IMPRIMATVR Liber cui Titulus Christian Loyalty c. Ex Aed Lamb. Julii 10. 1678. Geo. Thorp Rev. in Christo Patri Dom. Domino Guliel Archiep. Cant. Ã Sacris Domesticis Christian Loyalty OR A DISCOURSE Wherein is Asserted that just Royal Authority and Eminency which in this Church and Realm of England is yielded to the KING Especially concerning Supremacy in CAUSES ECCLESIASTICAL Together with The disclaiming all Foreign Jurisdiction And the unlawfulness of Subjects TAKING ARMS Against the KING By WILLIAM FALKNER Preacher at S. Nicholas in Lyn Regis LONDON Printed by J. M. for Walter Kettilby at the Bishops-Head in St Paul's Church-Yard MDCLXXIX To the MOST REVEREND FATHER in GOD WILLIAM By DIVINE PROVIDENCE LORD ARCHBISHOP OF CANTERBVRY Primate of all ENGLAND and Metropolitan And one of His Majesties most Honourable Privy Council c. May it please your Grace I Have in the following Discourse undertaken a Vindication of those publick Loyal Declarations of this Church and Kingdom which are of great concernment not only in the Civil Government but also in the Christian Religion and I hope your Grace will therefore not account it improper that this should be presented unto your self For the chief things I have taken upon me to defend are such special Branches of the Doctrine of our Church that in this part and Age of the World they are in a manner peculiar to it and to them who with it have herein imbraced the true Reformed profession But both the Roman Church and divers other different Sects and parties among their other Errours and Heresies entertain such disloyal Positions as are of dangerous importance unto Government wherein besides some other things there is too near a Conjunction between them And these things are of so great consequence in Christianity that the main Foundations of Righteousness Peace and Obedience are thereby established all which necessary duties are much insisted on by our Saviours Doctrine And therein the regular and orderly behaviour of inferiour Relations is particularly enjoined for the gaining reputation to our Religion because a temper fitted for Christian subjection supposeth Pride Passion and Perverseness to be subdued and that in the fear of God an Humble Meek and peaceable Spirit is introduced which are things wherein our Saviour hath given us his Example And the principal matter of this Discourse concerning the Kings Supremacy in all Causes and the unlawfulness of Subjects taking Armes is of the greater concernment because the contrary ill Principles which many have imbibed have been very pernicious to several parts of the World for many hundred years past Which hurtful Positions have prevailed the more among men by their being covered over with plausible pretences as if those of the former sort were needful to assert the just interest and honour of the Christian Church and those of the latter sort to provide for the safety of the Common-wealth and of every Man 's own propriety All which would represent the secular Authority which was ordained by divine wisdom for the good of Mankind to be a thing exceeding hurtful and mischievous to the World Wherefore since men are much led by the consideration of their interests that what I propose may be the more successful and effectual I have shewed that Obedience and peaceable subjection to Governours without resistance is not only a duty which is enough to perswade all good men to practise it but that it is the common advantage of the World as the whole duty of Man is both to Rulers and to Subjects And that Royal Supremacy in Causes Ecclesiastical is not prejudicial to the Christian Church I have only expressed more covertly and succinctly because though this may be considered by some men there is another interest to wit that of the boundless ambition and avarice of the Romish Court and Church which chiefly instigates their opposition hereunto and I must confess that the truth I defend doth not gratify this interest But that tendeth best to promote the advantages of the Church in the World when the goodness of our Religion and its preserving all just rights of Superiours as well as others doth so recommend it to the World as may gain to it the good opinion of all men the favour of Princes and the blessing of God And though I am conscious to my self that by reason of the greatness and copiousness of the subject I have taken in hand there may be several defects in my performances notwithstanding my diligent endeavours yet I presume humbly to tender them to your Grace in confidence that your Candor and readiness to give a favourable acceptance to well designed and not unuseful undertakings and to make charitable allowances for their imperfections doth bear an equal proportion with other parts of your great worth by reason of which you possess your great dignity with a general satisfaction to good men and the Friends of Truth and Peace And that you may long and happily continue here to the benefit of the Church and may see the Church it self in Prosperity and true Piety flourishing all the dayes of your Life is the desire and Prayer of him Who Honoureth your Grace With humble and dutiful Reverence William Falkner TO THE READER THE Government and Constitution of this Realm requiring a solemn acknowledgment to be made by all who bear any office therein concerning the Regal Power and Dignity and the different parties using their several methods and pretences to oppose the matters of these publick Declarations I have endeavoured in the following Discourse to give a true and clear account of these things in order to the removing those mistakes or doubts which may either perplex any persons or tempt them to neglect their duty And I have oft thought that those things which are publickly professed in this Church and Realm by these particular acknowledgments which are made by so many persons are very useful to be discoursed of both because these things themselves were selected as being of great concernment by the grave and prudent consideration of publick Authority and the due complyance with them includeth the practising Obedience and following the things which make for Peace and also because the unjust oppositions made against these things are either managed by ill designs or at least have a tendency to promote ill effects in Church and State And the truth which in this Discourse I undertake to maintain doth also speak much the Integrity and Simplicity of the Christian Religion that it is not a Worldly contrivance or a way laid to intitle any Professors thereof to claim or to enable them to usurp upon or oppose the temporal Power and Authority as hath been shamefully done in the Church of Rome and not a little by other sorts of men a considerable part of the Popish Usurpations being founded in their unjust encroaching upon the Rights of Soveraignty And they who have observed the State of the World cannot be unsensible what Horrid and Mischievous
Conspiracies have been frequently contrived against the Safety and Welfare of Princes and their Kingdoms as the consequent of the wicked Positions which I have undertaken to refute But all these attempts which are Pernicious and Destructive to Humane Society will I hope sufficiently appear by the following Discourse to be perfectly opposite to the Christian Doctrine also and severely condemned by it Wherefore the things treated of in this Book are of such a nature that they are of great concernment for the good Order Peace and Settlement of the World the security of Kings and Kingdoms and the vindicating the Innocency of the Christian Religion Upon this Account I could wish my self to be more able to discourse of such a subject as this every way suitably to and worthy of it self But as I have herein used diligent care and consideration so I can freely say I have every where endeavoured impartially to discover and faithfully to express the truth and have never used any unworthy Artifices to evade or obscure it And therefore if the sober and judicious Reader shall in any thing of less moment as I hope he will not in matters of great moment discern any mistake I shall presume upon his Candor and Charity In the manner of handling things I have avoided nothing which I apprehended to be a difficulty or considerable matter of objection but in the return of Answers and the use of Arguments to confirm what I assert I have oft purposely omitted many things in themselves not inconsiderable for the shunning needless prolixity and have waved several things taken notice of by others for this cause sometimes because I was not willing to lay any stress upon such things as seemed to me not to be of sufficient strength On this account for instance in discoursing of the Supremacy of Princes over Ecclesiastical Officers I did not insist on our Saviour and S. Peter paying Tribute Mat. 17.24 27. For though many ancient Writers speak of this as paid to Caesar and some expressions in the Evangelist seem to favour this sense yet I suppose there is rather greater likelyhood that this had respect to the annual oblation unto God himself which the Jews paid for the service of the Temple to which St Hilary and some other Ancients refer it Yet in rendring unto Caesar the things that are Caesars I still reserve unto God the things that are Gods acknowledging the primary necessity of embracing the true Worship of God and the Doctrine and practice of Christianity and that all Christians ought to bear an high reverence to the establishment of the Kingdom of Christ under the Gospel and to that Authority and those Officers which he hath peculiarly established therein But there is a very great miscarriage among men that there are those who look upon many weighty things in Christianity as if they were merely secular Constitutions and were no further necessary to be observed than for the securing men from outward penalties These men do not observe and consider that there lyeth a far greater necessity of keeping and valuing the Communion of the Church of devoutly attending Gods publick worship and orderly performing its Offices with other things of like nature from the Precepts and Institutions of Christ and from the Divine Sanctions than from the countenance or establishment of any civil Law or secular Authority whatsoever The lively sense and consideration of this was that which so wonderfully promoted and preserved both Piety and Unity in the Primitive Church when it had no encouragement from the Temporal Power But there must be no opposition made between Fearing God and Honouring the King but a careful discharge of both and these Precepts which God hath joined together let no man separate And now I shall only entreat that Reader who is inclined to have different apprehensions from the main things I assert to be so just to his own reason and Conscience as impartially to consider and embrace the evidence of Truth which is the more necessary because truths of this nature are no mere matters of speculation but are such Rules to direct our practice which they who are unwilling to entertain act neither charitably to themselves nor accountably to God And he who is the Father of Spirits direct the hearts of all men into the wayes of Goodness Uprightness Truth and Peace Lyn Regis June 21. 1678. THE CONTENTS THE First BOOK Chap. I. THE Kings Supremacy in Causes Ecclesiastical declared Sect. 1. The Royal Supremacy acknowledged and asserted in the Church and Realm of England Sect. 2. The true meaning of Supremacy of Government enquired into with particular respect to Causes Ecclesiastical Sect. 3. The Declaration of this sense by publick Authority observed Sect. 4. The spiritual Authority of the Ecclesiastical Officers is of a distinct nature from the Secular power and is no way prejudicial to Royal Supremacy Sect. 5. A particular account of this Supremacy in some chief matters Ecclesiastical with some notice of the opposition which is made thereunto Chap. II. The Supremacy of Kings in matters Ecclesiastical under the Old Testament considered Sect. 1. Their supreme Authority over things and persons sacred manifested Sect. 2. The various Pleas against Christian Kings having the same Authority about Religion which was rightly exercised under the Old Testament refuted Chap. III. No Synedrial Power among the Jews was superiour or equal to the Regal Sect. 1. The Exorbitant Power claimed to the Jewish Sanhedrim reflected on with a refutation of its pretended superiority over the King himself Sect. 2. The determination of many weighty Cases claimed to the Sanhedrim as exempt from the Royal Power examined and refuted Sect. 3. Of the Antiquity of the Synedrial Power among the Jews with reflexions upon the pretences for a distinct supreme Ecclesiastical Senate Chap. IV. Royal Supremacy in Causes Ecclesiastical proved from reason and the Doctrine of Christ Sect. 1. The evidence hereof from the nature of Soveraign Power Sect. 2. The same established by the Christian Doctrine Sect. 3. What Authority such Princes have in matters Ecclesiastical who are not members of the Church Sect. 4. An enquiry into the time of the Baptism of Constantine the Great with respect to the fuller clearing this matter Chap. V. An Account of the sense of the ancient Christian Church concerning the Authority of Emperours and Princes in matters of Religion Sect. 1. Of the General Exercise of this Supremacy and its being allowed by the Fathers of the first General Council of Nice Sect. 2. This Supremacy owned in the second General Council at Constantinople and the third at Ephesus Sect. 3. The same acknowledged in the Council of Chalcedon and others Sect. 4. Some Objections concerning the Case of Arius and Arianism considered Sect. 5. Other Objections from the Fathers concerning the eminency of Ecclesiastical Officers and their Authority Sect. 6. The Canons of the Church concerning the exemption of the Causes of the Clergy from secular cognisance
or supreme governour if he will make use thereof as hath been declared by the chief persons of this Church Can. 1. 1640. And the ancient right and exercise of the authority of Kings in summoning provincial or national Councils De Conc. Sac. Imp. l. 6. c. 18 19 22 23 24 c. The Kings just authority in matters Ecclesiastical opposed is sufficiently observed and asserted by P. de Marca 6. But against these just rights of the Princes power there are various oppositions Such are the claims of the Romish Bishops universal Supremacy either in all affairs or at least in all things Spiritual and Ecclesiastical as also the pretence for the necessity of general liberty and exemption from all authority in matters of Conscience and Religion Ch. 6. 8. which things I shall so far as is needful in due place particularly consider 7. The Writers of the Romish Church do 1. V. l. 2. Decretal Tit. de Jud. c. At si clerici c. Clerici Tit. de foro comp c si diligenti Bellar. de Cler. c. 28. Generally assert and some other parties also encline the same way that the state of the Church and all Ecclesiastical affairs are exempt from the civil power and not under the inspection and government thereof and that the Clergy as such are not subjects to the secular Governour and that they are not accountable before him no not so much say divers of them as in criminal causes nor yet in civil Layman l. 4. Tr. 9. c. 2 4 5. seq 2. Not only the Canonists but many others also do found this Ecclesiastical immunity upon a proper divine right which is also asserted by some of the Romish Biships Innoc. 3. in Conc. Lateran Leo 10. in Bul. Reform in Conc. Later 5. Ses 9. Azor. Tom. 1. l. 5. c. 12. Laym ubi sup c. 8. Greg. de Valent. Tom. 4. disp 9. qu. 5. p. 4. Bannes in 2. secundae qu. 6â— Art 1. Dub. 2. in such Councils as they call General And some of their Writers run so high as Layman Theol. Moral l. 1. Tr. 4. cap. 13. and divers others by him there cited as to assert that no civil or secular laws do lay any obligation directly upon the Clergy as having no authority over them But if I shall shew that all members of the Christian Church are nevertheless subjects or the Realm and that the nature of civil Soveraignty doth directly include a right to givern them and an obligation to take care of the affairs of the Church this will sufficiently refute these contrary positions 8. But these Writers are sensible that in the general practice of the Christian World almost in all ages thereof secular Governours have interposed in many cases Ecclesiastical And the great advantages from Christian Religion being established and Gentilisme opposed by the Laws and Constitutions of Constantine and other worthy Christian Emperours are so visible that they cannot be denied and therefore the Romanists do acknowledge that the Princes care of the Church affairs is of great use I. Zecch de principe l. 2. cap. 5. and that he is as Laelius Zecchius expresseth it Ecclesiae brachium Religionis propugnaculum the arm and defence of the Church and the fortress of Religion Greg. de Valentia ubi supra Laym l. 4. tr 9. c. 10. P. de Marca de Concord l. 1. cap. 12. in Prolegom p. 28. Yet that all this may be consistent with the former positions we have another device set on foot which acknowledgeth that this useful power of Soveraign Princes in things Ecclesiastical must be owned only as a priviledge granted them by the Bishop of Rome and that they must act therein as by his favour and as his deputies and by the right of protecting the Church which he committeth to them 9. Now though this pretence will fall with the former if it be manifested that the nature end and constitution of civil government as established by God is to be extended to matters Ecclesiastical yet concerning this pretence I shall here further note these things 1. That they must cast reflections upon the wise and good God who asserting the great usefulness of the civil Ruler interposing in matters Ecclesiastical will not grant that the wisdom and goodness of God should be as ready to allow the Church this advantage as the prudence of the Pope 2. That if this anthority in matters Ecclesiastical be against the rules of the divine law which God hath established for the honour and freedom of his Church the Bishop of Rome dealeth ill with the Church touching its freedoms by giving them away and makes very bold with God by daring to confront Gods laws with his priviledges and indulging any person to disobey them 3. That Christian Princes would be in a very unsafe condition whilest they act any thing about the affairs of the Church if they have no better foundation to bear them up than the pretence of the Popes power to dispense with the laws of God Surely had Justinian thought Novel 58. that his care of the Church had been so ventuous and hazardous an enterprise it would have cooled the heat of his zeal that he would never have professed his care for the Churches wilfare to be equal to that for his own life 4. That whilest any persons do think it meet that Princes should act under the Pope as his deputy in the affairs of Religion to whom they owe no subjection and from whom they receive no ruling authority it must certainly be much more reasonable that they should act under God and as his Deputies whose Vice-gerents they certainly are and from whom I shall now design to prove them to have authority in matters Ecclesiastical B. 1. C. 2. CHAP. II. The Royal Supremacy of Kings in matters Ecclesiastical under the Old Testament considered SECT I. Their supreme authority over things and persons sacred manifested 1. Kings in the Old Testament governed about things of the Church Art 37. THE inference which may be made from the authority of the Kings under the Old Testament is an argument to which our Church hath a great respect in asserting the Royal Supremacy in causes Ecclesiastical In her Articles she declareth this acknowledgment of Royal Supremacy to be a yielding that only prerogative unto our Kings which we see to have been given always to all godly Princes in holy Scripture Can. 2. by God himself And in her Canons she threatneth excommunication against them who shall affirm that the King hath not the same authority in causes Ecclesiastical Sect. 1 that the godly Kings had among the Jews Wherefore I shall for the inforcing this argument shew 1. That the Kings of Judah had and exercised a supreme power of Government in things belonging to the Church 2. That they did this by such a right as is common to all other Soveraign powers and not by any peculiar priviledge and
things which are under the proper and peculiar administration and cognisance of Ecclesiastical Officers are sometimes in a restrained sense stiled Ecclesiastical things which as such all secular powers are prohibited to intermeddle with And in this sense with particular respect to matters of saith as falling under Ecclesiastical decision not only Hosius above disallowed Constantius his undertaking things Ecclesiastical who yet himself obeyed the summons of Constantine to appear in the Council of Nice and some others and was imployed by him in many things relating to the Church Conc. Eph. Tom. 1. c. 32. But also Theodosius above-mentioned declares it unlawful for any but Bishops negotiis Ecclesiasticis sese immiscere to intermeddle in Ecclesiastical business But that the Phrase of things Ecclesiastical is there understood only in the restrained sense now mentioned is manifest because in that very rescript of Theodosius to the Ephesine Council he committeth this authority to the Count he sent thither to take care of the orderly and peaceable proceedings of the Council and to hinder any person whomsoever from departing from the Synod or any other Ecclesiastical cause from being discussed till those for which they were called were determined And in the same Epistle also the emperour declares that as he had a care concerning the Common-wealth so his chief care was concerning such things as pertained to Piety and Religion So that the Princes power and authority about things Ecclesiastical as that Phrase is taken in a large sense for things relating to the Church and Religion was not in that rescript denied 10. V. Ambr. in Auxent ad Marcellin theod Hist Eccl. l. 5. c. 13. And touching the Case of Ambrose It had certainly been a thing unaccountable and unwarrantable for him by any act of his own to have delivered up the possession of his Church Since this had encluded what Theodoret saith he thought himself obliged to refuse his own consent to give up his people to the conduct of the Arians And indeed the interest of God and his Church and his truth were superiour to the will and command of the Emperour or any man upon Earth and it was fit that S. Ambrose should acquaint the Emperour with this Sect. 5 which he ought to take notice of But if the emperour should not observe his duty to God S. Ambrose must not neglect his still behaving himself to his Prince as becomes a good subject But when any Catholick Bishops by the Edict of Arian Emperours were commanded into banishment they not only obeyed of which there are numerous examples but though it a Christian duty to submit themselves with a patient and peaceable temper of mind which was very remarkable in the carriage of Eusebius Samosatensis under Valens the Emperour which was much commended by Theodoret Theod. Hist Eccl. l. 4. c. 13. SECT V. Other objections from the Fathers concerning the eminency of Ecclesiastical Officers and their authority It is further objected that divers ancient catholick Writers even before the Aspiring height of the Romish Bishop have used such expressions as speak their preferring the authority of the Ecclesiastical power to the secular and their esteeming it to be the more eminent To this purpose some passages are produced by Baronius Baron an 57. n. 31 32. from Ignatius Sulpitius in the life of S. Martin Gr. Nazianzene S. Ambrose and S. Chrysostome 2. What is cited as from Ignatius directeth first to honour God and then the Bishop and after him 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as the common Greek Copies read it the King But it is sufficient to observe that all this is only an addition of the Interpolator of Ignatius V. Ign. Ep. ad Smyrn and is not any part of his genuine Epistles as is evident from the Latine Edition of Bishop Vsher and the Greek of Vossius neither of which have any thing of this nature in them And yet though this addition might be made as Bishop Vsher conjectureth Usser dissert de Ing. c. 6. about the sixth Century it was designed to suit the age of Ignatius and that which the foregoing words intimate to be the intended sense may well be allowed That Christians were bound to have an higher regard to the directions and instructions of Christianity and the conduct of their Bishops and spiritual guides in the Christian Religion than to the commands even of Kings or Emperours who were opposers of that holy Religion and Enemies to the truth 3. But from Sulpitius in the life of S. Martin he urgeth that S. Martin being entertained at the table of Maximus the Emperour Of S. Martin and Maximus Sulp. in vit Martini c. 23. one of the Kings attendants brought him a Cup which the King commands him to give to the Bishop S. Martin then Bishop of Turenne desiring that he might receive the Cup from his hands But S. Martin when he had drunk gives the Cup to his Presbyter who was with him thinking that neither the King nor any other who were with him ought to be preferred before him And Baronius declareth he would have done the same had he been only a Deacon whom he had with him 4. But this story as it is here related shews much of the Spirit of Baronius towards Kings who would not it seems allow them being of the laity to have so much honour and respect shewed unto them as must be given to a Deacon And if the spirit of S. Martin was such as the Cardinal in this particular doth represent it it would need an Apology if the Case would bear it or indeed it would rather deserve a censure 5. But the truth is that Maximus was a Rebel and an Vsurper who had then wickedly murthered Gratian the Emperour and invaded the Territories of Valentinian and for this cause S. Martin though often requested for a long time refused to come to his Table and avoided all converse with him more than any other Bishop in those parts did and did also foretel the ruine of Maximus Sulp. ibid. Baron an 386. n. 20 21. Marcel Com. Chron. in init Socr. l. 5. c. 14. as Sulpitius relateth and Baronius elsewhere taketh notice of And Marcellinus in his Chronicon and also Socrates Theodoret and Sozomen in their Histories divers times when they speak of him give him the stile of Maximus the Tyrant And Symmachus a Roman Senator was found guilty of Treason by Theodosius for publishing an Oration as an Encomium or Panegyrick upon Maximus 6. Ambr. Ep. 27. When S. Ambrose was sent as an Ambassadour from Valentinian to Maximus he not only refused the salutation of a kiss from him but withdrew himself from those Bishops who communicated with him An. 383. n. 19 20. Rab. Maur. lib. de Rever c. 3. Yea Baronius himself mentions his Government as being a tyranny and Rabanus Maurus taketh special notice of this Maximus as being a person who did not escape the divine judgment when he had
insolently exalted himself against and cruelly murdered his own Lord and Master And if S. Martin being once brought to his Table would not upon this account drink to him or to any other with him who were partakers or might be presumed favourers of his insurrection this spake him a zealous friend to justice and the right of Princes and one who earnestly detested Usurpation and Rebellion 7. The places produced from Nazianzen Naz. orat 17. Ambr. de dign Sacerdot c. 2. S. Ambrose and S. Chrysostome do express the Ecclesiastical authority to have an higher excellency than the temporal which Gr. Nazianz. declareth by comparing his Episcopal dignity with the prefect of his City but the other two by preferring the Ecclesiastical authority in some Excellencies to the Royal. And indeed there are very great Excellencies do attend the Ecclesiastical Ministry even in some respects above those which belong unto the secular and it becomes every good Christian who hath a value for the Gospel Grace highly to esteem this Ministry but its worth and excellency doth not at all prove its superiority of Government in the state of the World 8. The Ecclesiastical Ministry hath such excellencies as these The excellency of the Christian Ministry That the persons towards whom it is exercised are not only men or members of an humane Society but are advanced to be Christians or persons admitted into the body of Christs Church and that the constitution of this Ministry was established by the dispensation of that admirable grace and love of God which was manifested to the World by our Lord and Saviour and that the design of it hath more immediate respect to the souls of men and their salvation as also that heavenly and spiritual mysteries and blessings are dispensed thereby And some of these things are those to which S. Chrysostome had peculiar respect Chrys in Esai Hom. 4. 5. as his words do particularly declare 9. Excellency and supremacy of Government are different things But that such excellencies attending this ministration doth not place the Ecclesiastical Officers above the condition of being subjects to Princes may appear by proposing a like way of arguing in another case Every truly pious man doth rightly govern his own heart and life and thereby is not only a man and a visible Christian but is a true and real Christian and member of Christ whose practice is according to his profession And his chief care is about such excellent things as the divine life and the salvation of his Soul which he attaineth effectually and this man doth receive the grace of the Gospel to the highest and most advantageous purposes and is not only dignified with the honourable titles of a King a Priest and a Son of God but doth receive those great benefits which are included under these high expressions And these are spiritual excellencies of a more sublime nature than the bare enjoying either civil or Ecclesiastical Offices 10. But if every good man because of these excellencies which attend his state should be concluded to have a greater dignity of authority and Government in the World invested in him than is in Kings and Princes and that therefore he is not nor ought not to be subject unto them then must the Christian Religion not only bring confusion into the World but also make void its own Precepts of obedience subjection and humility and must also make men and the World the worse by taking them off from performing the duties of their relations 11. And that neither S. Chrysostome nor S. Ambrose ever intended by such expressions as are above-mentioned to discharge the Clergy from the obligations to obedience and humble reverence to Kings and Emperours is manifest Chrys in Rom. 13. from S. Chrysostomes declaring that even Apostles Evangelists and all persons whosoever ought to be subject to the civil power and from the dutiful behaviour of S. Ambrose to Valentinian of which I shall give some account in the following Book SECT VI. The Canons of the Church concerning the exemption of the causes of the Clergy from secular cognisance considered with some other things which have some affinity therewith from Mat. 18.17 and 1 Cor. 6. 1. There are divers ancient Canons which require the causes which concern the Clergy especially among themselves to be examined by the Bishop or the Bishops of the Province or if it be needful by a greater Synod but not to be brought before the Courts of the secular power Some such Canons are referred to by Photius Phot. Nomoc Tit. 9. c. 1. c. 11. qu. 1. Barcl de Pot. Pap. c. 32. Conc. Agath c. 23. Conc. Matisc 1. c. 5. Conc. Antioch c. 11 12. and others are produced by Gratian and divers of them are enquired into by Barclay To this purpose tend some Canons of the Second and fourth General Councils and others of the Provincial Councils both in Africa Asia and Europe But it may be presumed that these Canons of the Church would not have thus determined unless the Church had judged such cases and persons not to be under the Supremacy and Government of the secular authority And which may seem to add strength to this Objection even the civil law it self gives some allowance to these proceedings Sect. 6 2. And it may be further added Secular causes were anciently determined in the Ecclesiastical Judicatures Mat. 18.17 that when our Saviour established his Church there is some appearance of his giving the whole body or Society of Christians a kind of immunity from the supremacy of the secular power in that in Cases of trespass and injury which are civil matters he directs the proceeding concerning them to be brought before the Church 1 Cor. 6. 1 c. And S. Paul enjoins Christians not to go to law before the civil Pagan Judicatures which things carry an appearance of a diminution of the secular Supremacy towards the members of the Christian Church And the usual Trials of the civil causes of Christians by Ecclesiastical Judges both before and after the Empire was Christian is manifest not only from the Apostolical Constitutions Ch. 1. Sect. 4. Gr. Nys in Vit. Gr. Thaum Aug. Cons l. 6. c. 3. Amb. Ep. ad Marcellum Ep. 24. and S. Aug. which I above produced but also from what Gregory Nyssen relateth concerning Gregorius Thaumaturgus Bishop of Neocesarea and from the practice of S. Ambrose an account of which we have both from S. Austin and from himself 3. But for answer hereunto and for a right understanding of all this I shall think it sufficient to observe three things Obs 1. That those rules were established out of a true Christian and peaceable design This sometime by peaceable arbitration and to prevent scandal and thereupon had no ill aspect upon secular authority If a father of a numerous Progeny or a Master of a great Family consulting the honour reputation and peace of his Family enjoin them
that the Popes usurped power was not so quietly and freely submitted to in this Realm as thereby to give him any right to govern here SECT III. The present Jurisdiction of those Churches which have been called Patriarchal ought not to be determined by the ancient bounds of their Patriarchates 1. The bounds of Patriarchal Authority altered The third Assertion is That the Patriarchal rights especially those of Rome do not now stand on the same terms as they did in the ancient Church nor can the present Roman Bishop claim subjection in all those limits which of right were under the ancient and Catholick Bishops of Rome No man can reasonably think that the bounds of the Patriarchal Sees were unalterable unless they had been of a divine or Apostolical Authority But that they were never looked upon as such in the Catholick Church may besides other testimonies appear in that the General Councils undertook to erect Patriarchates and to divide the limits of others as they saw cause Sect. 3 Thus the dignity and honour of a Patriarch was given to the Bishop of Constantinople Conc. Const c. 3. in the second General Council and his Patriarchal limits and Jurisdiction were fixed in the fourth and in the same the Patriarchate of Antioch was divided and part thereof allotted to the Bishop of Jerusalem who then received Patriarchal limits and Jurisdiction Conc. Chalc. Act. 7. But I shall only consider four things which may so alter the state of Patriarchal Jurisdictions that every one of them besides what is abovesaid is a bar against all claim of authority in the Bishop of Rome to these Churches and Realms 2. First from the different territories 1. From the different bounds of free Kingdoms and Dominions of Soveraign Kings and Princes For the doctrine and design of Christianity did not intend to undermine and enervate but to establish and secure the right of Kings and no rule of the Christian Religion requires free Kingdoms to devest themselves of sufficient means to preserve their own security and peace and the necessary administration of justice Nor can the former acts of any Councils or Bishops wheresoever any such were give away the rights of Kings and Realms But a Foreign Bishop who is under no Allegiance to this Crown and hath no particular obligation to seek the good of this Kingdom Mischiefs from Foreign Jurisdiction may probably oft incline to designs either of his own ambition or the interests of other Princes against the true welfare of this Realm as hath sufficiently been done in the Court of Rome And if such an one hath power to cite before him any person whomsoever of this Realm either to his Patriarchal Seat or his Legate and hath the authority without all redress or appeal save to an Oecumenical Council which probably will never be had to inflict so severe a sentence as Excommunication truly is he would hereby have a considerable awe and curb upon many of the subjects of the Realm that they would be wary of opposing or provoking him And if Canonical obedience were due to him from all the Clergy and filial reverence from the laiety such a person being the Kings Enemy may have greater opportunity of indirect managing his ill projects than is consistent with the safety of the Realm or with the innocency and goodness of the Christian Religion to promote 3. The exercise of a foreign authority when managed by haughty and ambitious spirits hath been of such ill consequence to Kings and Emperours that King John was forced upon his knees to surrender his Crown to the Popes Legate Henry the Third Emperour of Germany Mart. Polon in Greg. Sept. p. 361. was compelled to stand at the Popes Gate barefoot several dayes n frost and snow to beg for absolution and Frederick the First to submit to Pope Alexander treading upon his neck And other instances there are of like nature of the despising Dominions and Dignities being the effects of Interdicts and Romish Excommunications Towards the whole Kingdom St. 25 Hen. 8.21 it becomes a method of exhausting its treasure by tedious and expensive prosecution of appeals and many other ways which were not without cause publickly complained of in this Kingdom Antiq. Brit. p. 178. insomuch that the yearly revenue of the Court of Rome out of this Kingdom was in the time of Henry the Third found to be greater than the revenue of the King And it is an high derogation from the Soveraignty of a King as well as a prejudice to the subjects where justice cannot be effectually administred and Cases of right determined by any authority within his own Dominions And with respect to the Clergy Pryn An. 24 25 Edw. 1. p. 689 c. the Foreign Jurisdiction sometimes brought them into great straits as did that Bull of Boniface the Eighth which put them to avoid his Excommunication upon contesting with the King and thereby brought them under the Kings displeasure and into very great grievances as appears from the Records of that time 4. And as upon these accounts it appears reasonable and necessary that the Dominions of Soveraign Princes should be free from any Foreign Ecclesiastical superiority so there are many things which may be observed to this purpose in the ancient state of the Church The Government of Dioceses Provinces and Patriarchates hath been acknowledged to have been ordered within the Empire and according to the distinct limits of the Provinces thereof Conc. Const c. 3. Chalc. c. 28. Conc. Chalc. c. 17. Trul. c 38. The Sees of Rome and Constantinople enjoyed the greatest Ecclesiastical priviledges because they were the Imperial Cities The Canons also of Oecumenical Councils enjoined that if any City receive new priviledges of honour by the Imperial authority the Ecclesiastical Constitutions for the honour of its See shall be regulated thereby And whereas the Slavonian Churches were first Converted to Christianity by them who were of the Eastern or Greek Church and embraced their Rites when Bohemia and some other branches of the Slavonian Nations were made members of the German Empire they thereupon became subject to the Government of the Western Church Thus also when the Bishop of Arles had an eminent authority in the ancient Gallia Comâ— Hist n 18. upon that City being divided from those Dominions and becoming subject to the Goths who then Commanded Italy and Spain he exercised no longer any Jurisdiction there but had his authority changed to be Delegate over the Spanish Territories but when this City was again reduced to the French Government he no longer exercised his authority in the Dominions of Spain 5. Yet it must be acknowledged that in practice the Dominions of several Soveraign Princes have been subject to a Foreign Patriarch which was not their duty But this was undertaken either upon presumption that because of the excellency and simplicity of the Christian Religion there could be no fear of prejudice from
the sole pretence of civil rights and secular interests that there may be a provision for this Case as well as for the former it will not be unmeet to accompany this Position of his with another which is much of like nature with it and equally peaceable And this is That all men ought to suffer each other without any disturbance or complaint to take and enjoy whatsoever goods persons and possessions they shall please to possess themselves of And if this principle with the former were entertained by all men as it never was nor can be there would then be no Wars nor contests in the World neither concerning matters of Religion nor any other rights And then we should have a quiet World but with little regard to Religion Righteousness Chastity and Vertue and without all Order Government and civil Societies the Earth being then over-grown with the height of Barbarism far surpassing the wildness of the Native Indians 9. No Peace can be from thence expected But against the former method here proposed for the procuring peace I shall observe further two things 1. That there are so many things necessary for the making this proposal practicable that even that may well make any man despair of its effect For first care must be taken that there be no such pious men in the World who will think that Gods honour ought to be maintained and the true Religion defended and secured by the authority of Governours and yet either the peaceable principle must be forsaken or else thereupon these men must enjoy the liberty of their opinion as well as others Secondly there must be security given that there shall be no such furious men in the World who will at any time vent notions in Religion which may tend to undermine authority and Government to make mens minds fierce and cruel or to evacuate obedience nor yet that there be any such eager and earnest men who will be forward to use what power they can gain for the establishing their own opinions Thirdly as this proposal can never become useful for peace until all men be brought to be of the opinion of the proposer which is as unlike as any thing can be so even then there must be some provision made that the practice of this proposal be not the ready way to hinder the effect thereof For the practice of this general liberty for all opinions in Religion doth according to common experience ordinarily beget instead of peace discords oppositions disturbances confusions and other ill effects which make all men of consideration see the hurt and danger of such licentious liberty and the necessity of Order and Government Fourthly And there must be no men so far Christians and conscientious as to acknowledge that there are any doctrines of Faith duties of Christian worship or institutions of Christ so necessary and sacred that the opposers or contemners of them ought to be checked and withstood And though he be so bold as to assert P. 68 69. that we ought not to teach that any errors in belief overthrow the hope of salvation and speaks of the hopeful estate of persons whatsoever doctrines they embrace P. 70 71. in the whole compass of Religions which large expressions must include those Jews who in our Saviours time asserted him to be a blasphemer and not the Christ yet thanks be to God there are many who will believe those words of our Lord to the Jews Job 8.24 If ye believe not that I am he ye shall die in your sins And from this and many other expressions in the Scripture of the great danger of unbelief will conclude that under the clear promulgation of the Gospel it is necessary to Salvation to believe that Jesus is the Christ and Saviour of the World and to profess and obey his doctrine 10. I observe 2. That the best way to promote the peace of the World Peace best promoted by uniform establishing true Religion and worship is by endeavouring that true Christianity in doctrine and practice be with one accord and with a spirit of Vnity embraced among men For first the nature of Christianity is such that so far as it really prevaileth it must be a strong bond of peace since it makes men tender of wronging any by word or deed and enjoins a necessity of making satisfaction for injuries a readiness to forgive enemies with a care of reverence fidelity and obedience to superiours and of gentleness humility patience and charity towards all men De duodeeim abus seculi cap. 7. On this account it was thought one of the great disorders amongst men that there should be Christianus contentiosus a Christian given to contention And though there are great miscarriages in this particular among many who profess this Religion but do not live according to it yet it is apparent that the spreading of Christianity in the World did greatly amend and reform it Eus de Dem. Evang l. 9. c. 17. De laud. Const p. 486 487. and as Eusebius long since noted did advantage the peace thereof and it will mightily promote this effect in all them who heartily practise it Secondly Vnity in Religion hath a natural force to excite friendliness whence even Jews Mahometans and all Sects are more kind to one another than to others and Philo accounteth concord in the worship of God Phil. de Charit p. 717. to be the greatest cement of love and Josephs Brethren thought it a considerable argument to engage his favour because they were the servants of the God of his Father Gen. 50.17 Thirdly The quiet of the World having chief dependance upon God it may be justly feared that where the care of true Religion is neglected the flourishing and peaceable state of Kingdoms should not long continue This was frequently observable in the times of the Judges and the Kings of Israel and Judah See Judg. 5.8.1 Kin. 11.4 Gild. de Exc. Brit. Mar. Par. an 1067. P. 5. 14 23. And remarkable decay of piety was observed to precede the two great Conquests of this Realm by Foreign Armies SECT II. Of some other rigid and dangerous principles against the supremacy of Princes 1. Of the rigid Presbyterians There are some of the rigid Presbyterians especially those of the Scotish way who though they allow the King some authority both in matters Ecclesiastical and over Ecclesiastical persons do yet in terminis reject the Kings being supreme Governour Sect. 2 Rutherf of Ch. Gov. Ch. 23. p. 508. Henderson's second Paper to the King in all causes Ecclesiastical and civil and withal do plainly misrepresent the sense thereof But that those of this way do in a dangerous manner oppose the just supremacy of Princes in things Ecclesiastical may be partly manifest from their general position That the institution of God hath so provided for all things pertaining to Religion that there is no room left for any appointments of order by the
authority of men the substance of which I have in another discourse taken notice of But this will be more apparently manifest from another position which I shall now reflect upon 2. It is asserted by them that if a Minister shall speak treason in his Pulpit by way of doctrine the Church only is to try whether it be treason indeed Ibid. Ch. 24. p. 551 552. The like Plea was used by A. Melvil a chief Modeller of the Scotish Presbytery in his own Case 1584. and he may decline the civil judg and appeal to a Synod This is not only affirmed by Mr Rutherford but this position was in an exceeding strange manner espoused by the General Assembly of the Kirk who contested with King James concerning it upon this occasion Mr D. Blake having in his Sermon at S. Andrews declared that the King had discovered the treachery of his heart That all Kings are the Devils Bearnes That the Queen of England Queen Elizabeth was an Atheist with many more dangerous assertions and being cited by the Kings authority to answer these things he alledged that he could not in this case be judged by the King till the Church had taken the first cognition thereof Spotsw Hist of Sc. l. 6. p. 330. And the Kirk-Commissioners enter a Declinator and Protestation against the Kings proceedings and would not consent that any punishment should be inflicted upon Mr Blake because there was no tryal before a proper judge and declared that if he should submit his doctrine to be tryed by the Council the liberty of the Church and the spiritual Government of the House of God Hist of Sc. l. 6. an 1596. would be quite subverted A full and particular account of this whole matter is expressed by Bishop Spotswood and this contest was so great and famous and the disturbances ensuing thereupon so notorious that they were thought fit to be signified to the States General of the united Provinces Adr. Damman in Praest Viror Epist p. 49. c. by their Agent then sent into Scotland in the entrance of 1597. But such positions and undertakings as these are calculated for a Meridian equal in Elevation with the Italian 3. One thing insisted on for this exemption of the Church and its Officers from the Civil Authority is that the Officers of the Church act by Authority from Christ and therefore are not to be in immediate subjection to Kings and Princes Chap. 6. Sect. 4. But this hath been particularly answered above 4. But they further argue Christs Royal Authority not invaded by Princes governing in causes Ecclesiasticale that it is the Royalty of Christ to Govern his Church in matters of Religion and if the Civil Rulers do intermeddle herein they thereby invade Christs Kingly Government To which I answer 1. That this way of arguing put into other language would amount to thus much That because Christ is the King of his Church or of all Christians yea and of all the earth therefore Christians and the whole World ought not to be subject to any other King or Ruler but to Christ And this would serve the design of the highest Fifth Monarchy men if it had any weight in it 2. It is a gross falshood that no act that Christ doth as King may be performed by any other King There are some great things in the Kingly power of Christ which are wholly incommunicable in the nature of them to any other human person whomsoever being founded on his Mediatory Office Such are his giving the Sanction to the Laws and Precepts of the Gospel to become the rule of the Christian Religion his Soveraign dispensing divine grace upon account of his own merits his pronouncing the final sentence of Absolution and Condemnation and his having by a peculiar right an Vniversal authority over all the World all power in heaven and earth being committed to him And all such things as these are as far disclaimed from Kings as from other men But there are other acts of Christs Government of his Church where some thing of like nature ought to be performed by others though in a different manner thus Christ ruleth Christians and so may all Christian Kings do Christ doth protect his Church and so ought all Soveraign Powers to do Christ by his Authority encourageth the pious and devout and discountenanceth the negligent and so ought all Rulers as well as all other good men to do by theirs 3. If governing others with respect to Religion were peculiar to Christ himself and his Royal Authority the authority of Ecclesiastical Officers would by this method become void also for Christ hath not conveyed the peculiarities of his Royal Authority to them But as they in their places have authority from Christ so the civil power is in subordination to him who is King of Kings and is confirmed by him 5. There have been also other very pernicious principles which undermine the whole foundation of the Royal Supremacy both in matters civil and Ecclesiastical In our late dreadful times of Civil War the whole management of things against the King and the undertaking to alter and order publick affairs without him was a manifest and practical disowning the Kings Supremacy Popular Supremacy disclaimed Some persons then who would be thought men of sense did assert that though the King was owned to be supreme Governour yet the supremest Soveraign power was in the people Others declared that the title of Supreme Governour was an honourary title given to the King to please him instead of fuller power And in the Issue July 17. 1649. by a pretended Act it was called Treason to say that the Commons assembled in Parliament were not the supreme authority of the Nation But there were also some who then affirmed the whole body of the people to be superiour to the Parliament and that they might call them to an account 6. But because I hope these positions are now forsaken and because much in the following Book is designed against the dangerous effect of them in taking Arms I shall content my self here to observe three things First that those who would disprove the Royal Supremacy because of some actions which have been undertaken by some of the people or by any in their name against their Kings or even to the deposing of them do first stand bound to prove all these actions to be regular and justifiable or else it is no better argument than they might make use of against the authority of God from the disobedience of men 7. Secondly The asserting supremacy of Government in the body of the people is a position big with nonsense and irreligion 'T is nonsense like a whole Army being General since Supremacy of Government in the whole body of the people can be over no body unless something could be supreme over it self whereas if there be no higher power than what is in the whole body of the people this must be a state of
thereby to be the better man or the better Christian in that he may seem not to consult his own interest in the World by venturing to displease or provoke his Parents and to lose those advantages and favours he might by a dutiful carriage receive from them Notwithstanding such empty pretences to plead for disobedience we must acknowledge the truth of what Hierocles asserted Hier. in Pythag. p. 53. even from the principles of equity and reason that Parents are no where else to be disobeyed but where themselves are not obedient to the divine Precepts And the duty to Princes is of a like nature 11. 2. They who seem to disregard their own interest in some things in the World and not to desire the favour of their superiours do not deserve to be accounted the better or the wiser men unless this be done in the necessary discharge of duty to God and the keeping firm to the truth of Religion In those Cases forsaking Houses and Lands and Life becomes a needful duty but it is not so at other times Cont. Cels l. 8. p. 420. Origen tells us that the Christians of his Age were not so far besides themselves and void of reason as to displease and provoke Princes further than this was the effect of their observing the laws of God Aug. de Haeres c. 69. Cont. Gaud. Epist l. 2. c. 15. And the Schism of the Donatists and especially the Circumcelliones who were furious and outragious persons among them hath been never the better esteemed in the Christian Church because they not only withstood the laws of the Christian Emperours against it but were very prodigal in casting away their own lives to gain reputation to their party That man who will spend or throw away his Estate in a contention with his equal where it would better become him to live in peace is to be censured not applauded and to do the like in contending with his superiour is the worse of the two because the common good the peace of the Church and the duty of subjection are herein concerned And he who hath undervaluing thoughts of the approbation favour and respect of Governours in the performance of his duty cannot well have high thoughts of the institution and ordinance of God which appointed them for the praise of them that do well Rom. 13.3 1 Pet. 2.14 12. 3. That man only acts as becomes a truly conscientious man and a good Christian who is careful to avoid all sinful dispositions without undue affecting to please himself or to oppose the wayes of peace or to seek applause from any sort of men in the neglect of his duty And indeed the being in vogue and reputation with a particular company of men is to some persons a more prevailing temptation than the proposal of gain or publick honour of which we have a plain example even amongst the Apostles of our Saviour When they had arrived so far as that they could part with all their possessions and be content to undergo scorn and contempt from the generality of their Nation for their Masters sake they were so prone to affect the reputation of being the greatest in their own Society that they needed the watchful eye and frequent rebukes of their Saviour Luk. 9.46 47 48. ch 22.24 25 26. Mar. 10.44 to check and curb this evil temper And besides this there are those who make use of the interest of a party as a method of gain also as is easily observed 13. Wherefore the performing active obedience in lawful things to the Precepts of Superiours is a duty which must not be neglected by him who would keep a good Conscience since according to the will of God we must needs be subject not only for wrath but also for Conscience sake Christian Loyalty The Second Book Of the Vnlawfulness of Subjects taking Armes against the King CHAP. I. The publick Forms of Declaration against the lawfulness of resisting the King by Armes considered SECT I. Of the Oath of Allegiance or Obedience and its disclaiming the Popes power of deposing the King or licensing his Subjects to offer any violence to his Person State or Government 1. THE preservation of Civil Governours and the Peace of Kingdoms is of so great concernment that the wisdom of Lawgivers hath justly taken especial care thereof B. 2. C. 1. And Tumults Conspiracies and civil Wars are usually attended with the highest mischiefs the violation of things Sacred the banishing of natural affection and therewith Christian love meekness mercy and the duties of subjection and the practising murder rapine violence and lewdness And besides what every man may himself personally suffer in such Calamities the dismal spectacles which his eyes may behold the tragical relations which his ears must hear and the perplexing fears which may assault his mind in the lively sense of them are effectual and astonishing convictions of the dreadfulness of tumultuous and treasonable Conspiracies beyond all that can be expressed concerning them 2. But though the Christian Religion doth firmly oblige men to peace obedience and due submission there are many persons who own that name and yet entertain positions wholly inconsistent with the Precepts of that Religion and the safety of Princes and their Kingdoms And therefore it is but reasonable that those who are admitted into any Office in the Church and are to teach and instruct others and they who receive any Government in the State and have the power of commanding others Sect. 1 should testify their loyalty and their detestation of such positions as undermine the security of Kings and Kingdoms And to this purpose is established in this Realm a twofold acknowledgment the one more particular against Romish Conspiracies and the other more general 3. The former is contained in the Oath of Obedience or Allegiance 3 Jac. 4. The Oath of Allegiance against the Popes deposing power which all the Clergy and other principal subjects of this Realm do constantly take And therein it is declared that the Pope hath no power to depose the King or to dispose of his Dominions to absolve his Subjects from their Obedience or to Licence them to bear Arms against or offer violence to his Person or Government whether he proceed by Declaration Sentence Excommunication or any otherwise 4. And indeed there was very great reason to use needful circumspection This power of the Pope to depose Kings assorted in the Church of Rome against the pretence of this Papal power of deposing Kings which had appeared with so great boldness in the World and done so much mischief in it And this pretence is not only managed as an intrigue of the policy of the Court of Rome but is engraffed into the doctrine of the Romish Church Conc. Lat. c. de haeret an 1215. In the General Council as they at Rome esteem it at the Laterane under Innocent the Third it was declared that if any temporal Lord did not purge
subject either to kill him or to take away his goods potest civis ille vim vi repellendo eum interimere that subject in repelling force by force may kill him 2. Now this disorderly and unruly management of self defence would fill the World with tumults and subvert the foundations of its Peace and Government since by this means the power of the sword would be put into every private mans hand to use it against his Governours when he shall think it fit for his own interest But that the falshood as well as the danger of this pretence may be manifest I shall return an answer thereto in three heads 1. That it is notoriously false that men are obliged by the law of nature in all Cases to defend their own lives and outward interests by force And it is a sufficient prejudice against this that he who will maintain it must acknowledge that all those who died Martyrs for the Christian Religion did violate the Laws of nature in not resisting their Persecutors and that all malefactors ought to fight for their lives rather than to submit themselves to justice The prime laws of nature to rational beings are the rules of good Conscience 2. That the prime law which the nature and being of man who is a rational Creature and capable of happiness doth oblige him to observe is that he ought to take care of his own welfare and chief good and to endeavour after true perfection And because this is chiefly procured by well doing therefore to be pious and sober loyal and peaceable just and good whereby purity of heart and integrity and peace of Conscience is preserved and a good name here and a blessed state hereafter obtained these are the things which our nature and being and our Religion also oblige us principally to design and all outward interests of this life must be placed in subordination to them And sure no Christian will believe that our Saviour by his Religion did subvert the prime laws of our nature and being when he required his Disciples to take up the Cross to be ready to lose their lives for his sake and to forsake all and follow him 3. That self defence is then only lawful to be managed by force when this may be done by lawful means and without transgressing any necessary duty to God or Man It is therefore justly allowed so far as it necessary against private violence and assaults being then warrantable by the Rules of right reason and good Conscience which are the laws of our nature But to allow a right of self-defence to every man by taking Armes against his superiour is as much as to say that no man is bound to own the Ordinance of God in the World or to submit himself and his interest to be governed by any civil power 3. It is also urged Rutherf ubi sup Qu. 25. Jun. Brut. Qu. 3. p. 110. c. that in the Constitution of Government Princes are appointed for this end to wit the good of the people and therefore the peoples good is to be pursued though against the person or Government of the Prince and they most comply with the great end of Government who will take care of the community Armin. Disp publ Thes 25. n. 10. And therefore if a Prince do not promote the peoples good the end must be preferred before the means and the good of the Common-wealth is otherwise to be provided for Of the end of Government Anbs 1. That though the good of the people be a great end of Government yet it is not the sole end thereof But as when a Prince appointeth a chief Officer of a Corporation this is not only for the benefit of the members of that Society but it is also intended that they may be more useful to do the King service and that the Common-wealth may receive benefit thereby so in Soveraignty there is a claim of Gods authority in the World for his honour and therefore out of Conscience and duty to God there must be a subjection shewed to Rulers as his Ministers besides what the interest of the community will require 2. If Government were wholly intended with respect to the good of subjects I have proved in the former Sections that order peace and justice cannot be thereby established among men unless it be acknowledged that none may resist the Rulers Authority 3. To lay down such Rules that men are no longer obliged to observe any constitution intended for a further end than as the parties concerned shall judge it to conduce to that end is dangerous and unsound By this rule discontented persons might break the indissoluble bond of conjugal Relation where they account it not to answer the end by mutual helpfulness and comfort Gemer in Sanhedr Cap. 2. Par. 11. And when God forbad the King of Israel to multiply Wives lest his heart should turn away from God Deut. 17.17 the Jewish Writers account Salomon justly blameable for his multiplying Wives though he mightpresume there would be no danger of his forsaking God thereby 4. Of the original of Government being from the people Sov power of Parl. Part. 1. p. 35 36. Ruth Civ Pol. Qu. 4. p. 10. Qu. 19. p. 148. This asserted by many Papists But thee is another thing which hath been much insisted on and will require a larger Examination concerning the original of Soveraignty and the deductions which may be made from thence It was urged in our late unhappy times in England that the Soveraign power was more in the people than in the King or Prince who was originally created by them And in Scotland it was asserted then as a ground of taking Arms against the King that Royal power was radically in the people was communicated from them and that they may take it again if the conditions on which they gave it be violated and that the people being the fountain power are still superiour to the King 5. V. Bannes in 2. 2ae Qu. 40. Art 1. Dub. 2. And it is ordinary with the Writers of the Romish Church to make the people the original of the Princes Soveraign power and many of them make use of this Assertion as one way to shew the excellency of the Pope above Princes Thus Salmeron Salm. Tom. 12. Tract 63. Civil power saith he is indeed from God so far as he made the community free and gave them light and power to set up Governours and therefore secular power doth not so descend from Heaven but that it rather ascends from the community unto the King or other chief Magistrate Dominicus Soto asserts De Justit Jur. l. 4. Qu. 4. Art 2. Reges à suis Regnis potestatem recipiunt Kings receive their power from their Kingdoms Bell. de Laicis c. 6. Bellarmine asserteth indeed political powder and Government to be from God but that he gave it immediately to the whole multitude and they transfer it to
these which are in that Book expressed f. 49. That God constituted and ordained the authority of Christen Kings and Princes to be the most high and supreme above all other powers and offices in the regiment and governance of his people f. 50. Vnto them of right and by Gods commandment it belongeth principally to defend the faith of Christ and his Religion and to abolish all abuses heresies and idolatries Notwithstanding we may not think that it doth appertain unto the office of Kings and Princes to preach and teach to administer the Sacraments to absolve to excommunicate and such other things belonging to the office and administration of Bishops and Priests but we must think and believe that God hath made Christian Kings to be as the chief heads and over-lookers over the said Priests and Bishops to cause them to administer their office and power committed unto them purely and sincerely and in case they shall be negligent in any part thereof to cause them to supply and repair the same again 10. And for the time of King Edward it is manifest from the Book of Ordination that the offices of Bishop Priest and Deacon the power of remitting and retaining sins and the Pastoral authority in the Church was accounted by ordination to be committed to those persons only who receive such ordination And in his time the royal authority and dignity is described K. Edw. Inj. 1. and asserted in his Injunctions in the very same words whereby it is declared in the injunctions of Queen Elizabeth and no otherwise Qu. Elizab. Injunct 1. and almost in the same phrases which are made use of in our Canons Can. 1. 1603. i. e. that the Kings power within his Realms and Dominions is the highest power under God to whom all men within the same Realms and Dominions by Gods law owe most loyalty and obedience afore and above all other powers and potentates upon earth 11. Now these things do clearly manifest that the spiritual authority of the Clergy was both in King Hen. and King Edwards reign owned to be really distinct from the secular authority and was not swallowed up into it And this I have the rather taken notice of because it gives us a clearer prospect into the plain sense of the interpretation of the Kings Supremacy Sect. 4 as it was declared in the Admonition annexed to the Queens Injunctions unto which the explication of the statute and Articles do refer And what is herein observed from the Institution of a Christian man is the more considerable because that Book was then designed by the King and Bishops as a guide to direct the Bishops and Preachers what they should teach the people committed to their spiritual charge as is very often expressed throughout the whole Book almost in every leaf of a great part thereof SECT IV. The spiritual authority of the Ecclesiastical Officers is of a distinct nature from the secular power and is no way prejudicial to Royal Supremacy 1. The wisdom and goodness of God is eminently conspicuous both in founding his Church and establishing an Ecclesiastical Society and authority and also in ordering a civil polity in the world And these two things were well observed by Justinian to be high instances of the great goodness and bounty of God towards men Maxima inter homines dona Dei sunt a superna collata clementia Novel 6. sacerdotium imperium And these two being both of them from God do not if rightly understood clash with but are useful and helpful to one another 2. Of old the same person oft King and Priest Whilst God was worshipped only in some particular Families of the holy Patriarchs he who was the chief Governour of those Societies was also in the place of a Priest to that Family whence Noah Abraham and Job offered Sacrifice And in those ancient times in some principalities the same person was King and Priest as Melchisedec was both King of Salem and Priest of the most high God and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which in the Hebrew is the ordinary word to express a Priest Phil. de vit Mos l. 3. p. 681. doth also signify a Prince And Moses himself before the Jewish Government was compleatly formed sustained the office both of a Prince and a Priest whence Philo in his description of a compleat Governour maketh the Priesthood to reside in him as then it was in Moses 3. And from the traditions of the ancient times the general custom of divers Pagan Nations might have its original who in several distant parts of the world conjoined in the same person the royal authority and the Priesthood This was done saith Clemens Alexandrinus by those who were the wisest of them Cl. Alex. Str. l. 7. p. 720. Diod. Sic. l. 3. c. 1. Aelian Var. Hist l. 14. c. 34. and is particularly averred by Diodorus Siculus concerning the ancient Ethiopians and of the Egyptians also by Aelianus as also by Plato in Politic. and by Synesius Ep. 121. And that Jethro Moses his Father in Law was both King and Priest is expressed by Ezekielus a Poet of Jewish Extraction in some Verses mentioned by Eusebius Eus Pr. Evang. l. c. 28. Cont. Ap. l. 1. That the same usage did sometimes take place among the Tyrians of old appears from Josephus and in the time of Aeneas his travels Virg. Aeneid 3. after the destruction of Troy at Delos there was saith Virgil Rex idem hominum PhoebÃque sacerdos The Pagan Emperours at Rome had likewise the Office of Pontifex Maximus and used this title in several Edicts as part of their stile of dignity of which we have a plain instance in Eusebius Hist Eccl. l. 8. c. 29. concerning Galerius Maximinus and Constantius This was also ordinarily impressed upon their coins where sometimes the proper imperial title was stamped on the one side and that of Pontifex Maximus on the other as appears in that Medal exhibited to this purpose M. Freh Tr. de Numism censûs Xenoph. de Inst Cyr. l. 2 3 8. by Marquardus Freherus And that Cyrus the King of Persia did himself both Sacrifice and annex his Prayers therewith is observed by Xenophon And there are several learned men who assert that this title of Pontifex Maximus was retained Bar. An. 312. n. 94 95 97 c. and an 383. n. 6. Seld. de Syn. l. 1. c. 10. à p. 329. ad 344. as an ordinary part of the Imperial stile even by the first Christian Emperours until the time of Gratian who according to the testimony of Zosimus is said to have rejected it as unsuitable to Christianity And it is certain that this title was given to some of them and even to Gratian himself as well and as oft as to any other in some few publick inscriptions which are urged to this purpose by Baronius and Selden But as these inscriptions were probably ordered by others and not by these
David 1 Kin. 1.26 and that David was his Lord v. 11 27. and David owned himself to be his Lord v. 33. and gave him command concerning the inaugurating of Salomon v. 32 33 34. which Nathan observed Schickard de Jur. Reg. Heb. c. 4. Theor 13. Carpzov in Schick ibid. v. 38. And the testimony of the Jewish Rabbins Maimonides and R. Bechai have been by others observed who from the example of Nathan 1 Kin. 1.23 declare that a Prophet is to stand before the King and to do reverence to him with his face to the Earth 7. Idolatry c. Concerning other general and necessary matters of Religion it is so plain from the History of the Scriptures that idolatry witchcraft and other such gross pollutions were punished and suppressed by the authority of the good Kings that it is needless to refer to particular places When Micah and the Danites had an House of Gods it is particularly observed that in those days there was no King in Israel Jud. 17.5 6. ch 18.1 which words do plainly intimate that if there had been then a King or setled Governour it should have been his care to prohibit and root out such transgressions against God and S. Aug. asserteth Aug. Epist ad Bonifac that other Kings ought to serve God as hezekiah did who destroyed the Groves and Temples of Idols And that Josiah the King was to destroy the Altar of Bethel was foretold 1 Kin. 13.2 8. Now though most of these things with many others of like nature have been frequently observed by other Writers yet I thought it necessary somewhat particularly to take notice of them in the management of this argument especially because of the opposition I must meet with and encounter in the following Chapter 9. But lest any should say Their governing herein was approved of God that all these things were indeed matters of fact but undertaken without right it must be further considered that the exercise of this royal authority in things Ecclesiastical was approved and commended by God himself and therefore was no unjust usurpation Thus for instance Asa's care of reforming Religion and establishing it tbroughout all Judah is declared to be that which was right in the eyes of the Lord 2 Chr. 14 2-5 and those pious acts of Hezekiah and Josiah for the suppressing false worship and establishing true Religion had an high and signal commendation from God himself 2 Kin. 18.3 4 5 6. and ch 23.1 2 -25. And where there were defects in the purity of the publick worship even this was charged as a blemish in the government of the Kings who then reigned as upon Asa Jehosaphat Joash Amaziah and others 1 Kin. 15.4 ch 22.43 2 Kin. 12.3 ch 14.4 And from hence it appears according to what hath been declared in our Church Can. 1.1640 that the care of Gods Church is so committed to Kings in the Scripture that they are commended when the Church keepeth the right way and taxed when it runs amiss and therefore her Government belongeth in chief unto Kings for otherwise one man would be commended for anothers care and taxed for anothers negligence which is not Gods way SECT II. The various Pleas against Christian Kings having the same authority about Religion which was rightly exercised under the Old Testament refuted Sect. 2 1. That the force of this argument might be avoided divers methods are made use of the chief of which I shall consider And those which in this Section I shall take notice of are reducible to two ranks Under the former I shall examine those pretences which are made to evidence that the Jewish Kings ordering things about Religion was an extraordinary case and by an extraordinary power and Commission and therefore must not be made a pattern for other times Under the second I shall consider such Pleas as would make a shew of proof that there is such a difference between the Gospel state and the Mosaical dispensation in this particular that thereupon Princes are not capable now of the like Soveraignty which they then enjoyed 2. With respect to the former head first Bellarmine will have David Bellarm. de Rom. Pont. l. 1. c. 7. Salomon and Josiah to have acted in matters of Religion as Prophets not as Kings and if this speak to the purpose the like must be supposed concerning all other Kings They governed as Kings not as Prophets in things Ecclesiastical who commanded about Religion And yet the Scriptures expresly call these orders the commandment of the King 2 Chr. 29.24 ch 30.6 ch 31.13 ch 35.10 16. and elsewhere and sometimes the commandment of the King and his Princes 2 Chr. 29.30 ch 30.12 Nor is there any pretence for affixing the prophetical office unto all the Kings of Judah who gave commands about Religion it being certain that neither Jehosaphat Hezekiah Josiah nor divers others of them were themselves Prophets but did as occasion required consult others as the Prophets of God De Concordia Sa. Imp. l. 2. c. 4. n. 5. And this is so far acknowledged by P. de Marca that thereupon he justly rejecteth this Plea as insufficient though he confesseth it to be usual 3. They had no extraordinary Commission herein V. Bishop Bilson of Christian subj Par. 2. p. 198. But others say the Kings of the Family of Israel might do what they did warrantably concerning Religion by a special command of God made known by a Prophet and this might make their undertaking herein necessary Now that Prophets did advise and direct in some of these cases is granted but still the authority which established such directions by a publick Sanction was the royal power But if any pretend that the Kings received their authority herein by an extraordinary commission from a Prophet he ought to give proof of this which he can never do but that there can be no place for any such conjecture will appear because 1. It is not likely that Gods Prophets should constantly require the Kings to intermeddle in any thing that was ordinarily unsuitable for their office to undertake and it is also injurious to the wisdom of God to think that he should make the care of Religion the duty of all the Kings of the stock of David only by an extraordinary message to every one of them 2. It is manifest that many things concerning Religion were well undertaken by the Kings of Judah without so much as the special direction of a Prophet Such were Davids first intentions to build a temple which God approved Hezekiahs order for the general Passover in the second month which is declared to be done by the consultation of the King and his Princes 2 Chr. 30.2 and Josiah's reformation was in a good measure effected before he advised with the Prophetess Huldah 4. Cun. de Rep. Hebr. l. 1. c. 14. Marca de Conc. l. 2. c. 4. n. 4 5. But there is another Plea made use of by Cunaeus
difference of Judaism and Christianity considered with respect to supremacy But as to the particular subject matter of this authority which cannot possibly be the same in Judaisme and Christianity there must of necessity appear a difference in the exercise of this supreme authority many things being allowable under the law which are not so under the Gospel But it is here further pleaded that the Kings under the Law might be further interested in Ecclesiastical affairs than the Gospel will admit because the Church and state were not so much distinguished under the legal Oeconomy as under the Evangelical the Mosaical law being the foundation and rule both of the Jewish Church and of the political government But in truth the proper fixed Kingly authority in the Family of Israel was not so much established as only allowed by the Mosaical law and though there was a true royal power in Moses and in the Judges yet this was not fixed and determined to be the constant Government by a particular law And the Priesthood under the law was as fully distinct from the civil power as the Church government under the Gospel is neither of them deriving themselves from the civil nor resolving themselves into it But in both these dispensations as the Ecclesiastical government was appointed by them so was the civil also in general established yet so that the foundation which it hath in the laws of nature is antecedent unto both And if there be any difference as to subjection of things and persons Ecclesiastical unto Princes it might seem plausible which yet is not to be insisted upon that the Jewish Priesthood might the rather pretend exemption from the royal power as being established before the fixed royal line 9. Epil B. 1. Ch. 20. Right of the Church ubi supra It is also urged and must be granted that the Christian Church is of a larger extent than the limits of any single temporal soveraign whereas the Jewish Church and State were one and the same body except the case of some Proselytes such as Naaman was among the Gentiles And from hence it is to be acknowledged that by the determination of Catholick Councils or by the universal practice of Christians abroad any particular Christian Kingdom and the Soveraign thereof may be obliged to entertain and establish some things otherwise indifferent in a compliance with these generally received usages and thereby with respect to the peace unity and honour of the Christian Church Of this nature are some things relating to Canonical ordinations the solemnizing of marriage the observation of the Church festivals and the rules for communicating with other parts of the Christian Church Indeed no such rule as this could have any force in the Jewish Church but yet this consideration cannot hinder either the extent or exercise of the Princes authority in the Christian Church unless this power had consisted in a liberty to lay aside all rules in matters adiaphorous relating to Religion besides his own pleasure Whereas it doth consist in such a right as cannot be restrained or annulled by any power upon earth to establish by civil sanctions what is useful about Religion And his being obliged in Conscience to admit and embrace such particular things as conduce to the Vnity or welfare of the Christian Church which is a duty every Christian oweth unto God is no more prejudicial to his supremacy of Government in this very case than a private mans being bound to admit what general custom hath made a part of decency and civility is prejudicial to or inconsistent with his right and power of governing and commanding his own actions 10. Wherefore it remains that the supremacy of Christian Princes notwithstanding these things objected is the same in substance with the Supremacy of the Kings of Judah in matters of Religion but in some particularities there must be a difference in the way of its exercise And this may possibly be all that Mr Thorndike intended who expressing a difference in this matter between the state of the law and the Gospel referreth this sometimes a Right of the Church Ch. 1. p. 11. to the consideration of the Churches Vnity or else b Review Ch. 1. p. 11. as a stop to Erastus Yet he plainly asserteth from the consideration that the Apocalypse foretelleth the conversion of the Empire to Christianity c Review p. 15. that it cannot be doubted that Christian powers attain the same right in matters of Religion which the Kings of Gods ancient people always had by the making Christianity the Religion of the State And he also admits d Right of the Church Ch. 1. p. 9 10 11. Review ch 1. p. 13 14. the same power in matters Ecclesiastical both in the Christian state and in the Jewish to flow from the nature of Soveraign power and the necessary duty of this power being employed to advance Religion 11. Of the Consecration of Churches Another thing which may possibly deserve some consideration is from the general usage and practice of the Church concerning the dedication and consecration of Churches Some have thought that when Salomons Temple was consecrated the consecration thereof was mainly performed by Salomon himself who was the King this is urged by the Leviathan Leviath Ch. 40. Hospin de Templ l. 4. c. 2. and some men of learning seem to favour this notion speaking of him Ipse dedicationis praecipuas obivit partes that he himself discharged the chief part of the dedication But the general practice of the Christian Church hath been so far as any account thereof can be discovered to have their Churches dedicated not by Princes undertaking to celebrate that solemnity but by the Bishops of the Church C. 1. q. 2. c. placuit de Consecrat dist 1. Leon. Ep. 88. ad Germ. Gal. Episcop De Vit. Const c. 40 43 44. And this is not only manifest from divers Canons mentioned by Gratian and from the Epistles of Leo but the practice of the Church herein is evident in the time of Constantine the Great For there is a particular account given by Eusebius in the life of Constantine of the dedication of a famous Church in Jerusalem to which he telleth us divers Bishops were assembled and did bear their parts in that solemnity And the same author acquainteth us that in his reign there were in divers Cities 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Eus Hist Eccl. l. 10. c. 3. consecrations of those places of divine worship which were then lately built and the meeting of Bishops to that end 12. But that this seeming difficulty may be cleared it may be observed that there were three sort of things done at the consecration of the temple at Jerusalem 1. Salomon whom God had chosen to build his House when he had finished it yieldeth up his right and presenteth it to God and by Prayer desireth Gods acceptance and that it might be useful to the designed end and the
take care of the service of God in the World for if any servant be empowered to govern other servants in his Masters Family and to oversee his affairs can it be supposed that he ought only to keep these servants from abusing one another and not to take care of the interest of his Master who employs him whether his business be done or no and whether they express due respect to him or vilify and despise him And if a Prince appointeth any inferiour Governour is it not expected that this man in his place should take care to maintain the honour and soveraignty of his Prince as well as the interests of particular men 2. This needful and reasonable And since it is manifest by the experience of the World that the duties to God are not duly performed by all men of their own accord nor with the sole help of the spiritual guides and since the authority of the civil power hath a like influence upon discountenancing or reclaiming offenders in matters of Religion and in common honesty it cannot be less necessary that those whom God intrusts with secular authority should take care of his worship honour and service than of other things unless it could be presumed that the acknowledging and honouring humane authority and being just is more a duty to man and more his interest than the acknowledging and honouring of God is But God being above all and the common father of mankind upon whom we all depend and unto whom we are most engaged it justly seemed strangely unreasonable to Philo the Jew Phil. de Temul p. 259. de profug p. 462. that it should be thought needful that care be used to secure the performance of honour and duty to other Parents and Governours and that no such regard should be had to God And it was esteemed an high absurdity by S. Austin S. Augustin conr Gaud. Ep. l. 2. c. 11. that offences against men should be punished and corrected but not those against God And this was so much the general sense of mankind De Benef. l. 3. c. 6. that Seneca could aver Violatarum religionum aliubi atque aliubi diversa poena est sed uhique aliqua that there were different punishments in several places but every where some for them who violate Religion And even our holy Saviour in his prophetick zeal thought fit by a scourge twice to drive out them who polluted the temple who would not undertake to divide inheritances or to pass a judicial sentence upon the Adulteress And all Governours as they have received greater accessions of honour from God than others have are obliged thereby the more to honour him and promote his service 3. Religion of great use to the good of Mankind De Charit p. 717. De Decalogo pag. 751. It being generall acknowledged that the secular authority is to take care that justice honesty peace and vertue be established and preserved in the World even from hence we may infer the necessity of its care about matters of Religion the exercise of which is the best and surest principle of all honesty justice and vertue Religion as Philo observed rendreth the men who embrace it sober just and faithful whilst the contrary spirit prevaileth in them who reject piety as the same Author observeth De Charit Foid And he who considers how mightily the Christian doctrine enjoineth righteousness meekness peace love and all goodness and how it enforceth the practice of all these by a lively sense of God and a belief of his dreadful threatnings and excellent and glorious promises must confess that these practices and exercises are powerfully promoted by the embracing and establishing the true Christian Religion Indeed there are many who profess but do not practise this holy Religion but in them who embrace the true principles thereof as the primitive Christians generally did its defenders could with confidence appeal even unto their Enemies as Tertullian and Origen do whether Christians were not hereby more free Tert. ad Scapulam c. 2. Orig. cont Celf. l. 3. p. 128 129. than other sorts of men were from Sedition against Princes from all acts of wrong and injury against men and profaneness and impiety against God 4. And even they who persecuted Christianity have acknowledged that upon the strictest enquiry they discovered that men therein obliged themselves by sacred vows not to the committing any kind of wickedness but against it ne furta Plin. Ep l. 10. Ep. 97. ne latrocinia ne adulteria committerent ne fidem fallerent c. Indeed a right principle of Religion is much more effectual for the promoting honesty and righteousness than all outward penalities as laying a powerful restraint upon all ways of unrighteousness even when no eye of man can observe Now can it be thought reasonable that the Rulers charge should be to take care of these ends now mentioned and should be constituted of God to that purpose and yet should be obliged to have no care of those things without which these ends can never be secured To assert this would be to cast a high reflexion upon the wisdom and Government of God 5. We may also now compare the paternal and oeconomical Government with the Regal These are so near of Kin that it is not only acknowledged by Protestants but even by the Jews as we may see in Philo Ph. de Decal p. 767. Catech. de Decal Praecept Royal Government and paternal compared and by Papists as is declared in the Catechism according to the Decree of the Council of Trent that in the fifth commandment of the Decalogue the Royal Authority is included under the name of the paternal Now the Governour of a Family hath such an authority as extendeth it self to the things of Religion in that he is to take care of the welfare and good of his Family For there is great good included in the nature of Religion which brings inward quiet peace and satisfaction of mind by subduing violent passions and inordinate appetites and by eying Gods providence in all things with submissiveness to him and dependance upon him and it also brings very high advantages as it is the way to enjoy Gods blessing here and eternal happiness hereafter and therefore there cannot be any exercise of a true Fatherly love where it doth not dispose the person to a care of so great a concernment as Religion is And accordingly the Apostle commands Parents to bring up their Children in the nurture and admonition of the Lord Eph. 6.4 and God declared his great approbation of Abraham in that he would command his Children and his Houshold after him and they would keep the way of the Lord to do justice and judgment Gen. 18.19 or that they would so entertain the principles of true Religion that this should be a foundation of righteousness and well-doing 6. And there are the same reasons V. Sacr. Imp. ad Conc. Eph. in Tom.
1. Con. Eph. c. 32. to engage the Royal power to take care of Religion because all civil powers are to intend the good of their inferiours according to the doctrine of S. Paul Rom. 13.4 And the instances of David Jehosaphat Hezekiah Josiah Constantine Theodosius and many other pious Kings and Emperours do manifest that they are capable of procuring very great good to their Subjects by their pious care about the matters of Religion And no doubt S. Austin might with good reason be confident Cont. Ep. Gaudent l. 2. c. 17. in Epist 50. that the Laws of Christian Princes about Religion had been the occasion of bringing many to Salvation by Jesus Christ 7. And the Royal Government is much of the same nature with the paternal enlarged in the extent thereof over several Families but not restrained in the nature of it and in the most excellent and useful part of its authority Gods Ordinance hereby placing others in that authority which Adam and Noah had Phil. de creat princip p. 727. over their multiplyed and enlarged Progeny Hence Princes are fitly stiled 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the common Parents of Cities and Kingdoms their political and civil being having a dependance also upon them who were called Patres patriae 8. And the consideration of the paternal power will remove the objections which some men make use of against the authority of Princes in matters of Religion For if Religion must be so far left free as not to be commanded and enjoined by any humane civil power then would Abrahams commanding his Children and Houshold have been blameable he being in his Sphere a secular Ruler as well as a Prince is Or if it be pretended that grown men who are come to years of understanding and have undertaken the profession of true Religion ought to be so far left to their own choice as not to be under the Government of any civil power with respect to Religion this also is refuted by the instance of Abraham's commanding his Houshold which was so large V. Salian An. M. 2118. n. 13. an 2138. that many years before this time of the destruction of Sodom when God gave Abraham this commendation he could arm three hundred and eighteen Souldiers of his own Houshold Gen. 14.14 and all his numerous Family had been Circumcised And since Abraham continued under the blessing of God it is very probable that his Family was further enlarged before the time of this commendation of him 9. To all this I shall add that he who doth soberly consider what sad disturbances and commotions in divers Kingdoms have been the product of the corruptions and errors in the Christian Religion both upon the account of the Papal Vsurpations under the pretence of spiritual power and by reason of the disloyal positions and tumultuous practices of other Sects and their frequent Rebellions shall need no other argument to convince him that the Princes exercise of Government about the affairs of Religion is greatly necessary for the securing his own authority the peace of his Kingdoms and the property of his subjects SECT II. The same established by the Christian Doctrine 1. That the Gospel Doctrine never intended to destroy or diminish the right of secular powers is granted by some of chief note amongst the Romanists Christus saith P. de Marca cum Evangelium suum institueret De Concord in proleg p. 25. regum dignitatem non laesit And this is not only manifest from the tendency of those great Christian duties of humility meekness peace and righteousness but also from the many particular injunctions of subjection to Rulers and from our blessed Saviour his commanding to give unto Caesar the things that are Caesars Christianity establisheth Regal Supremacy And also in that the Christian Doctrine doth peculiarly enjoin fidelity and obedience in all all inferiour relations towards their superiours that by the practice of this duty Christianity may be adorned and recommended in the World even to those who did oppose or reject it Tit. 2.9 10. 1 Pet. 2.12 13 14 15. ch 3.1 2. 2. And with some prospect to Christianity the Kings of the Earth are called upon to serve the Lord Ps 2.10 11. and are foretold to be nursing Fathers Is 49.23 Sect. 2 And both this and their undertaking Christianity and being baptized into it doth require them in their places and by their interest and authority to take care of the honour of God of his Church and Religion And S. Austin well declares Conr. Cresc l. 3. c. 51. that Kings then serve God in their Kingdoms when they therein command what things are good and prohibit evil non solum quae pertinent ad humanam societatem verum etiam quae ad divinant Religionem as well concerning Religion as humane affairs 3. And lest any should think that the establishing the Kingdom of Christ according to the Gospel Doctrine should give any exemption to the subjects thereof from any part of that duty which was incumbent upon them towards other Kings and Governours S. Peter speaking to Christians under the Titles of a chosen Generation a Royal Priesthood and a holy Nation In Resp ad Bellarm. Apol. c. 3. doth yet as Bishop Andrews observed particularly enjoin upon these persons submission to the King as supreme and to the Governours sent by him 1 Pet. 2.9 13 14. And the business of the civil power is there declared to be so general as to be for the punishment of evil doers and the praise of them that do well and to the same purpose writeth S. Paul Rom. 13.3 4. So that he who would exclude matters Ecclesiastical or concerns of Religion from their government and care under the New Testament must undertake to assert that the performances of Religion contain nothing in them of well doing and that the neglecting contemning or opposing it is no part of evil doing which are such blasphemous assertions as no man can embrace unless he be sunk into Atheism and so really owneth no Religion at all Aug. Epist 160. And S. Aug. from Rom. 13.2 infers that he who contemns the Emperour commanding for truth brings judgment upon himself 4. 1 Tim. 2.12 And when the Apostle requireth that Prayers be made for Kings and all in authority that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and honesty which includeth both Righteousness and Sobriety he thereby expresseth the right administration of Government to be advantageous to these ends Now as it is manifest that Rulers should not only not oppose Peace but establish it and not only not prostitute honesty and sobriety but defend and enjoin the practice of them so the Apostle mentioneth godliness as that which they should advance equally and in like manner with peace and honesty Nor can we suppose that the Christian Prayers were only designed that Kings and Rulers with respect to these particulars mentioned should do no hurt but since Gods
Ordinance of Government is a useful institution that Christian Prayer which suiteth the Christian doctrine can desire no less than that this institution should attain its end and become every way effectual for the doing good And many Christian Princes have signally advanced both the doctrine and practice of Godliness and Religion Ecclesiastical persons subject to Princes 5. And that Ecclesiastical persons as well as others are included under the duty of yielding obedience and subjection to this authority doth appear from that general Precept Rom. 13.1 Let every soul be subject to the higher powers Where as the expression is universal and unlimited so the Comments of S. Chrysostome Theodoret In Loc. Theophylact and Oecumenius S. Bernard Ep. ad Senonens Archiep. Est in loc Gr. de Valent Tom. 4. Disp 9. qu. 5. punct 4. Bell. de Rom Pont. l. 2. c. 29. do plainly declare all Ecclesiastical persons and Officers of what degree soever even Apostles and Evangelists to be concerned therein But this sense of these words though urged also by S. Bernard is not embraced by the present Romish Writers but their exceptions made use of to elude this testimony are of no great force For while they tell us that these words do as much if not more require subjection to the Ecclesiastical power as to the temporal those who thus interpret are by S. Aug. censured Aug. cont Ep. Parm. l. 1. c. 7. to be sane imperitissimi And that the Apostle doth directly discourse here of obedience to the civil and temporal Rulers appears evidently from his mentioning their bearing the sword v. 4. and receiving tribute v. 6. 6. And the pretence that this command doth only oblige them who are properly subjects but not those Ecclesiastical persons who are pretended not to be subject but superior to the secular power doth proceed upon such a Notion which was wholly unknown to the ancient times of Christianity For it was then usual to hear such expressions as these Tertul. ad Scap. c. 2. Colimus Imperatorem ut hominem à Deo secundum solo Deo minorem we reverence the Emperour as being next to God and inferior to none besides him Hom. 2. ad Antioch And S. Chrysostome owned Theodosius as the head over all men upon Earth i. e. in his Dominions And according to this perverse Exposition there is no more evidence from the Apostles doctrine concerning any Christians in general being subject to Princes than concerning Ecclesiastical Officers because his doctrine must then be owned only to declare that those who are in subjection ought to be subject but not to determine whether any Christians were to be esteemed subjects to the Pagan Rulers or no. 7. But though the Apostles were ready to declare all needful truth even before Princes and Consistories we never find them when they were accused before Magistrates to plead against their power of judicature or that they had no authority over them but they defended themselves and their doctrine before them And when S. Paul declared Act. 25.10 11. S. Paul's appeal considered I stand at Caesars Judgment-seat where I ought to be judged if I be an offender or have committed any thing worthy of death I refuse not to dy I appeal unto Caesar he doth thereby acknowledge the Emperour to have such a power over him who was a great Ecclesiastical Officer as to take cognisance of his acting whether he did any thing worthy of death or of civil punishment 8. But against this instance Bellarmine who in his Controversies did yield De Rom. Pont. l. 2. c. 29. that the Apostle did appeal to Caesar as to his superiour in civil causes afterwards retracts this and declares that the clergy being Ministers of the King of Kings are exempt de jure from the power not only of Christian but of Pagan Kings and therefore asserteth that S. Paul appealed unto Caesar In Libr. Recognit not as to his superiour but as to one who was superiour to the President of Judea and to the Jews 9. But such shifts are first contrary to the sense of the ancient Church concerning this case as may be observed from the words of Athanasius who being accused before Constantius telleth him if I had been accused before any other Athan. Apol ad Constant 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 I would have appealed unto your piety even as the Apostle did appeal unto Caesar but from thee to whom should I appeal but to the father of him who said I am the truth which words declare this appeal to be as to a superiour and the highest on Earth who is only under God Secondly this perverteth the Apostles sense and contradicteth his words who declared in his appealing where he ought to be judged if he had done any thing worthy of death which is a plain acknowledgment of superiority over him 10. Thirdly Besides that all appeals are owned by Civilians and Canonists as an application from an inferiour judge to a superiour judge this particular liberty of appealing to the Roman Emperour was a priviledge granted only to them who were free Citizens of Rome and the Apostle could not claim this but by owning himself a Citizen of Rome and therefore a subject to the chief Governour thereof For this appeal was founded upon that Roman law which condemned that inferiour Judge as deeply criminal who should punish any Citizen of Rome thus appealing To this purpose Jul. Paul Sentent l. 5. Tit. 28. n. 1. Julius Paulus saith Lege Julia de vi publica damnatur qui aliqua potestate praeditus civem Romanum antea ad populum nunc ad Imperatorem appellantem necarit necarive jusserit torserit verberaverit condemnaverit in vincula publica duci jusserit And accordingly upon this appeal S. Paul declared that no man no not Festus himself the President of Judea who otherwise was enclinable to have done it might deliver him to the Jews Act. 25.11 SECT III. What authority such Princes have in matters Ecclesiastical who are not members of the Church 1. It may be said that what is declared by S. Peter and by S. Paul to the Romans and also his appeal did immediately respect Heathen Governours and therefore if these places will prove any thing of the Princes power in matters Ecclesiastical they must fix it in Pagan Princes as well as in Christian Div. right of Ch. Gov. ch 26. And this is the principal thing objected against the argument from S. Paul's appeal by Mr. Rutherford who tells us that this would own the Great Turk to be Supreme Governour of the Church 2. And it must be confessed that it is a very sad and heavy calamity to the Church when those soveraign powers who are not of the true Religion will intermeddle in the affairs of the Church without the fear of God and due respect to the Rules of Religion Such was the case of the Jewish Church under the Roman power
which undertook to dispose of the High Priesthood in Jewry against both the letter of the law and the design of it But no Governours whosoever they be whether of the Church or Strangers from it have any right to do such things no more than Jeroboam had to set up the worship of the ten Tribes of Israel contrary to the Law or than the Arian Emperours had to oppose the Deity of the Son of God against the Gospel But though it be very desireable that all parts of the Christian Church should be under Christian and pious Princes yet where other powers do take care Sect. 3 that the Christian Church and Ministers do observe the true Christian Rules Spalat Ostensio Error Fr. Suar. c. 3. n. 23. as the Archbishop of Spalato tells us was done in that part of his Province which was under the Turk this so far as it is regularly performed is an advantage to the Christian Religion and no blameable exercise of their authority 3. I think it a very plain and clear truth All Soveraign powers ought to profess and promote true Religion that Kings and Princes are invested with an authority to govern in matters of Religion not as originally arising from their Christianity but from their general right of Dominion and Soveraignty Nor will there be any difficulty in this assertion if we consider that this power of governing about Religion encludeth only a right of establishing by their authority what is truly unblameable orderly useful and necessary with respect to Religion and of enquiring into the practices of their subjects thereupon in order to approbation or punishment but gives no authority against truth or goodness 4. And though some persons by popular expressions declaim against this position De Minist angl l. 3. c. 4. yet the substance of it hath been yielded by men of various perswasions Mr Mason in his defence of the Ministry of England asserteth That they who are Heathens have the same office and authority of the higher power that the Christian Magistrate hath but want the right exercise of it in matters Ecclesiastical Our English Presbyterians have asserted that Heathen Magistrates may be nursing Fathers Jas div Reg. Eccl. c. 9. S. 1. may protect the Church and Religion and order many things in a ploitical way about Religion may not extirpate or persecute the Church may help her in reforming and may not hinder her Spalatens ubi sup And Spalatensis asserteth that the power of the Prince in the external things of the Church is so necessarily connected by divine natural and positive right with the Royal power ut infidelis etiam princeps tali si velit sciat legitime uti possit potestate that even an infidel Prince may use that power if he understand his duty and be willing to perform it And this assertion is approved even by Didoclavius or Mr Caldwood Altar Dam. c. 1. fin Didoclavius being the Anagram of Caldivodius one of the most eager of the Scotish Presbyterians And Rivet very rightly averreth In Decal ad quint. praec In infideli principe non est defectus potestatis sed voluntatis tantùm that an infidel Prince doth not want authority but will and inclination to advance the true Religion 5. Surely it is past doubt that where ever true Religion and Christianity is declared and manifested in the World it is the duty of all men to receive and embrace it because as they are Gods Creatures they ought to obey and honour him and submit to his Laws and believe his Revelations and thereupon every supreme Magistrate ought to advance the name of Christ and the true doctrine and Religion And if a Pagan Prince upon understanding the truth shall use his authority for its advancement this power is justly exercised in such Causes Ecclesiastical I presume no Christian will deny that Nebuchadnezzar did well in making a strict Law Dan. 3.29 that none should speak amiss against the God of Israel and Darius also in making a Decree that men tremble and fear before the God of Daniel Dan. 6.26 and Cyrus Darius and Artaxerxes in giving order for the rebuilding the temple at Jerusalem restoring its Vessels and furnishing it with Sacrifices and executing judgment on the opposers hereof with respect to which thing good Ezra blessed God who had put such a thing into the heart of Artaxerxes And that other Princes in like circumstances should follow the steps of Nebuchadnezzar Darius and the King of Niniveh who proclaimed a strict fast and commanded his people to cry mightily unto God Aug. Ep. 50. Tertul. Apol c. 5. is justly asserted by S. Aug. in his Epistle to Bonifacius 6. Nor are those Heathen Emperours to be censured who acted any thing on the behalf of Christian Religion as Tiberius threatned them who at their peril should accuse Christians for their Religion and other publick rescripts there were of Adrianus Eus Hist Eccl. l. 4.9 Antoninus ibid. c. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Aurelius Tertul. Ap. c. 5. and Galienus Eus Hist l. 7. c. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which were in the favour of Christians And it is a known and famous case concerning Paulus Samosatenus who for Heresy was deposed by the Christian Bishops in the Council of Antioch and Domnus appointed to succeed him Eus Hist l. 7. c. 24. But Paulus refusing to leave his possession the Orthodox Christians appeal to Aurelianus a Pagan Emperour who referring the case to be heard by the Bishops of Italy and about Rome ordered the Church to be given to him for whom they should determine and by his authority was Paulus ejected and neither his interposing nor their appeal unto him hath been ever thought culpable nor yet Paulus his being dispossessed Constantine before his baptism exercised authority in things Ecclesiastical 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 by the secular power 7. But above all others the acting of Constantine the Great before the time of his Baptism seemeth very considerable to evidence what power hath been exercised in things Ecclesiastical with the general approbation of Christians by one not yet admitted into the Christian Church Of which I shall give some particular instances to which more may be added beginning with what hath relation to the peace and concord of the Church Africa in a short time gave birth to the Schism of Donatus and of Meletius and the Heresy of Arius The Donatists separated themselves from the Church upon some exceptions they made against the Ordination of Caecilianus and being condemned by the African Catholick Bishops they apply themselves to Constantine the Emperour Opt. cont Parm. l. 1. But he being not versed in things of that nature as Optatus tells us did not or as S. Austin several times saith Aug. Ep. 162. 166. durst not undertake the judging of the case himself but by his authority he appointed Melchiades then Bishop of Rome with three Bishops of Gallia to judge
ult but a very short time before his death and Constantius also his Son was baptized at the end of his life and reign But Baronius Binius Durantus Bar. an 324. n. 29. c. Bin. in Vit. Silv. Pol. de Bapt. Constant Durant de Rit l. 1. c. 19. n. 8. and before them Cardinal Poole in a particular Tract and many other Popish Writers out of respect to the Romish See will have his Baptism to be administred divers years before at Rome by Silvester some of them boldly charging Eusebius with a design of forgery and falshood in this relation 2. But he who shall consider Constantine not baptized at Rome by Silvester how much Eusebius conversed with Constantine himself and how remarkable a thing his baptism must needs be after the continued series of Pagan Emperours and also how many particularities are expressed by Eusebius both concerning words and actions of Constantine at that time and place which had relation to his baptism will think it unlikely that his account should be an imposture Socr. l. 1. c. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 And he who shall further observe that Nicomedia was no obscure place but a populous City in which was an Imperial Palace where Constantine sometimes resided and there died and that all this was related to be done in a time of so much remark as then was the fifty days from Easter to Whitsontide and when many Bishops were called thither to be present at this solemn action if all this was as Baronius and Binius pretend a designed forgery of Eusebius there was great want of cunning in the contrivement And he must be a man arrived at a strange height both of impudence and folly who would attempt the obtruding such a cheat upon the World which could not but be generally contradicted in that age I suppose that no man of common sense can perswade himself that if he would undertake to write that our late gracious Soveraign King Charles the First was put to death at Dublin or Edinburgh in 1660. which is a parallel to what these men fancy of Eusebius that ever he should be believed 3. And yet it is much more incredible that if this had been such a palpable imposture that both Socrates Socr. l. 1. c. 26. Theod. Hist Eccl. l. 1. c. 32. Soz. l. 2. c. 32. Evagr. Hist Eccl. l. 3. c. 41. Theodoret Sozomen Evagrius and divers other Historians since them should agree with Eusebius herein and that none of these nor any other genuine ancient Writer should make discovery of his errour who yet mention many things concerning Constantine not expressed in Eusebius And besides what might be learned by general fame and particular writings Socr. l. 1. c. 7. Socrates had himself opportunity of receiving intelligence concerning divers things done in Constantines reign from some persons of good credit who lived till his time and one who was present in the Council of Nice 4. Besides this S. Ambrose Ambr. in fun Theod who lived at the end of that Age and in Italy not far from Rome where Constantine is pretended to have been baptized about thirteen years before his death gives a plain testimony that his baptism was at the end and close of his life For speaking of Constantine he saith Cui baptismi gratia in ultimis constituto omnia peccata dimisit which expressions have puzzled Baronius nor can they be referred as he and Binius would have them to any time of sickness but his last 5. And that Synod held at Ariminum in Italy in the reign of Constantius consisting of the Western Bishops which held the Faith of Nice declared their resolution in their Synodical Epistle to Constantius which is extant in Athanasius Socrates Athan. de Synod Socr. l. 2 c. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Theod. l. 2. c. 19. Sozomen and Theodoret not to innovate any thing in that Faith which Constantine with all accurateness and strictness of examination did publish 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 whose memory deserved to be famous after his death Soz. l. 4. c. 17. and who after his baptism to wit into this faith was taken from among men and went into peace Ubi supra But Baronius and Binius to avoid this testimony undertake to correct this Epistle and instead of Constantine read Constans pretending that it is so read in Athanasius to which because this testimony is considerable I shall return two things 1. That it is indeed true that the latine translation of Athanasius hath Constans but the Greek in Athanasius readeth it Constantine and it is very unreasonable that the original Greek of four several Authors should be corrected only from the different reading of one latine translation of much later date and possibly altered with design 2. That the words mentioned in that Epistle cannot be applyed to any other Emperour but only to Constantine the Great of whom they were discoursing Socr. Hist Eccl. l. 1. c. 6. In his time and much under his care the faith of Nice was published and promulged which is oft expressed by 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and he himself declared concerning his care about it at Nice 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and then 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which words of his the Synod at Ariminum did probably allude unto 6. Now against all this great evidence they who oppose it do not produce the authority of any one ancient genuine Catholick Writer But they bring forth such spurious stuff as the acts of Silvester and Liberius which are manifestly fabulous insomuch that Baronius acknowledgeth An. 315. n. 12 13 14 17. iis complura veritati manifeste adversantia inesse perspicuo demonstratur with other words of like severe censure They also urge a pretended Preface to a Council at Rome under Silvester which speaketh of Constantine being baptized by Silvester But they have not these words from any Copy of such a Council it self but from a Writing of an uncertain Author intituled Epilogus brevis c. of which Binius confesseth Not. in Conc. Rom. 2. sub Silvest hujus Epilogi initium de mendacio suspectum redditur that the beginning of this writing is under a suspicion of being false They also have recourse unto Zosimus a Greek Historian but from him th◠produce nothing of the baptism of Constantine but he telleth a manifestly false and slanderous story of the occasion of Constantines first resolution of embracing Christianity and both the acts of Silvester and the words of the Preface above-mentioned do encline to the same thing But Zosimus being a bitter Enemy to Christianity is declared by Baronius when he writes concerning things of the Christian Religion An. 306. n. 18. an 313. n. 15. passim to be an evident depraver of truth manifestus proditor veritatis in Constantinum iniquissimus with other expressions of like nature And the pretence that the Font is yet to be seen at Rome in which Constantine
was baptized being against such great evidence deserves no more assent than the most fabulous stories concerning such religious reliques as do serve only to impose upon the credulous vulgar 7. But that argument which they seem to be most earnest in is that if Constantine was baptized at Nicomedia where Eusebius a chief Ringleader of the Arians was then Bishop this would cast an high aspersion upon that good Emperour who must say they then be concluded to dye in the Arian and not in the Catholick Communion Now it might be sufficient to say that by this same argument they might as well prove all the Nicene Council to be Arians as this good Emperour since they sate and no doubt received the Communion at Nice where Theognis was Bishop who was the constant Companion and Confederate with Eusebius in managing the Arian designs But I shall further add two things 1. That it might be possible that his baptism was not received from the hands of this Eusebius De Vit. Cons l. 4. c. 61 62. Eusebius Pamphilius declaring that there were divers Bishops at that time called to Nicomedia and Gelasius who was a famous Bishop of Palestine in that Century declaring that he was not baptized by an Arian but by one who embraced the Catholick faith as his words in Photius cited by Scaliger do plainly express Scalig. in Euseb Chron. p. 251. 2. That if it should be admitted that he was baptized by this Eusebius as is indeed expressed in the Chronicon of S. Hierome and in the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 published by Scaliger with the Chronicon of Eusebius yet this will by no means charge him with Arianisme For 1. This Eusebius of Nicomedia had then subscribed the faith of Nice and though he and Theognis were once deposed by that Council yet upon their professed submission to the faith thereof they were again restored and received as S. Hierome acquaints us Hier. adv Lucif and the form of their submission is extant in Socr. Hist Eccl. l. 1. c. 10. and Sozom. l. 2. c. 15. And though this submission of his was as Theodoret tells us Theod. Hist Eccl. l. 1. c. 19. out of an ill design this is no way to be imputed to the Emperour 2. The faith of the Council of Nice was then publickly established and the Fathers at Ariminum above-mentioned do sufficiently intimate his being baptized into it 3. He then appeared a manifest friend to the Catholick Bishops who held to the Council of Nice in that at the time of his death at Nicomedia he designed to recal Athanasius from his banishment though Eusebius of Nicomedia perswaded the contrary Theod. ibid. c. 32. Athan. Apol 2. ex lit Const filii as Theodoret with whom Athanasius himself agrees doth acquaint us 4. Nicomedia was not the place he intended for his Baptism but Jordan but his sickness of which he died surprizing him here left him no liberty to choose any other place 8. I shall now only add that according to this evidence all the actions of Constantine expressed in the former Section were performed before his baptism But if any shall embrace the contrary opinion which I reject as false and groundless many of those actions will still be previous thereto And therefore this Princes authority and duty to take care of things Ecclesiastical was not the effect of his undertaking Christianity but was contained in the general authority of his imperial Soveraignty Yet I doubt not but this fiction of Constantines being baptized at Rome and the other of his Donation are two Twins being both of them the spurious and illegitimate off-spring of a luxuriant fancy impregnated by a Romancing Incubus And the large form of his Donation not that in Balsamon but in Binius Bin. Tom. 1. p. 296. expresseth the Baptism of Constantine by Silvester But this Donation is now justly rejected as a manifest forgery by their own learnedest Writers as Morinus and P. de Marca De Concord l. 3. c. 12. n. 3 5. the latter of which supposeth some of the Popes themselves about the eighth Century to be accessory to the framing and obtruding this imposture CHAP. V. B. I.C.5 An Account of the sense of the ancient Christian Church concerning the authority of Emperours and Princes in matters of Religion SECT 1. Of the general exercise of this Supremacy and of its being allowed by the Fathers of the first General Council of Nice 1. IT is acknowledged that the truths either of Christian doctrine or of natural reason do not principally depend upon the consent of men It is not to be decided by the voice of the World whether the only true God and he alone ought to be worshipped nor did it depend upon the vote of the Jewish Priesthood or Sanhedrim whether Jesus was the true Messias And upon this account the Gentile Deities were deservedly derided by Tertullian sertul Ap. cap. 5. who had no other title thereto than by the vote of the Senate nisi homini placuerit Deus non erit 2. But yet none can be expected Sect. 1 to give a better and more sure account of the doctrines and duties of Christianity than those who have been the professors and practisers of that Religion in the purer times thereof And therefore there is such a just respect and reverence due to the primitive Christian Church and the assistance of the divine grace which guided and influenced it that that which was generally received therein hath thereby a very great and considerable testimony of its being a truth especially where there are also other great arguments and evidences to evince the same And in such things it may well be allowed Dr. Hammond of Heresy Sect. 14. according to Dr Hammond among the pie credibilia that a truly general Council shall not err And even those persons who have no due regard either to antiquity or the authority of the Christian guides will manifest their great pride if they will reject and contradict the general sense of the Church unless it be upon very clear and manifest evidence to the contrary But such who pretend as the Romish Church doth a reverence and high veneration for Tradition are thereby the more concerned not to disclaim what hath been ordinarily and plainly delivered in the ancient Church 3. Now to give an account of the sense of the particular Fathers in this place would be a more long and tedious work than would be needful And indeed the minds of many of them may sufficiently be discerned by their plain expressions mentioned in several parts of this discourse Nor will I insist upon those commonly observed and very expressive sayings concerning Supremacy in general as that of Tertullian Imperatores in Dei solius potestate sunt Apol. c. 30. 33. cont Parm. l. 3. à quo sunt secundi post quem primi and majestatem Caesaris Deo soli subjicio and that of Optatus super Imperatorem
non esse nisi Deum qui fecit Imperatorem which very plainly assert that the Emperour was under none but only God himself But I shall apply my self to such things as will enclude the more general and publick acknowledgment of the Christian Church and shall then answer what may be objected in this particular 4. The actual exercise of Government in the ancient Christian Realms is somewhat considerable to this purpose That the Christian Emperours did exercise authority in matters Ecclesiastical is manifest from the Ecclesiastical Constitutions of the Roman Emperors Cod. l. 1. Tit. 1 2 3 4 5 c. which are yet to be seen in the Codex and the Novellae Justiniani Wherein among other things there are laws establishing the Catholick faith and the doctrine of the Holy Trinity Novel 6. 123. passim so as not to allow any to contend against it as also concerning the manner of Ordinations Excommunications and Absolutions and the duty of the Clergy even of Bishops Archbishops and Patriarchs And in these and other particulars the Nomocanon of Photius doth designedly shew Phot. Nomoc Tit. 1. c. how the Imperial law doth provide for various Cases concerning which the Canons of the Church also had taken care 5. The Laws of like nature are also yet extant of the Kings of France Kings anciently governed in things Ecclesiastical and other Realms abroad And in our own Kingdom the Ecclesiastical laws of Ina Alfred Edgar Canutus and Edward the Confessor may be seen in Sir H. Spelman Spelm. Conc. Vol. 1. The Laws made and executed by Christian Emperours against Arians Nestorians Manichees and others guilty of Heresy or Schism were very many and the proceedings by the Imperial law against the Donatists was in divers places defended by S. Austin And that all the godly Emperours of old Aug. Ep. 50.162 164 166. De correct Donatist passim even from the beginning of the Emperours professing Christianity did take such care of the Church that the affairs thereof and the matters of Religion were very much ordered by their authority Socr. Procem l. 5. Hist Eccl. is plainly declared by Socrates And this is a thing so manifest to all who look into the History and Records of those Times that it is as needless to go about to prove this as it would be to prove them to have been Christian Emperours 6. But that which will give the most evident Declaration of the sense of the Christian Church is the considering how this authority of Christian Princes hath been acknowledged and complyed with by Councils and by those especially which were the first general or Oecumenical Councils For whilest the opinion of some particular fathers may possibly be thought not sufficient to give a satisfactory account of the general sense of the Christian Church in those days and whereas the proof produced from the Imperial laws and the constant exercise of the Emperors authority in affairs of Religion may possibly fall under a suspicion of undue encroachment or may be pretended by some to be executed by an authority dependent upon and derived from some Ecclesiastical Officers no such exceptions can lie against the concurrent testimony and acknowledgment of the chief general Councils in the flourishing times of Christianity And I suppose that no man will deny that the assembling of Oecumenical Councils and the matters therein transacted were properly things Ecclesiastical 7. And here I shall begin with the first Council of Nice This Supremacy owned by the Council of Nice concerning whicn I shall need to say the less because many things mentioned in the third Section of the foregoing Chapter do sufficiently manifest the Supremacy exercised by Constantine the first Christian Emperour in whose Reign that Council sate That this general Council was called by the Command of Constantine the Emperour is expresly declared by Eusebius with whom Socrates Eus de Vit. Const l. 3. c. 6. Theodoret and other ancient Historians do agree But the later Romish Writers would perswade the World that it was assembled by the authority of the Romish Bishop Bin. in Not. in Cone Nicen Not. a. So Binius Authoritate Silvestri Romani Pontificis By the authority of Silvester Bishop of Rome this holy Synod was summoned and was gathered together by the consent help and Counsel of Constan tine the Emperour And Baronius likewise declares that no man may doubt Baron an 325. n. 13. but that the authority of Silvester was in this case interposed But in truth they produce nothing that can justly be accounted any evidence hereof 8. But that it may appear past all doubt by whose authority this Council was convened we have a twofold testimony beyond all exception Constantine himself who was able to give an account of his own actions in his Epistle to the Church of Alexandria Socr. Hist l. 1. c. 6. which is extant in Socrates declares that it was he who called this Council Ibid. And the Synodical Epistle which was written by the Council of Nice to Alexandria which may be seen in Socrates and Theodoret Theod. Hist l. r. c. 9. doth attest the same and therein the Fathers of Nice themselves who could not but know who summoned that Council declare that it was gathered together by the grace of God and by the Religious Emperour Constantine 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 who called us together out of divers Provinces and Cities 9. That the most eminent Bishops from the several quarters of the Empire did with much readiness repair to this Council according to the Emperors command is particularly attested by Eusebius Euseb ubi sup c. 6 7. and other Historians Yet it is not to be doubted that if they had received summons and command from a person whom they knew to be inferiour and not superiour to them as a Presbyter or Deacon they would never have yielded general obedience to him but would have rebuked and repressed his insolence and therefore this their obedience to the Emperour was an acknowledgment of his authority and supremacy And this is the more remarkable because these Nicene Bishops were persons of the highest worth and esteem of any in the Christian Church which appears from the general fame and deserved honour which this Council hath obtained in all succeeding ages unto this day 10. And the chief occasion of calling the Council was by reason of the evil opinions of Arius and the difference about the day for observing Easter which things the Emperour considering Socr. Hist l. 1. c. 6. gr though this the only effectual way for the redressing them and thereupon directed this Council particularly to consult about them which was accordingly done And whilest this Council was sitting the Emperour who was present with them used very great care and diligence Eus de Vit. Const l. 3. cap. 12 13. for the suppressing unnecessary occasions of discord and quarrel and for the
that they shall have no open contests with one another but if any differences arise they shall end them amongst themselves or else bring them unto him all this is no disowning the supremacy of a superiour government And when S. Paul to the like purpose enjoined Christians in general not to go to law before the Pagan Judicatures Aquinas truly observeth Aquin. in 1 Cor. 6. that this was consistent with the subjection of Christians to Kings and Governours since the Religion of Christians did not allow them to refuse to appear before Pagan Magistrates when summoned or to submit to teir decision of right and justice but only required that they should not voluntarily chuse this way of determination But it is against no duty of subjection to make a private end of all or any matters of difference and complaint whether it be for the love of peace or the honour of Religion 4. Grot. in 1 Cor. 6. And Grotius not only observeth how heinous a thing the Jews accounted it that the Gentiles should take notice of quarrels amongst them which they would make use of to the disparagement of their Religion but he also recommends even under the Christian Government and Soveraignty the ordinary composing of differences by friendly Arbitrators Nor is it any infringement of supremacy where such Rules are observed concerning those special members of the Christian Church the whole body of the clergy And the Ecclesiastical Canons which were to this purpose were accounted by the third Council of Carthage Conc. Carth. 3. Can. 9. to be of like nature with the directions of S. Paul to the Corinthians as respecting such Cases where they were at liberty ad eligendos judices to make choice of such as should judge their Case But because there is sufficient evidence that such matters were not always determined by private Arbitrators but were oft-times decided by a judicial or consistorial sentence there appeareth a necessity of adding a further answer Wherefore 5. Obs 2. Those judicial proceedings were by the permission of their Soveraign That all those judicial proceedings to which this objection doth refer were undertaken by vertue of a special grant or act of grace and favour from the supreme temporal power and therefore in no derogation from it but by the consent and authority thereof Of this I shall give sufficient proof with respect to all the particulars mentioned 6. For First When our Saviour gave that Precept Mat. 18 the Nation of the Jews were indeed under the Romish power Ant. Jud. l. 14. c. 17. l. 16. c. 10. but yet they had a liberty to determine matters in Consistories of their own The truth of this is evident from the History of the New Testament and Josephus acquaints us that there were divers Imperial rescripts in the time of Julius Caesar and soon after his death which impowered them to live after their own laws both in Judea and in other parts of the Empire Now the Jewish Government and their Customs about that time allowed the different Sects among them to decide such matters of difference as arose among themselves De Bell. Jud. l. 2. c. 12. gr according to the Rules of their own discipline as is manifest from what Josephus relateth to this purpose concerning the discipline and judicial decisions of the Essens which as Grotius well observeth Grot. in Mat. 18. is sufficient to give allowance to the like proceedings amongst the Christians 7. Secondly A little before the time when the Apostle wrote his first Epistle to the Corinthians besides those above-mentioned there was among others published that memorable Edict of Claudius Ant. Jud. l. 19. c. 4. whereby he gave liberty to the Jews all over his Empire that none forbidding them they might observe 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 their own proper laws and the caustoms of their Country V. Seld de Syn. l. 2. c. 5. n. 1. Now it was one of their known Rules in that age and time that wheresoever any considerable number of them should reside they should have a lesser Sanhedrim And this rule their Rabbins accounted obligatory Ibid. cap. 7. n. 5. 9. De Syn. l. 1. c. 8. p. 224. c. as Mr Selden shews not only in Judea but in what place soever they should inhabit for the determining of matters not criminal 8. And in another place he gives sufficient proof that in those times the Christians were comprehended under the name of the Jews and it is truly observed by Pamelius that Judaica superstitio Pam. in tertul Apol n. â—4 was the phrase which Verus and Antoninus used when they intended to grant priviledges to them of the Christian Religion And this was because Christianity was first planted in Judea and entertained and propagated by those who were of the Jewish Nation and its followers acknowledged and owned the law and the Prophets Indeed it must be presumed that in the time of open persecution of Christianity this licence of savour was withdrawn and in that Case the Christians did either lay aside all contentions among themselves and reduced the peaceable rules of their Religion into a general practice or else they voluntarily yielded to the arbitrement of other Christians 9. Canons about the immunity of the Clergy were established by the favour of Princes Thirdly Those Canons of the Church which asserted any priviledges or immunities in the Clergy from the temporal Judicatories were established by the Emperours consent who gave his confirmation unto themm and therefore encluded no derogation from his power Those things which are contained nder the name of decretal Epistles V. Gratian. ubi supra of ancient Bishops of Rome Conc. const c. â— Conc. Chalc. c. 9. before Constantine concerning the freedom of the Clergy from the secular power are of so very bad credit as not to deserve any consideration That the four first General Councils in which are some Canons relating to this matter were called and confirmed by the Emperour hath been proved And that Provincial Councils were called by the same authority hath been observed by instancing in very many of them by the Archbishop of Spalato Spalatens de Repub. Eccl. l. 6. c 5. Grot. de Imp. Sum. potest c. 7. n. 3. and by Grotius And if there was any Canon of this nature which was not confirmed by Imperial authority or the substance of it contained in a preceeding Imperial Law or Grant it was not brought into practice 10. And it is further observable that most of these Canons did but provide for the well and orderly managing those priviledges which the Imperial law had before granted to the Church For before the genuine Canons of any Councils concerning this matter the Imperial law had already established the substance of those priviledges in the Clergy as will appear manifest to them who will compare these Canons with the Edicts of priviledge granted by Constantine
be discovered as things which were granted to him in S. Peter and in his power to dispose authoritate omnipotentis Dei ac vicariatus Jesu Christi upon account of the authority of God and the Vicarship of Christ with other such like words And when Bellarmine in his Books de Romano Pontifice had given such a sense of this grant as if it signified no more than to empower them to send Preachers thither and to protect converted Christians and to do such like Offices In lib. Recognit he afterwards found reason to retract what he had there said and acknowledged that when he wrote that he had not seen that rescript it self but only followed the opinion of Cajetan and some others 10. The Bull also of Pius Quintus against Queen Elizabeth declareth that Christ had constituted him a Prince over all Nations and over all Kingdoms And the Bull of Sixtus the Fifth against Henry the third of France asserteth him to have obtained a supreme power delivered to him by divine institution over all Kings and Princes of the whole Earth and over all people Nations and Countries But these usurpations upon Royal Authority were so distastful to a considerable part of the Romish Communion De Benef. l. 1. c. 4. that Duarenus with respect to his own age tells us that he thinks there is no sober and learned man who can approve thereof II. And the proud and stately behaviour and deportment of this Bishop The Popes behaviour towards Princes towards Emperours and Kings when they are admitted into his presence is suitable hereunto which by their own Ceremonialist we have thus described Saer Cerem l. 3. Sect. 1. c. 2. Romanus Pontifex nemini omnino mortalium reverentiam facit c. The Roman Bishop doth no reverence to any mortal man either by rising up openly or by bowing his head or by uncovering it but after the Roman Emperour or other great Kings have kissed his foot and his hand as he sitteth he doth a little rise towards them to receive them to kiss his mouth And again Omnes mortales c. Ibid. c. 3. All mortal men of whatsoever dignity and pre-eminence they be when they first come into the Popes presence must thrice at distant spaces bow their knee before him and must kiss his feet 12. I forbear to mention what our Histories manifest of the haughty insolent and imperious carriage of the Pope towards our English Kings especially King Henry the Second and King John But that proud and arrogant speech of Gratian the Popes Legate to Henry the Second Nos de tali curia sumus quae consuevit imperare Imperatoribus regibus we belong to that Court whose custom it is to command or rule over Emperours and Kings was so hugely pleasing to Baronius Baron an 1196. n. 11. that he thought fit to record it in great letters and in the margent to note Gratiani responsio digna legato that it was such an answer of Gratian as was fit for the Popes Legate to make And what Luciferian insolency appeared in that Speech of Innocent the Fourth concerning Henry the Third Nonne Rex Anglorum vasallus noster est Mat. Paris an 1253. ut plus dicam mancipium Is not the King of England our Vasal and that I may say more our slave And that this was no unusual stile at Rome appeareth from ancient Records in the Tower Pryns Addit to History of K. John f. 18. f. 28. which declare the Pope both in his Council at Rome and in his Letter to the Barons and Commonalty of England to have called King John his Vasal 13. And waving many other things I shall only add that immediately before the framing the Oath of Supremacy Queen elizabeth coming to the Crown signified her Inauguration to Paul the Fourth then Pope by Edward Carne who was then at Rome as an Ambassadour from Queen Mary Hist Conc. Trident. l. 5. p. 333 334. an 1558. the Pope proudly returns his answer That the Kingdom of England was a see of the Apostolical See and that it was intolerable boldness in her to assume the name of Queen or the Government of the Kingdom without his approbation and therefore he propounded to her to renounce her pretended right to this Realm and to leave it to his dispose From these things it may appear what great cause there was for this Crown to take care that all the subjects thereof who are in any chief places of trust and employment do disown such foreign claims which would undermine the very foundations of Regal Authority And the meer recital of such things as these are such palpable evidences of impudent arrogancy despising Dominions and opposing the humble meek and peaceable design of the Christian Religion and even the principles of humane reason and polity that this alone may be sufficient with all understanding and good men to raise in them an abhorrence of and indignation against such intolerable ambition SECT III. Such claims can have no foundation from the Fathers and have none in the direct expressions of Scripture which they alledge 1. Every rational man might well expect that so vast a claim both of Ecclesiastical and temporal power ought to be supported with some very considerable evidence which in this case can be no other but a manifest divine constitution For since the very being of the Church of God depends upon his founding it and the very being of its Officers upon Gods appointing them there can be no other ground for any Ecclesiastical Officer to claim upon a Christian account a supremacy of rule over the World unless he can produce the institution of God to this purpose 2. Some reflections on the sense of the ancient Church concerning this Supremacy And therefore it would be needless as it might also be tedious to examine those expressions of the Fathers wherein they spake with respect and honour to the See of Rome for such expressions if they had been never so plain could not found any original divine right And it would be no difficulty if it had been needful to evidence by examining them Sect. 3 that they were far from asserting that Supremacy which is challenged 3. But instead of this I shall observe that the greatest Authority of the Christian Church hath sufficiently disclaimed all such Supreme Vniversal Authority and Government of the Romish Church For that famous Canon of the Council of Nice Conc. Nic. Can. 6. doth plainly give the same power and authority to the Bishops of Alexandria and Antioch and the other Eparchies or chief Dioceses within their limits which it gives to the Bishop of Rome and makes them stand on even ground with one another which could not be done if the authority of the one was in subjection to the other and the authority of the other without subjection to any The second General Council also determined to the same purpose Conc.
doctrines but also all those who do appeal to any future Council Wherefore as much as it is the duty of any Church or Christian to own Gods authority and embrace his truth so much it must be their duty to reject the Romish authority which opposeth and withstandeth them 12. Fourthly From the sin of pursuing Schism with which the Romish Bishop and Church do stand chargeable 4. From Schism No Christian Bishop can have any authority against the Vnity of the Christian Church and against that authority whereby that Unity is established And therefore all Christians are obliged to avoid sinful divisions and Schisms though the names of Paul or Apollos or Cephas may be pretended to head them And it was the fault of S. Barnabas to comply with and be led by S. Peter himself in a groundless withdrawing from the Church of Antioch And it could not be the duty of any Catholick Christians who lived within the Dioceses of the Donatist Bishops to submit to them and thereby not hold the Catholick Communion Cyp. Ep. 52. ad Anton For as S. Cyprian said he who doth not keep the Vnity of the Spirit and the conjunction of peace and separateth himself from the bond of the Church and the Society of its Priests Episcopi nec potestatem potest habere nec honorem can neither have the honour nor the power of a Bishop And he who submits to or complyeth with the manager of a Schism in his prosecution thereof doth involve himself in the same crime 13. Gr. de Valent Tom. 3. disp 3. qu. 15. Punct 2. Bannes in 2. â—ae qu. 1. Art 10. p. 83 84. qu. 39. Art 1. Now that the Bishop of Rome himself may be a Schismatick in separating from the Unity of the Church is acknowledged by their own Writers And he is actually guilty of Schism in rejecting Communion with a great part and with the best and purest part of the Catholick Church and requiring them to be accounted Hereticks And his Schism hath such aggravations as these 1. In the ill design of upholding corrupt doctrines and practises of that Church without due reformation 2 From his high uncharitableness in not allowing salvation to other Christian Churches besides the Roman 3. From his great usurpation excommunicating all who do not yield obedience to him and the free Churches who reform themselves although their power of holding Synods includeth a right to reform themselves and all who appeal from him to a general Council who are subjected to excommunication Jac. de Graf Decis Aur. l. 4. c. 18. n. 55. as some who write upon the bull in coena domini tell us for accounting a general Council superior to the Pope 14. Wherefore the Bishop of Rome as things now stand hath no just right to a Patriarchal Power in any part whatsoever of the Christian Church having forfeited this by the corrupt doctrines and interests and by the Schism which are there managed And he is excluded from Foreign Soveraign Princes Dominions by the Supremacy of their Crown and by his undue claims inconsistent with their regalities But if he would become truly Catholick both as to Christian Vnity and doctrine and therein give due honour to secular authority he might then claim a Patriarchal right so far as the present civil power of Rome reacheth but no further unless by the leave and pleasure of other Princes and Churches And he might then expect and would receive an high honour all over the Christian World upon account of the ancient prime Patriarchal See CHAP. VIII B. 1. C. 8. Some pretences of other parties against the Supremacy of Princes in Causes Ecclesiastical refuted SECT I. Of Liberty of Conscience and Toleration AGainst the Authority of the Civil Power in matters of Religion there are some who undertake such a Patronage of Liberty of Conscience as thereby to infer a necessity of Toleration And what is urged upon this Topick hath either respect to Conscience it self or else the peace of the Christian World and so either pretendeth that it is the proper right of Conscience to be free from subjection to any men in matters Ecclesiastical and the affairs of Religion or else that the yielding this liberty to every man is a principle of peace The consequences from the Pleas for General liberty of Conscience and would tend greatly to the quiet of the World 2. the chief force of what is said upon the first pretence lyeth in this kind of reasoning which some account plausible to wit That every man hath a Conscience or capacity of discerning what is his duty in matters of Religion and that what he thus discerns to be his duty he ought to practise and no man ought to hinder or restrain him and the consequence of this is that concerning the affairs of Religion he ought to be under no Government whether Civil or Ecclesiastical But the vanity and fallaciousness of this way of arguing will sufficiently appear by improving the same to a further purpose to which it is altogether as well adapted concerning matters of common right For it may be said here that man is a Creature endued with principles of Conscience and capacities to discern what is just and honest and what he discerneth to be so he ought to pursue and should be permitted so to do and therefore according to the former method of argumentation he must in civil affairs be under no Government and no judge ought to question him Now the result of all this and what it would tend to prove is that man is such a Creature who ought not to be a subject or under Government and from hence it would follow that all the Precepts of subjection and obedience in the Gospel and the whole establishment which God hath made of Civil and Ecclesiastical power and authority are all of them opposite to the nature of man and to the rights and priviledges of his being And now would it not heartily grieve any pious and understanding man to see by what pitiful pretences men undertake to argue against the institution and authority of God 3. Men may not safely be left to the sole conduct of themselves and their Consciences But they who make use of such arguments about matters of Religion will be ready to say concerning things civil that though men have Consciences to guide them yet they may sometimes mistake the due measures of justice and right and sometimes an inordinate pursuing their own interest or gratifying some evil temper of mind may make men act contrary to what they know to be right and by such means other mens properties would be injured if there were not a civil judge to interpose and laws established for the securing these properties And all this is indeed truth but then these two things are also to be observed 1. That hereby it is granted that even in those things wherein men ought to be directed by the rules of Conscience they
are still under the Government of their Superiours who may take care that they therein act not contrary to the true grounds of Conscience which in this Case is justice and right 2. That in matters of Religion also it is manifest that very many are prone to run into mistakes more than about other things and to be too much hurried by pride prejudice passion or by following erroneous guides And is it reasonable to think it agreeable to the will of God and the Christian Doctrine that it should be necessary to preserve the civil interests of men whether Princes or Subjects but that such liberty must be granted that the sacred Majesty of God may be affronted the truths of the Gospel opposed the Unity of the Church broken by Schism the power of Religion undermined by vain fancies and the reputation of the Christian Religion stained and the eternal happiness of many thousands be thereby hazarded and all this not thought so considerable as to provide against it Or as S. Austin said Aug. Ep. 50. An fidem non servare levius est animam Deo quà m foeminam viro is it a lighter and more inconsiderable thing for the soul of man not to be faithful to God than for a Woman not to be faithful to her Husband Wherefore since it is as easy for men of understanding to discern the duty of man in the main things of Religion and the Rules of decency as in civil matters it is very requisite that with allowance of reasonable liberty to them who are soberly inquisitive about truth there should be a restraint upon men by Laws and Government from following every inordinate inclination of their own minds though they miscal it by the name of Conscience that so Piety Order and Peace may be secured 4. But though I would be as charitable to all who err in matters of Religion as may consist with a due consideration of things yet I cannot account all that to be Conscience which is by some men in the World so called Conscience doth not always really guide where its name is pretended For those proper dictates of Conscience which in this case ought to command obedience must proceed upon such convictive evidence of truth and duty which no errour and mistake can bring along with it with that clearness which truth doth and this ought to be followed by every pious man whatever difficulties may assault him herein but passions and disordered affections ought to be governed and restrained and the Laws and Commands of Superiours ought to be obeyed where there is no such evidence to be opposed against them as I have mentioned But let any person who understandeth the state of the World consider whether it be not an apparent sad truth and matter of real lamentation that the chief and most earnest men who close with erring and dividing parties amongst us do this either out of some fond affection to a weak argument which they are highly pleased with or because they are resolved to hold fast some things as certain principles which have no evidence of truth or that they follow willingly and of choice the opinion of some other persons whom they admire or have a great prejudice against those whom they account an opposite party or are not willing to be subject and to be guided by their Superiours in things relating to order And I heartily wish it were not so plain a truth as it is that such men are rarely willing to consider seriously and impartially of what is said against their errour and do not make so much scruple of Conscience as they ought of breaking those numerous and plain Precepts which enjoin obedience humility and the keeping the Peace and Vnity of the Church 5. Now in men who thus proceed True liberty of Conscience opposed by them who plead for it in words it is very plain that their dissent is founded in the voluntary inclination and evil indisposition of their wills And if any such persons shall say that their Consciences oblige them to entertain these inclinations they must give others leave to see that they only substitute the name of Conscience to be a Plea for an unaccountable and bad temper of mind And indeed those persons are great opposers of the just and necessary Liberty of Conscience who will bind it up to comply with their own inclinations and what pleaseth them but will not give it the liberty of impartial consideration that thereby it might guide them by its unbiassed dictates 6. God hath not left mens Consciences at liberty to neglect peace and obedience But because I intend here to discourse no further of liberty of Conscience than to shew that the pretence thereof ought not to be any bar against the exercise of government and authority in the regular establishing of Religion and order in the Church I shall only add that I suppose no man will be so presumptuously bold as to assert that this Plea of liberty should be a priviledge to men against the authority of God and his Laws and Precepts And then I cannot understand what pretence can be made from hence against the necessity of practising those duties which the Commands of God have enjoined of following peace maintaining order and in things lawful being subject to superiours especially since God hath particularly in this Case required us to be subject for Conscience sake and that not as in a matter left at liberty but where he hath declared a necessity upon Conscience Rom. 13.5 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 you most needs be subject for Conscience sake 7. But there are some who say Toleration pretended to be a method for peace that a general liberty for all men to profess what they please or think fit in Religion if it be not necessary from the nature of Conscience yet is the most excellent expedient for the general peace of the World This liberty hath been pretended by them who engage in several Sects to be a principal means to promote the Vnity of the Church which must be by a like method as the compactness and united strength of a building may be procured by providing that all the parts of it may without difficulty fall from one another But this general liberty in Religion is also proposed Humane Reason p. 78. as the best requisite to hinder civil and foreign Wars by a late Writer He tells us that all Wars of late Ages have been either really for Religion or at least that hath been one of the chief pretences and therefore as conducing to peace he requires the imbracing this Position P. 79. That every man ought quietly to enjoy his own Religion And in another place he sayes there cannot certainly in the World be found out P. 11 12. so mild and so peaceable a doctrine as that which permits a difference in beliefs 8. But since he that observes the World must acknowledge that many Wars have been occasioned upon
Anarchy where there is no superiour or supreme It includes Irreligion because Religion establisheth the Government of a people to be the ordinance of God and whereas Government must be by the exercise of a superiour authority there can be no authority upon Earth superiour to the supreme 8. Thirdly Supremacy cannot be asserted in a Parliament without doing violence to plain evidence For as loyal English Parliaments have constantly acknowledged supremacy in the King so it is manifest that the Parliament regularly is under the Government of the King For he Summons and gives birth to it by his Writ continues it at his pleasure and hath the authority of adjourning proroguing or dissolving it as he sees cause CHAP. IX Corollaries from the foregoing discourse concerning some duties of subjection THE Royal Supremacy being asserted it will hence follow 1. Corol. 1. Of submission and solemn professing the Kings Right That Subjects ought to own and acknowledge this just authority and supremacy of their Soveraign and heartily to manifest an humble peaceable and faithful submission thereunto This is that which the Rules of the Christian Religion do enjoin and they who are averse from the performance hereof do as much as in them lies enervate this authority and render it unmeet to attain its ends for which God did appoint it even the peace and good of the World And for the more effectual promoting of this faithful subjection the sacred bond of an Oath of homage and fidelity B. 1. C 9. is approved by God himself Eccl. 8.2 and hath been made use of by the general wisdom of the World The ancient practice of such Oaths is manifest under the Jewish Government Jud. 11.10 2 Kin. 11.17 as also under the Chaldean Empire Ezek 17.19 and under the Persian and Roman Empires Joseph Ant. l. 11. c. 8. l. 17. c. 3. Herodian l. 2. Bar. an 169. n. 9. And that the primitive Christians even in the time of persecution did by their Oaths assure their allegiance to those Princes seemeth well observed by Baronius from Tertullian Apol. c. 32. where discoursing of that fidelity and honour which the Christians had for the Emperour upon that occasion saith Sed juramus 2. Of speaking reverently Corol. 2. Subjects ought also to speak of their Princes with reverence and expressions of honour For all authority whether of Father Master or other Ruler deriving suitable degrees of honour upon the person the greatest and chief civil honour doth of right belong to him who in his Dominions is possessor of the highest authority upon earth And the ordinary using outward expressions and titles of honour is in this Case the more needful and reasonable because this hath a considerable influence upon the disposing men to obedience and because Government it self becomes most useful where it is entertained with due reverence Wherefore the title of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 optimus or most excellent which was the usual stile of honour which both Jews and Romans gave to the president of Judea Act. 23.26 ch 24.3 was readily made use of to Festus by S. Paul Act. 26.25 And when Priests and Rulers were none of the best men the holy Scriptures stile the Priest the Angel or Messenger of the Lord of Hosts Mal. 2.7 and the Ruler the Minister of God Rom. 13.4 and of such they use that expression Ps 82.6 I said Ye are Gods 3. And the primitive Christians were forward by such means to promote and secure the due honour of superiours Eus Hist Eccl. l. 7. c. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 To which purpose Dionysius Bishop of Alex andria when he was a Confessor and exposed himself to be banished for the Christian profession did yield to Valerian and Galienus persecuting Emperours the title of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 most pious Athan. Ap. ad Const Testim Eccl. Alexand in Athanas Eus Hist Eccl. l. 10. c. 5. Both Athanasius himself and the Alexandrian Church which held to him called Constantius the Arian Most Religious 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 And when Constantine wrote to some of the Prefects of the Empire he gave to them in two Rescripts mentioned by Eusebius the title of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 your sanctity And that the ancient Churches did readily give to the Emperours their usual Imperial titles and did ordinarily treat them with such a stile as Sanctissimi Pientissimi Religiosissimi is not only manifest from particular Writers but is abundantly apparent from the Synodical Epistles of Provincial and even of Oecumenical Councils 4. Conc. Eph. Tom. 2. c. 10. To. 4. c. 17. And as the like expressions of honour were frequently and usually given to the Christian Bishops so when the Council of Ephesus were about to denounce the sentence of deposition against Nestorius Bishop of Constantinople for his Heresy and when they wrote to Celestine against John Bishop of Antioch as being an Enemy to the true Faith in complyance with Nestorius they gave them both the title of Most Religious And the like was done before the sentencing Dioscorus and other Bishops who complyed with Eutyches in the Council of Chalcedon Conc. Chalc. Act. 3. Evagr. Hist l. 2. c. 18. Wherefore such expressions as these were intended as titles of honour given to them upon account of their office and without respect to their personal vertues and in that sense are to be understood Mas de Min. Angl. l. 3. c. 5. n. 3. ibid. Baron Bin. 5. The use of such expressions of honourary titles is allowed and defended both by Romish and Protestant Writers And those persons who would appear backward in yielding to the supreme Governour his just stile of eminency and supremacy are wanting in giving him the honour which God enjoins and cannot easily be acquitted from the guilt of scandal in encouraging the bad temper of some and adding to the ignorance of others in that particular And they who are desirous to expose the persons actions or constitutions of their superiours may take warning by the actings of Ham towards his Father Noah which entailed a Curse upon his posterity 6. Corol. 3. it is also the duty of subjects Of praying for Kings heartily to pray for Gods blessing on the person and Government of their Soveraign because therein both Church and State and private interests also are so much concerned This was enjoined by S. Paul as a matter of principal concernment 1 Tim. 2.1 2. and was performed in the early times of Christianity Tert. Apol c. 30. Conc. Emer in Praef. And the Council of Merida did more particularly pray for their King Recessuinthus because he was Governour in all Causes Civil and Ecclesiastical quoniam de secularibus sancta illi manet cura Ecclesiastica per divinam gratiam recte disponit mente intentâ sit illi opitulatrix ineffabilis omnipotentis Dei gratia quae se quaerentibus manet propinqua But because it is an high piece of
received justice only from the King and his Courts and not to revenge themselves or be Judges in their own Cases doth more especially condemn the entring into War it self which is an undertaking founded upon a direct contrary proceeding And thus far we have a sufficient censure in our English Laws upon that War against the King which those who have pleaded for the lawfulness of Subjects taking Arms do account the most plausible instance for their purpose which our Chronicles can furnish them with And it is needless to go about to prove that many other Conspiracies and Rebellions have been justly condemned and punished according to their demerit 17. And whereas unchristian and evil actions Some pretences shortly reflected on may oft be carried on under some fair colours and appearances all such pretences for taking Armes against the King are in this acknowledgment disclaimed the truth of which will be justified in the following Chapters And I shall here only shortly reflect upon some few of those pretences which are commonly made 18. Some have accounted the defence of Religion to be a sufficient Warrant for taking Armes But if the Christian Religion giveth a right to him who professeth it to defend himself and his profession against his Superiours by Armes then must not our Religion be a taking up the Cross but the Sword and it would then be perfectly unlike the Religion of the Primitive Christians and Martyrs and would be no longer a following of Christ our Lord and Saviour 19. Others have asserted the defaults and miscarriages of Superiours Jun. Brut. Vindic. Qu. 1. 3. to be a forfeiture of their Power and Dominion even as a tenure may be forfeited upon the non-performance of the conditions upon which it is held But though God may justly as a punishment of Offenders deprive them of what good they here possess he hath not made inferiours the Judges of their Superiours nor can any such forfeiture devolve on them And he who considers the great viciousness and cruelty of Saul of Tiberius and of Nero under whose Reigns the Holy Scripture presseth the duty of Allegiance will thence discern that the making such a pretence as this is contrary to true Religion and Christianity 20. By many the defending of the rights freedoms and liberties of the Subject hath been esteemed the most specious pretence of all the rest But whereas there are other better wayes to preserve these rights which are most violated by Wars and intestine Tumults and Broils it cannot easily be thought probable that he may be a judge and avenger of his own cause by force against his superiour who may not be so against his equal And since the tenderness of Davids Conscience was such that notwithstanding the many undeserved injuries he sustained he durst not stretch out his hand against the Lords anointed and Peters drawing his Sword to defend his Master was severely rebuked of which things more hereafter the management of this objection must proceed from a Spirit contrary to that of pious David and to the doctrine also of our Lord and Master SECT III. Of the traiterous Position of taking Arms by the Kings Authority against his person or against those who are commissionated by him 1. The other clause in the forementioned Declaration or acknowledgment is intended against another particular pretence of taking Armes and is this That I do abhor that traiterous Position of taking Armes by his the Kings authority Sect. 3 against his person or against those that are Commissionated by him The Position or assertion here rejected is thus expressed in the Oath to be taken by the Lord Lieutenants and Souldiers 14 Car. 2.3 That Arms may be taken by the Kings Authority viz. though the King never own them or give any Commission for them yea though they be against his own person or against those which are Commissionated by him And this Position Taking Arms by the Kings Authority against his person disclaimed exposing the sacred person of the King to the highest danger and being against the safety of his Life and Crown is justly declared to be traiterous and it standeth chargeable with these enormities 2. First It is so unreasonable as to be against the common sense of Mankind Would it not look strange and be accounted a prodigious thing to see a Company of Children or Servants beat and abuse the person of their Father or Master dispossess him by violence and possibly at last to confine and murder him and yet to expect that all men should believe they did this for the preservation of his Right and Government and in obedience to his Authority yea though he plainly declared and protested against these things as being heinously injurious and unnatural And it is no less unaccountable to pretend the Kings Authority Judic Univers Oxon de foedere p. 66. for taking Armes against his person This is as it hath been expressed a like contradiction in sense reason and polity as Transubstantiation is in Religion both which must suppose such a presence as is impossible to be there and is contrary to the plainest evidence This pretence of the Kings Authority against his person was hatched under the Romish Territories and made use of in the Holy League of France In the Guisian attempts against Henry the Third Hist of Civil Wars of France l. 5. an 1588. it hath been related as a matter of wonder to the common sense of men that they should besiege the Loure where the King was and yet this should pass under the disguise of obeying the King and defending the King and Country That the name of the King doth denote the royal person who governeth is the general apprehension of Mankind And it is vainly pretended that all the proceedings of justice being always in the Kings name and by his Authority when many of them are not particularly known to his person must require the forming such a legal Idea or Notion of the King as is distinct from his person but this supposeth the Soveraign Authority to be in his Royal person under whom and from whom other Ministers of Justice do execute their several Offices As when any man intrusts another to manage any part of his business and affairs in his name and by his Authority this doth not make the man who commits the trust to become an Idea or Notion distinct from himself or his person 3. Secondly This strained perverting of plain sense in this particular is not only against the security of the King but may upon the same foundation become fatal to the lives of the subjects Manual concerning some priviledges of Parl. p. 16 17 and p. 60. For whereas some who managed this conceit did assert in plain words that even the Statutes which condemned treason against the King had respect to the King in this Novel Idea as intending thereby the Laws and the Kings Courts of Justice it is easy to discern that any subjects who
〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and behold I perish by great grief in a strange Land So also Naboths injuries were revenged upon Ahab 2 Kin. Ch. 21 22. 2 Sam. 21.1 2 c. and the Gibeonites upon Saul And to take notice only of some of the last persecutors of Christianity in whom irreligious defiance of the true God and his Religion and inhumane eruelty towards men did meet together The severe judgments which befel Decius and Valerianus who were the Authors of the two last persecutions before Diocletian are observed by Constantine that the former was vanquished and slain in Scythia Constant Orat. ad Sanct. Coet c. 24. with great shame and dishonour to himself and the Roman power and the latter was taken Captive by the persians and there flayed and then being salted or dryed was preserved among them as a Trophy 9. When Diocletian Maximianus Herculius and Galerius Maximianus not only raised a cruel persecution against the Christians but arrived to that height of contempt against Christ and opposition of is Religion that they erected Pillars with inscriptions concerning their Reign nomine Christianorum deleto Baron an 304. n. 8. and superstitione Christi ubique deleta the name of Christians being extinct by them and the superstition or Religion of Christ utterly destroyed the two former of them finding themselves defeated by the success and increase of the Christian Religion in a short time being overcome with grief and anguish Eus Hist l. 8. c. 29. Baron an 316. n. 2. Eus ibid. c. 25 gr deserted their Imperial dignity And Diocletian after many years of retired sorrow and discontent was strucken with an extraordinary loathsome and miserable Disease attended with blindness And Maximianus Herculius ended his own dayes by the shameful Death of an Halter 10. Galerius Maximianus was smitten with such noysome Ulcers and multitude of Wormes in all parts of his Body as rendred him a dreadful spectacle and loathsome unto all Eus Hist l. 8. c. 28 29. de vit Const l. 1. c. 50. Oros l. 7. c. 28. Of whom Eusebius tells us that he therein acknowledged the stroke of Gods vengeance and Orosius reports that after many Physicians had been put to Death because they afforded the Emperour no relief he was at last told by some of them Iram Dei esse poenam suam ideo à medicis non posse curari that since the wrath of God had inflicted this punishment upon him Physicians could give him no cure To these I shall only add the instance of Maximinus who was an Emperour of the same spirit and temper per with the former was Contemporary with Galerius Maximianus for some time but survived him a few years He is noted by Eusebius to have been one of the worst Enemies to Christianity Eus Hist l. 9. c. 10 11. gr De Vit. Const l. 1. c. 51 52. and also to have been charged with tyranny by the publick Edicts of the other Emperours And he was so smitten by the hand of God that he became blasted his Visage changed and his whole body parched and dryed up like a Sceleton or an Image and he who made a Law that the eyes of Christians should be pulled out and executed it upon multitudes of Men Women and Children his own Eyes also fell out of his Head and himself was made sensible that it was the stroke of Gods hand And these sensible tokens of divine justice wrought a mighty change in the Roman Empire for the safety and advantage of them who piously served God 11. And it ought to be a check to the passions of the greatest men and a support to the state of the meanest that God not only executeth judgment in another World but doth govern this and when he sees it meet will stand up to avenge the injured and punish the evil doers Wherefore it was a pious admonition to the Emperour Frederick the First by his Uncle Otho Frising Epist ad Frider. Oenobarb Otho Frisingensis who tells him that Kings are reserved only to the scrutiny and judgment of God and then adds that according to the Apostle it is a fearful thing for every man to fall into the hands of the living God and particularly for Princes who have none other above them whom they must fear And it is a good and loyal resolution for a subject to take up if ever he should live under an unjust Prince that he will embrace the temper of Davids Spirit in his words concerning Saul 1 Sam. 26.10 11. The Lord shall smite him or his day shall come to die or be shall descend into the Battel and perish the Lord forbid that I should stretch forth mine hand against the Lords anointed provided that such expressions be not used as an imprecation of evil but as an acknowledgment of Gods Soveraignty and a patient committing himself to him still keeping to the practice of that Christian Rule Pray for them which despitefully use you and persecute you Mat. 5.44 SECT III. The condition of Subjects would not be the better but the worse if it were lawful for them to take Arms against their Prince Sect. 3 1. That the putting into the hands of Subjects and authority of taking Armes A liberty of taking Arms hurtful to subjects would be a disadvantage to themselves and prejudicial to the common interest of Mankind I shall evidence by four Considerations Cons 1. 1. By the frequent miseries of Civil Wars From the great mischief their lives and rights and future interest must be exposed unto by frequent Civil Wars the natural effect of Subjects taking Arms Let search be made into the Annals of the World whether the properties of Subjects and the flourishing Estate of Kingdoms have no been much better preserved by peaceable obedience and subjection than by the fomenting Civil Wars and Insurrections The Conspiracies of Absalom Sheba and others such like were not the honour or advantage of them who were engaged in them And while such commotions continue little security can be promised either of mens Lives or Estates further than the strength of a Fortress or the secrec of an hiding place will extend And if in the result the conspiring party should prevail and fix themselves in the supreme Government the admitting this Position of the Lawfulness of Subjects taking Armes will be apt to put other unquiet and ambitious spirits upon following their example and endeavouring under the fair pretences of Religion or liberty or doing justice to undermine such prevailers and by this means the Common-wealth is like to be exposed to the saddest Calamities and to be brought to ruine and destruction 2. Of this I shall give a known instance concerning the Kingdom of Israel towards the end of the Kingdom 2 Kin. 15. Then the practice of taking Armes against the King who was possessed of the Throne was very frequent insomuch that in the space of little more than thirty years four
manumission which still leaves the person under civil Government Ubi supra and in the Institutions the freedom which is opposed thereto is bounded by that which is prohibited by law And besides this freedom of the outward condition Ciceron Paradox 5. Cicero doth well and wisely account that man to have attained a true and proper freedom of mind who obeys and reverenceth the Laws not so much for fear as because he judgeth it useful and good so to do 11. Now if Government be the Constitution of God to make forcible opposition against it must either be in design to have Gods authority subject to them who so act or at least that themselves may not be subject unto it both which are unreasonable and include a resisting the ordinance of God But of the divine law in this particular I shall speak in the following Chapters CHAP. III. Of the Unlawfulness of Subjects taking Armes against their King under the time of the Old Testament SECT I. The need and usefulness of considering this Case 1. The reason why the state of the Old Testament is here particularly considered THE enquiry into the times of the Old Testament is of the greater import because it would be a considerable testimony that neither the Rules of common equity nor the true foundations of humane polity do condemn all forcible resistance against the Soveraign Power if this was allowed to Subjects under the Jewish constitution which was very much ordained by the wisdom of God himself Concerning the Jewish Constitution Lib. 1. c. 4. n. 3. the learned Grotius doth in his Book De Jure belli pacis assert that in ordinary Cases of injury they were not allowed to make resistance and therefore he expoundeth what Samuel spake of the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or the right or manner of the King 1 Sam. 8.11 18. to intend that in such things as the King was there declared to undertake Sect. 1 the people had non resistendi obligationem an obligation upon them to make no resistance Ibid. n. 7. But yet he afterward asserteth that in great and weighty Cases either of manifest civil injury as in what David sustained from Saul or of violence offered to their Religion and whole Nation as was done by Antiochus when the Maccabees withstood him it was lawful for them to take Armes against their Soveraign But he proposeth it as a Question of greater difficulty whether Christians may be allowed to do the like and here he recommends the duty of Christian Patience and bearing the Cross from the example of Christ himself and the Primitive Church 2. And Mr Thorndike in his Epilogue Epil Part. 2. Ch. 32. from the instance of the Maccabees doth allow the lawfulness of subjects taking Armes under the Jewish State for the defence of their Religion and very plainly asserteth the same in his Treatise of the right of the Church in a Christian State Right of Church Ch. 5. p. 306. c. But in both those places he declareth the unlawfulness of taking Armes upon the same account under Christianity because of the difference of the spirit rules and conditions of the Law and the Gospel But yet in this last mentioned Book there are some expressions which will make it manifest that that learned man was not so fixed in this Position concerning the Jewish Government but that he sometimes much inclined to and plainly embraced the contrary assertion For speaking of that Government which the Jews entred into under Ezra and Nehemiah he declared that this was allowed by the Grant and Commission of the King of Persia and saith Right of Ch. Ch. 4. p. 229. It is not in any common reason to imagine that by any Covenant of the Law renewed by Esdras and Nehemias they conceived themselves inabled or obliged to maintain themselves by force in the profession and exercise of their Religion against their Soveraign in case he had not allowed it them 3. But that which will make this enquiry into the times of the Old Testament The Gospel makes no new model for the rights of all political Societies the more necessary is this because so far as I can discern it is an assertion which cannot be maintained or defended That there is in this particular any such difference between the State of the Old Testament and the New as that it should be lawful for Subjects before the coming of Christ and particularly for the Jews to defend their Liberties or Religion by War against their Soveraign but it is now become unlawful for all Subjects under Christianity by the peculiar Precepts of the Gospel For though it is manifest that the spirit of the Law and the Gospel do very much differ and that meekness and peace are more peculiarly recommended in the Gospel by the Precepts and by the example of Christ both to Rulers and Subjects yet I see not how Christianity doth alter the model and frame of humane political Societies so as to debase Subjects or deprive them of any rights or freedoms which they did before enjoy It is indeed truly observed by S. Chrysostome Chrys Hom. 3. de Dav. Saul that David in his actings towards Saul had not all those arguments for subjection which Christians now have haveing never seen nor heard of the great example of Christ Crucified and his doctrine of patience and suffering But though these are high motives to the performance of our duty they do not lay a new foundation for common rights nor do they establish any such new Rules as thereby to determine the unlawfulness of all Wars in the defence of just rights if they be managed by a warrantable authority 4. And they who insist upon the Gospel Precepts of taking up the Cross as if that did put such a difference between the legal State and the Evangelical that thereupon upon it is now become unlawful for Subjects to take Armes especially for the defence of Religion do also proceed upon a mistaken ground For though this Precept and the profession of Christianity doth require great meekness and patience and a firm and stedfast resolution under all difficulties to pursue and maintain the Faith and practice of the Gospel it doth not deprive such persons of a power and right to make War even in the defence of Religion who antecedently to Christianity were invested with such a right And he who will assert this must grant it unlawful for any Soveraign Prince to defend his free profession of the Christian Religion which is one of his just rights against an external force which would impose a contrary Religion upon him Eus Eccl. Hist l. 9. c. 7. gr as was done in the Christian Kingdom of Armenia which then had a Soveraign Prince against the fury of Maximinus who would have forced them to embrace the Pagan Idolatry 5. And whereas in the New Testament we have clear Declarations that the higher Powers are the Ordinance
was no taking Armes against a Soveraign King For God reserved to himself the right of disposing the Soveraignty of the Kingdom of Israel and by his particular direction were Saul and David and Jeroboam made Kings But none of Ahabs Family whose Son Joram was ever had any such designation by Gods appointment but Jehu before he took Armes was by the command of God anointed to be King and commanded to cut off the House of Ahab 1 Kin. 19.16 2 Kin. 9.6 7. So that Jehu his taking Armes was by a true Regal Authority against him who either never had a right to the Kingdom or at least was now totally deprived thereof by Gods special Declaration And this makes the Case of Jehu towards Joram to differ much from that of David towards Saul 12. Of the people saving Jonathans life It hath also been urged That when Saul resolved that Jonathan should dye the people rescued him as our Translation rendreth it 1 Sam. 14.45 But the Septuagint expresse it by 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the people prayed or worshipped for Jonathan And the true state of this affair was this Saul desirous to prosecute his victory against the Philistines to the utmost Rutherf ibid. qu. 32. p. 348. adjureth the people of Israel that no man eat any food until the evening and threatneth death to him who shall do otherwise v. 24 39. Jonathan who wonderfully gained that victory being absent and not hearing this adjuration tasted a little Hony v. 27. Hereupon Sauls vow or Oath being not performed and God being offended therewith and search made after the transgression v. 37 38. Jonathan was taken whom Saul condemneth to dye for the expiation of this Transgression v. 43,44 Now here Jonathans life became due to God by a single vow and not that of Cherem and therefore his case did admit of Redemption according to the Law Lev. 27.2 And upon this account it is said of the People 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and they redeemed him which our Translation calls they rescued him i. e. substituted with a general consent and desire of the People an Offering for the vow which Josephus expresseth thus they did 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Jose ph Ant. l. 6. c. 7. offered Offerings to God for the vow which Offerings for a Vow are usually called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the Septuagint as in Lev. 7.16 Deut. 12.6 And by this means was Jonathan rescued or delivered from Death not by any Act of Hostile violence which the people offered to Saul but by an Act of Religion which they performed unto God B. 2. C. 4. And since it was God who required the performance of the Vow this Offering was the way to appease him and thereby secure Jonathan which the use of violence against Saul could never have done 13. Of Azariah withstanding Uzziah The instance of Azariah the Priest and eighty other Priests who being men of courage withstand Vzziah the King when he undertook to Offer Incense 2 Chr 163 17 18 19 20. is by some persons both Romanists and others insisted upon But their proceedings were not managed with weapons of War but with sharp reproofs and admonitions And whereas it is said in our Translation v. 20. they thrust him out the Heb ew word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 may properly be rendred they hastened him and no more can be proved from it and it is so expressed in this Text by the best Copies of the Septuagint 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and by several other Translations and the same word is used for hastening but without any offering violence Est 6.14 Josephus also expresseth this action of the Priests to this purpose Ant. l. 9.11 that they requared or charged him to go out of the City being smitten with Leprosie 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 And this is nothing like making War 14. Some other things have been objected but of so little weight or appearance of evidence that it is needless to mention or refute them or to add any thing more for the vindicating that part of Soveraignty to the Kings under the Old Testament that it was not then lawful for subjects to take Armes against them CHAP. IV. The Rules and Precepts delivered by Christ and his Apostles concerning Resistance and the Practice of the primitive Christians declared SECT I. The Doctrine delivered by our Saviour himself 1. The Rights of Princes upheld by Christianity FRom the foregoing Chapters which have shewed that non-resistance of Subjects against their Soveraign is a duty according to the principles of common equity and which did take place in the political Constitutions under the time of the Old Testament we might make a reasonable inference that the same must abide and continue a duty under the times of Christianity For our Saviour intended to promote and establish righteousness goodness and peace and therefore would never give liberty to violate the great duties of Subjection by which violation the peace of the World would be much disturbed the duties of meekness banished and the practice of humility and obedience rejected which are so much aimed at in his Doctrine Sect. I. which commands his Followers to take up the Cross 2. That he took care of the preservation of the just Royalty and Right of Princes and did not intend to debase lessen or diminish that Soveraignty and Authority which they had a right before to enjoy is well observed by Grotius Gr. de J. B. P. l. 1. c. 4. n. 4. to be included in those words of his Mat. 22.21 Render unto Caesar the things which are Caesars and from other expressions of the Scripture which can have no less import And this Text will appear the more considerable if we take notice that it was Tiberius who was then Caesar when our Saviour delivered this Precept From our Saviours Precept in the time of Tiberius For Tiberius was a man whose cruelty even to his nearest Relations and his drunkenness rendred him infamous and his Lusts were so excessive that Suetonius saith Suet. in Tib. n. 44. vix ut referri audirÃve nedum credit fas est it is scarce to be allowed that this should be related heard or believed He was so far from being a friend to the Jews that he would not allow them the exercise of their Religion at Rome Ibid. n. 36. Jos de Bel. Jud. l. 2. c. 14. gr Ant. Jud. l. 18. c. 4.5 inflicted on them great penalties and dispersed the youth of Judea into other less noble Provinces Under his Government to the great offence of the Jews the Images of Caesar were brought into Jerusalem by Pilate and the Treasures of the Temple in their Corban were taken out And in his time also was the Jewish Sanhedrim deprived of their Power of inflicting capital punishments Joh. 18.31 And his Government was so far from defending and maintaining the true Christian Religion that under it and by the sentence of his
be much more dreadful and calamitious to Mankind whereas the embodying of small numbers are the less to be feared because the more easy to be suppressed 4. The next pretence is that subordinate Governours being also Gods Officers may defend the properties of the Subjects and the exercise of true Religion Brut. Vind. qu. 2. p. 56. qu. 3. p. 93. edit 1589. De sur Mag. Qu. 6. even by taking Armes against their King This hath been asserted by such Writers as Junius Brutus the Anonymous discourse de jure Magistratuum in subditos others in England in our late intestine Broils Ruth Qu. 20. 36. J. Sleid. Com. l. 22. an 1550. and Rutherford of Civil Policy And Sleidan in his Commentaries reports that the same was declared in the Magdeburgh Confession And for the supporting of this assertion it is urged that all Governours even subordinate as well as supreme are in the use of their power to serve God and do justice and defend the innocent and do act by Gods Authority As also that if any person in Ecclesiastical power how high soever he be shall oppose the Christian Doctrine his subordinate Clergy lawfully may and ought to withstand him And that saying of Trajan In Vit. Trajan mentioned by Dion Cassius is usually noted to this purpose who delivering the Sword to an inferiour Commander bad him use this for him if he should govern well but against him if he governed or commanded ill 5. Subordinaâ—t Governours may not resist the supreme But such Positions would undermine the peace of the World and lay Foundations for great disturbances and thereby the Commands of God would be broken with the greater force and violence if those who are invested with some part of the Kings Authority should account themselves thereby impowered to make use thereof against him And if this were admitted the state of Kingdoms must be in danger whensoever inferiour Governours shall be imposed upon by the subtilty of others or puffed up by ambition But this is as far from truth as from peace though Corah had 250 Princes who joynen with him and Absalom was assisted by the Elders of Israel besides Ahitophâ—l the great Counsellour of State this did not justifie their Treasonable Conspiracies And though David was a great Officer at Court General of the Army of Israel and the anointed Successour to the Crown by Gods special appointment and no subordinate Ruler in other Dominions could have so much to plead for himself in this case as David had yet it was not lawful for him to stretch out his hand against Saul And in the account of the Thebean Legion above mentioned Mauritius was a great Officer and Commander of the Roman Army and then in Arms at the head of his Legion and yet according to the Primitive Christian principles professed a detestation of making resistance And therefore this pretence is justly rejected De J. B. P. l. 1. c. 4. n. 6. de Imper. c. 3. with some vehemency by Grotius as being against Scripture reason and the sense of Antiquity 6. Indeed all persons in Authority are bound to do justice but this must only be in their Sphere and according to the proportion of their power but they cannot be allowed to set themselves over their Superiours to usurp upon their Authority or to deny Subjection unto them And with respect to their Soveraign Officers both by Charter and Commission have their Authority depending upon him and are as much his Subjects as other men are and besides the common bonds of Subjection do all with us take the Oath of Supremacy and Allegiance Now as a Servant may not put himself into the place of a Ruler or Judge over his Master to force him to what he thinks equal no more may an inferiour ruler do to his Prince To this purpose it is observed by Sleidan Sleidan Comment l. 17. An. 1546. that the Elector of Saxony who was then the chief person against the Emperour in the German Wars under Charles the fifth did openly declare that if Charles the fifth was owned to be Caesar or a proper Soveraign with respect to those great Princes of the Empire it must then be granted cum eo belligerari non licere that it was not lawful to make War with him And whereas subordinate Rulers are to be submitted unto and reverâ—â—â—d in the regular use of their Authority â—â—â—et if they shall oppose the Superiour â—â—â—â—r they are to be deserted and the acting against them in discharge of duty to the Soveraign is no disobedience Thus S. Austin Aug. de Verb. Dom. Serm. 6. ipsos humanarum rerum gradus advertite consider the orders steps and degrees of human affairs If the Curator command one thing and the Proconsul another must not the greater power be obeyed and so also where the Proconsul commands one thing and the Emperour the contrary And St. Peter in commanding submission to inferiour Governours makes use of these bounds of Subjection as unto them who are sent by him i. e. the King 7. Disparity between secular and Ecclesiastical Governours The objection from the comparing the case of Ecclesiastical and Civil Rulers is of no weight because of the great disparity that is between them The withstanding an Heretical Bishop who would impose corrupt Doctrines upon the Church if this be certain and manifest may lawfully be undertaken not only by the inferiour Clergy but by other Christians and herein they only do their own business of keeping the Faith holding to the truth and rejecting what is contrary thereto Cyp. Epist 68. And S. Cyprian when Basilides and Martialis Spanish bishops had closed with Pagan Idolatry accounted that ordinary Christians ought to separate themselves from such guides And though in our age too many causelessly reject communion with those Officers whom Christ hath set over them which is a sin of no low degree yet it must be acknowledged that there may be just causes for such withdrawing from Communion in obedience to the Christian Doctrine But it can never be lawful for private Christians to usurp to themselves Episcopal power which would be unaccountable and Sacrilegious Aug. ubi sup And if a Soveraign power should command any to embrace Heresie or reject the true Religion or to become unjust to others to refuse such evil practices is their duty they owe to God who is the Supreme Governour and so far they act in their own Sphere but if they take Arms they then take to themselves the power of the publick Sword which is the Soveraigns right and are thereby guilty of invading what is not their own Besides this there is no Ecclesiastical Officer whosoever but his Authority is inferiour to the Authority of the Vniversal Church of which he is a member and this principally takes in the Apostolical and Primitive Church and all Christians are bound to hold to the doctrine and unity of this Church against any