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A43970 An answer to a book published by Dr. Bramhall, late bishop of Derry; called the Catching of the leviathan. Together with an historical narration concerning heresie, and the punishment thereof. By Thomas Hobbes of Malmesbury Hobbes, Thomas, 1588-1679. 1682 (1682) Wing H2211; ESTC R19913 73,412 166

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Soveraign is the Judge of Prophesie he deduces That then Samuel and other Prophets were false Prophets that contested with their Soveraigns As for Samuel he was at that time the Judge that is to say the Soveraign Prince in Israel and so acknowledged by Saul For Saul received the Kingdom from God himself who had right to give and take it by the hands of Samuel And God gave it him to himself only and not to his Seed though if he had obeyed God he would have setled it also upon his Seed The Commandement of God was that he should not spare Agag Saul obeyed not God therefore sent Samuel to tell him that he was rejected For all this Samuel went not about to resist Saul That he caused Agag to be slain was with Sauls consent Lastly Saul confesses his sin Where is this contesting with Saul After this God sent Samuel to anoint David not that he should depose Saul but succeed him the Sons of Saul having never had a right of Succession Nor did ever David make War on Saul or so much as resist him but fled from his persecution But when Saul was dead then indeed he claimed his right against the House of Saul What Rebellion or Resistance could his Lordship find here either in Samùel or in David Besides all these Transactions are supernatural and oblige not to imitation Is there any Prophet or Priest now that can set up in England Scotland or Ireland another King by pretence of Prophesie or Religion What did Jeroboam to the man of God 1 Kings 13 that prophesied against the Altar in Bethel without first doing a Miracle but offer to seize him for speaking as he thought rashly of the Kings Act and after the miraculous withering of his Hand desire the Prophet to pray for him The sin of Jeroboam was not his distrust of the Prophet but his Idolatry He was the sole Judge of the truth which the man of God uttered against the Altar and the process agreeable to equity What is the story of Eliah and Ahab 1 Kings 18. but a confirmation of the Right even of Ahab to be the Judge of Prophesie Eliah told Ahab he had transgressed the Commandement of God So may any Minister now tell his Soveraign so he do it with sincerity and discretion Ahab told Eliah he troubled Israel Upon this controversie Eliah desired tryal Send saith he and assemble all Israel Assemble also the Prophets of Baal four hundred and fifty Ahab did so The Question is stated before the People thus If the Lord be God follow him but if Baal follow him Then upon the Altars of God and Baal were laid the Wood and the Bullocks and the cause was to be judged by Fire from Heaven to burn the Sacrifices which Eliah procured the Prophets of Baal could not procure Was not this cause here Pleaded before Ahab The Sentence of Ahab is not required for Eliah from that time forward was no more persecuted by Ahab but only by his Wife Jezabel The story of Micaiah 2 Cron. 18. is this Ahab King of Israel consulted the Prophets four hundred in number whether he should prosper or not in case he went with Jehosaphat King of Judah to fight against the Syrians at Ramoth-gilead The Prophet Micaiah was also called and both the Kings Ahab and Jehosaphat sat together to hear what they should prophecy There was no Miracle done The 400 pronounced Victory Micaiah alone the contrary The King was Judge and most concern'd in the event nor had he received any Revelation in the business What could he do more discreetly than to follow the Counsel of 400 rather than of one Man But the event was contrary for he was slain but not for following the Counsel of the 400 but for his Murder of Naboth and his Idolatry It was also a sin in him that he afflicted Micaiah in Prison but an unjust Judgment does not take away from any King his right of Judicature Besides what 's all this or that of Jeremiah which he cites last to the Question of who is Judge of Christian Doctrine J. D. Neither doth he use God the Holy Ghost more favourably than God the Son Where St. Peter saith Holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Spirit He saith By the Spirit is meant the Voice of God in a Dream or Vision Supernatural which Dreams or Visions he maketh to be no more than imaginations which they had in their sleep or in an extasie which in every true Prophet were Supernatural but in false Prophets were either natural or feigned and more likely to be false than true To say God hath spoken to him in a Dream is no more than to say he dreamed that God spake to him c. To say he hath seen a Vision or heard a Voice is to say That he hath dreamed between sleeping and waking So St. Peter's Holy Ghost is come to be their own imaginations which might be either feigned or mistaken or true As if the Holy Ghost did enter only at their eyes and at their ears not into their understandings nor into their minds Or as if the Holy Ghost did not seal unto their hearts the truth and assurance of their Prophesies Whether a new light be infused into their understandings or new graces be inspired into their heart they are wrought or caused or created immediately by the Holy Ghost And so are his imaginations if they be Supernatural T. H. For the places of my Leviathan he cites they are all as they stand both true and clearly proved the setting of them down by Fragments is no Refutation nor offers he any Argument against them His consequences are not deduced I never said that the Holy Ghost was an Imagination or a Dream or a Vision but that the Holy Ghost spake most often in the Scripture by Dreams and Visions supernatural The next words of his As if the Holy Ghost did enter only at their eyes and at their ears not into their understandings nor into their minds I let pass because I cannot understand them His last words Whether new light c. I understand and approve J. D. But he must needs fall into these absurdities who maketh but a jest of inspiration They who pretend Divine inspiration to be a supernatural entring of the Holy Ghost into a Man are as he thinks in a very dangerous Dilemma for if they worship not the Men whom they conceive to be inspired they fall into impiety and if they worship them they commit Idolatry So mistaking the Holy Ghost to be corporeal some thing that is blown into a Man and the Graces of the Holy Ghost to be corporeal Graces And the words inpoured or infused virtue and inblown or inspired virtue are as absurd and insignificant as a round Quadrangle He reckons it as a common error That faith and sanctity are not attained by study and reason but by supernatural inspiration or infusion And layeth this for a firm ground Faith
Contradictories to be true together T. H. There is no doubt but by what Authority the Scripture or any other Writing is made a Law by the same Authority the Scriptures are to be interpreted or else they are made Law in vain But to obey is one thing to believe is another which distinction perhaps his Lordship never heard of To obey is to do or forbear as one is commanded and depends on the Will but to believe depends not on the Will but on the providence and guidance of our hearts that are in the hands of God Almighty Laws only require obedience Belief requires Teachers and Arguments drawn either from Reason or from some thing already believed Where there is no reason for our Belief there is no reason we should believe The reason why men believe is drawn from the Authority of those men whom we have no just cause to mistrust that is of such men to whom no profit accrues by their deceiving us and of such men as never used to lye or else from the Authority of such men whose Promises Threats and Affirmations we have seen confirmed by God with Miracles If it be not from the Kings Authority that the Scripture is Law what other Authority makes it Law Here some man being of his Lordships judgment will perhaps laugh and say 't is the Authority of God that makes them Law I grant that But my question is on what Authority they believe that God is the Author of them Here his Lordship would have been at a Nonplus and turning round would have said the Authority of the Scripture makes good that God is their Author If it be said we are to believe the Scripture upon the Authority of the Universal Church why are not the Books we call Apocrypha the Word of God as well as the rest If this Authority be in the Church of England then it is not any other than the Authority of the Head of the Church which is the King For without the Head the Church is mute the Authority therefore is in the King which is all that I contended for in this point As to the Laws of the Gentiles concerning Religion in the Primitive times of the Church I confess they were contrary to Christian Faith But none of their Laws nor Terrors nor a mans own Will are able to take away Faith though they can compel to an external obedience and though I may blame the Ethnick Princes for compelling men to speak what they thought not yet I absolve not all those that have had the Power in Christian Churches from the same fault For I believe since the time of the first four General Councels there have been more Christians burnt and killed in the Christian Church by Ecclesiastical Authority than by the Heathen Emperors Laws for Religion only without Sedition All that the Bishop does in this Argument is but a heaving at the Kings Supremacy Oh but says he if two Kings interpret a place of Scripture in contrary sences it will follow that both sences are true It does not follow For the interpretation though it be made by just Authority must not therefore always be true If the Doctrine in the one sence be necessary to Salvation then they that hold the other must dye in their sins and be Damned But if the Doctrine in neither sence be necessary to Salvation then all is well except perhaps that they will call one another Atheists and fight about it J. D. All the power vertue use and efficacy which he ascribeth to the Holy Sacraments is to be signs or commemorations As for any sealing or confirming or conferring of Grace he acknowledgeth nothing The same he saith particularly of Baptism Upon which grounds a Cardinals red Hat or a Serjeant at Arms his Mace may be called Sacraments as well as Baptism or the holy Eucharist if they be only signs and commemorations of a benefit If he except that Baptism and the Eucharist are of Divine institution But a Cardinals red Hat or a Serjeant at Arms his Mace are not He saith truly but nothing to his advantage or purpose seeing he deriveth all the Authority of the Word and Sacraments in respect of Subjects and all our obligation to them from the Authority of the Soveraign Magistrate without which these words repent and be Baptized in the name of Jesus are but Counsel no Command And so a Serjeant at Arms his Mace and Baptism proceed both from the same Authority And this he saith upon this filly ground That nothing is a Command the performance whereof tendeth to our own benefit He might as well deny the Ten Commandments to be Commands because they have an advantagious promise annexed to them Do this and thou shalt live And Cursed is every one that continueth not in all the words of this Law to do them T. H. Of the Sacraments I said no more than that they are Signs or Commemorations He finds fault that I add not Seals Confirmations and that they confer grace First I would have asked him if a Seal be any thing else besides a Sign whereby to remember somewhat as that we have promised accepted acknowledged given undertaken somewhat Are not other Signs though without a Seal of force sufficient to convince me or oblige me A Writing obligatory or Release signed only with a mans name is as Obligatory as a Bond signed and sealed if it be sufficiently proved though peradventure it may require a longer Process to obtain a Sentence but his Lordship I think knew better than I do the force of Bonds and Bills yet I know this that in the Court of Heaven there is no such difference between saying signing and sealing as his Lordship seemeth here to pretend I am Baptized for a Commemoration that I have enrolled my self I take the Sacrament of the Lords Supper to Commemorate that Christ's Body was broken and his Blood shed for my redemption What is there more intimated concerning the nature of these Sacraments either in the Scripture or in the Book of Common-Prayer Have Bread and Wine and Water in their own Nature any other Quality than they had before the Consecration It is true that the Consecration gives these bodies a new Relation as being a giving and dedicating of them to God that is to say a making of them Holy not a changing of their Quality But as some silly young men returning from France affect a broken English to be thought perfect in the French language so his Lordship I think to seem a perfect understander of the unintelligible language of the Schoolmen pretends an ignorance of his Mother Tongue He talks here of Command and Counsel as if he were no English man nor knew any difference between their significations What English man when he commandeth says more than Do this yet he looks to be obeyed if obedience be due unto him But when he says Do this and thou shalt have such or such a Reward he encourages him or advises him or
The lawful Assembly of Pastors or of Bishops But there can be no lawful Assembly in England without the Authority of the King The Scripture therefore what it is and how to be interpreted is made known unto us here by no other way than the Authority of our Soveraign Lord both in Temporals and Spirituals The Kings Majesty And where he has set forth no Interpretation there I am allowed to follow my own as well as any other man Bishop or not Bishop For my own part all that know me know also it is my opinion That the best government in Religion is by Episcopacy but in the King 's Right not in their own But my Lord of Derry not contented with this would have the utmost resolution of our Faith to be into the Doctrine of the Schools I do not think that all the Bishops be of his mind If they were I would wish them to stand in fear of that dreadful Sentence All covet all lose I must not let pass these words of his Lordship If divine Law and humane Law clash one with another without doubt it is better evermore to obey God than man Where the King is a Christian believes the Scripture and hath the Legislative power both in Church and State and maketh no Laws concerning Christian Faith or divine Worship but by the Counsel of his Bishops whom he trusteth in that behalf if the Bishops counsel him aright what clashing can there be between the divine and humane Laws For if the Civil Law be against God's Law and the Bishops make it clearly appear to the King that it clasheth with divine Law no doubt he will mend it by himself or by the advice of his Parliament for else he is no professor of Christ's Doctrine and so the clashing is at an end But if they think that every opinion they hold though obscure and unnecessary to Salvation ought presently to be Law then there will be clashings innumerable not only of Laws but also of Swords as we have found it too true by late experience But his Lordship is still at this that there ought to be for the divine Laws that is to say for the interpretation of Scripture a Legislative power in the Church distinct from that of the King which under him they enjoy already This I deny Then for clashing between the Civil Laws of Indels with the Law of God the Apostles teach that those their Civil Laws are to be obeyed but so as to keep their Faith in Christ entirely in their hearts which is an obedience easily performed But I do not believe that Augustus Caesar or Nero was bound to make the holy Scripture Law and yet unless they did so they could not attain to eternal life J. D. His fifth conclusion may be that the sharpest and most succesful Sword in any War whatsoever doth give Soveraign Power and Authority to him that hath it to approve or reject all sorts of Theological Doctrines concerning the Kingdom of God not according to their truth or falshood but according to that influence which they have upon political affairs Hear him But because this Doctrine will appear to most men a novelty I do but propound it maintaining nothing in this or any other Paradox of Religion but attending the end of that dispute of the Sword concerning the Authority not yet amongst my Country-men decided by which all sorts of Doctrine are to be approved or rejected c. For the points of Doctrine concerning the Kingdom of God have so great influence upon the Kingdom of Man as not to be determined but by them that under God have the Soveraign Power Careat successibus opto Quisquis ab eventu facta notanda putat Let him evermore want success who thinketh actions are to be judged by their events This Doctrine may be plausible to those who desire to fish in troubled Waters But it is justly hated by those which are in Authority and all those who are lovers of peace and tranquillity The last part of this conclusion smelleth rankly of Jeroboam Now shall the Kingdom return to the house of David if this people go up to do Sacrifice in the house of the Lord at Jerusalem whereupon the King took counsel and made two Calves of Gold and said unto them It is too much for you to go up to Jerusalem behold thy Gods O Israel which brought thee out of the Land of Aegypt But by the just disposition of Almighty God this Policy turned to a sin and was the utter destruction of Jeroboam and his Family It is not good jesting with edge-tools nor playing with holy things Where men make their greatest fastness many times they find most danger T. H. His Lordship either had a strange Conscience or understood not English Being at Paris when there was no Bishop nor Church in England and every man writ what he pleased I resolved when it should please God to restore the Authority Ecclesiastical to submit to that Authority in whatsoever it should determine This his Lordship construes for a temporizing and too much indifferency in Religion and says further that the last part of my words do smell of Jeroboam To the contrary I say my words were modest and such as in duty I ought to use And I profess still that whatsoever the Church of England the Church I say not every Doctor shall forbid me to say in matter of Faith I shall abstain from saying it excepting this point That Jesus Christ the Son of God dyed for my sins As for other Doctrins I think it unlawful if the Church define them for any Member of the Church to contradict them J. D. His sixth Paradox is a rapper the Civil Laws are the Rules of good and evil just and unjust honest and dishonest and therefore what the Lawgiver commands that is to be accounted good what he forbids bad And a little after before Empires were just and unjust were not as whose nature is Relative to a Command every action in its own nature is indifferent That it is just or unjust proceedeth from the right of him that commandeth Therefore lawful Kings make those things which they command Just by commanding them and those things which they forbid Vnjust by forbidding them To this add his definition of a sin that which one doth or omitteth saith or willeth contrary to the reason of the Common-wealth that is the Civil Laws Where by the Laws he doth not understand the Written Laws elected and approved by the whole Common-wealth but the verbal Commands or Mandates of him that hath the Soveraign Power as we find in many places of his Writings The Civil Laws are nothing else but the Commands of him that is endowed with Soveraign Power in the Common-wealth concerning the future actions of his Subjects And the Civil Laws are fastned to the Lips of that man who hath the Soveraign Power Where are we In Europe or in Asia Where they ascribed a Divinity to their Kings and to
Bargains with him but Commands him not Oh the understanding of a Schoolman J. D. Sometimes he is for holy Orders and giveth to the Pastors of the Church the right of Ordination and Absolution and Infallibility too much for a particular Pastor or the Pastors of one particular Church It is manifest that the consecration of the chiefest Doctors in every Church and imposition of hands doth pertain to the Doctors of the same Church And it cannot be doubted of but the power of binding and loosing was given by Christ to the future Pastors after the same manner as to his present Apostles And our Saviour hath promised this infallibility in those things which are necessary to Salvation to his Apostles until the day of Judgment that is to say to the Apostles and Pastors to be Consecrated by the Apostles successively by the imposition of hands But at other times he casteth all this Meal down with his foot Christian Soveraigns are the supream Pastors and the only persons whom Christians now hear speak from God except such as God speaketh to in these dayes supernaturally What is now become of the promised infallibility And it is from the Civil Soveraign that all other Pastors derive their right of teaching preaching and all other functions pertaining to that Office and they are but his Ministers in the same manner as the Magistrates of Towns or Judges in Courts of Justice and Commanders of Armies What is now become of their Ordination Magistrates Judges and Generals need no precedent qualifications He maketh the Pastoral Authority of Soveraigns to be Jure divino of all other Pastors Jure civili He addeth neither is there any Judge of Heresie among Subjects but their own civil Soveraign Lastly the Church Excommunicateth no man but whom she Excommunicateth by the Authority of the Prince And the effect of Excommunication hath nothing in it neither of dammage in this World nor terror upon an Apostate if the Civil Power did persecute or not assist the Church And in the World to come leaves them in no worse estate than those who never believed The dammage rather redoundeth to the Church Neither is the Excommunication of a Christian Subject that obeyeth the Laws of his own Soveraign of any effect Where is now their power of binding and loosing T. H. Here his Lordship condemneth first my too much kindness to the Pastors of the Church as if I ascribed Infallibility to every particular Minister or at least to the Assembly of the Pastors of a particular Church But he mistakes me I never meant to flatter them so much I say only that the Ceremony of Consecration and Imposition of hands belongs to them and that also no otherwise than as given them by the Laws of the Common-wealth The Bishop Consecrates but the King both makes him Bishop and gives him his Authority The Head of the Church not only gives the power of Consecration Dedication and Benediction but may also exercise the Act himself if he please Solomon did it and the Book of Canons says That the King of England has all the Right that any good King of Israel had It might have added that any other King or soveraign Assembly had in their own Dominions I deny That any Pastor or any Assembly of Pastors in any particular Church or all the Churches on earth though united are Infallible Yet I say the Pastors of a Christian Church assembled are in all such points as are necessary to Salvation But about what points are necessary to Salvation he and I differ For I in the 43d chapter of my Leviathan have proved that this Article Jesus is the Christ is the unum necessarium the only Article necessary to Salvation to which his Lordship hath not offered any Objection And he it seems would have necessary to Salvation every Doctrine he himself thought so Doubtless in this Article Jesus is the Christ every Church is infallible for else it were no Church Then he says I overthrow this again by saying that Christian Soveraigns are the Supream Pastors that is Heads of their own Churches That they have their Authority Jure Divino That all other Pastors have it Jure Civili How came any Bishop to have Authority over me but by Letters Patents from the King I remember a Parliament wherein a Bishop who was both a good Preacher and a good Man was blamed for a Book he had a little before Published in maintenance of the Jus Divinum of Bishops a thing which before the Reformation here was never allowed them by the Pope Two Jus Divinums cannot stand together in one Kingdom In the last place he mislikes that the Church should Excommunicate by Authority of the King that is to say by Authority of the Head of the Church But he tells not why He might as well mislike that the Magistrates of the Realm should execute their Offices by the Authority of the Head of the Realm His Lordship was in a great error if he thought such incroachments would add any thing to the Wealth Dignity Reverence or Continuance of his Order They are Pastors of Pastors but yet they are the Sheep of him that is on earth their soveraign Pastor and he again a Sheep of that supream Pastor which is in Heaven And if they did their pastoral Office both by Life and Doctrine as they ought to do there could never arise any dangerous Rebellion in the Land But if the people see once any ambition in their Teachers they will sooner learn that than any other Doctrine and from Ambition proceeds Rebellion J. D. It may be some of T. H. his Disciples desire to know what hopes of Heavenly joyes they have upon their Masters Principles They may hear them without any great contentment There is no mention in Scripture nor ground in reason of the Coelum Empyraeum that is the Heaven of the Blessed where the Saints shall live eternally with God And again I have not found any Text that can probably be drawn to prove any Ascention of the Saints into Heaven that is to say into any Coelum Empyraeum But he concludeth positively that Salvation shall be upon earth when God shall Raign at the coming of Christ in Jerusalem And again In short the Kingdom of God is a civil Kingdom c. called also the Kingdom of Heaven and the Kingdom of Glory All the Hobbians can hope for is to be restored to the same condition which Adam was in before his fall So saith T.H. himself From whence may be inferred that the Elect after the Resurrection shall be restored to the estate wherein Adam was before he had sinned As for the beatifical vision he defineth it to be a word unintelligible T.H. This Coelum Empyraeum for which he pretendeth so much zeal where is it in the Scripture where in the Book of Common Prayer where in the Canons where in the Homilies of the Church of England or in any part of our Religion What has a Christian to
Will of the Bishops was made a Law in the second Year of his Reign wherein it was Enacted That every Ordinary may convene before him and imprison any person suspected of Heresie and that an obstinate Heretick shall be burnt before the People In the next King's Reign which was Henry the Fifth in his Second year was made an Act of Parliament wherein it is declared that the intent of Hereticks called Lollards was to subvert the Christian Faith the Law of God the Church and the Realm And that an Heretick convict should forfeit all his Fee-simple Lands Goods and Chattels besides the Punishment of Burning Again in the Five and Twentieth year of King Henry the Eighth it was Enacted That an Heretick convict shall abjure his Heresies and refusing so to do or relapsing shall be burnt in open place for example of others This Act was made after the putting down of the Pope's Authority And by this it appears that King Henry the Eighth intended no farther alteration in Religion than the recovering of his own Right Ecclesiastical But in the first year of his Son King Edward the sixth was made an Act by which were repealed not only this Act but also all former Acts concerning Doctrines or matters of Religion So that at this time there was no Law at all for the punishment of Hereticks Again in the Parliament of the first and second year of Queen Mary this Act of 1 Ed. 6. was not repealed but made useless by reviving the Statute of 25 Hen. 8. and freely put it in execution insomuch as it was Debated Whether or no they should proceed upon that Statute against the Lady Elizabeth the Queens Sister The Lady Elizabeth not long after by the Death of Queen Mary coming to the Crown in the fifth year of her Reign by Act of Parliament repealed in the first place all the Laws Ecclesiastical of Queen Mary with all other former Laws concerning the punishments of Hereticks nor did she enact any other punishments in their place In the second place it was Enacted That the Queen by her Letters Patents should give a Commission to the Bishops with certain other persons in her Majesties Name to execute the Power Ecclesiastical in which Commission the Commissioners were forbidden to adjudge any thing to be Heresie which was not declared to be Heresie by some of the first four General Councels But there was no mention made of General Councels but only in that branch of the Act which Authorised that Commission commonly called The High Commission nor was there in that Commission any thing concerning how Hereticks were to be punished but it was granted to them that they might declare or not declare as they pleased to be Heresie or not Heresie any of those Doctrines which had been Condemned for Heresie in the first four General Councels So that during the time that the said High Commission was in being there was no Statute by which a Heretick could be punished otherways than by the ordinary Censures of the Church nor Doctrine accounted Heresie unless the Commissioners had actually declared and published That all that which was made Heresie by those Four Councels should be Heresie also now But I never heard that any such Declaration was made either by Proclamation or by Recording it in Churches or by publick Printing as in penal Laws is necessary the breaches of it are excused by ignorance Besides if Heresie had been made Capital or otherwise civilly punishable either the Four General Councels themselves or at least the Points condemned in them ought to have been Printed or put into Parish Churches in English because without it no man could know how to beware of offending against them Some men may perhaps ask whether no body were Condemned and Burnt for Heresie during the time of the High Commission I have heard there were But they which approve such executions may peradventure know better grounds for them than I do but those grounds are very well worthy to be enquired after Lastly in the seventeenth year of the Reign of King Charles the First shortly after that the Scots had Rebelliously put down the Episcopal Government in Scotland the Presbyterians of England endeavoured the same here The King though he saw the Rebels ready to take the Field would not condescend to that but yet in hope to appease them was content to pass an Act of Parliament for the abolishing the High Commission But though the High Commission were taken away yet the Parliament having other ends besides the setting up of the Presbyterate pursued the Rebellion and put down both Episcopacy and Monarchy erecting a power by them called The Common-wealth by others the Rump which men obeyed not out of Duty but for fear nor was there any humane Laws left in force to restrain any man from Preaching or Writing any Doctrine concerning Religion that he pleased and in this heat of the War it was impossible to disturb the Peace of the State which then was none And in this time it was that a Book called Leviathan was written in defence of the King's Power Temporal and Spiritual without any word against Episcopacy or against any Bishop or against the publick Doctrine of the Church It pleas'd God about Twelve years after the Usurpation of this Rump to restore His most Gracious Majesty that now is to his Fathers Throne and presently His Majesty restored the Bishops and pardoned the Presbyterians but then both the one and the other accused in Parliament this Book of Heresie when neither the Bishops before the War had declared what was Heresie when if they had it had been made void by the putting down of the High Commission at the importunity of the Presbyterians So fierce are men for the most part in dispute where either their Learning or Power is debated that they never think of the Laws but as soon as they are offended they cry out Crucifige forgetting what St. Paul saith even in case of obstinate holding of an Error 2 Tim. 2. 24 25. The Servant of the Lord must not strive but be gentle unto all men apt to teach patient in meekness instructing those that oppose if God peradventure may give them repentance to the acknowledging of the truth Of which counsel such fierceness as hath appeared in the Disputation of Divines down from before the Council of Nice to this present time is a Violation FINIS