Institution must needs know that it is the duty of all its Members to do their best to preserve them and promote their welfare as considered in that form and not only to seek their own Salvation or the prospering of their particular Churches or Parties not only to seek the common good of Christians as such in Community But to keep up the National Polity in all lawful things in the way of their several places and callings For he is unworthy to be a Denison in any lawful Society that promoteth not its well faring § 2. And here it is a grand duty to know the distinct Rights of the Governing and the Governed part And to know that though they are distinct they ought not to be opposite but conjunct A fancy hath been by one of late divulged that it is a heinous crime to say that the King and People have a separate or separable interest So far may rashness precipitate the ignorant That King and Subjects have a distinct interest is past all doubt That these interests ought not to be opposite or set against each other is also doubtless And that they are divisible is doubtless else they would never fall out about them And that they are faultily divided And no doubt but they may and must be divided Numerally and Notionally so they be not opposite § 3. What I say of Kings I must say of Parents and Pastors and Tutors When the Subjects are various and really divided Numerically there the Accidents are divers and divided For the Accidents cannot be the same and indivisible that are in various subjects But the rights of Rulers and Subjects are diverse And the Persons or Subjects of these Rights are diverse and separate in sensu Physico Therefore the Rights are diverse and Physically seperate § 4. The Genus and fixed part of the Species being ordained by God himself the mutable Form Monarchy Aristocracy and Mixt and the determination of the Person or Line is by men and that is by mutual Consent and Contract None can force a man to be King or Pastor against his Will And Government is a state of great care and great danger to Soul and Body And will any man in his Wits undertake it without security to his own interest The Kings distinct and separate interest is 1. His own Life to be secured against Treason 2. His Honour as Gods chief Officer and in a sort representer which is therefore Gods own Honour in him This is made distinct and Physically separate tho not opposite in the Fifth Commandment And the doubt whether that Commandement be part of the first or second Table or rather partly of each as the Cardo utrinsque doth make it a hard question what interest is the highest Of which Michael Hudson hath subtilly treated The King also hath a distinct interest 3. In his Family and Personal Estate 4. And in such necessary aid of Men and Tribute as may enable him to Govern and Defend the Land Tho the Subjects may as Proprietors make limiting Contracts to secure their own Propriety and Interest And the Peoples right is in general the common good and safety and particularly to be defended and their contracted form of Government not overthrown nor the Kingdom to be given up to a Foreign Power or any Usurper much more that none that will execute such Papal Tyranny as is determined of in the General Council at Laterane sub Innoc. 3. to destroy or exterminate the Kingdom unless they would Damn their Souls by forsaking sound Religion I say that no such be their King or Potent Governour Because regere and perdere are inconsistent And they who design it and profess their subjection to any Power or Law or Religion that obligeth to it are to be supposed to be doing it Especially if their preparations shew their purposes and Magistrates be set in Power that are under the same Obligations And though a party or person must fly or suffer rather than Embroil the Kingdom in War or Rebellion for their defence Yet a whole Kingdom cannot be deprived of the right of self defence unless by Gods Sentence on their notorious forfeiture of Life § 5. The Kings Interest is chief in Majority in genere
deny not but the Providence of God hath made use of the Roman Power Numbers Concord and Riches to uphold the common Cause But all is not Good that God over-ruleth and useth to good permitting Man to cause the Evil. As a Man may use the Cruelty without causing it of a Hound a Ferret or a Hawk against the Prey to fulfil his just will Had National Kingdom Churches been kept up under true Christian Kings and Pastors and these Kings and Pastors in Dyets and Councils kept due Confederacies by Consultation and Contract without mutual Jurisdiction the common Cause had been better promoted than it hath been by Popery that hath shamed it and weakened it by Persecutions Divisions Treasons and Wars Quest IV. Whether the Divisions of other Christians render the Roman Government desireable for Concord Ans 1. There are more that Unite in Mahometanism and far more in Paganism than all the Christians in the World And Satan knoweth how to advantage his Kingdom by Concord as well as to weaken Christs Kingdom by Division 2. The Bishops have made the greatest Schisms and Division in the Church that ever was made by sinful Usurpation and Corruption and Impositions and Persecutions Unchurching the far greatest part of Christians and appropriating the Church Title to his own Sect alone All the Bloody Murders of the Waldenses Bohemians and other Protestants the Inquisition the present Wars that France hath involved Europe in are on pretence of Unity We like not the Unity that Satan maintaineth and that at such a rate of Blood 3. But I have before and elsewhere proved that the Protestants for all their Divisions have a far better Unity than the Papal Church hath so that this Question is elsewhere and here sufficiently answered Quest V. Whether the Errors of the Protestants do not so disparage them as to make the Roman Church more Honourable Ans 1. That is should not Men chuse a Leprosie to cure an Itch We deny not but where Controversies shew our Differences among our selves one Party must needs be in an Error either de re or de nomine But we agree in all that 's necessary to Salvation and Brotherly Love And Pride and Envy and Malignity are more the Causes of our Disagreement than our Religion Especially unskilfulness in Words and stating Cases I have endeavoured to shew in many Books especially my End of Doctrinal Controversies my Catholick Theology and Methodus Theologiae that our Differences are most in Words whose sence is not mutually understood How many Loads of Controversal Volumes are written by Papists against each other And what heavy Charges of Simony Filthiness Heresie c. have even General Councils and Historians laid on the Popes and many Councils And note that the Pope or Council is the Essentiating Form of the Papal Church as such and therefore an Unholy or Debauch'd or Heretick Head proveth that the Church is Unholy or Heretical Because the Form denominateth and is Essential But it is not so with the Protestants that own no Universal Head but Christ who is Infallible and perfect This much I thought needful to add against them that pretend an Institution of Christ for a Political Universal Head and a Foreign Jurisdiction above a National Church or Christian Kingdom He that would compare Papists Errors with Protestants let him read Chamier Blondel de Ecclesia Molinaeus of the Novelty of Popery Rivet Downame de Antichristo Jewel Whitaker and other such § 7. How few Bishops or Church Doctors are for Learning equal to Boetius Joh. Picus Francis Picus Erasmus Hutten Goldastus Freherus Pistorius Faber Stephanus Father and Son Mornay Lord Du Plessis Mich. Hospitalius Thuanus the two Scaliger's Salmasius Grotius Sarravius Justellus and many other Lay-men And are Kings and Magistrates uncapable of Wisdom § 8. How vast is the difference between Governing one Kingdom and Governing all the World Do I need to aggravate it And is not one King with Wise Judges and Justices as capable of Governing one Kingdom as an Utopian College of Bishops that some dream of or a Pope and Cardinals of Governing all the World Can such ignorant vicious Monsters as Councils have condemned for the most odious Wickedness and Heresie better Rule at Abassia Armenia or the Antipodes than a Good King can Rule in England § 9. Councils consist of the Subjects of many Foreign Princes and usually their Princes chuse who shall go And they that are near the place of meeting will be the most And none can come against their Princes wills And few Bishops will disobey their Lords that send them or that they live under And must such Subjects of Papists Turks Infidels Heathens be Masters of England of King and People and of all the Religion in the World § 10. Cannot Bishops at hand here better try the Cause of one accused for Heresie Fornication Treason Murder c. and that by virtue of a Commission from God than a meeting of Bishops out of all the World a Thousand Mile off can try it § 11. But I shall here pass by my chief proof of this that God hath ordained no Humane Government distinct from meer consultation or Concord and Communion above National Headed by Christian Soveraignty Because I have ready for the Press a full Treatise of it in Two Books The first proving Historically by their own words that Archbishop Land Archbishop Bromhall Bishop Guning Bishop Sparrow Bishop Sam. Parker Dr. Pet. Heylin Mr. Thorndike Dr. Saywell and divers others have written for a Foreign and Universal Jurisdiction The second Book fully disproving it and proving that the Kingdom and Church is Sworn against it and that the Parliaments and the Church of England till Laud's days were against it And that this very Parliament and Convention having taken a new Oath against it besides the old Oaths of Supremacy to stigmatize the Church and Nation with the foresaid Perjury would dangerously presage the Rune of the Perjured if not of the Land Chap. XIII What are the dangerous Diseases of a National Church § 1. DEath cometh on Bodies Politick as on Natural Bodies by degrees as Diseases weaken and break them And while they are Diseased they are in an unlovely troublesome condition Gods Word and History and Experience hath told us what Diseases they be that are the usual presages of Confusion or Dissolution § 2. In general All sin is to the Soul what Sickness is to the Body and hath some tendency to destruction And the increase and abounding of Sin is a dangerous Prognostick sins of Sensuality Gluttony Drunkenness and Fornication when they grow common and impudent seldom go unpunished O how dangerous then is the case of England in which the Sin of Adultery and Fornication is commonly said to be so increased that multitudes are guilty now for One that was ever suspected of it before the Reign of K. Charles the Second And brutish Wretches scarce take it for a shame Sins of Injustice and
by himself Moral Prognostication 1st What shall befall Churches on Earth till Conquered by restitution of primitive Purity Simplicity and Charity 2. How the restitution is like to be made if ever and what shall befall them thenceforth to the end in that Golden Age of Love Quarto stitcht His search for the English Schismatick Quarto stitcht His Immortality of the Soul Octavo His Treatise of Justifying Righteousness in two books Octavo His Revolt to a Foreign Jurisdiction in two parts Octavo Joseph Alleine of Conversion in Octavo large Print with Cases of Conscience Alleine of Conversion in Twelves smaller Print with Cases of Conscience Alleine's Sure Guide in Twelves Mr. Steel of Old Age. Vincent of Conversion Touchstone of Grace and Nature Of Conscience The Spirit of Prayer Of Love among Christians Three Funeral Sermons Principles of the Doctrine of Christ Chap. I. What a National Church is § 1. A National Church and a Christian Kingdom constituted of a Christian Soveraign Magistrate and of Christian Subjects worshiping God ordinarily in true Particular Pastoral Churches is the same thing § 2. The ignorance of this hath confounded the Christian World by two extreams On one side a double mischief hath been by this ignorance introduced First That of Popery which first prophaneth the Sacred Office of Kings and Magistrates feigning them to be but a sort of secular Animals that have the care only of mens Bodies and trading and worldly Affairs and not of Souls or of mens everlasting Safety as if this belonged only to Priests whereby they make Kings to be as much baser than Priests as the Body is viler than the Soul and teach the Subjects accordingly to dishonour and contemn them 2. And while they confine Princes to the bounds of their own Dominions they pretend that the whole World must have one Church Soveraign either Monarchical Aristocratical or mixt which yet Humane Nature is utterly uncapable of so that truly Popery is founded on the degrading of Princes and States and overthrowing true National Church-bounds to set up an absurdly pretended Universal Soveraignty instead of it under Sacerdotal Heads § 3. And this mistake hath corrupted the late Innovating Prelatists that would be called the Church of England who have learnt of the Papists to appropriate the name of the Church or at least Church-Government to the Clergy and so think that a National Church must be unified and constituted by a National Sacerdotal Head either single or collective And that a Prince is not sacred enough to be a National Church Head That this novel Opinion is contrary to the Laws and the sense of Lawyers and the Doctrine of the Church of England and the very Oaths of Allegiance and Supremacy is so well known as forbids me to lose any time in proving it It 's true that Queen Elizabeth and our Kings and Doctors have justly appropriated the Power of the Word Sacraments and the Keys of Admission to Christian Communion and of Excommunication and Absolution to the Pastoral Office and have proved that Christ did himself institute that Office and not leave it to the will or power of Princes to institute abrogate or alter it But it is as true that Princes are the Governours of those Pastors and may punish them for Male-administration and dispose of the things circasacra undetermined by Christ § 4. By this mischievous Errour also the Clergy have been drawn to tempt Kings and Magistrates to think that they are but Civil Officers and have not much need to be very studious to understand the Scriptures but must leave that to Bishops and Priests and take it on their words By which they have been perverted and let loose to ungodliness and debauchery wasting that time in Luxury and Sports and Idleness which should have been spent in studying of the Word of God and govern by erroneous ungodly Laws because they know not the Law of the Lord Whereas God hath commanded Kings and Rulers to study his Law diligently and keep it alwaies before their eyes and on their hearts and to govern according to it and make it the chief work of their Office to promote the obedience of it § 5. Moses was more the Mediator between God as Legislator and the People than Aaron was and was better acquainted with the Law and the meaning of it than Aaron was It was he that is called King in Jesurun And God instituted a Prophetical Succession of such which the Israelites sinned in changing for Kings A Prophet shall the Lord your God raise up to you like to me him shall you hear tho' it meant Christ remotely and eminently it meant his Successors proximately Joshua was commanded the study of God's Law And David and Solomon are undeniable Instances to prove that Kings were by God appointed to be more wise and holy persons than the Priests And indeed if Kings be not better skill'd in God's Word than most of the Popish Priests are no wonder if they be the Subjects of Priests and be lightly esteemed as unmeet to Govern especially if Mr. Dodwell's Doctrine were true that the Essential work of the Ministry according to my Principles is to transact between God and Man to seal Covenants on behalf of God and to accept of those which are made by Men and to oblige them to perform their part of the Covenant by otherwise authoritatively excluding them from God's part Hence results the whole Power of Ecclesiastical Government And for this no great gifts and abilities are essential All the skill that is requisite essentially is only in general to know the benefits to be performed on God's part and the duties to be performed on Man's and the Nature and Obligation of Covenants in general and the particular Solemnities of Ecclesiastical Covenants And of this how any man can be uncapable who is but capable of understanding the common dealings of the World c. If it be much more knowledge than this that is commanded to Kings and Rulers then are they the more sacred persons and fitter to be Heads of a National Church than such Priests are § 6. Bishops or Pastors may be the constitutive Heads of Particular Churches and yet not of National nor therefore cease as such to be under the Government of Christian Princes nor Princes thereby be made Priests A School-Master a Colledge-Master an Hospital-Governour a Philosopher may be the Head of his particular Society and yet under a Prince that is not of his Art The King is no Physicion and yet Ruleth Physicions not as a chief Physicion but by the General Government of a King The Masters of Sciences and Arts as such govern none but Volunteers and therefore not by the Sword It 's Princes that do that § 7. Though Moses Law as such bind not us nor any further than Christ hath put it into his Law and many things in their Policy are unsuitable to our times and places and more in their way of Worship yet the true nature of
such a National Church as Christ did institute must be known by knowing what the Jews Church was as National and how far Christ would have continued that form of Government and what change it was that he was for § 8. 1. Christ would not have the Jewish Nation to retain their peculiarity as distinct from the Catholick Church for he came to call the Gentile World 2. He intended not to make Jerusalem the Seat of a Regent Church over the rest of the World as it then was over the Jews for he knew that it was to be destroyed 3. He intended not to settle one High Priest over the whole Catholick Church nor over the National Church For defacto he did it not and he knew that the High Priest did typifie himself only 4. He intended not to continue the Law of Moses as such nor its Ceremonious Worship but only so much of it as was of the Law of Nature common to others and so much of the Policy as by parity of cases and reason is suited to others as well as to the Jews § 9. But 1. He offered to be King over them as a holy National kingdom-Kingdom-Church 2. He accordingly appointed the number of Twelve and Seventy under him as related to the Twelve Tribes and to their great Council 3. He sent these first to work upon them by Doctrine and Perswasion his Kingdom being a Government of Love Mercy and Free Grace that would have none but Volunteers 4. He gave them Laws by which he would govern them with promises of Reward and threats of Penalty 5. He extended this offered State and Priviledge to them and their Children 6. He intended to set up his Government in Power by Christian Princes as soon as his Word and Providence had ripened the Church for it § 10. I shall prove all this in the next Chapter when I have told you first that as the Papal Party hath been set up in their Usurpation Universal and National for want of understanding Christ's Institution of Kingdom-Churches so the separating and dividing part of the Nonconformists have by this oversight run into many hurtful Errours and unpeaceable and unjustifiable ways 1. How much the very name of a National Church is distasted by very many zealous persons through meer ignorance is too commonly known 2. And in Independents and too many Presbyterians the custom prevaileth of calling the exercise of Pastoral Discipline by the name of the Kingly Government of Christ as distinct not only from his Prophetical and Priestly Office but also from his Government by Magistrates As if Christ governed not as King as much and more eminently by Princes as by Priests or Pastors 3. And if a man speaketh but what Scripture speaketh for Christ's Government of the Churches by Magistrates they call him an Erastian Whereas the Errour of Erastus an excellent Protestant Physicion was not his being for the Government of Princes but his taking down the Power of the Keys too much which was the Office of Pastors and making Church-Communion over-common and too much denying Excommunication Of which I have written a peculiar Treatise to Dr. Ludov. Molinaeus shewing the true difference between the Power of Magistrates and Pastors 4. And hence great disorder hath arisen from the undervaluing of the Confederacy of all particular Churches in the same Kingdom and from a disobedience to the lawful determinations of Princes in Church Affairs and even from the causless singularity of every humorous Sect as slighting the Concord of the Confederate Churches what abundance of Schisms had it prevented with their dismal Effects if men had but retained a due Reverence to Church Confederacies and Concord and to the Christian Magistrates Power which caused the Presbyterians in Scotland and Ireland so marvelously to keep up Concord and keep out Sects though they were against Diocesans because they maintained National Church Confederacy § 11. It may perhaps be useful to others that I here confess my own Ignorance and Errour that I once thought that the Scots way of a National Church Confederacy and General Assemblies was but a sadling the Horse for Papal Usurpation to ride upon For I considered not that National Churches truly stated were Christ's Institution and the principal way to keep out Popery § 12. And whereas in my Defences against Dr. Stillingsleet and Dr. Sherlock I called the Christian Magistrate an Accidental Head and urged them hard to name the Essential National Church-Head I spake on supposition of their Opinion which I opposed that Bishops only were such Essential Heads from whom A National Church must be unified and specified But I still professed to own a National Church as a Christian Kingdom containing Confederate Pastoral Churches And of this the Soveraign Power is the Essentiating Head § 13. The names of distinction of Civil and Ecclesiastical as differencing the Office of the Christian Magistrates and Pastors may be used as well understood but is too Popish and used by Papists and some others to obscure and debase Christ's Government by Magistrates as if they were only for secular uses Whereas indeed in a Church as National the Prince is the chief Ecclesiastical Officer of Christ And the true differencing terms are fetcht not from the subject matter so much as from the Mode of Government one being forcible by the Sword and the other only on Conscience by the Word doctrinally opened and personally applied by the Keys And Ruling is called Civil because it is the Regiment over Cives quâ tales so it is Ecclesiastical as it is over Cives quâ Christianos and over particular Churches and Pastors and for Souls more than for Bodies and worldly Estates § 14. A National Church containeth not all that dwell in the Land but all that are Burgesses or Free-men in Church respects All be not Citizens that dwell in the City but they that are Denisons and have City-Rights and Priviledges As Christ is Head over all things To his Church Eph. 1. 23. so a Christian King is Head over his inhabiting Enemies and Aliens and Head to all Civil Denisons as he is a King and Head to all Christian Church Denisons as he is a Christian King § 15. In what cases Subjects may be Civil Denisons that are not Christian Denisons or Church Members requireth so many words and cautions to open that I omit the decision of it But were a Christian Kingdom such as it ought to be none should be a Civil Burgess with any Trust belonging to Government but such as are Baptized or professed Christians and are communicating Members in some Churches or Assemblies allowed or tolerated or that ought to be tolerated For a Kingdom and Church as formally Christian should be Ruled by none but Visible Christians This is true both of Magistrates Pastors and the chusers of of them But none should for this be forced or drawn to profess Christianity or communicate against their wills it being a priviledge that none have right to but those that
cause efficientis And the Kingdoms chief in Meliority in genere causae finalis it is false that the King who is singulis major is Universis Minor in Authority or Jure regendi But it is true that the King tho singulis melior melioritate Relativd is not universis melior for finaliter the King was made for the Kingdom rather than the Kingdom for the King And yet both King and Kingdom are made by God and for God that is for his Will or Pleasure and his Glory and Honour And as it is the Honour of Gods Soveraignty Wisdom and Justice that is glorified in the Magistracy so even the honour of Magistracy is part of the final meliority As Gods Love glorified in the common good is another part of it And so God is the Beginning and the End and All in All. And this is the Rulers Interest § 6. The People have no Jus regendi Governing Authority to use themselves or to give to others So false is the Principle of Mr. Hooker and Laud and many others that make them the Fountain of Power They have the Power called strength in which a Horse excelleth a Man but not Authority If any Nation be Democratical it is not because men are born with any right to Political Government but only to Private Self-government But because Contract hath so ordered the Form of Government And indeed tho a City may be Democratically Governed I know not how any great Nation can possibly be so So that I think there is scarce any true Democracy in the World For to chuse Governours is not to Govern And those that by the People are chosen are an Aristocracy Rome was not all the Roman Empire What right then had the Populus Romanus to Govern the Empire This was not like Democracy where the Majority of the whole body Governs The same I may say of Venice as they Govern all that are under them It is truely an Aristocracy § 7. Mankind is by dullness and sloth so far drowned in Ignorance that the great concerns of Souls Bodies and Kingdoms are disordered and almost hopelesly confounded by the ignorance of those that will be the Rulers of them I. Soul matters and Church matters are ravelled by Ignorant Proud Self-conceited Priests and have been so above 1300 years The things of Religion being mysterious and Students Dull and Impatient of hard Study II. The Diseases and concerns of the Body are so abstruse that if among one thousand that practise Physick there be ten that do not kill any of their Patients they escape well that escape their Hands All the Neighbours about us hurt us not because we trust them not But Physicions kill far more than Enemies III. And I would it were not so with Politicians who will be the determiners of the affairs of Kingdoms and Churches where an error may be pernicious to the Society and Nation The best Politician that ever I knew was wont to lament that Lawyers and Divines usually studied what the Law of the Land saith and what Gods Law saith and never well studied what a Law in genere is what Government and the several Causes of it are and being Ignorant in Political Doctrine understand not the words or things that they talk of And all through uncapableness and sloth § 8. How commonly do such dispute the foresaid case whether the Prince or People be the chief without distinguishing Majority and Meliority How oft do they speak of their different Right without distinguishing separate or distinct from opposite How oft do they falsly tell us that the People are the Fountain of Power And how oft do they tell us that Government Monarchical or Aristocratical are a meer Trust and Rulers only the Peoples Trustees without distinguishing what is of God in it and what is of man and what trust God committeth to them and what men commit And what power people have by Nature and what by Contract § 9. I have oft proved that Political Government of Societies is so far different from Self-government that it is not the contribution of the Self-governing power of individuals given up to one that maketh political power It 's fully proved 1. In that God is the prime Soveraign from whom all Power is given There is no Power but of God 2. And God hath gone before man and hath instituted Government himself by the Law of Nature and of Scripture and hath not staid for man to do it How can man be the Fountain of that which God hath instituted before him He hath not left man to his own choice whether he will have Government or not but hath prevented him by the obligations of Necessity and Command 3. And God hath made Universal Political Laws for Societies and Legislation is the first part of Government 4. And he maketh Rulers as his Ministers and instituteth their Office in specie to be for the promoting of obedience to his own Law and for his Glory and the common good So that it is of Gods institution I. That there be humane Governors as Gods Officers II. That finally they be for his Glory and the common welfare III. And that materially they take God's Laws for the prime Laws of their Government As that they punish sins against the Ten Commandments according to their weight And thus far they are God's Trustees And if the People forbid any of this it is but Nullity and Rebellion against God But the People are Proprietors and may limit the Ruler in the dispose of their Propriety And they have the choice of the Person or Line and Family that shall rule them who it shall be and whether One or Many or How many For these and other circumstances God hath not previously determined save that his Providence making some one by Conquest or strength to be only able to rule and protect them imposeth on them a necessity of consenting to that One. And in these things the Ruler is the Trustee of the People but not in the former so that in the prime essential parts of power the People are but the Objects and the King is to them in different degrees the Trustee of God for the People as the Shepherd is his Masters Trustee for the Sheep and not the Trustee of the Sheep The same I say of true Pastors of the Churches God hath specified their Office tho' the People may circumstantiate it § 10. Princes having the Power of Legislation even about the undetermined circumstances of Religion as well as things secular and also to enforce Obedience to God's Laws all Subjects are bound to obey them herein yea tho' they so far mistake as to chuse the circumstances that might have been better chosen if they command not sin For who doth any thing so well but it might have been done better For instance should they chuse a tolerable but less perfect Version and Meeter of Psalms or Translation of Scripture or form of Publick Worship or Time Place Utensils Ministers
Non-Conformity do the same in the Judgment of these Accusers The Lord be Judge Chap. IX That Christ hath Instituted no true Ecclesiastical Government in Man of any larger extent than National much less Universal nor of Foreign Jurisdiction And that the French pretended Aristocracy with the Popes Primacy and Patriarchate is as bad or worse than Papal Monarchy § 1. POpery and Clergy Usurpation which have corrupted and broken and confounded the Christian Churches on pretence of Government Unity and Order have risen out of the Ruines of Christian Magistracy The true Unifying Heads of Christian Kingdoms and National Churches being deposed by the Pope and Clergy their Power hath faln into the hands of the deposers § 2. The means by which this was accomplished were these 1. When there was no Christian Magistracy the Christians by voluntary consent to avoid Pagan Tribunals made their Bishops their chosen Arbitrators to decide their differences And Constantine finding them in possession of it and having no Lay-men so wise and good and meet continued them in it yet without the Power of the Sword 2. The pious Christians were desirous that their own freely chosen Pastors should rule them having no others so fit 3. The Princes were so taken up with Wars and secular things that they had no leisure to mind it 4. Princes and Rulers grew so ignorant wicked and debaucht that themselves and all others almost thought them unmeet for such holy work They neglected the study of the Word of God which should have made them wise 5. The Clergy not only took the advantage of the ignorance and viciousness of Princes but cherished them herein and told them Scripture and holy work were for the Priests and not for Princes 6. They debased and prophaned the Order of Magistrates falsly pretending that their Office was but for the Body c. for worldly Peace and the Office of Priests only was for the Soul 7. They by degrees turned the Communion and Concord of several Foreign Churches and Nations into one Government over all 8. When the Roman Empire was broken into many Kingdoms the National pretence of the Pope or Councils could reach but to some one of them and so the Pope slightly pretended to all and turned the Imperial Universality into a Terrestrial Universality and the Roman World into the whole World or else they had fallen 9. In all this they took the advantage of the Ignorance of Princes and Lords 10. And of the Wars and Enmity against each other striking in with the side that was likest to advance them § 2. To this day Popery is upheld by the same means by which it was set up especially by the Ignorance Ungodliness and Slothfulness of Kings and Lords Did they exceed the Clergy as much as Moses Joshua David Solomon Jehosaphat Hezekiah Josiah Nehemiah Zorobbabel did the Priests and as much as the Heathen Emperors Titus Trajan Adrian Antoninus Pius Antoninus Philosophus Alexander Severus c. did their Priests they would be honoured above the Priests as they were The Emperors then were thought fit to be Pontifices Maximi and as in the times of the Ancient Family-power an Abraham an Isaac and a Jacob and a Job and a Melchizedeck were thought fit to have the highest Government in matters of Religion so would it be still And a Samuel would be Prophet and King But as God will honour those that honour him so those that despise him shall be lightly esteemed § 3. The true way therefore to put down Popery is for the Prince and Magistrates to claim their proper Power yet not to usurp the Priesthood and to study love and practise the Law of God and take their Power and Laws to be only and meerly subservient to the Power and Laws of God And to strive to understand these so clearly as to be able to judge sound Preachers from unsound and to know whom to countenance whom to tolerate and whom to suppress It is Kings that have set up Popes by putting down themselves and Popes have set in to pull them down to set up themselves And it is Kings that must pull down Popes by reassuming their own Power and Work and that must be by becoming fit for it § 4. That Prince who granteth that his Office is but for the Body and for Secular Ends and the Priests only for the Soul inviteth all his Subjects to honour every Priest before him and to account him base as worldly things are to be accounted as dung in comparison of the things of the Spirit and Eternity Yea every good Christian who is commanded to exhort each other daily and to comfort one another with the remembrance that we shall be for ever with the Lord would be far more honourable than a King as the Soul is above the Body and Heaven better than Earth § 5. He is not worthy of Parental Honour from his Children that careth only for their Bodies and seeketh not to make them the Children of God and the Heirs of Heaven and to bring them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord And if Princes be below the work of Parents they are below their Honour And if they will not be included in the work of the Fifth Commandment how can men give them the honour of that Commandment § 6. They that will have a Universal Prelate or Council to Govern the matters of Religion through all the World because of the unskilfulness of Kings and Magistrates should in reason also be willing on the same Grounds to have an Universal King or Parliament to Govern all Kings because some are Ignorant or Slothful or an Universal Physicion Philosopher or Schoolmaster § 7. God hath given the World often such Counsellors and such Judges as have been fit to judge in matters of Religion and to Judge Bishops and Preachers Why else do our Laws subject them to Kings and Judges Had all Lands but such Judges as through Gods Mercy England hath now or such as were Sir Matthew Hale and divers others in our Age and such Counsellors as Queen Elizabeth had for the most part or such Lawyers as France it self hath had and the Palatinate and Holland it would convince the World that Laymen may be fit to judge the Clergy even in matters of Religion And why may not Princes attain as much wisdom and honesty as their Counsellors and Judges The Christian Nations have been more beholden to a Constantine Jovian Valentinian Theodosius Senior Theodosius Junior Marcian Leo Anastasius and many other such and Spain to Recaredus and divers of his Successors and France to Carolus Mag. Ludov. Pius save their compliance with the Pope than to any Bishops or Councils even for Reformation against Heresies and Clergies Sins Chap. X. Whether an Universal Church-Government be of Apostolick Succession in the continued parts of their Office § 1. THough those that take it for mutability and backsliding to change their Judgments after that the School or their Leaders or
which Ministers do with greater Obligation and Advantage than the People and Apostles above both And Kings and States are as much obliged to it as Bishops But they are not on that pretence to make one Universal King or Senate to be a Soveraign Power to them and all the Earth or Church But only by Diets or Confederacies to join their Powers and Endeavours to so good an End And so is it with Bishops and Churches § 23. If they say That it is Union and Concord with the Pope or Rome or their Councils that we are bound to let them but renounce their pretence to Government of all and we shall easily decide the other difference If we must not Unite to them as Governors but as Brethren they are as much bound to Love and Union with us as we with them And Christ is sufficient to be the Center of Union to the whole Body and hath made them the sufficient and only Laws of Universal Concord among themselves § 24. Obj. To be obliged by Gods Law to Concord and to have Councils and Bishops determine in what we must agree inferreth our Duty to agree in those Points which cometh to all one as Government by them Ans 1. If they be not Governors but Equals we have as much power to propose Articles of Agreement to them as they to us 2. There are no Articles of Universal Agreement in all the Churches on Earth necessary but what Christ hath made such And to pretend to make such and Usurp his Prerogative is a sin that we must not agree with 3. The vanity of their talk of true Universal Councils I have oft at large detected 4. We grant submission to the true power of National Governors and Councils but Universal we know not 5. Just National Laws must be obeyed But Conciliar Canons of Concord by Equals bind us not to Agreement when mistake maketh them against the common Good and Ends of Concord Nor do Mens Laws or Agreements bind us to any thing against the Laws of God § 25. XII We all own an Universal Church Government Partite or Exercised by parts as all the Physicions Medicate all England and all the School-masters teach them and all the Judges and Justices judge them And so Cyprian meant that Episcopatus unus est of which each one hath a part That is 1. In specie institutâ 2. Quoad Objectum All the particular Churches governed make one Universal Church 3. Quoad Finem But no Man nor any Senate or College or Council as una persona politica is Soveraign We have no Universal King but Christ Chap. XI Whether a National Church Soveraignty infer the need or lawfulness of a Humane Universal Church Soveraignty § 1. Ans NO For 1. Man is capable of one but uncapable of the other 2. Christ hath given Commission for one but not for the other 3. Every Kingdom hath one Humane Soveraignty in Sword Government But so hath not all the World one And there is less reason for and less possibility of one Humane Governing Soveraignty by the Word and Keys 4. God set one Moses and one Aaron or Priesthood over Israel but not over all the World If Adam or Noah was such while the World was but a Family or Tribe he would not have it so when it was uncapable of it 5. The Summons and Subscriptions and the Limits of the Imperial Power tell us that the most General Councils were but Imperial that is National in Extent as I have proved against Johnson And therefore no more can be claimed since § 2. Obj. But if a Presbyter must be Ordained by a Bishop as Superior and a Bishop by an Archbishop and he by a Patriarch what Superior shall make him but a Pope or Council Ans 1. You may next ask Who then must Make or Consecrate a Pope Is it a Superior Contrarily If a Pope may be made by Inferiors as they do a Patriarch a Metropolitan an Archbishop and a Bishop may quoad esse be validly made by Men of the same Order Yea and Presbyters too where Politick Order and Church safety forbid it not § 3. It is so far from being true as I once foolishly thought that National Church Supremacy inferreth Popery that it is a necessary or very great means against it without which though particular Souls may be saved from Popery a Nation cannot long nor ever was that I have read of For Popery is but the Invading of the power of all other Bishops and Kings And for each one to reassume his own power is the direct Deposing of the Pope As if one King or Senate claimed the Government of all Kings and Senates how should these Usurpers be Deposed but by every King and Parliaments reassuming their own § 4. But then every party that differeth in the Form of National Government must not pretend that it is only their Form that is the Bulwark against Popery National Church Concord and Strength may be kept up by a Supreme Christian Prince or State with a Concordant Ministry whether among themselves United as the Scots in General Assemblies or as in England by Archbishops Bishops and Convocations obeying the Laws of Christ and the just Laws of the King and State that are made for determining needful Circumstances supposing such Bishops qualified and chosen justly and usurping none of the Sword-bearers power § 5. That National Laws about matters of Religion may and must be made and that Princes consulting with Pastors must make them and that these are not to extend to all the World is a truth unquestionable In England the Law must command us to use English Bibles but not all over the World It is meet to bind the Churches to use one Translation of the Scriptures Else one will say Your Text or what you alledge is not in my Bible and another It is not in mine And many inconveniences would follow And one Form of Catechism one Form of Confession one Metre of singing Psalms and about the Sacraments and other Offices one Form moderately imposed or agreed on is convenient But if one part will too rigorously impose things needless or command things sinful or justly suspected or the other side refuse things lawful and fit because imposed National Concord will be broken Chap. XII The Three other Reasons for Popery answered briefly Quest III. SHould not the Roman Church Policy in reason be owned for the advantage of Christianity against Infidels Ans 1. We deny not but Unity Concord Power and Riches and the great number of Adherents is a great advantage to Christianity against Infidels And all these are Gods Gifts and as such do good 2. But the abuse of them though it do not quite frustrate the genuine Effects yet so depraveth them that it 's a doubt whether the hurt to the common Christianity be not greater than the advantage If Unity were maintained in Christs way it would have far better Effects than in the Papists way 3. Yet we
and so train up youth into an enmity and scorn of that which should have their chiefest Love and Labour Alas if such a Serpentine Generation shall for staying so many years in Idleness and Lust in Universities be thought to have right to take the charge of multitudes of Souls that never took just care of their own and to have right to Church Dignity and Maintenance if any bad Patron will but present them how sad a case is such a Church and Nation in They will bring their Ignorance and Malice into the Pulpit and then those hearers that know bitter from sweet and the unclean from the clean will loath their folly And when the Priest seeth that he is despised or loathed he will become the Enemy of those that disesteem him and so he will become a Wolf to the Flock And then it is the Ungodly part that must be his Friends and Companions in Sin whom he will harden to their own Destruction Thus hath a bad Clergy been the ruine of many Churches § 13. And this will prove so strong a Temptation to the Religious part to disaffect the Ministry and to go too far in separations as that Schisms and Pernicious Divisions will be soon multiplied And then Persecution must be tryed on them instead of Light and Love § 14. But the Immediate dividing and dissolving of Churches and overthrow of the Peace of Christian Kingdoms is by Ignorant Malicious or Tyrannical Laws or Canons that impose things forbidden of God on pain of ejecting and silencing the most Faithful Ministers and scorning and ruining the most Religious People that will not sell their Souls for Worldly Interest nor to humour the ill designs of Tyrants These snares are often made by meer malice and revenge as Daniel was forbid to pray Because they could find no fault or accusation against him except it were concerning the Law of his God Especially when some great quarrels have exasperated revenge § 15. But usually error concurreth with Malice while Ignorance and Pride make Prelates and Priests still confident that all their Opinions and Impositions are just and blameless and that all are willfully erroneous that refuse them So rare is a humble understanding § 16. And it fixeth a National Church in this way to ruine when such an unworthy Ministry must be continued till they die and there is no great visible hope of removing them How many difficulties must be overcome before one Parish can get a cure of such § 17. And yet worse is it when there is small hope of a better when the bad Priest is dead but the corrupt Fountain is still sending forth polluted Streams and Money and Friendship chuse the Man And when the worst Man that hath but Money enough to buy a Patronage shall have the choice of a Pastor for Mens Souls § 18. And yet worse will it go when the Keys which are the most peculiar part of the Priviledge and Office of the Pastors shall be exercised by Lay Civilians in the Bishops name without his judging or consent And Government by the Word is managed by such Men in the manner that Secular Affairs are managed without due reverence to holy things § 19. And worst of all is it when the Body of the Nation is by such means brought to so much ignorance and sinfulness that they would have it so And are glad to have so much countenance to their malignity and sin and follow their malicious Military Leaders § 20. And last of all when their madness hath drawn their own Swords against each other or provoked God to let in a Foreign Enemy on them then they must expect that God avenge the quarrel of his Covenant specially when after great Mercy and long Patience they would not know the time of their Visitation nor in their day the things that belong to their peace but defend their sin Chap. XIV Whether the National Church of England be at the present of a sound Constitution And what is necessary to its Welfare Safety Reformation and Peace § 1. TO tell what particulars need Reformation I have done so oft to the great displeasure of the guilty that I have no encouragement to offend them more by doing it again § 2. And to give the true History of original causes and progress of our corruptions disorders and divisions will not be endured by them that still justifie their own and Predecessours sin and can see no fault in any but those that they first make and then call their adversaries I have found that the most notorious matters of fact will be denyed furiously by such men even what hath been said and done in their presence and mine before a multitude of Witnesses Bishops Doctors and divers others Yea things said and done in Parliaments and Armies and publickly notified are by such men contradicted with rage Therefore I will not here tell the World either what or who have been the causes of our sufferings and dangers having long purposed to have done it in a Treatise by it self called REPENT O ENGLAND and therein I. To declare my own Repentance II. To tell those called Presbyterians what they must Repent of III. And those called Separatists IV. And those called Antinomians V. And those called Prelatical especially the Ruling part But God seemeth to deny me time for that intended Work § 3. That which I shall now add is I. To shew what there now is in the English Constitution fitted to Christs Institution of a true National Church II. What is yet wanting III. And what are the Remedies § 4. I. I begin with that which is Good and Laudable Not only to avoid offence by unprofitable finding faults but especially to rectifie those prejudiced censures that call Good Evil and run away from Gods Mercies under the false name of Sin This hath had no small hand in our Divisions ever since the troubles at Frank-ford and our first Reformation The Adversaries of Popery did lay more of the personal Crimes of the Papists Bishops and Priests and Monks too on the Office and Order than they should have done § 5. I. The National Church of England is rightly constituted under one Supreme Royal Government as the Unifying Head as I have proved § 6. II. It is duely constituted of professed Baptized Christians and Churches as the subject matter § 7. III. It hath National Laws which profess their subserviency to the Law of Christ and the Nullity of all that is against it § 8. IV. It maketh none Magistrates but professed Christians No nor Burgesses and choosers of Magistrates § 9. V. It hath Diocesans that are General Overseers of many particular Churches as Successors to the Apostles and Evangelists in the ordinary parts of their Office which I before proved to be Christs Institution § 10. VI. It justly maketh Bishops Members of Parliament it being unfit to make Laws for Religion without the Pastors notice and advice § 11. VII It justly giveth large maintenance and