the proper place of it and was obscured and hemmed and as it were imprisoned in private houses so that the people had no publique place of Assembly to here the law and to offer Sacrifice unto God but every one had his Chappell of ease and his private Oratory by himself to serve God as he listed as now of late it hath been with us David assoon as ever he was chosen to be King in Hebron the first work he did was to consult with his Captains and all the Congregations of Israel to cite and summon the Priests and Levites and all the Clergy that were for the service of the Tabernacle to appear before him 1 Chron. 13.1 3. and to cause the Ark of God to be brought again unto them that they might inquire at it which they did not nor could do in the daies of Saul and when he had assembled the Children of Aaron and the Levites 1 Chron. 15.4 12. Vers 11. he shewed them the abuses that Religion had sustained in the daies of Saul and he caused the Ark to be carried upon the shoulders of the Levites unto the place that he had prepared for it and when he had called for Zaedok and Abiathar the Priests and for the Levites for Vriel Asaiah and Joel Shemaiah and Eliol and Aminidab he did set down which of the Levites should serve and in what order they should Minister before the Ark 1 Chron. 16.39.41 42. and he injoyned the sons of Aaron that were Priests how they should go forward every one in their course And so according to this Practice of King David King Solomon his son and all the succeeding Kings that were good and godly did the like for of Sâ—lomon it is recorded that he appointed according to the order of David his father the courses of the Priests to their service and the Levites to their charges to praise and Minister before the Priests 2 Chron. 8.14 as the duty of every day required the Porters also by their courses at every gate for so David the man of God commanded And it is further Chronicled of King Solomon that what his father here projected and consulted about the building of an House to the Lord he really performed 2 Chron c. 5. c. 6. c. 7. and when he had built it he made a very godly speech and a most excellent Oration unto the people touching the Worship of God and his Religion and he deposed Abiathar and set up Sadoc in his place and Sanctified the Temple and placed the Ark of God therein and offered burnt offerings and Sacrifices and directed the Priests and Levites in all their proceedings even as his father David had done before him and that which is very observeable it is said that the Priests and Levites left nothing unobserved but did all things according as they had received in commandment from the King So likewise King Jehosophat is highly commended for his piety and Religious care of Gods Worship for it is recorded of him that he appointed and disposed the Priests and Levites to do the service of the Tabernacle and that by order of his Authority the Woods and Groves and High places which were the lets and hinderances of the true Religion were quite removed and taken away because the people by their private Meetings and Conventicles in those places to serve God as they now adayes do with us wholly neglected the Cathedral and Mother-Church which â—as at Hierusalem 2 Chron. 17.7 8 9. and to which they were from every corner of the Kingdom yearly to repair And when the Service of God was corrupted and the Temple most filthily defiled through the negligence and sinfulness of the Priests King Ezechias commanded it to be purged 2 Chron. 29. per totum and he caused lights to be set up incense to be burned Sacrifices to be performed and the Brazen Serpent that was become an Idol and worshipped by the people to be broken down and consumed to ashes So King Joas reproved the Priests of his time for their excessive abuses and the insolent behaviour that was seen in them for he sequestred the oblations of the people which the Priests had unjustly and wantonly taken and appropriated to themselves 2 Reg. 12.7 and by his Royal Authority caused them to be converted for the reparation of the Temple And King Josias to his everlasting praise shewed himself most careful to suppresse the Idolatrous Priests to purge the Church from all Idolatry and Superstition and to put the Priests and Levites in mind of their duties as you may see in 2 Reg. 23. 2 Reg. 23. Obj. per totum And if our adversaries of the Roman Church do object and say Quid Imperatori cum Ecclesia What hath the Emperour or any lay-Prince to do with the Church let him rule the Common wealth and leave Religion and what belongs to God's Worship to be ordered and observed by the Pope Bishops and Priests whose Office and Calling is to take care and to see the Church of God should be sufficiently served and all holy duties holily performed And the examples alleaged infringe not the force of this Objection because David was a Prophet even as Moses was and his ordering the affairs of the Temple and setling the Service of the Church was done by vertue of his Prophetical and not of his Princely-Office And Solomon was Divinely inspired by God's holy Spirit both for the building of the Temple and the ordering of the Priests and Levites for the Service of the Temple And as Jehu had the direction of the Prophet Elisha for the suppression of the Priests of Baal so had Ezechias the prophet Esay to direct him in the purging of the Temple and Reformation of those abuses that had crept in into the Service of God Sol. To this we answer That as Joshua the Prince was required to go in and out at the word of Eleazar the Priest so we yield that the King ought to hearken to the counsel and direction of his Bishop and Priest as David here did consult with Nathan and Ezechias with the Prophet Esay And while Religion is purely maintained the people truly instructed and the Church rightly and orderly governed by the Bishops and the rest of the Ecclesiastical Governours the Prince needs not to trouble himself with any Reformation or to meddle with the matters of Religion But the King Prince and Supreme Magistrate ought to see that all the aforesaid things are so and if they be not to correct the Priest when he is careless and to cause all the abuses that he seeth in the Church and in Religion to be Reformed Augustin contra Cresconium l. 3 c. 51. Because as S. Augustine saith In hoc reges Deo serviunt sicut iis divinitùs praecipitur in quantum sunt reges si in suis regnis bonae jubeant mala prohibeant non solum quae pertinent ad humanam
to purge himself before Valentinian 2. q. 7. Nos si and Pope Leo the third before Charles the Great And it is registred that Pope Leo the 4th wrote unto the Emperour Lodouick saying Epist Eleuth inter leges Edovard Si incompetenter aliquid egimus justae legis tramitem non conservavimus admissorum nostrorum cuncta vestro judicio volumus emendare If we have done any thing unseemly and amiss and have not observed and walked in the right path of the just law we are most ready and willing to amend all our admissions or whatsoever we have done amiss according to your judgment Theodoretus l. 2. c. 1. and Pope Eleutherius saith to Edward the I. of England V s est is Vicarius Dei in Regno vestro that he and so every other King is Gods Vicar in his Kingdom This was the mind and sense of these Popes and many other Popes in former ages were of the same mind until pride avarice and ambition corrupted them to be as now they are How the Emperour and Kâ—nâ—â— executed the power that God had given thâ—m And as God hath given this power and required this duty of Kings and Princes to have a care of his Church and to reform Religion and the Fathers and Councels have confirmed this truth and divers of the very Popes themselves and Pâ—pists have yielded and submitted themselves unto their spiritual jurisdiction even in the Ecclesiastical causes so the Emperours and Kings omitted not to execute the same from time to time especially those that had the master power and ability to discharge their duties Idâ—m l. 1. c 7. for Theodoret writes that Constantine was wont to say Si episcopus tâ—rbas det mea manu coercebitur If any Bishop shall be turbulent and troublesome he shall be refrained and censured by my hands and both Theodoret and Eusebius tels us how he came in his own person unto the Councell of Nice Sozâ—m l. 4. c. 16. Et omnibus exsurgentibus ipse ingressus est medius tanquam aliquis Dei coelestis Angelus the whole company of the Bishops and all the rest arising he came into the midst amongst them as it were an Heavenly Angel of God And Sozomen writeth how that ten Bishops of the East and ten others of the West Conciliorum Tom 2. In vita Sylvani vigila were required by Constantine to be chosen out by the Convocation and to be sent to his Court to declare unto him the decrees and canons of the Councell that he might examine them and consider whether they were consonant to the Holy Scriptures And the Emperour Constantius deposed Pope Liberius of his Bishoprick and then again he deprived Pope Foelix and restored Liberius unto the Popedom and in the third Councell at Costantinople he did not only sit among the Bishops but also subscribed Concil Boni 3. c. 2. with the Bishops to such bills as passed in that Councell saying Vidimus Subscripsimus we have seen these canons and have subscribed our approbation of them And King Odoacer touching the Affairs of the Church saith Miramur quicquam tentatum fuisse sine nobis We do admire that you should attempt to do any thing without us for while our Bishop lived that is the Pope sine Nobis nihil tentari oportuit Nothing ought to be done without us much less ought it to be done now when he is dead And the Emperour Justinian doth very often in Ecclesiastical causes Authent Coliat 1 tit 6. use to say Definimus jubemus We determine and command and we will and require that none of the Bishops be absent from his Church Quomodo oportet Episcop above the space of a year and he saith further Nullum genus rerum est quod non sit penitus quaerendum Authoritate Imperatoris there is no kind of matter that may not or is not to be inquired into by the Authority of the Emperour Authent Collat. Tit. 133. because he hath received from the hands of God the common government and principality over all men And the same Emperour as Balsamon saith Balsamon de Peccat Tit. 9. Idem in Calced Concil c. 12. Idem de fide Tit. 1. gave power to the Bishop to absolve a Priest from pennance and to restore him to his Church And the same Author saith that the Emperours disposed of Patriarchal seats and that this power was given them from above and he saith further that the Emperour Michael that ruled in the East made a law against the order of the Church that no Monk should serve in the Ministry in any Church whatsoever And we read further how that divers of the Emperours have put down and deposed divers Popes as Otho deposed John 13. Evodius inter decreta Bonifacâ—â— Vâ—sâ—ergen anno 1045. Honorius deposed Boniface Theodoricus deposed Symmaâ—hus and Henry removed three Popes that had been all unlawfully chosen and in the Councel of Chalcedon the Supreme Civil Magistrate adjudged Dioscorus Juvenalis and Thalassus three Bishops of Heresie and therefore to be degraded and to be thrust out of the Church And so you see how the Emperours â—ings and Civil Magistrates behaved themselves in the Church of God and used their power and the Authority that God had given them as well in the Spiritual and Ecclesiastical Affairs of the Church and points of Faith as in the Civil Government of the Common-wealth CHAP. VIII That it is the Office and Duty of Kings and Princes though not to execute the function and to do the Offices of the Bishops and Priests yet to have a speciall care of Religion and the true Worship of God and to cause both the Priests and Bishops and all others to discharge their duties of Gods service And how the good and godly Emperours and Kings have formerly done the same from time to time BUt as God hath given unto the Kings and Princes of this world a Power and Authority as well over his Church and Church-men be they Prophets Apostles Bishops Priests or what you will as over the Common wealth and all the lay persons of their Dominions So they ought and are bound to have a special care of Religion and to discharge their duties for the glory of God the good of his Church the promoting of the Christian Faith and the rooting up of all Sects and Heresies that defile and corrupt the same for as Saint Augustine saith and I shewed you before In hoc Reges Deo serviunt herein Kings and Princes do serve God if Aug. contra Crescon l. 3. c. 51. as they are Kings they injoyn the things that are good and inhibit those things that are evil and that Non solum in iis quae pertinent ad humanam Societatem sed etiam ad divinam Religionem and again he saith Idem Epist 48. that Kings do serve Christ here on earth when they do make good laws for Christ and
parte rex praeesset So Master Harding saith that the office of a King in it self is all one every where not onley among the Christian Princes but also among the Heathen so that a Christian King hath no more to do in deciding Church matters or medling with any point of Religion then a Heathen And so Fekenham and all the brood of Jesuites do with all violence and virulency labour to disprove the Prince's authority and supremacy in Ecclesiastical causes and the points of our Religion and to transfer the same wholly unto the Pope and his Cardinals Neither do I wonder so much that the Pope having so universally gained and so long continued this power and retained this government from the right owners should imploy all his Hierarchy to maintain that usurped authority which he held with so much advantage to his Episcopal See though with no small prejudice to the Church of Christ when the Emperours being busied with other affairs and leaving this care of religion and government of the Church to the Pope the Pope to the Bishops the Bishops to their Suffragans and the Suffragans to the Monkes whose authority being little their knowledg less and their honesty least of all all things were ruled with greater corruption and less truth then they ought to be so long as possibly he should be able to possesse it But at last when the light of the Gospel shined and Christian Princes had the leisure to look and the heart to take hold upon their right the learned men opposing themselves against the Pope's usurped jurisdiction have soundly proved the Soveraign authority of Christian Kings in the government of the Church that not onely in other Kingdoms but also here in England this power was annexed by divers Laws unto the interest of the Crown and the lawful right of the King and I am perswaded saith that Reverend ArchBishop Bancroft had it not been that new adversaries did arise Survey of Discip c. 22. p. 251. and opposed themselves in this matter the Papists before this time had been utterly subdued for the Devil seeing himself so like to lose the field stirred up in the bosom of Reformation a flock of violent and seditious men How the Devil raised instruments to hinder the reformation that pretending a great deal of hate to Popery have notwithstanding joined themselves like Sampson's Foxes with the worst of Papists in the worst and most pernicious Doctrines that ever Papist taught to rob Kings of their sacred and divine right and to deprive the Church of Christ of the truth of all those points that do most specially concern her government and governours and though in the fury of their wilde zeal they do no less maliciously then falsly cast upon the soundest Protestants the aspersion of Popery and Malignancy yet I hope to make it plain unto my reader that themselves are the Papists indeed or worse then Papists both to the Church and State For Opinion 2 2. As the whole Colledge of Cardinals and all the Scholes of the Jesuites do most stâ—fly defend this usurped authority of the Pope which as I said Of the Anabaptists and Puritans may be with the less admiration because of the Princes concession and their own long possesion of it so on the other side there are sprung up of late a certain generation of Vipers the brood of Anabaptists and Brownists that do most violently strive not to detain what they have unjustly obtained but a degree far worse to pull the sword out of their Prince his hand and to place authority on them which have neither right to own it nor discretion to use it and that is Where the Puritans place the authority to maintain religion 1 In the Presbytery either 1. A Consistory of Presbyters 2. A Parliament of Lay men For 1. These new Adversaries of this Truth that would most impudently take away from Christian Princes the supreame and immediate authority under Christ in all Ecclesiastical Callings and Causes will needs place the same in themselves and a Consistorian company of their own Faction a whole Volume would not contain their absurdities falsities and blasphemies that they have uttered about this point I will onely give you a taste of what some of the chief of them have belched forth against the Divine Truth of God's Word and the sacred Majesty of Kings Master Calvin a man otherwise of much worth Calvin in Amos cap. 7. and worthy to be honoured yet in this point transported with his own passion calleth those Blasphemers that did call King Henry the eight the supreme Head of this Church of England and Stapleton saith that he handled the King himself with such villany and with so spiteful words Stapl. cont Horn. l. 1. p. 22. as he never handled the Pope more spitefully and all for this Title of Supremacy in Church causes and in his fifty fourth Epistle to Myconius he termed them prophane spirits and mad men that perswaded the Magistrates of Geneva not to deprive themselves of that authority which God hath given them Viretus is more virulent How Viretus would prove the temporal Pope as he calleth the King worse then the spiritual Pope for he resembleth them not to mad men as Calvin did but to white Devils because they stand in defence of the Kings authority and he saith they are false Christians though they cover themselves with the cloke of the Gospel affirming that the putting of all authority and power into the Civil Magistrates hands and making them masters of the Church is nothing else but the changing of the Popedome from the Spiritual Pope into a Temporal Pope who as it is to be feared will prove worss and more tyrannous then the Spirituall Pope which he laboureth to confirme by these three reasons Reason 1 1. Because the Spiritual Pope had not the Sword in his own hand to punish men with death but was fain to crave the aid of the Secular power which the Temporal Pope needs not do Reason 2 2. Because the old spiritual Popes had some regard in their dealings of Councils Synods and ancient Canons but the new Secular Popes will do what they list without respect of any Ecclesiastical Order be it right or wrong Reason 3 3. Because the Romish Popes were most commonly very learned but it happeneth oftentimes that the Regal Popes have neither learning nor knowledg in divine matters and yet these shall be they that shall command Ministers and and Preachers what they list and to make this assertion good he affirmeth that he saw in some places some Christian Princes under the title of Reformation to have in ten or twenty years usurped more tyranny over the Churches in their Dominions then ever the Pope and his adherents did in six hundred years All which reasons are but meere fopperies blown up by the black Devil to blast the beauty of this truth for we speak not of the abuse of any Prince
and to be honest without knowledge or to have knowledge without experience especially in such places of eminency and for the affaires of importance may be as dangerous when their want of skill may counsel to do matters of much hurt but when both are met together in one person that man is a fit Subject to do good service both to God and the King and the King may be assured there cannot be a better furtherance to assist him for the well ordering of God's Church then the grave advice and directions of such instruments as it appeareth by that memorable example of King Ioas left to be remembred by all Kings who whilst the wise and religious Priest Jehoiada assisted and directed him had all things successefull and happy to his whole Kingdome 2 Reg. 12.2 but after Jehoiada's death the King destitute of such a Chaplain to attend and such a Priest to counsel him all things came speedily to great ruine Therefore I dare boldly avouch it they are enemies unto Kings and the underminers of God's Church and such instruments as I am not able to express their wickedness that would exclude such Jehoiada's from the Kings counsel for was not Saul a wicked King and Ahab little better yet Saul would have Samuel to direct him though he followed not his direction and Ahab would ask counsel of Micaiah though he rejected the same to his own destruction and King David 1 Reg. 22.16 though never so wise and so great a Prophet and Josias and Ezechias and all the rest of the good Kings had always the Priests and the men of God to be their Counsellors and followed their directions especially in Church causes Mar. 6.20 as the oracles of God so wicked Herod disdained not to hear John the Baptist and to be reformed by him in many things and happy had he been had he done it in all things And if you read Eusebius which is called Pamphilus for the great love he bare to that his noble Patron and Socrates and the rest of the Ecclesiastical Historians or the Histories of our own I and you shall finde that the best Kings and greatest Emperours had the best Divines and the most reverend Bishops to be their chiefest Counsellors and to be imployed by them in their weightiest affairs How then hath the Devil now prevailed to exclude them from all Counsels and as much as in him lyeth from the sight of Princes when he makes it a suspicion of much evil if they do but talk togethe How hath he bewitched the Nobility to yield to be deprived of their Chaplains Is it not to keep them that have not time to study and to finde out truth themselves still in the ignorance of things and to none other end then to overthrow the true religion and to bring Kings and Princes to confusion 2 To call Synods to discuss and conclude the harder things 2. When the King seeth cause God hath given him power and authority to call Synods and Councils and to assemble the best men the most moderate and most learned to determine of those things together which a fewer number could not so well or at least not so authoritatively conclude upon for so Constantine the Great called the great Council of Nice to suppress the Heresie of Arius Theodosius called the Council of Ephesus in the case of Nestorius Valentinian and Martian called the Council of Calcedon against Eutyches Justinian called the Council of Constantinople against Severus that renewed the Heresie of Eutyches Constantine the Fifth called the sixth Synod against the Monothelites and so did many others in the like cases God having fully granted this right and authority unto them for their better information in any point of religion and the goverment of the Church And therefore they that deny this power unto Kings or assume this authority unto themselves whether Popes or Parliament out of the Kings hand they may as well take his eyes out of his head because this is one of the best helps that God hath left unto Kings The unparallel'd presumption of the Faction to call a Synod without the king to assist and direct them in the chiefest part of their royal government how presumptuous then and injurious unto our King and prejudicial to the Church of Christ was the faction of this Parliament without the Kings leave and contrary to his command to undertake the nomination of such a pack of Schismatical Divines for such a Synod as might finally determine such points of faith and discipline as themselves best liked of let all the Christian world that as yet never saw the like president be the Judge and tell us what shall be the religion of that Church where the Devil shall have the power to prompt worldlings to nominate his prime Chaplains Socinians Brownists Anabaptists and the refuse of all the refractory Clergy The quality of the Synodical men that seem learned in nothing but in the contradiction of learning and justifying Rebellion against their King and the Church to compose the Articles of our faith and to frame a new government of our Church I am even ashamed that so glorious a Kingdom should ever breed so base a Faction that durst ever presume to be so audacious and I am sorry that I should be so unhappy to live to see such an unparallel'd boldness in any Clergy that the like cannot be found in any Ecclesiastical History from the first birth of Christ's Church to this very day unless our Sectaries can produce it from some of the Vtopian Kingdoms that are so far South ward In terra incognita beyond the Torrid Zone that we whose zeal is not so fiery but are of the colder spirits could not yet perfectly learn the true method of their Anarchical government or if our Lawyers can shew us the like president that ever Parliament called a Synod contrary to the King's Proclamation I shall rest beholding to them produce it if they can Credat Judaeus appella non ego The third thing requisite to a King for the preservation of true religion 3. An authority and power to guide the Church and to uphold the true religion and the government of God's Church is power and authority to defend it for though the Prince should be never so religious never so desirous to defend the faith and never so well able in his understanding and so well furnished with knowledge to set down what Service and Ceremonies should be used yet if he hath not power and ability which do arise from his right and just authority to do it and to put the same in execution all the rest are but fruitless embryoes like those potentials that are never reduced into actions Ps 129.6 or like the grass upon the house top that withereth before it be plucked up But to let you see that Kings and Princes should have this power and authority in all Ecclesiastical causes and over all Ecclesiastical persons we
finde that all Ages and all Lawes have warranted them to do the same for Solomon displaced Abiathar and placed Sadoc in his room 1. Reg. 2.27 35. Jerem. 26. How all kings and Emperors exercised this power ouer the Church Jeremy's case was heard by the King of Israel Theodosius and Valentinian made a Decree that all those should be deposed which were infected with the impiety of Nestorius and Justinian deposed Sylverius and Vigilius and many other Kings and Emperours did the like and not onely the Law of God whereof the King is the prime keeper and the keeper of both Tables but also the Statutes of our Land do give unto our King the nomination of Bishops and some other elective dignities in the Church the custody of the Bishops Temporalties during the vacation the Patronage Paramount or right to present by the last lapse and many other furtherances and preservatives of religion are in terminis terminantibus deputed by our Lawes unto the King and for his care and charge thereof they have setled upon him our first Fruits Tenths Subsidies and all other contributions of the Ecclesiastical persons which the Pope received while he usurped the government of this Church these things being due to him that had the supreme power for the government And therefore seeing the examples of all good Kings in the Old Testament and of the Christian Kings and Emperours in the New Testament and all Lawes both of God and man excepting those Lawes of the Pontificials that are made against the Law of God and all Divines Cassian de Incarn l. 1. c. 6. excepting the Jesuites and their sworn Brethren the Presbyterians do most justly ascribe this right and power unto Kings I may truly say with Cassianus that there is no place of audience left for them by whom obedience is not yielded to that which all have agreed upon nor any excuse for those Subjects that assist not their Soveraign to inable him to discharge this great charge that is laid upon him What then shall we say to them that pull this power and tear this prerogative out of the King's hand and place it in the hands of mad men as the Prophet epithets the madness of the people Psal 65.7 How the Disciplinarians rob the king of this right Knox to the Commonalty fol. 49. 50 55. For that furious Knox belched forth this unsavory Doctrine That the Commonalty may lawfully require of their King to have true Preachers and if he be negligent they themselves may justly provide them maintain them defend them against all that oppose them and detain the profits of the Church Livings from the other sort of Ministers a point fully practised by the English Scotizers of these dayes and as if this Doctrine were not seditious enough and abundantly sufficient to move Rebellion Goodman publisheth that horrible tenet unto the world that it is lawful to kill wicked Kings which most dangerous and more damnable Doctrine Dean Whittingham affirmeth to be the tenet of the best and most learned of them that were our Disciplinarians But when as true Religion doth command us to obey our Kings whatsoever their Religion is What true religion teacheth us aut agendo aut patiendo either in suffering with patience whatsoever they do impose or in doing with obedience whatsoever they do command Religion can be no warrant for those actions which must remain as the everlasting blemishes of that Religion which either commanded or approved of their doing I am sure all wise men wil detest these Doctrines of Devils and seeing it is an infallible rule that good deserveth then to be accounted evil when it ceaseth to be well done it is apparent that it is no more lawful for private and inferiour persons to usurp the princes power and violently to remove Idolatry or to cause any Reformation then it is for the Church of Rome by invasion or treason to establish the Doctrine of that See in this or any other forraign kingdome because both are performed by the like usurped authority The old Disciplinarians Yet these were the opinions and practises of former times when Buchanan Knox Cartwright Goodman Gilby Penry Fenner Martin Travers Throgmorton Philips Nichols and the rest of those introducers of Out landish and Genevian Discipline first broached these uncouth and unsufferable tenets in our Land in the Realm of England and Scotland and truely if their opinions had not dispersed themselves like poison throughout all the veines of this Kingdom and infected many of our Nobility and as many of the greatest Cities of this Kingdome as it appeareth by this late unparallel'd rebellion these and the rest of the trayterous authours of those unsavory books which they published and those damnable tenets which they most ignorantly held and maliciously taught unto the people should have slept in silence their hallowed and sanctified Treason should have remained untouched and their memorial should have perished with them But seeing as Saint Chrysostome saith of the Hereticks of his time that although in age they were younger yet in malice they were equal to the antient Hereticks Our rebellious Sectaries far worse then all the former Disciplinarians and as the brood of Serpents though they are of less stature yet in their poyson no less dangerous then their dammes so no more have our new Sectaries our upstart Anabaptists any less wickedness then their first begetters nay we finde it true that as the Poet saith Aetas parentum pejor avis Tulit nos nequiores These young cubbs prove worse then the old foxes for if you compare the Wheles with the wolves our latter Schismaticks with their former Masters I doubt not but you shall finde less learning and more villany less honesty and more subtilty hypocrisy and treachery in Doctor Burges Master Marshal Case Goodwin Burrowes Calamy Perne Hill Cheynel and the rest of our giddy-headed Incendiaries then can be found in all the seditious Pamphlets of the former Disciplinarians or of them that were hanged as Penry for their treasons for these men do not onely as Sidonius saith of the like apertè invidere S idon lib. epist abjectè fingere serviliter superbire openly envy the state of the Bishops basely forge lyes against them and servilely swel with the pride of their own conceited sanctity and apparent ignorance but they have also most impudently even in their pulpits slandered the footsteps of Gods Anointed and so brought the abomination of their transgression to stand in the holy place they haue with Achan troubled Israel and tormented the whole Land yea these three Kingdomes England Scotland and Ireland and for inciting provoking and incouraging simple ignorant poore For which their intolerable villanies If I be not deceived in my judgement they of all others above all the Rebels in the kingdom deserve the greatest and severest punishment God of Heaven give them the grace to repent discontented and seditions Sectaries to
be Rebels and Traytors against their own most gracious King they have not onely with Jerusalem justified Samaria Sodome and Gomorrah but they have justified all the Samaritanes all the Sodomites all the Schismaticks Hereticks Rebels and Traytors Papists and Atheists and all that went before them Judas himself in many circumstances not excepted and that which makes their doings the more evil and the more exceedingly wicked is that they make Religion to be the warrant for their evil doings the pack-horse to carry and the clokt to cover all their treacheries and thereby they drew the greater multitudes of poore Zelots to be their followers And therefore seeing it is not onely the honour but also the duty as of all other Kings so likewise of our King to be as the Princes of our Land are justly stiled the Defenders of the Faith and that not only in regard of enemies abroad but also in respect of those far worse enemies which desire alteration at home it behoves the King to looke to these home-bred enemies of the Church and seeing the king though never so willing for his piety and religion never so able for his knowledge and understanding What Gods faithful servants and the kings loyal Subjects must do in these times 1. To justifie the kings right yet without strength and power to effect what he desires cannot defend the faith and maintain the true Religion from the violence of Sectaries and Traytors within his kingdome it hehoves us all to do these two things 2. To justifie the kings 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 his authority and right to the supreme Governour and defender of the Chuch and of Gods true religion and service both in respect of Doctrine and Discipline and that none else Pope or Parliament hath any power at all herein but what they have derivately from him which I hope we have sufficiently proved 2. To submit our selves unto our king and to add our strength force 2. To assist Him against the Rebels and power to inable his power to discharge this duty against all the Innovators of our Religion and the enemies of our peace for the honour of God and the happiness of this Church and Common-wealth for that power which is called the Kings power and is granted and given to him of God is not onely that Heroick virtue of fortitude which God planteth in the hearts of most noble Princes as he hath most grasiously done it in abundant measure in our most gracious king but it is the collected and united power and strength of all his Subjects which the Lord hath commanded us to joyn and submit it for the assistance of the kings power against all those that shall oppose it and if we refuse or neglect the same then questionless whatsoever mischief idolatry barbarity or superstition shall take root in the Church and whatsoeuer oppression and wickedness shall impair the Common-wealth Heaven will free His Majesty and the wrath of God in no smal measure must undoubtedly light upon us and our posterity even as Debora saith of them that refused to assist Barac against his enemies Curse ye Meroz curse bitterly the Inhabitants thereof Jud. 5.23 because they came not forth to helpe the Lord against the mighty CHAP. VIII Sheweth it is the right of Kings to make Ecclesiastical Lawes and Canons proved by many authorities and examples that the good Kings and Emperours made such Laws by the advice of their Bishops and Clergy and not of their Lay Counsellours how our late Canons came to be annulled that it is the Kings right to admit his Bishops and Prelates to be of his Council and to delegate secular authority or civil jurisdiction unto them proved by the examples of the Heathens Jewes and Christians OUt of all this that hath been spoken it is more then manifest that the king ought to have the supreme power over Gods Church and the Government thereof and the greatest care to preserve true Religion throughout all his Dominions this is his duty and this is his honour that God hath committed not a people but his people and the members of his Son under his charge For the performance of which charge it is requisite for us to know that God hath granted unto him among other rights these two special prerogatives Two special rights and prerogatives of the King for the government of the Church 1. To make Laws and Canons 1. That he may and ought to make Lawes Orders Canons and Decrees for the well governing of Gods Church 2. That he may when he seeth cause lawfully and justly grant tolerations and dispensations of his own Laws and Decrees as he pleaseth 1. Not onely Solomon and Jehosaphat gave commandment and prescribed unto the chief Priests and Levites what form and order they should observe in their Ecclesiastical causes and methode of serving God but also Constantine Theodosius Justinian and all the Christian Emperours that were careful of Gods service did the like and therefore when the Donatists alleadged that secular Princes had nothing to do to meddle in matters of Religion and in causes Ecclesiastical Aug. l. 2. c. 26. Saint Augustine in his second Epistle against Gaudentius saith I have already proved that it appertaineth to the Kings charge that the Ninivites should pacifie Gods wrath and therefore the Kings that are of Christs Church do judge most truely that it belongeth to their charge to see that men Rebel not Idom ep 48. ep 50. ad Bonifac without punishment against the same because God doth inspire it is to the mindes of Kings that they should procure the Commandments of the Lord to be performed in al their Kingdomes for they are commanded to serve the Lord in fear and how do they serve the Lord as Kings but in making Laws for Christ So they are called the kings Ecclesiastical Lawes as man he serveth him by living faithfully but as King he serveth him in making Laws that shal command just things and forbid the contrary which they could not do if they were not kings And by the example of the king of Ninive Darius Nebuchadnezzar and others which were but figures and prophesies that foreshewed the power duty and service that Christian kings should owe and performe in like sort to the furtherance of Christs Religion in the time of the New Testament when al kings shall fall down and Worship Christ Psal 72.11 Arg. cont lit Peul l. 2. c 92 and all Nations shall do him service he proveth that the Christian kings and Princes should make Laws and Decrees for the furtherance of Gods service even as Nebuchadnezzar had done in his time And upon the words of the Apostle Idem in l. de 12. abus grad grad 2. that the king beareth not the sword in vain he proveth against Petilian that the power and authority of the Princes which the Apostle treateth of in that place is given unto them to make sharpe penall Lawes to further
may change the condition of things they may do as by their counsel they shall be advised either the one or the other to receive them or reject them without offence because we finde no special precept or direction in Gods Word either to banish or to cherish them in any kingdome 2. For the Turks the reasons are not much unlike 2 Turkes though something different and in my judgement no less tolerable then the other because somewhat nearer to the Christian faith therefore I leave them to the Laws of each kingdome to do as the wisedome of the Prince shall think fit 3 Papists 3. For the Papists the case is far otherwise with them then either with the Turks or Jews because 1. They profess the same faith quoad essentialia the same Creeds the same Gospel and the same Christ as we do 2. It is not denyed by the best of our Divines but that they together with us do constitute the same Catholick Church of Christ though they be sick and corrupted yet not dead and we strong and sound yet not unspotted members of the same as I have more fully shewed in my book of the true Church 3. It is not agreed upon by all our Divines that they are Idolaters though they be in great errours and implunged in many superstitions because every Church in errour though never so dangerous is not so desperate as that Church which is Idolatrous or be it granted which some of our Protestants will not admit that they were Idolaters Carol. Sigon l. 5. c. 11. p. 274. yet seeing not onely seaven speciall sorts of heresies as 1. the Sadducees 2. the Scribes 3. the Pharisees The Hemero-baptists such as baptized themselves every day 5. The Esseni which Josephus calleth Essaei 6. The Nazarites And 7. the Herodians whereof some denied the resurrection and the being of Angels and spirits but also Idolaters and heathens that knew not God but worshipped the Devill instead of God were not inhibited to dwell and inhabit among the Jewes of whose Religion notwithstanding God was as carefull to preserve the purity of it and as jealous to keep them from Idolatry as of any Nation that then or ever after lived upon the earth it is no question but if it please the King permission may be granted them to exercise their own Religion not publickely and authoritativè equally with the Protestant Grand Rebell c. 1. p. 5. 6. but quietly and so as I have shewed in my Grand Rebellion for I am not of their faith which hold it more safe and less dangerous to be conversant with the Turkes or Jewes and to have more neerness with them then with an Idolatrous Church that professeth Christ because that where the greater distance is from the true Religion there the lesser familiarity and neerenesse should be in conversation and the greater distance in communion therefore as the wrath of God was kindled against the Israelites because they had the Jewes their own brethren in greater detestation then the Idumeans or the Egyptians The least familiarity in conversation where there is greatest distance from truth whose idolatry must needs be far greater and their Religion far worse in their own judgement then that of the Jewes so we may feare the like anger from God if we will be so partiall in our judgement and so transported with disaffection as to prefer a blasphemous Turke or an impious Jew before those men though ignorantly idolatrous that do with all feare and reverence worship the same God and adore the name of Christ as we doe And we read that the Emperour Justinus a right Catholique Prince as Bishop Horne calleth him Bishop Horne against Fâ—kenham Justinus gave a toleration to the Arians at the request of Theodoricke King of Italy granted licence that the Arians which denied the Deity of our Saviour Christ and were the worst of Heretiques and therefore worse then any Papist should be restored and suffered to live after their own orders and Pope John for the peace and quietness of the Catholique Church requested him most humbly so to do which he did for feare of Theodoricke that otherwise threatned the Catholiques should not live Ob. But you will say the fatall success that befell to King Davids house for Solomons permission of divers religions to be divided into two parts and the best ten Tribes for two to be given unto a stranger Deut. 17 17 19. and the principall care of a pious Prince being to preserve pure Religion which is soon infected by Idolatrous neighbours do rather disprove all toleration then any wayes connive with them that are of a different Religion and if we read the Oration of the league to the King of France wherein that Orator numbereth their victories and innumerable successes whilest they had but one Religion and their miseries and ill fortunes when they fostered two Religions it will appeare how far they were from allowing a toleration of any more then one Religion in one Kingdome Sol. The true cause of renting Solomons Kingdome Ps 106.35 Yet to this it may be easily answered that Solomons Kingdom was not rent from his posterity for his permission of idolaters to dwell in his Kingdome which the Law of God did not forbid but for that fault which his father taxed the Jewes with they were mingled among the heathen and learned their works for his commixtion of alliances with strangers and the corruption of true Religion by his marrying of so many idolatrous wives and so becomming idolatrous himself and thereby inducing his subjects the Israelites to be the like and for the Oration of the league there is in that brave Orator want of Logick ignoratio â—lenchi non causae ùt causae for you know what the Poêt saith Careat successibus opto Quisquis ab eventu facta notanda putaet and we must not judge of true causes by the various success of things and I may say it was not the professing of one religion but the sincere serving of God in that true religion which brought to them and will bring to others prosperous success against the infidels neither was it the permitting of two religions or to speak more properly the diversity of opinions in the same religion but their emulation and hatred one against another their pride and ambition and many other consequences of private discords might be the just causes of their misfortunes 4. For the Puritans Brownists Anabaptists Heretiques and Schismatiques that are deemed neither Infidels nor Idolaters 4. Puritans but do obstinately erre in some points of faith as the Arians that denyed the Divinity of Christ and the Nestorians to them which sinned after baptisme and the like pernicious heresies though not all alike dangerous or do make a Schisme or a rent in the Church of Christ as the Donatists did in Saint Augustin's time and the Anabaptists and Puritans do in our dayes I say these are not to be
noctem Homer Il. 〈◊〉 It beseems not a Prince to take a sound sleep all night long Quint. Curt. as Alexander did on that night when he was on the next very day to fight with Darius Which might have lost him the field Ezech. 2.9 had not his fortune been better then his fore-sight For God puts a Scroule into every Prince his hand semblable to that schedule of Ezechiel wherein all their charge and duties are set down at large with this inscription Gesta illos in sinu Bear all these alwaies in thy bosome and let them never depart one of thy mind and as the Egyptians Hieroglyphic painted Oculum cum Sceptro an Eye with the Crown or Scepter to betoken a prudent Prince so should every King have an eye in his head as well as a Scepter in his hand or a Crown upon his head and to use Vigilance as well as Authority over his people And so Augustus Caesar that found Rome of brick and left it of Marble The great care of August Caesar for the good of the Common-weâ—lth is made famous by the Historians for his great and extraordinary care and vigilancy which he alwaies used for the good of his Empire when as he gave himself no rest nor suffered any one day to pass over his head in quo non aliquid legeret aut scriberet aut declamaret but he either read or writ or made some speech unto the people and when he heard of a certain Gentleman of Rome that was very deeply indebted and yet slept most securely without care to pay his debts and without fear of any danger he desired that he might buy the bed A careless Gentleman whereupon he rested because the debts that he stood bound for both to God and to the Common-wealth would never suffer him to sleep so secure when as it is ars artium the chiefest of all arts and the heardest of all things to Rule and Govern an unruly people so difficult that the Prophet David compares it to the appeasing of the raging Seas saying Thou stillest the rage of the Sea and the noise of his waves and the madness of his people because as Seneca saith Nullum morosius animal nec majori arte tractandum quà m subtilis homo There is not any living creature so froward and so hard to be tamed and ruled as a suttle and crafty man Reges fatui quibus similes But those Kings and Princes that think the Common-wealth to be made for them and not themselves for the Common-wealth and do spend their time not much better then that Romans Emperour who when he was in his privy Chamber sported himself in catching flies and to pull out their eyes with a pin for which he became so ridiculous that oâ—tentimes when any demanded Who was with the Emperour his servants would answer ne musca quidem truely not a flie they are said to be tanquam simiae in tecto like Apes on the top of a house that delight themselves to spoil and to untile the house And God made them Kings and appointed them for other ends and not to destroy his people as many Tirants do which we deserved for being so unthankfull to God and so undutifull to our King that was so pious and so gentle like King David and so good as the best that ever England had Lesson 2 2. As King David spent not his time like Domitian in catching of flies nor like Heliogabalus in following after his pleasures That king Davids chiefest care was for Religion and to promote the service of God but like Scipio and Augustus for the good of his Kingdom So here you may see the chiefest good he aimed at was to erect an House and a House of Beauty and Majesty for the Majesty of the God of Heaven for his thoughts conceived it not a sufficient discharge of his duty to provide for the peace of his Kingdom and the happiness of the Civill State unless he did also take a speciall care for the honor and service of God and see the works of Piety performed as well and rather then the duties of equity and civility for he understood it full well that God ordained Kings to be not only Reges murorum for the preservation and defence of walls and Cities and the outward prosperity of their people but also Reges sacrorum to see the holy duties of Religion and Gods worship duly performed And therefore as God had made him a Monarch over men and had given him an House of Cedars so he was desirous to become the Priest of God and to build him an House for his service What all kings and Princes ought to do And this should be a good lesson for all other Kings and Princes to imitate this good and godly King in the like sweet harmony of pollicy and piety and to have a greater care to provide for the Ark of God then for the Kings Court because Religion is the basis and pillar that must bear up their Kingdoms And therefore all good Kings ought not only with Moses to rescue their people and to set them at liberty from the Egyptian bondage and out of the hands of Vsurping Tyrants as our gratious King hath now done or with Sampson to fight for them against the forces of the Philistines Judges 15. or with Augustus to make their Cities abound with all kind of prosperity or with Ezechias to set up an exchequer for silver and gold and pretious stones 2 Chron. 32.27 and for shields and store-houses for to keep Wheat and Wine and Oyl and stables for Horses and all Beasts of service that is to strengthen their Kingdoms with Meat Money and Ammunition and all other necessaries both for War and Peace but they ought also with David to bring home the Ark of the Lord into the House of God 2 Sam. 6.17 and to set Levites to do the servâ—ce of the Tabernacle that is good and godly Ministers and Bishop 〈◊〉 attend the Church and to teach the people 1 Chron. 16.4 and 37 c. and with King Asa to overthrow the Idols and Altars and all other monuments of Idolatry and false worship of God 1 Reg. 15.12 and with Jehu to slaughter all the Priests of Baal and to root out all Heretical Schismatical and false teachers from the Church of Christ 2 Reg. 10.25 And to make this more apparant and clear That all good kings Princes ought to preserve and to promote Gods true Religion that all good Kings and Princes ought to take care of Religion and to see that Gods service should be duly exercised within their Dominions you shall find that when through the profaneness and negligence of King Saul to discharge his duty and the desidiousness and carelesseness of the Priests and Levites many abuses crept into the Church as the Tabernacle was broken and lost the Ark of God was out of the Temple out of
Athanasius said unto the Emperour Jovinian Conveniens est pro principe studium amor rerum divinarum It is meet and convenient for a good Prince to study and love Heavenly things because that in so doing his heart shall be alwaies Theodoret l. 4. c. 3. as Solomon saith in manu Dei in the hand of God and Saint Cyrill tells the Emperours Theodosius and Valentinian that Ab ea quae erga Deum est pietate Prov. 21.1 reipublicae vestrae status pendet the state and condition of their Common-wealth doth wholly depend according to that piety and Religion which they bear towards God Cardanus de sapientia lib. 3. Because as Cardan truely saith Summum praesidium Regni est justitia ob apertos tumultus Religio ob occultos Justice is the best defence of a Kingdom and the suppressor of open tumults because righteousness exalteth a Nation and Religion is the only Protector and safely against all secret and privy Machinations Minut. Fael in Oâ—tav because as Minutius Foelix saith What the Civil Magistrate doth with the sword of justice to suppress the nefarious doers and actours of wickedness Religion rooteth out and suppresseth the very thought of evil The want of the fear of God the only thing that maketh Rebells which a Godly and a Religious man feareth as much and more then a wicked and prophane man doth dread the punishment of his offence and so Religion Piety and the fear of God keepeth the very hearts and souls of the subjects from swelling against their Soveraign and from the least evil thought of Rebellion and it is the want of the fear of God and true Religion whatsoever men pretend that makes Rebels and Traytors in every place because the true Religion tels us plainly Rom. 13.1 that every soul that is every man unfainedly from his heart should be subject to the â—â—gher Powers And the true Religion teacheth us as Tertull Tertul. ad Scapul saith Colere Imperatorem ut hominem à Deo secundum solo Deo minorem To acknowledge and to serve the Emperour and so our King and our Prince as the next person to God and inferior to none but to God When as he is Omnibus major solo Deo minor above all men and below none but only God How requisite it is for Kings to have a care to preserve Religion And therefore it is most requisite that all Kings and Princes should have care of the true Religion and the service of God and with the Prophet David to build Temples and Churches for him that hath given their Crowns and Thrones unto them and to provide maintenance for those servants of God that serve at his Temple as they do for those that serve themselves and so both to be Religious themselves and to see that their subjects so far as it lieth in them should be so likewise and this their own piety and goodness in the service of God will make them famous amongst all posterities and their names to shine as the Sun when as Saint Ambrose saith Ambrosius Epist 32. Nihil honorificentius quà m ut Imperator filius Dei dicatur nothing can be more honorable then that the Emperour or King should be named and called the Son of God The fruits and benefits of maintaining true Religion in a kingdom which is a more glorious Eulogie then Homer could give to the best Heroes of all Greece or that Alexander Julius Caesar or the like could atchieve by all their military exploits or the best domestick actions that they have done and their making provision for the Teachers of the true Religion and the promoters of Gods service the Bishops and Ministers of Christ his Church which makes their subjects both Loyall and obedient unto them and also Religious towards God will preserve the peace and procure the happiness of their Kingdoms How many former kings were very zealous to uphold Religion And according as God hath given this Authority and laid this charge upon all Kings and Princes to have a care of his Religion and the Ministers of his Church so we find very very many both in former times and also of latter years and so both of Gentiles Jews and Christians that were exceeding zealous for the Honor of God and the upholding of them that served at his Altar 1. Gentile kings as 1. The Gentile Kings as Pharaoh King of Egypt that in the extremity of that dearth which swallowed the whole Land he made provision for Gods Priests The great bounty of king Croesus to the god Apollo and to his Priests so that they neither wanted means nor were driven to sell their Lands And so Croesus King of Lydia was so wounderfull zealous of the Honor and the worship of the god of Delphos and so bountifull to Apollo's Priests that Herodotus saith that he made oblation of three thousand choice Cattel such as might lawfully be offered and caused a great stack of wood to be made wherein he burnt Bedsteads of Silver and Gold and Golden Maysors with purple rayment and Coats of exceeding value and he laid the like charge upon the Lydians that every man should consecrate those Jewels which he possessed most costly and pretious from which their Sacrifice when as the streams of liquid and molten Gold distrained in great abundance he caused thereof to be framed half flates or sheards the longer sort as he intituled them of six handfull the shorter of three and a hand breadth in thickness amounting to the number of an hundred and seventeen Whereof four were of fined Gold weighing two Talents and a half and the rest of whiter Gold that weighed two Talents likewise he gave also the similitude of a Lion in tried and purged Gold and two Books very fair and stately to see to the one framed of Gold weighing eight Talents and a half with the additionall of twenty four pounds and the other of Silver And he presented likewise four silver Tunns two drinking Cups the one of Gold and the other of Silver and silver Rings with the shape and form of a woman three Cubits high and withall he offered the Chains Girdles and Wastbands of the Queen his wife and to the Priests of Amphiaraus he gave a shield and a speare of solid Gold and a quiver of the same metall all which saith mine Author he offered in hope to purchase thereby unto himself the gracious favour and good-will of that god and Herodotus l. 1 clio if he was so magnificent and bountifull to the Priests and Temple of that god which was no god how Royall think you would he have been if he had known the true God and our Saviour Jesus Christ So Cyrus and Darius KingS of Persia and of Babylon made such royall decrees for the re-edifying of the Temple at Jerusalem Ezra 1.7 c. 6.5 c. 8.9 and the Worshipping of the God of Daniel and his three
companions Sidrac Misach and Abednego which was the true God that they are registred in the Book for their perpetuall honour and praise to this very day and shall continue longer then the stately Piramides of Egypt even to the end of the World when as most others of their laws and actions are shut up in silence and buried in the grave of forgetfulness So Artaxerxes Mnemon the son of Darius Nothus formerly called Ochus or Achus that in the Persian language signifieth a Prince was very zealous for the building of Gods House and the inabling of the builders thereof with all things necessary for the work and as his father Darius said Let the work of this House of God alone and let the Governour of the Jews and the elders of them build this House of God in his place Moreover I make a decree and it was a most Royall decree what you shall do to the Elders of these Jews for the building of this House of God that of the Kings goods even of the tribute beyond the River forthwith expences be given to these men that they be not hindered and that which they have need of both young Bullocks and Rams and Lambs for the burnt offerings of the God of Heaven Wheat Here is a glorious zeal and a brave Resolution for the honour and service of God Salt Wine and Oyl according to the appointment of the Priests let it be given them day by day without faile that they may offer Sacrifices of sweet savours unto the God of Heaven and pray for the life of the King and of his Sons that were four 1. Artaxerxes 2. Cyrus the younger 3. Atossa called also Arsacas 4. Oxendra And I have also made a decree that Whosoever shall alter this word Ezra 6.7 8 9 10 11. let Timber be pulled down from his house and being set up let him be hanged thereon and his house be made a dunghill for this So the son following the steps of his father as our Most gracious King doth in like manner made a Decree to all the Treasurers that were beyond the River That whatsoever Ezra the Priest shall require of you it be done speedily Also we certifie you that touching any of the Priests and Levites Singers Porters Nethinims or Ministers of the House of God Ezra c. 7. 21.24 it shall not be lawful to impose Tolle Tribute or Custom upon them a thing clean contrary to the practice of our times when the greatest Tolle Tax and Imposition is usually laid upon the Ministers of the Gospel of Christ to shew unto you how far short our Christians now are in piety and zeal of Gods Worship to these Heathens that knew not Christ and therefore no doubt but that they shall shall rise in judgement against us that profess to honour Christ and yet think we can never take enough from his Church nor lay Taxes and Loads enough upon his Ministers And how this will be answered before Christ at the last Day let the sacrilegious persons that labour so much and strive so eagerly to take our houses from us consider it for I know not how to do it 2. The Kings of Israel and Juda. 2. As these Heathen Kings and Monarchs were thus zealously affected to the House Service of God and thus religiously given to provide maintenance for the Priests and Ministers of the Temple So the Kings of Israel and Juda were no whit inferiour unto them but in a far righter way and to a truer God than most of the Heathens did For here you see King David adjudged it to be as needful to build a Temple for God as to erect an house for himself And so the Books of the Kings and the Chronicles of the Kings of Israel and Juda do sufficiently set down how Solomon did most religâ—ously build God's House and offered Royal Sacrifices in that House and most orderly setled the Priests and Levites to do the Service of God in this Temple that he had built And so Jehosophat Ezechias Josias and all the rest of the good Kings of Juda did execute the power that God had given them in the setling and establishing of His Religion and the True Worship of God as you may most amply read in their lives And those Kings that did not care for the preservation of the True Religion and Gods Service and his Houses as Jeroboam Baasha Ahab and the like the wrath of the Lord was kindled against them that he rooted them and their posterity out of their own house because they neglected the Service and the House of God And so he will do to all those Kings and Princes that will imitate them in prophaning his House neglecting his Service and abusing his servants because that with Him there is no respect of persons but He will bind Kings in fetters Psalm 148. and their Nobles with links of iron 3. The Christian Kings 3. The Christian Emperours and Kings are not left un-Chronicled for their great zeal extraordinary care and Royal bounty towards the Bishops and Ministers of Christ to propagate and uphold the Christian Religion For it is Registred in the Writings of those times that Constantius the father of Constantine the Great was wont to say That he respected the Preachers of the Gospel more than the Treasures of his Exchequer And his son Constantine was called Great as well for his Piety that made him like John Baptist to be Magnus coram Domino Great in the sight of the Lord as for his Potency that made him Great among men And Eusebius that wrote the Life of Constantine and sets down his Piety saith The Court of the Emperour Valerian was so replenished with godly men and religious Christians that it seemed to be the Church of God rather than the Kings Court So great a care had he of Religion and the Service of God that as the Prophet David saith Psal 101.9 saith none should be his servants that served not God but whoso leadeth a godly life he shall be my servant said this good Emperour as good King David said before him And the Emperour Jovinian that succeeded Julian the Apostate who withdrew very many from the Christian Religion to imbrace the idolatrous service and superstitions of the Heathens when he attained unto the Empire said to the people That he would be a King of Christians or he would be no King at all And Alphonsus King of Arragon is made Famous in all Chronicles for the great love he bare to Learning and especially for the great zeal he had to the Christian Religion and the great care he took to promote the Gospel of Christ and to provide for his servants and when some other King said unto him That it was too base an office for a King to trouble himself with such affairs Alphonsus answered Vox â—ovis ista est potius quam regis That voice seemed to him to be the voice of an Oxe rather than of a
King And as Theodosius and Valentinian very Christian like called themselves the â—assâ—ls of Christ so Constantine was wont to say That he gloried more to be the servant of Christ than in being the Emperour of the World And as those pious Kings and godly Emperours were thus zealous to maintain the Christian Religion which bare up the Pillars of their Dominions and makes their names now to live glorious though they are dead So the Throne of this Empire and Kingdom of Great Britaine That this our kingdom had many zealous and most godly Kings hath not wanted devout Princes and most worthy Kings that have trod in the steps of King David to provide Houses for God's Service and to imitate the examples of the best of the aforesaid pious Princes to see the Religion of Christ and the True Faith purely maintained within their Kingdoms as you may find it in our Chronicles and the Statutes of King Inas King Alfred King Edward that for his devotion and zeal to the Christian Religion was rightly called Saint Edward King Ethelstane Vide Speed lib. 8. c. 3. and King Canutus the Dane that laid the foundation of his Building to compose the differences of Religion and to rectifie whatsoever he found amisse therein before he entred upon the causes of the Common-wealth For I read it Registred that after sundry Laws inacted touching our Religion and the Faith of Christ as the celebration of certain Holy-dayes the right form of Baptism the duty of Fasting the teaching of the Lords Prayer unto the people the administration of the Câ—mmon-prayer and the celebration of the blessed Sacrament of the body and blood of Christ thrice every year and some other Duties of our Religion this Title followeth Jam sequitur institutio legum saecularium which as Speed sheweth Speed quo supra pag. 384. are most excellent for the execution of Justice And it is Recorded that William the Conqueror in one of his Parliaments said That he being Vice-gerent to the King of kings holdeth his Kingdom to this end to defend his people and especially the people of God and his holy Church that is the Bishops and Priests to teach the people and to performe the Worship and Service of God in his Church And even in our own dayes the Holy Name of God be for ever blessed and praised for it we have had such pious Kings as I believe I may justly say The Christian World for Piety and Religion for love to God's Ministers and the care of God's Worship could shew but very few like them and none to precede them therein and that is King James and King Charles the First whose glorious name above all other Kings since Christ The rare and just commendation of King Charles the First I shall ever honour and extoll as the most constant Defender of the Christian Faith the most loving Patron of God's Ministers the Bishops and Preachers of his Word and the most faithful Witness and Martyr that lost his life for the preservation of God's Church and the Religion of Jesus Christ with whom I do alwayes when I think of him behold and see him Crowned with Eternal Glory The most Blessed of all our Kings and the Best of all our Saints CHAP. IX Of the chiefest Parts and Duties of Kings and Princes which they are to discharge for the maintenance of God's Service and the True Religion and the necessity of Cathedral-Churches and Chappels for the people of God to meet in for the Worship and Service of God YOu have heard how that God hath given the Power and Authority unto Kings and Princes to be the Supervisors Directors and Reprovers of things amiss as well in the Church as in the Common-wealth And how he requireth and commandeth them to discharge those Duties accordingly and to have a care to preserve his Religion as they do regard their own Salvation You have likewise heard how all Kings both Heathens Jews and Christians did execute that power and according to their ability discharged their Duties as well in the Spiritual jurisdiction of Ecclesiastical causes as in the decision of Civil causes It resteth that I should shew unto you the chiefest Parts and Duties that they owe to God and are to discharge for the promoting of his Service and the Religion of Jesus Christ And I conceive them principally to consist in these Four Points The four chiefest things that Kings Princes ought to do for the upholding of God's Religion and the Service of Jesus Christ which may be like the four Rivers of Paradise to water the Garden of God's Church to make it to bring forth plenty of fruits to the glory of God and the salvation of mens souls And they are 1. To take care and to cause that there should be Cathedral-Churches and Chappels fairly built and decently trimmed and adorned as befits the Houses of God for his people to meet in for the Worship and Service of God 2. To see that able honest and religious Bishops be placed in those Cathedrals and others the like pious and painful Ministers be appointed in all the Parochial Churches and Chappels to perform the true Service of God as they ought to do and to see those Drones that neglect it and those factious Sectaries and Hereticks that defile and corrupt it and those scandalous livers that do much prejudice unto their holy Calling to be punished and removed if they amend not for their negligence and transgressions 3. To provide by their good Laws such maintenance revenues and means for the Reverend and godly Bishops and the rest of the worthy Clergy whereby they may be inabled with joy and comfort to discharge their duties in God's Service to his glory and the good of his people 4. To put a bar and to hinder by their Regal power and authority all the sacrilegious violaters of holy things to rob the Church of Christ and his servants and to commit the horrible sin of Sacriledge which is so transcendently abominable in the sight of God and so infinitely destructive to the souls of men 1. The necessity of Cathedral-Churches and other Parochial Chappels for the Sâ—rvice of God These things ought to be done as I conceive by all good and godly Kings and Princes and whoso doth these things shall never fail And. 1. In defence of Cathedral-Churches we have to alleadge that till the time of Euaristus and Dionysius Popes of Rome no other kind of ministerial Church was ever heard of from the beginning of the World for from Adam unto Moses men did call upon the Name of the Lord and offered Sacrifices but without any ministerial Church at all And in Moses time Platina de vitis Pontif. Carrion annal Monarch Exod. 25.46 Acts 7.44 2 Sam. 7.6 Acts 7.47 God commanded him to erect a Tabernacle which stood instead of a Church for all the Land of Judea and that was Templum portatile as Josephus calls it to be carried up and
and many Acts to pass to justify and to make good and Lawful the Taking away Leasing Selling and Alienating the Tythes Lands Houses and Possessions of the Church and of our High Priest Jesus Christ from his servants to be inherited by lay persons and many other Acts of Parliaments have been made since that time to the same purpose which very thing we conceive as I have shewed to be very High Sacriledge and a robbing of Jesus Christ and the obstructing of his service and we fear the cause of the perishing of many souls And therefore how the Shield of the Pope's Authority that was the first Foster-Father of this execrable and accursed title of Impropriation or the power of King Henry the 8th that would expunge the Pope's Sacriledge with a greater Sacriledge and be the second Patron of this Bastard brood or all the pretences of the now detainers of the Tythes and portion of Christ and the Lands Houses and Possessions of the Church by these Humane Laws can bear off the blow of Gods wrath and turn aside the fierceness of his vengeance when in the day of his fury he shall powre out the full vial of his indignation upon the head of all Sacrilegious persons and upon the children and posterity of them that have devoured the Lords inheritance and laid wast his dwelling place I can no waies understand neither do I know how to give them any comfort or counsel but to advise them to a full and timely Restitution of that which otherwise will be their utter destruction Quia non remittitur peccatum August ad Maced Epist 54. donec restituatur oblatum cum restitui potest The sin shall never be remitted and blotted out of Gods book until the Tythes and goods of Gods Church be restored when men can restore them and will not do it CHAP. XVIII Of the second part of the Stipend Wages and Maintenance of the Ministers of the Gospel which is the Oblation Donation or Free-wil-offering of the people for to uphold and continue the true service of God and to obtain the blessings of God upon themselves and upon their labours which Donations ought not to be impropriated and alienated from the Church by any means YOu have heard of the first part of the Ministers maintenance the second part consisteth in the voluntary Oblations or Free-wil-offerings of the people which the Lord requireth should be done according as every one in his own heart thought good to bestow upon the service of God and what they did offer in this kind was most acceptable in the sight of God For this is a Principal Branch of that Honor which we yield unto God by and with our substance which we are injoyned to do Prov. 3.9 Because what we relieve the poor with is not so much our alms as their exigence which as necessity exacts it so it is soon passed and as quickly perisheth but those Donations that were given for the service of God as they savour of a more inward and deeper piety so they are of a more lasting substance and besides the eternal Treasures which men do thereby lay up for themselves they do provide for the perpetuity of Religion unto the after-ages of men and may be justly said to Honour God not only in themselves but in all those likewise which they gain by their Donations to Honor him And it is strange and marvellous to consider how liberal and how free the people of old time were in their Donations and Free-wil-offerings to maintain the Worship of God and to do any thing that did any wayes appertain to his service for if you look into the 36. Chapt. of Exod. vers 5. you shall find how Bezaleel and Aholiab spake unto Moses saying The people bring much more then enough for the service of the work which the Lord hath commanded to be made Exod. 36.5 6 7. and Moses gave commandment and caused it to be Proclaimed through the Camp that they should bring no more for that they had already brought enough and too much So they that returned out of Babylon were as ready and as willing to offer up their gifts and free-wil-offerings for the service of the Temple as their Forefathers were for the erecting of the Tabernacle Neh 7.70 c. 10.33 as you may see it in the books of Ezra and of Nehemiah But the Christians of the Primitive Church were so zealous herein that they exceeded all that went before them in their Donations and Free-wil-offerings for the service of God and the increase of the Christian Religion for they sold their Lands and Possessions and laid the prizes thereof at the Apostles feet and had all things in common among themselves And Pope Vrban the I. Platin. in Vrban instituted Vt ecclesias praedia ac fundos fidelibus oblatos episcopus reciperet partireturque proventus clericis omnibus viritim nihilque cujuspiam privatum esset sed in commune bonum That the Bishops should receive the Churches Possessions and grounds offered to the Faithful and that the profits thereof should be divided by the Clergy man by man and that nothing should be of private propriety to any one but in common amongst them all And Gratian tels us that by a decretal Epistle unto all the Bishops he decreed that none should presume to alienate ought of the Church Revenues under the pain of Excommunication And Pope Lucius the I. about twenty years after Vrban directed an Epistle to the Bishops of Spain and France to the same purpose And though the malice of Dr. Burges towards the Bishops will not suffer him to yield Vide Flor. hist ad an 186. Matth. Westm that King Lucius gave the Lands of the Idol-Priests unto the Christian Bishops yet is it clear enough out of Antiquit. Brit. and Armachanus that Lucius endowed the Christian Church with more Lands and Revenues then the Idol-Priests injoyed And afterwards while it was permitted by the Imperial Laws for every one to Collate upon the Church whatsoever he would without exception Cod. l. 1. titulo 5. l. 1. their Donations were so great that the Kings and Emperours conceived it fit with Moses to grant a prohibition that they should not offer any more nor bestow any Lands or Goods upon the Church without some special licence and toleration from the Civil Magistrate for fear that the Church if this freedome of Donations should still continue would have sucked out all the blood from the veins and the marrow out of the bones of the politick body and so leave the Common-Wealth deprived of their Lands like Pharaohs lean and evil-favoured Cows and the Church like those that were fat and wel-liked And therefore they enacted the Statute of Mortmain that was a supersedeas against these too-liberal contributions and the Emperour Justinian enacted that no Legacy bequeathed unto the Church exceeding the value of five hundred Crowns should be good in Law without a special licence from the
Magistrate and so many other restrictions were made as Rules against such as could not otherwise well rule themselves and observe the just rules of Reason and moderation And thereupon the Church it self and those godly Bishops that desired no mans wealth but what made for the glory of God and the furtherance of the Gospel of Christ made Canons and cautions against such catching Covetousness as would too greedily incroach upon their neighbours estates Decret part 2. Caus 12. q. 2. Can 49. and too unreasonably hedge it in unto the Church as that Canon which beginneth Ecclesia rapacitatis ardore The Church with too much greediness must not snatch and pluck unto her self the Lands and Possessions of her Children The Reason of those Statutes and Canons two fold And the Reason of these Inhibitions and Statute of Mortmain and Canons of the Church seems to be two fold 1. Because as I said before the zeal of those Christians was so fervent Reason 1 and their desire to promote the service of God was so eager and vehement that they cared not how much they gave but thought all that they gave too little for that service So great was the difference betwixt their mind and the minds of our Souldiers and others Gentlemen of no mean rank and some generated and degenerated from the Church whose Covetousness and greedy hearts desire nothing more then to pull down our Cathedrals and other Churches and as it were Romana lege agraria by an Irresragable Law to pluck away their Lands and Possessions until they be left as bare as in the day wherein they were first brought forth into the World 2. Because that whatsoever Lands Houses or Possessions were once Reason 2 dedicated and offered unto God and for Gods service could not without committing the horrible sin of Sacriledge be taken away by any man or by any pretence from God or indeed because the Lands and Houses that were given unto the Church were freed in those times of Popery from all Taxes and Escheats so that neither the King nor Common-Wealth could have any help or assistance from them towards the defraying of the publick and most necessary charges of the State And therefore Henry the third and Edward the first his son and Richard the second seeing how many men not out of any love to Religion or zeale to Gods service but craftily to couzen the King and other chief Lords and the Common-Wealth did thus fraudulently convey their Lands unto the Church and then took Leases of them again from the Church meerly to be freed from the Publick Taxes made those Statutes Cap 36. against the giving of their Lands in Mort-main or in a dead hand that is the Church and it is enacted in the great Charter that it should not be lawful to any man from thence-forth to give his Lands to any Religious House and then to take the same again from the same H use the which thing being a meer Collusion and an apparent wrong to the King to the chief Lord of the Fee and the Common-Wealth no Bishop ever justified the same or held it lawful for the Church to hold such Lands as were so given contrary to those Acts of Parliament and those Canons that were made against such deceitful dealings But for those Lands and Houses that were truly Religiously and without any manner of deceit or wrong to any man given to the Church for the service of God and to promote the Gospel of Jesus Christ I think them so sacred and so properly Gods right that as the Author of the Church Lands not to be sold hath Truly Religiously and most Learnedly proved so I assure my self that none but the Limbs of the Great Anti-Christ will think otherwise For Before these holy men have made the Donations of their lands or houses unto God and to his Church it was in their own power and they might without offence either give them unto the Lord or retain them still unto themselves and their posterity for so S. Peter tells Ananiâ— Whiles it remained that is un-sold was it not thine own And after it was sold was it not in thine own power that is either to offer it and give it to God and his Service Acts 5.4 or not to give it But now after thou hast sold it and dedicated the whole price of thy land for Gods Service To keep back some part of the price which formerly thou hadst given to God's Church is such a Sacriledge and so transcendent a sin as to lye unto the Holy Ghost and to rob God of that which now doth most properly belong to God and is no wayes in thy power to dispose of it And so it is in any other mans case Before thou givest thy land house or utensil unto the Church and for the Service of God it is thine own and thou mayst lawfully do what thou wilt with thine own either give it unto God or not give it but after thou hast once given it and consecrated it for God's Service it is none of thine and neither thou nor any man else can make an alienation or impropriation thereof without lying unto the Holy Ghost and a robbing of God of his right For so the Law saith Jastinian lib. 2. Tit. 1 Nullius sunt res Sacrae nam quod Divini juris est nullius in bonis est The Sacred and Dedicated things that are of Divine property are of no private mans right but God being the sole owner of them none but such as are his servants and assignes can have any thing to do with them So Charles the Great that was as good as he was great saith Bona Ecclesiae Deo sacrata sunt Capit. Car. l. 6. c. 28. Whatsoever we give unto the Church we offer and dedicate unto the Lord our God And so the style of all the Graunts in our Magna Charta runneth Magna Charta c. 1. We have given such and such lands or things unto God both for us and for our heires for ever And again the same Magna Chartae saith Privilegium Ecclesiae debet esse immune And so the Law of God saith The field when it goeth out in the year of Jubile shall be holy unto the Lord as a field devoted the possession thereof shall be the Priests because Levit. 27.21 28. as the Lord saith verse 28. No devoted thing that a man shall devote or give unto the Lord of all that he hath both of man and beast and of the field of his possession shall be sold or redeemed because every devoted dedicated or consecrated thing is most holy unto the Lord and the Lord hath given the same unto the Priests verse 21. And so the ancient Style of all Grants and Charters for these matters was Domino Deo nostro offâ—rimus dicamus cetera We give such and such things unto our Lord God And under the Law as God instituted the Tythes and lands
be made But though it be an Axiom infallible not liable to controulment and a truth as clear as the Sun that Impropriations of Tythes and the alienation of Lands Houses and other things that were given to God and for the service of God ought not to be done nor cannot be injoyed as their own proper goods by any lay person be he Lord Knight or what you will contrary to the mind and will of the donors without committing that horrible sin of Sacriledge yet you must not so understand me How the tythes lands and houses of the Church may be let and set to lay persons as if I conceived that Ministers might not set their Tythes or let their Lands and their Livings to any lay-person or that it must be generally understood that no commerce or bargain can be made of the goods and endowments of the Church because that as God is willing we should use those goods alwaies for our benefit so he will be as graciously pleased we shall forgoe them and exchange them when we find it for our benefit and the benefit of his Church and Service which in all our bargains and commerce we ought chiefely to regard because we are but Gods Stewards for the service of his Church and so whatsoever our Religion and our Ancestors have honoured God withal we must imploy not so much for our own best advantage as for that which maketh most for Gods honor And therefore we that are instructed with the inheritance of the Church and portion of Jesus Christ must not make such bargains for our Master as Glaucus made for himself when he changed his golden Armour for brazen furniture neither must we deal with the Church of Christ as Rehoboam did with the Temple of Solomon 1 Reg. 14.26 27. when he took away all the shields of gold and made in their steed shields of brass but what bargain or covenant soever we make without sin for the greater glory unto God and grâ—â—â—ter good unto the Church we hold it good with whomsoever the same is made CHAP. XIX That it is the duty of all Christian Kings and Princes to do their best endevours to have all the Impropriations restored to their former Institution to hinder the taking away and the alienation of the Lands Houses and other the Religious Donations of our Ancestors from the Church of Christ and to suppress and root out all the Vnjust and Covetous suttle customs and frauds that are so generally used and are so derogatory to the service of God from amongst the people and especially from this Kingdom of Ireland where most corruption is used and most need of Instruction unto the people THus you have heard how that Cathedrals and other Parochial Churches should be built and beautified for the Honor of God Godly Bishops and Preachers should be placed in them for the Service of God and then the allowance that God hath appointed should be given and yielded unto them for their maintenance And now because the Lands Houses Tythes and Hereditaments of the Church which the Lord God hath granted and the godly Emperours pious Kings and zealous Professors have given and dedicate for Gods service are in these dismal daies snatched away by the hands of Haâ—ksters and haters of Religion and alienated by the Souldiers that divide Christ his garments amongst them from the true servants and Ministers of Christ who should be very thankful unto these Souldiers as they often say that we have any thing left unto us For as the Orator telleth the grave Senators of Rome of an audacious fellow called Fimbria that stabbed Quintus Scaevola an honest man Cicero in Orat. pro Roscio Amerino at the funerals of Caius Marius and then boasted of the great favour that he shewed to him Quòd non totum telum in ejus corpore absconderat That he had not thrust his dagger wholly to the Hilt into his body but only gave him a slight stab that was sufficient to kill him So these brood of Fimbria having seized upon a great part of the Houses Lands and Patrimony of the Church and still detayning them Per fas nefas in their own hands do labour to get more and think the favour that they have done us deserveth no small thanks that they brought or left to us what we have and have not deprived us of all together Therefore Covetousness Injustice and the love of this World being so deeply grounded and setled in the hearts of our Demas's and this Epidemical disease of taking and detaining the Churches right being as one saith just like the Kings-evil which no Physitian but the King himself will serve to heal it Our address must be unto his Majesty to supplicate that he would be graciously pleased to interpose his Royal Command to stop the current of these intruders into Gods right and to cause the Restitution of the Church-goods to be made unto the Church And among the rest of the injuries done by these Military * I speak of the Souldiers because either the Souldiers of that Parliament or of Crumwel or his Majesty have almost all the Kingdom of Ireland and do fill the House of Lords and the House of Commons and are the chief men in every place So that nothing can be done either in Parliament City or Countrey but what they will have done because they are the Major Party and so can Out-vote all the rest and therefore Ireland being now Regnum Militum This my discourse cannot be Gratum opus agricolis but Ingratum militibus which is all one to me if you consider what I say in the latter end of this book and that I fear not what they say of me Quia nec melior sum si laudeverint nec deterior si vituperaverint men to the Church of God there is one great Abuse which is generally used and practised here in Ireland by the rich proprietors and possessors of Lands and Town-ships to the abundant detriment and loss of the Ministers and to the hazard and danger if not the destruction of many I know not how many souls and that is when the Gentleman proprietor that holds all or most of the Parish in his own hands if he be offended with his Minister and cannot have the Tythes as he pleaseth himself he can make the Rectory or Vicaridge that might be well worth fifty or sixty pounds per annum to be scarce worth ten pound a year or nothing for he will leave all his ground unplowed and turne it to pasture and so bring a dearth through the scarcity of Corn in the Common-Wealth and then he will buy young Bullocks and fils his Lands with dry Cattle whereof their Religious Lawyers of whom Dr. Gardiner †Dr. Gardiner in his Scourge of Sacriledge saith that he never heard yet at any hand of any good that they have Prophesied unto the Church tels them their custome will preserve them from the payment of any
alone that purged the corruption of the Royal Government but meddled not with the Religion of their Bishops and Prophets and beyond the undertaking of Martin Luther that pulled down the pride of the Pope and all that Romish Hierarchy but ventured not to trample upon the Sâ—epter of Kings and the Imperial Government which he held Sacred and inviolably to be obeyed For these men perceiving how God had so wisely ordered these Governments among his people to assist each other that the one can neither stand nor fall without the other as it is fully and truly shewed in the Grand Rebellion therefore as Caligula wished that the people of Rome had but one neck that so he might dispatch them all uno ictu with one stroke So these men would overthrow both Government and destroy both King and Priest both Church and State at one time with one clap with one thunder-bolt And so they should be famous indeed though it were but like the fame of Herostratus that burnt the Temple of Diana or of Raviliac that killed the King of France of Nero that destroyed his mother or Oedipus that murdered his own father for a man may be as notoriously famous for transcendent villanies and nefarious impieties as another is for his rare vertues and super-eminent deeds of piety As in History Thersites is as well known for his base Cowardice as Achilles for his heroick Valour And in the Scripture Judas for his Treachery is as notoriously known as Saint Peter for his Fidelity Therefore these men go on with this great Design and to effect the same I find that they aimed at these two special things 1. To take away all the lets and impediments that might hinder them They aimed at two things 2. To secure unto themselves all the helps and furtherances that might advantage them For 1. As a Vineyard that is well hedged 1. To remove the impediments of their design or a City strongly fenced with walls and bulwarks cannot easily be laid wast and spoiled before these defences be destroyed so the wilde Boars cannot devour the grapes of God's Church and swallow down the Revenues of her Governours and the Rebels cannot pull the Sword out of their Soveraigns hand and lay his Crown down in the dust so long as the means of their preservations are intire and not removed Therefore these men endeavour to eradicate all the impediments of their Design And they saw four great Blocks that were as four mighty Mountains which their great Faith their publick faith being not yet conceived must remove before they could plant their new Church and subvert the old Government of this Kingdom and those were 1. The Earl of Straffords Head Four impediments of their Design 2. The free judgement of the Judges 3. The power of dissolving the Parliament 4. The Bishops votes in the House of the Lords For as the heavenly Angels could do nothing against Sodom while righteous Lot was in it so these earthly angels the messengers of Abaddon can never effect their ends to overthrow the Church and State to make them as Sodom full of all impurity and villany until these four main stops be taken away And therefore CHAP. II. Sheweth the eager prosecution of our Sectaries to take off the Earl of Straffords head How he answered for himself The Bishops right of voting in his cause His excellent vertues and his death 1. Impediment 1. THey get Master Pym the grand father of all the purer sort and a fit instrument for this Design in the name of the House of Commons The Earl his Charge and thereby of all the Commonalâ—y of England to charge Thomas Earl of Strafford of High-Treason A high charge indeed and yet no lesse a crime could serve the turn to turn him out of their way because nothing else could subdue that spirit by which he was so well able to discover the plots and to frustrate the practices of all the faction of Sectaries for as the Jews were no wayes sufficient to answer Saint Stephen's arguments but only with stones so these men saw themselves unable to confute his reasons and to subdue his power but only by putting him to death and cutting off his head for that fault which Pym alleadged he had committed But then I demand How this great charge of High Treason shall be made good against him How sought to be proved It is answered That England Scotland and Ireland and every corner of these three Kingdoms must be searched and all discontented persons that had at any time any Sentence though never so justly pronounced against them by him that was so great a Judge yet conceited to be otherwise by themselves must now be incouraged and countenanced by the faction and most likely by this grand Accuser to say all that they know and perhaps more than was true against him for what will not envy and malice say or what beast will not trample upon the Lion when they see him grovelling and gasping for life in an unevitable pit and it may be compassed with so many mastiff dogs I mean his enemies and discontented witnesses as were able to tear more than one Lion all to pieces So by this means they are enabled to frame near thirty Articles against him ut cum non prosint singula multa juvent that the number might amazâ— the people and think him a strange creature that was so full of heynous offences and so compassed with transgressions But Si satis accusâsse quis innocens If accusations were sufficient to create offenders not a righteous man could escape on earth therefore the Law condemneth no man before he be heard The Earl his Answer what he can answer for himself And the Earl of Strafford coming to his Answer made all things so clear in the Judgement of the common-hearers and answered to every Article so well that his enemies being Judges they much applauded his abilities and admired at his Dexterity whereby he had so finely untied those Gordian knots that were so fouly contrived against him and as his friends conceived had fairly escaped all those iron-nets which his adversaries had so cunningly laid and my popular country-man with the rest of the more learned Lawyers had so vehemently prosecuted to insnare him in the links and traps of guiltiness and in brief the Lords who as yet were unpoisoned by the leavened subtilty of this bitter Faction could find not any one of all those Articles to be Treason by any Law that was yet established in this Land sic te servavit Apollo So God delivered him as he thought and his friends hoped out of all these troubles Yet as a rivulet stopped will at last prove the more violent The nature of malice viresque acquirit ibidem and recollect a greater strength in the same place so rage and malice hindered of their revengeful desires will turn to be the more implacable Quia malitia corum excaecavit eos
God of their bellies to cause all the other guests to leath their meat that they alone might devour all the dainties did use Narium mucum in catinis emungere so do these men spit all their poyson against the Revenues of the Bishops and that little maintenance that is left unto the Ministers and are as greedy to devour the same themselves as the dogs that gape after every bit they see us put into our mouths for so I heard a whelp of that litter making a bitter invective in the House of Commons against Bishops Deans and Chapters and the greatness of their Revenue Doctor Burges and concluding that all they should be degraded their means should be sequestred and distributed all without any diminution of what they now possessed but with the restitution of all Impropriations unto himselfe and the rest of his factious fellow Preachers which speech as it pleased but few in the latter clause so no doubt it had fauters enough in the former part when we see this little remnant of our fore-fathers bounty this testimony of our Princes piety is the onely mote that sticks in their eye the undigested morsell in their stomacks and the onely bait that they gape after for did our King yeild this garment of Christ to be parted among their Souldiers and this revenue of the Church to be disposed of by the Parliament I doubt not but all quarrels about the Church would soon end and all oâ—her strife about Religion would be soon composed What many men would willingly undergo to procure peace But would this end all our civil Wars would the unbishoping of our Prelates bring rest unto our Prince and the taking away of their estates settle the State of the Common-wealth and bring peace and tranquillity unto this Kingdom If so we could be well contented for our own parts to be sacrificed for the safety of the people for though we dare not say with Saint Paul that we could wish our selves 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or separated from Christ for our Country-men yet I can say with a syncere heart 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Rom. 9.6 that I believe many of us could be well contented our fortunes should be confiscated and our lives ended so that could procure the peace of the Church which is infinitely troubled redeeme His Majesties honour which is so deeply wounded and preserve this our native Country from that destruction The abolishing of Episcopacy would not satisfie the Factious which this unparallel'd Rebellion doth so infallibly threaten but the truth is that the abolishing of Episcopacy root and branch the reducing of the best to the lowest rank and the bringing of the Clergy to the basest condition of servility to be such as should not be worthy to eate with the dogs of their flock as Job speaketh will not do the deed because as the Satyrist saith nemo repentè fit turpissimus but as virtues so vices have their encrease by use and progression Juven Sat. 2. primum quodque flagitium gradus est ad proximum and every heynous offence is as iron chain to draw on another For as Seneca saith nunquam usque adeò temperatae cupiditates sunt Seneca de Clem lib. 1. ut in eo quod contigit desinant sed gradus à magnis ad majora fit spes improbissimas complectuntur insperata assecuti our desires are never so far temperated that they end in that which is obtained but the gaining of one thing is a step to seek another And therefore cùm publicum jus omne positum sit in sacris as Plato saith how can it be that they which have prophaned all sacred things Plato de legibus lib. 12. and have degraded their Ministers should not also proceed to depose their Magistrates if you be diffident to believe the same let the Annals of France Germany England and Scotland be revised and you shall find that Charles the fifth was then troubled with War when the Bishops were turmoyled and tumbled out of their Seas Scoti uno eodémque momento numinis principis jugum excusserunt nec justum magistratum agnoverunt ullum ex quo primùm tempore sacris sacerdotibus bellum indixerunt and the Scots at one and the self-same moment did shake off the yoke of their obedience both unto their God and to their King neither did they acknowledg any for their just Magistrate after they had once warred against Religion and religious men Blacvod Apolog pro regibus pag. â—3 which were their Priests and Bishops saith Blacvodaeus and in Fran e saith he the same men were enemies unto the King that were adversaries unto the Priests quia politicam dominationem nunquam ferent qui principatum Ecclesiae sustulerunt nec mirum si Regibus obloquantur qui sacerdotes flammâ ferro persequuntur because as I have shewed at large in my Grand Rebellion they will never endure the Political Magistrate to have any rule The haters of the Bishops ever enemies unto kings when they have shaken off the Ecclesiastical government neither is it any wonder that they should slander rage against and reject their King when they persecute their Bishops with fire and sword And I think the sad aspect of this distracted Kingdom at this time makes this point so clear that I need not add any more proof to beget faith in any sober man for doth not all the World see that as soon as the seditious and trayterous faction in this unhappy Parliament had cast most of the Bishops How soon the Faction fell upon the King after they had cast off their Bishops the gravest and the greatest of all with Joseph into the dungeon a thing that no story can shew the like president in any age and had voted them all contrary to all right out of their indubitable right to sit in the House of Peers an act indeed so full of incivility as hath no small affinity with that of the Gergesites who for love of their swine drave not out 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Matth. 8.34 but desired Christ to depart out of their coasts they presently began to pluck the sword out of the Kings hand and endeâ—voured to make their Soveraign in many things more servile then any of his own Subjects so that he should be gloriosissimè servilis as Saint Augustine saith that Homer was suavissimè vanus and to effect this you see how they have torn in peices all his Rights they have trampled his Prerogatives under foot they have as much as they could laid his honour in the dust and they have with violent warr and virulent malice sought to vanquish and subdue their own most gracious Soveraign which cannot chuse but make any Christian heart to bleed to see such unchristian and such horrid unheard of things attempted to be done by any that would take upon him the name of a Christian Therefore to manifest my duty to
God and my fidelity to my King I have undertaken this hard and to the Rebels unpleasant labour The Rebels for the punishment of our sins may prosper for a time but at last they shall be most surely destroyed Prov. 8.15 Psal 68.30 Joshua 9 16. Psal 91.16 to set down the Rights of Kings wherein I shall not be afraid of the Rebels power neither would I have any man to fear them for however Victores victique cadunt here may be a vicissitude of good success many times on both sides to prolong the war for our sins and they may prosper in some places yet that is but nubecula quaedam a transient cloud or summer storm that will soon pass away for we may assure our selves they shall not prevaile because God hath said it By me Kings do raigne and He will give strength unto his King and exalt the horn of his Annointed He will scatter the people that delight in war and make the hearts of the cursed Canaanites to melt and their joynts to tremble but He will satisfie the King with long life and shew him his salvation CHAP. II. Sheweth what Kings are to be honoured the institution of Kings to be immediately from God the first Kings the three chiefest rights to Kingdoms the best of the three rights how Kings came to be electted and how contrary to the opinion of Master Selden Aristocracie and Democracie issued out of Monarchie TO proceed then you see the person that by Saint Peters precept is to be honoured to be the King and what King was that but as you may see in the beginning of this epistle the King of Pontus Galatia Cappadocia Asia and Bythinia and what manner of Kings were they I pray you I presume you will confess they were no Christians but it may be as bad as Nero who was then their Emperour and most cruelly tyrannizing over the Saints of God What Kings are to be honoured gave a very bad example to all other his substitute Kings and Princes to do the like and yet these holy Christians are commanded to honour them And therefore 1. Heathen Pagan wicked and tyrannical Kings are to be truely honoured by God's precept 2. Religious just and Christian Kings are to have a double honour because there is a double charge imposed upon them as The double charge of all Christian Kings 1. To preserve peace 1. To execute justice and judgement among their people to preserve equity and peace both from intestine broyles and foreign Foes which careful government bringeth plenty and prosperity in all external affaires unto the whole Kingdom and this they do as Kings which is the common duty of all the Kings of the earth 2. To protect the Church 2. To maintaine true Religion to promote the faith of Christ and to be the guardians and foster-fathers unto the Church and Church-men which tye their people unto God to make them spiritually and everlastingly happy and this duty is laid upon them as they are Christian Kings and therefore in regard of this accession of charge they ought to have an accession of honour more then all other Kings whatsoever 1. Then I say that the Heathen Pagan wicked and tyrannical Kings such as were Nero Dioclesian and Julian among the Christians or Ahab and Manasses among the Jews or Antiochus Dionysius and the rest of the Sicilian Tyrants among the Gentiles are to be honoured served and obeyed of all their Subjects and that in three especial respects 1. All Kings to be honoured in three respects 1. Of their institution which is the immediate ordinance of God 2. Of God's precept which enjoineth us to honour them 3. Of all good mens practice whether they be 1. Jewes 2. Gentiles 3. Christians 1. The institution of Kings is immediately from God Justin lib. 1. Herodot lib. 1. Clio. 1. Justin tells us that Principio rerum gentium nationúmque imperium penes reges erat from the beginning of things that is the beginning of the world the rule and government of the people of all Nations was in the hands of Kings Quos ad honoris fastigium non ambitio popularis sed spectata inter bonos moderatio provehebat And Herodotus setteth down how Deioces the first King of the Medes had his beginning And Homer also nameth the Kings that were in and before the wars of Troy But the choice of Deioces and some others about that time and after Cicero in Officiis whereof Cicero speaketh may give some colour unto our rebellious Sectaries to make the royal Dignity 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a humane ordinance therefore I must go before Herodotus and look further then blind Homer could see and from the first King that ever was I will truly lay down the first institution and succession of Kings and how times have wrought by corruption the alteration of their right and diminution of their power which both God and nature had first granted unto them God the first King 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 1 Tim. 1.17 Apoc. 19.16 And I hope no Basileu-mastix no hater of Kings nor opposer of the royal government can deny but that God himself was the first King that ever the world saw that was the King of ages before all worlds and the King of Kings ever since there were any created Kings The next King that I read of was Adam whom Cedrenus stiles the Catholique Monarch 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a mighty King of a large Territory of great Dominion and of unquestionable right unto his Kingdom which was the whole World the Earth the Seas and all that were therein For the great King of all Kings said unto him Gen. 1.28 Adam the first King of all men Be fruitful and multiply and replenish the earth and subdue it and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the fowl of the air and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth Which is a very large Commission when dominare is more then regere and therefore his royalty is so plain that none but wilful ignorants will deny it to be divinum institutum a divine institution and affirm it as they do to be humanum inventum a humane ordination when you know there were no men to chuse him and you see God himself doth appoint him and after the flood the Empire of Noah was divided betwixt his three sons Japheth reigned in Europe Johan Beda de jure Regum p. 4. Sem in Asia and Cham in Africa Yet I must confess the first Kingdom that is spoken of by that name is the Kingdom of Nimrod who notwithstanding is not himself termed King Gen. 10.9 but in the Scripture phrase a mighty hunter because he was not onely a great King but also a mighty Tyrant or oppressour of his people in all his Kingdom or as I rather conceive it because he was the first usurper that incroached upon his neighbours rights to enlarge his own dominions
Viretus his scandalous reasons answered to justifie the same against any one but of his right that cannot be the cause of any wrong and it cannot be denyed but an illiterate Prince may prove a singular advancer of all learning as Bishop Wickham was no great Scholler yet was he a most excellent instrument to produce abundance of famous Clerks in this Church and the King ruleth his Church by those Laws which through his royal authority are made with the advice of his greatest Divines as hereafter I shall shew unto you yet these spurious and specious pretexts may serve like clouds to hide the light from the eyes of the simple T. C. l. 2. p. 411. So Cartwright also that was our English firebrand and his Disciples teach as Harding had done before that Kings and Princes do hold their Kingdoms and Dominions under Christ as he is the Son of God onely before all Worlds coequal with the Father and not as he is Mediator and Governour of the Church and therefore the Christian Kings have no more to do with the Church government then the Heathen Princes so Travers saith that the Heathen Princes being converted to the faith receive no more nor any further encrease of their power whereby they may deale in Church causes then they had before so the whole pack of the Disciplinarians are all of the same minde and do hold that all Kings as well Heathen as Christian receiving but one Commission and equal Authority immediately from God have no more to do with Church causes the one sort then the other And I am ashamed to set down the railing and the scurrilous speeches of Anthony Gilby against Hen. 8. and of Knox Gilby in his admonition p. 69 Knox in his exhortation to the Nobility of Scotland fol. 77. Whittingham and others against the truth of the King 's lawful right and authority in all Ecclesiastical causes For were it so as Cartwright Travers and the rest of that crew do avouch that Kings by being Christians receive no more authority over Christ his Church then they had before * Which is most false yet this will appear most evident to all understanding men that all Kings as well the Heathens as the Christians are in the first place to see that their people do religiously observe the worship of that God which they adore and therefore much more should Christian Princes have a care to preserve the religion of Jesus Christ The Gentilee Kings preservers of religion For it cannot be denyed but that all Kings ought to preserve their Kingdoms and all Kingdoms are preserved by the same means by which they were first established and they are established by obedience and good manners neither shall you finde any thing that can beget obedience and good manners but Lawes and Religion and Religion doth naturally beget obedience unto the Lawes therefore most of those Kings that gave Lawes were originally Priests and as Synesius saith Synes ep 126. Vide Arnis part 2. pag. 14. Ad magnas reipubl utilitates retinetur religio in civitatibus Cicero de divin l. 2. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a Priest and a Prince was all one with them when the Kings to preserve their Laws inviolable and to keep their people in obedience that they might be happy became Priests and exercised the duties of Religion offering sacrifices unto their Gods and discha ging the other offices of the Priestly Function as our factious Priests could willingly take upon them the offices of the King or if some of them were not Priests as all were not Law-makers yet all of them preserved Religion as the onely preservation of their Lawes and the happinesse of their Kingdomes which thye saw could not continue without Religion But 2. The wisedom of our grave Prelates and the learning of our religious Clergie having stopped the course of this violent stream 2. In the Parliament and hindred the translation of this right of Kings unto their new-born Presbytery and late erected Synods There sprang up another generation out of the dregs of the former that because they would be sure to be bad enough out of their envy unto Kings and malice unto the Church that the one doth not advance their unworthyness and the other doth not bear with undutifullness will needs transfer this right of ruling God's Church unto a Parliament of Lay-men the King shall be denuded of what God hath given him and the people shall be endued with what God and all good men have ever denyed them I deny not but the Parliament men as they are most noble and worthy Gentlemen so many of them may be very learned and not a few of them most religious and I honour the Parliament rightly discharging their duties as much as their modesty can desire or their merit deserve neither do I gain-say but as they are pious men and the greatest Council of our King so they may propose things and request such and such Lawes to be enacted such abuses to be redressed and such a reformation to be effected as they think befitting for Gods Church but for Aaron's feed and the Tribe of Levi Hugo de Sancto Vict. l b 2. de sacr fid par 2. cap 3. Laicis Christianis fidelibus terrena possidere conceditur clericis verò tantum spiritualia committuntur quae aâ—tem illa spiritualia sunt subjicit c. 5. dicens omnis ecclesiastica administratio in tribus consistit in sacramentis in ordinibus in praeceptis Ergo Laici nihil juris habent in legibus praeceptis condendis ecclesiastâ—cis to be directed and commanded out of the Parliament chair how to perform the service of the Tabernacle and for Lay men to determine the Articles of faith to make Canons for Church-men to condemn heresies and define verities and to have the chief power for the government of Gods Church as our Faction now challengeth and their Preachers ascribe unto them is such a violation of the right of Kings such a derogation to the Clergy and so prejudicial to the Church of Christ as I never found the like usurpation of this right to the eradication of the true Religion in any age for seeing that as the Proverb goeth Quod medicorum est promittunt medici practant fabrilia fabri what Papist or Atheist will be ever converted to profess that religion which shall be truly what now they alleadge falsly unto us a Parliamentary religion or a religion made by Lay-men with the advice of a few that they choose è faece Cleri I must seriously profess what I have often bewayled to see Nadab and Abihu offering strange fires upon God's Altar to see the sacred offices of the Priests so presumptuously usurped by the Laity and to see the children of the Church nay the servants of the Church to prescribe Lawes unto their Masters and I did ever fear it to be an argument not onely of a corrupted but also of a
decaying State when Moses chaire should be set in the Parliament House and the Doctours of the Church should never sit thereon therefore I wish that the Ark may be brought back from the Philistines and restored to the Priests to be placed in Shilo where it should be and that the care of the Ark which king David undertook may not be taken out of his hands by his people but that he may have the honour of that service which God hath imposed upon him For Opinion 3 3. As nothing is dearer to understanding righteous and religious Kings then the encrease and maintenance of true religion Of the Orthodox Quia religio est ex potioribus reipublicae partibus ut ait Aristot Polit. l. 7. c. 8. ipsa sola custodit hominum inter se societates ut ait Lactant. de ira Dei cap. 12. Peritura Troja perdidit primùm Deos. Therefore the Tyrians chayned their gods lest if they fled they should be destroyed and the inlargement of the Church of Christ throughout all their Dominions so they have at all times imployed their studies to this end because it is an infallible maxime even among the Politicians that the prosperity of any Kingdome flourisheth for no longer time then the care of Religion and the prosperity of the Church is maintained by them among their people as we see Troy was soon lost when they lost their Palladium so it is the truest sign of a declining and a decaying State to see the Clergy despised and religion disgraced and therefore the provision for the safety of the Church the publick injoying of the word of God the form of Service the manner of Government and the honour and maintenance of the Clergy are all the duties of a most Christian King which the King of Heaven hath imposed upon him for the happiness and prosperity of his Kingdom and whosoever derive the authority of this charge either in a blinde obedience to the See of Rome as the Jesuites do or out of their too much zeal and affection to a new Consistory as the late Presbyterians did or to a Lay Parliament as our upstart Anabaptists aad Brownists do are most unjust usurpers of the Kings Right which is not onely ascribed unto him and warranted by the Word of God but is also confirmed to the Princes of this Land by several Acts of Parliament to have the supremacy in all causes and over all persons as well in the Ecclesiastical as in the Civil government which being so they are exempted thereby from all inforcement of any domestical or forraign power and freed from the penalties of all those Laws both Ecclesiastical and civil whereunto all their Subjects Clergy and Laity Q. Curtius de rebus Alexand. Joh. Beda p. 22 23. and all inferiour persons and the superiour Nobility within their Kingdomes are obliged by our Laws and Statutes as hereafter I shall more fully declare Therefore it behoveth all Kings and especially our King at this time seriously to consider what prejudice they shall create unto themselves and their just authority if they should yeild themselves inferiour to their Subjects aggregativè or repraesentativè or how you will or liable to the penal Laws for so they may be soon dethroned by the unstable affection and weak judgment of discontented people or subject to the jurisdiction of Lay Elders and the excommunication of a tyrannous Consistory who denouncing him Matth. 18.17 tanquam Ethnicum may soon add Deut. 17.15 a stranger shall not raign over thee and so depose him from all government For seeing all attempts are most violent that have their beginning and strength from zeal unto Religion be the same true or false and from the false most of all and those are ever the most dangerous whose ringleaders are most base as the servile War under Spartacus was most pernicious unto the Romans there can be nothing of greater use How necessary it is for Kings to retain their just rights in their hands or more profitable either for the safety of the King the peace of the Church and the quiet state of the Kingdome then for the Prince the King to retain the Militia and to keep that power and authority which the Laws of God and of our Land have granted to and intailed upon him in his own hands unclipped and unshaken for when the multitude shall be unbridled and the rights of the Kings are brandished in their hands we shall assuredly taste and I fear in too great a measure as experience now sheweth of those miserable evils which uncontrouled ignorance furious zeal false hypocricy and the merciless cruelty of the giddy-headed people and discontented Peeres shall bring upon us and our Prince But to make it manifest unto the World what power and authority God hath granted unto Kings for the government of the Church and the preservation of his true Religion we finde them the worst men at all times and in all places that mislike their Government and reject their authority and we see those Churches most happy The Kings that maintain true religion make their Kingdoms happy and those Kingdoms most flourishing which God hath blessed with religious Kings as the State of the Church of Judaea makes it plain when David Ezechias Josias and the other virtuous Kings restored the Religion and purified that Service which the idolatry of others their predecessours had corrupted and we know that as Moses * Exod. 14 31 Num. 12.7 8 Deut. 34.5 Josh 1.1 2. so kings are called the servants of God in a more special manner then all others are that is not onely because they serve the Lord in the Government of the Common wealth but especially because he vouchsafeth to use their service for the advancement of his Church and the honour of his Son Christ here on earth or to distribute their duties more particularly we know the Lord exspecteth and so requireth a double service from every Christian king 1. The one common with all others to serve him as they are his creatures and Christians The double service of all Christian kings and therefore to serve him as all other Christians are bound to do 2. The other proper and peculiar to them alone to serve him as they are Kings and Princes 1. As they are Christians In the first respect they are no more priviledged to offend then other men but they are tyed to the same obedience of Gods Laws and are obliged to performe as many virtuous actions and to abstain from all vices as well as any other of their Subjects and if they fail in either point they shall be called to the same account and shall be judged with the same severity as the meanest of their people and therefore Be wise O ye Kings be learned ye that are Judges of the earth Psal 2.10 Serve the Lord in fear and rejoyce unto him with reverence for with God there is no respect of persons but
ought to reprove and punish them as we read the good Kings of the Jewish Church and the godly Emperours * As Martian apud Binium l. 2. p. 178. Iustinian novel 10. tit 6. Theodos jun. Evagr. l. 1. c. 12. Basil in Council Constant 8. act 1. Binius tom 8. p. 880. Reason confirmeth that Kings should take care of religion of the Christian Church have ever done and the Bishops themselves in sundry Councils have acknowledged the same power and Authority to be due and of right belonging unto them as at Mentz Anno 814. and Anno 847. apud Binium tom 3. p. 462. 631. At Emerita in Portugall Anno 705. Bin. tom 2. p. 1183. and therefore it is an ill consequent to say Princes have no Authority to preach Ergo they have no authority to punish those that will not preach or that do preach false Doctrine This truth is likewise apparent not only by the the testimony of Scripture and Fathers but also by the evidence of plain reason because the prosperity of that Land which any King doth govern without a principal care of Religion decayeth and degenerateth into Wars Dearths Plagues and Pestilence and abundance of other miseries that are the lamentable effects and consequences of the neglect of Religion and contempt of the Ministers of Gods Church which I beleive is no small cause of these great troubles which we now suffer because our God Psal 35.27 that taketh pleasure in the prosperity of his servants cannot endure that either his service should be neglected or his servants abused CHAP VII Sheweth the three things necessary for all Kings that would preserve true Religion how the King may attain to the knowledge of things that pertain to Religion by his Bishops and Chaplains and the calling of Synods the unlawfulness of the new Synod the Kings power and authority to govern the Church and how both the old and new Disciplinarians and Sectaries rob the King of this power THerefore seeing this should be the greatest care that brings the greatest honour to a Christian Prince to promote the true Religion it is requisite that we should consider those things that are most necessary to a Christian King for the Religious performance of this duty And they are Three things necessary for a king to preferre the Church and the Religion 1. A will to performe it 2. An understanding to go about it 3. A power to effect it And these three must be inseperable in the Prince that maintaineth true Religion For 1. Our knowledge and our power without a willing minde doth want motion 2. Our will and power without knowledge shall never be able to move right And 3. Our will and knowledge without ability can never prevaile to produce any effect Therefore Kings and Princes ought to labour to be furnished with these three special graces The first is a good will to preserve the purity of Gods service 1. A willing minde to do it not onely in his House but also througout all his Kingdom and this as all other graces are must be acquired by our faithfull prayers and that in a more speciall manner for Kings and Princes then for any other and it is wrought in them by outward instruction and the often predication of God's Word and the inward inspiration of Gods Spirit The second is knowledge which is not much less necessaâ—y then the former 2. Understanding to know what is to be reformed and what to be retained because not to run right is no better then not to run at all and men were as good to do nothing as to do amiss and therefore true knowledge is most requisite for that King that will maintain true religion and this should be not onely in generall and by others but as much as possible he can in particulars and of himselfe that himselfe might be assured what were fit to be reformed and what warranted to be maintained in Gods service for so Moses commandeth the chiefe Princes to be exercised in Gods Law day and night because this would be a special means to beatifie or make happy both the Church and Common-Wealth As the neglect thereof brought ignorance unto the Church The kings neglect of religion and the Church is the destruction of the Common-wealth and ruine to the Romane Empire for as in Augustus time learning flourished and in Constantines time piety was much embraced because these Emperours were such themselves so when the Kings whose examples most men are apt to follow either busied with secular affairs or neglecting to understand the truth of things and the state of the Church do leave this care unto others then others imitating their neglect do rule all things with great corruption and as little truth whereby errours and blindness will over-spread the Church and pride covetousness and ambition will replenish the Common-Wealth and these vices like the tares that grow up in Gods field to suffocate the pure Wheat will at last choake up all virtue and piety both in Church and State Therefore to prevent this mischiefe the King on whom God hath laid the care of these things ought himselfe what he can to learn and finde out the true state of things and because it is far unbefitting the honour and inconsistent with the charge of great Princes whose other affairs will not permit them to be alwayes poring at their books as if they were such critiques How kings may attaine unto the knowledge of religion and understand the state of the Church and how to govern the same 1. To call able Clergy-men about them as intended to exceed all others in the theâ—rick learning like Archimedes that was in his study drawing forth his Mathematicall figures when the City was sackt and his enemies pulling down the house about his eares therefore it is wisdome in them to imitate the discreet examples of other wise Kings and religious Emperours in following the means that God hath left and using the power and authority that he hath given them to attain unto more knowledge and to be better instructed in any religious matter then themselves could possibly attaine unto by their own greatest study and that is 1. As Alexander had his Aristotle ready to inform him in any Philosophicall doubt and Augustus his prime Orators Poets and Historians to instruct him in all affairs so God hath granted this power unto his Kings to call those Bishops and command such Chaplaines to reside about them as shall be able to informe them in any truth of Divinity and so direct them in the best forme of Government of Gods Church and these Chaplains should be well approved both for their learning and their honesty for to be learned without honesty as many are is to be witty to do evill which is most pernitious and doth often times make a private gaine by a publique loss How they should be qualified or an advantage to themselves by the detriment of the Church
true religion and to suppress all Heresies and Schismes And so accordingly we finde the good Emperours and Kings have ever done The good Emperours have made Laws for the government of the Church Euseb in vita Constant l. 2. 3. for Constantine caused the idolatrous religions to be suppressed and the true knowledge of Christ to be preached and planted amongst his people and made many wholsome Lawes and godly Constitutions to restrain the sacrificing unto Idols and all other devillish and superstitious south-sayings and to cause the true service of God to be rightly administred in every place saith Eusebius And in another place he saith that the same Constantine gave injunctions to the chiefe Ministers of the Churches that they should make speciall supplication to God for him and he enjoyned all his Subjects that they should keep holy certain dayes dedicated to Christ and the Sabboth or Saturday which was then wont to be kept holy and as yet not abrogated by any Law among the Christians he gave a Law to the Ruler of every Nation that they should celebrate the Sunday or the Lords day in like sort Idem de vita Constant l. 1. 3. 4. c. 18. and so for the dayes that were dedicated to the memory of the Martyrs and other festival times and all such things were done according to the ordinance of the Emperour Nicephorus writing of the excellent virtues of Andronicus son to Immanuel Palaeologus and comparing him to Constantine the Great saith Niceph. in prafation Eccles hist thou hast restored the Catholique Church being troubled with new opinions to the old State thou hast banished all unlawfull and impure doctrine thou hast established the truth and hast made Lawes and Constitutions for the same Sozomen speaking of Constantines sons saith Sozomenus l 3. c. 17. the Princes also concurred to the increase of these things 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 shewing their good affections to the Churches no less then their father did and honouring the Clergy their servants with singular promotions and immunities both confirming their fathers Lawes and making also new Lawes of their own against such as went about to sacrifice and to worship Idols or by any other means fell to the Greekish or Heathenish superstitions Theodoret tells us that Valentinian at the Synod in Illirico did not onely confirme the true faith by his Royall assent but made also many godly and sharpe Lawes as well for the maintenance of the truth of Christ his doctrine as also touching many other causes Ecclesiastical and as ratifying those things that were done by the Bishops 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Theodor. l. c. 5 6 7. he sent abroad to them that doubted thereof Honorius at the request of Boniface the first made a Law whereby it might appear what was to be done Distinct 79. siduo when two Popes were chosen at once by the indiscretion of the Electors Martianus also made a Statute to cut off and put away all manner of contention about the true faith and Religion in the Councell of Calcedon The Emperour Justinus made a Law that the Churches of Heretiques should be consecrated to the Catholique Religion saith Martinus Poenitentiarius And who knowes not of the many Laws and Decrees that Justinian made in Ecclesiasticall causes for the furtherance of the true Religion for in the beginning of the Constitutions collected in the Code of Iustinian the first 13 titles are all filled with Laws for to rule the Church where it forbiddeth the Bishops to reiterate baptisme to paint L. 1. tit 5. L. 1. tit 7. Novel 123. c. 10. Novel 58. Novel 137. c. 6. or grave on earth the Image of our Saviour And in the Novels the Emperour ordaineth Lawes of the creation and consecration of Bishops that Synods should be annually held that the holy mysteries should not be celebrated in private houses that the Bishops should speak alond when they celebrate the Sacraments of Baptisme and the Eucharist and that the holy Bible should be translated into the vulgar tongue and the like And not onely these and the rest of the godly Emperours that succeeded them but also Ariamirus Wambanus Richaredus and divers other Kings of Spaine did in like manner And Charlemaigne who approved not the decisions of the Greekish Synod wrote a book against the same * Intituled A Treatise of Charlemaigne against the Greekish Synod touching Images whereby the King maintained himself in possession to make Lawes for the Church saith Johannes Beda of which Lawes there are many in a book called The capitulary Decrees of Charles the Great who as Popin his predecessour had done in the City of Bourges so did he also assemble many Councils in divers places of his Kingdoms as at Mayns at Tours at Reines at Chaalons at Arles and the sixt most famous of all at Francfort where himself was present in person and condemned the errour of Felician and so other Kings of France and the Kings of our own Kingdom of England both before and after the Conquest as Master Fox plentifully recordeth did make many Lawes and Constitutions for the government of God's Church The saying of Dioclesian But as Dioclesian that was neither the best nor the happiest governour said most truly of the civil government that there was nothing haraer th n to rule well * That is to rule the Common-wealth so it is much harder to govern the Church of Christ therefore as there cannot be an argument of greater wisdome in a Prince nor any thing of greater safety and felicity to the Common-wealth then for him to make choice of a wise Council to assist him in his most weighty affaires Tacitus Annal. lib. 12. saith Cornelius Tacitus So all religious Kings must do the like in the government of the Church and the making of their Lawes for that government for God out of his great mercy to them and no less desire to have his people religiously governed left such men to be their supporters their helpers and advisers in the performance of these duties and I pray you whom did Kings chuse for this business but whom God had ordained for that purpose for you may observe that although those Christian Kings and Emperours made their Lawes as having the supremacy and the chieâ—est câ—re of God's religion committed by God into their hands yet they did never make them that ever I could read with the advice counsel or direction of any of their Peers or Lay Subjects but as David had Nathan and God The good Kings Emperours made their Lawes for the government of the Church onely by the adv ce of their Clergy A good Law of Instinian Constit 123. Nâ—buâ—hadnezzar had Daniel and the rest of the Jewish Kings and Heathens had their Prophets onely and Priests to direct them in all matters of religion so those Chr stian Kings and Princes took their Bishops and their Clergie onely to be their counsellors and
then any one man can rule and would quickly despise Heaven and destroy the earth if their consciences were not awed with Religion or would you damme up the channels of those benefits that should flow from them to the Common-wealth for it is not the addition of any honour to the calling of a Bishop but the King's interest and the peoples good that is aimed at when we assert the capacity of the Clergy to discharge the offices of the most publique affaires Petrus Blesensis ep 84. because as Petrus Blesensis saith it is the office of the Bishops to instruct the King to righteousness to be a rule of Sanctity and sobriety unto the Court to mix the influencies of Religion with the designes of State and to restrain the malignity of the ill-disposed people and all histories do relate unto us that when pious Bishops were imployed in the King's Counsels the rigour of the Lawes was abated equity introduced the cry of the poor respected their necessities relieved the liberties of the Church preserved pride depressed religion increased the devotion of the Laity multiplied the peace of the Kingdom flourished and the tribunals were made more just and merciful then now they be And therefore the sacred histories do record of purpose how the people of God never adventured upon any action of weight and moment before they had well consulted with the Priests and Prophets as you see in the example of Ahab No Nation attempted any great matter without the advice of their Priests that was none of the best Kings yet would not omit this good duty and such was the custom of all other Countries wheresoever there was any religion or reverence of God Quae enim est respub ubi ecclesiastici primum non habeant locum in comitiis publicis de salute reipub deliberationibus for which is that Common-wealth where the Ecclesiastical persons had not the first place in all meetings and publique consultations about the welfare of the Common-wealth as in Germany the three spiritual Electours are the first in France the three Ecclesiastical persons were the first of all the Peers in England till this unhappy time the two Archbishops and in Poland as many were wont to have the chiefest place and not unworthily quia aequum est Apud Euseb Pamphilam l. 11. Strabo l. 4. Caesar de bello Gallico lib. 6. antestent in concilio qui antestant prudentiâ nec videtur novisse res humanas nisi qui divinas cognitas habet as the Indian said unto Socrates and therefore the Chaldaans the Aegyptians the Graecians the Romanes the French and the Britons thought it alwayes ominous to attempt any notable thing in the Common-wealth without the sad and sage advice of their Priests and Prophets for they knew the neglect of God was never left without due revenge and though their false gods were no gods yet the true God was found to have been a sharp revenger of the contempt of the false gods because that to them they were proposed for the true gods and they believed them so to be as Lactantius sheweth and therefore all antiquity that bare any reverence to any Deity shewed all reverence and respect unto the teachers of his religion but now men desire to throw learning over the Bar because it should not discover the ignorance of the Bench or rather piety is excluded because it should not reprove their iniquity And the Clergy must not sit on the seat of judgement that the Laity may do injustice without controul or perhaps revenge themselves upon their Ministers on the Bench for reproving their vices in the Church so the Devil gaineth whatsoever piety loseth by their depression 2. As the Clergy-men are as able 2. The desire of the Clergy to do good to the State so they are as willing and as careful to provide for the good of the State as any other for themselves are members of the Common-wealth and they are appointed by God to be watchmen and overseers to foretel what mischiefes or felicities are like to ensue and to admonish as well the Prince as the people of such things as are to be avoided and to be performed which they cannot do if they be strangers from the conscience and excluded from the conference of such things that are to be done in the Common wealth Therefore seeing the good of the Common-wealth is their own good The Church of Christ and a Christian common-wealth sail together and the good of the Church is the good of the Common-wealth when a Christian Common-wealth and the Church of Christ are imbarked in the same Vessel and do sayle together with the same successe aiming both at the same Port and God hath commanded his Ministers to be no lesse solicitous for the one then the other it is incredible to think that a godly Minister should have lesse care of the Common-wealth then the best of our common Burgo-Masters and it is impossible to conceive any true reason why the Bishops and Pastours above all others should be excommunicated out of their assemblies and excluded from their Parliaments and other civil Courts when it doth most chiefly concern them to see unto the wellfare of their flock not onely in such things as concern the safety of their souls A miserable thing that the Ministers of the Gospel should be made more slaves then the basest calling in the World but also in all other things that may pertain either to the security of their bodies or the quietness of their estates because this is a thing utterly against the equal right of all Subjects that the Ministers of the Gospel being Subjects unto the king and Citizens of the Commonwealth should have nothing to do in the Government thereof but must be governed not as strangers that may have admission but as slaves with an impossibility to be received into the civil administration af any matter and their exclusion is as prejudicial to the king and kingdome as it is injurious unto the Clergy when they must be deprived of the grave advice and faithful service of so learned and religious assistants for the government of the people as the reverend Bishops and devout Doctors have ever been Ob. 3. Act. 15. S. Cyprian punished Geminius Faustinus for undertaking the Executor ship of Geminius Victor ep 66. Sol. 3. If you say the sixth Canon of the Apostles the seventh Canon of the Council of Calcedon and Saint Cyprian in his Epistle to the Priests of Furnam do forbid these things in Ecclesiastical persons and so many Fathers have accordingly refused these civil imployments and jurisdictions I answer briefly that while the Emperours were Heathens and neither the Kings nor their Kingdoms Christian but their counsels were often held for wicked ends private gain or privy deceit for bloudy murthers or horrid treason◠the Clergy were inhibited and the godly Bishops were ashamed to sit in such ungodly assemblies that would neither be converted to
Christ nor reformed from their sins and so now when the Puritan faction prevailed in our Parliament Good to be excluded from the counsel of the wicked and our Sectaries disdained in their counsels to take the counsel of Religion and resolved to banish GOD from their assemblies to make the Church and Church-men a publick scorn unto the wicked and the Common-wealth a private gain to every broken Citizen and every needy Varlet I say happy are those Bishops that are excluded and well it is for those Ministers that are furthest off from such godless and irreligious not Parliament but Parricides even as the Psalmist testifieth Blessed is the man that hath not sate in the seat of the scornful Psal 1.1 and therefore if they had not been excluded I am sure that as the case now standeth they would have seceded themselves But when the civil Magistrates became Christians and the Christians consulted with God in all their actions then it was no indecorum for the servants of Christ to be seen in the Congregation of Saints and to sit as Judges among gods where the judgement shall pass for the glory of God neither is it any prejudice to our holy calling The giving of Caesar's due doth not hinder us to give to god his due to give unto Caesar those things that are Caesar's and that we owe unto him as our service and our counsel and whatsoever else lyeth in us to do for the good of the Common-wealth as we are his Subjects and the Tenants of the Common-wealth nor do the rendering of these things to Caesar any wayes hinder us to give unto God the things that are God's and that we owe to God as our prayers and our care over God's flock as we are Christians and Bishops over the Church of Christ but the same man if he will be faithful may justly perfoâ—m both duties without giving over or neglecting either And when our men shall return to God and take him along with them into their counsels and desire the assistance of his servants as I hope they will have grace to do I assure my self the Reverend Bishops will not refuse to do them service Ob. 4 But you will say the Emperours were good Christians when the Council of Calcedon put out their Canons Sol. I answer the Emperours were but all Kings were not besides that Canon cleares it self for it sheweth that Clergymen did at that time undertake secular imployments Propter lucra turpia ministerium Dei parvi pendentes for gaine neglecting their duty and therefore the Council forbade all Clergy-men negotiis secularibus se immiscere because the Apostle saith 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 2 Tim. 2.4 no man that warreth intangleth or insnareth himself with the affairs of this life and so neither the Apostle nor the Council doth absolutely forbid all secular affairs as inconsistent with this function but as the Council of Arles saith Concil Arelai Caâ— 14. The words of the Canon explained Clericus turpis lucri gratia aliquod genus negotiationis non exerceat so they forbid all Clerks to meddle with any business for the love of gain and filthy lucre that might insnare him to neglect his duty or as the Canon of the Apostle saith 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a Bishop should not assume unto himself or seeke after worldly cares but if either necessity or authority impose them on him I see not how he can refuse them because there is no absolute prohibition of such imployments in any place but as it might be a hinderance to discharge his office or otherwise Saint Paul's Tent-making was as much against the calling of an Apostle as the sitting in a secular tribunal is against the office of a Bishop because there is no reason we should deny that benefit to a publick necessitated community which we will yeeld to a private personal necessity And so indeed these very men that cry out against our Bishops The Presbyterians will be the directors of all affaires and other grave Prelates of the Church for the least medling in these civil affaires do not onely suffer their own Preachers to strain at a gnat but also to swallow a Camel when M. Henderson Marshal Case and the rest of their new inspired Prophets shall sit as Presidents in all their Counsels and Committees of their chiefest affaires and consultations either about War or Peace or of any other civil cognizance how these things can be answered to deny that to us which they themselves do practise I cannot understand when as the light of Nature tells us Quod tibi vis fieri mihi fac quod non mihi noli Sic potes in terris vivere jure poli * Vnde Baldus jubet ut quis in alios non aliter judicet quà m in se judicari vellet And therefore when as there is no politick Philosophy no imperial constitution nor any humane invention that doth or can so strictly binde the consciences of men unto subjection and true obedience as the Doctrine of the Gospel and no man can perswade the people so much unto it as the Preachers of Gods word as it appeareth by this Rebellion perswaded by the false Preachers because the Principles of Philosophy and the Laws of many nations do permit many things to be done against tyrants which the Religion of Christ and the true Bishops of Gods Church do flatly inhibit How requisite it is for Kings to delegate civil affaires unto their Clergie it is very requisite and necessary for all Christian Kings both for the glory of God their own safety and the happiness of the Common-wealth to defend this their own right and the right of the Clergy to call them into their Parliaments and Counsels and to demise certain civil causes and affairs to the gravest Bishops and the wisest of the Ministers and not suffer those Rebellious Anabaptists and Brownists that have so disloyally laboured to pull off the Crown from their Kings head to bury all the glory of the Church in the dust to bring the true Religion into a scorn and to deprive the King of the right which is so necessary for his safety and so useful for the Government of his people that is the service of his Clergy in all civil Courts and Councils And as it is the Kings right to call whom he pleaseth into his Parliaments and Councils That it is the Kings right to give titles of honour to whom he pleaseth and to delegate whom he will to discharge the office of a civil or Ecclesiastical magistrate or both wheresoever he appoints within his Realms and Dominions so it is primarily in his power and authority and his regal right to give titles of honour and dignity to those officers and magistrates whom he chooseth for though the Barbarians acknowledge no other distinction of Persons but of Master and Servants which was the first punishment for the first contempt of our Superiors Gen. 9.25
every ordinance of the higher power for the Lords sake so for the higher power to dispence with both Gods Law admitteth an interpretation not a dispensation of it is most agreeable to reason and Gods truth for all our Lawes are either divine or humane and in the divine Law though we allow of interpretation quia non sermoni res sed rei sermo debet esse subjectus because the words must be applyed to the matter else we may fall into the heresie of those that as Alfonsus de Castro saith held it unlawfull upon any occasion to sweare because our Saviour saith sweare not at all yet no man King nor Pope hath power to grant any dispensation for the least breach of the least precept of Gods Law he cannot dispence with the doing of that which God forbiddeth to be done nor with the omitting of that which God commandeth but in all humane Lawes Mans Law may be dispensed with so far as they are meerly positive and humane it is in the power of their makers to dispence with them and so quicquid fit dispensatione superioris non fit contra praeceptum superioris and he sinneth neither against the Law nor against his own conscience because he is delivered from the obligation of that Law by the same authority whereby he stood bound unto it And as he that is dispensed with is free from all sin so the King which is the dispenser is as free from all fault as having full right and power to grant His dispensations For seeing that all humane Lawes are the conclusions of the Law of nature or the evidences of humane reason shewing what things are most beneficiall to any society either the Church or Common-wealth and that experience teacheth us our reason groweth often from an imperfection to be more perfect when time produceth more light unto us we cannot in reason deny an abrogation and dispensation to all humane Lawes which therefore ought not to be like the Lawes of the Medes and Persians that might not be changed Aug. de libero arbit l. 1. and so Saint Augustine saith Lex humana quamvis justa sit commutari tamen pro tempore juste potest any humane Law though it be never so just yet for the time as occasion requireth may be justly changed dispensatio est juris communis relaxatio facta cum causâ— cognitione ab eo Dispensation what it is qui jus habet dispensandi and as the Civilians say a dispensation is the relaxation of common right granted upon the knowledge of the cause by him that hath the power of dispensing or as the etymologie of the word beareth dispensare est diversa pensare The reward of learning and vertue how to be rendered to dispense is to render different rewards and the reward of learning or of any other virtue either in the civill or the ecclesiasticall person being to be rendered as one saith not by an Arithmeticall but a Geometricall proportion and the division of Parishes being as I said before a positive humane Law it cannot be denyed but the giver of honour and the bestower of rewards which is the King hath the sole power and right to dispose how much shall be given to this or that particular person If you say the Law of the King Ob. which is made by the advice of his whole Parliament hath already determined what portion is fit for every one and what service is required from him I answer that the voice of equity and justice tells us Sol. that a generall Law doth never derogate from a speciall priviledge or that a priviledge is not opposite to the principles of common right and where the Law it selfe gives this priviledge as our Law doth it yet envy it selfe can never deny this right unto the King to grant his dispensation whensoever he seeth occasion and where the Law is tacite and faith nothing of any priviledge yet seeing in all Lawes The end of every Law is chiefly to be respected as in all other actions the end is the marke that is aimed at and this end is no other then the publique good of any society for which the Law is made if the King which is the sole Law-maker so as I shewed in my Discovery of Mysteries seeth this publique good better procured by granting dispensations to some particular men doth he not performe thereby what the Law intendeth and no wayes breake the Law of common right as if a mans absence from his proper Cure should be more beneficiall to the whole Church Reasons of dispensations then his residence upon his Charge could possibly be as when his absence may be either for the recovery of his health or to discharge the Kings Embassage or to do his best to confute Heretiques or to pacifie Schismes or to consult about the Church affaires or some other urgent cause that the Law never dreamt of when it was in making shall not the King whom the Lawes have intrusted with the examination of these things and to whom the principal care of Religion and the charge of all the People is committed by God himselfe and the power of executing his own Lawes have power to grant his dispensations for the same Certainly they that would perswade the world that all Lawes must have such force that all dispensations are transgressions of them as if generall rules should have no exceptions would manacle the Kings hands and binde his power in the chaines of their crooked wills that he should not be able to do that good which God and Right and Law it selfe do give him leave and their envy towards other mens grace How God doth diversly bestow his gifts Matth. 25.15 Gen. 43.34 is a great deale more then either the grace of humility or the love of truth in them for doth not God give five talents to some of his servants when he gives but one to some others and did not Joseph make Benjamins messe five times so much as any of his brethren's and have not some Lords six or eight or ten thousand pounds a year and some very good men in the Common-wealth and perhaps higher in God's favour not ten pounds a year and shall not the King double the reward of them that deserve it in the Church of God or shall he be so curbed and manacled that he shall neither alter nor dispense with his own Law though it be for the greater glory unto God and the greater benefit both to the Church and Common-wealth Besides who can deny but that some mens merits virtue paines and learning are more worthy of two Benefices then many others are of one and when in his younger time he is possessed of a small Benefice he may perchance afterwards when his years deserve better far easier obtain another little one to keep with it then get what I dare assure you he would desire much rather * For who would not rather chuse one Living of an
100 l. a year then two of 50 l. a piece one Living of equall value to them both and shall the unlearned zeal of an envious minde so far prejudice a worthy man that the King 's lawful right shall be censured and his power questioned and clipped or traduced by this ignorant Zelot I will blesse my self from them and maintain it before all the world that the King's dispensations for Pluralities Non-residency and the like Priviledges not repugnant to common right are not against Law nor the giving or taking of them upon just causes against conscience but what the violence of this viperous brood proclaimeth an intolerable offence we dare warrant both with good reason and true Divinity to be no sin no fault at all but an undoubted portion of the King 's right for the greater benefit both of the Church and State and the greater glory unto God himself The Author's Petition to His Majesty And therefore most gracious King we humbly desire your Majesty suffer not these children of Apollyon to pull this flower out of your Royal Crown to abridge you of your just right of granting dispensations for Pluralities and Non-residency which the Lawes of your Land do yet allow you and which they labour to annul to darken the glory of God's Church and to bring your Clergy by depriving them of their meanes and honour into contempt lest that when by one and one they have robbed you of all your rights they will fairly salute you as the Jews did Christ Haile King of the Jewes when God knows they hated him and stript him of all power I speak not of his Divinity either to govern them or to save himself 3. The toleration of divers Sects and sorts of religions 3. As the King hath right and power to grant his dispensations both of grace and of justice of grace when it is merely of the King ' Princely favour as in legitimations and the like and of justice when the King findeth a just cause to grant it so likewise it is in the King's power and right to remit any offence that is the mulct or penalty and to absolve the offender from any or all the transgressions of his own Lawes from the transgression of God's Law neither King nor Pope nor Priest nor any other can formally remit the fault and absolve transgressors but as God is the Law-giver so God alone must be the forgiver of the offence Mar. 2.7 so the Jewes say who can forgive sins but God onely Yet as God which gives the Law can lawfully remit the sin and forgive the breach of the Law As David pardoned Absolon and Solomon Abiathar so the King which makes these positive Lawes cannot be denyed this power to pardon when he seeth cause or is so pleased the offenders of his Lawes as you see they do many times grant their pardons for the most haynous faults and capital crimes as treasons murders felonies and the like and if they may grant their pardons for the breach of the Law and remit the mulct imposed for the transgression thereof it is strange if they should not have right to dispense with whom they please when they see cause from the bond of the Law and therefore we are to discuss how far the King in these Lawes of the Church may give exemptions and tolerations unto them whose consciences cannot submit themselves to the observation of the established Laws Christ biddeth that the â—ares should grow Matth. 13.30 And the Apostle saith 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 there must be heresies therefore there must be a toleration of divers Sects 1 Cor. 11.19 Four special sorts of false Professors 1. Jewes Whitak against Campian translated by Master Stoke p. 311. With what cautions the Jewes are to be suffered for seeing all men are not of the same faith nor do profess the same Religion and it is the nature of all men to dislike that which themselves will not profess and if opportunity serve to root out that which they dislike it is requisite it should be shewed how far a prudent and a pious Prince may grant a toleration the Law in terminis not forbidding it unto any of these Sects that may be commorant within his Kingdomes Touching which I say that besides dissembling hypocrites and prophane worldlings that have no faith nor any other Religion but the shadow of that Religion whatsoever it is which is profest wheresoever they are there may be in any Kingdome Jewes Turkes Papists Puritans and the like or to call them otherwise Idolaters Hereticks Schismatickes c. And 1. For the Jewes though they have many things in their Religion which will ever alienate them from the Papists yet they have free leave to use their ancient Ceremonies in Rome saith Doctor Whitaker and it is well known that many pious Princes have permitted them to dwell and to exercise their own Religion in this kingdome the old Jury in London is so called because it was allotted for their abode and the Lawes of many Christian Emperours have in like sort permitted them to do the like in their Dominions but with those cautions and limitations that Moses prescribed unto the Jewes to be observed with the Heathens and Idolaters that dwelt amongst them that is neither to make marriages with them nor to communicate with them in their Religion And Saint Augustine is reported to be so favourable towards them that he alleadgeth several reasons for their toleration As 1. That above and before others they had the promise of salvation Deut. 7.3 Exod. 23.32 Doctor Covel c. 14. p. 199. 1 Reason for their toleration Rom. 11.24 25. 2 Reason Psal 59.11 and therefore though some of the branches be cut off and the case of the rest be most lamentable yet not altogether desperate and incurable if we consider what the Apostle setteth down of their conversion and re-unition unto the good right olive tree 2. That the Prophet David speaking of them made that prayer unto God Slay them not O Lord lest my people forget it but scatter them abroad among the Heathen and put them down O Lord our defence for many excellent ends as first that their being scattered among the Christians might shew both the clemency and severity of God towards us mercy and clemency and towards them justice and severity which may likewise happen unto us if we take not heed as the Apostle bids us Be not high minded but fear and secondly Rom. 11.20 We may not force the Jews to beleive that being among the Christians they might the sooner at all times by their charity and prayers be reduced the more willingly to imbrace the faith of Christ when as unwillingly we may neither compel them nor take their children to be baptized from them And therefore as the Princes of this Realm for divers causes hurtful to their State have banished them out of their Dominions so if they see good cause to permit them as time
duty in the service of God the instructing of his people and the governing of that Diocess commended to his care he was invested and admitted to have and to injoy all the rights interests priviledges and prerogatives of that Bishoprick But the Irish Rebells through the perswasions of their Popish Priests and suggestions of Satan have expelled him and detained all his dues and rights from him about 19 years together And when the goodness of God was pleased to restore the gratious Son of that glorious Martyr unto his Crown and Dignity his Majestie imitating the pious steps of his most Religious Father restored all the Reverend Bishops and the rest of the Learned and Loyall Clergy unto their ancient rights and pristine dignities the malicious enemy of all goodness Satan now deals with the Church of Christ as he did with the Church of the Jews after their captivity Ezra 4.7 Neh. 6.1 the Devill and Satanas still envying the Honour of God and by all means striving to obscure the Glory of his Church and the happy Restauration of his service As formerly after the captivity of the children of Israel the Jews in Babylon when they were happily returned unto their own Land which the God of their Fathers had bestowed upon them and their posterities for ever and were now beginning to re-edify their Temple for the honour of their God and the place of his Worship for his people he stirred up Bishlam Mithredath Tabeel Samballat Tobiah Geshem and the rest of their companions the enemies of Gods people to hinder all their proceedings in setting forwards the true service of their God by writing false Letters unto the King and upon their unjust informations procuring letters from the King to obstruct the building and working of Gods House to the great prejudice and grief of those Holy men that aimed at nothing more then to promote the glory of God and the good of his people So now he stirred up many Armed men or men of Arms and Commanders of men men of Renown that in the year 49 shewed themselves very active and serviceable for their and our undubitable King his now gratious Majesty and whom his Majesty for that their faithfulness and service did most gratiously and justly according as they had deserved most Royally and like a King reward them with Cities Lands Houses Gardens and the like evidences of his Royall bounty under the pretence of this his Majesties grant and gift to labour and strive to swallow down the Lands and Houses which I am sure do of right belong unto the Church of God and am confident his Majesty is so pious that he never intended to reward his servants with any of those goods Why Lands dedicated for the service of God should not be alienated Rom. 2.22 of what nature soever they are that were dedicated and set apart for the service of God because the alienating of any things set apart and consecrated for Gods service and dedicated to that end is no less then sacriledge and Sacriledge is a sin of such a transcendent nature as is far more odious and abominable in the sight of God then most of all other sins for St. Paul demandeth If thou that abhorrest Idols wilt commit sacriledge And you all know what a horrible sin Idolatry is and how highly the Lord God was offended and how grievously he punished and plagued the Israelites for the same Exod. 32.28 as when he slue 3000 men for their Idolatry in worshipping the golden Calfe Why sacriledge is more abominable and a greater sin then idolatry And yet St. Paul sheweth herein that sacriledge is far more odious and a more abominable sin in the sight of God because by Idolatry we do but give the honour of God to that which is no god but by our sacriledge we rob the true God of that honour which is due unto him and we deprive him of that worship and service and thanks that he should have from many men if they were not deprived and robbed of their estates by that sacriledge which makes them unable to do that service and to bring others to do that service unto God which they ought to do And therefore most justly hath that sacriledge which is the diminution of the revenues of the Church been ever accounted the highest the boldest and the most damnable sin in the World For our Religion is the very ground of all our happiness and the chiefest of all our comforts and the riches honours and Revenues of the Church the Tythes Oblations and Donations of Religious men are as I shall fully shew unto you in this Treatise the very main outward props of our Religion and if with Sampson you take away the pillars you overthrow the House sublatis studiorum praemiis ipsa studia pereunt saith Seneca so take away the props of Religion and your Religion like a tottering wall will soon fall unto the ground and when you have supplanted our Religion yoâ— have dissolved all the tyes and associations betwixt God and men and left us all as aliens and strangers and which is worse enemies unto God And therefore when other mischiefes have their limits and so hurt but one or other and there is an end yet this sin of Sacriledge strikes at Goodness and Godliness it self it sets the world besides its hindges and sweeps away our peace and all our happiness from off the earth when as God and the King and all of us are thereby unexpressibly damnified And therefore he is no better then a savage beast and hath a heart of iron and Cyclopick breasts quae genuere ferae that can invade heaven and rob God and put down the Prerogatives of his King and spoil mankind of all safety which made the very Heathens themselves to have alwaies an exceeding great reverence of the things that were dedicated unto their gods and to violate the Religion of other Countries which they thought much more vain then their own they conceived to be so monstrous that it was alwaies accounted inauspicious and the wrongs done to a false deity carried an horror with it and was usually revenged by the true God Yet these men being many rich and powerfull both in wealth wit What the men of the year 49 do say and Friends would perswade our good King and all others but not aright that they are most zealous for the Church of Christ and the service of God and what lands and houses they seek to take from us belong not to us nor to the Church of God and therefore that it is no sacriledge nor any waies unjust in them to take from us what the King hath justly bestowed on them but it is a soul imputation most uncharitably cast upon them by me to blemish their sincerity in the service and for the honour of God And therefore seeing that in foro poli I am like Troylus What the Author doth in this c nflict about the ights of the
or man Prince or peasant it can not be safe Yea though thou shouldst seem for a long time to be in peace and free from all danger for as Optatus saith against the Donatists An quia câ—ssâ—t talis modò vindicta ideo tibi cum tuis vindicas innocentiam Are you therefore innocent because God doth not presently punish you so may I say to all Sacrilegious persons and to all other oppâ—essors and unjust men whatsoever Do you think your selves happy and free from all blame and deserve no punishment because you do injoy your spoils and Church-goods or lands peaceably by no means Quia aliud misericorditer dat Deus aliud habere sinit iratus Glossa ordinar in Job 12. because it is one thing when God bestoweth Wealth Honours and Lands upon us in mercy and out of his love to us and it is another thing when he suffereth us to injoy them when he is angry and most wrathfully displeased with us and though we may and ought to be glad and rejoyce for the one yet ought we to be sad and sorrowfull for the others because all the wealth in the World is not answerable to the wrath of God but I had rather be a beggar with his love then to possess the wealth of Croesus and the honours of Augustus with his anger and angry he must needs be with them that take away the Lands and Houses of his servants that serve him at his Altar whereby they are disabled either to serve him or to teach his people which must therefore perish because thou doest rob the Church and unjustly take away that which is none of thine for seeing as S. Augustine saith Hoc jure possidetur quod justè hoc justè quod bene igitur omne quod malè possidetur alienum est That is rightly possessed which is justly gotten and that is justly gotten which is well gotten without fraud without violence therefore all whatsoever is naughtily gotten that is unjustly possessed and is none of thine and whatsoever we do hold and enjoy that is none of our own though we should possess it never so long and enjoy it never so peaceably without punishment and without being once questioned for it yet at last the just God that useth to bear with offences long Quia saepe Deus hic parciâ— ut illic saeviat will require a strict account for our unjust taking and more unjust detaining thereof and he will then recompense his long forbearance with severity of vengeance and our punishment shall be the sorer in the next life because that like Dives we have escaped all punishment in this life De male quaesitis vix gaudet tertius haeres And for those lands and goods thus sacrilegiously gotten and unjustly possessed we may truly say That his posterity for whose inriching he underwent the wrath of God shall not likely enjoy them long But as the Ark of God when it was taken from the Levites could find no resting place among the Philistines but was removed from Asdod to Gath and from Gath to Ekron and so from one place to another till it came to its own proper place so God may deal and commonly doth use to deal with them that take away the goods Petrus Blesensis Epist 10. lands and houses of his Church Quae malignè contraxit pater pejori luxu refundet filius That which the father hath sacrilegiously snatched and most wickedly scraped together And were it not that I am loath to disgrace the present posterity of sacrilegious parents I could shew you many brave families in England that came to utter ruine since the time of Henry the Eighth for this very sin of Sacriledge the son or at least the grand-child shall as loosely scatter it abroad and so it shall passe and repasse from one to another until it be far enough from him and his for whom it was at first collected and the sacrilegious father shall gain nothing by his wicked sacriledge but the wrath and judgement of God against himself and the curse of God to remain upon his posterity because God hath threatned to visit the sins of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate him and I think none hates him if the sacrilegious persons love him that do both rob and as I shewed before war against him CHAP. III. The divers sorts and kinds of Sacrilegious persons And first of those that do it under colour of Law and upon the pretence of Reformation whereby they suppose their Sacriledge to be no Sacriledge at all BUt having heard of the odiousness and punishment of this horrible sin of Sacriledge we may do well to take notice of the divers kinds of sacrilegious persons and I find them specially to be of two sorts 2 Sorts of sacrilegious persons That is 1. They that do it under the colour of Law and upon pretence of Reformation of the Church and abuses crept into the Church 2. They that do it against all Law without any colour of right and to the rooting out of all Piety and Religion 1. It is reported that when Constantine became a Christian 1. Legal sacrilegious persons and indowed the Church of Christ with large Revenues a voice was heard from Heaven saying Hodiè venenum intravit in Ecclesiam How thâ—y say Poison entred into the Church and how ill it is now cured This day is poison poured out into the Church which was indeed from Hell when the envious man that holds it for a Maxim Quod non oportet Christum ditescere That Christ which was born poor should not become rich and much less should the servants become wealthy when the Master is alwayes poor But he might have as well said This day is honey entred into the Church for as of wealth if you have too much it may prejudice you so of honey if you eat too much it will make you to vomit saith Solomon Prov. 25.16 When as a competency of either may do much good and no hurt but his poison is alwayes bad and seldom doth any good unlesse it be very well and wisely tempered with good ingredients But howsoever so it happened to the Church and to the servants of Christ that the world and worldly men said how truly I cannot judge This wealth and promotion brought ease and pride and luxury amongst them which might be so to some of them but questionless not to all nor to most of them yet however as swelling waters when they are at the highest must needs fall and be scattered so say the men that either envied at the Prosperity of the Church or desired the Reformation of what they conceived amiss This poison must be purged or the honey vomited before the Church could be healed of her infective tumours or the Clergy cleansed from their pride and luxury And therefore an Antidote must be sought and a Remedy must be found to allay
Clergy man from the letter of the law doth pervert the end and abuse the meaning of the law I make it a case of Conscience and demand Whether such men as do let out the lands and houses of the Church for their own private gain and not for the benefit of Gods Church and the advancement of Gods service do not commit this horrible sin of Sacriledge For my part I conceive them to be the worst and most Sacrilegious persons of all others that should know the truth and not give such ill examples both of Covetousness and Sacriledge unto their neighbours How the Bishops and other Clergy-men may lease their Lands without Sacriledge but let them lease what they will for the benefit of Gods Church the furtherance of Religion and the no-prejudice of their successors and they shall never find me to oppose them But otherwise to lease the lands of the Church that is better worth then a 100 l. per annum for less then a 100 s. for to make our children great and the Church poor to benefit our selves and to prejudice Gods service and to say We have a law that warrants us to do it We have Acts of Parliament that allow it and have the practice and presidents of other Bishops Deans and Chapters that have done it is but to say as the Jews said to Pilate We have a law and by our law he ought to die And ought he therefore to die think you because these Jews had such a law I verily think not so and I think likewise that though you have or should have a law to take away and alienate the rights of the Church yet you should not do it if you love the Church or do any waies fear God And for the practice of some other Bishops Deans and Chapters I confess heretofore many of them have done bad enough and worse in my mind then the worst of lay men for them to sell the rights of the Church and so with Judas to betray their Master Christ but Vivitur praeceptis non exemplis if the practice and presidents of others would or could excuse our faults then Drunkards Whore-masters and Murderers might easily find presidents enough to excuse their wickedness and so I know the Sacrilegious persons may as easily find the like But I shall hereafter shew you how and by whose power and by what means these our Laws and Acts of Parliament for the alienating By whose power the laws for leasing and passing away the Church-lands came to be made Consider that leasing and selling of the revenues of the Church came to be made and leave it to any pious mind and conscientious man to consider Whether they ought in the strictness thereof to be observed or not and not rather commend the care and great piety of our late most gratious King and now glorious Martyr Charles the I. Who a little to curb the extravagancies and large extent of our laws by his regall Authority wrote his letters to all Bishops Deans and Chapters that they should lease out their lands for no longer term then 21 years as it appeareth by this his most gratious and pious Letter directed unto my self the Dean and Chapter of the Cathedrall Church of Bangor which for the honour and praise and our thankfulness to so pious and so Religious a King for his care and love to the Church and service of God I thought it my duty to insert it in this place To our Trusty and wel-beloved the Dean of Bangor Charles Rex TRusty and welbeloved We greet you well We have lately taken the State of our Cathedral and Collegiat Churches into our Princely Consideration that We may be the better able to preserve that livelyhood which as yet is left unto them Vpon this deliberation We find that of later times there hath not risen a greater inconvenience then by turning Leases of one and twenty years into Lives for by that means the present Dean and Chapter put great Fines into their Purses to enrich themselves their wives and children and leave their Successors of what deserts soever to Vs and the Church destitute of that growing means which else would come in to help them By which course should it continue scarce any of them could be able to live and keep house according to their Place and Callings We know the Statute makes it alike lawful for a Dean and Chapter to let their Leases for the Term of one and twenty years or three Lives but time and experience have made it apparent that there is a great deal of difference between them especially in Church-Leases where men are commonly in years before they come to those Places These are therefore to will and command you upon peril of Our utmost displeasure and what shall follow thereon that notwithstanding any Statute or any other pretence whatsoever you presume not to let and Lease belonging to your Church into Lives that is not in Lives already And further where any fair opportunity is offered you if any such be you fail not to reduce such as are in Lives into Years And We do likewise will and require that these our Letters may remain upon Record in your own Register-Books and in the Register of the Lord Bishop of that Dioces that he may take notice of these our Commands unto you and give Vs and our Royal Successors knowledge if you presume in any sort to disobey them O that the mind and piety of this most godly King expressed in this Letter had bin observed by all our Predecessors Bishops Deanes and Chapters the which I will do and punctually observe it by the grace of God And further whereas in Our late Instructions We have commanded all our Bishops respectively not to lett any Lease after We have named any of them to a better Bishoprick but did not in those Instructions name the Deans who yet were intended by Vs These are therefore to declare unto you that no Dean shall presume to renew any Lease either into Lives or Years after such time as We have nominated him either to a better Denary or a Bishoprick having observed that at such times of remove many men care not what or how they lett to the prejudice of the Church and their Successors And this is Our expresse Command to you your Chapter and your Successors which in any case We require both you and them strictly to observe upon pain of Our high displeasure and as you and they will answer the contrary at your and their utmost perils Given under Our Signet at Our Mannor of Greenwich the Two and Twentieth day of June in the Tenth year of our Reign Whereby you may perceive that the same holy Spirit that led this blessed King to be of this mind doth now likewise lead me to be of the same mind that no Bishop Dean or Chapter ought to Lease ouâ— the Lands and Revenues of the Church for any longer Term than 21. years For
the servant of the Father and of the Son Bern. in Convers Pauli Sermone 1. because they make the Holy Ghost to become their servant as Terasius saith to Pope Adrian Yet S. Bernard that saw much but not all saith Sacri gradus dati sunt in occasionem turpis lucri quaestum aestimant pietatem Holy Orders are now become the occasion of filthy lucre and gain is counted godliness And this Simonie is Sacriledge indeed and not only Musculus citeth these Verses that were made of Pope Alexander Musculus in cap. 6. Johan Vendit Alexander claves altaria Christum Vendere jure potest emerat ille prius but Durandus also saith That Simonie doth so reign in the Church of Rome Durand de modo celebrandi Concilii Extra de officio judicis delegati ex parte N. in Glossâ as if it were no sin at all And their Canonists as Bartolus Felinus Theodoricus and some others of the Pope's parasites are so impudent as to averr that the selling of these things and taking monie for Ecclesiastical promotions can be neither Sacriledge nor Simonie in the Pope because he is the Lord of them all and accounteth them all his own But since we have bidden Adieu to him and his corruptions his Simonie and his Sacriledge blessed be God for it doth not so much prejudice us and therefore letting him to do what he will with his own and either to stand or fall to his own Master I will address my self to shew the manifold evils and wickednesse of our own Sacrilegious and Simonaical Patrons that sell those Benefices which they should freely bestow And I say 1. The selling of Ecclesiastical-Livings against all Laws 1. Of Moses Gen. 47.22 That this buying and selling of Church-goods for both these acts are relatives and to be put in the same predicament when as nothing is sold that is not bought è contra is a thing contrary to all Laws and to the judgement of all good men for 1. The Laws of Moses provided so liberally for the Priests and Levites that the buying and selling of Priests places was never known nor heard of among the Jews until Jeroboam's time who as he sold them so he sold himself to do evil and to commit wickedness 2. Pharaoh was so religious that when in the great Dearth 2. Of the Gentiles all the land of Aegypt was sold the Priests had such a portion of Corn allotted them that they needed not to sell one foot of their land and therefore I doubt not but Pharaoh will rise in judgement against all those that take away the lands of the Priests as our Gentlemen and Souldiers strive to do or do sell the Spiritual promotions unto the Priests as our Simonaical Patrons do 3. The Law of Grace saith Freely have you received that is 3 Of grace all the graces and gifts of God therefore freely give Math. 10.8 especially what you give to God and for the Service of God and sell it not 4. The Civil and Ecclesiastical Laws forbid nothing more 4. Of the Civil and Canon-Law and with greater care than the buying and selling Of Spiritual Offices And the ancient Fathers learned Schoolmen and all the later Classes of Casuists Jesuites and of our zealous purest Protestant Writers together with the wisest Princes and Statesmen that have established many Statute-Laws against this sin are all infinitely deceived if this buying and selling of Ecclesiastical preferments be not infinitely prejudicial to the Church of God and therefore a most heynous and a horrible sin against the Law of God 2. I say that this buying and selling of Church-Livings 2. This selling and buying of Church-Livings will be the decay of Learning and Religion will be the diminution of all Learning and the lessening of the number of Learned men for when the world seeth that after a man hath spent his time first in School where he suffereth a great deal of sorrows and thinks no creature more miserable than himself when he seeth all others free and himself only as he supposeth bound under the rod then in the Vniversity where most of the Schollers are as Phalaris saith to Leontides 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 needy of all things but of hunger and fear How difficult it is to become a Scholar or else if they escape these rocks the better part do with continuall watching and studying wear their bodies and tyre their spirits and spend all the means they can procure from their friends for many years together and in the end after all this cannot get a poor Parsonage or Vicarage unless they pay for the lease of their wearied and almost worn out life to the hazarding of their soules and all other Preferments when the truth of their buying is made known What Fathers will be so â—â—provident I had almost said so irreligious I may truly say so unworldly wise or so little prudent in managing of their estates as to cast away their means and their sons upon such sourges I think I may say with the Poet Invitatus ad haec aliquis de ponte negabit A beggars brat knowing these inconveniencies would scarce accept these Offices and discharge those duties they do owe upon these conditions Obj. But you will say that we must not and ought not to respect our own gain and look after our own profit but as the Apostles and servants of Christ our chiefest care should be for the peoples good because our reward shall be great in Heaven Sol. I answer that as in the Common-wealth we owe our selves and our service wholly unto our Prince and to our Countrey yet some convenient reward will make us the more willing to serve So in the Church of God though I must preach willingly and wo is me being called to that office if I preach not so and discharge all other Priestly offices cheerfully rather for the gain of Souls then for any other the greatest gain in the World yet necessary maintenance will inable me or any other to do my duty the more cheerfully and with the more incouragement no man can deny the same Luk. 10.17 Matth. 10.10 and our Saviour tels us The workman is worthy of his hire and therefore as the Ministers of Christ do give unto you spirituall things so reason sheweth what the Apostle setteth down that you should give unto them and not sell unto them these temporall things that so not only we which are already entred into this calling may discharge our duties the more joyfully The reward of learning is the best means to increase and to continue learning but also others which as yet are not of this calling may by the reward of learning be induced to undertake the Ministry that otherwise is despicable enough in the world the more willingly because as Symmachus saith Virtus aemula alitur exemplo honoris alieni virtue is cherished and set forward with the example and
Alexander King of Macedon consulted often with Aristotle and sometimes with Diogenes the Cynick and King Pyrrhus with his dear friend Cineas So Pharaoh King of Egypt called and consulted with his Priests that were the Magicians and deemed the wise men of Egypt when Moses came to treat of God's Service And though Moses appointed 70. men of the choicest gravest and wisest men that could be found of all the Elders of Israel to be the Sanhedrim and as it were a standing Parliament to end all controversies and all the civil affairs of the Kingdom Yet when the Case of Religion came in question and the differences about God's Worship came to be decided neither the Kings of Israel nor the Kings of Juda to whom the principal care and custody of God's Laws and Service was committed did ever commend the same unto the Sanhedrim to be concluded and setled But as King David here calleth and consulteth with Nathan the Prophet about the building of God's House so when Religion was corrupted and the Service of the True God neglected in the time of King Ahab he calleth not the Sanhedrim to rectifie and redress the same but he leaves the same to be determined and adjudged betwixt the Priests of Baal 1. Reg. 18.17 18.19 20. 2 Chron. 15.2 8 c. and Elias the true Prophet of the Lord And so did King Asa Jehosaphat and Ezechias consulted not with their lay Lords or the Sanhedrim but with Azariah the son of Oded the Prophet and with Esay and the rest of God's Prophets Nay when the Wise-men came to inquire for Christ Mâ—th 2.4 Herod that sought to destroy Him and his Religion inquireth not of any but of the Chief Priests and Scribes Where Christ should be born And so all the Wise and Christian Emperours Constantine Theodosius Justinian and the rest as you may find it in Eusebius Socrates Zozomen and other Ecclesiastical Historians had always some special Bishops with whom they conferred and consulted about matters of Religion as Charles the Fifth did with Cassander and Henry the Eighth with Bishop Crammer For they conceived that their Crowns had the greater Lustre when it was in conjunction with the Miter And therefore in no great Councel was the Man of God ever baulked but that they might be sure to serve God before themselves and he assured that while the Church prospered the Bishops directed and they had God and his Messengers amongst them all would go right and be safe and therefore in all or most Courts of Conscience where the Law reached not they thought none so fit as these men of conscience to decide all differences Neither could I ever find that the Church of God was so much pestered with miseries and poisoned with Errors Heresies and Sects or Divisions until the lay Lords and Gentlemen like the Long Parliament neglected their proper Offices to look into the affairs of the Common-wealth and to see Justice and Judgement truly executed among the people and began immittere falcem in alienam messem to thrust their sickles into other mens harvest Esay 1.12 The Church of God never became more miserable then when the lay-people undertook to conclude and determine points of Religion and to intermeddle with that which concerns them not as to chop and change Articles of Religion and to set down and compose points of faith when the Lord saith Quis requisivit haec Who hath required these things at your hands It is your duty to come into the Temple and to perform the service that David and Nathan the King and the Bishops shall prescribe unto you and to confirm those Articles of Religion and cause them in all things to be observed as the Parliament did in Queen Elizabeth's dayes the 39. Articles of our Religion when they are as those were setled and concluded by the Bishops and the rest of the Clergy in their Convocation for the Lord tells us plainly That the Priests lips should keep knowledge and they that is the people be they what and whom you will Sanhedrim of the Jews or Parliament of any other Nation should seek the Law that is the Law of God at his mouth because he is the Mâ—ssenger of the Lâ—rd of Hosts that is to declare his will and to expound his Laws unto the people But what saith the Lord in this Case when the people be they what you will shall usurpe the Priests Office and begin to make new Orders and Ordinances for the Service of God that never required such things at their hands He tells them plainly You are departed out of the way and you have caused many to stumble at the Law that is by your false glosses and injoyned observations thereof and you have corrupted the Covenant of Levi saith the Lord of Hosts that is you have wronged and quite thrown out the Bishops and Priests from their Offices which is to consult with the King to see God rightly worshipped And therefore saith the Lord Malach. 2.7 8 9. I have also made you contemptible and base before all the people according as you have not kept my wayes but have been partial in the Law that is by making Religion and my Service like a nose of wax to turn which way you please when as every one should do the duties that belong unto him Curabit praelia Conon CHAP. VI. What the Rest and peaceable times of King David wrought The Prince's authority in causes Ecclesiastical and how they should be zealous to see that God should be justly and religiously served THirdly having seen the times and the persons 3. The matter about which they consulted that consulted and conferred together we are now to consider the fruits and effects that this quiet sitting at rest and peaceable times wrought in David and what was the matter that these two grave and great Persons do so seriously deliberate and consult about And most commonly we find What peace prosperity usually produce that rest and peace have been the bane and surfeit of the mind to puff it up with pride and prosperity hath often choaked piety and plenty hath made Religion to pine away and to be cast upon a bed of security as Jezabel was cast upon a bed of fornication For so Moses saith of the Israelites Dilectus meus impinguatus recalcitravit My beloved fed fatted and inlarged Deut. 32.15 kicked with their heels or Jesurun waxed fat and kicked and then he forsook God that made him and lightly esteemed the Rock of his Salvation And as the Poet saith Luxuriant animi rebus plerumque secundis Ovid de arte Am. l. 2. Nec facile est aequâ commoda mente pati Our hearts do swell and our minds grow luxurious and riotous when our affairs do prosper and all things succeed as our hearts desire Our peace and plenty made us wanton and our wantonness brought our wars upon us and have rest and peace as now David had round
ponunt in esse and are no apodictical proofs for any weighty matters especially the examples of the oâ—d Testament to confirm the doing of the like things under the new Testament because that for us to be guided and directed by the examples of the old Law is the high-way to lead us to infinite inconveniences Therefore it followeth not that because the Kings of Israel and Juda did such things as are fore-shewed unto the Priests and Levites and the setling of the Service in the Temple therefore our Moderne Princes should have the like Authority to do the like things unto the Bishops and Priests of the new Testament about the Worship of God and the Government of his Church and especially in the censuring of them that are appointed by Christ to be the Prime Governours of the same Sol. To this I answer 1. That this is as the Schooles say Petitio principii and a begging of the Question for we say that although for the perfecting of the Saints Ephes 4.12 for the work of the Ministery for the edifying or building up of the body of Christ that is the Church God hath set in his Church first Apostles 1 Cor. 12.28 secondarily Prophets thirdly Teachers and so Bishops and Priests primarily and principally to discharge the aforesaid Offices and Duties yet this proveth not that they are simply and absolutely the Prime Governours and Chief Rulers of the Church but that the Kings and Princes In what sense the Bishops Priests and in what sense Kings Princes may be said to be the prime Governours of the Church Esay 49.23 in the other respect aforenamed may be justly said to be the Prime and Supreme Governours as well in all causes Ecclesiastical as Temporal for the Prophet Esay speaking of the Church of the Gospel saith That Kings should be her nursing fathers and Queens her nursing mothers And I hope you will yield that the fathers and mothers are the Prime and Supremest Governours of their children rather than their School-masters and Teachers But though the progeny of the Pope and our frantick Sectaries would fain thrust out the eyes of the politick Prince and make him just like Polyphemus that had a body of vast dimensions but of a single sight scarce able to see his wayes and to govern himself yet I shall by God's assistance make it most apparent unto you by the testimony of the Fathers Councils and some Popish Authors that the Soveraign Prince hath and ought to have alwayes a peremptory Supreme power as well over the Ecclesiastical persons and causes of the Church as over the Civil persons and causes of the Temporal State and Common-wealth For 1. S. Augustine writing against Parmenian the Donatist that would 1. The testimony of the Fathers Aug. p. 1. Cont. Epistolam Parmon with our Disciplinarians that are the very brood of those Donatists unarme the King of his Spiritual Sword saith An forte de Religione fas non est ut dicat Imperator vel quos miserit Imperator Cur ergo ad Imperatorem vestri venerunt legati Cur eum fecerunt causae suae judicem Is it not lawful for the Emperour and so the Prince or whomsoever he shall send to treat and determine matters of Religion If you think it is not Why did your Messengers then come unto the Emperour And why did they make him thy Judge of their cause Whereby you see S. Augustine judgeth the Emperour or any other Supreme Prince to have a lawful power to hear and to determine the points and matters controverted among the Bishops and so to have a Spiritual jurisdiction as well as a Temporal Nicephorus also in his Preface to the Emperour Immanuel saith Nicephorus in praefatione ad Immanuel Imperat Tu es Dux professionis fidei nostrae tu restituisti Catholicam Ecclesiam reformasti Ecclesiam Dei à mercatoribus coelestis Doctrinae ab haereticis per verbum veritatis Thou art the Captain of our Profession and of the Christian Faith and thou hast Restored or Reformed the Catholick Church and cleansed it from those Merchants of the heavenly Doctrine and from all the Hereticks by the word of Truth And I think nothing can be said fuller and clearer than this to justifie the Spiritual jurisdiction of the Prince and Supreme Magistrate in causes Ecclesiastical Theodoretus l. 1 c. 7. Yet Theodoret and Eusebius say as much of Constantine the Great 2. You may read in the Council of Chalcedon 2. The testimony of the Councils That all the Bishops and Clergy that were gathered together to that place as the Members of our Parliament use to do were wont to lay down the Canons they had agreed upon in the Council until the Emperour should come to confirm them with his Royal assent and when the Emperour came they said These Decrees seem good unto us if they seem so to your Sacred Majesty And the Bishops of the Council of Constantinople that was after the first Council of Ephesus Concil Chalcedon Artic. 1. pag. 831. wrote thus submissively unto the Emperour Theodosius We humbly beseech your Clemency that as you have honoured the Church with your Letters by which you have called us together Ita finalem conclusionem decretorum nostrorum corrobores sententia tua sigillo So you would be pleased to strengthen and confirm the last conclusion of our Decrees by your Royal Sentence and Seal 3. 3. The testimony of Popes and Papists As the Fathers and Councils do thus acknowledge the Emperours right in the Spiritual jurisdiction So many of the Popes and Papists themselves have confest the same truth and yielded the same right unto the Emperour and other Soveraign Magistrate in the Church and Church-matters and over all the parsoâ—s belonâ—ing unto the Church for Platina that was Library-keeper unto the Pope Iâ—aira in severino papa saith that Without the Letters pattents of the Emperour to confirm him the Pope is no lawfull Pope and Zabarel a great Scholar saith The Pope may be accused before the Emperour of and for any notorious crime Zâ—barella de Schismate Concilus and publick scandalous offence Imperator potest à papa requirere rationem fidei and the Emperour may inquire and call the Pope to yield an account of his faith and Religion And so many of the better Popes were not ashamed to confess the same for Saint Gregory who for his great learning and piety was sirnamed the Great writing unto Mauritius the Emperour saith Imperatori obedientiam praebui Theodoret l. 2. c. 16. pro Deo quod sensi minimè tacui I have yielded all obedience unto the Emperour and what I conceived to be truth and for God I concealed it not 2 q. 4. Mandastis and before Saint Gregories time Pope Liberius being convented to appear before Constantius denied not most readily to obey his summons So did Pope Sixtus upon the like complaint appear
in the great Congregations and among much people and so affectionately to say Psal 35.18 One thing have I desired of the Lord which I will require Psal 27.4 even that I may dwell in the House of the Lord all the daies of my life to behold the fair beauty of the Lord and to visite his Temple And therefore seeing it is so necessary that the people of God should publickly meet and be gathered together to serve God it is most requisite and necessary there should be Cathedralls and Parochiall Churches for them to meet in for to do the publick service of God Obj. But against this it may be objected that the necessity of publick meetings and the benefits that may be reaped from those Assemblies rather then from any private serving of God doth no waies prove the necessity of having Cathedralls and materiall Churches because the presence of a company of Christian people wheresoever Assembled and the offices of Religion as Preaching Prayer and Administring the Sacraments performed makes the meeting publick and the peoples exercising these duties makes them to be a Church of God As the presence of the Prince and his followers maketh any mans private house to be the Kings Court. To this Objection I have fully and very largely answered Sol. in my second book of the Great Anti-Christ revealed pag. 84. deinceps And therefore I shall referr my Reader thither to be fully satisfied yet here I say that it is not the Assembly or the popular conflux of a multitude of men or the duties that they do though they be the very duties of Religion that makes the meeting lawfully publick or the place of Gods publick service but it must be a Convention and a gathering together of the people into such a place that is assigned and Consecrated for Gods publick service which makes the publick meeting justifiable and lawfull otherwise it is but a private conventicle altogether unlawfull though it should consist of never so great a company of men unless it be as it was in the Apostles time in the daies of persecution or that the people have such lawfull lets and hinderances to come to the Consecrated place of Gods service as I have set down in the book afore-cited At all other times the publick service of God must be performed in a publick Consecrated place as it is meet the Holy service should be done in a Holy place and you must know that the ubiquity of Gods presence in every place makes not all places alike sacred even as the Lord sheweth unto Moses when he bids him to pull off his shâ—es from his feet because the place where thou standest is Holy ground Exod. 3.15 for the presence of God is either 1. Ordinary The presence of God twofold or 2. Extraordinary And as the extraordinary works of God have distinguished the times to make some times more Holy then other so the extraordinary presence of God hath sanctified some places more then others and the place that he Sanctifieth with his most speciall presence is the place which he appointeth to his servants for their publick meeting to do his service and he hath not left it in the liberty of every man to run at random to serve the Lord where he pleased but as he designed the time when they should serve him so he appointed the place where they should come to serve him And so Adam in that short time which he had in Paradise wanted not a place appointed no doubt and usuall to stand before the Lord and to Communicate with him and the sons of Adam being out of Paradise Gen. 3.8 knew the place where God appointed and expected they should repair to offer their Sacrifices and oblations unto him and so the Lord tells the Children of Israel that they should not discharge their duties and perform his service in any place that they pleased Deut. 12.5 14. but they should seek the place which the Lord their God should choose out of all their Tribes to put his name there to dwell and there they should come with their oblations and offerings to serve him And so when the Israelites had quite vanquished the Canaanites and subdued the Philistines and the other their enemies round about and as the Text saith given rest unto his people the time was come that the Lord God thought fit to choose the place to put his name there and where all the people should publickly meet to do him service and the Lord marked out Jerusalem for himself and in Jerusalem he chose Mount Moriah 2 Chron. 6.7 the very place where Abraham was to sacrifice his son Isaac to be a standing and a permanent place for his name saying This shall be my rest for ever here will I dwell for I have a delight therein and there David now resolveth to build his Temple to be a Cathedrall and the Metropolitan Church for the High Priest to offer Sacrifice and burnt Offerings unto God and for the rest of the people there publickly to meet to serve the Lord and his heart was mightily inflamed with zeal and desire to do it but the Lord accepted of his resolution and by Nathan his Prophet told him that because he was a man of War and had shed much blood and his Church must not have her foundation laid nor her walls erected in blood he should not build his Temple but Solomon his son that was a Prince of Peace should erect it in the Place that he appointed and with the materialls that he had provided and so he did as you may see 2 Chron. c. 3. 4 5. And when this Temple was destroyed and the people for their sins and neglect of Gods service and prophanation of this House of God were led Captives into Babylon and when after the time of their Captivity was expired that is the full space of 70. years they were permitted to return into their own Land the Lord did put it into the heart of Cyrus King of Persia as the Prophet Esay fore-shewed he should do long before the birth of Cyrus to cause Ezra Zerubbabel Nehemiah and the rest of the Elders of the Jews to build another House and Temple unto God in the same place where Salomons Temple did stand and when the enemies of Gods people and the prophaners of Gods House like our malignants sought to hinder the building of it the Lord put it in the heart of Darius and his son Artaxerxes to cause it to be finished Ezra 6.15 according to the decree of King Cyrus And the Jews were so zealous to do it that they made an end of the work in five years and so by reason of their enemies and their haste it was far disproportionable and different from the former which made the old men that had seen the glory and beauty of the first to weep and lament at the mean aspect of the second And yet it was not so mean but
that it might be admired for the beauty and majesty of it Josephus Antiq. l. 15. c. ult especially after that Herod sirnamed the Great had repaired inlarged and so magnificently beautified the same Mark 13.1 so that one of his disciples in admiration of the work saith to Christ Master See what manner of stones and what buildings are here Matth. 24.1 And the Jews tell him that it was forty six years in building Joh. 2.20 before it was brought to that perfection which Zorobabel did unto it Joseph Antiq. l. 11. c. 4. Cum inchoatum erat in secundo anno Cyri qui regnavit annis 30. Et post eum Cambyses regnavit annis 8. Et absolutum erat Darii Histaspis anno 9. Et sic dempto primo anno Cyri remanent anni sicut Judaei dicunt 46. For of this Temple the Jewes here do speak as Theophlact Tolet and Calvin do observe Exod. 23.17 34.23 24. To this Temple and Metropolitan-Church the Jews were all required to meet and to appear before the Lord to do him service three times every year and because these times were too seldom and the waies too far for them to come from all the parts of Jury any oftner they had from time to time many Synagogues and Chappels Act. 13.27 c. 15.21 like our Parochiall Churches wherein they might publickly meet as they did every Sabbath to serve the Lord and because this Cathedrall Church the Temple of the High Priest though very large and spacious Origo earum tempore captivitatis Babylonicae cepit Sigon de rep l. â— c. 8. yet was not sufficient to contain the many thousands of people that were in the great City of Jerusalem they had very many Synagogues set up in this City and Paulus Phagius recounteth no less then 400 of them And Sigonius saith there were 480. And out of Jerusalem they had many Synagogues in other Cities and Provinces as there were Synagogues in Galilee Matth. 4.23 Synagogues in Damascus Sigon de repuh Heb l. 2. c. 8. Maimon in Typhil c. 11. Sect. 1. ex Goodw. Act. 9.2 Synagogues at Salamis Act. 13.5 Synagogues at Antioch Act. 13.14 And their Tradition is saith Maimonides that wheresoever ten men of Israel were there ought to be built a Synagogue and the Jews acknowledged it a great favour and were very thankfull to any man that built them any of these Synagogues as the Elders of the Jews besought Christ to heal the servant of the Centurion Luk. 7.5 because He loved their Nation and had built them a Synagogue And I would our men would be as glad and as desirous to have our decayed Churches built and not to make such havock to destroy them as they do and that without any cause in the World For You may see how Christ himself and his Apostles came and taught very often not only in the Temple but also in these lâ—sser Synagogues of the Jews and it is admirable to consider how the primitive Christians Euseb l. 10. c. 3. 4. as Eusebius recordeth erected such Oratories and Basilicaes that is Royall-houses and Churches as stately as any Kings Palace and beautified the same with excessive charges to make them fit places for the publick meetings of the Christians to serve their God and so the Church of Saint Paul in London and of Saint Peter in Westminster and the rest of the Cathedrall Churches throughout England and Ireland to pass no further can bear sufficient witness of the zeal and devotion of our Christian predecessors to erect such Great and adorn such Beautifull Houses unto God Magnos magna decent as became so great and so glorious a God as our God is to have And as the number of the Christians waxed daily beyond number and increased more and more as you may conceive by the increase which a few weeks time hath wrought after the ascention of Christ when St. Peter's sermon converted 3000. souls in one day so it caused the distinction of Assemblies and the number of Churches to be increased and multiplied in all Countreys and Cities more and more So that in Rome about a hundred year after Christ the Congregation of the Christians became so huge great that Evaristus then Bishop of Rome for the avoiding of confusion and the easier and better instruction of them caused them to be distributed and parted into fifteen particular Parishes and assigned fifteen severall Presbyters to instruct and govern them the Presbyters then being honest men and no waies contradicting Evaristus And to prove that the first Christians who lived under persecutions The fiâ—st Christians had some kind of Churches even from the Apostles time had some kind of Churches though as then not so magnificent you may see in 1 Cor. 12.18 22. c. 14.19 23. And so the most ancient of the Fathers do bear witness as Clemens Tertullian Socrates and Eusebius proves the same out of the book of Philo Judaeus lib. 2. cap. 17. And Lactantius In carminibus de passione Domini saith Quisquis ades mediusque subis in limina Templi Siste parum Whosoever thou art that comest to the House of God stay a white that is to consider whither thou goest and as Salomon saith To keep and look to thy foot when thou goest to the House of God which is as God himself expoundeth the meaning thereof unto Moses saying Exod. 3. Put off thy shooes from thy feet that is to make clean thy waies and bring no filth nor any carnall affections nor worldly desires into the House of God because The place whereon thou standest is Holy ground that is by reason of Gods gracious and speciall presence in that place where Moses stood and where God is prayed unto and praised by the Minister and Worshipped by the rest of his faithfull servants And if any man desires fuller proofs of this truth I refer him to Cardinall Bellarmin and to that excellent and Learned Sermon of Master Mede upon the 1 Cor. 11.22 Yet I deny not but the prime Primitive Christians The prime primitive Christians had no stately Churches and why and the Church which was at Jerusalem and received that Religion that is the Faith of Christ which the Scribes and Pharisees and their laws did not allow of were constrained many times to hide their heads in desolate places and were inforced by stealth to exercise and discharge the duties of their profession in vaults and private houses where they might be most safe though the places were not sutable to their service the swords of their enemies were so sore against them But at length between times by sufferance and connivency and sometimes through favour and protection they began to be imboldened and to reare up Oratories and Churches though but simple and of mean aspect because the estates of most of them were but mean and very low as S. Paul sheweth 1 Cor. 1.26 Not many Rich
not many Noble are called which was indeed a good way to suppress the danger of malignity that looks not so much after poor estates and a good way to increase their number and propagate their design with more safety And as by this means the Church began to take root and to grow stronger and the wealthier nobler and wiser men began to be in love with the Christian Religion So then they loved nothing more than to build Churches answerable for their beauty How zealously the fi st Christians were affected how bountifully they contributed towards the building of their Churches to the dignity of their Religion and for their greatness to the number of their Professors And the devotion of these Christians was so large and did so liberally contribute towards the erecting of their Churches as the Israelites in the dayes of Bezaliel did chearfully present their Gifts and Free-will-offerings towards the setting up of the Tabernacle no man was backward and no man a niggard in this work which they conceived to be so profitable and so necessary for them to do and that in two special respects 1. The good that is effected 2. The evils that are prevented by the publick meeting of the people in these Churches The double benefit that we reap by our coming to the Publick meeting in the Church 1. The meeting of the Congregation publickly in a lawful place and a consecrated Church assures them they offend not the Laws either of God or man and so secures them from all blame and prevents the occasion to traduce and to suspect the lawfulnesse of the holy Duties that we perform when as Veritas non quaerit angulos Truth and the performance of just things and holy actions need not run and hide themselves in private hidden 1. Benefit and unlawful places but may shew themselves and appear so publickly as they might not be subject to any the least unjust imputation 2. Benefit 2. The meeting in a publick consecrated Church and not in a private Conventicle escapes those dangerous plots and machinations that are very often invented and contrived in those Conventicles that are vailed for that purpose under the mantle and pretence of Religion And it freeth the comers unto the Church from those seditious Doctrines and damnable Divinity which the Sectaries and Hereticks do scatter and broach in those unlawful Conventicles which are the fittest places for them to effect their wicked purpose and must needs be sinful and offend both God and man because they are contrary to the Laws both of God and man Whenas the coming unto the Church quits my conscience from all fear of offending because that herein I do obey and do agreeable to the Laws both of God and man And who then that hath any dram of wit would not avoid private and forbidden meetings and go to serve God unto the publick Church which is the House of God erected and dedicated for his Service CHAP. X. The Answer to the Two Objections that the Fanatick-Sectaries do make 1. Against the Necessity And 2ly against the Sanctity or Holiness of our Material Churches which in derision and contemptuously they call Steeple-houses ANd yet for all this and all that we can say for the Church of God I find Four sorts of Objections 4 Sorts of Objections against our Material Churches that are made by our Fanaticks and Skenimastices against our Material Churches As 1. Against the Necessity 2. Against the Sanctity 3. Against the Beauty Glory 4. Against the impurity Impiety of them 1. They do object 1. Objection against the necessity that we have no need of Churches there is no Necessity of any Material House or Church of God for his servants to meet in to serve God because the woman of Samaria discoursing with Christ about the place where God would be worshipped Whether in that Mountain where the Fathers worshipped or in Hierusalem which as the Jews said was the place where men ought to worship Our Saviour tells her plainly They worshipped they knew not what for the hour cometh when ye shall neither in this Mountain nor yet in Hierusalem worship the Father but the true worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth because God is a Spirit John 4.20 23. and they that worship him must worship him in Spirit and in truth and such worshippers the Father seeks and such he loves And therefore so we have clean hearts and pure consciences and worship God with our souls and spirits faithfully to pray unto him and to praise his Name it is no matter for the place where we do it in a Church or in a Barn because God looks rather to the inward heart than to the outward place where we stand To this I answer Maledicta glossa quae corrumpit textum Sol. and our Saviours words gives them no colour to extort such consequences and to draw such conclusions from them for the words are plain enough that although formerly before Moses his time Jacob had a Well near Sichar and he with the other Fathers worshipped God in that Mountain and afterwards God required them to worship him in the place that he should chuse to put his Name there which after the time of David and the building of his Temple by Solomon was to be Hierusalem and no where else to perform the commanded Publick Service of God under the punishment of cutting off that soul from his people that should do otherwise Yet the hour cometh and now is that is coming or beginning to come that the partition-Wall betwixt the Jews and the Gentiles shall be broken down and the bounds and borders of Gods Church and the true worshippers of God shall be inlarged and they may lawfully without offence worship God not only in Jury where God was only formerly known aright but also in all the Nations and in any Kingdom of the World so they worship him in spirit and in truth as they ought to do But here is not one syllable intimating that they should not or needed not to meet to serve God in the Publick Church but that whensoever and wheresoever in any Kingdom of the Earth they should gather themselves together in the Publick Church to worship God they should worship him in spirit and in truth otherwise their worship is to no purpose and will avail them nothing though they should do it publickly in the Church This is the true meaning of our Saviours words Obj. 2 2. We have another sort of Sectaries that yield it requisite and convenient for the Saints and servants of God to meet and gather themselves together for the Service of God and do acknowledg the great benefits that may accrew and be obtained in a Congregation rather than by any single person but they think there is no necessity of their meeting in a Material Church or a Steeple-house as they call it rather than in a house or a chamber or a
Superstitious said of that place where God shewed his presence to him This is Gods House and the gate of Heaven Gen. 28.17 and the Lord said unto Moses Put off thy shooes from thy feet for the place where thou standest is Holy ground Exod. 3.5 and why was that ground more Holy than any other ground Not in respect of any innate holiness but because the Lord reveiled himself there to Moses more visibly and more graciously than in any other place And I pray you look what the Spirit of God adviseth and injoyneth us to do when we come into the House of God To keep thy foot Eccl 5.1 For this phrase is a Synechdoche of the part for the whole of the foot for all the members of the body which in the Church of God ought to be framed to a Religious decency as to bend the knee lift up our eyes uncover the head and the like and much more thy heart and thy head as thou oughtest to do decently and Reverently when thou goest to the House of God and therefore much more Reverently when thou art and standest in Gods House And be more ready to hear then to give the Sacrifice of Fools which they do that despise this House of God which none but fools will do for if we make no difference of these things but that every man that will may intrude himself to do the service which God requireth to be done by another and he may do that service any where in any one place as well as in another in a common barn as well as in an Holy Church then surely we need not observe any time when any one day is as good and as Holy as another the Munday as well as the Lords-day and so confounding persons times and places we shall confound all Religion and we shall suddenly bring Atheism and all Prophaneness among the people CHAP. XI The answer to another Objection that our Fanatick-Sectaries do make against the Beauty and Glorious Adorning of our Churches which we say should be done with such decent Ornaments and Implements as are besitting the House and Service of God The reasons why we should Honor God with our goods and how liberal and bountiful both the Fathers of the Old Testament and the Christians of the New Testament were to the Church of God Obj. 3 Against the beautifying of our Churches THirdly There be another sort of close-handed and covetous-hearted Fanatick Sectaries that are much offended at our Beautifying and Adorning our Churches so as is fitting and meet for the Houses of God And they do Object that God is a Spirit and will be served in spirit and in truth and therefore he requireth not our goods our gold and our silver which he hath no need of Psal 50.10 or our Cattle when as all the beasts of the Forrest are his and so are the Cattle upon a 1000. hills and he delighteth not in burnt offering and so the Prophet sheweth when he demandeth Will the Lord be pleased with thousands of Rams or with ten thousands of Rivers of Oyl No no the Lord careth for no such things we may keep them all to our selves Mich. 6.7 for he hath Shewed thee O man what is good and what the Lord doth require of thee and that is To do justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with thy God And therefore the Lord saith not Give me your gold to make me Palaces or your silver to adorn my house wherein I dwell not but give me your hearts wherein I delight to dwell if they be pure and clean and void of the filthiness of sin and corruption Quia deliciae meae cum filiis hominum because my delights are to be with the sons of men and I desire no more of them but To fear the Lord their God to walk in all his waies Deut. 10.12 and to love him and to serve the Lord their God withall their heart and withall their soul And from these and the like premises our Fanaticks do conclude that as God was never better served then when his Churches and Oratories were no better then poor mens Cottages and when the Christians answered their persecuters in the time of Julian who said their service was not so Solemn nor their Temples answerable to the Majesty of God that the best Temples which they could dedicate unto God wer their Sanctified souls and clean hearts so they would have our times to be the like and our Churches to be no fairer nor any otherwise beautified then they were in those times of poverty and persecution Sol. To this I answer and confess that God delighteth more in the Holiness of the hearts of them that serve him then in the honor and beauty of the place where he is served In the time of necessity God accepteth our service any where But though Moses in the mountain Job on the dunghill Jeremy in the mire Daniel in the Lions den Ezechias in his bed and the Apostles in the stocks called upon the name of the Lord and he heard them and so Christ preached on the Mount and in the Valley on the Sea-shore and in the Ship and Saint Paul did the like in an upper Chamber and the people heard them as well then as in the Temple and God accepted of their service Yet as Saint Paul demands of the Corinthians whether they thought it seemly that a woman should be bare-headed in the Church so I demand of these men as the Prophet Haggai demandeth of the Jews Is it fit that you should dwell in sieled houses and let the House of God lye wast or is it meet and Religious that the Church of Christ should be no better beautified then a husband-mans barn And I may ask of any rational man if the Sanctity and Celebrity of the place where God is usually and publickly served doth not animate the devotion and stir up pious thoughts in all good Christians Psal 56.9 when they come there to Worship their Saviour in that beauty of Holiness as the Prophet speaketh Therefore the good and godly King David when he intended to build God an House saith That because the Palace was not for man but for the Lord God I prepared with all my might for the House of my God 1 Chron. 29.1 2 3. the Gold for the things that were to be made of Gold the Silver for things of Silver and the Brass for things of Brass the Iron for things of Iron and Wood for things of Wood Onyx stones and stones to be set How liberally King David gave to build and beautify Gods House glistering stones and of divers colours and all manner of Pretious-stones and Marble-stones in abundance moreover because I have set my affection to the House of my God I have of mine own proper goods of Gold and Silver which I have given to the House of my God over and above all that I have prepared for the holy
also outwardly with all the other parts of our bodies Quia per exteriora cognoscuntur interiora and our zeal to Gods Honour must shew it self by our zeal to God's House for so King David said and so Christ said Psal 69.9 John 2.17 The zeal of thine House hath eaten me up And therefore not only the Jews but the Christians also were most liberal and bountiful in their gifts and contributions for the erecting of Oratories and the adorning of Gods Church And although that while they were under the Sword of persecuting Tyrants their state and condition permitted them not to have stately Churches yet when their persecution ceased and they became into a better case and had rest their Churches became sumptuous and no cost was spared to make them both fair and beautiful And we find that before the time of Constantine in the reign of Severus Euseb l. 8. c. 1. 2. Idem l. 9. c. 1. Gordian Philip and Galienus there were many goodly and spatious Churches builded which Dioclesian by a publick Proclamation caused to be thrown down but Mâ—ximinus hypocritically permitteth them to be reedified and made up in a greater heighth and more beautiful than they were before as they were indeed exceedingly bettered immediately after the death of Maximinus as it appeareth by that Solemn Sermon that was made in praise of the building of Churches Idem l. 10. c. â— and expressely directed to Paulinus Bishop of Tyrus And Theodoret saith That the Emperours Constantine and his son Constantius bestowed many rich and precious vessels upon the Church And when S. Basil had converted Valens to become a Christian he bestowed certain lands and possessions unto the Church And Nicephorus saith That Theodosius and his Wife Eudoche sent monies very bountifully to the Bishop and Church of Rome And Valentinian and Gratian are exceedingly praised in the Chronicles of the Church for their care and the provision that they made for the Churches of Christ And Sozomen relates how Constantius bestowed upon the holy Church great summes of monies that did arise to him out of the Images that were molten and otherwise by way of Taxes and Tributes And divers of the Christian Emperours provided that the lands houses and possessions of the Church and the goods of other Christians that had been taken from them in the times of persecution should be restored and re-delivered unto the Bishops and Church again And I hope our most gracious and religious King will do the like that as he is not inferiour to them in piety so he will be no lesse in the Rules of Equity and as blessed be God for it he hath most graciously restored very much and more than any other hath done already And what shall I say more It is most apparant to any one that will read Eusebius Socrates Theodoret Sozomen and other Ecclesiastical Writers how the first and best Christians as they grew in strength wealth and power so they studied and strived to exceed both Jews and Gentiles in their care and zeal to promote the Honour of God and to manifest the same unto the World by all the possible wayes they could devise And because that as nature teacheth us to provide good things so wisdom and policy sheweth how we should do our best to procure the permanent state and perpetuity of those good things And so Religion likewise teacheth us to follow the same course to perpetuate the Service and the Honour we yield unto our God and the Saints and servants of God conceiving no Donation of honour to be more permanent and lasting than Churches and Temples magnificently erected and sumptuously maintained therefore they were no niggards and spared no cost to build their Oratories and Churches that the Worship and Honour of God might be perpetually continued Reasons to prove that we sh uld honour God with our riches And very many Reasons might be produced to shew that they should to the uttermost of their power honour God with their riches and to make the benefits they bestow for his Honour to be permanent and durable For Reason 1 1. Where any true Religion resteth in the heart it requireth the uttermost extent that unfaigned love and affections can afford and shew towards God And as S. Gregory saith Probatio dilectionis exhibitio est operis Our inward love and affections are to be opened and manifested by the outward effects And therefore wheresoever the true Religion swayeth in the hearts of men as it ought the outward devotion and zeal towards God's Church and the Service of God in his Church will be shewed so far forth as they are inabled to do Reason 2 2. As Religion requireth so Nature teacheth us to honour God with our goods which is not only honestly and inoffensively to use them but also to alienate separate and set apart some portion of them from our own occasions Quia â—fferimus Deo bona nostra ut signa gratitudinis pro illis donis quaed Deo recepimus Irenaeus l. 4. c. 34. to the use and service of God not as gifts or supplies of his wants that is the Lord of all things but as the signs of our thankfulness and acknowledgement that he is the Donor and Giver of them all to us and as the means to set up and to shew forth his Honour by the erecting and beautifying his Churches and the maintenance of his Worship and Ministery in those Churches For why should any man think that God hath given us such variety of all good things as Gold Silver Cattel Wine Oil and abundance of most excellent beauty to be imployed only upon our selves and for our pleasures and it may be in meer vanities without any regard or reservation of any of them to be bestowed for the upholding of his Honour Prov. 3.9 Malach. 3.20 and the Duties of his Service When as Solomon saith That he will be served with the chief of thine increase And the Lord himself bids thee to bring all the Tythes or Tythes of all kinds into his House And therefore Origen the greatest Clerk that lived in his dayes saith Qui colit Deum Origen in Numb c. 18. Hom. 11. debet donis oblationibus agnoscere eum esse Deum omnium He that worshippeth God must by his gifts and oblations unto God acknowledge him to be the God and Giver of all things Reason 3 3. Seeing God requireth to be honoured with thy substance and with the first fruites of all thine increase Prov. 3.9 and to testifie thine inward love by thine outward gifts and oblations to him you know then that the greatness and goodness of our gifts doth set forth and shew the greatness of our love and the sincerity of our affection towards God For Juxta mensuram honoris erit mensura donationis According to the quality and condition of the person whom we honour so should our gifts and our presents that we offer him be as the greater
they are whom we honour the greater regard we should make of the gifts and oblations that we offer unto him As it is unseemly and a shame for us to present unto our Kings and Princes or any other person of Honour any poor mean base or paltry present So it is if we do the like to God And therefore the Prophet Malachy demandeth If you offer unto God the blind for Sacrifice is it not evil and if you offer the lame and the sick Malach. 1.8 is it not evil Offer it now unto thy Governour will he be pleased with thee saith the Lord of Hosts So the Lord was no wayes pleased with Cains offering because that having enough and all good things from God he kept the best for himself and gave a little of the meanest and worst unto God And you know what God saith Cursed be the deceiver which hath in his flock a male and voweth and sacrificeth unto the Lord a corrupt thing and so like unto Cain keepeth the best for himself for I am a Great King saith the Lord of Hosts and my Name is dreadful among the Heathen Verse 14. and therefore you should not offer unto me the poorest and the basest things you have but the best and the greatest of all your substance Therefore the Gentiles by the light of nature and the Jews How that the Heathens Jews Christians eâ—ected great and glorious Houses for the Gâ—eat Glorious God And Plutarch setteth down what an infinite charge it cost Tarquinius Sylla Vespasian and Domitian to build the Temple of Jupiter Capitolinus in Rome Plutarch in the Life of Publicola pag. 107. 108. by the example of Moses David Solomon and the rest of Gods Prophets that were inspired by Gods Spirit and all the godly and zealous Christians that were illuminated by the light of truth considering the greatness and the glorious Majesty of our Great God that is Optimus Maximus The Best and the Greatest of all the things that you can imagine and is most wonderful in all his Works conceived it fitting to erect and build such great magnificent and most glorious Temples and Churches as might seem fitting and so far as they were able to make them correspondent to the Greatness and the Glorious Majesty of that Great God for whose Honour Worship and Service they erected and dedicated the same And such were the Temple of Apollo at Delphos of Diana at Ephesus of Amphiaraus and Jupiter Olympus and the Temple of Solomon in Hierusalem and the Churches of S. Paul in London and S. Peter in Westminster and abundance more which you may see in these Kingdoms that our most zealous religious and godly forefathers built and spared no cost nor charges to adorne and beautifie them most gloriously with all necessary Furnitures for the Honour and Woâ—ship of their God and the Service of Jesus Christ And shall we throw down these Houses and lay waste these Temples of God or think much to bestow a little of our wealth that God hath so liberally bestowed upon us to keep them up and to have them competently trimed and beautified God forbid that our love to God's Honour and our thankfulness to Jesus Christ should be so little as to do so CHAP. XII The Answer to another Objection that our brain-sick Sectaries do make for the utter overthrow of our Cathedrals and Churches as being so fowly stained and prophaned with popish Superstitions and therefore being no better than the Temples of Baal they should rather be quite demolished than any wayes adorned and beautified FOurthly 4. Objection against the being of our Churches Psal 137.7 we have some other Sectaries more brain-sick than the former and these under the pretence of zeal to the purity of Religion do hotly plead for the destruction of our Churches and cry out in the language of the Edomites Down with them down with them even to the very ground for they have been defiled and prophaned by the Idolatries and superstitions of the Popish Bishops and their Mass-Priests and therefore as the Lord by a flat Precept commanded the Israelites saying You shall utterly destroy all the places wherein the Nations which ye shall possess served their gods upon the high Mountains and upon the Hills and under every green Tree and you shall overthrow their Altars and break their Pillars Deut. 12 2 3. 2 Chron. 17 6. 2 Reg. 18.4 and burn their Groves with fire and you shall hew down the graven Images of their gods and destroy the names of them out of the place And as Jehosaphat according to this Precept took away the High-places and Groves out of Juda and Hezechias also removed the High-places and brake the Images and cut down the Groves and brake in pieces the brazen Serpent that Moses had made because the children of Israel did burn incense to it So should we subvert and throw down all the Monuments of Idolatry and Superstition and all the places where the true Religion and the Service of God have been abused And accordingly these frantick Zelots have wheresoever they came and could do it thrown down many of our Churches and brake in pieces the Fonts wherein they were Baptized and threw down the Tombs and Monuments of their Fore-fathers and made such havock of Gods Houses and destroyed all Holy places so as is lamentable to consider it And they tell us most impudently that to hold up such places to serve God therein is nothing else but with King Saul to reserve the execrable and accursed things for Gods Worship which is abominable in the sight of God Sol. 1. To this I Answer 1. That it is better to serve God in those places that have been superstitiously abused as formerly all places were Idolatrously defiled by the Heathens than not to serve him in any place for as when certain Christians found a vacant and a voyd place in the City of Rome where they thought they might conveniently build a Church and certain loose companions that were Victuallers made claim and pretended a Title unto it and told Alexander Severus it was not so fit to make a House to serve God in as it was for them to sell and vent their commodities the Emperour The discreet answer of Alexander Severus led by the light of nature being no Christian answered most Christian-like that he thought it better God should be Worshipped any way and in any place rather then that they should have their way to make it a place for their shambles so say I that it is a great deal fitter to serve God in these Houses that were so Zealously erected and so Religiously Consecrated for Gods service howsoever they were afterwards soyled with some vanities and perhaps defiled with some Idolatries then that they should be thrown down or be made a Stable for their Horses or a Kitchin to dress meat for their tables as some of these Sectaries have made these Houses of God to be
2. I say that there is no more affinity or likeness between those times of the Israelites and our times and betwixt that people who were Jews and us that are Christians then is betwixt Simon Peter and Simon Magus or Philip the Apostle and Philip King of Macedon for we are not commanded to do against Idolaters as they were commanded to do against the Canaanites as they were forbidden to make Covenants of peace or to have any commerce with the inhabitants of that place and they were commâ—nded to root out and to destroy all that people and we have no such injunction to prohibite us to trade and traffick either with Papists Jews or Gentiles neither may the Reformed Churches and Protestants put others their neighbours to the sword only because they are Idolaters or of a contrary Religion but they are rather to labour for their Conversion as St. Paul did the Idolaters of Athens and not to work their destruction 3. I say that the examples of Jehosaphat and Hezechias are no commanding precepts and have not the force of laws and you know that Vivitur praeceptis non exemplis men are to live by laws and not by examples whereof we have more bad then good but were they never so good and so godly yet are they no Commanders but Councellors and no laws to injoyn us but less ns to direct us and that in the like cases for where the proportion and the equality betwixt the example and the following of it faileth there we must likewise fail to follow it and we find a great deal of disproportion and inequality betwixt the groves and high places of the Jews and our Cathedrals and Churches that were the Papists because their groves and high places were very dangerous to be left for the just fear of a secret access and coming unto them by the superstitious Jews that were alwaies so apt and so ready to fall into Idolatry and our Cathedralls and Churches are freed from this fear when as they are throughly cleansed and purged from all the former superstitions by the pure Preaching of the Word of God and no Idolatrous Papist comes unto them nor any other but only those that professe themselves to be of the pure Religion And therefore learned Zanchius saith Hieron Zanch. de operibus redemptionis l. 1. c. 12. that Vbique locorum in omnibus ferè Regnis Provinciis quae amplexae sunt evangelium Templa ipsa in quibus Idolatria admissa fuit tot annos retenta sunt In every place and in all Kingdoms and Provinces wel-nigh which have imbraced the Gospel the Churches themselves where Idolatry hath been committed have been retained so many years together And why should they not be still used For what evil have the Churches committed that they which were dedicated to such an Holy use as is the true service of God should be now so severely handled as to be either quite demolished or diverted and turned to any other purpose For the senseless creatures cannot be said to be sinful and so not to be censured and therefore the Leprous mans house was rather to be purged then to be pulled down and where the malady is uncurable there as the Poet saith immedicabile vulnus Ense recidendum ne pars syncera trahatur The part only infected and putrified is to be cut off and not to cast away the whole and so the wiser Divines threw down the Altars of those Churches where Idolatry and superstition were most used but they thought good to keep the Churches still to their former uses And so when the two hundred and fifty men offered incense unto the Lord in the Rebellion of Kora God himself bade Eleazar the High Priest not to throw away those brasen Censers which those men offered but to imploy them for his service Numb 16.38 and to make of them Broad plates for a covering of the Altar And when Jericho was taken by the Israelites Joshua caused the Gold Silver Brass and Iron that were execrable goods not to be thrown away but to be brought into the House of the Lord and put into the Treasury of Gods House And it is very well worth your observation Josh 6.26 to consider what the Lord himself commandeth Gedeon to do namely to take his Fathers young Bullock even the second Bullock of seven years old that was fed to be offered unto Baal and throw down the Altar of Baal and cut down the grove that is by it Judg. 6.26 and Build an Altar unto the Lord thy God upon the top of this rock and Take the second Bullock and offer a burnt Sacrifiâ—e with the wood of the grove which thou shalt cut down And according to these Presidents the Law provided Cod. l. 1. tit 8. Valent. Mart. tit 12. leg 11. Honor. that the houses wherein the Hereticks did meet and broached their damnable Divinity should be adjudged to be united to the Orthodoxal Churches as were also the houses and habitations of the Caelicoles that were Hereticks so called and in Saint Augustines time the Churches that the Donatists possessed were not destroyd but they were taken from them as we took ours from the Roman-Priests and were given to the Catholick Bishops And therefore why should not we use those Churches that were Religiously dedicated and Holily Consecrated for Gods service and could not themselves commit any â—ffence nor be so Prophaned as the accursed things of Jericho or the Bullock and groves of Baal or the Churches of the Arians and Donatists to be the Temples and Sanctified Houses wherein our people should meet to hear Gods Word to pray unto him and to receive his Holy Sacrament But I remember Plutarch Plutarch in vit Publicolae pag. 113. Tit. Livius l. 2. pag. 57. and Titus Livius tell us how that the Romans after they had expelled Tarquinius Superous when his son Sextus Tarquinius had most shamefully ravished Lucretia they all took a Solemn oath they would never suffer any King to Reign over them and because this was not sufficient to free them from the fear of a Regal Government the Consul Bâ—utuâ— in the behalf of the people makeâ— a solemn Oration to his fellow Consul Tarquinius Collaâ—nius to give over his Consulâ—â—â—p and to depart the City to free the people from that fear because that although he was a very honest man and was a principal actor in expelling 〈◊〉 quinâ—us Superbus and they could lay nothing to his charge that ever he did or said against the liberty of the people or for the Government of Kings yet seeing his name was Tarquinius the freedom of the City could not be fully secured nor the men free from the fear of Tyranny so long as a person of that name how just and innocent so ever he were continued within the City So I believe it is not for any evil that these men can or could ever espy in our Churches they cry so much and yell like
brought all them that followed him and his wayes to the like perdition And so Nimrod Esau and Ismael falling away from God and Jeroboam setting up his golden gods and many other Kings and Princes neglecting their duties apostatizing from God and misleading their people brought them in like manner to their utter ruine And as many times the people are brought to their ruine by the evil example Scilicet in vulgus manant exemplaregentum utque ducum lituos sic mores castra sequuntur Claud. 1. Stilic and wicked Government of their Prime-Leaders when as the Poet saith Regis ad exemplum totus componitur orbis And the Souldiers would imitate Alexander in his stoopings and in his vices as well and sooner than in his vertues So many times and oftner too they are brought to the same pass the same pathes of perdition through the lewd examples and neglect of the subordinate Magistrates of the Common-wealth and the Governours and Ministers of the Church of God As when the Princes Esay 1.23 Zephant 3.3 or Nobility are rebellious and companions of Thieves or as Zephany saith like Lions and the Judges are evening-Wolves that judge not the fatherless neither doth the cause of the widdow come unto them And when the Prophets are leight and treacherous persons and the Priests have polluted the Sanctuary and have done violence to the Law either by corrupting it Prov. 29.18 with their false glosses or locking it up in prison and not publishing the same unto the people for where there is no vision the people perish saith the Wise-man And so by their false teaching or no teaching they thrust forward the poor people into perdition And therefore Kings and Princes to whom God in the first place hath committed the Soveraignty and Charge both of Church and Common-wealth Exod. 18.21 ought not only to chuse such Judges and Magistrates as Jethro described unto Moses Able men fearing God men of truth and hating covetousness But when the Cathedrals and Parochial-Churches are built and beautified for God's Worship and for the people of God to meet in them to serve God What manner of Judges and Bishops Kings ought to chuse as they ought to be they should also take care and see that such Bishops and Priests as S. Paul describeth in 1 Tim. 3.2 c. be setled in those Churches to worship God and to bring the people to do their duties that they may attain to eternal life Lest that which S. Hierom complained of in his time should be true in our time That the Altars shined with Gold and pretious Stones Bernard ad Abbat Cluniacen Sed ministrorum nulla erat electio There was no good choice made of good Ministers whereby it was said That they had golden Chalices but woodden Priests as S. Bernard saith it was not much better in his dayes there was not such care taken for good Ministers as they should do For as in Nature we see every thing for its Creation requires a Divine hand and a Miraculous power to produce it but the same being once produced God's hand is not so conspicuous but he leaves it to the soyl as it were to stand and grow by the innate vertue planted in it So it seems to fare with Religion it self which is such a superstructure above Nature that although it be planted by God as both the Jewish and Christian Religion were with signs and wonders and a strong miraculous hand yet men must now conserve it by those ordinary means that God appointed the Church of Christ being like the Garden of God in Eden which the Lord made and then set it to our Parents to keep it and to dress it And though this Religion which at first is thus powerfully planted by God and is the principal Pillar that upholdeth States and makes all Kingdoms happy yet after the inward vertue of the Doctrine of Christ the Bishops and Priests are the main props and the ordinary means that God hath appointed to uphold his Religion and to continue his Service in his Church because Religion can neither plant it self nor sustain it self alone and what support soever it hath from the Prince or the Laws of any Nation yet the Bishâ—ps and Priests are as it were the soul of that power in the execution thereof when as all the substance circumstance and ceremonies have their life from them and our consent and belief in their holy Calling is that which doth and should keep us from the singularity of our own misguided imaginations And therefore that Prince that is truly religious Kings ought to have a special care to chuse good Bishops and hath a special care of God's Service must likewise with King David and as good King Charles ever had have a special care to see that godly and learned Bishops and Priests be appointed in God's Church to instruct his people And you know what S. Paul saith That a Bishop must be blameless the husband of one wife vigilant sober of good behaviour given to hospitality apt to teach not given to wine no striker not greedy of filthy lucre but patient not a brawler not covetous one that ruleth well his own house having his children in subjection with all gravity not a novice or a young new Divine lest being lifted up with pride as young men commonly are he fall into the condemnation of the Devil Moreover 1 Tim 2.1.2.2 4 5 6 7. he must have a good report of them that are without lest be fall into reproach and the snare of the Devil All which large description of those parts and vertues that every Bishop and faithful Minister of God's Church ought to have may for order and method sake be reduced into these two Heads Levit. 8.8 which are the Vrim and the Thummim that Moses put upon the Breast-plate of Aaron and for which he did so earnestly pray that God would grant them unto all the Tribe of Levi saying Let thine Vrim and thy Thummim be with thy holy one or with the man of thy mercy And they signifie The two special vertues that ought to be in every Bishop and Priest 1. The uprightness of his life and conversation 2. The sincerity of his doctrine teaching of his people For so Moses sheweth that Levi did as every Bishop and Priest should do 1. Carry himself most dutifully and obedient in his life and all his actions Vertue 1 towards God as when God proved him at Massa and strove with him at the waters of Meriba he said unto his father and to his mother I have not seen him neither did he acknowledge his brethren nor knew his own children Verse 9. but he observed Gods word and kept his Covenant and preferred the keeping of God's Laws and walking dutifully according to his will before father or mother wife or children which every Christian and especially every Christian Bishop and true Levite ought to do 2. To teâ—ch Jacob the
alms or benevolence 3. Because the Tythes are due to Christ as he is our Priest and so they are the portion of the Lord as the Lord professeth and he gives them over to his Ministers that are his Embassadours and teach his people Deut. 18.2 in his stead as the Lord himself saith I am the inheritance of the Priests Therefore to deny the Priests of that portion which God saith is his and promiseth to give it them for his Service is to mock God and to make a derision of his promises as the Apostle sheweth when he saith Let him that is taught in the word make him that teacheth him partaker of all his goods Gal. 6.6 7. and then immediately addeth Be not deceived for God is not mocked and will not be mocked intimating that to deal otherwise with God's Ministers is none other thing than to mock God because God had promised this part and portion to them that stand in his stead 2 Cor. 5.20 as the Apostle sheweth And so you see how the Scriptures Fathers and Councils and all conclude that the Tythes of all our goods are due and perpetually due to Christ and by him given over by an indispensible Law unto his Substitutes the Priests and Preachers of the Gospel But then I may demand with Francis Sylvius Quomodo factum sit ut decimae tot Imperatorum Christianorum donationibus decretis Synodorum Ecclesiis in usus Canonicos pios legitimos Francisc Sylvius de decimis nempe Ministerii Sacri conservatione Ministrâ—rum Ecclesiasticorum honesto stipendio pauperum varii generis alimonia captivorum redemptione locorum Sacrorum reparatione sabâ—â—ca destinatae ad laicorum ut vocant manus pervenerint How comes it now to passe that the Tythes appointed and ordained by the Laws and Donations of so many Christian Kings and Emperours and by the Decrees of so many Councils and Synods to be paid unto the Churches for such regular pious and lawful uses as to uphold and preserve the holy Ministery and publick Service of God the honest stipend and maintenance of the Church-Ministers the relief of the poor of divers kinds the redemption of captives the reparation of Churches and other sacred places or the erecting and building of such places and the like should notwithstanding be now transferred and carried away by lay men Albertus Kranâ—zius Metropol l. 1. c. 2. I answer and say That letting passe what Albertus Krantzius relateth I find three special authors and causes of this mischief 3. Special causes why the Tythes are detained and alienated from the Chu ch 1. Cause 1. The malice of the Devil 2. The pride and arrogancy of the Pope 3. The covetousnesse and the injustice of the wicked worldlings 1. Satan is the Grand enemy of all mankind and therefore laboureth by all means to bring both the Service and servants of God into contempt and he knoweth nothing makes them more contemptible than want and poverty quae cogit ad turpia which makes them unable to discharge that honourable Service which they owe to God and forceth them to do many base and dishonourable actions and because their Lord and Master Christ which taketh pleasure in the prosperity of his servants hath very bountifully allowed them his own portion of Tythes and Oblations for their maintenance whereby they might most honourably proceed in their Profession and so inlarge the Christian Religion this deadly enemy of all goodness most cunningly and insensibly brought it so to passe that almost the whole portion of Christ is alienated from the Church and his Ministers are left like Pharaohs lean kine poor and meager whereby instead of the double honour that S. Paul saith is due unto them their ears and their souls are filled with the scornful reproof of the wealthy and the despitefulness of the proud And because this mischief could not so easily be done if he had come to do it like the prince of darkness therefore he changeth himself into an angel of light and as he perswaded Judas the Treasurer of Christ to betray Christ himself so he got the Pope the Vicar of Christ's Church to betray and to undo the Church of Christ and all under the shew and shadow of Religion because he knew that as the Poet saith Tuta frequensque via est sub amici fallere nomen Though as the same Poet saith Tuta frequensque licet sit via crimen habet but that was his desire And therefore 2. He perswaded the Pope to become the first founder of all our impropriations by alienating them from their proper use and from the Churches of Christ and conferring them on Monastries and Nunries to maintain the Abbots Monks and Nuns that were the first nursing fathers and mothers of this devouring Harpie And as the Devil said to Christ All the Kingdoms of the earth will I give thee as if he had been Lord Paramount of all the World So the Pope in the pride of his heart conceiting that being Christ's Vicar he might dispose of all that is Christs as pleased himself destroyed the servants of Christ to make his own Parasites so that he appropriated 3845. of the fattest and largest Benefices in England either to his out-landish and Italian Harpies or others his creatures Church-lands not to be sold pag. 31. of whom nothing could be expected but that they would feed themselves like Epicures and never take care for the Church of Christ And though the godly Bishops of England that saw the mischief of that practise by the neglect of God's Service in the Parish-Churches and the abominable evils committed in those Abbies and Nunries so plentifully set down by Cornelius Agrippa and others did in the time of Henry the third direct a suite to Alexander the fourth Cornelius Agrippa de vanitate Scien cap. 49. for the restitution of those impropriations to their proper uses and primitive ordination Yet the Devil would not permit that Pope to do that service unto God as to be obedient to the Ordinance of God And though it be against all reason that the Tythes which are appointed for God's Service should be transferred to any lay person because that where Tythes are paid there must be a matter of giving and receiving as the Apostle sheweth We give unto you spiritual things and we receive your temporal things but the lay men that have the impropriations do receive the Tythes but can give no spiritual gift unto the people And therefore Damasus demandeth Qua fronte aut qua conscientia Damas Decret 3. decimas oblationes vultis accipere quum vix valetis pro vobis ipsis ne dum pro aliis Deo preces offerre With what face or conscience can the lay persons demand the Tythes and Oblations when they are scarce able to pray for themselves much lesse to offer up prayers and supplications for others Yea though their own Canons and Orders speak against the impropriating of
Sacriledge and especially the Sacriledge of this Climate and more particularly of this Diocesse of Ossory where the Irish behind me the English before me the Citizens of the Corporation of Kilkeny and Crumwells Captains on the one hand and your Majestie 's faithful Souldiers and Subjects in Anno 1649. on the other hand do all seem to me to become faithless unto Christ and to fight against God to take away the Inheritance of his Church from us that are his weak servants And it hath imboldned me likewise most humbly to supplicate your Majesty to take notice of these wrongs done unto us which you do not know and to assist me to gain that right unto the Church which I without your Majesties assistance cannot do and to pardon me for my boldness and whatsoever else I have done amisse CHAP. XX. The Authour's supplication to Jesus Christ that he would arise and maintain his own cause which we his weak servants cannot do against so many rich powerful and many-friended adversaries of his Church ANd now sweet Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ having made mine humble addresse according to my bounden duty to thine Annointed thy Livetenant and my Sacred Soveraign to assist thy servants to maintain thy right Thy right I say as thou art a Priest and a Priest for ever after the order of Melchisedec and I know that his Majesty being the son of so pious and so gracious a Father as is now so glorious with thee in Heaven will stretch forth his Royal hand as thou didst unto S. Peter to preserve us from sinking I must now with fear and reverence and in all humility crave leave to return my speech unto thy Self and as thou hast commanded us to hear thy voice so thou hast promised to hear our prayers And therefore I pray thee let not my Lord be angry but suffer thy servant to speak unto thee And we confess that we are not worthy to sit with the dogs of thy flock yet thou hast called us to a most high and honourable place to be thine Embassadours to thy chosen people and unto Kings and Princes to be thy Stewards and the Dispensers of thy manifold graces And according to our places thou hast commanded us to behave and carry our selves as may be most agreeable for thine Honour to preach thy word to relieve the poor to keep hospitality to build thine House and to do other the like works of piety and charity Matth. 21 33. Matth. 25 14. Luke 19 13. And we know that thou art not like Pharaoh a cruel Master that taketh away the straw and yet will require the whole tale of bricks for thou didst deliver thy Vineyard unto the Husbandmen before thou didst expect the fruits of it and thou gavest thy Talents unto thy servants before thou didst look for any gain from them But now O Lord God our straw is kept from us our vineyard is taken away It was all taken from us and now still much is detained from us and we have scarce any one talent left unto us for O God the Heathen have come into thine Inheritance and as of old they made Hierusalem so now of late they have made the famous Church of S. Keny and many other Churches in Ireland an heap of stones the dead bodies of thy servants have they given to be meat unto the fowls of the air and the flesh of thy Saints unto the beasts of the field And as the Prophet David said The Tabernacles of the Edomites and Ismaelites the Moabites and the Hagareus Gebal and Ammon and Amalec the Philistines with them that dwell at Tyre Assure also is joyned with them and have holpen the children of Lot to devour Jacob and to lay waste his dwelling place So the Independents the Arminians the Brownists the Anabaptists Luther and Calvin and Cartwright the Hugonots with them that are called Quakers and the Jesuites also have joyned with them and have to the uttermost of their power holpen our Grand Opposers the Presbyterians if not to devour the seed of Jacob to destroy the Church and thy Service which they now deny to desire to do it yet I am sure to be confederate against thee and to lay waste thy dwelling place to imagin craftily against thy people the true Royalists and to take counsel against the secret ones the Bishops and Governours of the Church 1 Reg. 19.10 And as Elias said of the children of Israel They have forsaken thy Covenant they have thrown down thine Altars and they have killed thy Prophets So I may say of the children of Belial they have forsaken the true Protestant Religion they threw down thy Churches they killed many of thy servants and they said Come and let us root out the Bishops that they be no more a people and that the name of Episcopacy may be no more in remembrance and to that end at the Prophet saith They brake down all our carved and curious works with axes and hammers they have set fire upon thy holy places and have defiled the dwelling place of thy Name Psal 74.7 8. even to the ground Yea and they said in their hearts Let us make havock of them altogether And by taking away all our lands houses Psal 80.5 and possessions they fed us with the bread of tears and gave us plenteousness of tears to drink and so they made us a very strife unto our neighbours and our enemies laughed us to scorn when they saw us made as the filth of the world 1 Cor. 4.13 and as the off-scouring of all things And though thou hast brought unto us a most gracious King to our unspeakable joy and comfort yet to this very day they and their associates and that which troubles us most of all they that come in thy Name and under pretence of thy Service and for service done unto thee and thy Church do by the example of those thine enemies and the haters of thy Church either through ignorance or covetousness labour by all means and with great friends to blind the eyes of our good King that he should not understand the truth of the Churches Right that so they might the easier and the sooner carry away the lands houses and possessions of the Church from thee and from thy servants whereby they shall be made invalid and unable to discharge the duties and the works that thou requirest at their hands if thou dost not help them to their instruments and means wherewith they may do their work And therefore because we are weak and friendless and far unable to deal and to prevail against so many powerful armed men we lift up our eyes and hands to thee O Lord God and pray thee to arise and maintain thine own Cause and let not man have the upper-hand for they have rebelled against thee and have robbed thee as the Prophet testifieth and be not angry with us for ever but be gracious unto thy servants and lay not that to
Army will be a rock of defence unto his annointed because it is well known to all the world For what causes the King suffereth that whatsoever this good King hath suffered at the hands of his subjects it is for the preservation of the true Protestant Religion of the established Lawes of his Kingdomes and of those Reverend Bishops Grave Doctors and all the rest of the Learned and Religious Clergy that have ever maintained and will to the spilling of the last drop of their blood defend this truth against all Papists and other Anabaptistical Brownists and Sectaries whatsoever What a shame it is to use the power we have received against him that gave it us And therefore if you that are his Parliament should like unthankeful vapours that cloud the Sun which raised them or like the Moon in her interposition that obscures the glorious lamp which enlightens her in the least manner imploy that strength which you have received from his Majesty when he called you together against His Majesty it will be an ugly spot and a foul blemish both for your selves and all your pâ—sterities And if not suddenly prevented you may raise such spirits that your selves cannot lay down and sow such seeds of discord and disconteâ—t between the King and his people as may derive through the whole Race of all succeeding Kings such a disaffection to Parliaments as may prove a plague and poyson to the whole Kingdom For if the King out of his favour and grace call you together and intrust you with a power either of continuing concluding or enacting such things as may be for the good of the Common wealth and you abuse that power against him that gave it you I must needs confesse that I am of his mind That it is lawful to recall a power given when it is abused who saith That the King were freed before God and man from all blame though he should use all possible lawful means to withdraw that power into his own hands which being but lent them hath been so misapplyed against him for if my servant desireth to hold my sword and when I intrust him with it he seeks to thrust the same into my breast Will not every man judge it lawful for me to gain my sword if it be possible out of his hand and with that sword to cut off his head that would have thrust it into my heart or as one saith If I convey my estate in trust to any friend to the use of me and mine and the person intrusted falsifie the faith reposed in him by conveying the profits of my estate to other ends to the prejudice of me and mine no man will think it unlawful for me to annihilate if I can possibly do it such a deed of trust And therefore Noble Peers and Gentlemen of this ancient Kingdom of Ireland that your Parliament may prove successeful to the benefit of the Common-wealth let me that have some interest and charge over all the Inhabitants and Sojourners of Kilkenny perswade you to think your selves no Parliament without your King and that your Votes and Ordinances carrying with them the power though not the name of Acts of Parliament to oblige both King and Subjects to obey them are the most absolute subversion of our Fundamental Lawes the destructive invasion of our rightful Liberties And that by an usurped power of an arbitrary rule to dispose of our estates or any part thereof as you please to make us Delinquents when you will and to punish us as Malignants at your pleasure and through your discontent to dispossesse your rightful King though it were to set the Crown upon the head of your greatest One al is such a priviledg that never any Parliament hath yet claimed Or if you still go on for the inlargement of your own usurped power under the title of the priviledge of Parliament to Vote diminution of the Kings just Prerogative that your Progenitors never denied to any of his Ancestors to exclude us Bishops out of your Assemblies without whom your determinations can never be so well concluded in the fear of God and to invade the Liberties of your fellow-subjects under the pretences of religion and the publique good I will say no more but turn my self to God and put it in my Liturgie From Parasites Puritanes Popes and such Parliaments Good Lord deliver us CHAP. IX Sheweth the unanimous consent and testimonies of many famous learned men and Martyrs both ancient and modern that have confirmed and justified the truth of the former Doctrine ANd so you see that as for no cause so for no kind or degree of men be they what you will Peers Magistrates Heads of Families Darlings of the people or any other Patriots whom the Commons shall elect it is lawfull to rebell against or any wayes to resist our chief Princes and soveraign Governours This point is as clear as the Sunne and yet to make it still more clear unto them that will not believe that truth which they like not but as Tertullian saith Credunt Scripturis ut credant adversus Scripturas Testimonies of famous men do alledge Scriptures to justifie their own wilful opinions against all Scripture I will here adde a few testimonies of most famous men to confirm the same Henry de Bracton Lord chief Justice of the Kings Bench under Hen. 3. L. Elismer in orat habita in Camera Fiscali anno 1609. pag. 108. saith as he is quoted by the Lord Elismer That under the King there are free men and servants and every man is under him and he is under none but onely God If any thing be demanded of the King seeing no Writ can issue forth against the King there is a place for Petition that he would correct and amend his fact and if he shall refuse to do it he shall have punishment enough when the Lord shall come to be his revenger for otherwise touching the Charters and deeds of Kings neither private persons nor Justitiaries ought to dispute This was the Law of that time what new Lawes our young Lawyers have found since I know not I am not so good a Lawyer The Civil Lawyers do farre surpasse the Common Law herein for Corsetus Sic. tract de potestat reg part 5. num 66. Corsetus Siculus saith Rex in suo regno potest omnia imò de plenitudine potestatis And Marginista saith Qui disputat de potestate Principis utrum benè fecerit est infamis Hostiensis saith Princeps solutus est legibus id est quoad vim coactivam non quoad vim directivam Thom. 1. 2 ae q. 96. ar 5. ad 3. quia nulli subest nec ab aliis judicatur And to omit all the rest Marginista in Angelum Perusinum c. l. 9. tit 29. De crimine sacrilegii l. 2 Hostiens Sum. l 1. rubr 32. de effic legati Barclaius contra Monarchomach l. 3â— c. 14. Gulielmus Barclaius out of Bartolus Baldus Castrensis
Rites which were such a burthen that neither we nor our fathers could undergo and also from the curse and malediction of the moral law would under this pretence of Christian liberty be freed from the obligation of all lawes and give themselves the freedom to do what they pleased for this would prove to be not the liberty but the bondage and the base slavery of a people that are not governed by lawes but suffered to do what they please because that neither God nor good lawes confine us but for our own good and he that forbids us to obey impious commands bids us to obey all righteous lawes and rather to suffer then to resist the most unrighteous Governours But I fear that under the name of the liberty of the subjects What is often aimed at under the name of theâ— liberty of the â—ubjects the licentiousnesse of the flesh is aymed at because you may see by what is already come to passe our civil dissention hath procured to many men such a liberty that few men are sure either of their life or estate and God blesse me from such a liberty and send me rather to be the slave of Christ then such a libertine of the world Whether for the preservation of our Religion we can be warranted to rebell And if religion be the cause that moveth you here hereunto I confesse this should be dearer to us then our lives but this title is like a velvet mask that is often used to cover a deformed face decipimur specie recti for as that worthy and learned Knight Sir John Cheek that was Tutor to King Edward the sixth saith If you were offered Persecution for Religion you ought to flye and yet you intend to fight if you would stand in the truth ye ought to suffer like Martyrs and you would slay like Tyrants Thus for Religion you keep no Religion and neither will follow the Counsel of Christ nor the constancie of Martyrs And a little after he demands why the people should not like that Religion which Gods Word established the Primitive Church hath authorized the greatest learned men of this Realm and the whole consent of the Parliament have confirmed and the Kings Majesty hath set forth is it not truly set out Sir John Cheek in The true subject to the rebell p. 4 6. Dare you Commons take upon you more learning then the chosen Bishops and Clerks of this Realm have This was the judgement of that judicious man And I must tell you that Religion never taught Rebellion neither was it the will of Christ that Faith should be compelled by fighting but perswaded by preaching for the Lord sharply reproveth them that built up Sion with blood Micah 3.18 and Hierusalem with iniquitie and the practice of Christ and his Apostles was to reform the Church by prayers and preaching and not with fire and sword and they presse obedience unto our Governours yea though they were impious infidels and idolatrous True religion never rebelleth with arguments fetched from Gods ordinance from mans conscience from wrath and vengeance and from the terrible sentence of damnation And this truth is so solid that it hath the clear testimony of holy Writ the perpetual practice of all the Primitive Saints and Martyrs and I dare boldly say it the unanimous consent of all the orthodox Bishops and Catholick Writers both in England and Ireland and in all the world That Christian Religion teacheth us never with any violence to resist or with arms to withstand the authority of our lawful Kings If you say The Laws of our Land Whether the Laws of our Land do warrant us to rebell and the Constitutions of this our Kingdom give us leave to stand upon our libertie and to withstand all tyrannie that shall be offered unto us especially when our estates lives and religion are in danger to be destroyed To this I say with Laelius that Nulla lex valeat contra jus divinum Laelâ—â—s de privileg Eccles 112. Mans lawes can exact no further obedience then may stand with the observance of the divine precepts and therefore we must not so preferre them or relye upon them so much as to prejudice the other and for our fear of the losse of estate life or religion I wish it may not be setled upon groundlesse suspitions for I know and all the world may believe that our King is a most clement and religious Prince that never did give cause unto any of his subjects to foster such feares and jealousies within his breast and you know what the Psalmist saith of many men They were afraid where no fear was And Job tells you whom terrours shall make afraid on every side Job 18.11 12. and shall drive him to his feet that is to runne away as you see the Rebels do from the Kings Army in every place and in whose Tabernacle shall dwell the King of fear for though the ungodly fleeth when no man pursueth him yet they that trust in God are confident as Lyons without fear they know that the heart of the King is not in his own hand but in the hand of the Lord Prov 21.1 Bonav ad secundam dist 35. art 2. qu. 1. as the rivers of waters and he turneth it whithersoever it pleaseth him either to save them or destroy them even as it pleaseth God He ordereth the King how to rule the people And therefore in the name of God and for Christ Jesus sake let me perswade you to put away all causelesse fears and groundlesse jealousies and trust your King if not trust your God and let your will which is so unhappy in it self become right and equall by receiving direction from the will of God and remember what Vlpian the great Civilian saith that Rebellion and disobedience unto your King is proximum sacrilegio crimen and that it is in Samuel's judgement as the sinne of witchcraft whereby men forsake God and cleave unto the Devil and above all The remembrance of his Oath should be a terrour to the conscience of every Rebel remember the oath that many of you have taken to be true and faithful unto your King and to reveal whatsoever evils or plots that you shall know or hear to be contrived against his Person Crown or Dignity and defend him from them Pro posse tuo to the uttermost of your power So help you God Which Oath how they that are any wayes assistant in a warre against their King can dispence with I cannot with all my wit and learning understand and therefore return O Shulamite 〈◊〉 lay down thine arms submit thy self unto thy Soveraign and know that as the Kings of Israel were merciful Kings 1 Kings 20.31 so is the King of England thou shalt find grace in the time of need but delay not this duty â—est as Demades saith the Athenians never sate upon treaties of peace but in mourning weeds when by the losse of
Wisdom of the Parliament that confirmed it 4. Abused the images and pictures of the Saints and other holy things 4. Under colour to shew their hatred to Idolatry they have broken down the glass Windows of many Churches shot off the heads of the Images of the Blessed Virgin and of our dear Saviour represented in her lap upon the porch of Saint Maries in Oxford thrown away the Pictures of Christ and of other his Holy Apostles and Gods blessed Saints into the Rivers taken the Ministers Surplices to make Frocks to preserve their cloathes when they dressed their Horses and in Worcester they have done what I am ashamed to speak and would loathe any modest ear to heare made the Pulpit and not far from the Town the Font their house of office as I was informed by one of the gravest Doctours and Prebends of that Church thrown down the Organs which cost above fifteen hundred pounds and taken the Pipes and Copes of the Prebends and gone round about the Streets with the Copes on their backs and the Pipes in their hands dancing the Morrice-dance So in Winscomb in Glocester-shire they brake down the Organs and made that Church their Slaughter-house when they killed certain Sheep that they had stollen and dressed the same upon the Communion Table and in Lincoln-Minster the Souldiers brought their Horses into the Quire laid their hay upon the Holy Table and made the House of God a Stable for their Horses that did now eat their hay where the Christians did use to Communicate the Body and Blood of Christ so that these men give their Saviour no better entertainment now in his glory Luk. 2.7 than the Jews did when he came in his Humility but he shall be still kept low and a Stable shall be good enough for his Mansion yet as in Canterbury they did but little less so in Winchester they added this to their former prophanations to take the ashes of those Saxon Kings that were kept in certain Urns and threw them about the ground as if death it self could not appease their rage Saeva sed in manes manibus arma dabant It would fill a whole volume to relate all the Villanies that they did of this kind the consideration of which prophane usage of Holy places made a worthy Gentleman Pathetically to set down these fervent speeches I would to God we had not cause to complain of the Horrid and barbarous attempts of divers among us Christians I can scarce call them against some the mother-Churches * Canterbury Worcester Winchester Chichester and many others who as if they had studied to affront the Almighty to his face and purposely with Manasses to anger him have not spared to prophane those goodly Structures and irreligiously and Antichristianlike to deface the Instruments there prepared and imployed in the service of the great God at the very thought whereof I tremble and stand amazed Master Theyer in his Treatise of Episcopacy 56 57. and can hardly believe the Christian World in any age no not under the Gothes and Vandals can parallel it with an example of like abominable and Atheistical Villanies yet to this day uncensured and I am heartily sorry that it should be told in Gath or Ascalon in any forraign Nation that our English People should have any such Sect amongst them so voyd of all humanity so destitute of all thoughts of a Deity and so full of all incredible impieties And therefore I must use the words of the Prophet Jeremy 〈◊〉 9 29. Shall I not visit for these things saith the Lord Or shall not my soul be avenged on such a Nation as this Or is it any wonder that there are such Wars such bloody Wars such barbarous rapines and that these miseries do still continue amongst us when we not onely proceed to commit Rom. 1.32 Heb. 10.31 but also to defend and justify these and the like abominable wickednesses and have pleasure in them that do them for It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God 5. Under the colour of advancing the true Protestant Religion 5 Branded the true Protestants and advanced Anabaptists they have branded the best Protestants even those that have most learnedly both preached and written against the Church of Rome and all her erroneous tenets and were not long since registred in the classe of Puritans and for that cause kept under water for Papists and superstitiously Popish and so Malignants and opposers of the true to be established Religion and they have encouraged and promoted to the Livings and Lively-hoods of the most Orthodox and Canonical men Anabaptists and Brownists and other Sectaries of most desperate opinions that as Saint Bernard saith of the like Multiplicati sunt super numerum As the Caterpillers overspread all the Land of Aegypt so these are multiplyed in every corner without number and these tares have almost choaked all the Wheat in Gods field and do preach most desperate Doctrines destructive both to themselves their Proselytes and all the truest Protestants throughout all this Kingdom when as Sedition and Rebellion besides their other damnable Doctrines condemned by the Church must ever be at one end of their Sermons and published in their Pamphlets As for instance you may find in the bloody books and fiery writings of the darling Secretaries of the red Dragon that warreth against the Saints Stephen Marshal Master Bridges Jo. Goodwin Burroughs and the rest of the Locusts * Quae glomerantur in unum Innumerae pestes Erebi Claud. that are sent out of the bottomlesse pit to seduce the people of God and to lead them headlong unto perdition But let me advise the Servants of Christ to remember their Saviour's words To beware of false Prophets they shall deceive many and many Matth. 7.15 love to be deceived by them those whom God hath given up that they should believe a lye Qui infatuati seducuntur seducti judicabuntur 2 Thess 2.10 The Authour's advice but you that desire to escape their snares may know them by their fruits which are Rebellion against their King and Rayling against their Governours Perjury against God by the breaches of those Oathes which in the face of the Church they have taken both to the King and to their Superiours Three notes by which we may know the false Apostles and a wilful perverting of the sacred Scriptures to the perdition of their Proselytes besides many other bitter fruits that worse than any Aconite are able to poyson any Christian soul that do but taste of their Philtra's or if you will believe these Apples of Sodom to be as sweet as they seem fair then remember by what marks the Prophets and Apostles tell us that we may know them 1. Such as run before they be sent 1. Note Jer. 23.21 as Weavers Tailors and the like that never had any calling or Authority to enter upon this sacred Function 2. They
now alive to dispose of their beneficence 2. They are most injurious to the King who is wise as an Angel of God and therefore holdeth this sacriledge odious to his Princely heart that would seek to enrich his Crown with that which will shake it on his head and endanger all his Posterity to such fearful judgements as his Progenitours have denounced and God hath executed upon many Kings and Princes for the like sinnes for as Moses prayeth against the sacrilegious enemies of Levi Deut. 33.11 Smite through the loines of them that rise aginst him and of them that hate him that they rise not again so we find that many ancient families having by the Statute of Dissolution taken some of the Lands and Tithes of the Church into their possessions have found the same like the Gold of Tholous Pierius in Hier glyph or the Eagles feathers pernitiosa potentia that will consume all the feathers where they shall be mingled Who so is wise will consider these things and will not to satisfie these Anabaptistical dregges of the people Aelian lib. 5. cap 15. Var. Hist and the enimies of all Christian Religion sacrilegiously take away with Aelian's boy the golden plate from Diana's Crown the Lands and Revenues of the Church but having not so learned Christ they will do that which becommeth Saints and suffer the dead to enjoy their own will in that wherein they put them to to no charge and if they do intend to promote Gods service they will not rob Saint Peter to pay Saint Paul but will rather say with holy David God forbid that I should offer sacrifice to God of that which cost me nothing 15. As any wooden Preachers like Jeroboam's Priests de foece plebis scarce worthy to be compared with the Grooms of their stable or such humi serpentes poor abjects as Job speaks of Job 30.8 The sonnes of villains and bond-men more vile than the earth they crawle upon are fit enough to be their teachers and beggarly pensioners so any place a thatched Barn a littered Stable or an ample Cow-house What prayers and Sermons please these men is thought by these to be very fair and fit to be the House of Him that was born in a Stable and laid in a Manger and any service prayers without sense such as our Saviour blames and preaching without learning without truth such as their Enthusiasts conceive in illa horâ quicquid in buccam venerit without any further study or meditation is justified to be most acceptable to God witnesse the Authour of One argument more against the Cavaliers where that great Schollar in his own opinion rails against our grave Bishops and most impudently reproacheth a very reverend man of known worth and great learning by the scandalous Epithete of The ceremonious Master of Balliol Colledge Doctor Laurence whom for a most learned and pious Sermon preached before the King upon these words of Exodus Put off thy shooes from thy feet for the place whereon thou standest is holy ground he doth just like the eldest son of his dear father the devill as Tertullian calleth Hermogenes primogenitum diaboli most falsely and shamelesly charge him with the wearing of consecrated slippers which was never done but is one of those scurrilous invented imputations of this malicious Accuser of his brethren now thrown at him whose shooes either for learning or piety I am sure this rambling Arguist and railing Rabsheka is not worthy to bear and for the service of God in our Churches though the holy Prophet which was a man according to Gods own heart Musick ever used in the Church Psal 147.1 149.3 Ps 150.3 4 5. praised God in the beauty of holinesse upon all the best instruments of musick and commanded us as well in the grammatical sense as in the mystical sense to sing praises unto our God with Tabret and Harp to praise him in the sound of the Trumpet in the Cymbals and dances upon the well-tuned Cymbals and upon the loud Cymbals yet this zealous Organe-mastix gives us none other Title than Cathedral Roarers and Squeakers and good reason it is he should be very angry with roaring and squeaking in Churches Pag. 14. for that having been possest of a very competent Living with cure of soules these four or five years together if I am not mistaken in the Authour he never yet either read or preached in that or any other Church so necessary is Non-residence and so usefull are dumb dogges when they are willing to snarle and bark against Government and Religion but it is strange to me that such a divine harmony Musick how useful Theodoric Epist l. 2. Plutarch de Musica which hath made others sober should make this spawn of the red Dragon mad for we know some Law-givers commanded children to be taught 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 after the grave composed tones of the Dorick way ad corda fera demulcenda to soften the fiercenesse of their dispositions and ad montis fervorem temperandum to cool and allay the heat and distempers of their minds as Achilles was appeased in Homer and Theodosius was drawn to commiseration luctuoso carmine by a sad Poem sung to him at supper Niceph. lib. 12 cap. 43. when he intended the utter destruction of Antioch and the Scripture testifieth the like effect of Davids harp in King Saul yet all this sweet and hallowed air which ravisheth devout souls hath onely filled this envious malignant with nasty winds and stinking expressions So contrary to the words of God himself Exod. 3.5 and against the judgement of all Divines and the practice of all Saints à primordiis Ecclesiae from the first birth of Gods Church Pag. 15.18 he most ignorantly denieth any place to be holier than another which makes me afraid that Heaven with this man and his faction is deemed no holier than Hell or the Lords day no holier than Monday no more than they hold the Church holier than their Bâ—rns or the holiest Priest though he were Aaron himself the Saint of the Lord holier than the prophanest worldling for I find no differnce that they make either of persons times or places but such a commixtion of all things as if they intended to reduce and bring the whole world into that confused Chaos which God first created before he disposed the parts thereof into their several stations But I am loth to spend any more time about this ignorant Argument that is as all the rest of their Writings are as full of railing and unsavoury speeches as any mortall pen can diffuse therefore I leave him to do with his heart and mouth as that Morussian Cabares whereof he speaketh did with those Churches which the Goths and Vandals had defiled Thus you have some and I might adde here abundance more of their absurd and impious Doctrines which their ignorant simplicity produced and their furious zeal published out of mis-interpreted Scriptures not that
subjection with a good and free will although they were Infidels Ob. Ob. But against this patience of the Saints and the wisdome of these good Christians it is objected by Goodwin and oters of his Sect that ei her they wanted strength to resist or wanted knowledge of their strength or of their priviledge and power which God granted them to defend themselves and their religion or were over-much transported with an ambitious desire of Martyrdome or by some other misguiding spirit were utterly mis-led to an unnecessary patience and therefore we having strength enough as we conceive to subdue the King and all his strength and being wiser in our generation then all the generation of those fathers as being guided by a more unerring spirit we have no reason to pray for patience but rather to render vengeance both to the King and to all his adherents Sol. Sol. This unchristian censure and this false imputation laid upon these holy Fathers by these stubborn Rebels and proud Enthusiasts are so mildly and so learnedly answered by the Author of resisting the lawfull Magistrate upon colour of Religion Where they are fully answered that more need not be said to stop the mouthes of all ignorant gain-sayers Therefore seeing that by the institution of Kings by the precept of God and by the practice of all wise men and good Christians Heathen Kings and wicked Tyrants are to be loved honoured and obeyed it is a most hatefull thing to God and man to see men professing themselves Christians but are indeed like those in the Revel which say they are Jewes Revel 2 9. and are not in stead of honouring transcendently to hate and most violently to persecute their own most Christian and most gracious King a sin so infinitely sinfull that I do not wonder to see the greatness of Gods anger to powre all the plagues that we suffer upon this Nation but I do rather admire and adore his wonted clemency and patience that he hath not all this while either sent forth his fire and lightning from heaven as he did upon Sodome and Gomorrah to consume them Gen. 19.24 Num 16.31 or cause the earth to swallow them as it did Corah Dathan and Abiram for this their rebellion against their King or that he hath not showred down far greater plagues and more miserable calamities then hitherto we have suffered because we have suffered these Antichristian Rebels to proceed so far and have with the Merozites neglected all this while to add our strength to assist the Lords Anointed to reduce his seduced Subjects to their obedience Judges 5.23 and to impose condigne punishments upon the seducers and the ringleaders of this unnaturall and most horrible Rebellion CHAP. VI. Sheweth the two chiefest duties of all Christian Kings to whom the charge and preservation of Religion is committed three severall opinions the strange speeches of the Disciplinarians against Kings are shewed and Viretus his scandalous reasons are answered the double service of all Christian Kings and how the Heathen Kings and Emperours had the charge of Religion 2. AS all Kings are to be honoured in the fore-said respects 2. Christian Kings are to have double honour in reshect of their double duty 1. Duty 2. Duty so all Christian Kings are to have a double honour in respect of the double charge and duty that is laid upon them As 1. To preserve true religion and to defend the faith of Christ against all Atheists Hereticks Schismaticks and all other adversaries of the Gospel within their Territories and Dominions 2. To preserve their Subjects from all forraigne adversaries and to prevent civill dissentions to govern them according to the rules of justice and equity which all other Kings are bound to do but neither did nor can do it so fully and so faithfully as the Christian Kings because no Law either Solons Lycurgus Pompilius or any other Greek or Latine nor any Politique Plato Aristotle Machievle or whom you will old or new can so perfectly set down and so fairly declare quid justum quid honestum as the Law of Christ hath done and theâ—efore seeing omnis honos praesupponit onus the honour is but the reward of labour and that this labour or duty of Kings to maintain true Religion well performed and faithfully discharged brings most glory unto God and the greatest honour to all Kings when it is more to be with Constantine a nursing father to Gods Church then it is to be with Alexander the sole Monarch of the known world I will first treat of their charge and care and the power that God hath given them to defend the faith and to preserve true Religion And 1. Religion saith a learned Divine without authority is no Religion for 1. Care of Kings to preserve true Religion Aug. de utilitate credendi cap. 9. as Saint Augustine saith no true Religion can can be received by any means without some weighty force of authority therefore if that Religion whereby thou hopest to be saved hath no authority to ground it self upon or if that authority whereby thy Religion is settled be mis-placed in him that hath no authority at all what hope of salvation remaining in that Religion canst thou conceive but it is concluded on all sides that the right authority of preserving true religion must reside in him and proceed from him by whose supreme power and government it is to be enacted and forced upon us and therefore now the question is To whom the charge of preserving religion is committed 3 Opinions and it is very much questioned to whom the supreme government of our Religion ought rightly to be attributed whereof I finde three several resolutions 1. Papistical which leaneth too much on the right hand 2. Anabaptistical which bendeth twice as much on the left hand 3. Orthodoxal of the Protestants that ascribe the same to him on whom God himself hath conferred it Opinion 1 1. That the Church of Rome maketh the Pope solely to have the supreme government of our Christian Religion Vnde saepe objiciunt dictum Hosii ad Constantium Tibi Deus imperium commisit nobis quae sunt ecclesiastica concredidit Sed hic intelligitur de executione officii non de gubernatione ecclesiae Sicut ibi manifestum est cùm dicitur neque fas est nobis in terris imperium tenere neque tibi thymiamatum sacrorum potestatem hâ—bere i. e. in praedicatione Evangelii administratione Sacramentorum similibus is most apparent out of all their writeings and you may see what a large book our Country-man Stapleton wâ—ote against Master Horn Bishop of Winchester to justifie the same And Sanders to disprove the right of Kings saith Fatemur personas Episcoporum qui in toto orbe fuerunt Romano Imperatori subjectas fuisse quoniam Rex praeest hominibus Christianis verùm non quia sunt Christiani sed quia sunt homines episcopis etiam ex ea
if they do offend he will binde Kings in fetters Rom. 2.11 Psal 149.8 and their Nobles with linkes of iron and we dare not flatter you to give you the least liberty to neglect the strict service of the great God 2. As they are Christian king and that is twofold In the second respect the service of all Christian kings and princes hath as I told you before these two parts 1. To protect the true religion and to govern the Church of Christ 2. To preserve peace and to govern the Common-wealth For 1. To protect the Church Aug. cont lit petil l. 2. Optat. Milivit lib. 3. 1. It is true indeed that the Donatists of old the grand fathers of our new Sectaries were wont to say Quid Imperatori cum Ecclesia What have we to do with the Emperour or what hath the Emperour to do with the Church but to this Optatus answereth that Ille solito furore acceusus in haec verba prorupit Donatus out of his accustomed madness burst forth into these mad termes Prima omnium in republ functionum est 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Arist l. 7. c. 8. Arist Polit. l. 3. c. 10. for it is a duty that lyeth upon all Princes because all both Christians and Pagans ought to be religious as I shewed to you before not onely to be devout but also to be the means to make all their Subjects so far as they can to become devoted to Gods service as the practice of those Heathens that had no other guide of their actions then the light of nature doth make it plain for Aristotle saith that Quâ—â— ad Deorum cultum pertinent commissa sunt regibus magistratibus those things that pertain unto the worship of the Gods are committed to the care of Kings and civil Magistrates and whatsoever their religion was as indeed it was but meere superstition yet because Superstition and Religion hoc habent commune do this in common Vt faciant animos humiles formidine divûm Therefore to make men better the more humble and more dutiful the transgression thereof was deemed worthy to receive punishment among the Pagans and that punishment was appointed by them that had the principal authority to govern the Common-wealth as the Athenian Magistrates condemned Socrates though he was a man wiser then themselves yet as they conceived very faulty for his irreligion and derision of their adored gods The chief Magistrates of the Heathens had the charge of Religion And Tiberius would set up Christ among the Romane gods though the act added no honour unto Christ without the authority and against the will of the Senate to shew that the care of religion belonged unto the Emperour or chief Magistrate and therefore as the Lord commanded the kings of Israel to write a copy of his Law in a booke and to take heed to all the words of that Law for to do them that is not onely as a private person for so every man was not to write it Deut. 17.18 19. but as King to reduce others to the obedience thereof so the examples of the best kings both of Israel and Juda and of the best Christian Emperours do make this plain unto us for Joshua caused all Israel to put away the strange gods that were among them Josh 24.23 The care of the good kings of the Jews to preserve the true religion and to incline their hearts unto the Lord God of Israel Manasses after his return from Babylon tooke away the strange Gods and the Idols out of the house of the Lord and cast them all out of the City and repaired the Altar of the Lord and commanded Juda to serve the Lord God of Israel And what shall I say of David whose whole study was to further the service of God and of Jehosaphat Asa Josias Ezechias and others that were rare patternes for other kings for the well government of Gods Church and in the time of the Gospel Quod non tollit praecepta legis sed perficit which takes not away the rules of nature nor the precepts of the Law but rather establisheth the one and perfecteth the other because Christ came into the world non ut tolleret jura saeculi sed ut deâ—eret peccata mundi not to take away the rights of the Nations but to satisfie for the sins of the World the best Christian Emperours discharged the same duty reformed the Church abolished Idolatry punished Heresy and maintained Piety The care of the good Emperours to preserve the true religion Esay 49.23 especially Constantine and Theodosius that were most pious Princes and of much virtues and became as the Prophet foretold us nursing fathers unto Gods Church for though they are most religious and best in their religion that are religious for conscience sake yet there is a fear from the hand of the Magistrate that is able to restrain those men from many outward evils whom neither conscience nor religion could make honest therefore God committed the principal care of his Church to the Prince and principal Magistrate And this is confirmed and throughly maintained by sundry notable men who defended this truth The Papists unawares confess this truth Osorius de relig p. 21. as Brentius against Asoto Bishop Horne against Fekenham Jewel against Harding and many other learned men that have written against such other Papists and Puritans Anabaptists and Brownists that have taken upon them to impugne it yea many of the Papists themselves at unawares do confess as much for Osorius saith Omne regis officium in religionis sanctissimae rationem conferendum munus ejus est beare rempubl religione pietate all the office of a King is to be conferred or imployed for the regard of the most holy Religion and his whole duty is to bless or make happy the Common-wealth with Religion and piety Quod enim est aliud reipublicae principi munus assignatum quà m ut rempubl florentem atque beatam faciat quod quidem nullo modo sine egregia pietatis religionis sanctitate perficitur For though we confess with Ignatius that no man is equall to the Bishop in causes Ecclesiasticall no not the King himselfe that is in such things as belong to his office Whit. resp Camp p. 302. as Whitaker saith because he onely ought to see to holy things that is the instruction of the people the administration of the Sacraments the use of the keyes of the Kingdom of Heaven and the like The Kings authority over Bishops 1 Chron. 28.13 2 Chron. 29. 1 Reg. 2.26 matters of great weight and exceeding the Kings authority yet Kings are above Bishops in wealth honour power government and majesty and though they may not do any of the Episcopall duties yet they may and ought lawfully to admonish them of their duties and restrain them from evill and command them diligently to execute their office and if they neglect the same they
directors in all Church causes as it appeareth out of all the fore-cited Authors and all the Histories that do write thereof and Justinian published this Law that when any Ecclesiastical cause or matter was moved his Lay officers should not intermeddle with it but should suffer the Bishops to end the same according to the Canons the words are Si Ecclesiasticum negotium sit nullam communionem habento civiles magistratus cum ea disceptatione sed religiosâ—ssimi Episcopi secundum sacros canones negotio finem imp nunto For the good Emperour knew full well that the Lay Senate neither understood what to determine in the points of faith and the government of Christ's Church nor was ever willing to do any great good or any special favour unto the Shepherds of Christ's flock and the teachers of the true religion because the Son of God had fore-told it that the world should hate us that secular men and Lay Senatours should commonly oppose John 15.19 cross and shew all the spite they can unto the Clergy Matth. 10.16 of whom our Saviour saith Behold I send you forth 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as sheep in the midst of wolves Whence this 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 great distance between their dispositions being observed it grew into a Proverb that Laici semper infesti sunt Clericis And Doctour Meriton In a Sermon before King James How the Laity love the Clergy A very memorable act Anno. â—9 Eliz. cap. 4. observed this as one of the good favours the Clergie of England found from our Parliaments since the reformation when many men first began to be translated from the seat of the scornefull to sit in Moses chaire and to prescribe Lawes for Christ his Spouse to make an Act that all wandering beggars after their correction by the Constable should be brought to the Minister of the Parish to have their names registred in a Book and the Constable used to give to the Minister 2d for his paines for every one so registred but if he refused or neglected to do it the Statute saith he should be punished five shillings for every one that should be so omitted where besides the honourable office I will not say to make the Minister of Christ a Bedle of the Beggars but a Register of the vagrants you see the punishment of one neglect amounteth to the reward of thirty labours therefore all the Christian Emperours and the wisest Kings considering this great charge that God had laid upon them to make wholesome Lawes and Constitutions for the government of his Church and seeing the inclinations of the Laity would never permit any of these Lay Elders and the Citizens of the world to usurp this authority to be the composers contrivers or assistants in concluding of any Ecclesiastical Law until the fences of God's vineyard were pulled down That the Laity should have no interest in making Laws for the Church and the wilde Boar out of the forrest the audacious presumption of the unruly Commonalty ventured either to govern the Church or to subdue their Prince since which incroachment upon the rights of Kings it hath never succeeded well with the Church of Christ and I dare boldly say it fidenter quia fideliter and the more boldly because most truly the more authority they shall gain herein the less glory shall Christ have from the service of his Church and therefore Be wise ô ye Kings And consider how any new Canons are to be made by our Statute 25 Hen. 8. Ob. But then it may be demanded if this be so Ob. that the Laity hath no right in making Lawes and Decrees for the government of God's Church but that it belongs wholly unto the King to do it with the advice of his Bishops and the rest of his Clergy then how came the Parliament to annul those Canons that were so made by the King and Clergy because they had no vote nor consent in confirming of them Sol. Truely I cannot answer to this Objection Sol. unless I should tell you what the Poet saith Dum furor incursu currenti cede furori Dâ—fficiles aditus impetus omnis habet They weâ—e furiously bent against them and you know furor arma ministrat dum regnant arma si lent leges all Lawes must sleep while Armes prevaile besides you may finde those Canons as if they had been prophetically made fore-saw the increasing strength of Anabaptisme Brownisme Puritanisme most likely to subvert true Protestantisme and therefore were as equally directed against these Sectaries of the left hand as against the Papists on the right hand and I think the whole Kingdom now findes and feels the strength of that virulent Faction and therefore what wonder that they should seek to break all those Canons to pieces and batter them down with their mighty Ordinances for seeking to subdue their invincible errours or else because as they say the Ecclesiastical State is not an independent society but a member of the whole the Parliament was not so to be excluded as that their advice and approbation should not be required to make them obligatory to the rest of the Subjects of the whole Kingdom which claim this priviledge to be tyed to the observation of no humane Lawes that themselves by their representatives have not consented unto 2. As the King is intrusted by God to make Lawes for the government of the Church of Christ so it is a rule without question 2. To grant dispensations of his own Lawes that ejus est dispensare absolvere cujus est condere he hath the like power to dispense with whom he pleaseth and to absolve him that transgresseth as he hath to oblige them therefore our Church being for reformation the most famous throughout all the parts of the Christian world and our King having so just an authority to do the same it is a most impudent scandal full of all malice and ignorance not to be endured by any well-affected Christian that the new brood of the old Anabaptists do lay upon our Church and State that they did very unreasonably and unconscionably by their Lawes grant Dispensations both for Pluralities and Non-residency The scandals of the malicious ignorants against the worthier clergy onely to further the corrupt desires of some few to the infinite wrong of the whole Clergy besides the hazard of many thousands of souls the intolerable dishonour of Gods truth and the exceeding disadvantage of Christ his Church for seeing God hath principally committed and primarily commended the care of his Church and service unto Kings who are therefore to make Laws and Orders for the well governing of the same iâ— shall make it most evident that they may as they have ever done most lawfully and more beneficially both for Gods Church and also for the Common-wealth do these three things Three special points handled 1. To grant that grace and favour unto their Bishops and other Ecclesiastical persons as to
esteemed and expelled as deadly enemies but to be suffered and respected as weake friends if they proceed not to be turbulent and malicious who then may prove to be more dangerous both to Church and State then any of the former sort that profess their religion with Peace and quietness for it is not the Profession of this or that religion but the malice and wickedness of the professor What wrong Professors are chiefly to be suffered that is the bane and poyson of the Church wherein it resteth for what is diversity of opinions in the Church of God but tares among the wheat and our Saviour sheweth that the tares should not be plucked up but suffered to grow with the wheat to teach us Matth. 13.29 that in respect of external communion and civil conversation all sorts of Professors may live together though in respect of our spiritual communion and exercise of our religion the Heretique shall be cast forth Why to be suffered either for the exercise of the godly or in hope to convert the ungodly and be unto me tanquam Ethnicus Publicanus with whom notwithstanding I may converse as our Saviour did with hope that I may convert them unto him which could never be done if they should be quite excluded our company and banished from all holy society And therefore as the prudent Prince seeth the disposition and observeth the conversation of any Faction and the turbulency of any Sect so he knoweth best how to advise with his Council to grant his toleration to them that best deserve it not so much in respect of the meliority of their religion as their peaceable and harmless habitation among their neighbours without railing against their faith or rebelling against their Prince And thus as the case now standeth I see not any Sect or any sort of Professors that for turbulency of spirit madness of zeal and violency of hatred and persecution to the true Protestants are more dangerous to the true religion and deserve less favour from their pious Prince then these Anabaptists Brownists and Puritans that have so maliciously plotted and so rebelliously prosecuted their damnable designs to the utter ruine both of Church and State Doctor Covell cap. 15. p. 2 â—â— His description of the Puritans Doctor Covell long ago when they were not half so bad as they be now saith they pretend gravity reprehend severely speak gloriously and all in hypocrisie they daily invent new opinions and run from errour to errour their wilfulnesse they account constancy their deserved punishment persecution their mouthes are ever open to speak evil they give neither reverence nor titles to any in place above them And to confirme this description read what King JAMES writeth of them in his Basilicon Doron p. 160. 161 and in the History of the conference at Hampton-Court in anno 603. p. 81 82. in one word the Church cannot fear a more dangerous and fatal enemy to her peace and happinesse a greater cloud to the light of the Gospel a stronger hand to pull in barbarisme and poverty into all our Land a more furious monster to breed contempt and disobedience in all estates a more fretting canker to the very marrow and sinewes of this Church and kingdome then this beast who is proud without learning presumptuous without authority zealous without knowledge holy without Religion and in brief a most dangerous and malicious hypocrite and were therefore banished from amongst us in the dayes of Queen Elizabeth but now deserve it far better being more dangerous because far more numerous * Huc usque Our factious Puritans bitterer against Kings then the Jesuites and therefore I cannot say with Saint Bernard Aut corrigendi nè pereant aut coercendi nè perimant for in my judgement they are incorrigible and in their own opinion they are invincible having by lyes and frauds gathered so much wealth and united such strength together that except the Lord himself had been on our side and made our very enemies the Papists to become our friends and to hazard their lives and fortunes according to their duty to preserve the Crown and Dignity of their king as God most wisely disposeth of things when he produceth light out of darkness and against their wills support our true Protestant Religion from being quite defaced by these mercilesse enemies we might well fear what destruction would have come upon us And therefore considering the bitter writings of their Prophets old and new being fuller of gall and venome against Christian Kings then can be found in the bookes of the Jesuites and considering the wicked practices and this unparallel'd rebellion of these new Proselytes and the loyalty of those that heretofore received least favour from the Church and not much from the State Tell me I pray you which of these deserve best to be suffered in a Protestant Church they that maliciously seeke her ruine or they that unwillingly support her from falling for my self I will ever be of the true Protestant faith yet for this loyalty of the Papists unto their King I will ever be in charity and rest in hope though not in the same faith with them and I doubt not but His Majesty will thinke well of their fidelity But as Saint Bernard saith Non est meae humilitatis dictitare vobis it is not for me to prescribe who are most capable of Grace or who best deserveth the Kings favour when his Princely Grace presupposeth a sufficient merit but in humility to set down mine own opinion in this point of toleration with submission to the judgement of this Church wherein also I humbly desire my reader not to mistake me as if I meant such a publick and legal toleration as might breed a greater distraction in a kingdome then the wisedome of the State could well master and raise more spirits then they could lay down but such as I have exprest in my Grand Rebellion Grand Rebellion p. 5 6. that is a favourable connivence to enjoy their own consciences so long as they live in peace and amity with their neighbours but without any publick exercise of their Religion which can produce nothing else but discord distraction and destruction to that Kingdome where two religions are profest in Aequilibrio with the same priviledges and authority These and many more are the rights of Kings granted them by God for the Government of his Church which they are to looke unto and to protect in all her rights service maintenance ordinances governours and the like if they looke that God should bless and protect them in their ways dignities and dues because it is their duties and the first charge that God layeth upon them to be nursing Fathers unto his Church for God knew the Church should have many enemies intus est equus Trojanus and they are the worst that are nearest unto kings and do with Judas kiss with fair words and Machiavilian counsels betray both
Canonists and some Jesuites do constantly aver that summum imperium the primary supreme power of this Government is in the Pope 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 absolutely and directly as he is the Vicar of Christ who hath all power given him both in Heaven and earth from whom it is immediately deriued unto his Vicar and from him to all Kings mediately by subordination unto him so Baronius Carerius and others But Bellarmine and the rest of the more moderate Jesuists say that this imperium in reges the Popes power over all Kings and States is but indirectum dominium a power by consequent and indirectly in ordine ad bonum spirituale as the civil State hath relation to Religion and this great Cardinal lest he should seeme fine ratione insanire doth as the Hereticks did in Tertullians time Caedem Scripturarum facere ad materiam suam alleadge two and twenty places of Scripture mis-interpreted to confirme his indirect Divinity and as Petiphars wife he produceth very honest apparel but to prove a very bad cause and therefore attributing to the Pope by the greatness of his learning and the excellency of his wit more then he could justifie with a good conscience he was so far from satisfying the then Pope that he was well nigh resolved to condemne all his works for this one opinion Carerius lib. 1. cap. 5. and Carerius undertooke his confutation ex professo and taxeth him so bitterly that he putteth him inter impios haereticos which he indeed needed not to have done because the difference is onely in the expression when the Pope by this indirect power may take occasion to king and unking whom he pleaseth and do what he will in all Christian States 3. The Anabaptists and Puritans either deny all government 3 Where the Puritans place the Soveraignty Majestas regia sita est magis in populo quam in persona regis Parsons in Dolman with the Fratricelli and all superiority by the title of Christianity as the Author of the Tract of Schisme and Schismaticks or do say that originally it proceedeth and habitually resideth in the people but is cumulatively and communicatively derived f om them unto the King and therefore the people not denuding themselves of their first interest but still retaining the same in the collective body that is in themselves suppletivè if the King in their judgement be defective in the administration or neglect the performance of his duty may question their King for his mis-government dethrone him if they see cause and resuming the collated power into their own hands again may transfer it to any other whom they please Which opinion if it were true would make miserable the condition of all Kings and I believe they first learned it from the Sorbonists The Sorbonists first taught the deposing of Kings and why who to subject the Pope to the community of the faithful say that the chief spiritual power was first committed by Christ unto them and they to preserve the unity of the Church remitted the same communicatively unto the Pope but suppletively not privatively or habitually devesting themselves thereof retaining the same still in themselves if the Pope failed in the faith of the Church and therefore he was not onely censureable but also deposable by the Council if he became an heretique or apostated from the religion of Christ and to make this both the more plausible and probable they alleadged how Kings were thus eligible and likewise deposable by the community of the people for out of this Buchanan saith Romani Pontifices longè regum omnium conditione superiores Buchan de jure regni p. 25 91. legum tamen poenis haud eximuntur sed eos quanquam sacrosanctos Christianis omnibus semper habitos Synodus Basiliensis communi ordinum consensu senatui sacerdotum obnoxios esse pronunciavit that is in brief the Popes are deprivable by the Council So are Kings by the community of the people and so both the Papist and the Puritan do agree to depose their Kings Claudian de 4. Consul Honorii and as the Poet saith Ausus utérque nâ—fas domini respersus utérque Insontis jugulo never a barrel better herring both alike friends to Kings But to this Blackvodaeus answereth most truely that although the Pope should be deprivable by the Council which I am sure neither Pope nor Jesuite will allow yet for divers different reasons betwixt the examples Kings are not deposable by their Subjects especially if you consider the great difference betwixt the Church of Christ that is guided by the Spirit of God and the representation thereof in the flower of her Clergy and a giddyheaded multitude Blac. cap. 23. p. 304. that is led by their unruly and unreasonable passions and are represented by those that either basely bought their Votes as the Consuls and other great men did the votes of the people of Rome or that their partial and most ignorant affection oftentimes without judgement have made choice of ex quo sequitur ut non sit eadem populi potestas in regem quâ— in pontificem est Ecclesiae So that the reason is far unlike But though the Sorbonists to justifie their former tenet The Puritans opinion worse then the Jesuites in two respects were the first broachers of this unjust opinion of the deposition of Kings by the people from whence the Jesuites to subject the King unto the Pope suck't it afterward Yet in two main Respects I finde this tenet as it is held by the Puritans far worse then the doctrine of the Jesuites Respect 1 1. Because some of them say that the people may not restrain the power which they have once transmitted unto the King when the Law of justice doth not permit that Covenants should be repealed or a donation granted shoud be revoked though it were never so prejudiciall to the donor and Bellarmine makes this good by the example of the souldiers that had power to accept or reject their Emperour before he was created Bellar. in tract cont Pat. Paul but being once elected they had no coactive power over him whereas all the Puritanes will make and unmake promise and breake doe and undoe at their pleasure Respect 2 Because the Jesuites permit not the people nor any Peers to depose their King untill the Pope as an indifferent judge deputed by Christ shall approve of the cause and our Sectaries depresse kings so far as to submit them to the weake judgment and extravagant power of the people who to day cry to Gideon raign thou and thy son over us for ever and to morrow joyne with the base son of Jerubbaal and the Sichemites to kill seventy of the Children of Gideon Judges 9. and to create Abimilech to be their king Our Opinion proved Anti-Cav in Os Ossor p. 25 But though the Anti-Cavalier takes it ill that I should affirm that the kings power and right unto his government
Government or Monarchical State though it might sometimes happen to prove tyrannical is far more acceptable unto God as being his own prime and proper ordinance most agreeable unto nature and more profitable unto all men then either the Aristocratical or Popular Government either hath or possibly can be for as it is most true that praestat sub malo principe esse quà m sub nullo it is better to live under an ill Governour then where there is no Gove nment so praestat sub uno tyranno vivere quà m sub mille it is better to be under the command of one tyrant then of a thousand as we are now under these Rebels who being not faex Romuli the worst of the Nobilty but faex populi the dregs of the people indigent Mechanicks and their Wives captivated Citizens together with the rabble of seduced Sectaries have so disloyally incroached upon the rights of our King and so rebelliously usurped the same to the utter subversion both of Church and Kingdom if God himself who hath the hearts of all Kings in his hand and turneth the same wheresoever he pleaseth had not most graciously strengthned his Majesty with a most singular and heroick resolution assisted with perfect health from the beginning of their insurrection to this very day to the admiration of his enemies and the exceeding joy and comfort of his faithfull Subjects and with the best aide and furtherance of his chiefest Nobility of all his learned and religious Clergy his grave and honest Lawyers and the truly worthy Gentry of his whole Kingdom to withstand their most treacherous impious barbarous and I know not how to expresse the wickednesse of their most horrid attempts so thou hast before thee life and death fire and water good and evil And therefore I hope that this will move us which have our eyes open to behold the great blessings and the many almost miraculous deliverances and favours of God unto his Majesty and to consider the most horrible destruction that this war hath brought upon us to fear God and to honour our King to hate the Rebels and to love all loyal Subjects to do our uttermost endeavour to quench this devouring flame and to that end with hand and heart and with our fortunes and with the hazard of our lives which as our Saviour saith shall be saved if they be lost to assist his Majesty to subdue these Rebels Luk. 9.24 to reduce the Kingdom to its pristine government and the Church to her former dignity that so we may have through the mercy of God peace and plenty love and unity so we may have through the mercy of God peace and plenty love and unity faith and true religion and all other happinesse remaining with us to the comfort of our King and the glory of our God through Jesus Christ our Lord To whom with his Father and the Holy Spirit be all honour thanks prayse and dominion for ever and ever Amen Amen Jehovae liberatori FINIS Errata PAge â— lin 3.5 dele not p. 5. l. 50. for make r. made p. 9. l. 23. for hand r. had p. 27. l. 53. dele can p. 39. l. 25. r. right to be p. 51. l. 54. r. this day p. 54 l. 37. dele and p. 61. l. 21. r. that denyed repentance p. 62. l. â—â— r. the same hope p. 95. l. 18. for justice r. injustice p. 100. l. 49. for ye r. yet The Contents of the severall Chapters contained in the RIGHTS of KINGS CHAP. I. Sheweth who are the fittest to set down the Rights which God granted unto Kings what causeth men to rebell the parts considerable in S. Peter's words 1 Pet. 2.17 in fine How Kings honoured the Clergy the faire but most false pretences of the refractary Faction what they chiefly ayme at and their malice to Episcopacy and Royalty Pag. 1 CHAP. II. Sheweth what Kings are to be honoured the institution of Kings to be immediately from God the first Kings the three chiefest rights to kingdoms the best of the three Rights how Kings came to be elected and how contrary to the opinion of Master Selden Aristocracy and Democracy issued out of Monarchy Pag. 7 CHAP. III. Sheweth the Monarchicall Government to be the best forme the first Government that ever was agreeable to Nature wherein God founded it consonant to Gods own Government the most universally received throughout the world the immediate and proper Ordinance of God c. Pag. 11 CHAP. IV. Sheweth what we should not do and what we should do for the King the Rebels transgressing in all those how the Israelites honoured their persecuting King in Egypt how they behaved themseves under Artaxerxes Ahashuerus and under all their own Kings of Israel c. Pag. 17 CHAP. V. Sheweth how the Heathens honoured their Kings how Christ exhibited all due honour unto Heathen and wicked Kings how he carried himself before Pilate and how all the good Primitive Christians behaved themselves towards their Heathen Persecuting Emperours Pag. 23 CHAP. VI. Sheweth the two chiefest duties of all Christian Kings to whom the charge and preservation of Religion is committed three several opinions the strange speeches of the Disciplinarians against Kings are shewed and Viretus his scandalous reasons are answered the double service of all Christian Kings and how the Heathen Kings and Emperours had the charge of Religion Pag. 27 CHAP. VII Sheweth the three things necessary for all Kings that would preserve true Religion how the King may attain to the knowledge of this that pertain to Religion by His Bishops and Chaplains and the calling of Synods c. Pag. 34 CHAP. VIII Sheweth it is the right of Kings to make Ecclesiasticall Lawes and Canons proved by many authorities and examples that the good Kings and Emperours made such Lawes by the advice of of their Bishops and Clergy and not of their Lay-Counsellors how our late Canons came to be annulled c. Pag. 40 CHAP. IX Sheweth a full answer to four speciall Objections that are made against the Civill jurisdictions of Ecclesiasticall persons their abilities to discharge these offices and desire to benefit the Common-wealth why some Councels inhibited these Offices unto Bishops c. Pag. 47 CHAP. X. Sheweth that it is the Kings right to grant Dispensations for Pluralities and Non-residency what Dispensations is reasons for it to tolerate divers Sects or sorts of Religions the foure speciall sorts of false Professors S. Augustines reasons for the toleration of the Jewes toleration of Papists and of Puritans and which of them deserve best to be tolerated among the Protestants and how any Sect is to be tolerated CHAP. XI Sheweth where the Protestants Papists and Puritans do place Soveraignty who first taught the deposing of Kings the Puritans tenet worse then the Jesuites Kings authority immediately from God the twofold royalty in a King the words of the Apostle vindicated from false glosses c. Pag. 64 CHAP. XII Sheweth the assistants of Kings in their Government to