Grant and Commission And that certainly is as high a Prerogative as any Prince can care to demand to have a Sovereign Power over all the Powers within his own Dominions So that whether they are derived from his Authority or not they shall be as entirely Subject to it as if they had subsisted by no other Charter And that is as high a Supremacy as Mr. Hobbs himself has been pleased to challenge for Sovereign Princes when he took away all Power from the Church to vest it in them for though it is a very gross prophaneness in him to allow no Authority for Religion it self then as it is enjoyn'd and made Law by them yet that Authority that is in the Church by Divine Right is as absolutely Subject to their Dominion as it could have been had it been establisht as Mr. Hobbs contends only by their own Authority And this State of the Controversie if it can be made good I am certain will satisfie all Parties that can claim any share or degree of Government in Church or State but most of all the Supreme Powers to whose Soveraignty all Power whatsoever it is or whencesoever derived is indispensibly Subjected As for the Jurisdiction of the Church as settled by Divine Right and nothing else I have discoursed of that in former Treatises and proved that it is immediately derived from our Saviour himself and settled unalienably by him upon the Apostles and their Successors the Bishops forever so that here I must suppose the Constitution of the Christian Church within it self and all that I am bound to do at present is That supposing its distinct and independent Authority for granted to explain how it accommodates and submits it self to the Civil State and comes under the common obligation of all good Subjects to true Allegiance and Loyalty to the Sovereign Prince §. II. And here the first and chiefest thing to be consider'd is That Christianity supposes the Power of Princes Civil Government being settled in the World from its beginning by the general Providence of God and antecedently to our Saviour's particular Institution And therefore as the first thing that our Saviour openly declared when he enter'd upon his Office was the erection of his own new Kingdom so the next thing that he took care to instruct his Subjects in was that this his Kingdom was no Kingdom of this World So that from thence it is evident that he left the Government of the Kingdoms of this World in the same posture in which they had ever stood be ore he came into it And therefore there could be no alteration much less abatement of the Civil Government any where upon the score of his Authority otherwise the Institution of his Kingdom had been a breach upon the Ancient Rights of those Sovereign Powers in whose Dominions it was erected which was the first thing that our Saviour whilst himself conversed upon Earth was careful to avoid This therefore is to be set down in the first place as the Fundamental Article of his Religion that neither himself nor any of those that he has deputed for the Government of it challenge any Temporal Power to themselves or any exemption from the Authority of those that have it Neither is this to be lookt upon only as a positive duty but it is necessary in it self from the nature and the design of Christianity which was to settle a pure Religion in the World by the strength of its own truth and goodness without any help of worldly power or mixture of worldly interest as I have elsewhere shewn at large from the whole story of its first settlement And therefore agreeable to this great Observation it is very remarkable That our Saviour himself whilst he convers'd upon Earth did not only never challenge any kind of Civil Authority to himself but seiz'd all occasions to defie and disclaim it as absolutely inconsistent with his Commission Thus John 6. 15. When the People supposing him to be that Temporal Messias that they expected would have forced him to take the Kingdom upon himself he immediately withdrew into a Solitude to shift their importunity And Luke 12. 13 14. When one solicited him only to take upon him the Authority of an Arbitrator he perfectly disavows it as if he were solicitous not to give them the least pretence of Objection against him for his intermedling with the Civil Government And yet he might lawfully have done â—t according to the received custom of the Jews at that time for in the Babylonish Captivity to avoid the scandal of Contention before Heathens they referred all their Controversies to the Rabbies and Doctors of the Law and such an one this Jew supposed our Saviour to have been as appears by his giving him their proper Title of Master and whoever refused to stand to their award he was Excommunicated their Society as a scandal to the Jewish Nation And this priviledge of being their own Judges among themselves was granted to them by the Romans and for a long time continued by the Christian Emperors themselves And therefore though our Saviour might have undertaken this Office by the allowance and permission of the Civil Government yet to avoid all suspicions of any such imputation he protests against it as unbecoming his own Office and Person And the case is the very same as to the Woman taken in Adultery Joh. 8. 3. of whom he declares that he had no such Authority as they imagin'd to pass any Sentence upon her according to their Law so that if she were not legally condemn'd before they brought her before him she was at liberty for any such Power that he had to pass Sentence upon her But the most remarkable passage for his disclaiming all Earthly Power is in his Examination before Pontius Pilate Joh. 18. 36. to whom he freely confesses that he is a King but to prevent his jealousie or mistake he both immediately declares that his Kingdom is not of this World * and clearly explains what he means by it For If my Kingdom were of this World then would my Servants fight that I should not be deliver'd to the Jews From which words we understand his evident meaning when he professes that his Kingdom is not of this World that it is not endued with any power of the Sword So that for any of his Officers or Subjects to make any resistance to the Civil Power by the Sword in defence of his Kingdom is to destroy the very nature of itâ— Constitution that consists in this that it is to be govern'd by the power of Truth and is distinguisht from the Kingdoms of this World in that it is a Kingdom without the power of the Sword And therefore for any Officers in it to pretend to any such Power by virtue of any Authority or Commission from him is at oncâ— both to dethrone and renounce his Kingly Power because it is a contradiction to his whole design in the World to have
lies at the bottom of all this witty Authors folly and Philosophy it must be confessed that there can be no Ecclesiastical Power over the Christian Church either in the Clergy or any Man else because upon it there is neither Christian Church nor Christian Religion and then it is certain that there can be no Power over nothing So vain are all the Attempts against that Authority that our Blessed Saviour has granted to the Apostolical Succession that it cannot be removed by any other Principles then what directly overthrow Christianity it self upon those Terms it must be parted with but upon no other And though Mr. Hobbs speaks out more boldly then his Neighbours yet all the followers of Erastus and all that will own â— certain Form of Government establisht in the Church by Divine Right cannot avoid the Church of Leviathan And therefore to proceed with him as Fore-man to speak for all the rest it is evident that beside the Authority by which the Apostles and their Successors act every act that they are enabled to by their Commission is in its own Nature and as such an Authoritative Act. First such is the power of Preaching and Teaching i. e. the power of publishing the Laws of the Gospel to all Nations and requiring all Mens Obedience to them under the sanction of the greatest Rewards and Penalties And if Mr. Hobbs can affirm that exacting Obedience upon such terms be no piece of Authority it is in vain either to reason with himself or any other Man of his Kidney or Understanding But he proves it to be so because The Apostles were Preachers and Preachers are Cryers and Cryers have no right to Command Among the many bad qualities in this Author's way of writing his contempt of other Mens understandings is none of the least for if he had not a very low Opinion of their intellectual Abilities he could never have presumed to impose upon them by such childish pretences And the truth of it is he talks not as if he discoursed to Men but to Magpies Parots and Jackdaws that are to learn to chatter his Dictates by Rote For is it not a strange grossness of Confidence that when our Blessed Saviour came from God to publish a new Law to the World and enforce it with the severest Penalties and when he gave the same Commission to his Apostles that himself had received from his Father to publish this Law to the World though they do it with all this Authority to infer that they do it with none at all because when they declare their Message they open their mouths as Cryers do when they make Proclamations and so the original Word signifies any kind of publick Declaration And what if it were the proper term for the Cryers Office it may for all that in common Speech be applyed to any other way of Publication it will be hard to find out any one word in the World so severely stinted to its original Import However every School-boy could have inform'd the old Philosopher that this word is not so confin'd and that it is not is evident from the very passage it self because the Apostles that are said to Proclaim or Cry the Gospel to all Nations do not make a simple Proclamation but require Obedience to what they publish under the most forcible obligation of Rewards and Punishments And such Proclamation as that whatever the term Proclaiming may signifie in its naked sense brings with it as much Authority as it is possible for Government to put in practice But he farther affirms in proof of no Authority in the Church That the Apostles and other Ministers of the Gospel are our School-Masters and not our Commanders But beside that this is an Arbitrary Assertion of his own devising to assign them the Office of School-Masters for the Scripture no where does so The Authority of a School-Master is some Authority for though he have not the Power of the Sword he has that of the Rod and that is as effectual for his purpose among Boys as the other among Men. So that there is no Logique in the Argument neither can I believe so witty a Man to have been so weak as to have brought it for that purpose but rather because he thought the comparison was a witty slur upon Christianity as if it were as childish and contemptible an Office to instruct men in it as it is to teach Boys and Children their Elements of Speech That is a shrewd hint though the next comparison is much more poinant That our Saviour compares Preaching to Fishing i. e. to winning Men to Obedience not by coertion and punishing but by perswasion and therefore our Saviour calls not Apostles hunters of Men but fishers of Men. Now though his endeavour to prove that there is no Authority in the Officers of the Church because they have no Civil Authority is altogether vain and trifling because he only presumes what no Man will grant him that there is no other Authority in the World yet here his way of demonstration is somewhat more then usually pleasant viz. That they were endued with no power of Coertion because our Saviour has constituted them not his Huntsmen but his Fishermen Where I think it would require the Acuteness of Mr. Hobbs's wit to make it out why there is less Coertion in Fishing then in Hunting especially in Net-fishing which was their former Trade to which he knows our Saviour there alludes when this mighty difficulty is cleared up I may come to understand the force of the Argument but till then I must confess it is above my reach But hitherto it is evident that notwithstanding all this Gentleman 's Grammatical Demonstrations from Cryers School-Masters and Fishers that the Commission granted to the Apostles and their Successors to preach the Gospel did not only carry proper Authority in it but the highest sort of Authority because enforced with the greatest Rewards and Penalties and that every man knows is the very Life and Soul of all Power The next branch of their Commission is to Baptize in the Name of the Father the Son and the Holy Ghost and though the Philosopher would here make himself merry not only with the Sacrament but with the Holy Trinity in whose Name it is Administred yet after all his pains to prove it no Authority he fairly confesses That it is an Authority either to Baptize or refuse to Baptize because Baptism is the Sacrament of Allegiance of them that are to be received into the Kingdom of God But certainly if they have Power to grant or deny them this Sacrament i. e. to receive them into the Kingdom of God or shut them out of it if there be any such thing as Power in the World there cannot be a greater then this And consequent to this Authority he says is the Remission and Retention of Sins or the Power of Loosing and Binding and for this I must confess he gives a pertinent reason for so he is
of enquiry which though a fault is by no means so disingenuous as acting against knowledge But as for this Case of Apostates in time of Persecution upon whom Mr. Hobbs says Excommunication could have no effect of Terrour If indeed the Providence of God had not given them sufficient evidence of their Faith I will grant it to be true not only of that but of all the other Threatnings of the Gospel But if God have given sufficient motives of belief as if the Gospel be not a cheat he has if it be all Mr. Hobbs's dispute is without bottom a Man's Apostacy is no Fence against the Reflections of his own Conscience For though it is in his Power to deny his Faith for fear of Persecution yet it is not in his Power to disbelieve it So that upon such a Man the Sentence of Excommunication by which he is cast out of the Kingdom of Heaven lights with as much Terrour as upon any other Believer And there is nothing more evident in the History of the Primitive Church then the Efficacy of this Sentence upon such Offenders For the greatest part of those that fell in time of Persecution were by this means alone recover'd to the Church brought to sue for pardon and undergo very severe Penances as a satisfaction for the Scandal But to what purpose do I put my self to the trouble to prove these things when all Mr. Hobbs's discourse upon this Argument runs upon this supposition as if Christianity were but a trivial and indifferent thing that might or might not be believed as Men variously fancied or were casually inclined And upon that supposition I will freely grant it to be of as little effect as he would have it But if the Providence of God hath given us such a Demonstrative Evidence of the Divine Authority of this Religion that no Man who inquires into it can wink against its Light without doing violence to his own Convictions then whether Men will or no it will be a perpetual Terrour to their Consciences And that this slight Opinion of the Evidence of Christianity though upon what slight and indeed ignorant pretences I have elsewhere shewn is the bottom of Mr. Hobbs's meaning is too manifest from his next branch of the Supremacy of Sovereign Powers which indeed is neither better nor worse then bare-faced Blasphemy And that is the Power of making Scripture Law i. e. Obligatory But if that be the state of the Christian Religion that it is not at all material whether a Man regard it or not for any Obligation or Authority in it self Mr. Hobbs is not to be blamed unless in point of Prudence for all those irreverend abuses that he has been pleased to put upon it But if it be made Law by the Command of God as it is if it be not all imposture in pretending falsly to his Authority then whatever the Sovereign is pleased to make of it Mr. Hobbs and all his Followers that will allow it no obligation but from Man stand Convicted of the most manifest Treason and Blasphemy against the Sovereign Lord of all and this part of Ecclesiastical Supremacy of making Scripture Law that they give to Kings they take away from God himself After all this rank prophaneness it is almost needless to consider his last branch of Ecclesiastical Power viz. the Right of Ordaining and Constituting Ecclesiastical Officers not only because it is of the same Nature and derived from the same Divine Authority with all the other particulars of the Apostolical Commission but because himself grants it in general by placing it in the People For if it be any where that is enough against himself that denies all manner of Power in the Church but most of all because he has confessed and no Man can deny it the whole truth of the matter both against the Hobbist and the Independant too viz. That the Apostles conveighed their Authority to their Successors whom themselves Deputed and Ordained by Imposition of hands and if so this Power of constituting Successors resided in them alone because no Man could be constituted an Officer in the Church but by their Imposition of hands or those to whom by it they Transmitted their Power So that whatever interest they might permit the People in their Choice or Nomination of their Officers the whole power of Constituting them in their Office and Authority lay in themselves alone §. IV. But Mr. Hobbs having hitherto treated of the Power Ecclesiastical as it stood before the Conversion of Kings and Men endued with Sovereign Civil Power and after his rate of Demonstration proved it to be no Power at all whilst vested in the Pastors of the Church he comes now to prove that it is lodged in Civil Sovereigns upon their Conversion to the Christian Faith and that when it comes to them it becomes true and proper Power But before I consider his small Arguments I cannot understand why that which was no Power before becomes Power now There can be but one reason for it and that is too obvious in all Mr. Hobbs's Writings viz. Because it is now abetted with the Penalties of this life whereas before it was only abetted with the Penalties of the life to come so that the plain English of the Assertion if spoken out is this that there are no penalties at all but in this life and then I must confess that the power of the Church can be no Power till complicated with the Civil Power But the man that discourses upon such Principles as these has nothing to do with the Christian Religion or any thing relating to it But secondly Which way came this Power into Civil Sovereigns Our Saviour left it to his Apostles and they delivered it down by Imposition of Hands to others who were to conveigh it in the same manner of Succession through all Ages how then came Civil Sovereigns by it If any were Ordain'd to it they had it by virtue of their Ordination not their Right of Sovereignty if they were not which way could they become possessed of a Power that was never derived to them in the way of Ordination which is the only way in which it can be conveighed and therefore if they have it not that way they can never have it any other As for the Principle upon which he founds this Power of the Civil Sovereign though it be true in it self yet it is no proper reason for what he would infer from it viz. That the Right of judging what Doctrines are fit for Peace and to be taught the Subjects is in all Common-wealths inseparably annexed to the Sovereign Power Civil This is undoubtedly true that they are the proper Judges of what conduces to the peace and quiet of Government but then this Power is common to Heathen as well as Christian Soveraigns they are all equally concern'd and obliged to take care of the Publick Peace so that this Power does not accrue to the Civil Sovereign by his becoming
Christian but was antecedently and inseparably annex'd to the Sovereign Power And therefore 't is but a vain distinction that Mr. Hobbs makes of the Ecclesiastical Power of Princes before and after the Conversion of Civil Sovereigns When before it they have all a right of judging what Doctrines are fit for Peace that being inseparably annex't to all Sovereign Power and after it they have no more as Sovereign Princes And then if the Ecclesiastical Power rested in the Apostles and their Successors before the Conversion of Civil Sovereigns it must do so ever after for they could not lose that Power that was left them by our Saviour any other way but by his own actual transferring it to another which he having not done it continues as and where it was first setled So that Sovereigns as Christian as they lose no Power they gain none their Power is in both Cases Supreme from the nature of Sovereignty But beside all this because they have a right to judge of all things as far as they concern the Civil Peace it is an inference that only becomes Mr. Hobbs's Principles to conclude that this gives them a power of judging what is fittest to promote the Salvation of their Subjects Souls in the World to come And yet that is the true and proper Province of Ecclesiastical Power so to guide and govern the Church in this World as to bring the Members of it to Heaven hereafter And that is somewhat more then meerly to provide for the Civil Peace and therefore a right to that cannot give any right to this especially when it is by express Commission settled in another order of Men. All True Religion is indeed very serviceable to the Interests of Peace and Government and so far it concerns the Civil Power as such to abett its force with Civil Laws But then it has a much farther prospect into the World to come and the care of that is committed by our Saviour to a particular Order of Men Consecrated to that Office How this Power comes not to interfere with the Civil but is subject to it will be shewn in the next place but our present business is only to assert its Right And that is so apparent from the whole design and nature of Christianity that it cannot subsist without it For if our Saviour enacted the Christian Law and founded the Christian Church not by Civil but Divine Authority if he Instituted the Apostles and their Successors to govern it then their Right of Government stands upon the same bottom with the truth of Christianity And if it be true that the Christian Church was planted in the World by Divine Authority it is as true that they have a right to Govern it by the same Authority This is so undeniable to common Sense that Mr. Hobbs has no way to avoid it but by denying our Saviour's own Supremacy at present in that his Kingdom is not to begin till after the Resurrection But beside the falshood and the wickedness of the Assertion whereby Christianity is made of no force or use in this World in that no Man can be obliged to obey its Precepts because our Saviour has not power to make it Law till he enters upon his Kingdom and that is not till after the end of the World Beside this I say who could think that any Man that reads the Gospel could be so extravagantly foolish as to dream that it was not intended for present Obligation and that no Man is bound to obey any part of it before the day of Judgment when that day is appointed on purpose for the distribution of Rewards and Punishments according to Mens discharge of their Duty towards it Mr. Hobbs would in my Opinion have asserted with much more modesty that God Almighty had sent his Son into the World upon a sleeveless Errand though that is as rank Blasphemy as can be vented then with so much formality go about to prove out of the Holy Scriptures themselves that his coming into it is to no purpose because it takes no effect whilst the World lasts This is to fasten upon the Almighty such another piece of folly as his Politiques have run himself into in another Case when he tells the World that the serious belief of Religion is necessary to Government and yet that all Religion is nothing but an Artifice of State and then it is really no Religion nor can be seriously believed and so can do no service to Government So here he makes God himself to send his Son into the World to publish a Law by Obedience to which Men may purchase to themselves a State of Salvation in the World to come and yet at the same time makes the same God to declare that this Law for the publication whereof he sent his Son into the World is of no force in this World to which it was publisht and that no Man whilst he lives is under any obligation of Obedience to it Upon this supposition would not any Man conclude that our Saviour might very well have spared all his pains and not have been in so much hast and put himself to so much trouble for Enacting a Law to no purpose but rather to have deferr'd its publication to the next World in which it was to Commence its Use and Obligation But the true Consequence of this Evasion is a clear Demonstration of the distinct power of the Christian Church when there is no way to take this away but by abrogating our Saviour's own Authority For if all Ecclesiastical Power be in the Civil Sovereign then he has none and so Mr. Hobbs to be consistent with his Principle says he has not while there are Civil Sovereigns in the World But if he have any he has power to Depute what Officers he pleases and by virtue of their Deputation they have a Power as independent upon the Sovereign Power as that Authority from which their Power is derived So that to take away the distinct Power of the Church as it was settled by our Saviour upon the Apostles and their Successors is in plain terms to deny his Power as well as theirs For if they had a right to it at first by his Grant and if his grant be of any Validity they have the same for ever So dangerous a thing is it if Men would seriously consider to disown the Authority of the Church it is no less then renouncing our Saviour's own Authority And I am confident no Christian Prince would ever accept of any Supremacy of Power upon such terms and yet if he challenge to himself though but a share of that Power that our Saviour has left to the Apostolical Succession he must plainly invade that original Authority in our Saviour himself from whom they hold it So thaâ—â—hough we could suppose any Prince so prophane as Mr. Hobbs would make all Princes yet we cannot imagine any Man so impudent as to take up his Supremacy upon no better terms then
prosecute more largely when I come to shew the Grounds and Reasons upon which this Duty of Universal Subjection is founded and these I shall demonstrate from the Use the Nature and the Original of Government that cannot subsist but upon its supposition And then I shall take an account of all the republican and antimonarchical Principles and shew that all their Hypotheses concerning Government first contrived by the Common-wealths-men of Greece stand upon no firmer bottom than meer fable and poetry and in particular that their fundamental Principle of deriving all Government from the People is built upon no wiser supposition then this That the World was once peopled with Men and Women that sprung out of the Earth both without a Creatour and without Parents And then in the last place shew that the Hildebrandinists of all Sects Bellarmine Suarez Mariana Lessius Becanus Boucherius and others on the Papal side Buchanan Junius Brutus Rutherford Mr. B. and other of the Presbyterian side all agree in this one Principle of deriving the Government from the People and make it the last pretence of all their pleas for resistance upon what account soever In the mean time I proceed upon the Authority of the Scriptures §. 8. That is the second advantage that the Christian Religion brings along with it for the security of Civil Government viz. the many Laws that it has injoyn'd to bind Subjects to an entire and absolute subjection The third is this That those that are entrusted with highest Authority in the Church are most severely forbidden to challenge to themselves any temporal power or dominion and strictly commanded to exercise their own jurisdiction with all manner of meekness and humility towards their Inferiours and an exemplary submission to their Superiours And this is a new Tye upon them beside all the former obligations from the nature of Christianity the doctrine of the Cross the Precepts of our Saviour and his Apostles in common to them with all other Christians to an entire and unreserved subjection Thus when our Saviour had constituted the Apostles supreme Governours in his Church he beats them all off from all Thoughts of worldly pride and ambition and instructs them to exercise their Power though it were so very great with that complyance and condescention as if they had in reality none at all For all our Saviour's Precepts to his Apostles to avoid domination relate wholly to the manner of exercising their Authority and not to the Authority it self as the Enemies to the Christian Church would force them to imply For that the Apostles were vested with true and proper Power is evident both from their Office all the Acts whereof we have shewn to be Authoritative and from our Saviour's own immediate Grant in which he expressly declares That he leaves to them and their Successours the same Power that himself had received from his Father So that if he had any real Authority at all so had they too and if they had none neither had he And therefore those several Texts that are usually alledged to take away the Power of the Church cannot be understood of any thing but the manner of its exercise without any pride or haughtiness and with all manner of gentleness and condescention to those that were under their Authority And if we take an Account of the particular passages themselves they will force us to take them in this sense and no other Thus when they were contending among themselves our Saviour calls them to him and tells them The Princes of the Gentiles exercise dominion over them and they that are great exercise Authority upon them but it shall not be so among you But whosoever will be great among you let him be your Minister and whosoever will be chief or Ruler among you let him be your Servant even as the Son of man came not to be ministred unto but to minister Which words though they are alledged by Grotius in the Book of his Youth de Imperio against all manner of Authority in the Church beside that of perswasion which is none at all Yet in his Notes upon the Gospels he clearly shews the Vanity and the Falsehood of that Interpretation And no wonder when it is done so expressly by the Words themselves in which our Saviour shews his Apostles how they may observe this Rule by following his Example Now it is plain says he that it cannot be said of him that he had no Authority when he says of himself that he had all Power in Heaven and Earth and therefore it cannot refer to the Being of Authority it self but to its kind and the manner of using it That as he notwithstanding the greatness of his Dignity behaved himself rather like a Servant than a Lord and instead of imperious commanding his Subjects condescended to the lowest Offices towards them thereby to endear them to himself and the gentleness of his Government so should all Pastours and Governours in the Christian Church not insult and domineer over their Flocks not govern them with an arbitrary Power or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 tyrannical dominion as Gregory Nazianzen expresses it nor enslave them to their own interest and insolence as the Roman Prefects did the Provinces particularly the Governours or Ethnarchs of Judaea who as Josephus informs us were known by the particular Title of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Benefactours But to treat them with all gentleness and to be so far from using them like Slaves that they should rather behave themselves to them like Servants i. e. in short to mix nothing of Arrogance with their Authority And that truly becomes the Person and Dignity of a Christian Prelate as St. Chrysostom paraphrases upon it to be affable and courteous to be kind and gentle to be familiar and condescending to the meanest Persons this gains him respect with all Men and makes his Authority much greater then it would be without it Men will much more readily obey a Superiour that obliges more then he commands Whereas on the contrary says he if a Bishop be proud and surly or if rough and peevish or if when he ought to reprove he scold and braul or if when he should command he huffs or domineers or if he affect to be troublesome to his Inferiours and shew the greatness of his Power by nothing else then being pert and vexatious he justly exposes himself to the contempt of all Men loses the respect due to his Person and the Reverence due to his Place Nothing so odious or despicable as a Clown in any Authority but in Church Authority it is so offensive that the indignity of it is not to be express't it is so wide a contradiction to the Place and Office Now the sense of this Text being thus stated as it is by this Eloquent Father it fixes the meaning of all the rest thus when St. Peter exhorts the Pastors not to Lord it over God's heritage where it is all one whether
to their demands and justifie them in their Schism because they dissent not from her in any matters clearly reveal'd which alone the Church has Power to impose and to charge the Church of Tyranny for daring to impose any other conditions of Communion then what are imposed by Divine Authority An excellent way of accommodation this in behalf of the Church of England to condemn her whole practice of illegal and unwarrantable Usurpation and allow the Pleas of the Dissenters just and reasonable And what is worst of all to take away all Government in the Church for ever and the Church it self too when it is evident from common sense that it can never subsist without a Legislative Authority within it self but that I shall have occasion to discourse of more copiously hereafter when I come to shew what injury is done to the Church of England by these false Principles of accommodation I shall at present content my self with proving it by experience and representing the particular Laws made by the Ancient Governors of the Church from time to time to secure and provide for its own Peace and Tranquility And by it I shall make good these three considerable Points First the great Authority inherent in them and independent on any Civil Power Secondly their great wisdom in the use and exercise of it for by the particulars it will appear that they generally acted upon wise and prudent reasons And thirdly the absolute necessity of it when we shall see by the Example of every age that there is no way of preserving any manner of Peace in the Church without it And to begin with the first Decree made by the Apostles themselves to accommodate the contrary prejudices of Jews and Gentiles If they had obliged the Gentiles to comply with the whole Law of Moses that would have look't like an attempt to bring them under the old intolerable Bondage and tempt them rather to renounce Christianity then submit to such a grievous Yoke And if they had wholly exempted them from the Mosaick Law that would have as much endangered the Apostacy of the Jews thinking that they should thereby have renounced the God of the Law for it was not easie to every capacity to distinguish between rejecting the Law and the Lawgiver And therefore to satisfie and avoid the prejudices of both Parties they agreed To lay no greater burthens then these necessary things that they abstain from Meats offer'd to Idols and from fornication and from things strangled and from blood Where by things necessary it is plain that they mean things necessary at that time and place for that they were not so in all times and places is evident not only from the direction of their Synodical Epistle to the particular Churches of Syria and Cilicia but from their not imposing the same Decree upon other Churches that were not in the same Circumstances In the Churches of Syria and Cilicia that confined upon Judaea the Jews were very numerous and therefore to avoid offending i. e. tempting them to renounce the Christian Faith it was requisite to make it a standing rule to them at that time that all Christians abstain from the Oblations to Idols and that would wholly prevent their great fear of Idolatry But on the contrary because the Church of Corinth consisted chiefly of Gentiles the same rule was not made peremptory and universal to them but they were left to their own liberty to eat Meats offered to Idols as they judged most consistent with Christian prudence and charity as they are directed by their Ghostly Father St. Paul This is all that I can make of that great Council and though they were endued with the Holy Ghost yet they proceeded by no other Rule then common prudence and discretion And if they had taken the same method that our Schismatiques and Pacificators would oblige the present Church to to search for a determination of this casual dispute in their Masters own Laws I doubt they would have been very much at a loss to have found any thing like such a decree amongst all his Precepts And yet there was as much reason that they should refer all Acts of Government to be determin'd by his own express Decree as that their Successors should refer them to theirs But next to this Apostolical Synod the Apostolical Canons are the greatest and earliest Demonstration of the Legislative Authority of the Christian Church being compiled by their next Successors in the second and third Centuries by which we understand the true settlement of the Church as the Apostles left it for all the Canons relating to Government are no new Laws but only declarations of old Customs so that though they were not Apostolical Laws they were true and early Records of Apostolical Customs and by them the practice of Church-Government was so entirely setled that they were ever after the Rule and Pattern to the determinations of following Councils And most of the chief Canons both General and Provincial were only Ratifications of these old Decrees to recover their just Authority when any of them had been neglected or violated or additional provisions in pursuance of their general design in new particular Cases For which it seems every Age found matter enough to suppress some Mens extravagant and wanton fancies and it was the new rising of Schisms and Heresies that gave occasion to enacting all the Laws of the Church But these Apostolical Canons being as it were the Institutes or Magna Charta of the Ecclesiastical Laws and being withal enacted in this Period of time that we are now in by pure Ecclesiastical Authority I shall give a brief view of them to let the Reader see the exact Model of the Primitive Church as reduced to practice and brought to perfection by the Apostles and their immediate Successors In the first place therefore because nothing has so great an influence upon the welfare of the Church as the setting up good and wise Governors over it great care is taken against rash Ordination of Bishops so that though every Bishop has an inherent Right in himself to conveigh his own Authority to another yet is it here fixt and has remain'd so through all Ages as a standing Law to the Church that every Bishop be Consecrated by three Bishops at least or two in cases of necessity Now though this Rule has been observed and practiced in all Churches over all the World and is so highly useful to the good Government of the Church by not entrusting a matter of such weight to the discretion of a single Person yet I believe it will be a very hard task to find any thing like a clear Precept requiring it in the Holy Scriptures So apparently repugnant is the principle of the Projectors of Accommodation against unscriptural impositions to the very first Law that was made in the Christian Church after the Apostles and if they pleased it might as well be used to take away this prudent Practice
cause to St. Cyprian and by acknowledging a double relation or capacity in every Bishop one toward his own Flock another toward the whole Church and that is all the Political Union we contend for But Seventhly This Political Unity does not accord with the nature of the Gospel because it would bring too much Worldly State and Grandeur into the Church as appears by the Papal Monarch And that is true a Monarchical Unity would naturally bring in a Worldly Kingdom but not such an Unity as consists in the Communion of all Parts together and not in the Subjection of the rest to one part as our Author expresses it or as Mr. Thorndike often repeats it That not the infinite Power of one Church but the Regular Power of all is the mean provided by the Apostles for attaining Unity in the Whole This is the state of the Question between us and therefore all our Authors flourishes about the Papal Tyranny are nothing but flourish because it is so far from being that Catholick Unity that we own that it is the whole design of this work to prove that it is a most execrable and impudent subversion of it The 8th and 9th Arguments proceed upon the same Supposition of a Papal Monarchy The tenth upon its no Necessity against our Authors own confession The 11th and 12th because such an Unity was never in fact attain'd If he means in full perfection no more was ever any Government and therefore it is not to be required in this World but if he means that it was never put in practice so as in good measure to attain its end the whole History of the Church down to the Papal Usurpation contradicts it as appears by the whole Series of this Discourse This is all that this learned Man has alledged upon this Argument and from it the Reader I hope is sufficiently satisfied how little that has to alledge for it self for he was a person of that comprehensive mind that he never omitted any thing pertinent to his design was never in debt to any cause that he undertook nor ever fail'd that but when that fail'd him and therefore when we see so great a man able to say so little in defence of this uncatholick Assertion that is the strongest proof that we can have and perhaps stronger then any we could have had without it that it is utterly indefensible PART II. SECT I. HAving in the former Part of this Discourse set down the practice of the Church both as to the Exercise of its own Jurisdiction within it self and its entire subjection to the Civil Powers whilst it subsisted meerly upon its own Charter without any Assistance or Protection from them We are now arrived at a new state of things as they stood under Christian Emperors And here we shall find that the Government and the Constitution of the Church continued as it had ever been within it self and that the Christians when the Empire was on their side own'd the same kind of Subjection and that upon the same Principles of Duty to the Civil Government that they had ever done in the times of Persecution and when I have made good both these it will make up a compleat Demonstration both of the unalienable Power of the Church within it self and of the Sense of the Catholique Church unanimously condemning all resistance against the Civil Government in any case but most of all in the case of Religion Under Constantine the Great it is not to be doubted but that they were forward enough in their Loyalty and Obedience to his Government for all Men are for the Government when the Government is for them and therefore this part of the Enquiry concerning the Peaceable behaviour of Christians under his Reign is wholly superseded because if they did their Duty they had no motive or temptation not to do it submission to his Government being no less their Interest then their Duty and therefore it was no matter of Praise or Vertue in them if they own'd and honour'd that Power that was their peculiar Deliverance and Protection So that this side of the Controversie I shall altogether wave in this place and only consider the Ecclesiastical State of things under his Government where I once intended to have Exemplified the due Exercise of Regal Supremacy in the Christian Church from his Example First As a Sovereign Prince Secondly As a Christian Sovereign And that First In matters of Faith and Christian Doctrine Secondly In matters of Discipline and Christian Government and here particularly First Of his Power in Summoning Councils as Supreme Governor of a Nâ—tional Church Secondly Of that Obligation that he brings upon himself by becoming a Christian First To abet the Power of the Church with his own Secular Authority Secondly To endow it with a Revenue for the maintenance of the Service of God and those that attend upon it But upon more mature deliberation I thought it much more adviseable to forbear all such Reasonings and Discourses till I had first set down the whole matter of Fact as things stood not only under his Reign but all the Succeeding Emperors where we shall find Precedents enough to make up a Demonstration of all the fore-mentioned Principles But because this is the first Instance of Uniting Church and State into one Body and because this Wise and Prudent Emperor seems to have exerted his Power in both exactly according to the Rules both of Religion and Government I shall the more curiously consider the management of Affairs under his Reign whereby will be fully exemplified how this Union may be reduced to practice without any Diminution of either Power or Confusion of one with another and that will plainly demonstrate wherein consists the Original Rights of the Church in a Christian State and the due Exercise of the Supremacy of Christian Kings over all Ecclesiastical Persons Rights and Powers Now because the Supreme Power in all Government is the Legislative Power and is the thing most disputed in this Controversie I shall shew that he was so far from annexing this Power in the Church to the Imperial Crown that he expresly asserted its inherent Right and Protected it in its Exercise within it self with all his zeal and ability In that whenever he had a mind to have any Ecclesiastical Laws Enacted he never presumed to do it by his own Authority which he ever declared would have been no less Crime then to invade the Power of God himself but always referred the matter to the Bishops in Council and by their Canons he framed his Ecclesiastical Laws but never made any without or against them And that is a full and clear acknowledgement of that antecedent Authority that they enjoyed by our Saviour's appointment when he constituted the Apostles and their Successors Supreme Governors of his Church to the End of the World So that in all Changes and Revolutions of things their Government must remain unalterable and indefeasible and whatever Assistance
his Tyrian Judges he immediately summon'd them at so just and modest an Appeal And then Athanasius might easily have cleared himself had they not surprized and overwhelm'd him with a new Accusation attested by his own best friends for the Witnesses that they produced of his threatning to hinder the Transportation of Corn to Constantinople were some of those that had appeared most eminently in his defence at the Tyrian Council This was an Evidence that could not be withstood nor is it to be avoided but by one of these two ways Either that Athanasius being vext out of all Patience by so long a Train of base usage and knowing his great and popular interest at Alexandria might in some suddain and extravagant Passion have bolted out some such threatning which though it were a very high Crime in the Emperours Esteem no less then Treason against his own Royal City yet its Enormity consisted in its great rashness and indiscretion and this to me seems very probable if we consider his Great Spirit his Cholerick Constitution and his Infinite Provocation or else that his Friends were since the Council taken off by the Briberies and Flatteries of the Eusebians But if it were so the Emperour could have no Evidence for it neither indeed have we any ground to surmise it was so and therefore the thing being so fully attested by Athanasius his own Friends it was as fair a Testimony as could be given in any Case no wonder then that it raised the Emperours displeasure so high that he would hear no more when it endanger'd the Peace of the Empire and the ruine of his own City that could not possibly subsist without the constant supplies from Alexandria To all which we may add the Emperour's impatient desire of Peace and Concord in the Christian Church as it is visible through his whole Reign and of this Athanasius was all along represented to him as the only Obstacle and therefore Sozomen leaves it doubtful whether the Emperour banisht him because he believed the Accusations against him or because it would be a means of setling Concord among the other Bishops the whole Quarrel being about him and as his Enemies represented it meerly raised and kept up by him and therefore when Anthony the Famous Monk of AEgypt interceded for his Restitution the Emperour returns in Answer that Athanasius was a proud and provoking man and a Ring-leader of Discord and Sedition for these were the Crimes says the Historian that his Adversaries chiefly objected against him because the Emperour of all men in the World most hated men of that temper And therefore because John the Meletian Bishop was the head of the other Faction he sent him into banishment too supposing that when the Leaders were out of the way the Schism would dye of its own accord Now if we lay all these things together we shall have no reason to lay any hard usage or foul dealing to Constantine in this whole affair and they that best understood it altogether acquit him as we have seen from the Council of Alexandâ—ia from Athanasius himself and from Constantine the younger And Theodoret pleads in his excuse agreeable to what we have observed above of his easiness to be imposed upon by men that pretended well That he was apparently circumvented in the whole transaction by trusting to the honesty of some Bishops that hid their Malice and Wickedness under great shews of Piety And therefore it is but a rash conclusion of St. Jerom and Lucifer Calaritanus that Constantine before his Death turn'd Arian When his zeal for the Nicene Faith was so evident through all the Actions of his life when the Eusebians themselves by whom he was deceived were great pretenders against the Arian Heresie and when he would not be reconciled to Arius till he had upon Oath profest the Catholick Faith and when himself was careful to tye on the Obligation of the Oath with all possible severity telling him if your faith be right your Oath is good but if Heretical and yet you have sworn know this that God will judge you from Heaven All which is very far from looking any thing like Arianism but St. Jerom was an hasty man and abounds too much with these harsh and heedless censures and Lucifer Calaritanus though he were a Catholick was a very peevish man and out of meer peevishness turn'd Schismatick from the Catholicks and is the firstCatholick Christian that I can find upon Record that ever spoke rudely and indecently of a Sovereign Prince as he did of Constantius before his Apostacy from the Church For immediately after his Restitution he utterly forsook its Communion because the Catholicks admitted the Arian Clergy into it upon Repentance and is so stubborn in his Schism that to keep it up he forsakes his Bishoprick in Sardinia flies into Africa the Soil of Schisms as well as Monsters and there joyns Faction though not Communion with the Donatists for though they never communicated with each other yet they United Interests against the Catholicks And therefore his rudeness to the Emperour Constantius and his Calumny of Constantine though done by him whilst a Catholick proceeded from his Spirit of Donatism that was discovered by his after-Actions And now having thus far set down the true Story of the Arian Contâ—oversie under this Emperour as to matter of Fact and from it exemplyfied both the Authority and Duty of Christian Princes in the Government of the Church I shall forbear making any remarks or reflections upon it till I have given an Historical account of the exercise of the same power by his Successors in the following Ages of the Church whereby we shall find that the example of this Great Prince was set up as the best Standard of Government that those Princes that were most careful to discharge their Conscience towards the Church and most prudent in the exercise of their power over it propounded his example to themselves for the Pattern of their Reign and that those swerved more or less from the right Rule of Government who forsook his Method to set up new Politicks of their own devising from whence we shall not only exemplifie the right and wrong exercise of Regal Supremacy in the Christian Church but withal discover the several Grounds and Reasons upon which the power of Princes though not Ecâ—lesiastical comes to be so far interessed in matters of the Church as to be superiour to its own proper power and that I hope is sufficient to settle this Argument §. X. After the death of Constantine the Great the Empire is divided between his three Sons and that as 't is most commonly supposed upon the Authority of Eusebius by his last Will and Testament though if we consult the passage it self it is only a loose expression fitted to a Panegyrick rather then an History and so are all his four Books of the Life of Constantine and amounts to no more then this That he left
Religion and Loyalty OR A Demonstration OF The Power of the Christian Church within it Self The Supremacy of Sovereign Powers over it The Duty of Passive Obedience or Non-Resistance to all their Commands Exemplified Out of the Records of the Church and the Empire from the Beginning of Christianity to the End of the Reign of JULIAN By Samuel Parker D. D. Arch-Deacon of CANTERBURY LONDON Printed for John Baker at the Three-Pigeons in St. Paul's Church-yard 1684. AN ADDRESS TO HIS MAJESTY FROM THE Primitive Church SIR THe whole Christian World being both Alarm'd and Amazed at the late Barbarous Conspiracy against the Sacred Lives of Your Majesty and Your Royal Brother And Your Majesty having upon that Occasion been over-whelm'd with numberless Addresses and Protestations of Loyalty from Your dutiful Subjects of the Church of England I thought it not improper or unseasonable to consult the Records of the best and purest times of our Religion for Precedents of this Loyal Practice and after an Accurate Diligent and Impartial Enquiry I dare in their Names declare to Your Majesty and all the Christian World their infinite abhorrence of all Treasonable and Rebellious Attempts against all Sovereign Powers whatsoever as the rankest contradiction to their Christian Faith and the boldest Blasphemy against their own Sovereign Lord. So that though Your Majesty were as much an Enemy as You are a Patron and Protector of the Church whoever shall at any time or upon any pretence offer any Resistance to any of Your Royal Commands must forever renounce his Saviour the four Evangelists and the Twelve Apostles to join with Mahomet Hildebrand and the Kirk set up the Pigeon against the Dove the Scimeter against the Cross and turn a Judas to his Saviour as well as a Cromwel to his Prince And this Sir in those days was thought so far from flattering Divinity that if they had not own'd and asserted it with their last drop of Blood under the worst of Tyrants they had judged themselves Traytors both to their Prince and to their Lord. And this Doctrine of entire and unreserved Submission was then so Catholique so Universally Taught and Practiced that Christian Rebellion was a Sin altogether unknown in those days It was the only Sin for which the Laws of the Church never appointed any Punishment because it was the only Sin that was then never actually committed And though they had too frequent and sad Occasions to enter their Protestations against it that was never done to correct any miscarriages among themselves but to rectifie the misapprehensions of the Roman Emperours Who being possest with too just a Jealousie that all Alterations in Religion tended to Innovations in Government they thought themselves obliged in Duty and for the honour of their Lord to represent to their Majesties That the erecting of his Kingdom in the Empire was so far from shaking their Thrones that it was and ever would be their strongest Security And when they had done this they had nothing more to do then to submit themselves to their Royal Pleasure and lay their Lives at their Royal Feet And this Sir they did with that Candour Frankness and Ingenuity so without all reserves and limitations that the slander that some Men have dasht upon their Memories is as false as foul that all their Pretended Loyalty was nothing but Hypocrisie for want of strength to raise and pretence of Law to Warrant Rebellion But some Men are so ignorant that they cannot understand the Doctrine of the Cross because its Superscription was written in Latin Greek and Hebrew and were they not as great Strangers to the Primitive Records as to the Primitive Religion they could never have had the confidence to fasten a surmise so false upon so clear an Integrity when beside giving us their own Opinions they have left behind them the Eternal and unalterable Reasons upon which they were grounded and these are of equal force in all Ages and under all Governments And this unkind Calumny is so very unjust that their spightful and most implacable Enemies who spared not to asperse them with all the vile things that could be believed durst never charge them either with any Overt-acts or secret designs of Disloyalty And as for the Laws though no Subject were ever more thankful for good Laws or more tender of their preservation then themselves yet when they had them they were neither so ungrateful nor so uncivil as to turn them upon the Government and make them so many Bulwarks and Sconces for Rebellion They thought it a very scurvey complement to invite Princes to protect their Religion by telling them That whilst they were pleased to Persecute it Christians were under an entire Submission to their Will and Pleasure but when they had once own'd and protected it by Law that then their Christian Subjects were warranted to Rebel against their Sovereign Authority by a Commission from their own Imperial Rescripts As soft and simple Lachrimists as they were they were wiser then to give Julian so much advantage to justifie his Apostacy when by it he recover'd the Imperial Crown to himself and his Successors that Constantine had pawned to his Christian Subjects by taking up the Christian Faith And whenever there was any misunderstanding between the Emperour and his Laws they thought it their duty that were subject to both to leave the Contest to be adjusted between themselves And if the Prince were at any time undutiful to his own Laws and so unhappy as to incur their displeasure whatever Power the Laws had to Execute themselves upon him they were satisfied that the Subjects had none And as they embraced this Principle of unlimited Submission as one of the greatest duties of their Religion so they have farther declared in all their Writings that setting aside all tyes of Duty and Conscience they would have done the same upon Principles of Interest and Prudence And tho they had lived under the worst of Princes and themselves had been the worst of Men they would have paid the same submission for the purchase of their own ease and safety that they thought themselves to owe out of duty to God and his Laws These Sir were the Doctrines that they taught both as Divines and Philosophers as Men that understood this World as well as Christians that believed the World to come And though to avoid being too bold and tedious I have here only presented Your Majesty with the Subscriptions of all the most Reverend Fathers of the Church for the first Three hundred and sixty three Years yet if Your Majesty think it worth Your Royal Acceptance I am ready to produce not only the hasty Votes but the Hands of all Christian Bishops and Doctors for above a Thousand Years with a Nemine Contradicente But beside the demonstration of the Primitive Loyalty I have here humbly presented Your Majesty with the true State of the Primitive Church as it was left by our Lord and his Apostles and
either such a Kingdom or such Subjects And that he further declares to be nothing else then the Institution of Christian Truth in it by virtue of its own Goodness To this end was I born and for this cause came I into the World that I should bear Witness unto the Truth every one that is of the Truth heareth my Voice That is all Men that are lovers of true Goodness will voluntarily come into my Kingdom and submit themselves to my Doctrine and Discipline for that is the evident meaning of that phrase They that are of the Truth they that are ingenuous and sincere lovers of it as in the Epistle to the Romans c. 2. v. 8. They that are of the Contention i. e. Persons that are given up to Contention So that there is the true State of Christ's Kingdom that it is a Kingdom without force within it self and has no true Subjects but such as freely and of their own accord submit themselves to it out of love to the Goodness of its Government So that whereas all other Kingdoms subsist by the power of the Sword his taken by it self and as not complicated with the Civil Government cannot subsist with it And therefore when St. Peter drew his Sword in defence of his Master he commands him to sheath it because it was a Method inconsistent with his Design Matth. 26. 53. Thinkest thou that I cannot now pray to my Father and he shall presently give me more then Twelve Legions of Angels If that had been the proper method to compass his design and to settle his Kingdom he could easily have done it by an Army of Angels but that would have spoil'd the whole work had he betook himself to any forcible defence who was to establish an Institution in the World by no other means then its own Truth and Goodness Many reasons are given of our Saviour's reproof to St. Peter by learned Men of all Factions to enhance or abate its obligation but the only true reason is that which himself has here given that it was utterly inconsistent with the nature of his Institution This was the sense of the Doctors of the Church through all Ages down to the very time of Gratian himself in the year 1150 an hundred years and more after the time of Pope Gregory the Seventh so that though he had declared and practised against it it seems his Doctrine could not speedily obtain any great footing in the Christian Church who treating of the power of the Sword to whom it belongs determines from this very passage that of all Men the Officers of the Church have nothing to do with it De Episcopis verò vel quibuslibet Clericis quòd nec suâ auctoritate nec auctoritate Romani Pontificis arma arripere valeant facilè probatur Cùm enim Petrus qui primus Apostolorum a Domino fuerat electus materialem gladium exerceret ut Magistrum a Judaeorum injuriâ defensaret audivit converte gladium tuum in vaginam Omnis enim qui gladium acceperit à gladio peribit ac si apertè ei diceretur hactenus tibi tuisque praedecessoribus inimicos Dei licuit gladio corporali persequi deinceps in exemplum patientiae gladium tuum id est tibi hactenus commissum in vaginam converte tamen spiritualem gladium quod est verbum Dei in mactatione veteris vitae exerce Omnis enim praeter illum vel auctoritatem ejus qui legitima potestate utitur qui ut ait Apostolus non sine caus◠gladium portat cui etiam omnis anima subdita esse debet omnis inquam qui praeter auctoritatem hujusmodi gladium acceperit gladio peribit As for Bishops and all Orders of the Clergy it is evident that they ought not to take up Arms either by their own or the Pope's Authority For when Peter the Prince of the Apostles brandish't the material Sword to defend his Master from the violence of the Jews he heard a Voice Put up thy Sword into its Scabbard for all that take the Sword shall perish by the Sword As if he had expresly said hitherto it has been allowed thee and thy Predecessors i. e. I suppose the High Priests under the Old Testament to punish the Enemies of God with the Corporal Sword but from this time forward I command thee to sheath it for an example of Patience and use the Spiritual Sword which is the Word of God to Sacrifice the lusts of the old life For all beside him or the Authority of him who is endued with legal Power and who as the Apostle says bears not the Sword in vain and to whom every Soul ought to be Subject every Man I say that draws the Sword without his Authority shall perish by it And this state of the question he proves from the Authority of divers ancient Councils and Popes which I here forbear to recite because I intend if God permit to consider them in their proper Times and Places for that is my design as I proceed to reap the whole field of Church Records and not Glean as the common Custom is its scatter'd fragments Only this passage of the Father of the Canonists I have here dropt in to let his modern Followers that are one and all base flatterers of the Roman Court against all Sovereign Powers see how enormously they wander from the Text of their own Law as well as the Holy Bible But to return our Saviour having declared to the President what his Kingdom was not i. e. a Kingdom destitute of Force and the Power of the Sword he proceeds to declare what it was viz. a Kingdom of Truth Which Pilate taking to be some kind of Stoical Kingdom for such a thing the Stoicks pretended to at an high rate by virtue of their Philosophy he asks him what is the Truth that he professes But reflecting it seems with himself that it was not pertinent for a Judge upon the Bench to enter into a Philosophick dispute with a Prisoner at the Bar he lets fall the Question by not staying for an Answer But beside these evident passages in our Saviour's conversation for disclaiming all Civil Soveraignty there is one Text that is usually by mistake applyed to this purpose though it relate to a very different matter and that is Matth. 17. 27. where our Saviour is supposed to pay Tribute to the Roman Collectors and that is owning his subjection to their Government But the Didrachma the Money there demanded of him was not Tribute money paid to the Roman Publicans for we never read of any such Tax but Temple-money paid to the Jewish Priests and their Collectors for the Use and Service of the Temple and this continued till the time of Vespatian who as Josephus relates it imposed upon the Jews this Tax of two Drachms that they had hitherto paid towards the repairs and annual expences of the Temple at Jerusalem for the use of the Capitol at Rome And this
is inseparable from all Sovereign Power and Christianity and all the Power that it brings along with it comes into the World upon its supposition So that by it we are so far from making the King a Priest that without it we cannot own him to be our King And on the other side when we assert a Spiritual Power to the Church distinct from though subject to the King's Supremacy others cry out Popery Praemunires and I know not what hard names they would soon let fall their out-cry if they would consider that it is such a Power as never any Prince exercised or wittingly challenged though it is possible that some may have run upon it by mistake and is neither Temporal nor Foreign Jurisdiction And in those two points lies the malignity of the pretended Supremacy of the Bishop of Rome for as it is Temporal it plainly subjects the Regal Authority to its Empire and as it is Foreign it makes the whole Kingdom Feudatory and brings us into the form of a Province under an Italian Prince both which are such abuses of Government as evidently subvert it Nay farther as a Foreign Temporal Jurisdiction is inconsistent with the English Monarchy so is all kind of Foreign Jurisdiction though meerly Spiritual irreconcileable with the Prerogative Royal. The reason and the account whereof I shall give in its proper place when I come to state that easie but yet undiscover'd Point of the Divine Authority of National Churches All that I am obliged to at present is to shew the difference between that Authority that we assign to the Church of England and that which the Bishop of Rome would Usurp against which though there were nothing else to be objected but its being Foreign for that reason alone it ought to be banisht the Nation as an Enemy to the Civil Government Whereas the Authority of the Church of England is seated in the King 's own Subjects who can call them to an account for it if they use it to his own or his Subjects prejudice and can as well punish them for any disorders in the abusive Exercise of it as he can any of his own Officers for their misdemeanors in their trust in the Common-wealth So that so far is the King's Supremacy as it is stated in the Church of England from entrenching upon the proper Power of the Church as the Romanists cavil that it only protects it in the due exercise of its Jurisdiction And so far is the proper power of the Church from disclaiming or abating any thing of the King's Supremacy as the other Factions clamour that it first Establishes that upon the most lasting Foundations of Divine Institution before it makes any claim to its own Power and when it does it does it upon no other Terms then of entire submission to its Supreme Authority And now that Man must wilfully dream that can imagine such a power as this in the Church can be any way prejudicial to or detractive from the Civil Government and yet that such a Power there is is an assertion worth no less then our Christianity it self that stands or falls with it For if our Saviour have not entrusted his Church with a Power within it self sufficient to maintain it self by vertue of his own Authority then it stands upon no stronger Foundation then the Will of the Sovereign Power And then as that can Establish so it can Abrogate its whole Obligation which is plainly to say that it is no True Religion for it is certainly none if it relye only upon humane Authority So that all that can be concluded in this case is that upon supposition that our Christian Faith is an Imposture there can be no Power in the Christian Church and that for a very good reason because then the Church can be no Church But upon supposition that our Saviour founded it by Divine Authority the peculiar Power of the Church derived meerly and immediately from himself without any interposition of humane Authority is the first thing to be believed as absolutely necessary to its Being and Subsistence But this will appear with a brighter evidence if we consider the several branches of Jurisdiction that as they are complicated with the supposition of Christianity so are they such acts of Power as no Sovereign Power ever challenged or can with any decency exercise As the Power of Preaching the Gospel through all Nations of the World in the Name and by the Authority of God The Power of granting or with-holding the Instruments of Grace the Sacraments of Baptism and the Eucharist The Power of the Keys or judging who are fit to be admitted into the Society of the Christian Church and who ought to be cast out of it for non-performance of the Conditions undertaken at their Admittance The Power of instructing the People in the Duties of Religion or guiding and directing them in the safest way to Salvation The Power of Ordaining Consecrating and Constituting Ecclesiastical Officers to succeed in the Government of the Church through all Ages These are the several points of their Commission and are granted to be so by Mr. Hobbs himself and that at the very time when he undertakes to demonstrate that all these acts of Power are no acts of Authority And that is one of his choisest methods of Demonstration in all things to bear down the undenyable Truth of all things by meer force of Assertion thus here he reckons up the chief Acts of Authority in the Apostle's Commission and then will bear us down that they are no Acts of Authority only by saying so and that against the Common Sense of Mankind For if they had a Commission from our Saviour to do these things then were they Empowred and Authorised by their Commission to do them So absurd a thing is it to talk of acting by Commission without acting by Power whereas every Commission as such is granting so much Power And therefore if the Apostles and their Successors were Commissioned by our Saviour to these several Acts of their Office as he grants because it cannot be denyed every Act is an effect of that Power that is settled upon them by virtue of their Commission And is it not strange that this witty Gentleman should begin all this Extravagant discourse against all Power Ecclesiastical as such with this very Assertion That the Power Ecclesiastical was at first in the Apostles and after them in such as received it from the Apostles by successive laying on of hands What thickness of Contradiction is this A Power Ecclesiastical and yet no Power at all Why then if it be no Power it is no Power Ecclesiastical and if it be a Power Ecclesiastical then it is some Power And then again a Power by virtue of our Saviour's Commission i. e. a Power warranted by Divine Authority and to say that this is no Power is plainly to averâ— That there is no such thing as Divine Authority And upon this supposition that
a publick Crime then a publick Repentance And therefore I hope to see Mr. B. before he go hence to make good his promise of making his publick Recantation and remove that scandal that he has given to the Church of God by so foul a Mistake as he calls it and I hope it was no worse Though I fear when this is done he may find new matter of Repentance for slandering and traducing the whole Church of God and for that end perverting and false representing all its Records as he has done in some late Books especially his Treatise of Episcopacy and his History of the Councils that are so full not only of falsification but rank malice against all the Ancient Governours of the Christian Church against whom he could have no other ground of quarrel then only this that they were Bishops that it is such a manifest disclaiming of all Truth and Integrity as no pride or passion can excuse and those two great faults are the only Pleas that can be made to extenuate the rankness of his malice But here are such numberless heaps of meer falshoods and spiteful insinuations as could proceed from nothing better then wilful dishonesty unless this may be pleaded in his behalf viz. his gross ignorance of the things that he writes of and that in good earnest is the best and truest Apology for him for it is evident from his crude way of writing that none but a very Novice in Antiquity and an utter stranger to the true Records of the Church could ever have betrayed himself to so unlearned a Performance There is not any one Story in which he has not committed gross mistakes and such as discover themselves to proceed from nothing but his unacquaintedness with the Primitive Records And any one that can but Translate any of the Modern Collections of the Ancient Councils without looking into the Original Acts and Histories without which no Man can arrive to any competent knowledge in this learning may make just such another Church-Historian as R. B. And therefore I would advise him instead of boasting himself Father of Fourscore Books and upwards to have some patience and take some pains to write one well-weighed well-digested and wellreviewed before he publish it And if his heat could but be prevail'd with to submit to so much tameness one such discourse would outweigh not only Fourscore but four hundred Books of Crudities I have insisted thus long upon this Apostolical Precept because it is the most effectual Bulwark against Rebellion and therefore most abused by the Hildebrandinists who would elude its Obligation by the several fore-mentioned shifts to evacuate the Sense of the Law it self But now to proceed with the Doctrine of St. Paul agreeable is that of the other great Apostle St. Peter 1 Epist. Chap. 2. from vers 13th to 25th Where the same duty is laid down fully in the same express and comprehensive Terms and with the same regard of duty to God it must be done For the Lord's sake and that is the biggest thing that can be said in this or any other Case that Almighty God requires it forever and as Men will own his own Authority as an indispensable Duty and this for all the same reasons alledged by the other Apostle and some more Not only because their Authority is from God and because the Institution it self is for the general Good of Mankind and because the great Governour of the World commands Subjection to them as his Vice-Roys under the severest Penalties both here and hereafter but beside all this it is made necessary because it is for the honour of their Religion that by a meek and peaceable submission to the most unjust sufferings after their great Master's Example they should prevent and silence those Calumnies of his and their Enemies as if they were disturbers of Government so that if they did not submit with all meekness and patience to their Superiors of what rank soever down from Kings to Masters of Families whether good or bad it would have been a just scandal to their Religion But to this Mr. Rutherford very gravely and seriously replies That patient suffering and violent resisting are not incompatible That is to say that a Man may Resist in his own defence but if he have the ill-fortune to be overcome he must then suffer patiently This Patience per force I see is the right Presbyterian Subjection when their Superiours are too strong for them they will crouch only because they must But as long as they are able Princes must pardon them if they defend themselves by force of Arms though if they cannot they will be so civil as to lay them down And of the same kind is the Submission of Servants to harsh and cruel Masters when they are beaten to defend themselves with the next Cudgel that they can seize on but if the Master prove the more able Fencer then the Servant when he has lost his defensive Weapon has no remedy left but to lye down and suffer himself to be beaten patiently and this Patience of a Turkish Slave is their only true Christian Subjection though as the Proverb goes It is a Vertue more suited to the Philosophy of an Horse then the Religion of a Man And if this be all that is injoin'd by the Apostle it is nothing at all for when we are commanded to suffer patiently or not to resist only when we cannot help our selves it is a very needless command because so we must do whether we will or no and Patience per force is no Patience at all But beside this dull shift we have a more acute Evasion to elude the Text That these words were not address'd to Subjects that had the rights of their own Country but to Strangers residing and inhabiting in such places where they could challenge no greater rights then meerly of Courtesie and Civility But though this is not so dull as the Scotch resistance to yield when we can fight no longer it is but another way of fooling against the express Sense of the Words themselves For to say nothing of the distinction between Native Subjects and Strangers between whom there can be no difference as to this Duty then that it is stricter upon the natural Subject then the Foreigner St. Peter's reason as it makes no difference in the Point so it admits none because it is universal and unlimited viz. from the peremptory Command of God that requires submission to Kings and all their Subordinate Officers and upon this reason it concerns all alike And after that to let Subjects loose from the duty of Non-resistance to their Prince because the Law was here particularly directed to such as were Aliens though built upon and enforced by a reason common to all Men shews if not the prophaneness of the Men the badness of their Cause Though after all the Observation is as false as 't is trifling when it is so vulgarly known that the dispersed Jews were
it relate to the whole Flock or only the subordinate Clergy it is the very same word which is used by our Saviour 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 And so does St. Paul when he tells the Corinthians that the Apostles do not Lord it over their Faith the word is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which we improperly enough Translate Not having Dominion over their Faith for the word Dominion is not always taken in a bad Sense but often signifies Lawful Authority whereas 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 properly signifies nothing but domineering or treating them as Masters do their Slaves whom they care not how they use for their own gain and advantage that is the proper import of the word and therefore it is very aptly joyn'd by St. Peter with 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to feed the Flock for filthy lucre as the Romans kept their Slaves And to the same purpose is the advice of St. Paul that a Bishop be no striker nor greedy of filthy Lucre but patient or mild and gentle not a brawler not covetous i. e. not to run into any of these Vices or Disorders in the exercise of his Episcopal Authority but to infer from hence that he has no true and real Authority at all only becomes the Man that knows no better Sanction of a Law then a Sword or a Cudgel And this very thing is that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that moderation that is so frequently injoin'd in the Apostolical Writings as Phil. 4. 5. T it 3. 2. Jam. 3. 17. It is not as it is by some Men very ignorantly interpreted an unconcernedness and indifferency between dissenting Parties for that may be good or bad as it happens if the controversie be trivial it may be an instance of it but if it be about a matter that is setled either by the Authority of God or the Church there indifferency and moderation is nothing else then Falshood and Treachery But the true meaning of the word is a mildness and gentleness in the use of Authority the same that is attributed to God himself in the Government of the World Wisd. of Solomon c. 12. v. 18 But thou Mastering thy Power judgest with Equity and orderest us with great savour 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 i. e. judgest not by rigour of Law but with mercy and gentleness and so Aristotle defines the vertue of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that its Office is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to correct and moderate the general Law when it is applyed to particular Cases And all good Government is ever more merciful then the Law ought to be for that cannot be too severe to deter Men from offending so that there are not many cases in which it is broken wherein the offender may not require some mercy and compassion But as this Vertue is so highly commendable in all Government so is it much more in that of the Church in which Almighty God shews more of it in himself towards Mankind the Gospel being nothing but a dispensation of his Mercy and Gentleness to Offenders And as this is a necessary Qualification in the Governors of the Church for guiding and rectifying their publick Government so is it most becoming their private Conversation and by gaining Authority to their Persons doubles that of their Office So that when our Saviour instructs his Apostles in this new way to Greatness his instructions are wise in a literal Sense for nothing is really so great and commanding in the World as true Humility Whoever will be great among you let him be your Minister and whoever will be first among you let him be your Servant Matth. 21. 26. If any one desire to be first the same shall be last of all and Servant of all Mark 9. 35. He that exalteth himself shall be abased and he that will abase himself shall be exalted Math. 23. 12. The common experience of the World sufficiently attests the Truth and the Wisdom of these Propositions so Powerful is the obligation of Courtesie Condescention and Humility But if the Governors of the Church are so strictly injoin'd this Vertue where they have Authority how much more are they where they have none If they may not contend with one another for Dominion though they have equal Power how much less with Sovereign Princes of whose Power they have no share and to whom they are bound to a more exact and exemplary Obedience and Submission then other Subjects by their Office and Power So that our Saviour has taken all possible care as far as Law can do it to reduce the Constitution of his Church to an entire compliance with the Civil Government And though he has instituted a distinct Government in it suited to the design of his Religion he has so many ways brought it into Subjection to Sovereign Powers that they are much more disabled by their very Authority to give them any disturbance then they could have been without it the very Authority it self being a new and distinct Obligation to a stricter Allegiance But because notwithstanding all this Evidence some Men are jealous of granting any Authority to the Church peculiar to it self especially when all Power is so apt to degenerate into abuse and therefore though they cannot deny the truth of it in general are very shy of admitting it at all lest they give it too much advantage sometime or other to fix and strengthen an interest within it self against the State And I must confess the prophane boldness of the Bishops of Rome ever since the Hildebrandine Apostacy in justling and contesting with Princes as the Vicars of Christ has given too much ground for this Jealousie I shall from this general state of the Christian Law as fixt by our Saviour and his Apostles proceed to its particular Precedents when it came to be reduced to practice in the Primitive Church Whereby I shall make it to appear after and beside all these foregoing considerations to forestal all pretences whatsoever of resistance to the Civil State that thô this because all Power is so may be liable to abuse yet that there is not any one point of Government more easie then t◠prevent it and that the danger is so very little that no Government that does not grosly forsake it self can possibly suffer any thing from it and that the abuse is so unlikely and so difficult ever to be put in practice again that there is no one thing in the World that requires less care to watch against it in short that it can never come to do any harm without such a long continued stupidity in the State as is utterly inconsistent with all Government of it And on the other side the advantages that accrue to the State by receiving the Church into its protection are so great so certain and so universal that there cannot be a grosser faileur in Policy then to refuse or deny it And here I say for our better direction as every where else we must advise with the practice
by the Roman Writers as his being then but a Novice in the Faith and not sufficiently inform'd of the Discipline of the Church or his being tired out by the restless importunity of the Donatists so that he could enjoy no quiet till he yielded to it These things may be true but they are needless for though it may not be proper for a Lay-man to judge in Ecclesiastical Causes yet it may not be altogether unlawful especially when the Peace of the State depends upon them and that was the Emperour's case at this time all Africa was in an Uproar and in danger to be lost by the Sedition and therefore it highly concern'd him to exert his own Power as he would secure so great a part of his Empire and upon that reason he might take the Judgment upon himself thereby to restrain the Donatists from raising Disturbances and Seditions in the State Though when all is done it is certain that the Emperour never accepted the Appeal nay that he protested against it as an affront to the Divine Authority and setting up his own Power above God's appears not only from his Epistle to the Bishops at Arles but his perpetual Declarations of it And therefore it is not to be supposed that he would be prevail'd with to take upon himself a Judgment that he so solemnly disavowed And therefore his design in hearing the Cause after Judgment was not to judge but to expose the Schismatiques or to suffer them to expose themselves For the cause was already so fully and clearly determin'd at the Council that it could not admit any Review but because they were so restless to have it re-heard before the Emperour himself he at last seem'd to condescend to their importunity when he knew it would prove their fatal overthrow for it is observable that he would not meddle with the business at all till he had the discovery of Ingentius his Forgery in his Pocket with which they were so surprised that instead of following their Suit it utterly dispersed them And for the very same reason he gave them other Hearings after his own Imperial Judgment only to give them the greater scope to lay open themselves and their dishonesty to the World as will appear anon in the foul discovery of Nundinarius the Deacon §. III. But after the Imperial Sentence against them instead of submitting to so great an Authority and such clear Conviction they raise high clamours of injustice and oppression and when they return home put the People into Riots and Tumults and seize a Church in Numidia belonging to the Catholicks and of the Emperors own Foundation Of which when complaint was made to the Empeperor by the Bishops of the Province such was then the fury of the Schismaticks and the disorder of the times that at that time he could send them no other relief then by exhorting them to patience and bestowing a new Church upon them not daring to inflict any punishment upon the Offenders for so long a Train of Sedition but leaving them as himself speaks to the Judgment of God And as he had not long before witten to his Lieutenant Celsus that he should forbear them a while till himself could have leisure to visit Africa sâ—re now assures them that when he comes the Schismaticks shall feel the Event of his Abused Patience and that he doubted not when he came to convince them of such manifest Villany that would utterly spoil all their Glory of Martyrdom For that they gave out to justifie their stubborness against the Imperial Edicts that whatever punishments the Emperor decreed against them they were ready to undergo as Martyrs for the truth of God and therefore that they were so far from dreading any severity that they desired the Execution of Penal Laws against them And so they persist railing at the Emperor for denying Justice and reviling the Catholicks for inciting him to Persecution Till at length he is forced to Enact severe Laws against them and first of all all their Meeting-houses are confiscated to the Crown and accordingly seized on and it hapned very luckily at that time that one Nundinarius a Deacon of the Donatists who was privy to the first contrivance of the Schism at their meeting at Cirta discovers the whole Conspiracy to Zenophilus the Pro-Consul of Numidia and proves both by publick Records and a great number of Witnesses that Silvanus whom they had made Bishop of Cirta and the most factiâ—â—s man of the whole Party was a Traditor and that my Lady Lucilla had given the Numidian Bishops a great sum of Money to depose Caecilian and bestow his Bishoprick upon her Ladyships Chaplain And this discovery being signified by Zenophilus to the Emperor together with a Catalogue of the Seditious Practices of Silvanus he condemns both Silvanus and all the other Ring-leaders of the Faction to perpetual Banishment and that is the utmost severity that he ever proceeded to for though some of them were sentenced to death yet such was his natural Clemency that he turn'd it into banishment and thus by seising their Conventicles and sending away their Leaders he gave himself ease and quiet for some time from their disturbances But now behold the constant ingenuity of all Schismaticks to be sure to beleager the State when ever they find it in any distress and to gain their own ends out of the publick Necessities and to make what demands they please when the Government is not in a condition to contend with them And thus about this time the War between Constantine and Licinius breaking out the Donatists presently accost the Emperor with a bold Petition both for granting liberty of Conscience and recalling Silvanus and his Collegues from Banishment are so confident as to tell him in broad expression that they would suffer a thousand deaths before they would be reconciled to that Prelatical Knave of his Caecilian And yet so involved were the Emperors Affairs at that time that he was forced to grant whatever they demanded and orders Verinus his Vice-Roy in Africk to leave them to their own Liberty And that they used with all manner of Insolence whilst the Civil War lasted neither now would they be satisfied with their own Liberty at home but endeavour to spread their Schism into all parts of the Catholick Church and poyson all the Emperors Dominions with the Spirit of Faction and Sedition What Emissaries they sent into other Churches is not so well known but to Rome they send one Victor as Titular Bishop of that See who took upon himself all â—piscopal Authority over his Party and had many Successors in his Usurpation but not having Liberty to keep their publick meetings in the City they betook themselves to Field Conventicles and Assembled in the Roks and Mountains and from thence were commonly call'd Montenses Campitae and Rupitani This is all that we have recorded of them in this Emperors Reign for he having overcome Licinius and being Master of the