those who abominate the natural and direct consequences are thence to be drawn where the Civil Power is return'd into the Mediator but it throughly answers their Expectations who contend to have their Prince a Priest too and would delight more to see him in his Rochet and at the Altar Blessing and Consecrating than on his Throne and with his Scepter sweying and governing his People and for which latter they believe themselves equally capacitated and enabled as he and their belief on these Grounds is well bottomed for Christ when ascending up on high gave no other Gifts to Men than what either enabled to the work of the Ministry and which alone were for peculiar Persons or what made Christians good and virtuous men only and which were to all promiscuous and common And had our Church in her Article given to Kings that only Prerogative they saw given to Aristotles Prince and which is extended to the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 also as is above shew'd to the things of Religion it had been the same though less popular and perswading I shall only add the Autority of Doctor Hammond in his Practical Catechism Lib. 2. Sect. 11. that Christ in his Sermon on the Mount medled not with the Fifth Commandment Though he were as God the King of all Kings and might have changed and disposed of their Dominions as he pleased yet he was not pleased to make any Alteration but to continue and settle all in that course wherein it formerly had been placed by God himself What he added to Moses in this Matter was only greater reverence and aw to the Father or Magistrate or Civil Power he left the Woman taken in Adultery and other Offenders to the ordinary legal course and would not upon any importunity usurp or take upon him any thing in that Matter and more considerate Papists as he goes on and tells us discerning this and yet unwilling to devest the Pope of his so long usurped Power have found it necessary to pretend another tenure for him and therefore style the Pope not the Vicar of Christ for that would give him no Power so much as of a Civil Judge but the Vicar of God whom he hath set up to be the Vicegerent of all the World The whole Discourse might not unfitly be here transcribed only 't is as it ought to be in every bodies hands BUT what if these Doctors were in the design § XXVII against us as we do not resolve our Faith into one Doctor or Bishop at Rome So neither do we into three or twice so many at home of what Order and Autority soever and which adds in it self just nothing to the Skill of a Divine nor is the Tradition of Truth broken by it And indeed there are so many Accidents in the World and with so great force upon Mankind so often influencing and over-ruling that Christianity in its particular Articles and sometimes the highest of them would be but in a bad Condition were it responsible for what every particular Doctor has said or wrote and which comes not up unto them whether out of a tenderness of Disposition a mistaken Zeal for Union and to reconcile Moderation and Comprehension a keeping present Peace or a design of working more effectually for the future or whether through a fear and impotency of Nature averse to and unable for Struglings wearied out by daily Provocations or a foresight of some Calamities foreseen and approaching and every one is not an Athanasius always undaunted or real misapprehension in the understanding or which is a thing very frequent upon the rise of an Heresie to set up for a middle way and which is as injurious to gratifie either lust in general or that itch of Ambition in particular and to become the Head of a Party whether out of peevishness or revenge or to magnifie their own Parts and Eloquence lead by the Autority of Names or by self-interest blinded by one or more of which ways errors and differences in Religion are either occasioned or started managed and pursued No sooner was his Master Justin Martyr dead but Tatianus grew Proud and puffed up with an opinion of being uppermost in the School turn'd Heretick Iren. adv Haeres cap. 31. l. 1. Basilides was a Master of luxury and was to do something extraordinary to disguise it as St. Jerone Tom. 3. l. 2. adv Jovinian and so was Marcion as Tertullian Prescript Cap. 51. and Lactantius tells us of several others who affecting the highest Order in the Church studying Honour and Greatness and sailing of it made a Secession from the Church not enduring Subjection Lib. 4. Sect. ult and so did Valentinus because he lost a Bishoprick Tertul. adv Valent. cap. 4. as did Aerius Novatius c. and Theodorit describes Hereticks in general ambitioni vanae gloriae mancipatos Eccl. Hist l. 1. c. 2. and Sozomen complains of a worser effect they have yet in God's Church Nonnullos in vias medias adigunt Eccl. Hist l. 1. c. 1. occasion the setting up somewhat like Truth which is not Truth when they write Irenicums and set up for Reconcilers make a hotch-potch of Truth and Falshood together a sure way to elude and baffle Truth and insinuate Error the abatement being still on Truth 's side and the Error is brought to become tolerable and which would not in plain terms have been endured but thus gets ground onward and so much of Truth is destroyed and erased to give place to the Falshood This was the most devilish Plot of Julian the Apostate by which he baffled Christianity he mixed his Paganism with it complied in many instances of its Performances that the less discerning might be the easier carried over to it a very ill consequence of Error mostly ruining Truth and mostly to be abominated the Ape is the more deformed because like a Man and is not one Tertullian turn'd Montanist in disdain of the Pride of the greater Clergy at Rome as inter fragmenta Tertull. and Hieron Catalog Script Ecclesiast no one stands fairer in the Church Story for Piety and Morals than Pelagius and he and his Scholars Julianus Celestius c. seduced many by it designed and perverted it to that alone purpose even Men of great Fame and Learning became thereby inclined to them as Sixtus at Rome John of Jerusalem Cyril in Egypt and Sulpitius Severus in France And particularly the Rich and Potent Women whom he strangely insinuated into by all manner of Flatteries Hypocrisies and Delusions and which generally are the Engines Hereticks have work'd by as in Church Story and for which Austin and Jerome sufficiently shrape him as an account is given at large by Joannes Garnerus the late Publisher of the Works of Marius Mercator Dissert 4. De Subscript c. Cap. 3. who was or who could be more stout and couragious for the Nicene Faith than was Liberius Bishop of Rome and which appeared in his behaviour all along particularly in his
OF THE SUBJECT OF Church-Power In whom it Resides It s Force Extent and Execution that it Opposes not Civil Government in any one Instance of it Nec sic tamen quamvis novissimis temporibus in Ecclesia Dei aut Evangelicus nigor cecidit aut Christianae virtutis aut fidei robur elanguit ut non supersit portio Sacerdotum quae minimè ad has rerum ruinas aut fidei Naufragia succumbat sed fortis habilis honorem divinae Majestatis Sacerdotalem dignitatem plenâ timoris observatione tucatur Cypr. Ep. 68. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Theodos Imperator apud Theodoritum Eccles Hist lib. 5. cap. 18. By SIMON LOWTH Vicar of Cosmus Blene in the Diocess of CANTERBVRY London Printed for Benj. Tooke at the Ship in St. Paul's Church-Yard 1685. TO THE READER 'T IS now full two years and upward since that huge din and noise Pannick almost and universal has been in London and elsewhere occasioned by this Treatise and it has with a forcible hand by threats and awes from thence to this day been either with-held from or in the Press insomuch that thô actually conceived and come to the Birth there wanted strength to bring forth my purpose is not to make much Apology in its behalf it comes abroad of Age natus cum barbâ as the Jews say of Esau after a course of Studies upon full Thoughts and a thorow Consideration though hastened as thus digested by a Sermon I met with Preached by John Tillotson Doctor of Divinity and Dean of Canterbury and is to speak for it self and if upon a due perusal the usefulness and seasonableness of the Subject matter together with the integrity of the Collector and which is here professed will not avouch it what can or why should I say any more I am content to fall and shall submit I do not pretend to be the best Composer in the World or above the reach of an Aristarchus and so let the Hypercritical and over-nice pick a Quarrel with it if they please I hope the best and that as in those fears called Pannick and where the Jealousie and Passion is vehement and subitaneous so here the Grounds on which some have already excepted against it will appear rather assumed than real an effect only of the Imaginative faculty and which is many times dismal till by reason corrected 'T is that which St. Jerome urges and aggravates against John Bishop of Jerusalem in his Epistle ad Pammachium adversus errores Johannis Hierosolymitani that when accused of the Errors of Origen and Arius and was expected to have Purged himself he Preach'd only against the Anthropomorphites a certain sort of obscure ignorant Monks who out of a Rustick Simplicity believed God to have the Parts and Members of a Man accordingly as spoken sometimes in Scripture who influenced none and perished within themselves I may here safely conclude my self secure against such an impertinency and indiscretion the Adversary I now engage against is neither ignorant nor obscure his repute for Knowledge is the same as his Conspicuity and that is with Absolom and his Fathers Concubines on the House top in the sight of all Israel and the Sun has passed both Press and the Pulpit and is now in each almost Gentleman's Parlour and Tradesmens Shop and in the Mouths of all Men and he were to be wished to be less in our Divines Studies And after those hotter Controversies in these Western Parts of the Christian World As whether Church-Power be originally lodged in the Person of the Bishop of Rome or in all and each of the Bishops of Christendom or in each single Presbyter or as the less considerable in every Believer 't is now concluded to be purely Secular men roundly and making no Bones run away with it and no more than the Prince's Pleasure is to be enquired after nor are any Persons or Functions to be accounted Sacred in order to the things of Heaven but by his Separation or is there any visible Power on this side Heaven but by his collating Nor is the Subject trivial or inconsiderable and without influence upon Mankind 't is that Christ Jesus had a Power all Power in Heaven and Earth once given him of the Father for the bringing Souls to Heaven this very Power first in him after descended to his Apostles and from them to their Succession the Bishops and Pastors of the Church and is to remain in and with them and their Persons apart and separate from all other Power Government and Jurisdiction till the end cometh and this Kingdom is delivered up to the Father so long is it to be visible and in force under what frowns and oppositions soever thô the Kings of the Earth stand up and the Rulers take Council against it And this is all I here represent to the World and which not by any Publick Autority God be thanked the case is not so with us but by a set of Men has been thus opposed and who seem to be somewhat whatsoever they be it matters not to me I have always learn'd Obedience but 't is to them that are my Governors but who are these neither shall I give place by Subjection to them no not an hour so peculiar is my case in an Age of Liberty when the Statute for Printing is expired and the Government has not thought fit to re-enforce it when every Sect and Party Scribbles and Publishes and a Treatise purely and solely stating and defending our Religion established by Law is brow-beaten and a total Suppression is to the utmost endeavoured I know they say 't is not the subject in general but my Animadversions upon the two Deans Doctor Stillingfleet and Doctor Tillotson they set themselves and contend against and pray how does this mend the matter or is not these Mens Zeal for the Church of England bulky and active to the purpose when its issue is this that the Names and Writings of two particular Men and which must be in so much less esteem and as false as they discountenance and are against our Church and whose Tenents so far as here impleaded they dare not openly Plead for must be untoucht and uncanvassed or else the state of the Church not medled with its Power and Autority be diminish'd and exposed by others by who so pleases and no Man defend it it is not to be duly and fairly represented to the World for their Information or Instruction unless there be an exempt and indemnity to such those two to thwart and oppose it as they shall think fit or give themselves advantages thereby from their Party and such their Autorities stand unquestioned as in Capital Letters to affront and confute all so soon as Published the Proposal must be both ridiculous and unreasonable at once or how can any man undertake to make but this one instance at present to vindicate our Church from Erastianism and that her Reformation did not enstate all Church-Power even in Edward
be their Slaves and Vassals and which is the invidious design of his whole Book how easily is it all return'd on his own pate and to what else can any one impute this his clawing with and condescending to the People to be but his own and the other of his Brethrens dependance upon them as it is at this day in France and 't is wholly in the Power of the Congregation both to Vote in and Eject their Minister at pleasure to bestow what Maintenance upon them their Wisdom directs nor is it at all in the Power of the Clergy as things are now with them streightned by the Civil Sword to avoid or amend it to them indeed in their circumstances the good-liking and choice of the People are necessary otherwise they must change the Climate their Churches and Ministry must cease and fall together And this I say not to insult over and upbraid them for their case in general is really to be pitied but thus do outward accidents imbody themselves and become as of the real Substance and too many Models and Systems and Professions have some regard too much yielding and complyance with them this one thing does it generally need a Pardon and to them in particular it cannot easily be granted it may with great justice be called their Pride and Usurpation that what is their own unavoidable Necessity what the frowns and injuries of their Native Countrey they live in the want of Countenance and Protection from the Prince and of a due Provision by Laws and which in reason ought to be otherways lays upon them this they 'l obtrude upon us upon all Churches as the Pattern upon the Mount the Platform not to be deviated from every ways to be copied out upon no less a peril than the breach of an antecedent immutable Law an Institution from Heaven What ought to be their care to represent as fairly as they can they magisterially command other Churches are condemned for not obeying a fault the Churches of the French Reformation are no ways to be acquitted of That there is a Subordination among Clergy-men and a dependence as on one Head and Superior in the several degrees of the Priesthood this is most certain 't is bottomed on as good and known Autority as our Religion it self and which will be made to appear by and by in this Treatise though not as the business of it The Deacon is a Minister or Servant to the Bishop and both Presbyter and Deacon receive their Power and Deputation from him but in any other sense we own no Head or Master Servants Ministers we are but of God and Christ of the Gospel which we minister unto them of which we are Stewards for their advantage and relief dispensing to every man his Portion ministring in our courses as the Angels in theirs for the good of all a faithful Minister of Christ for you so the Apostle Colos 1.23 and in this alone consists our 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the work of our Ministry and attendance at the Altar Thus we are to the People as Governors Rulers Instructers Teachers and which last Office allowed us by all so immediately implies Superiority and Prelation that it alone will not let us be their Servants as Autorized and Commissioned impower'd by and in Deputation from them NOR is this David Blondel's disingenuity § XI or undue dealings alone or in this case only of the Peoples Power over their Pastors there is one case more at least and which has more than one Abettor and 't is that of Episcopacy as the People are above the Clergy so must not one Clergy-man be above another the Order Solitary Power Superiority and Prelation of the Bishop must cease was never any then as by Usurpation there must be a level between a Presbyter and him because there are no Bishops in the French Churches an equality is now fixed and setled among them and in order to the surer certain compassing it in our Church of England they took the opportunity of a present Schism and Defection from our present Bishops abetted and heightned by a prosperous Rebellion they even insult over us as men that were down and to rise up no more they pursue us as a vanquish'd Enemy look upon the iron as red hot and to be stricken and their Presbyterian Model to be erected in our Kingdom as that Image once fallen from Heaven To this purpose comes upon the Stage their Triumviri Blondel Salmasius and Dailce Men throughly instructed by a vast and unwearied Industry and Reading and which they perverted to render Episcopacy less acceptable not to say odious in the World as the effect of Innovation and Ambition contrary to the designs of Christ and the Practice of the Church in the best Ages of it and herein their proficiency and advancement was not inconsiderable considering the badness and difficulty of their cause what St. Jerome has observed of Hereticks in and before his time in his Comments on the First Chapter of Amos Omnes enim Haeretici labore nimio ac dolore quaerendi ordinem aliquem consequentiam heraeseos suae reperire conati sunt is evident in them through abundance of toil and sore labour making pretence of Order shews of Antiquity and Consequences to advance and effect it And Blondel goes in the Front or at least has merited to be placed there with his renowned and much gloried in Apology Pro Hieronymo which he says he kept by him Three years ready for the Press but did not Print it by reason of the Wars in England or rather till the King and Church were both ruined easily then presuming of a fairer reception and which Book 't is more than probable he then Digested and Composed when his offer'd Service to write quite the other way and in the Defence of our Episcopacy establish'd in this Church was tender'd to that great Prelate and Martyr of Blessed Memory Arch-Bishop Land but rejected what were the Reasons moving the Wisdom of that excellent Prelate to refuse him I cannot tell he might suspect his Integrity or judge it less for the Honor of our Church on purpose to imply a Foreigner in the managery and defence of what is so neer and of so great a concern to us and he might not think the concurrency of one or two Doctors of the French Reformation so considerable or perhaps of any weight to turn the Scale for or against the famous Church of England as it now appears they are reputed he could not suspect his thorow Instructions and Ability for it and that the former mostly sweigh'd the wonted Sagacity of that excellent Person giving him no small Grounds for it will appear if we go on and find him dedicating That his Book Vniversis Dei optimi Maximi servis occidente toto maxime vero per Britannias ad Christiani populi Ecclesiasticum Politicum regimen vocatis To the Houses of Parliament and Assembly at
good for the Crown it staid not at the Pulpit but went immediately to the Throne all manner of Dominion was bottom'd in Grace alone and their Saints were both the wisest upon Earth and had all Power were to Teach and to Rule and to possess the Earth All the links and contignations of Government were taken down or burst in sunder whether of the Father over his Child or Husband over his Wife or Master over his Servant or Sovereign over his Subjects or Priest over the People all were Christ's Freemen and to be Servants to none only the knack was found out at last that the King was to be a Priest when both King and Priest were first disabled and their Autority either in design or actually taken from them The Bible it self was then put into his hands with a Right to all Church-Offices when the Right to his Liege Subjects was denied him with a Power to make the Scriptures Canonical and to discharge all its Duties to lay limits by his Laws to Religion though a false one and it is not permitted openly to draw Men off from the Profession of it so Mr. Dean tells us in his Sermon when to govern his Subjects by Law is Tyranny and Usurpation So advantageously is this new Honor and higher Dignity that his entrance to the Priestly-Office placed on him and the consequence was only this both King and Priest was brought to a Morsel of Bread were brought to the Block the Saints in the Right of their Power cut off the Heads both of King Charles the First the Arch-Bishop of Canterbury the Father was against the Son and the Son against the Father as when the Sea-marks are removed the Walls Water-locks and Floodgates are broken down and pluckt up this greater present deluge of professed Atheism Prophaneness and Immorality is broken in upon us over-spread the face of our Earth in the natural course and consequence of it the Foundations are cast down and what can the Righteous do the Romanists will have their Pope to be a King because a Priest these will have their King to be a Priest and in effect no King and 't was only those that either first design'd or afterwards promoted the taking his Crown from his Head stuck this Feather in his Cap as in the late unnatural Rebellion § IV NOR are those more successful who found the Pleas to the Priesthood in the Unction of Kings or in that they are anointed at their solemner Inaugurations God Almighty meant nothing less when he said Cyrus Mine anointed nor do the outward Unctions of the Kings of Israel and Judah infer or prove any more the Priests were equally anointed as they and 't is no more to be concluded that a King by virtue of his anointing hath the Power of a Priest than that a Priest by his anointing hath the Power of a King which two Sacred offices every body knows were two quite different distinct things though in many things they united yet in several they did they might not it was Sacriledge on the one hand and Rebellion on the other to attempt it The Oyl that the Kings were anointed withal was made of the same Unguents that Moses had compounded to anoint both the Priests and the Holy Vessels and the Altar if we may believe De Marca in his second Preface to his Treatise De Concord c. and had its effects but as design'd and apply'd to each in particular and which suitably received thereby their several distinct Separations for differing uses had their peculiar respects and Services conferr'd upon them it did not imply all the Offices at once in the same either Thing or Person and it may be as well said that the Holy Vessels and Altar became Kings as that the Kings became Priests upon the alone general account of being anointed but admit it had been otherwise under the Jewish Policy and the King by his Unction had the full Extent and Latitude of Power and Offices conferr'd by the Ceremony of Oyl devolv'd and seated in him What is this to us in the Christian Church under another Head different Polity and several Dispensation or how doth it oblige us that our Kings must be Priests because the Kings of Israel were once so Surely no otherwise than it oblig'd the Jews that their first-born were to be either Kings or Priests or both because it was once so with their Ancestors and Predecessors and which is nothing at all unless to be a King originally and in its Nature included the Priesthood by a perpetual Force and Law never to be broken and which their own instances destroy and did not the design and frame of the Governments themselves forbid it for the Law of Moses is the foundation and direction of both Governments both Political and Ecclesiastical and which the Law of our Saviour is not Civil Power is it altogether and in every instance antecedent and independent to that Power which is from the Gospel the Law of Christ supposes it only adds by its Precepts of Justice and Virtue greater Awe and Reverence new Motives for Obedience and Subjection yet the particular very ill consequence could by no means be allow'd us to take and give Measures and Rules to the Powers and Offices of the Christian Church from the Pattern and Practice of the Jewish for then the Power and Extent of the Evangelical Priesthood must be such as Christianity will not bear nor any man in his wits claim for it the Power of the Priesthood among the Jews was mixed in some cases and the Priest and the Levite were in some instances civil Judges apart as betwixt stroke and stroke betwixt Plea and Plea c. Deut. 17. and the High-Priest in other Circumstances had no Jurisdiction at all but as elected a Member of the Sanedrim and which was at the choice of his Electors not by virtue of his Priesthood as such tell us that are skilled in their Customs and sure we are he was still to be consulted in the ordinary difficult Affairs of the Kingdom concerning Wars and Peace and gave his responses by Vrim and Thummim and which is so strenuously oppos'd as unfit for Christian Bishops and Church-men by those we have mostly to deal with in this point now under debate and which would be of worser consequence yet if apply'd unto Kings to have the Princes Power such only as had the Kings of Israel and Judah particularly according as is the Model we usually receive from these Men of their Government and is contended for as lapsed from Heaven for their Sanedrim is still described as an Autority foreign and independent from that of the Prince that could not question the King for his life but could lay lesser Punishments upon him if violating the Law And the great Selden himself is at a stand and leaves it to wiser heads than himself to determine whether the Sanedrim might whip their Kings or not De Syned lib. 2. cap. 9.
farther that he pretends to have the judicial Determination of Bishops but really manages and does all himself 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Ib. and evidently again distinguishes between the work of a Bishop and the work of an Emperor he goes on and is more daring and positive 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 when any such thing was heard of from the beginning of the World that the Judgment and Decision of the Church had its Autority and Measures from the Empire or was ever any such Determination known at all many Church Decisions have been made but never did the Presbyters perswade the Emperor to any such thing neither did the Prince intermeddle with the things of the Church 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Ibid. And all this is recorded by Athanasius of the Divine and most Excellent Hosius in that his Epistle Ad Solitarium c. Pag. 840 repeating there Hosius his Epistle to 〈◊〉 on the same occasion 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 who drew up the Nicene 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 one that was heard and submitted to by all his own words are these to the Emperor 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. Do not interpose thy self nor meddle with Ecclesiastical Affairs nor do you Command in these things but rather learn them of Vs to Thee God hath committed the Empire to Vs he hath deputed what is the Churches and as he that undermines the Government opposes the Ordinance of God so do thou take heed 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 lest forcing to thy self the things which are of the Church you become liable to as great a guilt for it is written give unto Caesar the things that are Caesar's and unto God the things which are Gods It is neither lawful for us to have the Government upon Earth nor hast thou the Power of Holy things O King St. Jerome speaks of the evil Bishops only the Character is upon them De Ecclesiae Principibus qui non dignè regunt oves Domini as of Princes in the Church with Power of Jurisdiction in themselves in his Comments on Jeremiah cap. 23. Sacerdos est Caput the Priest is the Head an Original devolving upon others Comment in 1 Cor. 12. and upon Romans 13. Apostolus in his quae recta sunt judicibus obediendum non in illis quae Religioni contraria sunt the things of Religion are not to be subjected to Kings nor any in Autority under them And to this purpose he says again in Isai 1. Apostolos à Christo constitutos Principes Ecclesiarum the Apostles were constituted by Christ Princes of the Churches And the same is said in his Preface to the Epistle to the Galatians and particularly on Psal 44. Fuere O Ecclesia Apostoli Patres tui quia ipsi te genuere c. The Apostles O Church were thy Fathers that begot thee now because they are gone out of the World you have in their room Bishops Sons which are created of thee and those are thy Fathers by whom thou art governed The Gospel being spread in all Parts of the World in which Princes of the Church i. e. Bishops are constituted This Holy Father assigning all Church-Power to and in it self and if it be suspected whether these Comments on the Psalms be St. Jerome's own I have yet here repeated this passage out of them as most fully appearing his sense to whoso pleases to consult his Works especially his Commentary St. Augustine's Opinion we have already in part spoke of and he that will undertake an Enquiry will find him all along of the same Opinion I 'le only instance in the differences occasion'd by the Donatists and what Power the Empire assum'd to it self in those great and many Controversies and their Decisions related by him which he tells us is only to make outward Laws in defence of what appears to be Truth and says he it falls out sometimes Reges cum in errore sunt pro ipso errore contra veritatem leges ferunt that they make Laws against Truth themselves being in Error and good Men are only prov'd thereby as evil Men by their good Laws are amended Tom. 7. l. 3. Cont. Crescon Gramat cap. 51. they command that which is Good and forbid that which is Evil Non solum quae pertinent ad humanam Societatem verùm etiam ad divinam Religionem in things which belong not only to Humane Society but to Divine Religion he has Power to enquire into debates and to provide for Truth and Peaco by the Bishops to assign the Persons Time and Place Vt superstitionem manifesta ratio confutaret that Reason may gain upon Superstition and Truth be made manifest Collat. 1. diei 3. cum Donatist Nor was Cecilianus purg'd and set free but by Judiciis Ecclesiasticis Imperialibus by the Ecclesiastical as by the Imperial Judgment and Determinations Ibid. nor will it appear that the Powers of the Empire have concern'd themselves any farther in those quarrels than by abetting or discouraging by outward Laws and Punishments what was represented as Truth unto them and which the Church alone hath not Power to do either to award at first or after mitigate but by Prayers and Arguments and therefore the Civil Laws and Indulgences have been sometimes severer and sometimes too indulgent as Accidents or Truth over-ruled as is to be seen in his Third and Fourth Books ad Cresconium and when these Laws went too hard upon these Donatists and pinched their Faction too sorely then they cried out of Persecution denied the Empire this Power in Divine things and that they were to stand at no humane Judicature as is the way of all such Factions when themselves only persecute and invade and whose Insolencies and Rapines are at large told us by St. Austin in his Forty eighth Epistle and by Optatus in his Treatise against Parmenius the Donatist Hence that of Donatus lib. 3. ibid. Quid Imperatori cum Ecclesia What has the Emperor to do with the Church whom Optatus there sharply upbraids as well as reproves for it tells Donatus of his Pride and unheard of insolency in so doing in lifting up himself above him who is second to God alone Cum supra Imperatorem non sit nisi solus Deus who sits as God in all forensick outward Judicatures and no man can withstand him but Church-Power is still supposed a quite differing thing I mean that which our Saviour left immediately to his Church it falls not under this head of things 't is derived in another stream as the design of his whole Book declares nor is Optatus for this or any other like Expression to be thought to refer all Church-Power into the Empire than those other Fathers did using much the same Expressions and which is above observed and he in particular returns the rise and devolution of the Bishops of Rome to St. Peter by whose Successors it was then in Siricius the Bishop in his days in his Second Book against Parmenius and so St.
under it Thus he Mr. Selden who was Contemporary with § IX this worthy wight and Man of Sense and no question but his Confident engaged and succeeded him in the very same Cause and by the very same Motives and Arguments only he appear'd not in the World till Nine years after and so had the advantage of much time and was imboldned by the horrid Anarchy and dismal Confusion of it and by an incessant Industry of his own improv'd the Argument to a greater height of irreligion and audaciousness and contemptuously treads upon whatever is like a Church Power in any instance of it which his Friend was a little shy of who allows in Church-men a Power for Non-communion or Abstention in some Cases which though he 'l by no means call it Excommunication and acknowledges that Justinian did only command that the Bishop proceed against the Faulty by Excommunication Suspension Deprivation but Mr. Selden says with the greatest assurance and impudence it was his own judicial act with that truth we have already considered but his Argument and course of proceeding is all along the same and upon the supposition founded in the constitution and practice of the Jewish Church and which he proves by a vast reading and intolerable expence of Pains to have used only outward Bodily Penal Coercive Punishments whether before or after giving the Law in Sinai so he tells us it was with Adam and Cain the one upon his fall the other upon his murder both banished their Countries for it the Sword is the punishment for Murder Gen. 9.3 And they were to be stoned that came near the Mount at the giving the Law Exod. 19. And the punishment was only secular upon the violation of the Seven Precepts given to the Sons of Noah the uncircumcised was to be punished though not forinsecally yet by Gods own immediate hand and a particular judgment of the same nature was the Curse upon Meroz the punishment of Kore Dathan and Abiram nor do the words 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Anathema c. as used by the Prophets according to the Septuagint or other Greek Translations signifie any thing else nor are there used for Excommunication or afterwards by the Apostles as in St. Paul's delivering up the incestuous to Sathan c. and the Jews took up that Excommunication which was of later years exercised among them by special Compact with one another in the time of Captivity and for the present Exigence when the Temporal Power was taken out of their hands and which was no ways appropriated to the Priest or any other Order of Men either now under their Captivity or for the infliction of those other Punishments before or after the Law and what Excommunications were practised in the Apostles times and the first Century where by the way his great Master Erastus will allow of none in his Hundred Theses answered by Theodore Beza in his Tractatus Pius Moderatus de verâ Excommunicatione Christiano Magisterio was first Judaick in imitation of the Jews for there was none of the Christians for many years after our Saviour's Ascension which were not either Jews originally or Greek Proselytes and were accounted as Jews in common repute and members of their Synagogue and so used their Customs and Rights as before and of which this of Excommunication was one and so living among the Jews and call'd by the same Name when Caesar indulged the Jews and they had the liberty of their own Religion the Christians enjoy'd the Priviledges together with them and thus their Excommunication became Caesarean their Church Acts derived a Publick Autority from the Empire having none before but by private Covenant and by this Autority they held Presbyteries had Judicatures relating purely to their Religion and retained a Power to Punish under Death as did the Jews and if not thwarting the Laws Imperial and which grant of Favour though abated by succeeding Emperors they notwithstanding retained a Body and Union among themselves upon their own terms for Confederation till the days of Constantine and the Empire became Christian and then the Church being taken in to the State the Jurisdiction wholly became his as naturally annexed to the Crown and there to reside till all Autority and Power ceaseth This is the chief of Mr. Selden's Plot for the overthrowing the Power of Christ's Kingdom in the Polity Laws and Rights of it Lib. 1. De Syned cap. 3. 4 5 6 7 8. 11. and which has with much more advantage been very lately represented to the Age than I am able to do by a great and Learned Hand Dr. Parker Arch-deacon of Canterbury Nor needs there any thing more to be added for the satisfying the World of the vainer Attempts and undue Consequents there raised only the general Design of this Discourse engages that it be not wholly passed by and which otherwise could not be answer'd THOMAS Erastus Mr. Selden's great and § X admired Master though not licking and shaping his Beastly Abortive brood so throughly Missing in many things what the other has Hit upon yet in his forementioned Hundred Theses he urges much the same way as that because the Sword was the Punishment among the Jews so all Offenders of what Nature soever are by the Coercion alone of the Magistrate to be Corrected and the Christian Church is to go no farther than theirs did and the Civil Magistrate has all the Care of Religion that it is very difficult to conceive how there can be two Heads in one Body both to have right to Punish and Exercise Domination over the same Subjects still supposing no Power to have or that can have existency but that of outward Coercion And which Plea however it might be forced from him and seem necessary and makes a plausible shew of Truth in regard of Beza's Lay-Elders and the Consistorian Government of Geneva and in whose irregular Power he instances laying Penal Mulcts and outward Restraints as do the Civil Magistrates and the Consideration of which ran him upon this his as groundless Extreme Yet as to the Constitution and Practice of the truly Catholick Christian Church it has no Pretence or likelihood at all as will hereafter be made to appear CLAVDIVS Salmasius though he was § XI a Man very much if not altogether of Beza's Complexion yet is he not so ingenuous and true to their common Cause as was Beza in his Writings against Erastus for in his Apparatus to his Book De Primatu Papae a long rambling indigested tedious Discourse purposely made against the Divine Right of Bishops he there to pursue home his Design takes away all Church-Government whatsoever at the same rate of arguing And if he concludes any thing at all and which is not easily seen it is this That a Bishop is so far from having a distinct Power above a Presbyter solitary and apart from him that he has neither 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 nor 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in general no
rather to be hazarded then to comply with and imbody into us any thing that is sinful even to gain a Protection for other instances of Virtue and Duty yet nothing but that which strikes at Religion it self will ingage or be a Warrant to proceed in this extreme utmost way upon him whose alone is the outward Coercive Power and who can weild his Sword at pleasure deny the Church that support countenance and assistance which our Saviour designed Religion should outwardly flourish under be in some respects propagated and preserved by become more notoriously visibâ—e and conspicuous to all Nations And what is said of Excommunication and other Church censures is to be said of Absolution which though a Power enstated alone in the Priesthood by Christ yet is not to be executed in an Arbitrary way and that not only as to the Laws of Christ but the Laws of Kingdoms also in many cases especially where Christian I 'le end this Section and Head of Discourse in the words of our Learned Dr. Hammond in his Book of the Power of the Keys Cap. 1. Sect. 1. The Power of binding and loosing is only an Engine of Christ's invention to make a Battery or impression upon the obdurate Sinner to win him to himself to bless not triumph over him it invades no part of the Civil Judicature nor looses the bonds thereof by these Spiritual Pretences but leaves the Government of the World just in the posture it was before Christ's coming or as it would be supposed to be if he had never left any Keys in his Church § XLV THAT the Church as a Body and Corporation of it self judiciarily determines in Council and lays obligations to Obedience infringes and inrodes no more than her other acts now mentioned if it be declarative of matter of Faith or Duty indispensably as received originally from Christ by Church conveyance the Determination is no more than the first Teaching and Promulgation of it was if it be constitutive of Laws and Canons for setling and enjoyning of Discipline the matter in it self indifferent but limited for present use and service and of which and to which purpose all Humane Laws Ecclesiastical or Civil are made and tend these Church Canons are as in the make and obligation so in the Practice and execution to retain that just regard to known Duties especially those of Allegiance that such the other Church acts and censures do and as already shewed 'T is true the great transcendent regard and reverence the Empire when Christian has had for the institution as from our Saviour for Religion it self in whose defence the Canons were made and for the high Dignity and Office of the Bishops his Commissioners that it still has made antecedent Canons the Rule of all Laws enacted if relating to or but bordering upon affairs Ecclesiastical as instances are already produced quas leges nostrae sequi non dedignantur Novel 83. and to command contra venerabilem Ecclesiam against the venerable Church Nullius est nisi Tyrannidis cujus actus omnes rescinduntur is reputed as the Act of a Tyrant and such Acts are null'd Cod. Justin l. 1. Tit. 2.16 nay farther Canones ubi agitur de re Ecclesiastica jure civili sunt preferendi and if the Canon and Civil Laws those of the Church and the State have happened to be different and in competition in any Ecclesiastical case the Canons have took place and obliged as in that Code and Title Sect. 6. and their general care and industry was mostly for these as the Determinations more immediately for the good of their Souls Novel 137. but this was from the greater Indulgence and Grace of the Christian Emperors and in particular cases and it cannot be supposed that the Church should designedly set up her Bishops and Laws above or in opposition to that Government which the frame of their Religion includes in Subordination to and by Protection of which it was to be propagated and preserv'd but of this we shall have occasion anon to consider farther And if it be reply'd that a Council cannot be convened or meet at all without the Prince's Grant at least his Letters of leave and how then can they have any Autority independent or should they otherwise assemble they are reputed Seditious Disturbers of the Peace and of Majesty and punishable as is the Law imperial 16. Cod. Theodos Tit. 1. l. 3. To this I answer neither can they nor ought they nor did ever any Christian Council otherwise unite in their Persons then by the Grant and Letters Imperial and that censure was just if any did otherwise attempt it But then it is farther to be consider'd that the form essence and force of a Council that which gives a right for Sanctions and invests with Autority Ecclesiastical is not their local personal meeting as in one place there convocated and sitting but a joynt-enquiry and resolution as to the Truth 's debated and concurrency as one man in the Laws enacted upon the true Motives and Reasons of Faith and the Gospel as by Tradition transmitted or in Discipline for Government and Peace useful and which may be done by the Bishops and Clergy dissite and in diverse Countries by their Letters Missive and Communicatory those Literae signatae or systaticae or circular Epistles to one another and which has been done under diverse Circumstances and when the state of the Church was so low and its Capacities not enabling her to do it otherwise as is plain from Church Story and Practice and that this was the course of the Church's 't is more than probable when that debate arose about the keeping of Easter an account of whose Epistles we have appearing to this purpose given us by Eusebius Eccl. Hist l. 5. c. 23. AND lastly that this Church Power is derived § XLVI only from the Church and her Bishops to others in the Succession exclusive to Kings and the Clergy are not in this sense his Ministers he ordains and substitutes them not carries nothing of opposition in the action it self nor any thing in the design than what the Incorporation and Offices themselves imply and which has been hitherto rendred altogether innocent The Leviathan scruples not to say That they all derive their Offices and Power only from the Prince and are but his Ministers in the same manner as Magistrates in Towns Judges in Courts of Justice and Commanders in Armies are and his account why they must be so is because the Government could not be secure upon other terms If the Soveraignity in the Pastor over himself and his People be allow'd of it deprives the Magistrate of the Civil Power and his Peoples dependency would be on such their Doctors both in respect of the opinion they have of their Duty to them and the fear they have of Punishment in another World Part 3. Cap. 42. but this mistake of his has been enough discovered all along in this Treatise and will be more
good Christian who is also a good Subject is to abate of what Duties and Performances he in some instances immediately owes to Religion and his Saviour in obedience to those Secular injunctions to which if not engaged to submit the Government cannot subsist and be managed as in these particular instances did a pretence to or the actual present exercise in religious Worship exempt and disingage Every one is born a Subject owes a duty to his Prince and the Government as soon as he is indebted for his Being to his Maker and an after-dedication of my Person by holy Orders does not cancel that first dependency my Saviour himself hither all along had his regard and he laid his Religion in relation to it and when in the Pulpit or which is more at the Altar in the midst of my Office am I to give up my Person to that Civil Power by my Christianity supposed and by the same God placed over me The severer Rules and Laws of the Sabbath were to give place to the saving the life of a Man in the design of Moses as our Saviour expounds him to the Pharisees and much more for the support of Kingdoms and Communities and so in all other Instances of this sort of Holiness called Relative and which is good only from the institution and positive appointment and no greater more notorious Cheats than those in Ordine ad Deum that manage and abet Disobedience by a Charter from Religion 't is that very Corban in the Gospel so severely chastised by Christ the saying it is a gift and robbing my Father and Mother That absence from Divine Service or religious Worship which is in it self a sin upon a single instance of Charity for the advantage and relief of the neighbour-hood and then surely of a whole Community is a duty on this score Christians fight their Battels on the Lord's-day the very Ass is to be pulled out of the Pit and how the reasons and ends of Government for its better managâ—ry and conservation did stiil over-rule in the Christian Church in each of these like religious Performances in the best and most flourishing Times of it and the Empire when Christian gave Laws Directions and Limitations as to the Collectae and Publick Assemblies in Ordinations Excommunications Absolutions c. for the more orderly administration of the Civil Affairs is already shew'd in this discourse and yet the things themselves are immediately from Christ that power is not from the Prince which warrants and makes effectual the Institutions and Offices of each of them AND if it be replied that this seems § XV to come too near to what the design of this discourse is laid against or to be sure was the occasion of it If the Magistrate and the Law are to silence and limit in the exercise and profession of these higher Instances of Christianity what is this less than to submit my Religion to their pleasure To which I answer the case is not at all the same this is only adjusting of Duties in order to a due performance a suspension upon a higher reason and duty intervening and both which are equally Christian or at the most a but concealing some truths upon present reasons and motives and which every one allows may be done Should the Prince command me not to say my Prayers at all as he did Daniel to preach or speak no more in Christ's Name as the Sanedrim did the Apostles that Ordinations and Censures be no more Church both Officers and Offices cease for ever or which is the case in Mr. Dean's Sermon should a false Religion be commanded in their rooms and be made the Religion of the Nation this is the case in which I am to speak before Kings and not be ashamed when my life is in my hand as 't is the expression of holy David with a great many more to that purpose in the hundred and nineteenth Psalm then I am not only to exercise what is my duty as a private Christian but to make what open Proselytes I can to that Religion which I am sure is in the right to draw off all I can from that which is false and imposed by the Magistrate and Law This is that confession with the Mouth call'd for all along in the sacred Epistles Confession at Matyrdome that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in St. Clemens Strom. l. 4. p. 503. an eminent way to gain Mercy for our sins and 't is call'd by the Church 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 § XI perfection as he there tells us pag. 480. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as the highest act of Charity the greatest demonstration of love when expressed to Souls in the profession of a right and rescuing from a false Religion at so great a distance was it set from gross hypocrisie and which Mr. Dean demonstrates to be such in the next Paragraph of the Sermon I 'le go on so far with his Worship and Consent that where neither Miracles to justifie the extraordinary Commission as had the Apostles nor the providence of God makes way by the permission of the Magistrate the Proselytes are very like to be few and since the former is ceased altogether and never to be more expected the countenance and protection of the latter is what usual course and common Prudence directs to wait for upon any attempt for converting and reducing of Nations from a false Worship I find the Proposal and the Complaint recited and made both at once by our learned Doctor Hammond Serm. 10. in Joh. 7.48 Vol. 2. I 'le here use his own Words If we should plant Christianity in Turkey we must first invade and conquer them and then convince them of their Follies which about an hundred years ago Cleonard proposed to most Courts in Christendom and to that end himself studied Arabick that Princes would join their strength and Scholars their brains and all surprize them in their own Land and Language at once besiege the Turk and his Alcoran put him to the Sword and his Religion to the touch-stone first command him to Christianity with an high hand and then to shew him the reasonableness of the Command Thus also we may complain but not wonder that the reformation gets ground so slow in Christendom because the Forces and potent Abetters of Papacy secure them from being led captive to Christ as long as the Pope is invested so fast in his Chair and as long as the Rulers take part with him there shall be no doubt of the truth of their Religion unless it please God to back Arguments with steel and to raise up Kings and Emperors to be our Champions we may question but never confute his Supremacy Let us come with all the power and rhetorick of Paul and Barnabas all the demonstrations and reasons of the Spirit and yet as long as they have such Topicks against us as the autority of the Rulers and Pharisees we may dispute out our hearts and preach out our Lungs
Castelvetrus her second Husband as Mr. Selden suggests or by the Archbishop himself what is necessarily hence to be inferr'd I 'le here again give in the words of our always to be reverenced Mr. Herbert Thorndike of the Laws of the Church Cap. Vlt. Pag. 394. Neither is the Publishing Erastus his Book against Excommunication at London to be drawn into the like Consequence that those who allow'd and procur'd it allow'd the substance of what he maintain'd so long as a sufficient Reason is to be rendred for it otherwise for at such time as the Presbyterian Pretences were so hot under Queen Elizabeth it is no marvel if it was thought to shew England how they prevail'd at home first because he hath advanced such Arguments as are really effectual against them which are not yet nor never will be answered by them though void of the Positive Truth which ought to take place instead of their Mistakes and besides because at such times as Popes did what them listed in England it would have been to the purpose to shew the English how Machiavel observes they were hamper'd at home and for the like Reason when the Geneva Platform was cried up with such Zeal here it was not amiss to shew the World how it was esteem'd under their own Noses in the Cantons and the Palatinate § XVII I am now to shew the concurrency of our Doctors in the Church and who still go along with me and say the same thing that Church Power as such is not from the Civil Magistrate and his supremacy in all Causes and over all Persons infers it not an induction would be too numerous the Particulars being so many I 'le only instance in two the one is Thomas Bilson then Warden of Winchester and afterward Bishop there in his Book entituled The true difference between Christian Subjection and un-christian Rebellion perused and allowed by publick Autority and dedicated to Queen Elizabeth and for writing of which he had his Bishoprick the other is Robert Sanderson then the King's Professor at Oxford and after Bishop of Lincolne in his Book called Episcopacie as establed by Law in England not prejudicial to the Regal Power written in the time of the long Parliament by the special Command of King Charles the I. but not published by reason of the Iniquity and Confusion of the Times and since printed and dedicated to our present gracious Soveraign King Charles II. two Divines as they flourished in our Church at a great distance of time from one another so are they at as great distance for their Worth and Merit beyond the generality of the Divines of their times and by which as we have the advantage of their greater Autority as to themselves to which add That they acted herein as publick Persons by Autority appointed to write in the Name of the Church of England and in such Cases Men generally are more careful how they vent their own private Niceties and Conceptions so also have we a farther benefit hereby that this was and is the continued constant Doctrine of our Church and Church-Men from Queen Elizabeth to King Charles II. Bishop Bilson thus speaks part 2d pag. § XVIII 124. printed at Oxford It is one thing who may command for truth and another who shall direct unto truth We say Princes may command for Truth and punish the refusers this no Bishop may challenge but only the Prince that beareth the Sword no Prelate has Autority from Christ to compel private Men much less Princes but only to teach and instruct them these two Points we stand on pag. 125. 126. he tells the Jesuite the Prince is Supreme to establish those things Christ has commanded and so he all along shews it the design of the Oath of Supremacy against the pretended outward Jurisdiction of the Pope claiming as Christ's Vicar on Earth a coercive Power in order to spiritual things over the Persons of all Christians whatsoever whose Subjects soever and in whatsoever Causes even our Kings themselves And that it is no more thence to be inferr'd that Princes because supreme Governors over all Persons in all Causes are therefore supreme Judges of Faith Deciders of Controversies Interpreters of Scripture Appointers of Sacraments Devisers of Ceremonies and what not then if it should be inferr'd Princes are supreme Governors in all Corporal things and causes ergo they are supreme Guiders of Grammar Moderators of Logique Directors of Rhetorick Appointers of Musick Prescribers of Medicines Resolvers of all Doubts and Judges of all Matters incident any wayes to reason art or action We confess them to be supreme Governors of their Realms and Dominions and that in all Spiritual things and causes not of all Spiritual things and causes we make them not Governors of the Things themselves but of their Subjects we confess that her Highness is the only Governor of this Realm the Word Governor doth sever the Magistrate from the Minister and sheweth a manifest difference between their Office for Bishops be no Governors of Countries Princes be these bear the Sword to reward and punish those do not pag. 127. They have several Commissions which God signed those to dispense the Word and Sacraments these to prescribe by their Laws and punish by the Sword such as resist them within their Dominions pag. 128. That no Clergy-Man by God's Law can challenge an exemption from earthly Powers pag 129. Princes have full Power to forbid prevent and punish in all their Subjects be they Lay-Men Clerks or Bishops not only Murders Thefts Adulteries Perjuries and such like Breaches of the second table but also Schisms Heresies Idolatries and all other Offences against the first Table pertaining only to the Service of God and Matters of Religion pag. 130. as the Kings of Israel did who are the Christian Princes example pag. 132. and it is the duty of Christian Kings to compel from Heresies and Schisms to the confession of the truth consent of Prayer and Communion of the Lord's Table to compel Hereticks and Schismaticks to repress Schism and Heresie with their princely Power which they receive from above chiefly to maintain God's glory by the causing the Bands of Virtue to be preserved in the Church and the Rules of Faith observed pag. 133. this is the Prince's charge to see the Law of God fully executed his Son rightly served his Spouse safely nursed his House timely filled his Enemies duely punished and he tells the Jesuite if he grants this he will ask no more And these the causes and things that be Spiritual as well as Temporal the Princes power and charge doth reach unto or in the words of St. Austin that Princes may command that which is good and prohibit that which is evil within their Kingdoms not in Civil Affairs only but in Matters that concern divine Religion Cont. Crescon l. 3. c. 51. pag. 134. to page 145. and this or power of the like nature was what was claimed and used in causes Ecclesiastical which
Christian when he refused to give up his Church to the Arians denied the Emperor's power over truth and to determine in Doctrines The Emperor might force him out if he pleased neither might he resist the force his Weapons being only Prayers and Tears but the truth must not yield up to him and he give his consent or seem to do it by his own departure that the Arian Doctrine be there preached this was not then thought an Affront to the Magistrate and Law nor had St. Ambrose a Commission immediate from Heaven and abetted with Miracles or was he judged a hypocrite in so doing because he did not go and preach the Cause against Arius amongst the Goths and Vandals who subscribed to his Creed at their receiving Christianity though Mr. Dean of Canterbury tells us he that pleads Conscience and preaches it in England and does not go and preach it also in Turkey is guilty of gross hypocrisie pag. 203 213. We do not make them Judges and Deciders of Truth but Receivers and Establishers of it we say Princes be only Governors that is higher Powers ordain'd of God and bearing the Sword with lawful and publick Autority to command for truth to prohibit and with the Sword punish Errors and all other Ecclesiastical Disorders as well as Temporal within their Realms that as all their Subjects Bishops and others must obey them commanding what is good in Matters of Religion and endure them with patience when they take part with Error So they their Swords and Scopters be not subject to the Popes Tribunal neither hath he by the Law of God or by the Canons of the Church any Power or Pre-eminence to reverse their Doings nor depose their Persons and for this Cause we confess Princes within their Territories to be supreme that is not under the Popes jurisdiction neither to be commanded nor displaced at his pleasure pag. 215 216. There be two Parts of our Assertion The first avouching that Princes may command for Truth and abolish Error The next that Princes be Supreme i. e. not subject to the Popes judicial Process to be cited suspended deposed at his beck The Word Supreme ever was and is defended by us to make Princes free from the wrongful and usurped Jurisdiction which the Pope claimeth over them pag. 217. 219. Bishops have their Autority to preach and administer the Sacraments not from the Prince but Christ himself only the Prince giveth them publick liberty without let or disturbance to do what Christ hath commanded them he no more conferreth that Power and Function than he conferreth Life and Breath when he permitteth to live and breath when he does not destroy the life of his Subjects That Princes may prescribe what Faith they list what Service of God they please what form of Administring the Sacraments they think best is no part of our thoughts nor point of our Doctrine for external Power and Autority to compel and punish which is the Point we stand upon God hath preferr'd the Prince before the Priest pag. 223. touching the Regiment of their own Persons and Lives Princes owe the very same Reverence and Obedience to the Word and Sacraments that every private Man doth and if any Prince would be baptized or approach the Lord's Table with manifest shew of unbelief or irrepentance the Minister is bound freely to speak or rather to lay down his life at the Princes feet than to let the King of Kings to be provoked the Mysteries to be defiled his own Soul and the Princes endanger'd for lack of oft and earnest Admonition pag. 226. by Governors we do not mean Moderators Prescribers Directors Inventers or Authors of these things but Rulers or Magistrates bearing the Sword to permit and defend that which Christ himself first appointed and ordained and with lawful force to disturb the Despisers of his lawful Will and Testament Now what inconvenience is this if we say that Princes as publick Magistrates may give freedom protection and assistance to the preaching of the Word ministring of the Sacraments and right using of the Keys and not fetch license from Rome pag. 236. Princes have no right to call and confirm Preachers but to receive such as be sent of God and give them liberty for their preaching and security for their Persons and if Princes refuse so to do God's Labourers must go forward with that which is commanded them from Heaven not by disturbing Princes from their Thrones nor invading their Realms but by mildly submitting themselves to the Powers on Earth and meekly suffering for the defence of the truth what they shall inflict A private liberty and exercise of their own Conscience and Religion was not then thought enough if the Religion of a Nation be false and though autority do abet it nor would the Autority in Queen Elizabeth's days have own'd that Person asserting and maintaining of it though not stubbornly irreligious but only wanting information in so notoriously a known case of practice pag. 238. In all spiritual Things and Causes Princes only bear the Sword i. e. have publick Autority to receive establish and defend all Points and Parts of Christian Doctrine and Discipline within their Realms and without their help tho the Faith and Canons of Christ's Church may be privately professed and observed of such as be willing yet they cannot be generally planted or settled in any Kingdom nor urged by publick Laws and external Punishments on such as refuse but by their consents that bear the Sword This is that we say refel it if you can pag. 252. to devise new Rites and Ceremonies for the Church is not the Princes vocation but to receive and allow such as the Scripture and Canons commend and such as the Bishops and Pastors on the Place shall advise not infringing the Scripture or Canons and so for all other Ecclesiastical Things and Causes Princes be neither the Devisers nor Directors of them but the Confirmers and Establishers of that which is good and Displacers and Revengers of that which is Evil which power we say they have in all things be they Spiritual Ecclesiastical or Temporal the Abuse of Excommunication in the Priest and contempt of it in the People Princes may punish excommunicate they may not for so much of the Keys are no part of their Charge pag. 256. The Prince is in Ecclesiastical Discipline to receive and stablish such Rules and Orders as the Scripture and Canons shall decide to be needful and healthful for the Church of God in their Kingdoms It is the Objection indeed and undue consequence the Church of Rome makes against us and the Oath of Supremacy and which is urged by Philander in this Dialogue betwixt him and Theophilus or betwixt the Christian and the Jesuite pag. 124 125. That we will have our Faith and Salvation to hang on the Princes Will and Laws that there can be imagined no nearer way to Religion than to believe what our temporal Lord and Master list in the
or to attrectate any thing which is meerly of the Sacerdotal Power as are Leiturgies Sermons the Keys and Sacraments Kings six the Ark in its place those afterwards touch it whose care it is by the receiving the Office of their Ministry and though Solomon's dedication of the Temple implyes something extraordinary yet he denies it to reach to any thing in the Temple which is Sacerdotal sed neque in iis quae sunt pontisicalis muneris regi jus facimus We give the King a right to do no Office which is the Priests semel autem habe sententiam nostram it is a thing so often said by our Doctors that he is a weary ita coccyzare of the Cuckow tone and speaking it so over and over again nos non regi potestatem tribuimus quam habere voluit Osias solam illam quam Josias habuit we do not give to our King the Power of Osias as Tortus says we do but the Power alone of Josias all this and more is to be seen in Tortura Torti from pag. 363 to pag. 370. nor is there any thing more on his side in the responsio ad Bellarminum cap. 1. and to these he refers the Reader so shameless is he in his Quotations and he must first slatter himself into a belief that the pointing of his finger from the Margin is direction and autority enough and supersedes all farther Inquiry Nor is he less disingenuous in his dealings with the Bishop when he there says that he corrected Grotius de sum Potest in Sacr. c. for the Press when Andrews over-rul'd him that he printed it not and it was at last but a posthumous Work So that unless Arch-Bishop Whitgift be an Erastian because Mr. Selden once in his Library at Lambeth saw Erastus's Works neatly bound up in yellow Leather with this Motto in Gold upon the out-side of it Intus quam extra formosior as he tells us and 't is his chief Argument de Syned lib. 1. cap. 10. pag. 437. he is like to go without a Doctor in the Church of England on his side for ought I know or as he knew either for he seldom misses a Name that bears but the likelyhood of an Autority hav ' y' any Work for a Cooper I remember makes it the serious part of that scandalous Libel to upbraid our Church and Church-men that the Prince makes them Bishops and Presbyters and their Religion is what the worldly Power pleases with a deal of stuff to that purpose I know not now where that Pamphlet is and 't is not worth searching after though the Author might be a Doctor for ought I know I am only sure he was not a Doctor of our Church Or unless the Lord Falkland turned Doctor as he might deserve it by the larger Character Mr. Dean of Canterbury gives of him joyn'd with Mr. Chillingworth as I remember in the Preface to his first Book of Sermons and then Mr. Selden is secure of one of his side and we of an adversary from within our selves though he impleads us in a different way owns it for our Judgment and states it very well abating some malicious Terms and ranks it among those abundance more Grievances of the Nation and the placing this together with those other is as great an honor he could have done us that we have evidently labour'd to bring in an English though not a Roman Popery equally absolute a blind obedience of the People upon the Clergy and the Clergy upon themselves and inveighs against them altogether according to the then zealous and modish way in that very ill Speech of his to the House of Commons 1641. I 'le repeat part of it as I find it transcribed and printed by a very good friend of his and one that seems to honor him as much as Doctor Tillotson does Mr. Speaker he is a great stranger in Israel who knows not that this Kingdom hath long laboured under many and great Oppressions both in Religion and Liberty and his Acquaintance here is not great or his Ingenuity less who doth not know and acknowledg that a great if not a principal Cause of both these hath been some Bishops and their Adherents Mr. Speaker a little will serve to find them to have been the destruction of Unity under pretence of Uniformity to have brought in Superstition and Scandal under the Titles of Reverence and Decency to have defiled our Churches to have slackned the stictness of that Union which was formerly betwixt us and those of our Religion beyond the Sea an Action as unpolitick as ungodly As Sir Thomas Moor says of the Casuists their business was not to keep Men from sinning but to inform them quà m prope ad peccatum sine peccato liceat accedere So it seemed their Work meaning the Prelates was to try how much of a Papist might be brought in without Popery and to destroy as much as they could of the Gospel without bringing themselves into danger of being destroy'd by Law Mr. Speaker to go yet farther some of them have so industriously labour'd to deduce themselves from Rome that they have given great suspicion that in gratitude they desire to return thither or at last to meet it half way Some have evidently labour'd to bring in an English though not a Roman Popery I mean not the out-side of it only and dress of it but equally absolute a blind Obedience of the People upon the Clergy and the Clergy upon themselves and have opposed Papacy beyond the Sea that they might settle one beyond the Water nay common fame is more than ordinarily false if none of them have found a way to reconcile the Opinions of Rome to the Preferments of England be so absolutely directly and cordial Papists that it is all 1500 l per Annum can do to keep them from confessing it We shall find them to have both kindled and blown the common fire of both Nations to have both sent and maintained that Book of which the Author hath no doubt long since wished with Nero Vtinam nescirem literas and of which more than one Kingdom hath cause to wish that when he writ that he had rather burn'd a Library though of the value of Ptolemey's We shall find them to have been the first and principal Author of the Breach I will not say of but since the Pacification at Barwick we shall find them to have been almost sole Abetters of my Lord Strafford whilst he was practising upon another Kingdom that manner of Government he intended to settle in this where he committed so many so mighty and so manifest Enormities as the like have not been committed by any Governor in any Government since Verres left Sicily and after they had call'd him over from being Deputy of Ireland to be in a manner Deputy of England all things here being govern'd by a Juntillo and that Juntillo governed by him to have assisted him in giving such Counsels and the pursuing such Courses