not savouring the things of God but of men for dissuading his Master from going up to Ierusalem The means as well as the intention must be good if we would have our actions pleasing to God We grant God may and doth often bring good out of evil but that is no thanks to those that doe it Evil can naturally produce nothing but evil It must be no lese than the infinite Wisdom and Almighty power of God that must over-rule it into good As good Ends cannot justifie Evil means so neither will evil beginnings ever bring forth good conclusions unless God by a miracle of mercy create light out of darkness order out of confusion and peace out of our passions And as he hath not allowed us to doe any evil for the obtaining or procuring of the greatest good so he needs it not Wilt thou speak wickedly for God and talk deceitfully for him q. d. his cause his glory needs not any â—in of ours to promote it He will never thank any man for seeking his honour by sinfull means he can get himself glory and save mens souls otherwise He will say as Achish Have I need of mad-men that ye have brought this fellow to play the mad-man in my presence The way God hath taught us to gorifie him by in seeking or procuring the salvation of our own or the souls of others is always to doe that which is good and though he can bring good out of evil yet he never Commands ordains or allows our evil for that end But such Preaching and Meetings as are in question are sinfull acts Which will appear as by other reasons which shall be shewed hereafter so in this place onely because they are done in disobedience and opposition to the known Laws of the Church and Kingdom wherein we live and which we stand bound in Conscience towards God to observe and obey I begin with the Laws of the Church The Eleventh Canon of the Church of England saith Whosoever shall affirm or maintain that there are in this Realm other Meetings Assemblies or Congregations of the King's born-subjects than by the Laws of this Realm are held and allowed which may rightly challenge to themselves the names of true and lawfull Churches Let him be excommunicated and not restored but by the Arch-bishop after his repentance and revocation of such his wicked errour The sense of this Canon is large and comprehensive and contains in it virtually a prohibition of all Meetings Assemblies or Congregations whatsoever which are not allowed by the Laws of the Land as the Meetings in question will and God willing shall be made appear to be Neither can it be restrained onely if at all to any other Meetings than such as are under pretence of joyning in religious worship not authorized by the Laws of the Land which according to the title of the Canon are called Conventicles for there can be no other unlawfull Meetings so called for any other end but onely these two viz. First for Ministers and Lay-men or either of them to joyn together to make Rules Orders or Constitutions in Causes Ecclesiastical without the King's authority And that is censured and forbidden as unlawfull in the twelfth Canon Or else Secondly to consult about a course to be taken to impeach or deprave the Doctrine of the Church of England the book of Common Prayer or any part of the Government or Discipline established in the Church And this is forbidden under pain of Excommunication in the 73 Canon Any other end for any other unlawfull Meeting or Assembly other than what is aforesaid cannot easily be imagined therefore unless we will make the Reverend Pious and Learned Authors and Composers of those Canons and Constitutions which are so solemnly established by Supreme authority guilty of a gross tautology this Canon flatly prohibits all Meetings Assemblies or Congregations except the publick which are commanded and allowed by the Laws of the Land of any manner of persons in private houses or elsewhere which under pretence of religious worship take upon them to be called Churches Besides it is expressed in such terms as are commonly competible to none but such Meetings as are under pretence of religious worship What other Meetings are commonly called Congregations or do challenge to themselves the name of Churches but such Meetings as are in question The place and order of the Canon do prove the same for immediately after the impugners of the King's Supremacy the publick worship of God Articles of Religion Rites and Ceremonies Government established in the Church of England the Authours of Schism and maintainers of Schismaticks in the Church are censured is subjoyned this Canon censuring Conventicles as being the Nursery of all the former In the 71 Canon all Ministers whatsoever are forbidden to preach or administer the holy Communion in any private house except in be in time of necessity when any is either so impotent as that he cannot go to the Church or very dangerously sick under pain of Excommunication In the 72 Canon it is ordained that no Minister whatsoever shall without licence from the Bishop of the Diocese first obtained and had under his hand and seal presume to appoint any meetings for Sermons or Exercises in Market-Towns or other places either publickly or in private houses under pain of Suspension for tho first fault Excommunication for the second and Deposition for the third Now if a Minister may not doe this in his own Parish but onely in a case of necessity much less may a stranger intrude himself into another man's Parish where there is a Preaching Ministry established by Law and there set up a course of private house-preaching administring of Sacraments and performance of all Ministerial acts where there can be no need of his so doing so much as pretended But is will be thought by some that the Laws and Constitutions of the Church are not so greatly to be regarded as that the breach of them should be sinfull and that her Canons lay no such obligation on Conscience as that the neglect of their observation and contrary practice should be criminal Nay such is the state and condition of our times that is is rather thought a vertue to despise them than any fault to disobey them And they are reputed most pure and holy who with greatest boldness quarrel and cavil against the Authority Government and Lawfull Precepts of the Church Yet certainly the judgment and practice of Christians in former ages was otherwise When vertue and true piety did more abound they made more conscience of observing the Precepts and Constitutions of the Church which were made for decency order and good government And if any frowardly wilfully or constantly lived in any opposition or contrariety thereunto they were adjudged as evil doers Nec his quisquam contradicit quisquis sane vel tenuiter expertus est quae sunt jura Ecclesiastica And truly I see not why the same regard and respect
Ordinances of Christ in unity and uniformity as far as is possible Which our Liturgy sets up by prescribing the manner of it Whereas otherwise all will be left to the chance of mens wills which saith Doctour Hammond can no more be thought like to concur in one form than Democritus's Atomes to have met together into a world of beautifull Creatures without any kind of providence to dispose them For the Scriptures call for unity and uniformity as well as purity and verity And surely it is not impossible to obtain this so much desired unity and uniformity because that God hath promised that his Children shall serve him with one heart and with one way and with one shoulder And that in the days of the Gospel there shall be one Lord and his Name one And Christ hath prayed that we may be all one as the Father is in him and he in the Father And he adds a most prevalent reason That the World may believe that thou hast sent me Nothing hinders the propagation of the Gospel so much as the division and separation of Gospel-professours If it be God's promise and Christ's prayer it is certainly a thing possible to be obtained and a duty incumbent upon all good Christians to labour after Secondly as it cannot be denyed that the Civil Magistrate hath authority over the persons of Ministers so 't is as true that he hath power to act for the regulation of all their Ecclesiastical meetings and assemblies though not to act in sacris Yet circa sacra non ad docendum quod est sacerdotale yet ad jubendum quod est regale As Constantine the Emperour told the Bishops whom he invited to a banquet 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Ye are Bishops within the Church and I am ordained by God's Grace a Bishop without the Church That the King of England saith Sir Henry Spelman is persona mixta endowed as well with Ecclesiastical authority as with temporal is not onley a solid position of the Common Law of this Land but confirmed unto us by the continual practice of our ancient Kings ever since and before the Conquest even in hottest times of Popish fervency For this cause at their Coronation they are not onely Crowned with the Diadem of the Kingdom and girt with the Sword of justice to signisie their temporal authority but are anointed also with the oil of Priesthood and cloathed stola Sacerdotali and veste Dalmatica to demonstrate this their Ecclesiastical jurisdiction whereby the King is said to be in Law the Supremus ordinarius and in regard thereof among other Ecclesiastical rights and prerogatives belonging to him is to have all the tithes through the Kingdom in the places that are not of any Parish for some such there be and namely divers Forests Magistrates we grant can neither preach the word nor administer the Sacraments any more than Vzziah could burn incense or offer Sacrifice to God Yet they are nursing Fathers of the Church not to give the milk of the word and Sacraments but of disclipline and Government During the old Testament times the King's power extended to the instituting and commanding of such Religious meetings as do no where appear to be either instituted or commanded of God or his Servant Moses v. g. The solemnity of the Passover which was to be kept by the Law of Moses but seven days by a special Command of King Hezekiah with the consent of the people was commanded to be kept other seven days The Feast of Purim in Commemoration of the deliverance of the Nation of the Iews under Ahasuerus the Persian King was instituted by Hester and Mordecai Moses onely Commanded one day of Fasting to be yearly observed viz. in the seventh month But the Kings and Magistrates of the people instituted other yearly solemn Fasts So that in the times of the latter Prophets there were four yearly Fasts observed viz. besides that yearly in the seventh month three others in the fourth fifth and tenth month Now if they may by their authority institute and enlarge why not then as well abridge and restrain Provided the publick assembling together of God's people according to Divine appointment be no-way prejudiced or infringed If the Magistrate may appoint then he may forbid too Law reason and sense teach that appointing and forbidding belong to one power Thirdly neither can there be any ground of quarrell made against the justness of these Laws forbidding Conventicles For as it is well observed by a worthy Divine before me that Law is undoubtedly just in which there is a concurrence of the justice of these four causes of Law wherein the whole of a Law doth consist viz. the justice of the final efficient formal and material causes of Laws 1. The final Cause of End of a just Law is that it tend to the common and publick good And of this the Lawgivers are to be Judges and not the Subjects And most unreasonable it were that what the Lawgivers shall adjudge to be for the publick good should be made to yeild to private and particular mens interests 2. The efficient Cause of a just Law is the lawfull power of the person or persons in authority that made the Law Otherwise Laws are onely so in name and not indeed And as Aquinas Violentiae magis quam leges They are rather acts of violence than Laws And it is a sure rule in Logick Causa aequivoca non infert effectum a sentence passed by one that is no Judge binds not the party 3. The right form of a Law is that it be a rule of rectitude for humane actions according to the guidance of distributive justice giving to every one according to his demerits 4. The matter of a Law must be a thing that is good according to the rule of universal justice at leait indifferent A Law wherein these 4 things concur must needs be good and obligatory to all persons that are concerned in it Now in which of these the aforesaid Laws against Conventicles are faulty I know not Perhaps some will say in the latter the Matter of it is not good to lay a restraint on Religious Assemblies and Meetings It were so indeed if Religious Assemblies and Meetings were forbidden But I think it will appear in the sequel that these in question are not such whatsoever some conceive them to be It were so if all Religious Meetings or Assemblies were forbidden But blessed be God 't is otherwise We have still 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the publick ancient lawfull and orderly assemblies allowed commanded and encouraged by Authority in all places of the Kingdom and onely such meetings by the Law forbidden as are private new and disorderly and tend to Faction and Schism and such other evils as are not without trembling to be mentioned Lastly I answer with that learned Casuist Dr. Sanderson that it is not necessarily requisite that whatsoever is established
to the Penalty of the Law is not that sufficient to discharge the Conscience from the guilt of disobedience Casuists that are of that Judgment say it holds true onely in those Laws whereof there are but very few in the World that are purely penal And the Laws which we now speak of are not such for these are partly Moral binding to doe or to leave undone some moral Act and partly Penal in case of Omission of what the Laws command or Commission of what the Laws forbid then to undergoe the Punishment the Laws inflict Now in these mixt Laws suffering the Penalty doth not discharge the Conscience from the guilt of sin For it is a rule of sure truth which Casuists give in such cases Omnis praeceptio obligat ad culpam Every just Command of those who have lawfull Authority to command leaves a guilt of sin upon those mens Consciences who do not obey The reason is because where a Law made by lawfull Authority requires active obedience and imposeth a Penalty in case of disobedience the Conscience of the subject stands bound primarily and intentionally to the performance of the duty therein enjoined As for the Penalty threatned that is a secondary and accidental thing to the Law added to keep up the reputation and esteem thereof in the minds of those who are concerned in it and to affright them from the neglect and disobedience of it So that though the suffering the Penalty of the Law in case of the transgression of it be as much as can be required of the Law-giver yet God by whom Kings reign and who requires subjection to Authority and that for Conscience sake will not hold such persons guiltless that doe not the things commanded in the Law The malefactour satisfies the Law at the time of his execution but who will say that without repentance of his fact the guilt of sin remains not still upon his Conscience or that he shall be acquitted at God's tribunal 5. Neither are they the Laws of the Church and Kingdom of England onely that are against such Meetings and Ministry as are in question But the godly Kings and Princes of the primitive Christian-Church have ever made the like Eusebius tells us that Constantine the Great made a Law that no Separatists or Schismaticks should meet in Conventicles and commanded that all such places where they were wont to keep their Meetings should be demolished and that they should not keep their factious Meetings either in publick places or private houses or remote places but that they should repair to their parochial Churches And in the next Chapter he saith that by that Law the memory of most of those Sectaries was forgotten and extinguished Sozomen reports that Theodosius the great decreed that the Sectaries whose petition for liberty he had first torn in pieces should not assemble together but all of them repair to their own publick Congregations otherwise to be banished their Country to be branded with some infamy and not to be partakers of Common privileges and favours with others And our neighbours and brethren of Scotland of the Presbyterian judgment did in one of their late general Assemblies since the enacting of their solemn League and Covenant make a special Canon against all private Meetings the direct tendency there of being to the overthrow of that Uniformity by them covenanted to be endeavoured in all the Churches of the three Kingdoms The very Heathens themselves by their Laws have made all such Assemblies illegitimate which the highest Authority did not cause to meet though they were 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to doe solemn Sacrifice to their Gods as may appear by Solon's Laws and in their practice they have shewed themselves ready to yeild obedience to their Governours in desisting from such irregular Conventions when they have been required Though Demetrius his Assembly came together disorderly and of their own heads rushed into the Theatre and there kept a shouting and Crying two hours together some one thing some another not knowing most of them wherefore they came together Yet when the Town-clark who had Authority did dismiss them they added not one fault to another but broke off their disorderly Meeting presently And they shew themselves more refractary than Demetrius himself who doe otherwise And if it be well considered the practice in question will be found to interfere with it self and to carry in the very face of it a convincing Testimony of its evil and unwarrantableness For if it be lawfull for these men to preach in private Meetings as they do and have a long time done why do they not take upon them to adventure to preach in the publick and Church-assemblies also What is it that makes them abstain from the latter and yet take liberty in the former Is it in obedience to the Law of the Land which forbids them to preach in publick The same Law forbids them to preach in private also It cannot be denied but that one is forbidden as well as the other Then this must needs be turned upon them why do they not obey in the one as well as in the other since they cannot but acknowledge that both are forbidden in the same Law surely if it were the Care and Conscience and desire to obey lawfull Authority according as Christian duty binds them that makes them silent in publick the same Conscience the same care and desire would make them sit down in silence in private also If it be said that they therefore abstain from publick preaching because it more exposeth them to the danger and penalty of the Law than private doth Then this must be retorted upon them also that their obedience is not such as God requireth for Conscience but for wrath Good men obey for Conscience but those that obey for wrath have not the fear of God before their Eyes For none contemns the power of man unless he hath first despised the Power of God And shall that be accounted by any sober Christian to be the ordinance of God or means of his appointment to beget grace in mens souls that is so repugnant to good Laws both of Church and State which we all stand bound in Conscience to observe and obey is contradictory to it self and hath in it that which proclaims to all that will open their Eyes to look into it its unlawfulness and sin God forbid ARGUMENT II. THAT cannot be the ordinance of God or means of grace that is contrary to that order which God himself by his word hath established in his Church For God is not the Authour of disorder and confusion But the Devil In the Church God's Command is for order in all things Let all things be done decently and in order And St. Paul did as well rejoice to see the order as the faith of the Church of Coloss. Onely Death and Hell have no order And it is a kind of death to a godly Christian to see
spiritualiter nati sint Saith St. Augustine He may upon just Cause depose discharge and put to silence any Minister whatsoever within his Dominions as to the Execution of his Ministerial function either in publick or private Ministers as well as others are under civil jurisdiction for Every Soul is bound to be subject to the higher powers And St omnis anima cur non est vestra Quis vos excepit ex universalitate If every soul then the Souls of Ministers as well as others For who excepted them from the universality Qui dicit omnem excludit nullam He that saith every Soul excludeth no Soul It was impiously said of That the Clergy ought not for any cause to be cited before the civil Magistrate or to be judged by him it being absurd that the sheep should judge the shepherd Christ himself taking upon him man's nature was subject to humance Authority submitting himself to Caiaphas and Pilate so far as to be apprehended arraigned condemned and executed True saith Bellarmine de facto Christ was subject to Pilate but de jure he ought not to have been so And that power over him which he did acknowledge was given to Pilate from above Iohn 19. 11. was onely a bare permission To which we answer if we simply respect the Dignity of Christ's person being the Son of God then we acknowledge that he neither was nor could be subject to any man But if we consider the dispensation of his incarnation and that form of a Servant which he took on himself whereby he became Man and under the Law then de jure as he was a Jew he was a Subject to that power which at that time had the rule And what Pilate unjustly did against Christ that we grant God did onely permit But he had a lawfull Jurisdiction over his person not by God's permission onely but by his effectual will But suppose it were true which Bellarmine saith yet the Example of Christ maketh never the less for the Confirmation of the truth for which I allege it For if he submitted himself to a power over him that was usurped onely and not approved of by God but barely permitted then certainly they are very far from the Humility that was in Christ Jesus that refuse to be obedient and subject to just and lawfull powers which are ordained of God and set over them And therefore when Christ said date quae sunt Caesaris Caesari give unto Caesar the things that are Caesar's he spake as well to the high Priests Scribes and Pharisees as to the People St. Paul whose apostolical authority and spiritual Weapons were able to bring down every opposition yet acknowledged that he must be judged by Caesar as his lawfull Superiour Bellarmine's distinction of de facto and de jure will stand him in no more stead here than it did before for to say the Roman Emperour was St. Paul's Judge de facto but not de jure is to doe St. Paul a manifest injury For if the emperour had no right to judge him why would he then make use of the benefit of an appeal to Caesar when no body compelled him so to doe and why did he at another time shelter himself under the Privilege of a Citizen of Rome By his very professing himself to be a Roman he doth acknowledge himself to be subject to the same Laws and to the same Lord that other Romans were and that he had no more exemption or immunity from subjection and obedience to the Roman Laws than that Tribune who said with a great sam have I obtained this freedom The Scriptures do give us an instance of King Solomon's deposing Abiathar from the Priesthood The text saith that King Solomon did thrust out Abiathar from being Priest before the Lord. Neither doth the Holy Ghost mention this historically onely as thing done but by way of approbation as a thing well and rightly done This the Iesuites themselves who are the onely men I know who question the Sovereign power in this Case confess Remarkable to this purpose are the words of one of them Alii non dubitant dicere Solomonem in eo facto injuste egisse usurpando potestatem quam non habebat ego vero id affirmare non audeo propter verba Scripturae quae ex Cap. 3. allegavi Et quia apud antiquos patres expositores non invenio factum illud inter peccata Solomonis numeratum sive in culpam tributum Some saith he doubt not to say that Solomon in that Act did unjustly in usurping more power than did belong to him But I dare not say so both for the words of the Scripture which I have before alleged out of the third Chapter and also because among the ancient Fathers and Expositours I find not this Act of his reckoned for any of Solomon's sins or him blamed for it The words which he saith he alleged out of the third Chapter are these And Solomon loved the Lord his God walking in the ways of David his Father onely he sacrificed and burnt incense in the high places Which exception saith he shews that Kings Solomon untill that time had kept the Commandments of God and consequently sinned not in that fact in deposing Abiathar And if the Kings of Israel might execute such power why not the Kings of England also Who will say that the Power of Christian Kings and Princes is shorter now than that of the Kings of Iudah and the religious Princes of the Primitive Christian Church was That the nursing Fathers under the Gospel are abridged in Authority of what they were under the Law And the reason and wisedom of this Nation in Parliament hath adjudged this to be a just Cause of such deposition and silencing of any when he shall refuse to submit and be obedient and conformable to such Laws and Constitutions as they have declared to be Very comfortable to all good People desirous to live in Christian Conversation most profitable to the State of the Realm upon which the Mercy Favour and Blessing of Almighty God is in no-wise so readily and plentifully powered as by Common-Prayer due using of the Sacraments and often preaching of the Gospel with devotion of the hearers And that nothing conduceth more to the setling the peace of this Nation which is desired of all good men nor the honour of our Religion and the Propagation thereof than an universal Agreement in the publick Worship of Almighty God Which is a thing so amiable and excellent in it self that it hath extracted an acknowledgment and commendation of it from the Mouths of the Divines of the Presbyterian persuasion themselves For in a Book of theirs entitled A Vindication of the Presbyterial Government published by the Ministers and Elders met together in a provincial Assembly November 2 d. 1649. They have these words It is the Duty of all Christians to study to enjoy the
Name of God agreed on by Common-consent and without any Contradiction of the Scripture although they are not of the same Authority with the Scriptures Yet I beleive even those things to be from THE HOLY GHOST Hinc fit ut quae sunt hujusmodi c. Hence it comes to pass that those things which are of this nature I neither will disallow nor dare I with a good Conscience Quis enim ego sum c. For who am I that I should dissallow that which the whole Church approves of So far that worthy Authour The next whose judgment in this case I shall produce is Mr. Calvin in his Commentary on the Epistle to the Corinthians Quinetiam hinc colligere promptum est has posteriores scilicet Ecclesiae Leges non esse habendas pro humanis traditionibus quandoquidem fundatae sint in hoc generali mandato liquidam approbationem habent quasi ex ore CHRISTI IPSIVS Where shewing the difference betwixt the tyrannical Edicts of the Pope and the Laws of the true Church in which discipline and order are contained he saith Whence it is easie to be gathered that the Laws of the Church are not to be accounted humane traditions seeing they are founded upon the general precept of the Apostle and have as clear an approbation as if they had been delivered from the mouth of Christ Himself For saith he elsewhere Dico sic esse humanam traditionem ut simul sit divina It is so an humane tradition as that it is also divine Dei est quatenus est pars deeoris illius cujus cura observatio nobis per Apostolum commendatur hominum autem quatenus simpliciter designat quod in genere fuit indicatum magis quam expositum It is of God fo far forth as it is a part of that order and decency the care and observation whereof is commanded and commended to us by the Apostle It is of men so far forth as it simply names or signifies that which was in general uttered rather that particularly expounded Take a third testimony from that burning and shining Light of the French Church Licet quae a regia aliis Legitimis petestatibus rite praecipiuntur sunt de jure positivo quod tamen illis postquam ita constitutae sunt pareatur est de jure divino cum Legitimae potestates omnes a Deo sint Deique vices in suo ordine teneant dumque illis obedimus eorumque praecepta observamus Deo pariter in illis paremus Deique praeceptum voluntatem exequimur Although those things which are commanded by the King's Authority or other lawfull Powers under him are of positive right Yet it is of divine institution that we should obey them in those things which they command seeing all lawfull Powers are of God and supply the place of God in their several orders Therefore while we obey them and keep their Commandments we obey God in them and so fulfill the Will and Command of God Learned Beza shall be the next that shall give in his verdict to this truth Nam etsi Conscientias proprie solus Deus ligat c. For although God alone can properly bind the Conscience yet so far as the Church with respect to order and decency and thereby to Edification doth rightly enjoyn or make Laws those Laws are to be observed by all pious persons and they do so far bind the Conscience as that no man wittingly and willingly with a purpose to disobey can either doe what is so forbidden or omit what is so commanded without Sin To these above named add we in the last place the verdict of our own learned and judicious Mr. Hooker To the Laws saith he thus made id est according to the general Law of Nature and without contradiction to the positive Law of Scripture and received by a whole Church they which live within the bosome of that Church must not think it a matter of indifference either to yield or not to yield obedience Is it a small offence to despise the Church of God My son keep thy Father's Commandments saith Solomon and forget not thy Mothers instructions bind them both always about thine heart It doth not stand with the duty we owe to our heavenly Father that to the ordinance of our Mother the Church we should shew our selves disobedient Let us not say we keep the Commandments of one when we break the Laws of the other For unless we observe both we obey neither And what doth let but that we may observe both when they are not one to the other in any sort repugnant Yea which is more the Laws of the Church thus made God himself doth in such sort authorize that to despise them is to despise in them him Thus far that most judicious Authour Yea one of the reformed Churches have put it into their very Confession That those Laws of the Church deserve to be esteemed divine rather than humane Constitutions From all which it appears that Ecclesiastical Canons and Constitutions are not merely man's Laws but God's also both because they are composed and framed by those Fathers by divine Authority and have their general foundation in Scripture and also because they are ordained for the Glory of God for Edification order and decency of the Church and the better fulfilling and keeping the Laws of God For as we have a Command from Christ to tell the Church when any one is refractary and perverse So have they which are complained of to the Church that Command from Christ also to hear the Voice of God in the Church and in disobeying the Church they disobey God And if Children and Servants are bound by the Law of God to obey their Parents and Masters in all things that are reasonable honest and just and in their obedience they obey and serve God himself Eph. 6. 1. Col. 3. 20. 24. Tit. 2. 9. 10. then it can be no less pleasing to God that Christians who live in the bosome of the Church should be obedient and conformable unto the lawfull Precepts and Constitutions of their spiritual Mother the Church of Christ and the Rulers thereof It is very truly said by Calvin Semper nimia morositas est ambitiosa A frowardness and aptness to quarrell with the proceedings of the Church is accompanied with ambition and pride It is not because the Church takes too much power on her but because they would be under none It is ambition to have all Government in their own hands that is the Cause why some will not be subject to any All which hath been said of this matter is agreeable with the Doctrine of the Church of England who in her twentieth Article saith The Church hath power to decree and make Laws So in her 34th Article That whosoever through his private judgment willingly and purposely doth break the Traditions and Ceremonies of the Church which be not repugnant to the word of
God offendeth against the Common order of the Church hurteth the Authority of the Magistrate and woundeth the Conscience of the weak Brethren Where by traditions I suppose is meant the Laws and Canons of the Church as the words following do intimate which speak of the Common order of the Church and Authority of the Magistrate Thus much of the Laws of the Church Neither are such meetings onely against the Laws of the Church but against sundry statute Laws of the Kingdom also in that behalf made and provided In the Statute of 35 Eliz. 1. It is provided that if any person or persons above 16 years old shall refuse to repair to some Church Chapel or usual place of Common-prayer to hear divine Service and receive the Communion or come to and be present at any Assemblies Conventicles or Meetings under Colour or pretence of any Exercise of Religion contrary to the Laws and Statutes And if any person shall obstinately refuse to repair to some Church Chapel or usual place of Common-prayer or by any motion persuasion inticement or allurement of any other willingly joyn in or be present at any such Assemblies Conventicles or Meetings under Colour or pretence of any such Exercise of Religion contrary to the Laws and Statutes of this Realm as is aforesaid which refers to other Statutes formerly made and yet of force against Conventicles as well as this one shall be committed to prison and there remain without bail untill be conform and untill he make an open Submission in the words set down in the Statute viz. I. A. B. do humbly acknowledge and confess that I have grievously offended God in contemning her Majesties Godly and lawfull Government and Authority by absenting my self from Church and from hearing divine Service contrary to the godly Laws and Statutes of this Realm and in using and frequenting unlawfull and disorderly Conventicles and Assemblies under Colour and pretence of Exercise of Religion And I am heartily sorry for the same c. And I do promise and protest without any dissimulation that from henceforth I will from time to time obey and perform her Majesties Laws and Statutes in repairing to Church and hearing divine Service and doe my utmost endeavour to maintain and defend the same Neither can it be pretended as it is by some that this Statute was made or stands in force against any other sort of People than those in question viz. against Popish recusants onely and not against Protestant dissenters as they call themselves The answer is easie out of the words of the said Statute For in the beginning of the Statute the Persons that are concerned in obedience to it are expressed in these general and large words Any person or persons whatsoever above the Age of 16 which shall refuse to repair to Church and willingly join in and be present at any Conventicle or Meeting c. Which words comprehend and take in Persons of all Religions Sects and Persuasions whatsoever And whereas the penalty of the Statute to all that shall refuse Obedience and Conformity to it is abjuration of the Realm or to be proceeded against as Felons There is a Proviso toward the End of the Statute that sixeth the penalty altogether upon Protestant recusants and not on Popish In these words Provided that no Popish recusant or feme Covert shall be compelled or bound to abjure by virtue of this Act. And lest the Popish recusants should be the onely Persons therein meant or intended the Conventiclers of our Age make themselves more perfect Recusants than that Statute supposeth For whereas that makes absence from the Prayers of the Church for one Month together a Crime sufficient to render them obnoxious to the penalties of that Act these men for the most part withdraw themselves for many Years together and for ought I see if they are let alone resolve so to doe all the days of their lives In Anno 22. Caroli 2di Regis there was a Statute made to prevent and suppress seditious Conventicles as the Title of that Statute truly calls them wherein Every Person of the Age of 16 years and upward that shall be present at any Assembly Conventicle or Meeting under Colour or pretence of any Exercise of Religion in other manner that according to the Liturgy and Practice of the Church of England in any place within the Kingdom of England Dominion of Wales and Town of Berwick upon Tweed at which Conventicle or meeting there shall be 5 persons or more assembled together is made liable to suffer the penalties of 5 s for his first fault and for his second 10 s and so onward the Preacher to suffer the penalty of 20 ll And the owner of the house or ground that shall wittingly and willingly suffer such Conventicle Meeting or unlawfull Assembly to be held to suffer the penalty of 20 ll In the late Act for Uniformity all Non-conformist Ministers and disabled and prohibited from preaching any Sermon or Lecture indefinitely either publick or private And for as much as the King's Majesty by the Law of God and the Land of right is and ought to be master of all the assemblings together of any of his Subjects therefore what Meetings soever are not allowed and authorized by the Laws of the Realm are adjudged by the Learned in the Laws to fall within the compass of those Statutes that forbid and punish Riots and unlawfull Assemblies and are or may justly be presumed to be in terrorem populi and in the Event it is to be feared will prove to be contrary to the peace of our Sovereign Lord the King And by the Law all the King's Liege-people are commanded to assist in the suppressing of them upon pain of imprisonment and to make fine and ransome to the King Notwithstanding all which good Laws this practice hath continued in the Church these several years and still doth notwithstanding His Majesties reinforcement of their execution by his late Proclamation in open defiance and contempt of all Authority as if the Laws of the Church and Realm were but fulmen inane a shadow of a Cloud that vanisheth as soon as it is made and as if obedience to Magistracy were no part of Christian duty Concerning these Laws of the Realm to silence clamour I will touch lightly at five things I. That the King being next under God within his Dominions supreme in the Church on Earth hath Power and Authority over the Persons of Ministers as well as of any other his Subjects He being Custos utriusque tabulae having both tables committed to him as well the first that concerns our religious duties to God as the other that concerns our civil duties to men may and ought to make such laws as conduce as well to the peace and order in the Church as as godliness and honesty Pertinet hoc ad reges seculi Christianos ut temporibus suis pacatam velint matrem suam Ecclesiam unde
flock adhering to their Shepherd For people then to imagine that they are at their own liberty to forsake their own Ministers and to wander whither they please is a Principle that tends directly to the destruction of the Church and is contrary to the very nature and being of it Should the Flocks of these wanderers doe as their Masters doe leave and run away from their shepherds and goe whither they please and feed where they please their owners would expect to see but little good come of them 2. Secondly a manâ—fest injury will thereby be done to their own Pastours be they never so vigilant to be forsaken of their own People as if they were deficient in the discharge of their duties and offices amongst them For if it be lawfull for one to doe so then 't is lawfull for ten and if for ten then for an hundred and so consequently for all and so a Pastour may be forsaken of all his People which how contrary it is to the order and rules of the Gospel I leave to any person of sober and staid Principles to judge 3. Thirdly It will be matter of offence to others who are prone to live by example more than by rule and an occasion to them to doe the like and so by this means all that obedience and duty that by divine Precept is due to a Minister from his People would soon perish and come to nothing 4. Fourthly An universal liberty of sinning without controll or restraint would by this means be introduced amongst People For if they may have liberty to wander from one Minister to another at their pleasure they will have none at last to have the cure and care of their souls neither will any one dare faithfully and freely to rebuke them for any thing they doe amiss for fear lest they should forsake him also and still be seeking out to some other And this is a most cursed condition by the verdict of God himself for People to be without a particular Pastour of their own as sheep without a shepherd wandring now here now there exposed to Dogs and Wolves Seducers and Deceivers 5. Fifthly It is a sinning against and crossing divine Providence and carries much of impiety and unchristian Ingratitude in it God's gracious promise to his People is I will give you Pastours according to mine own heart which shall feed you with Knowledge and Vnderstanding Now when God shall be graciously pleased to make good this promise to a People and they therewithall not contented shall out of a vain Curiosity light and needless affectation of Novelty for as the case in question stands it can proceed from no other Cause flock after Strangers and Usurpers even to a forsaking either in whole or in part their own faithfull Pastour it is just with God to blast all such Ministry and to make all their pretended preaching become but a reasoning with unprofitable talk with Speeches wherewith they can doe no good And to withdraw his blessing from such unthankfull Peoples attendance on it so as that hearing they shall hear and not understand and seeing they shall see and not perceive And as God threatned the Jews in the like case so may he justly punish such ungratefull Male-Contents with a certain and efficacious permission of them to be deceived led into and hardned in all kind of damnable Errours by their pretended teachers And so what Gastius observes of the Anabaptists may be made true of all such humourists Quia à veritate avertunt aures ideo Deus permittit illis doctores non qui lingua medica sanarent ulcera ipsorum sed qui pruritum ac scabiem affectuum ipsorum commode scalperent Because they turn away their Ears from the truth therefore God sends them teachers after their own Lusts not such as should with wholsome tongues heal their sores but with their nails scratch the itch of their lusts and affections They may chance to gain some empty notions 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of science falsely so called but nothing of sanctified or saving knowledge And if a man look with an impartial Eye on the practices of these persons that transplant themselves out of the Garden of God's Church into the waste of these unlawfull Assemblies he may soon discern the visible tokens of divine displeasure upon them and their ways Such barrenness of true Holiness and Christian-charity such wilfull hardning in ways of Schism pride prophaneness I speak within the compass of mine own sad observation and experience not with any desire to blazon the Crimes of any but to declare my heart-breaking sorrow for them as if that curse pronounced by our Blessed Saviour against the fruitless Figtree in the Gospel were executed on them Let no good fruit grow on thee hencesorth for ever Their faith seems to be mere faction all their Religion but a professed disobedience to their Superiours and a studied opposition to the truth of that which through the Mercy of God is established in our Church their holiness to be always finding of faults and stulto zelo pleni as saith Melancthon being filled with foolish zeal they will like nothing but their own inventions As soon as ever they fansie themselves to be converted they can teach their King how to govern and their Ministers how to preach They can tell what Laws are fit for the Kingdom and what Orders for the Church yea they are presently so illuminated that they can see every blemish in both when in themselves their companions and families they cannot see beams and intolerable Evils Eagle-eyed abroad to spie faults in others and look into things that concern them not but as blind as Beetles at home Like flies they will fasten no where but on the gall or sore if there be any in Church or State And whereas Christ in his Gospel hath commanded us that each should esteem other better than themselves especially where nothing appears notorious in mens lives to the contrary these men will be peremptory and Pope-like in their definitions on all that are not of their way and practice counting and calling them Carnal the men of the world the wicked c. and engross to themselves the Names of Saints the Godly God's children and people with exclusion of all else that are not of their practice and opinions from having part or lot in that business or privilege It is holiness enough for any to be one of them The Character which the ancient Nonconformists give of the Separatists of their times doth as exactly fit these of ours as if it had been made of purpose for them It is evident say they their zeal hath been like the rash and indiscreet zeal spoken of and reproved in the Sons of Zebedeus And savoureth altogether of Uncharitableness and not of Love for as all they that have once declined to that Schism are found to be exceeding proud and disdainfull towards all that