Selected quad for the lemma: religion_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
religion_n	king_n	kingdom_n	majesty_n	5,039	5	6.1083	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A86280	Certamen epistolare, or, The letter-combate. Managed by Peter Heylyn, D.D. with 1. Mr. Baxter of Kederminster. 2. Dr. Barnard of Grays-Inne. 3. Mr. Hickman of Mag. C. Oxon. And 4. J.H. of the city of Westminster Esq; With 5. An appendix to the same, in answer to some passages in Mr. Fullers late Appeal.	Heylyn, Peter, 1600-1662.; Baxter, Richard, 1615-1691.; Bernard, Nicholas, d. 1661.; Hickman, Henry, d. 1692.; Harrington, James, 1611-1677.	1659 (1659)	Wing H1687; Thomason E1722_1; ESTC R202410	239,292	425

exemplifying in my many repr●ac●es against extemporary Prayer the holy improvement of the Lords day c. but where I beseech you in what Book or Books of mine may a man meet with any of those many reproaches against extemporary Prayer May you not be again mistaken and find upon a further search that those many reproaches against extemporary Prayer are to be found in D. ●olkinton or in some body else The most that I have said ag●inst extemporary Prayer occurreth in a brief discours touching the form of Prayer appointed to be used before the Sermon Sect. 22. in which you read That whereas the Church prescribes a set form of Prayer in her publique Liturgie from which it is not lawful for any of her Ministers to vary or recede she did it principally to avoid all unadvised effusions of gross and undigested Prayers as little capable of piety as they are uterly void of order and this she did upon the reason given in the Melevitan Council viz. least else through ignorance or want of care any thing should be uttered contrary to the rules of faith Ne forte aliquid contra fidem vel per ignorantiam vel per minus studium si● compositum as the Canon hath it And again page 348. We plainly see by the effects what the effect of theirs would tend to What is the issue of the liberty most men have taken to themselves too many of that sort who most stand upon it useing such passages in their Prayers before their Sermons that even their Prayers in the Psalmist's language are turned into sin Thus find we in the General Preface That the inconveniencies which the liberty hath brought upon us in these latter days are so apparent that it is very hard to say whether the liberty of Prophesying or the licentiousness in Praying what and how we list hath more conduced to these distractions which are now amongst us and if there were no such effect too visible of this licentiousness which I desire the present state to take notice of the scandal which is thereby given unto our Religion in speaking so irreverently with such vain repetitions and tautologies to almighty God as in extemporary and unpremeditated Prayers is too frequently done seem a sufficient consideration to bring us back again to that ancient form which the wisedom of the Church prescribed to prevent that mischief And finally that men never did so litterally offer unto God the Calves of their lips as they have done of late since the extemporary way of praying hath been taken up ●nd if it were prohibited by the Law of Moses to offer any thing unto God in the way of the legal Sacrifices which was maimed sported or imperfect how can it rationally be conceived that God should be delighted with those Oblations or spiritual Sacrifices which have nothing almost in them but maims spots and blemishes These are my words I must confess but that they are reproaches I must needs deny But first I do not speak these words of all extemporary Prayers in general or more particularly of those which gifted men may make in their private devotions but of those unpremeditated undigested Prayers which men ungifted and unlearned men have poured out too frequently in the Church of God And secondly if they be reproaches they are such reproaches and such only as when a man is said to have been slandered with a matter of truth and for the proof hereof besides the authority of the Council of Melevis before remembred I ma● bring that our incomparable Hooker in the fifth Book of his Eccles Politie Num 25. Who though he actually saw but few did foresee many of ●ho●e inconveniencies which the humor of extemporary Prayer at last would bring into the publique worship of Almighty God for there he tells us of the grievous and scandalous inconveniences whereunto they make themselves daily subject who by their irksome deformities whereby through endless and sensless effusions of undigested Prayers they oftentimes disgrace in most unsufferable manner the worthiest part of Christian duty towards God when being subject herein to no certain order pray both what they list and how they list But behold a greater then Hooker is here even His most Excellent and most Incomparable Majesty the late King CHARLS who telleth us in his large declaration against the Scots That for want of a set form of Prayer they did sometimes pray so ignorantly that it was a shame to all Religion to hear the Majesty of God so barbarously spoken unto and sometimes so seditiously that their very Prayers were either plain libels against Authority or manifest lies stuffed with all the false reports in the Kingdom And what effects he found of them among the English appears by his Proclamation against the Directory bearing date Novemb. 30. Anno 1644. where we are told That by abolishing the Book of Common-Prayer there would be a means to open the way and give the liberty to all ignorant factious or evil men to broach their own fancies and conceits be they never so wicked and erroneous and to mislead people into sin and rebellion and to utter those things even in that which they make for their Prayers in their Congregations as in Gods presence which no conscientious man can assent to say Amen to And hereunto I shall add no more but this viz. that the passages produced before out of two of my Books and countenanced both by sad experience and such great Authorities must needs be either true or false if true they can be no reproaches if false why do you not rather study to confute them then reprove me for them 17. The next charge which you lay upon me and thereby render me obnoxious to a new reproof relates to my reproaches against the holy improvements of the Lords day c. How far your c. will extend is hard to say and therefore had you done more wisely had you left it out especially consider how many doubtful descants and ridiculous glosses were made upon a former c. and happily left standing in one of the Canons Anno 1640. for either I am guilty of more reproaches against piety and the power of godlines or I am not guilty if guilty why do you not let me know both their number and nature that I may either plead my innocence or confess my crime If not why do you thus insinuate by this c that you suppress some other charges which you have against me But letting that pass cum ceteris ●rroribus Where I beseech you can you point me to any reproaches of that day or of the holy improvements of it Much I confess is to be found in some of my Books against the superstitious and more then judaical observation of it which cannot come within the compass of being a reproach unto it Might not the Scribes and Pharisees Si licet exemplis in parvo grandibus uti in the Poets words have charged our Saviour with the

that you do not too much Lord it over your brethren of the Clergy 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as it is in the Original neither dominantes in cleris as the vulgar Latine by vertue of any such Commission as I find your name in You say you are a sorry Lawyer and I think so too for else you could not chuse but know that every minister upon his institution and induction is actually possessed of a free hold in that Benefice into which he is instituted or inducted of which he is not to be dis-placed if the Magna Charta be in force as I think it is but by the Laws of the Land and therefore ceaseth not by his own vitiousness to have a right to the mantainance which belongs unto it as you strangely tell us until he be convicted according to those Laws and deposed accordingly 23. But you proceed and having charged me with some bloody desires which you find not mine you tell me that I must not make such rigorous Laws for all and hang them that are against me This if you speak to me in my personal capacity you might well have spared it knowing that I have no authority of making Laws and that the Legislative Power is in other hands but if you speak to me as the Primipilus as in scorn you call me amongst the chi●● of the defenders of the late turgid and persecuting sort of Prela●y you may do well to let us know what rigorous Laws have been made at the instigation of the Prelates for hanging all that were against them what execution hath been done upon any of the Puritan faction since the so much celebrated Raign of Q. ELIZABETH What Confessors and Martyrs have been added lately unto Fox's Kalender The Prelates in the mean time must be thought to be in a sad condition and every one of them might have said in his own particular Si b●ne r●xe●o ●civ●s si mlae Deos iratos habeo If they discharged the trust reposed in them for suppressing Heresies and Schisms and preserving Order in the Church according to the Canons of the Church and the Laws of the Land they were sure to get nothing but anger and hate from men if not they were as sure to incur the high displeasure of almighty God And yet for this for doing nothing but their duty and would to God they had done that as they should have done they must be branded by the odious name of Persecutors But certainly M. Baxter if they may be called a persecuting sort of Prelates they must be called so à non Pers●qu●n●o as Lucus was à non Lucendo by some old Gramarians for being too indulgent to the Puritan faction for standing in the gapp betwixt them and the Kings displeasure when he might more easily have crushed them then have spoke the word For if you look into his Majesties Proclamation against the Scots bearing date Febr. 20 in the 14 year of his Raign when he first took up Arms against them you will there find First that it was given out by the Covenanters that some of power in the Hierarchy of England have been the cause of his Majesties first taking Arms to invade that his Native Kingdome and of medling with their Religion And secondly that his Majesty Answers thereunto that it was most certain that no one of them had done any thing therein but by his own Princely direction and command and that it was notoriously known to all the Councel then present that their counsels were for peace and that they were the perswaders as much as in them lay of the undeserved moderation wherewith he had hitherto proceeded towards so great offenders And therefore tell me if you can in what this persecuting humour of theirs did consist especially Cannot such a seditious wretch as Burton such a rake-shame as Vicars of Stamford such a notorious piece of Non-Conformity as Rood of Abingdon be censured in the high Commission perhaps to deprivation and some short imprisonment but presently you must c●y out of a Persecution Cannot the Ordinaries in their several and respective Jurisdictions proceed unto the silencing of a factious Lecturer or the suspending of an unconformable Minister usque ad Reformationem but that must pass also under the same account If there be persecuting on the one side there must be martyrdom and other sufferings on the other side And then such sufferings must not be for it is Causa non Paena quae facit Martyrem either for factious Preaching or seditious Writing or an incorrigiable opposition to established Orders but for the testimony of a good conscience in bearing witness to the truth and constantly adhering to the faith of Christ when the abnegation or renouncing of it is required of them Such sufferers if you can shew me you have gained the cause and for such Persecutions as you complain of they so seldom happened that there was the more notice taken of them because they were so rare and came so seldom once in a year or perhaps not above once in two or three years we might hear the news of some one or other notoriously known for his inconformity who was brought upon the stage for a terrour to others which is the most you can complain of but so I trow it was not with the Presbyterians when they were in power whose little finger was heavier on the Regular Clergie then the loins of all the Bishops had been on them Consult the Acts of the High Commission inquire into the Registers of the several Bishops and tell me if for every one of the Puritan party who had been silenced suspended or deprived according to the Laws of the Land during the last 20. years of Episcopal Government some scores at the least of the conformable Clergie have not been sequestred ejected and turned out of all without law in lesse then half that time by the Presbyterians Here is a persecution indeed undecima persecutio as the Book not unfitly calls it A Persecution with a witnesse 24. But you have other Titles of Honour to bestow upon them and think it not enough to brand the Bishops with the odious title of a persecuting sort of Prelacie but you must adde the word Turgid to make up the measure as well of your incivilities as of their afflictions which word although it be not usual in the English Tongue yet we can understand it without the help of a Dictionarie and understand by it that you tax the Prelates with a high swelling kind of pride I heard one preach in Westminster Abbey about the beginning of the long Parliament who much bemoaned the sad condition of the Clergie and the impossibilities under which they lay of giving content unto the people for if said he they kept close and privately or lived any thing below their means the people were then apt to cry O the base sordidness of the Clergie but if according to their means and in

these passages these breathings of M. Burton in his Apologie and Appeal In which he calls on the Nobility To rouse up their spirits and magnanimous courage for the truth and to stick close to God and the King in helping the Lord and his anointed against the mighty upon the Judges to draw forth the sword of Justice to defend the Laws against such Innovators who as much as in them lieth divide between the King and People upon the Courtiers to put too their helping hands and prayers to rescue our religion and faithful Ministers then suspended from the jaws of those devouring Wolves and tyrannizing lordly Prelates c. Upon the people generally to take notice of the desperate practises innovations and Popish designs of these Antichristian Prelates and to oppose and redress them with all their force and power And yet as if this had not been enough to declare his meaning he breaths more plainly in his Libel called The News from Ipswich in which he lets us know That till his Majesty shall hang up some of these Romish Prelates Inquisitors before the Lord as the Gibbeonites once did the seven sons of Saul we can never hope to abate any of Gods plagues c. What think you of these breathings of Buchannan in his book De Jure Regni apud Scotos where he adviseth Regum interfectoribus proemia discerni c. that Rewards should publickly be decreed for those who kill a Tyrant and the meekest King that ever was shall be called a Tyrant if he oppose the setting up of the holy Discipline as usually are proposed to those who kill Wolves or Bears And finally what think you of these breathings in one of the brethren who preaching before the House of Commons in the beginning of the long Parliament required them in the name of the Lord to shew no mercie to the Prelatical party their wives and children but that they should proceed against them as against Babylon it self even to the taking of their children and dashing their brains against the stones Call you these holy breathings the holy breathings after Christ which you so applaud Or are they not such breathings rather a● the Scripture attributes to Saul before his conversion who in the ninth chapter of the Acts is said to be Spirator minarum caedis adversus discipules Domini that is to say that he breathed out threatnings and slaughter against the disciples of the Lord. 27. As are their breathings such also is their meekness their humility their hatred of known sin their heavenly mindedness and that self-denial which you so commend for of their love to God I can take no notice As well as they are known unto you may you not be deceived in your opinion of them and take that first for a real and Christian meekness which is but counterfeit and pretended for their worldly ends Doth not our Saviour tell us of a sort of men false-preachers seducers and the like which should come in sheeps clothing but inwardly they are ravening wolves What means our Savior by sheeps clothing but that innocence meekness and humility which they should manifest and express in their outward actions it being the observation of Thomas Aquinas that grand dictator in the Schools In nomine ●vis innocentiam simplicitatem per totam Scripturam designar● And yet for all this fair appearance they were inwardly but ravening Wolves greedily thi●sting for the prey and hungry after spoil and rapine Astutam rapido gestan●es pectore vulpem in the Poets language This you may find exemplified in the Sect of the Anabaptists who at their first appearance disguised themselves in such an habit of meekness and humility and Christian patience as gained them great affection amongst the people but when they were grown unto a head and had got some power into their hands what lusts what slaughter what unmerciful cruelties did they not commit when Tyrannie and K. John of Leyden did so rage in Munster But because possible you may say that these are not the men whom your character aims at tell me what spirit of meeknesse you find in Calvin when he called Mary Q. of England by the name of Proserpine and tells us of her that she did superare omnes diabolos that all the Devils in hell were not half so mischievous or what in Beza when he could find no better title for Mary Q. of Scots then those of Athaliah and Medea the one as infamous in Scripture for her barbarous cruelty as the other is in heathen Writers or what of Peury Vdal and the rest of the Rabble of Mar Prelates in Queen Elizabeths time to whom there never was the like generation of railing Rabshakehs since the beginning of the world Or what of Dido Clari●s who calls King James for neither Kings nor Queens can escape them intentissimum Evangelii hostem the most bitter enemy of the Gospel and I say nothing of the scandalous reports and base reproaches which were laid upon his son and successor by the tongues and pens of too many others of that party 28. Look upon their humility and you shall find them exalting themselvs above Kings Princes and all that is called God the Pope and they contending for the supreme power in the Church of Christ For doth not Traverse say expresly in his Book of Discipline Huic Disciplinae omnes principes fasces suas submittere necesse est that Kings and Princes must submit their Scepters to the Rod of that Discipline which Calvin had devised and his followers here pursued so fiercely Have not some others of them declared elsewhere that Kings and Princes must lay down their Scepters at the Churches feet yea and lick up the dust thereof understanding always by the Church their one holy Discipline did they not carry themselves so proudly in the time of that Queen whom they compared to a sluttish housewife who swept the middle of the room but left the dust behinde the door and in every corner that being asked by a grave Counsellor of State whether the removal of some Ceremonies would not serve the turn they answered with insolence enough ne ungulam esse relinquendam that they would not leave so much as an hoof behind And that you may perceive they have been as good at it in Scotland as ever they have been in England Take here the testimony of King James who had very good experience of them in the Preface to his Basilicon Doron where telling us what he means by Puritans he describes them thus I give this stile saith he to such brain-sick and Headie Preachers as refusing to be called Anabaptists participate too much with their humours not only agreeing with the general rule of all Anabaptists in the contempt of the Civil Magistrate and in leaning to their own Dreams and Revelations but particularly in accounting all men prophane that swear not to all their phantasies in making for every particular question of the Policie of the

hunts the Hare is the Hare which is hunted so that although the Religion of the Church of Rome had defined the Deposition of Kings by the Pope for denying Transubstantiation c. as it never did yet could not the Popish Religion upon that account be called Rebellion Rebellion by the Law of England 25. Edw. 3. c. 2. is defined to be an actual levying of War against our Soveraign Lord the King in h● Realm or an adhering to the Kings enemies in his Realm giving to them aid and comfort in the Realm or elsewhere And by the Civil Law all those qui arripiant arma contra eum cujus jurisdictioni subditi sunt who tak up arms against such persons to whose Authority they are subject are declared to be Rebels for which see Spigelus in his Lexicon of the terms of Law But that Religion which defineth the Deposition of Princes by the Pope because they deny Transubstantiation c. is not an actual levying of War against our Soveraign Lord the King in his Realm or an adhering c.. Nor the the taking up of Arms against such persons to whose Authority they are subject Therefore that Religion which defineth the Deposition of Princes c. neither is really or nominally to be called Rebellion if either the laws of England or the Civil laws do rightly understand what Rebellion is as I think they do And whereas you hope to mend the matter by calling it a Rebellion doctrinal you make it worse on your side then it was before For besides that there is no such thing as Rebell on doctrinal though some Doctrines there may be too frequently preached for inciting the people to Rebellion you find not the word Doctrinal in the proposition which you have undertook to prove and wh en presents it self simply to you in these words that the Religion of the Papists is Rebellion 37. Such being the faultinesse of your Mejor we will next consider whether the Assumption or your Minor be any thing more evident then your Major was Your Minor is that the Popish Religion is such that is to say such a Religion that defineth the Deposition of Kings by the Pope because they deny Transubstantiation c. This is the matter to be proved and you prove it thus That which is defined by a Pope and General Councel is the Popish Religion But the aforesaid Doctrine is defined by a Pope and an approved General Councel viz at the Laterane under Innocent the 3. Erge c. This makes it evident indeed that you never saw the Cannons nor Decrees of the Laterane Councel and possibly your learning may not lie so high but that you took this passage upon trust from some ignorant hand which had seen them as little as your self Your Major I shall grant for true but nothing can be falser or mere unable to be proved then your Minor is Consult the Acts of that Councel search into all Editions of them and into the Commentaries of such Cannonists as have writ upon them and you shall neither find in the one or the other that the Deposition of Kings and Princes by the Pope was defined to be lawful for that I take to be your meaning either for denying Transubstantiation or for any other cause whatsoever Most true it is that the word Transubstantiation then newly hammered on the Anvil by some of the Schoolmen to expresse that carnal presence of Christ in the Sacrament as they then maintained was first received in this Councel and received then ad ●vitanda● haere●icorum tergiversationes as my Author hath it for avoiding the wrangling● and fallacious shifts which Hereticks otherwise might use But that the word was made such an Idol in this Councel that all Christian Kings and Princes which would no● fall down and worship it were to be deposed hath neither colour nor foundation in the Acts of that Councel And therefore I wil first lay down the Canon which I think you aim at for otherwise there is none in that Councel which you can pretend to and then acquaint as well with the occasion and the meaning of it and your own mistakings 38. And first the words of the Canon as these now stand in the Tomes of the Councels are these that follow Si quis Dominus temporalis requisitus monitus ab Ecclesia terram suam purgare neglexerit ab hac haeretica foeditate per Metropolitanum com provinciales Episcopos excommunicationis ●inculo innodetur Etsi satisfacere contempserit infra annum significetur hoc summo Poniifici ut ex tunc ipse vassallos ab ejus fidelitate denunciet absolutos terram exponant catholicis occupandam qui eam exterminatis haereticis ●ine ulla contradictione possideant in fidei puritate conservent salvo jure domini principalis dummodo super hoc ipse nullum praestet obstaculum nec aliquod impedimentum opp●nat eadem nihilominus lege servata circa eos qui non habent Dominos principales such is the Canon or Decree And this was the occasion of it The Albigenses and Waldenses differing in many points from the received opinions of the Church of Rome and constantly denying the Popes Supremacy amongst other things some years before the calling of this Councel was grown to a very great power and insolencie countenanced therein by the two last Raimonds Earls of Tholouse and some of the Petit Lords of Gascoyn all which though absolute enough in their several Territories in respect of their vassals but were fudataries either to the Empire or the Kings of France as the Lords in chief for the reduction of these Albingenses to the Church of Rome Dominick a Spaniard the Founder afterwards of the Order of Dominical Fryars used his best endeavours in the way of Argument and perswasion but failing of his design therein he instigated Pope Innocent the 3. to call this Councel Anno 1215. and the Prelates there assembled to passe this Canon for the suppressing both of them and their Patrons also for having summed up the principle heads of that Religion which was then publickly maintained in the Church of Rome they framed an Oath to be taken by all secular Magistrates ut haereticos universos ab Ecclesia denotatos bona fide pro viribus ex terminare studeant to use their best endeavours for the exterminating of all Hereticks that is to say all such as did oppose those Doctrines before laid down out of their dominions and then it followeth as before si quis vero dominus temporalis c that if any Temporal Lord being thereunto required by the Church should neglect to purge his Territories of that Infection he should be excommunicated by the Metropolitan and other Bishops of that Province in which he lived and if he gave no satisfaction within the year notice thereof was to be given to the Pope that thereupon he might absolve his vassals from their Allegiance and give their Countries to the next Catholick Invador

the whole Work was finished confirmed and put in execution before either of them was brought over dispatcht soon after their arrival to their several Chair'es Martyr to the Divinity Lecture in Oxon and Bucer unto that of Cambridge where he lived not long And dying so quickly as he did vix salutata Accademia as my Author hath it though he had many auditors there yet could he no● gain many Disciples in so short a time And though Peter Martyr lived to see the death of King Edward and consequently the end of the Convocation Anno 1552. in which the Articles of Religion were first composed and agreed on yet there was little use made of him in advising and much less in directing any thing which concerned that business For being a stranger and but one and such an one as was of no Authority in Church or State he could not be considered as a Master builder though some use might he made of him as a Labourer to advance the work Calvin had offered his assistance but it was refused Which showes that Cranmer and the Rest to whom he made offer of his service Si quis mei usus esset as his own words are if they thought it needful were not so favourable to the man or his Doctrines either as to make him or them the Rule of their Reformation 33. Pass we next to Alexander Nowel Dean of St. Pauls and Prolocutor of the Convocation An. 1●●2 in which the Articles were Revised and afterwards ratified and confirmed by the Queens authority In which capacity I must needs grant it for a truth that he understood the conduct of all affairs in that Convocation as well as any whosoever But then it is to be observed that your Adversary grants their 17. Articles to be the very same verbatim which had before passed in the Convocation of King Edw. 6. No new sence being put upon it by the last establishment And if no new sence were put upon it as most sure there was not it must be understood no otherwise then according to the Judgement of those learned men and Godly Martyrs before remembred who concurred unto the making of it From which if M. Nowels sence should differ in the least degree it is to be looked upon as his own not the sence of the Church And secondly it cannot rationally be inferred from his being Prolocutor in that Convocation and the knowledge which he needs must have of all things which were carried in it that therefore nothing was concluded in that Convocation which might be contrary to his own judgement as a private person admitting that he was inclinable to Calvin in the points disputed which I grant not neither For had he been of his opinions the spirit of that Sect is such as could not be restrained from showing it self dogmatically and in terms express and not occasionally onely or upon the by and that too in such general terms that no particular comfort for your Adversary can be gathered from them And it were worth the while to know first why your Antagonist appealing to his Catechism should decline the Latin Edition of it which had been authorized to be publiquely taught in all the Grammer Schools of England and the English translation of the same by a friend of the Authors 1572. both still in use and both reprinted in these times since the year 1647 And secondly what it was which moved him to fly for succour to the first draught of it in the English Tongue out of which the two last were extracted that first draught or Edition being laid aside many years ago and not approved by any such publick Authority as the others were somewhat there must be in it which brought that first Edition so soon out of credit and therefore possibly thought fit by your Adversary for the present turn and thought to let us know which Catechism it is he means he seems to distinguish it from the other by being dedicated to the two Arch-Bishops yet that doth rather betray his ignorance then advance his cause the Authors own Latine Edition and the English of it being dedicated to the two Arch-Bishops as well as that 34. But since he hath appealed to that English Catèchism to her English Catechism let him go In which he cannot find so much as one single question touching the Doctrine of Predestination or the points depending thereupon and therefore is necessitated to have recourse unto the Articles of the Catholick Church the members and ingredients of it from thence he doth extract these two passages following the first whereof is this viz. To the Church do all they properly belong as many as do truly fear honour and call upon God altogether applying their minds to live holily and Godly and with putting all their trust in God do most assuredly look for the blessings of Eternal life they that be stedfast stable and constant in this faith were chosen and appointed and as we term it predestinate to this so great felicity The second which follows not long after as his Book directeth is this that followeth viz. The Church is the body of the Christian Commonwealth i. e. the universal number and fellowship of the faithful whom God through Christ hath before all beginning of time appointed to everlasting life And here again we are to Note that the First of these two passages not being to be found in the Latine Edition nor the English Translation of the same is taken almost word for word out of Poynets Catechism and therefore to be understood in no other sence then before it was And that the second makes the Church to consist of none but the Elect which the nine and tenth Article makes in a more comprehensive signification So that to salve this sore he is fain to fly to the destinction of a visible and invisible Church fit for his definition unto that which he calls invisible making the visible Church of Christ to consist of such as are assembled to hear the Gospel of Christ sincerely taught to call on God by prayer and receive the Sacraments Which persons so assembled together are by the Article called a Cong egation of faithful men as well as those which constitute and make up the Church invisible And yet I doubt your Adversary will not not grant them all to be in the number of the Elect. But granting that the Church doth consist of none but the Elect that is to say of none but such who have been through Christ appointed to everlasting life from before all time as is there affirmed yet there is nothing in all this which justifieth the absolute and irrespective decree of the predestinarians nothing of Gods invincible workings in the hearts of his chosen ones which your Antagonist maintains or which doth manifestly make for such a personal Election as he conceives is to be found in many passages of the Common Prayer Book though what those passages are and where they are to be found he keeeps

c. which no man can conceive to relate onely to the Judges of the lower Courts Nor find I any variation in the rest that follows no nor in that which comes after neiher v. 14. where those directions do begin which concern the people and not the Priests or Judges onely in the Election of their King And therefore give me leave to think and laugh not at me I beseech you for my singularity that there is no other meaning in that Text but this i e. That if a doubt or scruple should arise amongst them in their severall dwellings in matters which concerned Religion and the right understanding of the law of God they should have recourse to the Priests and Levites for satisfaction in the same according unto that of the Prophet Malachy that the people were to seek the Law from the mouth of the Priest as before we had it But if it were a civil controversie matters of difference which they could not end amongst themselves and by the interposition of their friends and Neighbours they should refer it to the Judge or Judges in whose times they lived to be finally decided by him And for this Exposition I have not onely some authority but some reason also My Authority shall be taken from the words of Estius who makes gloss upon the Text viz. Haec sententia modo sacerdotem modo judicem nominat propter duplicem magistratum qui erat in populo dei sacram civilem quamvis contingeret aliquando duplicem magistratum in eandem personam concurrere My reasons shall be taken first from that passage in the 12. verse in which it is said that the man that will do presumptuously and will not hearken unto the Priest that standeth to Minister there before the Lord thy God c. Where the Priest seems to be considered in personal capacity as he stands ministring before the Lord at his holy Altar not as he sits upon the bench and acts ●with other of the Judges in an open Court But whether that be so or not certain I am that many inconveniences must needs happen amongst the people if the Text be no otherwise to be understood as you would have it It is confest on all hands that there was some intervall of time from the death of every one of the supream Judges and the advancing of the next though in Chronologies the years of the succeeding Judges are counted from the death of his Predecessor And you your selfe confess p. 14. that the Sanhedrim did not continue long after Josuah And I can find no restitution of it till the time of Iehoshaphat For though you tell us p. 16. that never any King except David had Session or Vote in this Councel by which you intimate that the Sanhedrim was on foot again in the time of David Yet you have shewed us neither reason nor authority for it And therefore you may do me a greater favour as your own words are then you suddenly imagine to tell me really in what Book of Scripture or in what other Author I may find it written that either the Sanhedrim was on foot again in the time of David or that David did at any time sit and vote amongst them Hereupon I conclude at last that if the Text be to be understood as you would have it and as you say it is understood in the sence of all Authors both Iewish and Christians then must the people be without remedy at the least without remedy of Appeal in their suits and controversies during the interval of time betwixt the Judges and without remedies also in their doubts scruples touching the meaning of the Law for the whole space of time which past betwixt the death of Iosuah and the raign of Iehoshaphat which comes to 511. years or there abouts which I desire you seriously to consider of 32. And yet the matter were the less if having given the Sanhedrim the Dernier Resort or the supream power in all appeals you did not ascribe to them an authority also to controul their Kings For proof whereof you tell us that both Skickardus and Grotius with the full consent of the Talmudists have assured you that if the King came to violate the Laws and the Statutes it was in the power of the Sanhedrim to bring him unto corporall punishment How far Skickardus hath assured you I am not able to say not being directed by you to any Book or Books of his where it may be found But if you find no more in Skickardus then you do in Grotius you will have little cause to brag of this discovery For Grotius in his first Book de jure belli c. cap. 3. and not cap. 1. as is mistaken in the print first telleth us thus viz. Samuel jus regum describens satis ostendit adversus Regis injurias nullam in populo relictam potestatem c. Samuel saith he describing the power of the King of Israel showes plainly that the people had no power to relieve themselves from the oppressions of their Kings according unto that of some antient Writers on those words of David Against thee onely have I sinned Psal 51. And to show how absolutely Kings were exempted from such punishments he presently subjoyns the testimony of Barnach monus an Hebrew In dictis Rabinorum titulo de judicibus which is this nulla creatura judicat regem sed benedictus that is to say that no creature judgeth or can judge the King but onely God for ever blessed According unto which I find a memorable Rule in Bracton an old English Lawyer relating to the Kings of England viz. Omnem esse sub rege ipsum sub nullo sed tantum sub deo That every man is under the King but the King is under none but God Betwixt which passages so plainly destructive of the power ascribed to the Sanhedrim Grotius interlopes this following passage from some Iewish Writers viz. Video consentire Hebraeos regi in eas leges quae de officio regis scriptae extabant peccanti inflicta verbera sed●a apud illos infamiâ carebant a rege in signum penitentiae sponte suscipiebantur ideoque non a lictore sed ab eo quem legisset ipse probatur suo arbitrio verberibus statuebat modum I have put down the words at large that the learned and judicious Reader may see what he is to trust to in this point The sence whereof is this in English viz. that stripes were inflicted on the King if he transgressed those Lawes which had been written touching the Regal office But that those stripes carried not with them any mark of infamy but were voluntary undergone by him in testimony of his repentance upon which ground the said stripes were not laid upon him by a common Officer but by some one or other of his own appointment it being also in his power to limit both the the number and severity of those stripes which they were to give him