reason together with their rejecting of so eminent a Servant of God as was Samuel that God 1 Sam. 8. 10. said of the People they had rejected him rather than Samuel From Saul to the Captivity it is manifest what their Government was and from thence it matters not as to our present purpose how they governed themselves seeing they were ruled by the Regal Power of Foreign Princes until shaking off that yoke they were brought under that form by their own Deliverers which was again extorted from them by usurping Tyrants So that when Philo-Judeus and Josephus seem to write of an Aristocratical Government instituted by Moses they can no otherwise be understood to write faithfully but in reference to Ecclesiastical Courts and Cases of Religion purely wherein the Counsel of many was to take place but not to the administration of Civil Justice unless as is above-said when they were themselves subject to Forrain Princes The Objections against this Form thus asserted I leave to be answered from the positive grounds thus laid down And commend the Reader to the learned Disputations of others which are many concerning the excellencie and benefits of one Form above another But as to Hereditary and Elective Governments what is convenient may be gathered from the general discourse now made Now we proceed to the Third thing in Government the mutual Obligation of Governour and Governed CHAP. XXVI Of the mutual Relations and Obligations of Soveraigns and Subjects No Right in Subjects to resist their Soveraigns tyrannizing over them What Tyranny is Of Tyrants with a Title and Tyrants without Title Of Magistrates Inferiour and Supream the vanity and mischief of that distinction The Confusion of Co-ordinate Governments in one State Possession or Invasion giveth no Right to Rulers The Reasons why THAT we read not in the New Testament of any Rules or Advice given to Kings and Princes how to govern the people under them the reason is plain viz. Because in those dayes there were none Christian and St. Paul says What 1 Cor. 5. 12. have I to do to judge them that are without the Church For doubtless had any been of the Society of Christians they had fallen under the Christian Discipline and Precepts of the Apostles But that occasion of instructing Kings in the due administration of their power failing we are to seek for satisfaction from the old Testament where not much is found besides general moral Precepts of Sobriety Temperance Justice and the like enjoyned Solomon by David his Father and left by Solomon in his Book of Proverbs for Rules to succeeding Princes Moses likewise not without Gods appointment hath drawn up some special Precepts for Kings to follow in the real and cordial embracing of Gods word and worship and taking the defense and protection thereof Of which to speak it little behoves us at present Neither purpose we out of Humane Arguments and Autority to prescribe to Supreams what they ought to do or how to govern any farther than the known Rules of Justice in common do require For no doubt there is a mutual Obligation between Soveraign and Subject and that he is tyed and circumscribed in the exercise of his power by God as really as this is in his Obedience to him and that upon the common duties expressed by St. Paul of Masters to Servants and Husbands to Wives and Parents to Children For it doth not at all follow That because Princes are not subject to their Subjects therefore they are free from all subjection Ephes 6. 8. No St. Paul's Rule holds good to Kings as well as to Masters viz. That they should know that their King and Master is in heaven and that Kings are to be subject as well to the Laws of God as their Subjects are to the Laws of Man And though Children ought to obey their Parents in all things yet there is tacitly understood certain Laws of Limitation restraining the boundless tyranny of both civil and natural Parents For Subjects and Children are to know that they have a higher Lord and a more powerful Father to whom in the first place obedience must be paid And we must withdraw our selves from the commands of our Earthly Soveraign when our Heavenly who is his Soveraign doth require it as all rational Kings do grant as well as People But neither ought we to restrain the will of Princes to the literal and express will of God only but even to the most just and reasonable Laws of Humane Authority but only we must distinguish the vast difference between the obligation of Subjects to the just and equal Laws prescribed and imposed on them and that of Princes in relation to those Laws concerning their governing For all Laws contain two special causalities in them The one Exemplary whereby a Form and Rule is prescribed directing such as are to be guided thereby to the observation of Justice Equity and Reason as well to the publick as private good And to this so far as it is reasonable Kings are no less bound than Subjects they ought to observe entirely and religiously these sound and profitable Laws and that under pain of Gods displeasure The other causality which Laws have is Efficient and Compulsive whereby a Civil penalty being denounced and impending over the head of the infringers thereof they are better guarded from transgressions by either loss of outward good or life it self according to the merit of the Offense It cannot either consist with the Law of God or Nations to inflict punishments on Princes Soveraign Not but that for instnace murder adultery unjust spoil and robbery of the Subjects may no less considering the nature of the Crime deserve such punishment of Princes as they do of People but because there is none in such cases that can or ought duly and regularly to execute such Laws because there can be no such execution without the power of the Sword and there can be but one proper subject of that power in any one Republick Every man must not put to death him that is a notorious offender no not though he be justly and legally condemned to dye but he or they only who are thereunto rightly impowred and authorized by the Supream And though every man may in his own mind and judgment sentence a malefactour whose crime is high and apparent to death yet cannot he in civil judicature render him obnoxious to it And the reason hereof is plain because Justice must be done justly or else there is incurred no less guilt than is sought and intended to be revenged And of all guilt I know not whether any be greater than the assuming of such a power which no wayes belongs to a man For better it were to take away ones horse or to ravish another mans wife or to extort unjustly anothers estate than to devest a Prince of his Right of Rule and usurp it to himself and that first because no mans estate or any thing that is his doth descend
Church hath not denyed that Liberty and where they have made no Vow to the contrary bereaving themselves of that Liberty 33. There is no Purgatory 'T is little less then Heretical to Artic. Chur Eng. 22. affirm there is in the Roman sense 34. There is no external Sacrifice Most true in a strict proper sense 35. Devils cannot be driven away by Holy Water and the Sign of the Cross By these alone we have few or none Instances in the Ancient Church that Devils were cast out of the Possessed But many we find and those most authentique and undeniable whereby it appears that the ancient Christians even to St. Chrysostoms dayes did exorcise or cast out Devils by Prayers and Humiliation with which were used the sign of the Cross but not so ancient was Holy Water to that purpose And though we look on this as the Gift of Miracles formerly more general and effectual then now-a-days it is any where honestly to be found yet neither do we deny such power absolutely nor hold such unnecessary Rites utterly unlawful to be used 36. It is unlawful and an horrible wickedness for a man to erect the Image of Christ in Christian Temples No such matter The wickedness consists in giving it the accustomed Worship in the Church of Rome And thus have I given certain Instances of the injurious dealings of both extreams against us as by themselves stated it being my design in the ensuing Treatise to state rather then largely dispute matters more equally and thereby to discover the frauds and falsities current against us I shall now requite their pains in collecting falsly and fraudulently the opinions of our Church by a sincere and faithful proposing of the Heretical and pestilent Dogmes of the Roman Church as I find them laid down and maintain'd by Bellarmine that so even common reason if not sense of indifferent Christians may judge which Church holds most contrary Doctrines to Gods and Mans Laws 1. The Books by us called Apocryphal and so proved by Bellarm. De Verho Dei l. 1. c. 7. the general Consent of the Church in all Ages are Canonical and properly Divine 2. It is neither convenient nor profitable that the Scriptures L. 2. c. 15. 16. or Prayers of the Church should be in the Vulgar Tongue 3. All things necessary to Faith and Holy Life are not contain'd L. 4. c. 3. in the Scriptures but Traditions also 4. Scriptures without Tradition are not simply necessary C. 4. nor sufficient 5. The Apostles applyed not their minds to write by God's C. 4. command but as they were constrained by a certain necessity 6. Scriptures are not Rules of Faith but as a certain C. 12. Monitorie to conserve and nourish the Doctrine received 7. Hereticks deny but Catholicks affirm Peter to be the De Rom. Pontif. l. 1. c. 2. Head of the Universal Church and made a Prince in Christs stead 8. When Christ said Simon son of John so the Vulgar L. 4. c. 1. Translation in Bellarmine corruptly for Jonas Feed my Sheep he spake only to Peter and gave him his Sheep to feed not exempting the Apostles 9. Whether the Pope may be an Heretick or not it is to be L. 4. c. 2. believed of the whole Church that he can no ways determine that which is Heretical 10. Neither the Pope nor the particular Roman Church C. 4. can erre in Faith 11. The Pope cannot only not erre in Faith but neither C. 5. in Precepts of Manners which are prescribed the whole Church and which are concerning things necessary to Salvation or things in themselves good or evil 12. The Pope alone hath his Jurisdiction immediately from C. 24. Christ but all other Bishops their ordinary Jurisdiction immediately from the Pope 13. The Pope hath Supream power indirectly in all Temporal L. 5. c. 1. 6. matters by reason of his Spiritual power This is the opinion of all Catholick Divines 14. The Pope as Pope may not ordinarily depose Temporal Ibid c. 6. Princes though there be just cause as he may Bishops yet he may change Kingdoms and take them away and give them to another as the highest Spiritual Prince if it be needful to the Salvation of Souls 15. As to Lawes the Pope as Pope cannot ordinarily make a Ibid. Civil Law or establish or make void Lawes of Princes because he is not the Political Prince of the Church yet he may do all these if any Civil Law be necessary to the Salvation of Souls and Kings will not make them and so if Laws be pernicious to Souls and Kings will not abolish them 16. Though the Pope translated the Empire and gave a De Translat Imp. l. 3 c 4. Right to choose a Prince yet he transferred not nor gave that power Supream and most ample which himself had of Christ over all the Church And therefore as when the Cause of the Church required he could translate the Empire from the Greeks to the Germans in like manner might he translate it from the Germans to another Nation upon the like reason c. 17. No obedience is due to a Prince from the Church Câ—â— Berâ—â—â— c. 31. Tom. 7. when he is excommunicated by publick Authority The Pope and his Predecessors never forbad Subjects to obey their Princes for being once deposed by them they were no longer lawful Princes This is it we teach 18. To call General Councils belongs properly to the Tom. 2. de Concil l. 1. c. 12. Pope yet so that the Emperor may do it with his consent 19. Particular Councils confirmed by the Pope cannot erre L. 2. c 5. in Faith and Manners 20. The Pope is simply and absolutely above the whole C. 17. Church and above a General Council so that he may not acknowledge any Judicature on earth above him 21. The Church is a Company of men professing the L. 3. c. 2. same Christian Faith joyned together in the Communion of the same Sacraments under the Government of lawful Pastors and especially One Vicar of Christ on earth the Bishop of Rome 22. Purgatory may be proved out of the Old and New De Purgaâ— 1. c. 2 3 4 5 6 7 8. Testament 23. Purgatory is a Doctrine of Faith so that he who believeth Cap. 15. not Purgatory shall never come there but shall be tormented in Hell in everlasting burning 24. Invocation of Saints may be proved from Scripture De Sanct. Beaâ—â—â—d l. 1. c. 19. 25. It 's lawful to make the Image of God the Father in De Reliq c. 8. the form of an Old Man and of the Holy Spirit in the form of a Dove 26. The Images of Christ and of Saints are to be worshipped L. 2. c. 21. De Imag. not only by accident and improperly but also by themselves properly so that they may terminate Worship as considered in themselves and not only as they
him and the Matter it self far from judicious or solid in many places Much more wisely and learnedly had Joannes Forbesius of Aberdeen in Scotland set forth his Controversial Work called Instruct Hist Theol. l. 4. c. 4. § 29. Instructiones Historico Theologicae yet imperfect as it should seem by himself who refers us to the twenty forth and twenty fifth Book of that Work there being extant only sixteen And surely as the Book argues great Learning in the Author so might it have proved no less beneficial to the Christian World had there been less complyance with Calvin in it which might be the reason that it found not that entertainment in England that otherwise it might have had but was commended and published to the World by Andrew Rivett the Dutch Divines giving full approbation thereunto to whom it should seem declining the judgment of that Church he stood more obliged to he submitted his Work which yet might be excused in part it being a time viz. 1645. when such havock and dissipation of the English Church was made by the Calvinizing Scots and Scotizing English as were not to be excused nor ever forgotten For mine own particular I would not have any to expect here a Book of Preaching or Devotion of both which and especially the former there seems to be little want amongst us so neither purely Scholastical but serving to all these purposes And therefore I have wrote it in the English Tongue aiming at no higher end than to profit those of our own Church and Nation And therefore I call it An Introduction intimating my principal Intention to be to prepare the way to the Readers ascent from this to more high and ample Disquisitions And this farther according to the mind of the Church of England I say this was my Purpose I do not say that this I have alwayes exactly and infallibly attained any more than those Learned Writers before me who have endeavoured to give us the sum of the Laws of our Nation as I have of the Religion of our Church have attained their ends according to their desires and therefore much less to the expectation of others Wherefore the Apology which Learned Dr. Cowell used to the Reader of his Institutions of the English Laws with some little variation may aptly enough serve my turn against the proneness of some Censurers whom it may offend that I take upon me to determine what the Church of England holds when as there is and alwayes will be and that in all Churches some Diversity in the Writers But as Littleton of old advised his Son so would I advise Vt autem Littletonus suum … um sic ego vâ—â— praemonitus multâ—o magis esse cupio ne omnia huc congesta Juri nâ—stro consentanea statim exâ—â—…iâ—etis Neque enim hoc opus est nâ—strae â—talia tamen esse non injuriâ forte polliceor c. Johan Cowellus Praefat. Institut Juris Anglic. you much more that ye do not presently perswade your selves that all things here collected are agreeable to our Law for this is past our power Yet such I may promise them to be as will not be unprofitable And I may safely adde I have not invented any thing which I know to be repugnant to the Established Faith or Worship amongst us The Method that I here use I hope is not obscure nor unuseful to the Reader nor Illogical but consisting of parts cohering with one another and succeeding each other visibly enough though I know well I might have subdivided several Chapters and Heads into more distinct Sections and peradventure might have erred and offended more on the other hand as Seneca hath observed Philosâ—phiam in partes nâ—n in frusira dividamidividi enim illam non concidi utile est Nam comprehendere quemadmedum maxima iâ— minima dist â—â—le est Senec. Epist 89. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Greg. Nyssâ—de virâ Mosis p. 180. and daily may be seen in the Compendiums on this Subject of Forrein Writers they do who are too curious confounding by distinguishing In the general Division of this into two Parts I follow Gregorie Nyssene who summeth up all Religion under these two Heads Worship which he calls 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and the other a Right Understanding of the true Nature of God Only Natural Reason teaching every man that he must Know aright before he can Do aright I have set Knowledge which is the same with Faith in a Christian in the first place and Worship in the Second Part of this Draught of Religion It remains now that according to the custom of Adventurers into the Censure of this captious Age I should bespeak the favourable opinion and friendly or rather in this case charitable acceptance of my present endeavours from the true Christian Reader for from others my hopes are very small but I shall only crave the removing of that prejudice and improving of that Purity of Intention in the reading which I may with a good Conscience profess to have had in the writing And especially shall pray God to prosper it to those dissenting Brethren amongst us who I fear are no less apt to take offense then our professed Enemies as disagreeing from their perswasions in many things But that is none of my fault But my hearts desire and prayer to God is with St. Paul Rom. 10. 1. that they might be saved For I bear them record that they have a zeal of God but not according to knowledge To inform therefore such was my principal design as likewise to exhort them in the fear and for the love of God and the Truth to consider at length and lay seriously to heart the scandalous and most pernicious evil of that Division for which as yet they have given no tolerable reason which they can with any confidence perswade themselves will hold before God And having themselves wrote so many and horrible things against such Schism all their allegations and complaints against their Governours for hard usage of their tender Consciences are no more to be regarded by the Church than the froward cryes and carriage of Children when their Parents would look their Heads and take out their Vermine For what is that moderation and compounding with us they sometimes offer and excuse themselves from the foresaid accusations by as if they sought Peace and Vnity but to imitate the worst of Bankrupts and thrive by breaking now their open and most cruel dealings towards us have failed them And which is most unreasonable of all neither can nor will give any just assurance of persevering in a true and cordial communion with the Church so modelled as they propound in their Moderation until it becomes such as they could wish and that is quite to overthrow the whole visible constitution of it as their Oaths and Covenants not disclaimed bind them And to stick so immoveably as too many do at lighter things such as Rites and Ceremonies which cannot possibly
to us Such are lastly the many Predictions and Revelations of closest and deepest secrets of men not possible to be known but by a preternatural subtilty All which are so frequently reported in Histories of all sorts Divine and Humane that who ever will call in question must be judged purposely to have taken on him such incredulity that he might deny this thing seeing there are infinite other things which upon no greater evidence he firmly believeth And what greater absurdity need a man be forced to than this singularity of judging in this cause For can they who resolve to doubt of this matter alledge any sense or demonstration contrary to this If they can Why have they kept it from the World all this while If they cannot Why should they not yield to better grounds for it than they have any against it Viz. the concurrent testimony of so many and sober persons affirming the same from their experience But if this be admitted then by due gradations may we easily ascend unto the most supream Being of all which is God No man being able to determine any point which may not be exceeded until we come to infinity it self And this present visible World being but a draught of that superâ—â—â— God was pleased to ordain Man to bear his Image in a Supremacy over all earthly Creatures that from hence we may learn that as one Creature serves another and all Man so Man is subordinate to Spirits and created Spirits to God as their onely absolute Lord. And therefore in Scripture it is said of them They are all Ministring Spirits i. e. under Hebr. 1. 9. Hebr. 12. 9. God to them that believe And that he is the Father of Spirits Which necessary and harmonious dependence of all things on One is so consonant to the common reason of Man that the contrary introducing a Deity or independence doth withal bring in a manifest Anarchy and confusion in the Universe repugnant as well to nature as reason Furthermore the several Arts and Sciences minister several proofs of this as might be shewn in particular would it not be too long and were it not to be found performed by divers already That taken from the course of Nature may here suffice Nature it self and common observation tell us that there is diversity in Cause and Effect and that there is Generation and Corruption and that nothing in the World can produce it self And for instance he that lived many thousand years ago could no more make himself then he that lived but yesterday or was born this morning So that either Man and if Man other creatures also for there is the same reason made himself or was from eternity or was made by another The first is disproved The second is false First because nothing hath been esteemed more absurd in reason than for to arise to an Infinity of Causes one above another Secondly then certainly would the same man yea all men be eternal consequently as well as antecedently but the contrary to this we daily see and therefore may conclude the contrary to the other Thirdly The very nature of Creatures constituted of divers and contrary natures which are opposite and avers to all union as Fire and Water Wet and Dry Heat and Cold cannot move of themselves to that which is contrary to them but every thing naturally covers to be of it self and in it self Fire making towards Fire and Water to Water and Earth to Earth so that there must be a superiour power as well to bring them and joyn them together in one as to contain and continue them there Which must be the first Cause and that first Cause is God Fourthly That common ground of all Societies humane Justice which is an immoveable and indelible principle in the mind of Man approved of by all doth evince this For Justice supposes and infers a Deity For all Justice doth suppose a Rule according to which it is said to be just and a Law to contradict and oppose which is to be unjust and injurious For otherwise it would be at the pleasure and arbitrement of every man to make a Rule to himself and for another according to which all that pleased should be reputed just But this would be one of the most absurd ridiculous and unjust things in the world Therefore must there of necessity be a common Rule of Right and Just which can proceed from none but the Author of all Beings and humane Society it self without which Meo judiciâ— Pietas est sumdamentum omnium virtutum Cicero pro Plancio it would be as reasonable if it were profitable and safe for any man to murder his Prince or his Father as to kill a Nitt or Flea that troubled him For the Civil Sanction of Laws to the contrary doth not make the foresaid impieties sins neither are they simply evil because they are forbidden thereby But they are forbidden by Man and fenced by humane Laws because they are evil and evil they were absolutely because God had so decreed them And as the Laws of all Soveraigns receive their Original vigour from God so were it not that Gods Law fortified confirmed and secured Kings they and their Laws both would be no better then trifles impertinencies and impostures which every wise man might shake off and confound when ever it lay in his power For where obedience and subjection is due it is for some reason which reason is form'd into a Law But no man can make a Law whereby he of no King should become a King for before he can make any Law he must be a King or Supream And therefore this reason or Law must be Antecedent and being so must have an Author And who can that be but God the King of Kings and Lord of Lords Fifthly Add hereunto that argument which is commonly taken from the common consent and agreement of all Men esteemed most rational all People all Nations concurring hereunto Which must needs be the effect of a Divine power and influence so inclining mens minds so that one saith It is so apparent that there is a God that I can scarce think him to Cicero be in his right mind who denies it And when we speak of Nature and a Law of Nature we would not be so understood as some would needs take them to help them out here for such a necessary and inevitable principle and impulse as none should be able to dissent from for there is no such Law to be found but so natural we make it to all indifferently and equally disposed that the thing once fairly and duly propounded shall not find contradiction without violence offered at first to the mind of man bent to such a truth Sixthly It is no weak argument of an over-ruling and supream Power which may be taken from the contrary attempts the vanity and infelicity of them For it was just now granted that great Wits as they would be called may nay have disowned this truth
Eucharist and especially going upon the grounds of Luther Calvin Perkins and some others of Great note that all Sacerdotal they may call them if they please Ministerial Acts done by him who is no true Minister are really null and void Fourthly we conclude that seeing all Ecclesiastical power as Ecclesiastical doth proceed from Christ and his Successors and that by Ordinary and visible means they who have not received the same by such Ordinary Methods are usurpers of the same whether Political or Mystical And that to deny this to the Church is to deny that which Christ hath given them and such a Principle of the Churches well Being without which it cannot subsist and it not subsisting neither can the Faith it self And to the reason above given we may add Prescription beyond all memory For from Christs time to this day a perpetual and peculiar power hath ever been in the Clergy which hath constantly likewise born the name of the Church to assemble define and dispose matters of Religion And why should not Prescription under Unchristian as well as Christian Governours for so many Ages together be as valid sacred and binding to acknowledgment in the Case of Religion as Civil Matters will ever remain a question in Conscience and common Equity even after irresistible Power hath forced a Resolution otherwise It is true such is the more natural and Ancient Right Civil Power hath over the outward Persons of men than that which Religion hath over the Inward man that it may claim a dominion and disposal of the Persons of even Christian subjects contrary to the soft and infirm Laws of the Church because as hath been said Men are Men before they are Christians and Nature goeth before Grace And Civil society is the Basis and support to Ecclesiastical Yet the grounds of Christianity being once received for good and divine and that Religion cannot subsist nor the Church consist without being a Society and no Society without a Right of counsel and consultation and no consultation without a Right to assemble together the Right of assembling must needs be in trinsique to the Church it self Now if no man that is a Christian can take away the essential ingredient to the Church how can any deny this of Assembling For the practise of it constantly and confidently by the Apostles and brethren contrary to the express will of the Lawful Powers of the Jews and Romans and the reason given in the Acts of the Apostles of obeying God rather then man do imply certainly a Law and Charter from God so to do and if this be granted as it must who can deny by the same Rule necessity of Cause and constant Prescription that they may as well provide for the safety of the Faith by securing the state of the Church as for the truth and stability of the Church by securing the true Faith by doctrine and determination The Great question hath ever been Whether the Church should suffer loss of power and priviledges upon the Supream Powers becomming Christian Or the Supream power it self loose that dominion which it had before it became of the Church For if Christianity subjected Kings necessarily to the Laws of others not deriving from them then were not Kings in so good a Condition after they were Christians as before when they had no such pretences or restraints upon them and so should Christs Law destroy or maim at least the Law of God by which Kings reign But there may be somewhatsaid weakning this absurdity For Granting this That there is a God and that he is to be worshipped and that as he appointeth all which we must by nature believe it seems no less natural to have these observed than the Laws of natural Dominion Now granting that at present which if we be true to our Religion we must not deny viz. That Christian Religion is the true Religion and that God will be worshipped in such sort as is therein contained For any Prince absolute to submit to the essentials of that Religion is not to loose any thing of his Pristine Rights which he had before being an Heathen for he never had any Right to go against the Law of God more then to go against the Law of Nature but it doth restrain his Acts and the exercise of his Power And if the Supream after he hath embraced Christianity shall proceed to exert the same Authority over the Church as before yet the Church hath no power to resist or restrain him Civilly any more than when he was an Alien to it Now it being apparent that Christian Faith and Churches had their Forms of believing and Communion before Soveraign powers were converted and that he who is truly converted to a Religion doth embrace it upon the terms which he there finds not such as he brings with him or devises therefore there lies an Obligation upon such powers to preserve the same as they found it inviolate And truly for any secular Power to become Christian with a condition of inverting the orders of the Church and deluting the Faith is to take away much more than ordinary accrues unto it by such a change It is true the distinction is considerable between the Power of a Christian and unchristian King exerted in this manner because taking the Church in the Largest sense in which all Christians in Communion are of it what Christian Kings act with the Church may in some sense bear the name of the Church as it doth in the State acting according to their secular capacity but much more improperly there than here because there are no inferiour Officers or Magistrates in such a Commonwealth which are not of his founding and institution whatsoever they do referr to him and whatsoever almost he doth is executed by them But Christ as we have shewed having ordained special Officers of his own which derive not their Spiritual Power at all from the Civil and to this end that his Church might be duly taught and governed what is done without the concurrence of these can in no proper sense bear the name of the Church But many say the King is a Mixt person consisting partly of Ecclesiastical and partly Civil Authority but this taken in the ordinary latitude is to begg the Question and more a great deal than at first was demanded For who knows how far this Mixture extends and that it comprehends not the Mystical Power of the Church as well as the Political And how have they proved one more than the other by such a title It were reasonable therefore first to declare his Rights in Ecclesiastical matters as well as Civil and thence conclude he is a Mixt Person and not to affirm barely he is a Mixt Person and from thence inferr they know not what Ecclesiastical power themselves And if he hath such power whether it is immediately of God annexed to his Natural Right or by consent of the Church is attributed unto him For by taking this course we
In his state of innocencie and perfection or imperfection and blindness of mind God certainly knew that man was frail and apt to mistake when he delivered his Law How then is this an Apologie sufficient for him who gave such a Law as was disproportionable to his understanding at the time of giving it But then secondly considering that the understanding and the thing to be understood are Relatives and that it comes to the same end whether the Facultie be unapt to conceive or the Object unapt to be conceived such an excuse is to no purpose But yet withal wo must note that man is not to be excused from guilt in misunderstanding First be cause he willingly brought this defect upon himself by his Original â—â—lly and Falâ— of Secondly Because he through vile and vitious affections doth oftentimes contract a greater darkness and disorder than is natural to him even in this state of Original sin And God as all other Law-givers did not proportion the Law given according to the contingent dispositions of particular mens understanding but according to that common Scantling found generally in Man So that undoubtedly some men are the proper authors of their own ignorance in divine matters through their affected evil manners as the Scripture and the Fathers jointly shew A second General reason is from God 1. Calling man to the knowledge of himself and that by his word and never intending to alter the course of nature and general state of man in this life which was and is to be fallible Infallibilitie being the portion of the blessed in the life to come â—t were not impossible that God should either by so framing his word or so reframing man have secured him from erring about it but he hath not so done neither doth it appear how such Exemptions and priviledges could consist with his Providence more general For Secondly The Providence of God having determined to preserve humane and divine Societies as he had constituted this can hardly be understood to be more readily and safely effected than by mutual obligations and a necessity of mutual offices to be done one towards another And the first thing conducing hereunto is the Order of Governors and Governed of Masters and Scholars of such as teach and such as are taught in the Word But if every man were wise in the Laws of man had the power of the Sword justly given into his own hands or the power of the Word in his own breast then would there be no need at all of Rulers or teachers to teach or instruct or reprove and redress errours in manners because Every man is supposed to be an independent Prince and though he should offend against nature it self was not to be punished by one who had no autority over him Hence there fore it is that God most wisely hath suffered an inequalitie of Persons in all Ages all Faculties all Policies as well divine as humane that the more strickt the bond is the more intire the societie and unity might also be Thirdly As this discrimination secures the necessary relations between men within themselves so doth it the dependance between God and Man which must never be forgotten For as for the Father to deliver all the writings of his Estate to his son and to put him in present and full possession of all his wealth is the next way to tempt his son to forget and disrespect him and no more to acknowledg any duty to him in like manner were it so that God at once should have put man in ample and absolute knowledg of his holy writings and will without reserving to himself the farther manifestation of difficulter matters there would be no address to God no worship no seeking to him for satisfaction and information in the Care of his Soul One main end and office of prayer would be extinct So we read that God designing the Law to the Israelites provided aforehand That the ordinary Rulers should judg the people at all time but the hard causes they should bring to Moses and Moses himself cases too hard for him to God As in the Case of him that gathered sticks on the Sabbath day and of Zelophehads daughters Fourthly God suffers this to the end he might quicken and excite our Endeavours and industry in the search after his holy will so reveiled unto us For were it so that all things were presently and readily obvious unto us there would be wanting that excellent vertue of labour to which God hath ordained all men since the fall to perserve them from greater mischiefs incident to weak man And besides contempt and slighting are Besides those Texts of Scripture which by reason of wisdom and depth of sense and mystery laid up in them are not yet conceived there are in Scripture of things that are 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 seemingly confused 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 carrying semblance of Contrariety and Achronisms Metachronisms and the like which brings infinite obscurity to the text There are I say more of them in Scripture then in any writer that I know secular or divine Dr. Hales Serm. 1. p. 22. alwaies the consequent of what is plain and familiar to us And therefore that argument which some use to prove all things evident in Scripture and others contrariwise that all things are unquestionable in the Church so that according to the opinion of the one a man committing himself to the holy Scriptures and according to the other submitting himself to the Church in all things he may promise himself security rather than safety do make more against this It being more certainly the Will of God while we war in the Church militant we should never rest secure from due solicitudes and temptations but by often contentions with him to preserve our selves from falling from the true Faith or falling into a false Faith A third General reason of the obscurities in Scripture may be taken from the Scriptures themselves which not compared with the general ability of mans reason and understanding only but with other writings also are of difficult access and that will be thought no calumnie if it be considered First That the languages in which they were originally written are so far perished now adayes that they are familiar to no nation neither can the many Idioms and proprieties of the phrase be well understood by us Secondly The Histories thereof and the several customes rites Civil and Religious amongst the Heathens as well as Jews and Christians the habits gestures and acts very easily known and readily apprehended by such as lived in those dayes and places are now hardly to be understood Thirdly The difficulty of distinguishing between Canonical and Uncanonical Writings Fourthly The subtilty and artifices of Heretiques in their corrupting if not the Letter yet perverting the genuine sense Yea the very Orthodox Expositors are themselves so various and unconsenting in the true meaning that they much more distract and unsettle
decision I wish with all my heart so far am I from an evil eye or niggardly affection towards Scripture they could make their words good when they tell us all things are contained in Scripture It is a perfect Rule of all emergent doubts and acts in the Church It is Judge and Law both of Controversies but alas they cannot For they take away from it more then by this rank kindness they give to it Gods word is Perfect as a Law and so far as he intended it but it must cease to be a Law and take another nature upon it if it were a Judge too in any proper sense And the Canon of Scripture must be it self variable and mutable if it could particularly accommodate it self to all occasions and exigencies of Christians But this is not only absurd but needless For God when he made men Christians did not take away from them what they before had as Men but required and ordained that humane judgement and reason should be occupied and sanctified by his divine Revelations He in brief gave them another and far better Method Aid and Rule to judge by and did not destroy or render altogether useless their Judgement even in matters sacred To the Law and Esay 8. 20. to the Testimonie saies the holy Prophet if they speak not according to this word it is because there is no light in them This indeed plainly declares the Rule by which we are to walk and Judge but it doth not tell us that the Law it self doth speak but men according to it And this is to Judge Now because no one man no one age no one Church should judge for all no nor for it self contrary to all doth the necessity and expediencie of Tradition not to affront or violate but secure the written word of God and that in two special respects appear First as giving great light and directions unto the Rulers of the Church and limiting the uncertain and loose wit of man which probably would otherwise according to its natural pronitie flie out into new and strange senses dayly of holy Scripture The Records of the Church like so many Presidents and Reports in our Common Law giving us to understand Low Consuetudo etiam in Civilibus rebus pro Lege suscipitur cùm deficit Lex nec differt Scripturd an ratione consistat quando Legem ratio commendet Tertul. de coron mil. cap. 4. such places of Scripture were formerly understood and on which side the case controverted passed And why this course in divine matters should not be approved I see not unless unquiet and guilty persons shall seek under colour of a more absolute appeal to Scripture which is here supposed to be sincerely appealed unto before to wind themselves into the seat of Judicature and at length not only as fallibly but also usurpingly decree for themselves and others too This event hath so manifestly appeared that there is no denying of it or defending it They therefore who professedly introduce Tradition to the defeating and nulling of Scripture deal indeed more broadly and in some sense more honestly as being what they seem than they who give all and more then all due to it in language but in practise overthrow it But we making Tradition absolutely subordinate and subservient to Scripture and in a word of the nature of a Comment and not of the Text it self we are yet to seek not what deceitfully and passionately for we know enough of that already but soberly can be objected against it For if it be said Tradition is it self uncertain it is obscure it is perished it contradicts it self and so can be of little use we readily joyn with them so far as to acknowledge that such traditions and to them to whom they so appear can with no good reason be appealed to But we deny that there are none but such and that such as prove themselves to be true and honest men upon due trial and examination ought to be hang'd out of the way because they were found in company with thieves and Cheats Supposing then That such honest Traditions are to be found in the Church another great benefit redoundeth to the Church from thence in that it doth in some cases supply the defects of the Law it self the Scripture But here I must first get clear of this reputed Scandal given in that I suppose the Scriptures defective or imperfect I have already and do again profess its plenitude and sufficiency as far as a Rule or Law is well capable of Now what God by his infinite wisdom and power might have done I cannot question in contriving such an ample Law as should comprehend all future and possible contingencies in humane affairs but this I say That he disposing things by another Rule viz. to act according to humane capacity and condition never did or so much as intended to deliver such an infinite Law Is not Moses and Gods dealing to him and his ministry to God and the people frequently alledged as a notable argument to convince us of the amplitude of the New Testament Moses say they was faithful in all his house And therefore much Heb. 3. 2. more was Christ Very good and what of all this As much as comes to nothing For wherein did the faithfulness of Moses consist In powring out unmeasurably all that might be said touching divine matters Or rather in delivering faithfully and exactly all that God commanded him This truly did Moses and therefore was very true and faithful to him that sent him and gave him his charge This did Christ and this did the Apostles of Christ and his inspired servants and therefore were all no less faithful to God than Moses But did not Moses leave more cases untouched in the Administration of the Jewish Policie then were litterally expressed Yes surely judging it sufficient that he had laid down general Rules and Precepts according to which Emergencies which might be infinite should by humane prudence be reduced and accordingly determined And so choose they or refuse they must they grant did Christ and his Instruments leave the Law of the Gospel which yet not wanting all that can be expected from a Law cannot modestly be pronounced imperfect notwithstanding as is said manifold particulars are not there treated of Now those are they we say Tradition doth in some measure supply unto us and the defect of Tradition it self which hath not considered all things is made good by the constant power of the Church given by the Scriptures themselves in such cases which require determination of circumstances of time place order and manner of Gods service according to the Edification of the Church of Christ CHAP. XIII Of the nature of Faith What is Faith Of the two general grounds of Faith Faith divine in a twofold sense Revelation the Formal reason of Faith Divine Of the several senses and acceptations of Faith That Historical Temperance and Miraculous Faith are not in nature
in this case no power at all is given or can be given nor in truth ought to be taken away as the manner is from Princes entring through the populacie into the Throne For God only is the proper and immediate Author of Right and Power which he hath inserted into Parents over their Children and hath proportionably prescribed to Kings and Princes without ever advising with the People or expecting their consent or confirmation This the Scripture it self calls Jus Imperii or 1 Sam. 8. 9. lefs significantly with us The Manner of the King Reason calls the same Justice which never takes its measure from earth originally but from heaven not from the People but from God And that Similitude found in the works of a very judicious and learned man to shew the Prophets right to institute at first Kings from their right to restore Kingly Power lapsed by reason of the visible Heir to it ceasing viz. That as the Lord of a Mannour resuming the estate of a Tenant whose legal Heirs are unknown to himself doth argue that it first proceeded from him so the right of the People to constitute a Prince over them upon a total cessation of legal Pretenders do imply an original right to be in the People of founding Monarchs doth to my apprehension infer the contrary being better stated For it sheweth no more than this That in truth God being the true and proper Lord of the Mannour this dominion is devolved unto him and not to the People And that even in such cases a tacit hand of God is seen by many eminent Instances in Histories designing the Person receiving that Rule the People being but so many Stewards of Gods Court in admitting a new Tenant to Kingly Power For by me saith the Prov. 8. 15. Dan. 2. 23 â—â—testas 〈◊〉 est apud Electores ergo nec ab ipsis datur sed ab ipsis tamen certae personae applicatur Grotius De Imperio Summarum Potestat cap. 10. §. 2. Idem de Jure Bel. Pa. lib. 3. c. 3. § 8. 1. Simpliciter esse verum negat Populum creare Magistratus Scripture Kings reign and Princes decree Justice And the like doth Daniel assert to God He changeth the times and seasons he removeth Kings and setteth up Kings he giveth wisdome unto the wise and knowledge c. The most therefore that the People do when they act most in creating Kings is under God to apply the Person to the Place or Office of Governing And therefore in the second place it is no better than Sacrilegiously done by them to mutilate that Power which God hath given by the necessary and common Laws of Natural Justice to Supream Rulers and transfer of it to themselves as it would be for a Guardian to an Orphans estate to pare and pill it and bestow it on himself although perhaps out of terrour the consent of the party so defrauded be obtained lest he should loose all Yet doth not all this contradict the general practise of Subjects who having long continued under equal and reasonable Laws explaining and particularly applying the common Supream Law of Justice to a State or People do present such Rules of Regiment to their future Prince for his confirmation unless they be so far urged on him who hath a Personal Right by Birth to succeed in the Throne as to deny absolutely to submit to him without such conditions yielded unto Indeed could they prove the Right of Choice of the Person to be the same with the Power belonging to the Place they might mangle alterate and adulterate it as they pleased For 't is a Law that a man free from Rulers as these are supposed now to be may do what he will with his own and choose whether he will part with any of it or not and what and how much he will give away but it not being so and a duty lying upon him of being Just He that as our Saviour saith is unjust in the Luke 16. 10. least is unjust also in much But thirdly to shew that there can neither be Divine nor Natural Right in the People to choose or create Governours and much less Government the impossibility of the real and just execution of this power abundantly sufficeth For if men as some have been so blind and bold to affirm were naturally free untill they brought this subjection upon themselves Then first this were general and without exceptions or but partial and with exceptions If this latter be true and some were naturally subject This will destroy the principal dogme it self and open a way to the unanswerable reasons against natural freedom For that which we have by nature we have in common and without exception of the thing it self though peradventure with some discrimination in the degree and measure But if the first be granted That all are free then must cease of necessity subjection natural of children to their parents which hath been with better advice and reason received then it hath by some been well-nigh quite disowned to the making way for Novel Politicks And again Grant that all men were once but no body could never tell when and in a certain place but no body could ever tell where equally free or at least all of years of discretion which is most uncertain It would be known first How men dare to be so presumptuous as to make such a breach of the Law of Nature as this must be viz. To part with their birth-right and to imbezel that which God had given them concomitantly with their own lives I say what a notorious ingratitude and an offense against God to alter nature it self who we may well suppose doth all things most consonantly to Divine reason If therefore men had this Liberty naturally in them I hold it no less a sin to give it away than for one to cut off a member of his body or to destroy ones reason if it lay in his power And to say that the People in such cases do not absolutely devest themselves of power nor part with what God and Nature hath placed in them because they commit only to such the Administration of such power as is resident in them radically it being neither commodious nor possible for the universal Body to manage it self to the due ends of civil Society but reserve unto themselves a right of Revocation upon the Male-administration or abuse of Power so delegated This is to traduce Divince Providence and Wisdom notoriously For what can be a greater reproach to a wise man or the most wise God than to admit such a gross errour as to so constitute and frame a thing to such ends and purposes which it can never attain and to endow a people or person with such a faculty which can never avail nor succeed to the intention of it and never be executed as certainly Supream in the People cannot but must be delivered over to another more capable subject Thus it seemeth to
me that such supposed power ought not to be translated from that subject to which God had annexed it to that which the people liketh better man here in mending Gods ordinance Therefore surely there being found a necessity of having power otherwise posited than in the people and it being an egregious absurdity of altering that God had ordained it must follow to reconcile these things That there never was any such power in the people at all but what they have is unto them derived from another Power originally And this is further confirmed from the Impossibility as well as impiety of making any such translation of power from its natural subject the People because it cannot ever fairly or justly be brought about seeing that the People cannot unanimously much less ever did concur to the Election of any one Government or Governour They cannot all give in their Votes to such an end alwayes some were dissenting and if they did not enter their Protest against the proceedings of their fellows it must be because they were deterred curbed and oppressed by a more prevalent faction obliging them and constraining them most unjustly to comply with their Opinions and Decrees For there appears no sound reason why a more numerous and powerful faction may not as well take away my Estate because they are stronger than I as take away my birth-right which Liberty is here asserted to be So that the very first step to Liberty must be founded in injustice in taking away that from me which I might no less in natural reason spoil them of and in servitude too in bringing me whom they acknowledge to be naturally free into unwilling subjection Neither is the difficulty solved in saying That Reason and Nature also require that for order sake and regulating humane Society the Minor part must yield to the Major For upon this supposition indeed that power is so absurdly and inconveniently posited there doth presently appear such a necessity But my Argument is taken from the absurdity of any such necessity of natures creating that the supposition is very false And if it were true yet were not that Maxime true which is here brought to controul and correct the same For Nature doth not teach us much less necessitate us in any case to follow the most numerous but rather reason and experience and the judgment of diligent and wise discussers of this Point inform us That the multitude are more inconsiderate undiscerning and injudicious then the fewer in number many times the world being generally thicker set with fools than wise men and fools being commonly more apt to be led by fools than with deeper and sounder reasons of the Wise Now as to the right of Revocation resting still in the People even after the supposed investiture of Power made to a Prince or other Magistrates I must confess upon supposition of a native right in them it to be very reasonable yea though the contract be very binding upon them to the securing of the persons so inaugurated in that State And that from the grounds already laid down which prove that no alteration ought to be made contrary to Divine or Natural Institutions and consequently the People being by natures Law Proprietaries in that Power all alienations attempted must needs be void any farther then they judge fit yea and farther too because they themselves are bound to keep themselves to such innate Rights and observe them duly And besides Civil and artificial Law as I may well call Humane can never extinguish Natural absolutely and justly And therefore what they gave the People they may require back again because they received that entailed upon them and their Posterity which they ought not nor can cut off And this I say not being ignorant what others have said to the contrary who are said to yield supream Power in the body of the People which they may dispose of to another but not revoke again any more than a man may recover back his Estate once lawfully made over to another But the disparity of the cases makes the answer very easie which is That no man being so naturally invested with a temporal estate as is here supposed the People to be with this Right of Dominion that may without any violation of a superiour Law be parted with and not this For supposing equally that God who hath given only a general right to man to possess the earth and not assigned any particular Lands to particular persons to be holden of Divine Right had done this latter it would have followed That he ought not to sell them and that such sale made were void before God As doth plainly appear in the distribution of the Land of Canaan unto several Tribes by no means to be confounded and of entailing of Lands unto particular Families by no means so to be alienated but they might return at a time prefixed to the same House But the Right of Rule in the People is lookt upon as by Nature and Divine ordinance belonging to them and therefore cannot de Jure be transferred or if attempted must needs by the same Right be revokable But I look not upon that Argument much used as concluding against the pretended power of the People which stands thus No man hath power of life and death over himself Therefore he cannot communicate this power essential to the Supream to any other For is it not possible a man who hath no such power over himself as in truth no man hath may yet have over another and this give unto another from a concurrence wherein One may receive a general dominion over many But if no man could give the power of Life and Death to another who cannot dispose of his own Life How could Kings themselves grant that power to inferiour Magistrates whenas themselves have no power to take away their own lives neither can they give power to another to take them away The last thing to be censured in the doctrine of the Peoples power is the perniciousness of it to all Empires and States where it is infused into the minds of the Commonalty and improved to actions naturally flowing from thence as experience hath sufficiently proved as well as reason informed of which latter omitting here the odious instances Histories and our own senses have ministred unto us we shall give these three only First That if it were true that such Power were radically and revocably in the people the people never being able to judge with general consent aright of the same thing nor soberly and quietly to concur to the same conclusion through the infinite variety and dâ—scord found in several free minds such licence of constituting and repealing their own Acts must of necessity produce great divisions and confusions amongst them without any insinuations or instigations of subtiller and more turbulent heads which do constantly watch and improve such occasions to bring ruin to a Nation upon some remote contemplation of a possible advantage arising out of
to him or otherwayes becomes his by the like Divine title as the Supream Power rightly posited and possessed doth to the owner thereof and therefore this being more sacred the invasion of this right is much more wicked and unjust Secondly Because a publick mischief and of general influence upon all is much more intolerable than a private But such a violation of Princely Right must of necessity draw on a publick mischief upon the whole civil Body I mean all the Subjects in such a Nation who shall be distracted between the sense of obedience known otherwise to be due and the terrour of usurped Power threatning ruin to such as comply not with their unjustice This being so necessary and convincing a truth unto most men of competent reason though incompetent conscience they have sought out an evasion which as occasion may serve may unqualifie Princes and ennoble and enable Subjects to oppose in hostile manner the tyrannies as they call them of Princes And the one strikes high and through the loyns of all Supremacie in single Persons affirming that one man is not capable of such a mass of power without apparent tyranny And as for manifest tyranny no great scruple they think ought to be made in repressing and curbing it and reducing it into its proper bounds This must be refelled by a more reasonable and sober judgment of tyranny For 't is a gross and dangerous mistake to look upon tyranny with such a vulgar and evil eye as to conceive that Plinipotencie and illimited Power is presently tyranny And that tyranny is not so much the abuse and unjust exercise of power which is the truest description of it but power it self and that it is not separable from some kind of Government as that which is absolute and unconfin'd by Laws But the first thing here supposed and so commonly and boldly taught is very false For there is no such thing as a Government in it self tyrannical and there is no one of all those which have been or may be invented but may equally be subject to that imputation And to be brief there can no possible reason be given why the Government of one should be tyranny rather than that of many of a Senate Or why people should not be said more truly to be free under that than this the Laws being more benign and equal there than here as who can deny but they may be whatever actually they are Nay we see that where most plausibly and gloriously Liberty is pretended by Governours and presumed on by the credulous multitude there commonly the yoke of obedience is most heavy and that a bold affirmation of a Free people prevails to the perswasion of men that so in truth they are contrary to common sense And all this chiefly from that fundamental Errour taken for an unquestionable truth viz. That to be governed by many is a state of Freedom and by a single Person of tyranny But tyranny is not proper to any one kind of Government whether consisting of one or more It is in brief no Government at all but the excess and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Arist lib. 3. Polit. cap. 4. 5. corruption of Governing and is in it self equally incident to all kinds however where Learning most flourished of old that extream hath been as it were appropriated to one the better surely to secure the hold which many Usurpers possessed themselves of commonly taking occasion from the miscarriages of such persons as were the managers of Power to invade Government themselves And if it be a true and reasonable distinction of Tyrants into Titled and Titleless how is it possible those great many and zealous assertours of Popular Liberty and invaders of Government as Junius Erutus with his Fellows should escape the due censure of the worst of Tyrants who expelling a Tyrant who had a Title usurped a power to which he had no Title and then proceeded to exercise an act to which he had no power viz. the thrusting out of his Equal and Collegue collating because possibly he might have afterward committed an offense not that he had This was a piece of tyranny not exceeded by any before him But it may be alleadged That there is a Law whereby it was free for any man to kill Tyrants and some late Demagogues have written for the promotion of Religion forsooth as well as Civil Liberty that to kill Buchananus De Jure Regni apud Scotos Tyrants and here I will not show whom they call Tyrants is as good an act as to slay Wolves Lyons and Bears But I would fain know whence such a Law proceeded if not from tyranny it self Even such persons who under colour of natural Law of returning evil for evil and self preservation have done the greatest injustice imaginable not only against the person persecuted but the people who never at any time had power so to deliver themselves nor if they had did generally and unanimously or could confer the same on the new Pretenders to it That Law therefore of killing Tyrants invented by Tyrants taketh place on the Authors of it as much as any body else and where the like power can be snatched up may have the same event on popular States-men as well as Kings and Princes For they are Tyrants too The other ground of Resistance of Supremacie abused by a single Ruler is commonly taken from a supposed right in Inferiour Magistrates as they are vulgarly called to restrain the exorbitancies and chastise the fury of immoderate Princes This invention hath so much more of speciousnes than the former by how much there is a sound of Authority and hope of greater order and prudence and formality of Justice than could be expected from a disorderly ignorant loose and precipitant multitude But being examined duly will be found very rotten and vain For as hath been well observed before me and is easie to be apprehended Grotiâ—s De Imperio summarum Pat. by the meanest capacity Magistrates here are no more than common people it being plain That no man can be properly tearmed a Magistrate or Governour but as he hath power and autority either derived or originally in himself over others and not as he is himself subject unto another Therefore any person bearing the name and office of a Magistrate though he be called also a Peer is no more than a Subject in relation to him who gave him that power and dignity And having no power but what he received and having received no power but to such and such ends and purposes and no man did ever intend to enable another to offer violence or injury to himself to disown a power borrowed and to make it absolute and to draw the Sword of Justice against him that first put it into his hands is not only base ingratitude but as notorious rebellion as if any of the vulgar rank should do the same St. Paul doth indeed require good Christians to make supplications 1
to be for certain reasons they draw at their pleasure out of Scripture and the necessity of our knowledge of it which is as solid a way of proceeding as if I finding my self by natural sense cold another should attempt to demonstrate the contrary because it is Midsommer But this use we may yet make of Universality to jude of Catholickness of Faith taking it for the most constant for time place and persons according as all humane account requires to ascribe that to the more numerous and eminent which is strictly proper only to the whole entire Body as a Councel or Senate is said to decree a thing when the chiefest do so some dissenting surely this is a very probable argument of the Catholickness of that Faith and consequently that Church so believing But what we before observed must not be forgotten here viz. That in all such enquiries as these the Estimate must be taken from the whole Church passed as well as Present and that there is as well an Eminency of Ages as Persons to preponderate in this Case Lastly the advantage Negative from Universality is very considerable to discern the true Faith and Church from false because it is most certain if any Doctrine or Discipline shall be obtruded on the Church which cannot be made evident to have been actually received in the Church and not by colourable and probable conjectures and new senses of Scripture invented to that purpose in some former Age that is Heretical and Schismatical and in no good sense Catholick The last Note which we shall mention is Sanctity which we hold very proper to this end taken abstractedly from all Persons as considered in Doctrine and Principles For if any Church doth teach contrary to the Law of nature of moral vertues of Justice or the like we may well conclude that to be a false Church though it keeps it self never so strictly to the Rule of Scriptures in many or most other things For it is in the power of mans wit and may be in the power of his hands to devise certain Religious Acts and impose them on others which shall carry a greater shew of severity and sanctity than there is any grounds for in Scripture or Presidents in the best approved Churches and yet this is not true Holiness of Believers For to this is principally required that it be regulated and warranted by Gods holy Word Yet neither so directly and expresly as if it were unlawful to act any thing in order to Holiness without special precept from thence For I see no cause at all to reject the ancient distinction found frequently with the Fathers of the Church of duties of Precept and duties of Councel For there ever was and ought to be in Christs Church several ranks of Professours of Christs Religion whereof for instance some live more contemplative some more active lives But if all commendable and profitable States were under Precept then should all sin that do not observe the same but God hath taken a mean course in not commanding some things of singular use to the promoting of Piety in true Believers but commending the same unto us Such are Virginal chastity Monastick life Travelling painfully not only towards the salvatian of a mans own soul but of others likewise and certain degrees uncommanded of Duties commanded as of charity towards our Christian neighbours Watchings unto Prayer and spiritual Devotion which being prescribed no man can determine to what degree they are by God required of us precisely some therefore are left to the Freewill-offerings of devouter persons who thereby endeavour either to assure themselves more fully of their salvation or increase of the glory afterward to be received For as Christ tells us in the Gospel Much was forgiven to Mary because she loved much so shall much be given upon the same reason They therefore that teach contrary to such wholesome and useful means of Holiness as these or the like under perhaps vain suspicion of too great opinion may be had of their worthiness incur at least with me the censure of being enemies to the holiness of Christs Church and render their Churches more suspected for the opposing of them than others for approving or practising them The Holiness then of the Church commending it to the eye and admiration of the World doth consist in the divineness and spiritualness of its Doctrine and Ecclesiastical discipline in use in it exceeding moral civility For it may be that such a severe hand of civil Justice may be held over a people that they may live more orderly and inoffensively to the world than some true Christian Churches but if this be done as often it is out of civil Prudence natural Gravity or a disposition inclined rather to get an estate than riotously and vainly to spend on which brings such scandal to Religion then is not this a sign of a true Church or Christian because it proceedeth not from principles proper to Christian Religion but secular interest how specious soever it may appear to the World CHAP. XXXI Of the Power and Acts of the Church Where they are properly posited Of the Fountain of the Power denyed to the Church Neither Prince nor People Authour of the Churches Power But Christ the true Head of the Church The manner how Christs Church was founded Four Conclusions upon the Premisses 1. That there was alwayes distinction of Persons in the Church of Christ 2. The Church was alwayes administred principally by the Clergy 3. The Rites generally received in the Church necessary to the conferring Clerical Power and Office 4. All are Vsurpers of Ecclesiastical Power who have not thus received it In what sense Kings may be said to be Heads of the Church AFter the Church found and founded as abovesaid the special Acts thereof claim due consideration and the Power or Right of so acting And this Power we make two-fold in General Political and Mystical or Sacramental Of both which we must first enquire after the proper Subject before we treat of the proper Acts thereof That all Power which is given by Christ doth reside in the Church as its subject no man can or doth question But because the Church it self being as is said a Society united in one Faith and administred outwardly by Christian Discipline according to Christs mind admitteth of several senses and acceptations therefore it must be first understood which and in what sense is according to Christs intention the proper seat of this power And before we come to Scriptural grounds we take no small help in this Enquiry from the common state of all Government which we have already shown to be such as is not ascending but descending It cometh not originally nor can from the multitude or people who are the object of this power i. e. the Persons properly to be governed and not governing all the Examples of former Ages confirming not only the unnaturalness and unreasonableness but impossibility of the People governing
such as were Christians without any autority in the Church and therefore we read often of the Apostles and their Party on the one side and Brethren on the other But the Officers and Rulers of the Acts. 11. 1 12 17 15 23 16. 2. Church are not found to have any general name distinguishing them from others but were by their particular charges and Offices known to men as Apostles Elders Bishops Evangelists Deacons But afterward compendiousness of speech general cemprehension of them so distinct requiring they received their several Names not as Socinus Salmasius and some such presumptuous traders for Anarchy in the Church would have it the things themselves or being For it is granted that at first all true believers Clerus dicimur quia sors Dei sumus Hieron Item Praefat. ad Enarrat August Psal 1 Pet. 5. 3. were called indifferently 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Gods Portion or Clergy as we now speak For it is very probable that St. Peter using that word which we render Clergy doth intend to comprehend thereby all Christian People as well as they who as St. Hierome saith are the Lords portion more peculiarly But with good advice afterward they who were more especially dedicated to Gods service and attended his Altar were signally called the Clergy and the other the Laity or people very agreeably to the phrase of the Old Testament where we find not only a distinction in the things themselves but in the names of such as served any ways in Gods house and those who were only Israelites at large For these were called simply 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Sons of the People or the Laity as we now adayes speak 2 Chron. 35 7 12. Vid. Vatab. in Locum in opposition to the Levites which discrimination in terms was thought to be introduced in Josiah's time Secondly From what is said we may conclude that even before and after this distinction all the administration of Church affairs passed through the hands of these Persons of the Clergy or Ecclesiastical Functions and that their Votes and Acts ever went under the name of the Church it may be that in the beginning of the Church when Christians had not so many advantages as after they had and their convenience of assembling was not so great but they were constrained to teach and pray and determine controversies and ordain Laws for the Church that the Laity as we now call them were present at all these but that this fortuitous presence should inferr a right nothing appears A third Conclusion may be That observing the orderly Rites used to invest any person with a Clerical Power it must necessarily follow that they who wanted them never attained the thing it self For the Author to the Hebrews asserts plainly the sacredness of Evangelical Ministring Heb. 5. 4. from the Prescriptions and practise of the Levitical saying No man takes this office upon him but he that was called of God as was Aaron and least it might be presumed that this strickness concerned the Old Law only he proceedeth to that greatest of Precedents Christ himself who though he needed not any Institution being absolutely free to all such purposes of himself yet was called of God in signal manner to shew that all that exercise such Sacred function should much more be thereunto orderly called Now to understand what this ordinary and orderly call is the better it is worth the observing how Aaron was called for so in proportionable manner ought all under the Gospel be ordained to the Ministry And here first we may note there is not the least intimation given of such a Call as is Internal upon which many vainly rest But Aaron was called not only internally by certain proper and sufficient Gifts to that Office but externally and that not of himself but of another He was called by God Now least it should be here suspected that a bare and bold presumption of being called of God without some outward evidence prooving the same might suffice to justify an Intruder of himself into the Ministry the Scripture tells us how Aaron was called of God and that is not only of God and immediately but mediately by man that is by Moses Nay farther because many content themselves with such an Ordination as comes from another not examining much what power or Right such persons have so to ordain others the Scriptures tell us that Aaron was called by another and him appointed specially by God so to do as we read Exodus the 28. 1. where Exod. 2. ◠God commandeth Moses saying And take thou unto thee Aaron thy Brother and his sons with him from among the children of Israel that they may minister unto me in the Priests Office Here is their Election or Vocation Their consecration or ordination followeth afterward described particularly according to its several Ceremonies in the next chapter So that we see the great Example or Figure of Evangelical ordination directeth to such a form as ought to be of God by the hands of some who are thereunto appointed And if any should here interpose that Moses himself was no Priest properly himself though he were of the Tribe of Levi and yet he consecrated Priests being himself rather a Civil Magistrate and from hence argue a power in Lay-men especially Magistrates to do the same now adayes I answer here indeed doth Calvins defence of himself and such as are in like condition take place of an Ordinary call and an Extraordinary For before God had setled a Rule and Order in his Church the extraordinary and immediate hand of God did appoint persons to minister before It was therefore first of all an Extraordinary Act in God to call Moses rather than any others to direct and Rule his Church it was next an Extraordinary Act in him to separate the whole Tribe of Levi to Minister before him but from that time forward there was no such thing heard of as an Extraordinary Call Secondly I answer that God prescribing to us Rules and Precedents doth not thereby so tie his own hands as he doth ours but when he pleaseth he may create Persons in Extraordinary manner to what ends he will And his Autority infallibly granted to those we call now Lay-men is altogether sufficient to make a Priest of what Order or dignity soever he shall be But until such infallible Proofs of either Gods immediate Calling which is Extraordinary indeed or his immediate enabling or empowring any other Person not having in the ordinary Course established in his Church received such a power be given all such Extraordinary assuming of the Ministery on a mans self is more then one way Extraordinary and to be rejected as void And with such no good and conscientious Christian ought to Communicate as with Priests that is as Offering the Spiritual Sacrifice of Prayer and Praise unto God as a Legitimate and Publick Minister of God or Mediatour of the People or that Mistical Sacrifice in the
may reconcile many otherwise contrary opinions found amongst the Ancient Fathers sometimes ascribing much of the Ecclesiastical Power to Christian Emperours and sometimes calling the same in question The Church of England so far as she hath declared herself herein seemeth to take the mean way and follow herein the Prescriptions of the Old Testament and the Precedents of Christian Emperors found in the Antient Church under the Gospel and doth profess to be the due of our Kings as much as ever any Kings upon earth to sway in Ecclesiastical matters In execution of which power as there was alwayes approbation moderated according to the customes of the Church so was there always Opposition when the bounds were exceeded And undoubtedly true is That we are taught by our Church to acknowledge That whatever in Church Constitutions and Canons Church of England Can. 2. matters was the Right of Jewish Kings or Christian Emperours of Old is so now the Right of our Kings But some not content herewith have out of the Title of Head given at the first attempts of Reformation to our King and made by acts of State Hereditary to his successors drawn an argument to prove all that power which rested in the Church to be devolved on the Kings of this Nation But this hath ever been disowned and disclaimed in such a large sense by themselves as appears by Queen Elizabeths Injunctions and an Act of Parliament in confirmation whereof I shall here only recite the opinion or testimony of Bishop Jewel in his view of Pius Quintus his seditious Bull Bishop Jewel against the Bull of Pius 5th against her in these his own word Where is the called Supream Head Peruse the Acts of Parliament the Records the Rolls and the Writs of Chancery or Exchequer which pass in her Graces name Where is she ever called Supream Head of the Church No No brethren she refuseth it she would not have it nor be so called Why then doth Christs Vicar blaze and spread abroad so gross an untruth c. This was her Judgement and modesty then when there was greatest cause to apprehend some such thing and what she thought of it I never could learn was ever otherwise interpreted by her Successors For notwithstanding that according to the most ancient and undoubted Rights of this Emperial Crown our Kings are supream Governors of the Church as well as State yet never was it expounded of the Church as they were Ecclesiastical but as they were of Civil capacity For herein differeth the Right of Kings according to our Reformation from that of Roman Perswasion That Clergy men becoming Sons of the Church in more especial manner than they of the Laity are not thereby exempted from the Civil Power either in matter of propertie or Criminalness But the Roman Church so far exalted and extended their Ecclesiastical Power as to withdraw such Persons and their Cases civil from Civil cognizance and judgement and assume it to themselves And this the Pope claiming very injuriously as Head of the Church To root up this usurpation Henry the eight null'd that his pretence and took the title to himself intending nothing more then to vindicate his Prerogative in that particular For though it cannot be denied that many and great Priviledges to this effect have been of Old granted by Christian Emperours to eminent Bishops to judge of their own Sons as they were called within themselves yet did they never claim this as a Native Right of the Church or Christianity but as an act of Grace from the Civil Power And though the Church following therein the Councel of St. Paul to go to Law rather before 1 Cor. 6. 1. the Just than unjust and that Christians should rather determine Causes of differences amongst themselves by arbitration than scandalously apply themselves to the Judgement Seat of Heathen did ever endeavour to determine business within it self and yet more especially the Clergy Yet they never denied a Right in Civil Autority to call them in question upon misdemeanours or to decide their Cases of Civil nature And for the other of Divine nature or purely Ecclesiastical Princes never expected or desired to intermeddle therewith This the Roman Deputy of Achaia Gallio understood not to concern his Juridical power when Act. 18. he refused to be a Judge of such matters as were esteemed Religious though in that violence was offered to the body of St. Paul before his face he might and ought to have shewn his Autority But when the Soveraign Power became Christian it was not thought unlawful at all nor scandalous to address themselves to it for decision of Controversies And this is it which is intended to be demanded now by our Kings in their Supremacy in Cases Ecclesiastical and Civil and acknowledged by the Clergy of this Church to be his due without that servile way of seeking leave from the Bishop of Rome or any under him Onely where it may be showed that Peculiar Grants of Exemptions from the common course of Justice have been made by Princes to the Clergy of the Church may it not seem equal that they should enjoy the benefit of them as well as others in other Cases But nothing is more unreasonable or intollerable then the impudence of those spitefully and malitiously bent against the Religion professed in our Church who argue from the Kings Supremacy over the Church such an absolute dominion there as they will by no means acknowledge due to him in the State If by Acts of Parliament a thing be confirmed to the Commonwealth it is lookt on as inviolable by the King and unalterable without the like solemn Revocation as was the Constitution But by vertue of the Ancient Right of the Crown they would have it believed the King may at his pleasure alter such solemn Acts made in behalf of the Church Without the concurrence of the Three Estates nothing is lookt upon as a standing Law to the Civil State but by vertue of this Supremacy Ecclesiastical they would have it believed that without any more ado without consent or counsel of the Church he may make what alteration of Religion he pleases which was never heard or dreamt of Yea and whereas not only his Civil but Ecclesiastical Power always acknowledged the Bounds of common benefit and extended not to destruction they would have it thought that he may when he pleaseth by vertue of such Headship destroy the Body of the Church and Religion and leave none at all so far at least as the withdrawing of all secular aid and advantage do hasten its ruine But they will not be of this opinion any longer than they have brought about their mischievous purposes Surely St. Paul who had 1 Cor. 5. 12. nothing to do at all with State matters and could not touch one that was without the Church by Ecclesiastical censure was as much the Head of the Church as ever any Prince in Christendom doth expressly declare that whatsoever
with Christians denying them all outward conversation as well as spiritual in matters of Religion Now this seems to be a branch of the Old Greater Excommunication and not in all places disusâ—d And sometimes is unlawful and otherwhile lawful according to the extent and application of them For to inflict the same to the dissolving of ties of nature is not agreeable to the simplicity of the Gospel And Natural Ties we call such as are between Subjects and Soveraign Parents and Children Husband and Wife which by no Ecclesiastical Excommunication can be broken or nulled The reason whereof besides the monstrous effects ensuing upon their evacuation not here to be treated of is this That Ecclesiastical Power can take away no more than it gave nor Christianity destroy what it never builded But Christianity did never simply confer such Rights on men but the Law of Nature only it regulated and directed the same therefore can it not null it It is therefore unchristian for any pretending Ecclesiastical Power to absolve subjects from obedience Civil or Children from natural and the like But every Christian in that he is adopted of God by baptism and admitted into the Society of Christians doth receive thereby certain Rights and power to communicate with it in all things which power may be forfeited and lost by breach of Covenant as well with the Body of the Church to live and believe according to the Received Faith and practice thereof as with the Head Christ And this being so judged by those who are over the Church in the Lord it is very consonant to Christian Religion to deny such of what order or rank soever they be the signs of outward communion Prayer and Communication of the Holy Sacraments of Christ The Church hath power to declare even soveraign Princes uncapable of such Communion and deny it them which we call the Lesser Excommunication Yet because as we said No natural Right can be extinguished upon unchristian misdemeanours If a Supream Prince of a Place should disdain to be denied or opposed in such cases and would make his entrance into the Church by vertue of his Civil Right to all places under his Dominion the most that the Church could do justly in such cases were to diswade him but by any force to resist his entrance into any Church were unlawful as it would be also to minister in a Christian manner in his presence for this cannot be commanded by him but in such cases suffering must be put in practice as for the Faith it self sought to be destroyed Some there are yet who call in question the peculiar and incommunicable Right of decreeing this Censure of Excommunication to those called the Clergy which is very strange seeing this Power is part of that of the Keys delivered by Christ himself to such only as he constituted Governors of the Church and that in Christs days their was a distinction between the Members of his Body as to Inferiority and Superiority Obedience and Command Teacher and Learner and much more in the Apostles days after Christs Assention and much more yet after their days according as the matter of the Church Christians encreasing and improving became more capable of a more convenient form and fashion For as it is in the production of natural things though the Form be certain and constant and the very same at the first production as in its perfection yet it doth not appear so fully and perfectly as afterward So was it with the Body of Christs Church It is certain therefore that from the beginning this Act of Excluding from the Communion was never executed but by the Rulers and Presidents of Congregations though the people might concurr thereto Now that these Rulers whom we may call Bishops or Presbyters were not created by the People nor by the Prince we have shewed already and therefore did nothing in their Right but in the Power of Christ whose Ministers alone they properly were And this being essential to right Administration of the Church how can it be supposed either to be separable from the Church in General or from those persons who are the proper Administrators of it For to say with some It is needless Selden de Jure Gentium apud Bibliander apud Erastum wholly where Christian Magistrates rule whose proper office it is to rebuke and punish vice and scandalous misdemeanors which say they can only be just cause of Excommunication is to destroy the subject of the question which supposes it needful and upon this enquires after the Persons which should Execute the same And spitefully to defeat the Church of all Authority from Christ doth indeed translate this Power to the Civil Magistrate And is not the absurdity the very same which endowes the Christian Governor with Civil Power and which endows the Civil Magistrate with Christian If it be not absurd for a King to be a Philosopher it is not absurd for a Philosopher to be a King If it be not absurd for a Civil Magistrate to have Priestly power it is not absurd for him that hath Priestly power to be a Magistrate There is certainly no inconsistency on either side For things of a far different nature and intention may easily meet in the same person though the things themselves can never be the same Here therefore the things differing so egregiously it is no more than nacessary that a different cause be acknowledged necessary which not appearing the Effect must be denied Now the Cause of all Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction as Ecclesiastical must needs come from him from whom the Church it self hath its Original and being And it is a certain Rule that a man is born to nothing that comes from Christ as Head of his Church but is made and instituted Which whoever is not cannot lay any just claim to any Office under him I know it is objected that Preaching being an Ecclesiastical Act hath without contradiction been practised by diverse and to this day may be no ordination preceeding To which I thus answer by distinguishing first between doing a thing Ex Charitate and Ex Officio out of Charity and out of duty Preaching was ever permittedin the Church especially taken in the larger sense wherein it signifies all declaration of the Gospel out of Charity But the office of Preaching was never suffered but upon antecedent qualifications And these two differ yet farther For he that doth a thing out of Office doth it so that it is not lawful for him absolutely to omit it but he that doth it out of Charity and only by connivance not by commission may cease at his pleasure and as he made may suspend himself when he will Again he that teaches without Autority upon bare permission nay be silenced without any other cause renderd but the will of him that hath the Jurisdiction or if a reason be given because He hath no autority is sufficient But he that is orderly instituted to that end cannot without
injustice and Tyranny be denied the exercise of that which pertains to him Now the Key of Knowledge and the Key of Jurisdiction of which the Power of the Keys delivered by Christ consists and into which it is commonly divided are very different For the first doth but open the door to the others and prepares and qualifies a person for the other but doth no more actually give power or autority than the great skill and experience of a Souldier makes him a Captain to command others or knowledge in the law makes a man a judge actually It is therefore the Key of Jurisdiction or a Right given by Christ to administer the Church and every member thereof that is principally to be acknowledged in this Case And which not being found to descend orderly from Christ no effect of that affected power can be acknowledged But as is said doth not descend naturally or by birth but Judicially from others In which manner who ever receives it not sacrilegiously murps what belongs not to him But they who would wring this power out of the hands of the Church Selden de Synedriis Lib 1. Cap. 9. do give us certain Presidents as well from the Jewish Church wherein there was it should seem a custom that one Person might excommunicate another when he pleased But the same Antiquaries tell us also that it was in use amongst them for a man to excommunicate himself And this I take to imply an answer to the former For it is in the power of any man to separate himself from the Church or any other Society materially and Really but Judicially and Formally he cannot neither can he separate another otherwise than by absenting himself from the Communion of the Church he may indeed as formally pronounce such a censure against himself or an other as the most Canonical Judge in the world but intrinsique power being wanting the outward Act turns to smoak as to others but as to himself has no other effect then he that is in a boat hath upon the earth against which he sets his oar and thrusts hard but puts himself off not the earth as our neighbouring Ministers did when with intollerable and incredible presumption they took upon them to Excommunicate their own Bishops and some of the transmarine Churches of the same Platform were so wise as to allow their Fact And to the Instances of some Princes whom Histories affirm to have Excommunicated Id. ibid. certain persons the Answer is That the word Excommunication hath deceived the reporters and appliers thereof to this Case For according to signification of that word both in the Latin and Greek language Excommunication or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is the declaration by Publick Herauld Suidas in 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Item 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of any guilty Person to be excluded or banished the Princes Court or Company or perhaps Dominions Thus many have been Excommunicated by Soveraign Princes But can any instances be given of such as without any further Act of the Church have been thereupon denied Communion with the Church And what we say of Excommunicating holds good likewise in the Power of Absolution which the same Persons allow to meer secular Powers and would prove from an Act of Constantine the Great his absolving Eusebius Bishop of Nicomedia Constantine we all know had but little knowledge in the Rites of the Church at that time and might attempt he knew not what as soon as any other man whose affection to Christianity far exceeded his Judgement But what is affirmed of Constantines Act That he Restored that Excommunicated person to the Communion of the Church which only is properly Absolution No surely but he might restore him to his See and that is all Or if more were done he might be said to do it who caused by the interposition of his Power some Bishop of the Church to free him from those Eonds But questionless that is none of the least corruptions which the Church of Rome stands guilty of and which our Church hath but too much connived at that the Power of Excommunication should be in the hands of Lay men To mend this a little they of the Roman Law distinguish that which by no means should be separated curing one absurdity by another Anastafius Germbnius de Sacrorum Immunitat For they distinguish Episcopal Order from Episcopal Jurisdiction and say a man that hath not Episcopal Order but Episcopal Jurisdiction may Excommunicate a vile and corrupt imagination brought in on purpose to serve the turns of ambitious secular and sacrilegious Drones who would drive two trades of secular advantage and Ecclesiastical Profits For there is nothing so Essential unto Episcopacy as Jurisdiction I mean an Habitude and Right to Preside and Rule and there can be no Episcopal power without that nor that without Episcopal Charactar Officers indeed there may be under him void of that Charactar or any Priestly because though the Court be properly Ecclesiastical yet all things are not so which are acted therein Judicial Acts and Acts of Notaries and of Executions are competible to unordain'd persons because Gifts of nature and Learning may capacitate a man to them but that of Jurisdiction properly so called is the intrinsique Right of the Pastour of the Church and this of Excommunication annext thereunto or rather a part of it And therefore he is not a Bishop that hath it not and he that hath it is a Bishop It is not indeed necessary that this should be denounced by a Bishop but that this power which is likewise inherent in a Priest as a Priest be committed to him after the decree made by the Bishop For the Priest having a Jurisdiction within himself by vertue of his place and office but restrained by the Superiour Power to him the Jurisdiction and Autority of the Bishop is seen sufficiently in this that it enables a Priest to do that which of himself he ought not to do and this is rather exciting an old power in the Priest then infusing a new giving right to it to exert it self which before it had not But Lay-men having no Ecclesiastical Charactar inherent in them cannot by any such general commission given them from the Bishop act effectually to that end for want of the due Principle this Licence of the Bishop being nothing else but removing of that Obstacle which hinders it to work where it was For to deliberate debate and Judge of causes and persons subject to Excommunication may possibly be better performed by such who have attained to that science without any order in the Clergy but the fact it self is quite of another nature CHAP. XXXIII Of the second branch of Ecclesiastical Power which is Mystical or Sacramental Hence of the Nature of Sacraments in General Of the Vertue of the Sacraments Of the sign and thing signified That they are alwayes necessarily distinct Intention how necessarie to a Sacrament Sacraments Effectual to Grace HAving
of Rome but they must make themselves thereby Schismatiques before God though before the Church they cannot be condemned for such qualifying this hard saying with this Supposition only That the Church of Rome alwayes had and hath Salvation in it as a true Church though corrupted For that we may and do call a True Church wherein the principles of Christianity are kept intire as to the most fundamental of them but withal this hinders not but diverse things at the same time and by the same Church which are damnable may be found in it For in the same house saith St Paul there are Vessels to honour and dishonour which we may as well interpret of Tenets of faith as of the Professours of the Faith And in the same Dispensatorie are both Poisons and Cordials yea in the same dish may be found Food sufficient to nourish and destroy shall we therefore not be careful to avoid the whole because we do acknowledge the wholesomness of so many in it Who knowes not that there are monstrousnesses in Excess as well as defect And that it suffices not to keep a man in communion with a Church that all things necessary are therein contained when withal many things not only unnecessary but pernicious are shuffled together with them If we can therefore shew as we suppose we have and can that the Roman Church alloweth and propoundeth many heretical dogmes many Idololatrical practises what will it avail them to have it granted them that all truths are extant there in the Monuments of their Church It will here infallibly be replied by them That it cannot be that a Church at the same time can hold all things needful in Faith and worship and yet maintain such errours as are charged upon them To which I say and grant That 't is not possible they should hold the same things as contrary or appearing so unto them But really they may and actually doe First as Philosophers should of contraries In gradu remisso not Intenso In the remisser and lower degrees not the extremest Secondly They may hold contraries really though not formally and as contrary For instance They may hold this fundamental opinion That God alone is to be worshipped with that divine worship which is the supreamest of all And they may hold that such a thing for example the Host is very God which verily is not God and consequently may teach the worship of such a reputed God Their Churches faith if it teaches strictly that only the true God is to be worshipped is inviolate and sound in Thesis But their Perswasion that such this is is an errour in fact rather than in Faith which contradicts the former opinion really But we hold That it is necessary to salvation that we erre not in such gross facts though we abominate detest and renounce the sin never so solemnly And the like may we say in many points of difference between us and them when they hold the proposition in General sound and good but by help of infinite and unintelligible distinctions word it out and ware off the imputation but not the Guilt of Errour Of the number of which things hard to be understood is that consideration of Schism before God and Schism before the Church with an implication that Separation from a true Church makes men Schismaticks before God though not before men because for example The Church of Rome cannot oblige any body to stand to the Autority which it so abaseth namely by breaking the Canons of the Church It is true A Church or Man may be a Schismatick before God and not before the Church But it cannot possibly be imagined how a man can be a Schismatique before men and from men and not before God But if it could be were we not in a very fair way to hell if we had no more to answer for than our Schism before God Were not our whole Church Schismatical and as good as lost though men took no notice of it It doth not follow therefore neither is it confessed that all are Schismaticks who separate from a true Church unless the separation be from it As it is true For we have shown that a Church true in essentials may fail in Integrals And it is no hard matter to show that a Church Erring in doctrines constituting the body of Faith may be separated from without Schism And the reason proving this is because that such Churches are alreadie really Schismatical through the said errours and it is not only lawful but a duty to separate from Schismaticks For so saith St. Paul We command you brethern in the name of the 2 Thes 3. 6. Lord Jesus Christ that ye withdraw your selves from every brother that walketh disorderly and not after the tradition which he received of us And what Traditions do we think St Paul intendeth there Only Ecclesiastical Canons and decrees of Councils for the better Government of the Catholick Church That this he may mean I denie not but that no more I denie For he that offends against the Faith offends against the Traditions To the Church but he that breaks the Constitutions offends against the Traditions Of the Church only which are of far inferiour nature It may well be doubted whether breaking of the Canons of the Church only can justify a Separation from a Church because they are not so much the Traditions delivered To the Church by Christ and his Apostles as the Traditions Of the Church which in their nature are mutable But yet if any co-ordinate Church shall refuse to innovate but stick resolutely and firmly to the received Discipline and Lawes of the Church while others shall violate them and choose new Forms and impose new Conditions of communion with it not agreeable to the old upon which a schism followes surely the guilt of Schism is to fall only upon that Church which thus innovates For though I am apt to believe that such alterations may not be sufficient to justifie a renunciation of Communion with such an Innovating Church and much less in single persons and private members of the same Church yet doubtless it fully excuses from the guilt of Schism if it patiently and passively persists in the more ancient and conformable way to the Churches of Christ in past ages even with apparent peril of Schism provided that the said Traditional Laws and practices shall not by the more judicious and conspicious part of the Church assembled freely and Lawfully in Council be judged inconvenient and so according to the Right it hath to reverse or establish things in nature alterable declar'd void and introduce new For in such cases disowning of the Power and Autority of the Church and refusing the decrees thereof tending to the General unitie of it is of it self a Schismatical Act. But in notorious errours in Doctrine or Faith it is free for any particular Church to divide from another because such corruption is of selfe damnable And in such cases we need
purpose or to their advantage to say for instance sake as the more sober especially when they would gain upon the good opinion of men That Images may be worshipped relatively and as instruments to devotion and helps but when there are found and generally known to be such doctrines as teach a veneration of Images for their own sakes and directly and that with the same sort of worship that the things they represent are capable of though perhaps they upon a pinch can insert a distinction which neither can be understood nor profit such a doctrine as this known to be delivered by the Principal Doctors of their Churches and maintain'd not being condemned by that Church however not generally embraced may subject a Church to a censure of Heresie and Idolatry of both and so in other things whereof tolerable senses are given in the Church of Rome or else they could not be said so much as to be a Church at all but intolerable and Heretical are also uncondemned and so are no true Church and so may be separated from without Schism but not without peril of damnation united to And do not our brethren for such they were before they professed Schism and I hope may be after they have renounced it see now plainly enough the vaniâ—y and spitefulness of their Evasion Are not the Cases infinitely different and that in their own eyes Hear they what Perkins saith to our and their purpose So long as a Church Perkins on Gal. C. 5. V. 20. or people do not Separate from Christ we may not separate from them 2 Pro. 24. 21. Fear the King and meddle not with them that vary i. e make alterations against the Laws of God and the King Indeed Subjects may signifie what is good for the State and what is amiss but to make any alteration in the State either Civil or Ecclesiastical belongs to the Supream Magistrate And â—n another place the same Author hath these words Great therefore is the rashness Id. Galat 1. V. 2. and want of moderation in many that have been of us that condemn our Church for no Church without sufficient conviction going before If they say we have been admonished by books published I say again these be grosser faults in some of those books than any of the faults that they reprove in the Church of England and therefore the books are not â—it to convince especially a Church Thus we see how the cases in the matter difier And no less may we see the difference in the manner For 't is apparent that Schismaticks against the Church of England never had any Legal autority to warrant their vile and Scandalous practices but were forced to give names to things uncapable of them to excuse themselves or else by an unnatural course to entitle the People to a Power Supream who have none at all but what is given them from another fountain neither did the people concurr with such misdemeaners as was pretended they did But thirdly another difference is to be noted from the Rights of a Patriarchal Power over a Provincial Church not properly of its Diocess and that of a Metropolitan with his Suffragans over the members of the Church which they altogether make For according to the constitutions of the Church though a Patriarchs Power was Intensively equal to Episcopal over his proper and immediate Diocess and Extensively much greater than the Metropolitans or Bishops in relation to other Diocesses yet was it never so Intensive i. e. so particular and great in those Bishops Diocesses over which he had only an Order of Unity rather than Intrinsick power to dispose matters therein though in process of time this also was invaded much by him and might be recovered to the proper Bishop by the Laws of the Church But the Bishops of this Church had the sole and immediate disposing of the affairs of it and nothing could be concluded without obligation of obedience out of Conscience without their Concurrence as desparately as Schismaticks then did and still do rage at this truth But then as Hinderson saith with others They would never reform themselves It is very likely so meaning as they would have them but that not to the better Rule of the Ancient Churches and the Scriptures is more than they knew or would acknowledg when they saw because still they would have done otherwise and invented a new Rule of their own But seeing the grounds and Cause of separation are they upon which the Guilt of Schism is avoided or contracted according to the nature of them and obscure and difficult and tedious is the method leading to the tryal of the sufficiency of them to justifie a Separation therefore it were well contrived if as in the search of a true Church they may being very long and uncertain and grievous to most proceeding upon the points of Faith and Parts of worship themselves certain infaâ—lible obvious and plain Characters could be produced to convince the Schism and distinguish it from simple and innocent Separation A Fair attempt to which hath been made by Austin who dispuâ—ing against the Donatists denies that any man can separate from the Universal Church innocently So that although it should be doubtful as most things are managed by Learned Partisans whether considering the grounds of Separation in themselves the Separation be Schismatical or lawful and laudable yet by such an outward Characteristick it might be competently discerned And so farmust I needs comply with that Judicious and Holy Father and such as urge this out of him against us as to yield it a most probable outward Note of Schism for any man or number of men not a Church but in Fieri as they speak only and in breeding to divide from the Universal Church not only as comprehending all Ages but of any one Age the weight and evidence of which Concession will appear from the esteem of the Church Catholick and the wrath and extent of Christs promises to preserve it in All truth For this is certain That Christ directed his promises and restrained them to no one time or Age. And it is not probable there should be such an Intercession or intermission of Faith or Christianity that the universal Church should mortally err in any one thing necessary to salvation nay though we take it not in such a large sense as sometimes it is wont to be used for all individual persons in it as well as Churches of which the whole is constituted And therefore to desert the communion of all Churches not of persons for this is scarce to be supposed to happen at any time doth argue shrewdly That the separation hath much of Schism in it without examination of particular grounds which are pretended sufficient For it will be said That it ought not to be supposed that Christ should deliver over his whole Church to such heretical errours which only can exempt a Separation from Schism From such notorious suspicions as these we
of devotion must be held before the eyes as if they were asham'd of what they did whereas St. Paul saith plainly every man praying or prophesying having his head covered 1 Cor. 11. 4. dishonoureth his head and again For a man ought not to cover his head c. 7. But surely he who covereth his face with his hat or such liâ—â— doth altogether as much thwart the design of the Apostle as he that covereth it with his hair I wonder much who could be the author of such an indecent and absurd custom but more to find it defended in some sort by Calvin Calvinus in Esaiam cap. 38. 2. upon Esay and reasons rendered for the same by Amesius in his Cases of Conscience the best he can devise being these two Either to prevent avocation of mind which may be occasioned by the eye Or to conceal such singular gestures Ames de Conscient lib. 4. c. 18. quaest 3. which may be some times necessary to us but seem silly and hypocritical to others These two occasions being taken away Covering the head agrees rather to women than men 1 Cor. 11. 4 5. Thus he And that these are not sufficient causes thus appears because such an accidental inconvenience as is the former ought not to null a direct good but publique and open profession of our duty reverence and devotion to God is that which God doth require as an act of worship and the good example to others should preponderate that particular possible inconvenience And as for the other no man ought to use such absurd and ridiculous ceremonies in his face being in publique as should be apt to give offence but compose his whole man to such gravity and decency as might become the place wherein he is which is in every mans power as it is his part And 't is very unreasonable and somewhat more that men should abhor to receive ceremonies of Communion and uniformity from the Church and yet be more superstitious in inventing and introducing private Ceremonies into the Church and unapproved by it such as this is But though all postures and gestures be alike in nature yet nothing must be done in publique but what is reputed sober modest and grave as well in respect of the persons assembled as for the place sake of which if we had a due opinion it would be superfluous to multiply arguments to extort reverence therein And what need we any farther proofs of the dignity of it then that it is Gods house as hath been shewed and the place where his honour dwells and our happiness especially And therefore before I end this I cannot forbear giving all good Christians warning of one of Mr. Perkins absurd and false dogmes which I doubt not but hath deceived many into prophaness in publique In regard of Conscience Holiness and Religion all places are holy and alike in the New Testament since the coming of Christ The Perkins Cases of Conscience lib. 2. c. 6. qu. 3. §. 3. House or the Field is as holy as the Church And if we pray in either of them our prayer is as acceptable to God as that which is made in the Church All this we look upon as prophane and false Let us hear how out of Scripture he proves his new paradoxes For now saith he the days are come which were foretold by the Prophet where in a clean offering should be offered to God in every place Mal. 1. 11. which Paul expounds 1 Tim. 2. 8. of pure and holy prayer offered to God in every place Of these words of St. Paul which I acknowledge to be the sense of the Prophet I have already given the true meaning and so answered both to this effect That whatever the Scripture prophetically delivers concerning the diffusion of Gods worship or the Apostle actually declares as come to pass comes to no more but that God should be more purely served under the Gospel by the Sacrifice of prayer c. than he was by the Sacrifice of beasts to him and such like and that the service of God should be as well performed out of Jerusalem as in it and in Christian Temples in what Country or Angle of the world soever they were built as in that of Hierusalem but that it was ever intended that he should be as well served in the fields or private houses as in Churches raised for that purpose when necessity constrained not men otherwise doth not in the least appear And the same answer likewise we give to the words of Christ to the woman of Samaria Joh. 4. 25. of which we also spake before As also to that of Christ Matth. 6. 5. reproving the affected hypocritical practise of the Pharisees praying in all publick places to be noted Then which kind of Devotion no doubt but a Prayer in the Closet is much more acceptable to God But doth it therefore follow that such a prayer as is so acceptable in the closet would not be as acceptable in the Temple and more too surely nothing of this which ought to be the conclusion is contained in the argument Now proceeds Mr. Perkins the opinion of the Papist is otherwise It is so and is much truer than the Puritans and more agreeable to the word of God For he thinks that in the New Testament hallowed Churches are more holy than other places are or can be and do make the prayers offered to God in them more acceptable to him than in any other and hereupon they teach that private men must pray in Churches and private prayers must be made in Churches if they will have them heard All this they teach indeed but do they teach this as Papists or as Christians Did not the doctrine and constant practise of all ages and places when and where there were Churches teach the very same Nay doth not Bucer one of the most eminent Reformers for judgment and Quantâ— jam religione sunt loca cultui Dei consecrata huic uni reipate facienda supra aliqua ex parte ostendimus Adeo autem vulgo obtinuit horum locorum horrenda sane prophanatio c. Bucerus de Regno Christi l. 2. c. 11. learning say in a manner as much in these words With what religiousness therefore are places consecrated to Divine worship to be opened to this one thing and to be preserved most sacred we have in some measure before shewed But vulgar custom has far prevailed in a horrible profanation of these places while men having thrown away all reverence of a Deity in them walk in them for their recreation as in walks void of all sacredness and in them exchange all sorts of prophane and impure discourse so that to remove this so unseasonable dammage to the Divine Majesty severe Laws of godly Kings and Princes are requisite and ready and constant vindications of such Laws besides the devout exhortations of holy men whereby it should be brought to pass that Gods holy Temple should not be
the opinion of Tertullian They who tranâ—gress the Rule of Discipline cease to be reckoned among Christians And as Clemens Alexandrinus saith As it behoveth a person of Equity to falsifie in nothing and to go back from Qui excedunt dâ— Reculâ— disciplinâ— dâ—sinunt hâ—berâ— Christiani Tertul. Clem. Alex. Strom. 7. p. 753 764. nothing that he hath promised although others should break Covenants so it becometh us to transgress the Ecclesiastical Canon in no manner And to convince any man of conscience or fear of God of this Balsamon's reasons may suffice demonstrating a greater reverence and respect to be due to the Constitutions of the Church than to the Laws of the State For saith he the Canons being explained and confirmed by Kings and Holy Fathers are received as the Scriptures But the Laws of the State were received and established by Kings alone and therefore do not prevail against See Photius's Nomocanon Tit. 1. c. 2. cum Palsamone p. 817 818. the Scriptures nor the Canons And this I rather instance in from the Greek than Latin Church because the ignorant and loud clamors of Sectaries have had nothing more to alledg against the Sacredness of Ecclesiastical Constitutions than that which serves their turns in all things Popishness of Canonical Obedience But may they judg what they please according as design and interest sway them this we constantly and confidently affirm that whoever despises the Rules of of Obedience and Laws of the Church cannot rise higher in that Part of Christian Religion which we call Worship of God than may meer Moral men Because that which chiefly distinguishes good Christians from good honest Heathens next to the doctrine of Faith is proportionable Obedience as well to those God hath substituted under him to ordain things omitted in the Scriptures for the security of the Faith regulating devotion and worship and peace of the Church none of which can long subsist without such a Power acknowledged and obeyed in the Governors of the Church And this â—pparently is at the bottom of the deceitful pretences of Christian Liberty and Conscience for disobedience of them who are designed thereby to ruine and overthrow as matter of fact hath demonstrated But it is not only the Puritans intollerable dogms against obedience but the contrary practise of no small persons of place and esteem in the Church who can heartily and with zeal even to indignation prosecute Sectaries inconformity to the Discipline and Rites of the Church glorying and boasting that they are Sons of the Church and yet do more mischief to the Church by their ill govern'd persons as to common honesty sobriety and gravity and more advance and bring into credit and reputation the enemies of the Church than all their fair and fallacious pretences could otherwise possibly do If such persons who have not attained to common Moral prudence or Philosophy bear such kindness as they flourish with to the Church let them shew it as that lewd Fellow in the Athenian Senate was advised who notwithstanding his vitious life had somewhat very beneficial to the Common-wealth to propound in the Senate and commend it by the mouth of another For what can be more absurd and ridiculous than for any such person to profess esteem to that Church which condemns him more than any other Society And whereas it supposes as a foundation natural justice continence and temperance and the like moral vertues to the divine Precepts and Institutions of Perfection what may turn the stomach and raise laughter more at a man then for such an one to discover his offense at an unceremonious Puritane the matter of whose Crime is nothing comparable to his If thou beest a Christian saith a holy Father either speak as thou livest or live as thou speakest What evil spirit hath set thee on first to abuse thy self with scandalous practises and then the Church by taking Sanctuary in it Can stupidity so far accompany vice as first to break the known and common Laws and Rules of good conversation which is affront enough to the Church and then to add to that affront by professing a special duty to that which thereby is destroyed There is no Sect or Schism whose Orders and Laws of Christian walking with God can be compared with those of the Church of England there being nothing amongst them besides Faith which an Heathen may not do that never heard of Christian Perfection accounting nothing needful to be done nothing unlawful to them which is not punishable by the Law of man or against the light of nature Christ they say hath purchased for them a liberty to do what they please in eating drinking sleepping and other matters so that they wrong not their own bodies nor injure their Neighbors And shall there be that protect themselves under this Churches shelter in such light loose foolish and vitious courses to the degrading of it beneath her inferiors Is this to be sons of the Church and not only so but to brag that such they are in open hostility to it I confess notwithstanding all this in comparing the enemies to the true Faith together we are to distinguish between the doers of evil simply and the teachers of men so to do And that though drunkenness and uncleaness be greater sins by far in their nature than is dissent from a ceremony or Rite not necessary in its nature Yet for any man with a spirit of opposition and contention to take upon him to declare against such an unnecessary order and teach men against the unity and peace of the Church otherwise than becomes him is no less criminal in the consequence before God yea probably much more than those other more scandalous before men and will more endanger his Soul But concerning such persons as are in profession really Sons and perhaps Fathers of the Church and yet wilfully and studiously violate the Laws Constitutions Rubricks or Canons of it no necessity compelling them no reason being to be alledged defending them but what is taken from their ease which otherwise would be much interrupted or their benefit and profit which would be much hindred I leave their own hearts and Consciences to condemn them until God himself doth which certainly without repentance he will and that out of their own consciences and mouths their consciences which witness that these are the true causes of their negligence and contempt of their Duty in their proper stations and their mouths and professions in that they pretend obedience and are much offended at the disobedience of Puritans as if God and the Church would be sufficiently satisfied with their Anger against them while they themselves regard it no farther than is for their turn Two vulgar apologies I shall here take notice of only For as for that which is also commonly said that evil times hinder them from their duty I shall say no more but humbly advise them to deal sincerely with God and their own consciences in such cases
and examine themselves whether that be the only cause The first of these is Custom which hath made the Laws and Canons more favourable And what is this custom A direct violation of the Laws of the Church and Orders and Precepts of it and then a bold reply to an objecter of this to them It is not kept i. e. They do not keep themselves to such prescriptions therefore they ought not and therefore it is as well as it is For custom what is it they mean by it If a Custom of an hundred years hath confirmed a Law a Custom of one year when it lets in the said Graces of Idleness ease and profit shall prescribe and prevail against it If infinite persons backed by Laws have done or not done such things and one or two indulgers to themselves have transgressed on the contrary these are the Presidents we choose for us these we alledg for our defense This is that we call a Custom and soon by the flattery and temptation of the foresaid vertues will the infection spread and the party become so numerous strong and bold as to condemn those who make doubt of being Customed by them and to deride them as Hyperbolical Conformists to the Canons and Laws of the Church So that without some stop and fence against this encroaching and daring mischief all things will be sum'd up briefly into these two things First that there be a Custom to make Laws and Rules for the modelling of the Church and regulating the worship of God therein And another far greater and more prevalent custome that none of them should be kept which agrees not with the conscience of the Sectary and the convenience of the Church Party themselves as well Rulers as obeyers Another Grand Salvo against observation of any Ecclesiastical Canons to our temporal prejudice is taken from Dispensations obtained to the contrary And then conscience may be as secure as might the Disciples when Christ going towards his Passion said to them Sleep on now and Mat. 26. 45 take your rest and upon the same reasons too Behold the Son of Man is betrayed into the hands of Sinners Much here might be said concerning the nature reasons end and effect of Dispensations but this place cannot contain it Only thus much of the nature and use of Dispensations That it being not possible for the wit of Man to invent a Law which will not sometimes bring mischief and inconvenience contrary to the Definitur Dispensatio quod sit juris communis relaxatio cum causae cognitioone in co qui potestatem habet Dispensandi Barb. de offic Pat. Epist Al. 33. num 3. Part. 2. Institutor of it it is necessary there should be a Power of judging wherein it is inconsistent with the true ends and intention of the Law and Author of it and therefore Dispensation saith Barbosa is defined to be a Relaxation of the Law with the knowledg of the Reason or Cause in him that hath power to dispense From whence it follows that unless the cause be so just and reasonable that it is probable that the author of the Law or Canon himself never intended they should bind in such cases both the Dispenser and Dispensed incurr the guilt of the violation of that law so dispensed with which causes are so rare That perhaps in the very judgment of them that find the benefit of them it were much better that particular inconveniences should befall some men then such a door be opened as is commonly to the ambition Covetousness and Laziness of men to baffle the rule it self and make it ridiculous And therefore Ib. num 7. Est quid Odiosum Sine causâ— est Dissipatio in the Church of Rome it self where Dispensations abound most of all and most notorious yet the Canonists cannot chuse but call them Odious and a Dissipation when just cause is wanting And where Personal advantage sometimes to the Dispenser or his Retinue and most commonly to the Dispensed is the chief or only Ground of Dispensations they can never be good unless this benefit relates chiefly to nature as bodily health and not Fortune For t is so grand and general a mistake of the effect of them that it is to be feared it is affected in many to think that Dispensations ought to be ordained to relieve from the penalties and not the guilt of the Law For that is truly and alone an effectual dispensation which exempts us from the obligation to perform it and not that which only excuses from the Punishments we should otherwise incur And doth declare and satisfie a man that in not observing the Letter of the Law he doth not go contrary to the intention of it which in such cases would not that it should be rigorously observed Now if a man be soundly satisfied in his conscience first that the Law it self would if it could speak acknowledg the reason to be good of not keeping to the letter of it then a dispensation would stand him in good stead in securing him from the penalties belonging to the same But if men look no farther than that which is least considerable in Dispensations and meerly accidental viz. the saving themselves harmless under the breach of it they are notoriously deceived in the vertue of them For no dispensation can avail any man which doth not make the thing just and reasonable to be done or not done I shall give but one instance of this error and the Evil of procuring dispensations whereas they should rather be injoyned than sought for out of private ends out of Nicholas de Clemangis But perhaps saith he some will say that it is dispensed Nicholaus de Clemangis de Studio Theolog aped Pacherium To. 7. Sed forte dicent secum c. with them by the Bishop his Superior that he should reside with his Sheep Why didst thou seek for that dispensation will the Judg say Why with importunity didst thou extort that liberty of not doing that which thou knowest thou wert bound to do Wherefore didst thou retain the name of that Office if thou wouldest not officiate To this end wert thou made a Rector that thou mightest govern therefore a Shepheard that thou mightest feed Were your Studies such that my Sheep must perish for which I shed my bloud Why wouldest thou asume the place of a fit Pastor and not discharge the work Another would have fed my flock preserv'd it attended it lead it and been resident with it and have gained to me out of it Doest thou think thou wert made a Shepheard for this that thou mightest neglect my flock and leave it in the wilderness and wander about through Towns Citys and High-wayes with the wanton and idle while the wolves scatter my flock c. This and much more that zealous Person who now would be accounted discontented and envious and troublesome But here I end this only with this reasonable request that men pretending to true Religion and
the Church before they departed this life but not so far as to remit the offences against God or that without actual demonstrations of their hearty sorrow for their sins and steadfast purposes and professions of future amendment they should have pronounced over them the Absolution of all their sins and that perhaps when they could no more desire than deserve such a Sentence CHAP. XIX A Preparation to the Explication of the Decalogue by treating of Laws in General What is a Law Several kinds of Laws Of the obligation of Laws from Justice not Force only Three Conditions required to obliging Of the Ten Commandments in special Their Authour Nature and Use BUT because a general Opinion as well amongst Christians as Exod. 34. 28. Deut. 4. 13. according to the Hebr. and Septuag And Josephus Antiquit l. 4. c. 8 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 appellat Jews hath prevailed that those Ten Commandments or as they are otherwise called Ten Words which God spake to the Children of Israel by Moses on Mount Sinai are an absolute Compendium and Rule of Obedience to God as well in our immediate Service towards him as our mediate in our duty towards our Neighbour a brief inquiry into the Decalogue will neither be unseasonable nor impertinent and the better to accomplish this first to speak of Laws in General before we treat of these more signal and eminent Laws of God A Law then to begin with the Definition seems to be nothing else but The rational and just will of a Soveraign Power declared and manifested to its Subjects for the better informing directing and regulating them according to truth and justice This Description though I find not entirely and absolutely in others yet is found in its several parts of which it consisteth in divers Authours and comprehends not only Humane but Divine Laws equally and not only written but unwritten also For it were a very fond and weak imagination in a man to conceive that the Writing Printing or Graving in Stone as the Ten Commandments are said to be can contribute any thing toward the force and due vigour of a Law any further than that thereby it becomes better known to all therein concerned Promulgation indeed is essential to all Laws but the Promulgation or Publication by the foresaid means is not so but any other notice given thereof may suffice But while a thing lyes hid in the mind and breast only of the proper Legislatours or Governours it cannot in reason obtain the nature or force of a Law but then only it doth when it either is known or might and ought to be known according to the manner of publication And this declared will must not be the act of any inferiour or subordinate person who of himself hath no right to will or require the observation of his Dictates or Orders but of the Supream originally at least though not immediately The universal and absolute Soveraign of all things is God alone and his Power alone and right of Dominion of which we have spoken in the beginning abundantly suffices to justifie all demands of service and obedience from his Creatures and that according to his absolute will without any exception or limitation it being intrinsecally good whatever shall appear to be the Will of God even because it is the Will of God who is nothing but Goodness in the most absolute sense And hence it is that notwithstanding Laws are divided into Divine Humane and Ecclesiastical yet in truth and upon due search it will be found that they all are Divine really though not formally and mediately though not immediately as Tully excellently and little less than divinely hath defined Lex est nihil aliud nise recta à numine deorum tracta ratio imperans honesta prchibens contraria Cicero Philipp 11. Clem. Alex Strom. l. 1. p. 350. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Hierocles in Carm. Pyth. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Demosthen in Anst The Law of Man which sometimes is called the Law Positive is derived by reason as a thing which is necessarily and probably following of the Law of Reason and of the Law of God And therefore in every Law Positive well made is somewhat of the Law of Reason and of the Law of God and to discern the Law of God and the Law of Reason from the Law Positive is very hard Dâ—ctâ—ur and Student cap 4. saying A Law is nothing else but right Reason drawn from the Gods themselves commanding honest things and forbidding the contrary And to the same effect writeth Clemens Alexandrinus and Hierocles saying Law is that Operative mind and Divine will which perpetually advances and preserves all things So that whatever Law be it Civil or Ecclesiastical which can not draw in some remote manner at least its descent from Heaven and God Almighty is not just or reasonable and by consequence not properly a Law but the private Lust of Tyrants But then in deducing Laws of Humane birth from God there must not be such a rigorous course taken as that whatever is not contained expresly in his revealed Word or obvious to the eye of Nature should be condemned as spurious and illegitimate and having no right to oblige men to observance and submission thereunto For some things are more clearly and some more obscurely some things more nearly and some more remotely deducible from their first fountain some Laws natural and the like may be said of Divinely revealed and Ecclesiastical are sufficiently apparent to all or most intelligent men as just and reasonable others as Thomas hath observed are evident so to be to the more understanding and searching Wits this being to be received as a plain and undoubted Rule in doubtful Cases that the professed Authours and Interpreters of Laws are generally better seen into the Natural Divine and Moral reason and obligation of a Law and the common benefit and expediencie thereof than inferiour and ignorant persons who are prone to judge of the reasonableness and usefulness of it as it best agrees with their own private judgments none of the certainest or Interests none of the justest many times not considering which is most necessary the common good claiming prerogative above particular So that there can be no more unnatural Rule than that which would have every man a Law and Rule and Reason to himself or definitively and finally to judge for and of himself in all things what is just and reasonable This is altogether lawâ—ess and repugnant to the revealed Will of God which hath ordained several orders and ranks of men whereof some are to be in Power and Authority others in subjection and obedience And from hence it proceedeth that Magistrates who are the only Law-givers and true Interpreters of Laws given have had somewhat more of the Image of God ascribed to them than other common men because as it is Gods primary power and prerogative to give Laws to all the world as his Subjects so is it the
undoubted Right of lawful Governours under God to propound and impose Laws serviceable to the common ends of such a Society as thereby is disposed and regulated And there are three things principally requisite to make a Law obligatory upon men The first is taken from the Person Giving or propounding this Law and that is Authority without which the best Laws that can be invented are directly tyrannical and unjust as well in respect of the Person whose Right is thereby invaded and usurped so that Conscience is so far from being obliged by it that rather it is bound to oppose and resist such Laws though in themselves very profitable and reasonable because they imply a wrong to another to whom only pertaineth the Legislative Power as of the persons to whom such goodly Laws are given because thereby is an unjust service and bondage brought upon them But no man can be bound to this double injury though peradventure such a Case may be put in which to decline a greater evil and mischief a man may be patient and passive under such usurpers A second thing is taken from the matter and nature of the Law it self which if it be not just and reasonable bindeth not the Conscience though enacted by Authority altogether lawful and unquestionable The reason whereof is that so often abused place of holy Writ which adviseth to obey God rather then men Gods eternal and indispensable Law Acts 5. 29. exacteth of man due observation and that chiefly upon account of his absolute Soveraignty and Dominion which no inferiour Power ought to controul or can make void But should any mortal man command contrary of God it could signifie nothing more then the folly of his own heart and the distemper of his mind and a foul revolt and defection in him that should suffer himself to be so abused But is there no difference think we between the Powers on earth acting quite contrary to God and such as only want special warrant for what they sometimes expect from their Subjects The ignorance or wilful negligence of this distinction or notion is it which hath hurried men into so many unchristian acts and made such havock especially in Religion A third principal ingredient into a Law is that taken from the Persons to whom it is made not that they must owe obedience unto the Lawgiver thought that be true for this is the very same with the first For wherever there is the first part of the Relation there must also of necessity be the second and so wherever there is Power and just Authority to command and rule there must necessarily be a duty of obedience in others but knowledge and manifestation of a Law before touched is absolutely requisite to bind people to the observation of it And yet I mean not actual and inevitable knowledge but possible and ordinarily attainable it being most certain that the same persons who stand generally obliged to observe a Law made and propounded are likewise bound to take notice of its promulgation and this neglecting subject themselves to the like penalties as the wilful Violators of it There may well be added unto these three a Fourth Condition to the validity of a Law and that is Power How Power and Authority differ is not unknown viz. that the first consists in sufficient strength and force to constrain obedience or inflict the punishment denounced against disobedience not necessarily inferring Right so to do And this is not intrinsecal to a Law because it is only to be exercised as a necessary instrument subservient to the ends of Right and Justice preceeding which is Authority properly so called which duly exercised doth oblige without force to submission and that out of Duty and Conscience as appeareth from what we have said already in the First Book of the First Part of this Treatise Now though this Power be not intrinsecal to the Obligation of a Law as some unnatural Philosophers have of late days imagined and boldly and basely endeavoured to maintain yet may it be essential to the Execution of the same Men being generally so unreasonable and averse to Order and Government and the publick Good when no special and immediate advantage accrues to their particular person that without the iron rod to constrain the Majesty of the Scepter will not sway them And but that I have found such prodigious tenets in the writings of late Politicians denying all Justice and Conscience and destroying them as far as their blind and pestilent wits will enable them which certainly they never shall any more than to destroy God himself and extinguish the notion of a Deity out of the minds of men I should have thought that for want of such a distinction between the Obligation and Execution of a Law they fell into such flat and portentous errours For what doth argue greater stupidity than to conclude there is no necessity of violence this should be done therefore it ought not to be done Or because that man is impious who because he is strong enough to be successful scruples not at all to invade and prey on another and he may become ridiculous that commandeth without any ability or probability of effecting what he requireth therefore no obligation lyes on the persons to whom he directs himself to obey Aristotle indeed Arist Politic. l. 3. c. 4. §. 78. tells us of a Law that the Hares should make in their solemn Assemblies that all beasts should share alike in the earth but at this said Antisthenes the Lyons laughed and well they might when such Laws proceeded from them who had neither Right to make nor Power to enforce them but where there is Right without Might the matter is more to be abhorred on the one side than decided on the other True it is that Marsilius Patavinus does make Coaction an ingredient into Lex propriè sumpta Praeceptum coactivum est de fiendis aut omittendis humanis actibus sub poena transgressoribus infligenda Marsilius Patavinus de Jurisdictione Matrimoniali the definition of a Law and that not amiss if we consider that definitions of things are to be made according to the Habitude of things rather than Actualness and so this his definition is very good A Law properly taken is a Coactive Precept of doing or omitting humane acts under punishment to be inflicted on transgressours For though a Prince deprived of Power makes Laws which he is not able to enforce or the Church yet while indelible Right to Power resides with him as an Habitude the Law is of force and is of a Coactive nature though not actuated And this being not unduly as we hope premised we now proceed to the explication of that particular Law of God called the Decalogue which though it branches it self into ten parts yet according to the Jews not amiss conceiving is but One Law as proceeding from one Fountain pronounced in one breath say they engraven or written as one Line or Word on
Hist Nat. l. 2. c. 5. Gâ—eek Philosopher wrote a Book with this Title Of not killing any living thing And Pliny writes of the Amycle whose chief City was Anxur in Italy that being Pythagoreans they suffered themselves to be consumed by Serpents because they would not kill them Yet methinks the Manichaean Hereticks should not have fallen into so great superstition having the use of the Scripture where God giveth Man free liberty to convert the Beasts Exod. 9. 3. of the field to his food as well as the Hearb of the field But perhaps the Latin word occides being general may have deceived them as St. Augustine Aug. Civ Dei l. 1. c. 20. intimateth where he tells us that the Manichees grounded their opinion Of not killing any living thing upon this Commandment Thou shalt not kill which St. Augustine there refuteth from their own opinion and practise For they held also an opinion that Plants had life too and yet they destroyed them in eating Hearbs And there wanted not some conscientious and learned Christians who held it against Christian perfection and purity to kill any man though in just defense as did Ambrose who doth not absolutely deny it to be lawful yet looks upon it as a blemish to Christian Religion to shed blood So that he holds it scarce lawful in such a case as shipwrack for one man to save his own life by thrusting another man of a planck which might have carried him to land and so to return Ne dum salutem defendat Pietatem contaminet Ambr. 31 Off. cap. blows back to him again that as a Robber on the High-way shall assail him least in defending his life he corrupts or stains his Religion To this we can only say That the Church hath been so tender and pure in her Profession that though she hath not any where condemned that we call natural and lawful Resistance to the securing of a mans Fortunes and especially Life yet hath she in her Canons of Irregularities set such a value and reverence upon the bloud of man that even involuntary and much more voluntary killing any man doth by her Decrees render one in Priestly Orders uncapable of doing his Office because as St. Ambrose his words imply though the guilt before God should not be great yet the blemish and scandal before men would be so and all suspicion and appearance of evil ought to be avoided And this way of arguing which is yet the only of any colour is of much less force to make wars unlawful being denounced by just Authority as late Fanaticks would pretend at least to hold to gain esteem of men of singular consciences which yet gross experience hath certified us extends no farther than opportunity and advantage have enabled and encouraged them to violate For a man hath not power absolute over his own person but is under the command of his Superiours who are to judge of the reasonableness of the endangering his own life and destroying the life of another For if we should so far affront the Law of Nature as to grant a man might not use any Self-defence to the apparent loss of the life of another it would not from thence follow at all that he might not receive power and authority and such a command which to deny were sinful to bereave another of his life How many examples in the Old Testament justifie this In the New Testament having no instance of such Christians as had any Soveraign Political Power do we wonder that we have neither Example nor Precept directly commending this to Christian practise But by implication we have when St. Paul exhorteth thus Let every man abide in the same calling wherein he is called 1 Cor. 7. 〈◊〉 Now it was well known to the Apostle that there were continual wars in the Roman Empire and that many Christians were Souldiers and that that was their Calling wherein they were called For Cornelius was a Souldier And when the Souldiers came to St. John Baptist enquiring What shall we do He did not say Lay down your Commission Serve no longer Luke 3. 14. But Do violence to no man neither accuse any falsly and be content with your wages which is as much as Use your imployment soberly and justly neither prey upon any man upon your private account And whereas the words of Christ in his Sermon on the Mount seem to Matth. 5. 22 38 39 40 41. be pretended to the contrary Christ there exhorting patiently to bear affronts and injuries without revenging a mans self they are to be understood of violence repayed without lawful Authority either expressed or implyed but this is alwayes implyed in just defences And again these are rather Counsels than Commands peremptorily forbidding so to do but advising to forbear that out of a Spirit of meekness and patience which is not utterly unlawful to do but to the disadvantage of the Gospel in general and the diminution of that reward annexed to the humble and patient suffering of wrongs for Gods sake But though this is to be preferred before the other it follows not that the other is unlawful or that it is so much as lawful to forbear executing justice on such offenders when commanded by good Authority And so do the Jews interpret those words of Leviticus Thou shalt not stand against the bloud of thy neighbour thus as Fagius hath noted on the place Whoever See Paulus Fagius on Lev. 19. 16. is able to deliver his neighbour in any of his Members and doth it not he is in the same guilt as if he shedded blood and becomes guilty of death And it is impossible a man should be guilty of blood in doing that which he shall be in that he doth it not It being thus explained what is not meant by this Command what is by it intended may more briefly be declared and that as in other Precepts is of two sorts Negative Not to murder against which foul and crying sin so much and so plainly is denounced in holy Writ that to recount them here in this short Comment were unseasonable and superfluous It may be defined A wilful and unjust taking away the life of a Man And there are two principle Causes of this unjustness First No good or warrantable ground or demerits Secondly No good Authority so to do Now Authority is twofold Express and Implicite There is no express Law commanding the destruction of another that seeks mine but Implicite there is and so it may be just Express is that which exerciseth it self against convicted Malefactours And of both these is he destitute who executeth himself I cannot say that it is unlawful for a man required by just Authority to kill himself but of himself to do this is certainly a murderous act though he were guilty of Death For as St. Austin hath observed Aug. Civ Deâ— l. 1. c. 17. He that killeth himself doth certainly kill a man and it is not said Thou
shalt not kill thy neighbour or another man but simply Thou shalt not kill And though indeed about the earliest dayes of the Persecution of the Church of Christ some men and more especially young women to prevent the abuses of their bodies cast themselves away and this was connived at by the Church yet upon more mature discussion and consideration of the notoriousness of the Fact it was condemned expresly by the Church nay for men needlesly and voluntarily to declare and publish themselves to be Christians and so to offer themselves to the Sword of the Magistrate was judged wicked and the practisers of it denyed to be Christians any farther than in name as appears in Clemens Alexandrinus And those Noble Persons Clem. Alex. l. 4. Strom. p. 481. 504. who are recorded in Scripture to have affected such deaths can be no more presidents for to justifie this sin than others other scandalous sins unless as St. Austin inclineth to believe answering the furious Donatists who out Aug. 1. c. 26. Civ Dei of mad zeal rather against the Church than for God were wont to destroy themselves they had some special instinct so to do from God as Sampson might be thought to have in that he was divinely assisted above his ordinary strength to pull down the house And besides his intention was not out of weariness or discontent of his life principally to destroy himself but the Enemies of God of himself and the people of God And there seems no great difficulty or inconveniencie to grant that a man may run himself into apparent danger of his life to bring a most notorious dammage to the Enemies of God and his Country though not upon his own head but by just Authority So that I make no doubt but Voetius determined the Voetius Select Disp Part 4. p. 256. Case of Conscience amiss denying that a man in desperation of saving himself and his ship of War from falling into the hands of his Enemies may with a good Conscience blow it up and all in it For all his arguments prove no more than that this a man may not do of himself because no man must slay himself but they prove not that a man may not do this by command and injunction of his Superiours in whose power his life is and to whom belongs his Vessel And what is said against a mans destroying his own life or his neighbours makes also against any maiming or mutilation of the body of himself or others though not ending in death The true reason of all which Recte dicitur inquit Socrates 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. Plato in Phaedone is First because it is against a Law of Nature imprinted deeply by God himself in the minds of men yea all living creatures to study and endeavour their own preservation which Law is hereby directly broken Secondly No man is absolute Master of himself but first as Plato hath noted is as it were the Goods of God and then a Servant to his Country and therefore without Gods consent or his Countries by the Soveraign power discharges him of his duty and service towards it he is an Offender against both And hereunto pertains the high Crime of causing Abortion and Miscarriages of Women to hide their former sin And as the Fact it self is forbidden so all ordinary Causes tending thereunto as all evil and provoking language All evil affections as hatred anger malice and such like All assistance by conspiring counselling or acting outwardly are certainly forbidden Lastly as the thing it self and all evil acts and offices are forbidden so because the Righteousness of Christians must exceed that of Scribes and Pharisees as our Saviour Christ saith in St. Matthew therefore Christians Matth. 5. are obliged hereby to all reasonable and charitable acts of love friendship piety as well as justice conducing to the support and preservation and comfort of their brethren especially in Christ as St. Paul advises to the Galatians As we have therefore opportunity let us do good unto all men especially Gal. 6. 10. unto them who are of the houshold of Faith And herein he followed the Precept of Christ I say unto you Love your enemies bless them that curse Matth. 5. 44 you do good to them that hate you and pray for them which despitefully use you and persecute you That ye may be the Children of your Father which is in 45. heaven for he maketh c. And therefore by this Commandment are requiâ—ed of us all acts of Mercy as Visiting the sick and imprisoned Feeding the hungry Clothing the naked Ministring assistance by counsel and action to the oppressed Comfort to the dejected and such like Knowing and considering that they who as Goats stand at the Left hand of Christ at the last Day of Judgment shall not be condemned only for injuries and injustices done to others but because Christ in his members was an hungred and ye gave him no meat was thirsty and ye gave him no drink Matth. 25. 42 43. Was a stranger and ye took him not in naked and ye clothed him not sick and in prison and ye visited him not The Seventh Commandment interdicteth all uncleanness in these §. VII words Thou shalt not commit Adultery Which Philo Judaeus following herein the Septuagint and having no skill in the Hebrew or Original Tongue as hath been observed by learned men and is easily to be discerned by any Reader placeth before the Commandment Thou shalt not kill though in the Fifth Chapter of Deuteronomy where the Decalogue is repeated the order of the Original is observed which implyeth some Errour happening in Exodus For neither is the reason of Philo or Grotius inclining to that opinion valid viz. because Adultery is the greatest sin a man can commit against his neighbour For undoubtedly Murder is more heinous There is some variety in the New Testament in the reciting of this Command For Mark 10. 9. and Luke the 18. 20. the order of the Septuagint in Exodus is kept Matthew 19. 18. the order of Deuteronomy is followed which teaches that the diversity was ancient and that not stood scrupulously on But the putting of Thou shalt not steal before Thou shalt not commit adultery in Exodus 20. not approved by Philo or his Followers should make that place of Exodus more suspected of alteration than that of Deuteronomie But the matter not being great and that only concerning the Greek Translation the End and Contents of this Law are more seriously to be attended which may be conveniently reduced to these following heads First unclean thoughts and inward motions and dispositions and most of all Resolutions to offend in act being not hindered For this Christ our most pure President and holy Doctour condemns for adultery in the Heart Matth. 5. I say unto you that whosoever looketh on a woman to lust Matth. 5. 28. after her hath committed adultery with her in his
heart Not he that looketh on a woman but he that looketh on her to lust after her is condemned though all curious studious idle impertinent views of men or women upon which may follow ordinarily the sparks and then the flames of lust are forbidden Again not all lusting of the heart is to be compared to the acts of lusting inwardly with the act outward joyned to that Adultery of the heart our Saviour Christ doth not equal to the Adultery of act but makes it Adultery in a degree inferiour Secondly There is uncleanness of the Tongue too when it breaketh out into impure light foolish lascivious speeches tending to begetting evil thoughts and acts in others against which St. Paul declareth in his Epistle to the Ephesians Let no corrupt communication come out of your mouth but Coloss 4 29. that which is good to the use of edifying that it may minister grace to the hearers Coloss 3. 8. And to the Coâ—ossians But now ye also put off all these anger wrath malice blasphemy filthy communication out of your mouth Thirdly Actual uncleanness which is accomplished in the deeds of the flesh And â—aâ—h several degrees which may be distinguished into Unnatural and Natural Unnatural consisteth in the vile acts a man or woman may commit upon their own bodies perverting the course and end of nature instituting diversity of Sexes for sober and profitable propagation making that void in some manner at least At which St. Paul may seem to strike as Ephes 5. 12. far as modesty would permit when he says It is a shame to speak of those things which are done of them in secret meaning the impurities of Gnostick 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Theodoret. Haret Fabul cap. 7. and Valentinian Conventicles to the reproach of Primitive Christianity Epiphanius relating how besides those called natural lusts between Sexes distinct they dishonoured and corrupted their own bodies in the highest acts of single uncleanness and made up some of their Mysteries thereby And however single persons do not so prodigiously abuse themselves as did those impure Hereticks pretending greater Sanctity and deeper Mysteries in their Religion then the Catholicks yet must it needs be a great offense to God so to corrupt a mans self in yielding to fleshly temptations condemned by Heathen Poets though themselves were immodest for a violation of the Law of Nature it self which therefore all Christians especially of weak reason strong passions and young years are most watchfully to beware of and resolutely to avoid Another sort of acted rather then actual Uncleanness here prohibited is the foul sin of Sodomie to which the wicked Citizens of Sodom destroyed Gen. 19. 4 5. Rom. 1. 26. by fire gave denomination as may appear in the Book of Genesis And of which St. Paul to the Romans speaketh when he saith that God delivered up the Gentiles to these unnatural Lusts as a punishment of their gross Idolatry For this cause God gave them up to vile affections For even their women did change the natural use into that which is against nature And likewise the men leaving the natural use of the women burned in their lusts one towards another men with men working that which is unseemly and receiving in themselves that recompense of their errours which was meet A Third unnatural Lust is that called Bestiality or abusing or being abused Lev. 28. 23. by Beasts in lustful acts against which God hath in his Word as well as by the Light and Law of Nature declared The more natural but yet unchristian Lusts here forbidden are Adultery which is either simple viz. when a married person committeth uncleanness with an unmarried where some make two kinds the one when the man is married but the woman single which they commonly make the less and so indeed it is by reason that it brings no spurious brood to inherit or share the Goods of any other man but him that he knowingly and willingly bestows them on The other is when the woman is married and the man single which is besides the general sin subject to the foresaid mischief And therefore hereby the woman offends in these four respects Incredulity not believing or regarding the Law and Word of God to the contrary 2. Not reverencing the Laws of the Church 3. Treachery against her Faith and Troth given before God to her Husband whereby she delivered unto him 1 Cor. 7. 4. the power of her Body as St. Paul speaketh 1 Cor. 7. as likewise doth the Husband to his Wife upon the same occasion and therefore thus far the Man and Woman transgressing offend equally 4. They say the Woman in such cases is a Thief in that she spoileth her Husband of his goods and giveth them to a false Issue he would knowingly no wayes yield them to But yet saith Thomas the man sinneth no less than the woman however Thomas in decem Praecepta Opusc 3. he may flatter himself otherwise And the sum of his reason is this First Because that the man hath no more power over his Body than the woman over hers Secondly Because the man is stronger naturally than the woman and endued with more reason Thirdly Because the man is the Head of the woman and her teacher as St. Paul saith therefore as it is a greater sin for a Priest than a Layman to offend in that kind so is it for a man who is as it were Gods Minister even in spiritual matters to the woman And in truth we find little or no difference put by the Scripture between the fact James 4. 4. of the one and the other St. James joyning them thus together Ye Adulterers and Adulteresses know ye not that the friendship of the world is enmity with Levit. 20. 10. God Yet Moses his Law decreed the Adulteress to be put to death but not the Adulterer as offending more against the Civil capacity of Man And perhaps for the hardness of their hearts least they should do it themselves God would have it done in a more orderly and just way Some Laws of Christians at this day granting the man leave to kill his wife himself finding her in actual Adultery Fornication likewise which some calling Simple have legitimated in great measure is condemned by this Commandment St. Paul as it were foreseeing and intending to confound such modern Doctours saith Know ye not 1 Cor. 6 9 10. that the unrighteous shall not inherit the Kingdom of God be not deceived neither Fornicators nor Idolaters nor Adulterers nor Effeminate nor Abusers of themselves with mankind Nor Thieves nor Covetous nor Drunkards nor Revilers nor Extortioners shall inherit the Kingdom of God And to the Hebrews But Fornicators and Adulterers God shall judge And so likewise the Excusers or Extenuaters of them so far as to bring down the guilt of either of them to that of a venial sin only which is as much as nothing Est ergo heresis dicere Fornicationem simplicem
all modesty and moderation but what fear of their necks may suggest is laid aside and all become a prey to them that fall into their hands To which may be referred all unjust and unreasonable and tyrannical Laws extorting from Subjects that which no cause requires of which Esay complaineth Thy Princes are rebellious and companions of Thieves Esay 1. 23. And probably may intend to condemn all excessive Fees of Lawyers and Physicians who though they directly rob not men of what is theirs yet discover such unsatisfiedness and ravenousness in their Offices that unless they find unconscionable consideration for their pains they will neglect the trust put in them Secondly to clandestine frauds and cousenages which are committed sundry wayes 1. By direct stealing from another his Goods which being privily acted is called properly Thievery against which God hath specially declared in Exodus 2. v. 2. c. And it is either against the Publick and is called Peculatus or Pillaging when a man robs the Common Stock or uses artifices to refuse to pay those legal dues of Custom or Tribute or other just Taxes made legal by good Authority Many men think it scarce any sin which in truth is a notorious one to cheat the Civil Powers of what is due to them but Solomon implyeth the contrary when he Prov. 28. 4. saith Whose robbeth his Father or his Mother and saith it is no transgression the same is companion of a destroyer And Christ commandeth by St. Paul Rom. 13. to all their dues tribute to whom tribute is due custom to whom custom fear to whom fear honour to whom honour So that there seems to be and really is a justice in giving outward reverence and honour to our Superiours and rudely and stoutly to deny them this is to rob them of their dues before God and to offend against this Commandment Thirdly not to pay what we owe and according to the Circumstances we owe any thing to another and especially to detain the wages of the hireling or labourer from him Lev. 19. 13. James 5. 4. which will cry against the hard Master who delayeth to pay what is earnt according to agreement For as Casuists hath observed He that payeth not exactly according to the known custom and rule though he afterwards payeth all in kind yet in effect he doth not pay all was due seeing many inconveniencies do commonly happen to the dammage of the Creditour upon such delays But that which is most intolerable and unjust is the too common craft of covetous and wicked minds to withold or refuse due payment of debts upon many vain and unconscionable pretences so long till the Credit our becoming almost desperate of that debt shall be wrought upon by fear to abate of his due least he should loose all They who do not pay according to the agreed time ought rather to adde for satisfaction of so long detaining to their debt than to make new capitulations whereby the principal sum should be impaired to the loss of the Creditour Fourthly to use adulterations in Commodities contrary to the common rule and expectations of men is a sort of stealing and unjustice here condemned as to mix and corrupt Wines Siders Money Bread or after the manner of Druggists and Apothecaries to sophisticate any Drugg or Liquor or to counterfeit any more precious thing with a viler and baser is to commit an offence against this Command and no better than stealing in the eyes of God how customary soever this may be and with a seared Conscience and bold face carried on Nay frequently this is worse a great deal than simple filching and stealing in that the bodies of men are often by such sophistications if not poysoned yet corrupted and so ends in a degree of murder and if not for the present and particular mischief yet for the general and gentle deserves the halter and hell no less than direct Thieves and Murderers Fifthly Sacriledge and open or subtile or private alienation of what is devoted to sacred and common ends of Religion and usurping the same to a mans private secular use against the intention of the thing hath this double aggravation above common simple theft First in that what was designed for publick uses and ends is perverted to particular For example Endowments and Donations made to Churches serve not only to the maintenance of that Person who in that capacity possesses them but to the benefit and comfort of all in that district communicating in Spiritual things wrong is done unto all them who upon the withdrawing of such due support want their due ministrations Secondly in ordinary thefts or injustice the matter passes but from secular to secular ends but in Sacrilegious Thefts it passes from one kind to another from Spiritual to Secular or Temporal besides the particular injury done to the Person to whom it is due And whereas it is said in defense of Sacriledge that the owners of such Spiritual Maintenances abuse them themselves by lazy luxurious and other vitious courses contrary to the true end of them all this may be granted and lamented But they who preach up vertue out of such wicked principles and ends should withal consider how this involves the secular as well as spiritual Person For no man hath any legal temporal Right to any estate so far as that it should prejudice the common good And if upon vitiousness of the one the estate he owneth may be alienated will it not hold good in the other And have not the King and Judicial Courts as great power over Temporal estates as Ecclesiastical We can give many instances sacred and humane whereby it should seem he hath greater And would these zealous men for vertuous and sober life hold it reasonable the Estates of Spendthrifts and Drunkards and Whoremasters should be taken from them by violence and given to soberer men I would fain see the disparity This scarce any but sees to the advantage of Ecclesiastical revenues above Secular That if the Party possessing them committeth Treason against his Soveraign neither Religion nor Common Laws do adjudge such Estates to be confiscated to the Crown as they do others which argues that Ecclesiastical Estates are put more out of the Kings power than are Secular and therefore more unreasonably are seized on than these It is true the King is in a more immediate way a Guardian and Protectour of Church-estates than of the Secular but Guardians have no more Interest or intrinsick Right to the Estate they dispose of to the true owner than they have of other mens Or does it at all extenuate the crime that frequently it is committed against such persons as cannot help themselves Yet even cold Friends to the Churches Right in such Cases hath observed and been constrained to confess that the displeasure or to speak without mincing the Curse of God hath pursued those more then ordinary and egregiously frustrated their hopes and expectations who have fingered or
parts both of which retain with them inseparably the necessary ingredient of Fear excessive and needless And the one is a Fear of omitting something judged necessary to be done though in truth it be not The other is a Fear as vain and groundless of committing something necessarily to be avoided as either unlawful in it self or interdicted of God when there is no such matter though he be loudly told there is Both these are really Superstitions the first Positive and the latter Negative being both influenced from Conscience which terrifies the one to do and deters the other from doing without cause not without suspicion or presumption For Conscience taken in the Religious sense cannot be affected but at the apprehension of Apparent Good or Evil at the least And if this be but only an Apparence and not a Reality then is the conscience mistaken and falls into superstitious acts and places Religion in those things which are not capable of such high acts Thus for instance If a man should ascribe as much to the worship of the Body given to God as he doth to the Soul or Heart he were undoubtedly superstitious in excess And on the other side if a man having heard much of the excellencie of Spiritual Worship above outward or Visible should think so contemptibly of this and all acts thereof as unlawful and sinful or superstitious without doubt he were notoriously guilty of Superstition Why Because according to his own principles and phrase he places Religion where God hath not and makes a conscience of that which God no where willeth him to do but rather contrariwise adviseth him to comply with though not by a particular express Law by general and implicite First requiring as really though not so primarily bodily acts and outward reverence as inward and spiritual Secondly by endowing his Substitutes Governours Ecclesiastical with such power as we have before proved to belong to the Church by Gods concession And this agrees very well with the most received definition of Superstition amongst Christians till of very late years when men having a mind to secure their own stake and to blast and traduce the opinions of such as think otherwise than they do fansied and framed to themselves definitions of that and other things as might best agree with their own perswasions and impugn their Adversaries By which unlearned and unjust proceedings they grosly define Superstition by Popery it may be or somewhat else they dislike answerably and Popery by Superstition or a little more regularly not more truly by Will-worship or Humane Inventions for which there appear at least to them no grounds in the Word of God But this they are mistaken much in as well in respect of the Rule by which they would try and condemn Superstition as of the Cause Humane Prudence which they will have no otherwise termed than Humane Inventions when it sutes not with their pleasure which is too commonly called called Conscience For the Scripture hath no where tyed up Christian Authority so strictly as not to permit it to interpose in any thing concerning the Worship of God without special and manifest warrant from thence But the contrary is most certain that it hath granted so much Liberty to Christian Churches as to fashion themselves and modellize their Worship without fear of incurring the violation of it or the offence of God so far as manifest restraints and inhibitions do not appear to the contrary And this Calvin himself once well noted if his own Interests would have suffered him to have been constant to what he delivered against the Anabaptists Improbare quod numquan imprâ—baâ—it Deus niâ—â—ae est homini c. Calvinus contr Anabapt p. 27. 8o. viz. To oppose what God never opposed I must tell you is more rashness and arrogance than is fit for man But let us constantly hold to this that the Authority of God is usurped when that is condemned which he hath permitted They therefore who set their Consciences against those things be they Rites Ceremonies or Traditions by good Ecclesiastical Authority enjoyned which God hath no where forbidden do certainly fall into flat Superstition and that as themselves describe it though not intend it For they without Gods word frame to themselves Fears and Scruples They as the Prophet saith Fear where no fear is creating Good and Evil out of their own heads and at their own pleasures yea contrary very often to the express general Licence and Warrant of Gods Word And whereas Humane Inventions are much cryed out against and made very formidable to such superstitious fearful Heads they are to be earnestly desired to be willing to understand what we can scarce think them so weak as not to be able to understand How that in no place either of Moses or the Prophets or the New Testament Inventions of Men are used in an evil sense but as they imply somewhat rather contrary to then besides the Divine Precepts Sometimes they are used for gross defection from Gods prescribed Worship and for Idolatrous Superstition and sometimes for opinions and practises inconsistent with Gods Law as the Traditions of the Jews condemned by Christ in the Gospel And what is all this to those usances against which after more then an hundred years eager search of the Scripture to this evil intent nothing hath been found or alledged contrary to them But general exceptions tinctur'd speciously with Scripture phrases to no real effect There is no more pernicious Humane Invention than this their fundamental Maxim Nothing must be commanded by Man which is not commanded by God and It is against Christian Liberty to obey Lawful Superiours but where they show Scripture particularly for what they command whereas the truth is these ought according to all reason and good conscience to produce sufficient testimonies of Scripture exempting them from submission under the guilt of disobedience and superstition too both plainly condemned by God in his Word before they oppose themselves to Authority And to this do well agree the Definition given by Thomas of Superstition Thom. 22. Q. 92. 1. Superstition is a Vice opposite to Religion in the excess or extream Not that a man can give more of Divine Worship than is due to God but that he gives Divine Worship either to that he ought not or in a manner he ought not To the first part belong all Direct Idolatry and all Indirect such as are Divinations and innumerable vain Observations of superstitious Heads who from every light unusual occurrence in the Earth of Beasts in the Air of Birds and Fowls in the Water or Fire or Heavens do collect and conclude unlikely things to the great disquiet and fear of their mind their distrust or neglect of Gods Providence and the forsaking of the common rule of Reason and the word of God which ought to regulate mens hopes and fears above all things in the world To the other appertain both that we call Positive Superstition
Tinder-box when they have attained so much of their ends as by the flames they raise to undo and destroy others and enlighten themselves and become powerful and glorious they presently cover those mischievous sparks and put them quite out denying they teach or hold any such things easily foreseeing they must needs have the same effect upon themselves as they had upon others if they be suffered to blaze out as they did when they lighted their Candles Yet so again that they reserved to themselves the same instruments and means of kindling new flames to their advantage when their Interest shall so require it This we have seen done most unjustly and disingenuously unless therefore men could be persuaded first to be faithful and severe observers of the Rules of sincerity and common Justice and deliver no other Rules to their Superiors to Govern them by than they themselves being in Power would hold reasonable to keep religiously themselves which we hear indeed much prosessed but ever saw practised contrarily in vain do men endeavour to dispute men into Reason Faith or Truth It must be the singular and Almighty power of Gods Grace to convince and convert them to the Truth they being the true object of our Pity and Prayers but not of Instructions Perswasions or Arguments And what more pertinent and particular prayer ought we or can we offer to God for their more sound information and confirmation in the truth of Gods Word and Worship then that they object so oft and unadvisedly against us viz. That God would vouchsafe to deliver them from their many private and humane inventions and not teach for Doctrines the Commandments Matth. 15. 9. Hebr. 13. 9. Jer. 7. of Men nor be carried about with divers and strange Doctrines Nor worship God so as he never commanded them neither came it into his heart Alas if they would but keep themselves faithfully and entirely to these Laws which with so much rigour and zeal they exact from others they must let go their hold not of Ceremonies and orders meerly devised by themselves but the greatest part of their Doctrines and Worship wherein they differ from us And the time will once certainly come when we shall not only with confidence but with the greatest comfort expect the full decision of these unchristian Controversies For as St. Jude saith Behold the Lord Jude v. 14 15. cometh with ten thousand of his Saints to execute judgment upon all and to convince all that are ungodly among them of all their ungodly deeds which they have ungodlily committed and of all their hard speeches which ungodly sinners have spoken against them c. I shall end all this with one or two instances of their Superstition and into erable rigour who loudly tax the Church therewith They have often charged the Church with Idolatrous Superstition in propounding and practizing Adoration towards the East And Voetius who hath another dogme for the Puritans comfort viz. That preciseness can no wayes be separated from Voetius Disp Part. 3. de Idolatr In dic th 2. true Religion hath also said That it is a sort of Idolatry by interpretation for a man that prayeth in the Church to turn himself to the East although he hath no consideration that there is or was the Quire wherein Papists are wont to turn to the East But what saith his fellow-Calvinist Maresius who Quo utroque asserto nihil absurdius Sam. Maresius Fascicul Paradoxorum Part. 22. Nec minoris erit superstitionis c. reckons up this and another of his dogms of like nature Then both which assertions nothing is more absurd And after a little interposed he addeth Neither will it be any whit less superstitious to beware of the East at the time of prayer precisely then precisely to make choice of it which was most truly spoken Another instance we have from the same Authour in the same Treatise Paradox 2S where speaking against Voetius his preciseness in pleading for hair shorn close to mens head a fond piece of Religion which in past years Puritans were wonderfully strict in but have of themselves lately seen the vanity of such their practises and laid down he saith As he doth amiss Id. Parad. 28. Ut perperam faciat c. who glories in long hair so shall not he be void of Superstition whoever shall affirm the hair ought wholly to be taken away or clip't above the ears and shall therefore think himself holier than other men that he shows the Asses ears of Midas and then adds very soberly True Godliness is strong and being supported with the base of Christian Liberty throughly understood is not pressed with such anxiousnesses Well adviseth Tilenus Part. 2. Thes Disput 44. Chap. 19. 20. That where the true knowledge and sense of this Liberty is wanting Consciences can take no rest there is no mean nor end of Superstitions For Satan is wont of very toyes and trifles to make dangerous and deadly snares for souls Rom. 14. 5. So he that shall begin to doubt of eating flesh or the use of certain garments by little and little shall find scruples of a murmuring Conscience in other things likewise and at length shall hang in suspense in a perplexed and inextricable Labyrinth Thus far they The evil event of the contrary precise Superstition appearing from two or three instances given by the Parrons of Scruples For according to former grounds Voetius his son by his Fathers insinuations as may well be presumed in a publick Disputation at Utrect June 7. 1643. delivered it for unlawful to wear shooes much longer than the foot or horn-like And I make great doubt whether he had any better reason against that fashion than a certain noted Puritan who seeing me being then a young Scholar wear such shooes accosted me in these very words Why dost thou make thy foot longer than Jesus Christ hath made it To whom I presently answered in these words Why dost thou make thy hair shorter than Jesus Christ hath made it And in truth I continue of this mind still that such a reply is no idle answer to such an idle superstitious question For if it should be demanded why I extend Christian Liberty in the use of Ceremonies farther than Jesus Christ hath extended it not commanding them I would first answer I do not extend it farther because it is impossible for him or any man else to prove that Christ hath denyed this Liberty For that which they imply that Christs command must go before all Christian Acts or Ceremonies in his Service is quite contrary to Christian Liberty For no Christian is left to his liberty where such Laws or Precepts are delivered to him But Christian Liberty is an undetermined power of doing or not doing within the sphere of Good and Evil prescribed which power next under Christ residing in the Heads or Governours of the Church may restrain the indifferencie of inferiour Members of it Secondly I would