dispersed Jews to have submitted themselves for the Lord's sake unto Kings and other Governours to have obey'd them and honour'd them if he had known them to have had temporal Authority because they did not acknowledge themselves to be his Vassals or that it did not proceed from the great Wisdom of God to abridge in the Apostles of Christ even in St. Peter himself that great Power and Authority which Christ had as appeareth by his words when he said that if he had thought it fit he could have twelve Legions of Angels at his Commandment to have defended him from all his Enemies the Scribes and Pharisees with all their partakers in that perhaps the Apostles even St. Peter himself might have abused it or that it is not more than probable that howsoever St. Peter would have used the said Power and Authority if he had had it if the Bishops of Rome had received it from him they would certainly have made great havock and confusion in the World with it or that if all the Kings and Sovereign Princes in the World had been subject to St. Peter and were thereupon in the like subjection to the Bishops of Rome they both St. Peter and his Successors might not have had ready at their Commandment if Kings and Princes had done their duties more than twelve Legions to have confounded all Men that should have disobey'd them or that therefore it is not as absurd an imagination and conceit for any Man to think that Christ did give so great temporal Authority either to St. Peter or any of his Successors over temporal Kings and Princes that they might have so great Armies when they list at their directions as if any Man should hold that because they are Christ's Vicars they may have twelve Legions from Heaven to do them service if perhaps temporal Kings and Princes should be negligent or refuse to be at such charges at their Commandment or that it is not a kind of madness the true nature of Christ's spiritual Kingdom and Church here upon Earth consider'd for any Man to conceive and thereupon maintain that any such Omnipotency of temporal Power in St. Peter ever was or ever shall be available to vanquish the Devil or remove him out of his Palace or to spoil him of all his Principalities or to beget Faith in the Children of God or to erect in their hearts a Tabernacle for Christ and the Holy Ghost which are only the peculiar and proper actions of our Saviour Christ as he is our Spiritual King and of St. Peter and the rest of the Apostles with all their Successors in their degrees and as they are his Spiritual Ministers He doth greatly Erre CAP. X. The Sum of the Chapter following That the Bishops of Rome have no temporal Authority indirectly over Kings and Princes throughout the Christian World to depose them from their Kingdoms for any cause whatsoever BEcause we have been bold to use the Authority of the Cardinaliz'd Jesuit against the ridiculous Canonists and their Companions the new Sectaries of the Oratory-Congregation concerning the Pope's temporal Authority over all Kings and Princes in the World directly We may not do him so much injury as once to pretend that he favoureth either us or any point of truth for our sakes that we defend It may rather be ascribed unto him for a singular virtue his bringing up and course of life consider'd if he study not to impugn it with all the strength that he hath either of his Wit or Learning Nevertheless albeit he hath travelled exceedingly in his Books de Romano Pontifice to advance the Papacy to his uttermost Ability and had no purpose therein we are well assured to give us any advantage who do oppose our selves against the whole drift of those his Books Yet he hath so muster'd and marshall'd his matters and Forces together as whilst he endeavours to fortifie the Pope's Authority and to encounter the Assaults that have been made against it he hath done more for us against his Will to the prejudice of his Master whom he laboureth to uphold than we could ever have expected at his hands Insomuch as we are verily perswaded the time will come before it be long that his Works will be thrust into the Catalogue Librorum prohibitorum because dealing with our Arguments as he did in the said Books de Romano Pontifice and thinking that he would no further yield to the truth by way of Objection than as he should be able sufficiently to refel it it hath often fall'n out with him as it will ever do with all Impostors that the very meaning of the truth according to the nature of it hath notwithstanding all his cunning very much prevail'd against him to the everlasting glory of her own name and forcible strength to discover Errors like to the Sun 's to expel Darkness We will not here otherwise make proof hereof than as by the matter we have in hand and are purposed to prosecute we are after a sort urged and compelled For albeit hitherto he hath seemed to have joined with us as he hath indeed more than now we are perswaded he doth well vouchsafe yet foreseeing what tempests he was otherwise like to have endured in affirming so peremptorily as he did that the Pope had no temporal Authority at all as he was either Christ's or St Peter's Vicar he minced his matter in the titles of his Chapters to that purpose with the word Directè whereof in his reasons he never made mention and then falleth upon this Issue That Indirectè the Pope hath Authority over all Emperours Kings and Soveraign Princes to hurry them hither and thither to depose and remove them from their Regal Estates and Dignities to dispose of their Kingdoms according to his own Pleasure to release their Subjects of their Oaths and Obedience and to thrust them into all Rebellions Treasons Furies and what not against them In the which his course this is our comfort that by direct dealing the Cardinal did find no ways or means how to withstand the truth but is driven by indirect shifts and by-paths to oppose his labours we fear reclamante Conscientiâ how to save his own Worldly credit he might cast a mist upon the truth if not to depress it which was not in his power yet at the least to obscure it to darken it and perplex it Some of the principal Reasons which he hath used to this purpose mentioned are of this kind and consequence Bona corporis the good things that do appertain to the Body as health especially are to be preferr'd before Bona fortunae as the Philosophers call them that is Riches and all other Worldly Dignities and Preferments whatsoever Therefore the calling of Physicians the end whereof is the health of Mens Bodies is to be preferr'd before all other temporal Callings that are in the World Or thus Natural Parents be they Emperours Kings or Sovereign Princes do give unto their Children their
profession of Christ So as the preservation of the Gospel in these parts of the World may more truly be attributed to the working of the Spirit of God in them than to the Bishops of Rome who have been the chief Authors and occasions of many incredible mischiefs Now lastly and for conclusion of this point had not Satan with all Power and Signs and lying Wonders so inveigled and seduced the hearts and minds of the adherents to the See of Rome as that by degrees they leaving the love of the truth are therefore given over by God unto such strong delusions that they should believe lyes as the Apostle speaketh amongst many other of the gross errours maintained by them we might marvel at this that ever they durst take upon them in these times of so great light to write and defend it with such resolution and confidence that the Ecclesiastical Commonwealth as they term it cannot be perfect nor attain her Spiritual End except the Pope may have the said temporal Power and Authority to depose Kings considering how far the true nature of the Church which is the Spiritual Kingdom of Christ and the true Means and Armour that Christ our Spiritual King hath indeed ordained and appointed for the Edification and Defence of this his Spiritual Kingdom and for the attainment of the supernatural and right end and beauty of it are repugnant to these their Carnal and Worldly conceits Touching the true nature of the Church and Spiritual Kingdom of Christ we have before spoken and the true Spiritual End of the Church being by teaching the ways of truth to bring as many as possibly they can to the knowledge of their Salvation through Christ so as by Faith they may become true Members of his Spiritual Kingdom in the Life to come the means ordain'd for that purpose do contain the full duty and office of all Bishops and Ecclesiastical Ministers who are furnished by Christ neither with temporal Swords nor Imperial Authority to depose Kings and Soveraign Princes but ought to carry themselves toward all Men especially towards Kings and Princes if they be either Pagans or Enemies to Religion as Christ himself and his Apostles did by Preaching and Praying for them by Humility and Patience to endure whatsoever punishment shall be thought fit to be imposed upon them for doing of their duties and never to intermit such their pains and diligence to the end that if it please God to bless those their Ministerial so great labours their Auditors of all sorts private Persons Kings and Prince may be brought to the knowledge of the truth that so Satan being expelled out of their hearts Christ by Faith may raign in them To the effecting of which so great and so divine an alteration and change in Mens Souls there is no Worldly Force nor temporal Sword which will serve the turn And therefore the Apostle speaking of this matter doth write in this sort The Weapons of our Warfare are not carnal as if he should have said We do not come with Troops of Men to promote the Spiritual Kingdom of Christ but with Weapons of another nature with the glad ridings of the Gospel with the Doctrine of Salvation to all Believers and with the Furniture of the Holy Ghost which Weapons are not weak but mighty through God and able to cast down holds that is all the carnal Forces of Men all Principalities and Powers that shall presume to rise up against Christ And through the assurance and experience which both St. Paul and the rest of the Apostles had in the force of these Weapons he saith further that with them they overthrew Councils and every high thing that did exalt it self against the knowledge of God and that they brought into Captivity all imagination or understanding to the obedience of Christ away then with the Pope's Carnal Weapons and with all their Illusions and Juglings that seek to uphold them for such Weapons were never ordain'd by Christ for his Apostolical Warfare CAN. IX AND therefore if any Man shall affirm under colour of any thing that is in the Scriptures either that the external Callings in this World of those Men as Ministers and Schoolmasters that have to deal with the information of Mens Minds and Souls are superiour and to be preferr'd in Honour and Wordly Dignities before the Callings of Kings and Soveraign Princes or that because health is better and more to be desired in this Life than any Worldly Preferments therefore the Calling of Physicians who are ordain'd for the health of Mens Bodies ought to be superiour to all other Worldly Callings or that the Regal and Political Power of the King when it is part of a Christian Commonwealth is thereby brought into greater servitude and thraldom than is the Regal and Political State of Ethnick Princes when the same are no parts of a Christian Kingdom or that to prefer the Ecclesiastical State for Worldly Authority before the State of Kings and Soveraign Princes is not in effect to prefer the humbled Estate of Christ as he was Man living here upon the Earth before his glorious Estate after his Ascension and before the glory and majesty of the Divine Nature or that any Ecclesiastical Authority which the Apostles ordained did either free them or any of their Successors from subjection to Kings and Princes and to their temporal Authority or that St. Peter being an Apostle and so subject to the civil Sword of Temporal Authority could lawfully by any indirect device challenge any temporal Power and Dominion over Kings and Princes for that had been to have extorted the temporal Sword out of their hands to whom it appertain'd and to have incurr'd again the commination of his Master when he told him how all that take the Sword shall perish with the Sword or that it is not a most profane impiety tending altogether to the discredit of the Scriptures for any Man to hold that St. Peter and St. Paul had so instructed the Christians in their times as that they knew if they had been able they might without offence to God have deposed Nero from his Empire or that the Christians in Tertullian's time when they professed that notwithstanding their numbers and forces were so great as they had been able to have distressed very greatly the Estate of the Emperours being then Persecutors they might not so do because Christ their Master had taught them otherwise ought not to be a sufficient Warrant for all true Christians to detest those Men in these days and for ever hereafter who contrary to the Example of the said Christians in the Primitive Church and the Doctrine of Christ which was then taught them do endeavour to perswade them when they shall have sufficient Forces to Rebel against such Kings and Emperours at the Pope's Commandment and to thrust them from their Kingdoms and Empires or that this Devilish Doctrine of animating Subjects to Rebellion when they are able against their
or that through Faith the said Law was not rather establisht than in any sort impeached or that because as many as believe are redeemed and made free from the Curse of the Law they are therefore exempted and free from the obedience of the Law or that by the Incarnation of our Saviour Christ obedience to the Fifth Commandment touching honour due to Parents and Princes was in any sort impeached the rest of the Law being established or that our Saviour Christ having undertaken the fullfilling of the whole Law as far forth at the least as ever Mankind was bound to have fullfilled it came short in this one Law by exempting himself from any obedience due to the civil Magistrate or that he having tied himself according to the said Commandment as well to the obedience of the civil Magistrate as the obedience which was due to his Parents did not whilst he lived in the World fullfil the Law wholly concerning them both or that he did any way or at any time encourage the Jews or any other directly or indirectly to Rebel for any cause whatsoever against the Roman Emperour or any of his subordinate Magistrates or that he did not very willingly both himself pay Tribute to Caesar and also advise the Jews so to do or that when he willed the Jews to pay Tribute to Caesar including therein their duty of obedience unto him he did not therein deal plainly and sincerely but meant secretly that they should be bound no longer to be obedient unto him but until by force they should be able to resist him or that he did not utterly and truly condemn all devices Conferences and resolutions whatsoever either in his own Apostles or in any other Persons for the using of force against civil Authority or that it is or can be more lawful for any private Persons either of St. Peter's calling or of any other Profession to draw their Swords against Authority though in their rash Zeal they should hold it lawful so to do for the preservation of Religion than it was for St. Peter for the preservation of his Masters Life or that by Christs's words above-mentioned all Subjects of what sort soever without exception ought not by the Law of God to perish with the Sword that take and use the Sword for any cause against Kings and Soveraign Princes under whom they were born or under whose Iurisdiction they do inhabit or that seeing our Saviour Christ would not have the Samaritans to be destroyed with Fire from Heaven although they were at that time divided in Religion from the Jews and refused to receive him in Person it is not to be ascribed to the Spirit of Satan for any private Men to attempt by Gunpowder and Fire from Hell to blow up and destroy their Soveraigns and the whole State of the Country where they were born and bred because in their conceits they refused some part of Christ's Doctrine and Government or that Christ did not well and as the said Fifth Commandment did require in submitting himself as he did to Authority although he was first sent for with Swords and Staves as if he had been a Thief and then afterward carried to Pilate and by him albeit he found no evil in him condemned to Death or that by any Doctrine or Example which Christ ever taught or hath left upon good Record it can be proved lawful to any Subjects for any cause of what nature soever to decline either the Authority and Iurisdiction of their Soveraign Princes or of any their lawful Deputies and inferiour Magistrates ruling under them He doth greatly Erre CAP. III. 'T IS many ways very plain and evident that the Jews did expound all those places of the Prophets which do notably set forth the spiritual Kingdom of our Saviour Christ to be meant of a temporal Kingdom which he should erect upon the Earth And upon that false ground they did imagine that when their expected Messiah should come into the World he was to advance them unto a glorious Estate here upon Earth and to reign in the midst of them as a most mighty and temporal Monarch Which erroneous conceit when Herod heard of the Birth of Christ made him to fear lest the new-born Babe should deprive him of his Kingdom and induced him thereupon to seek his destruction Thence also did proceed that when the People were so much moved with admiration of one of Christs Miracles as that they used these words This is of a truth the Prophet which should come into the World they presently devised how they should make him their King But Christ perceiving their drift prevented their purpose by departing from them as well observing and knowing that their erroneous imagination of him Nay the better sort of those that followed Christ were not free from this erroneous cogitation as it appeareth by the Petition that the Mother of Zebedee's Children made unto Christ saying Grant that these my two Sons may sit the one at thy right hand and the other at thy left hand in thy Kingdom It seemeth by St. Mark that her said two Sons James and John did join with their Mother and made likewise the same Petition themselves unto Christ in their own Names And it is plain that the rest of the Apostles having aspiring Minds to have been great Men in the World as dreaming of a Temporal Kingdom that Christ was in time to establish amongst them when they heard this Suit did begin as the Evangelists testifie to disdain at James and John for seeking in that sort to prefer themselves before them some of them perhaps thinking themselves more worthy of those two great Dignities than either of them were But our Saviour Christ finding these carnal Imaginations amongst them did throughly reprove them for those their vain conceits and did make it well known unto them how far they over-shot themselves when they supposed that he should become a Temporal King or that they themselves should be honoured by him with Temporal Principalities Which Course also our Saviour Christ held when as St. Luke saith There arose a strife amongst the Apostles which of them should be the greatest For then they persisting in their former Errour he did again renew his Reproof if this were a several contention from the former saying unto them The Kings of the Gentiles reign over them and they that bear rule over them are called Benefactors as using to reward their Servants with great and extraordinary worldly Preferments or as St. Matthew recordeth Christ's Words whether upon this or the former Occasion mentioned it is not greatly material because they are all one in sense Ye know that the Lords of the Gentiles have Dominion over them and they that are great exercise authority over them but saith Christ it shall not be so among you But whosoever will be great among you let him be your servant even as the Son of Man came not to be served but to
that was held necessary for the Apostles times or that Order so much commended amongst all Men and is most properly termed Parium dispariumque rerum sua cuique loca tribuens Dispositio should be necessary to build the Church but unfit to preserve it or that the same Artisans that are most meet to build this or that House are not the fittest both to keep the same in good Reparations and likewise to build other Houses when there is cause No Man can doubt who is of any reading but that when the Apostles died there were many defects in many Churches and that likewise there were a number of places in the World where the Apostles had never been and where there were no Churches planted or established Whereupon it followeth of necessity that if the said Form of Government in the Apostles days was then necessary for the planting and ordering of Churches that the same did continue to be as necessary afterward for the supplying of such defects as were left in some Churches and for the planting and ordering of other Churches in those places that had not received the Gospel whilst the Apostles lived And to this purpose it doth much avail that for ought we can find there can no one Nation or Country be named since the Apostles days neither in times of Persecution nor since but when it first received the Faith of Christ it had thereupon both Bishops and Archbishops placed in it for the Government of the Churches that were there planted imitating therein for their more certain direction the Government of the Churches that were erected by the Apostles and had been deduced from them agreeable in substance with the Form of Ecclesiastical Government that was once amongst God's own People the Jews Which was no new conceit amongst the ancient Fathers as it may appear by the words of one of them Who saith in effect that Bishops Priests and Deacons may challenge now that Authority in the Church which Aaron and his Sons and the Levites had in times past and that the Apostles in establishing of their Government in the New Testament had respect to that which was in the Old for as much as concern'd the Essential parts of that Priesthood Moreover the Primitive Churches presently after the Apostles times finding in the New Testament no one person to have been ordain'd a Priest or Minister of the Gospel mediately by Men but either by Imposition of the Apostles hands or of their hands to whom they gave Authority in that behalf as unto Timothy and Titus and such other Bishops as they were and knowing that the Church of Christ should never be left destitute of Priests and Bishops for the work of the Ministry they durst not presume upon their own heads to devise a new form of making of Ministers nor to commit that Authority unto any other after their own Fancies but held it their bounden duty to leave the same where they found it viz. in the hands of Timothy and Titus and consequently of other Bishops their Successors Whereupon it followeth very necessarily that none of the Primitive Churches or ancient Fathers did ever so much as once dream that the Authority given by St. Paul to Timothy and to Titus and to the rest who were then made Bishops as well for the ordering of Priests as for the further order and government of the Church did determine by the death of the Apostles Considering that presently after as long as they were in being and lived and ever since till very lately it was held by them altogether unlawful for any to ordain a Priest or Minister of the Word except he were himself a Bishop and no one approved Example for the space of above 1500. years can be shewed for ought we find to the contrary It is true that one Coluthus being himself but a Priest would needs take upon him to make Priests in spleen against his own Bishop the Bishop of Alexandria with whom he was then fallen at variance and that the like attempt was made by one Maximus supposing himself to have been a Bishop where he was indeed but a Priest as it was decided by the first Council of Constantinople Howbeit such their Ordinations were accounted void and utterly condemn'd as unlawful they themselves not escaping such just reproof as so great a Novelty and presumption did deserve We acknowledge that for the great dignity of the Action of Ordination it was decreed by another Council That Priests should lay their hands with the Bishop upon him that was to be made Priest but they had not thereby any Power of Ordination but only did it to testifie their consent thereunto and likewise to concur in the blessing of him neither might they ever in that sort impose their hands upon any without their Bishops Again the said Primitive Churches and ancient Fathers finding how the Apostles by the Inspiration of the Holy Ghost had ordained Bishops Timothy Titus and such like for the ordering and appeasing of such Quarrels and Contentions as arise amongst the Ministers and People for want of some amongst them of Authority to govern them they might thereby have been confirmed more and more in their Judgments if at any time they had doubted of it concerning the necessity of that Apostolical Form of Government that it was for ever to continue to the end the Schisms and contentious Persons might be still by the same means suppressed that they were whilst the Apostles lived For they ever observed what the want of Bishops would work in the Church and how the contempt of them and disobedience to their directions was always a chief cause of Sects and Schisms Which made them easily to discern that if the Apostles had not provided for the continuance of their Apostolical Authority in Bishops who were to succeed them in the Government of the Church but had left an equality in the Clergy that every one might have proceeded in his own particular Church after his own Fashion there would have been nothing in the Church but Disorder Scandals Sects Schisms and all manner of Confusion One of the ancient Fathers perceiving in his time what Pride and Contempt certain unstaid and contentious Persons shewed toward their Archbishops did lay it upon them as a property of Hereticks and feared not to compare them to the Devils These are his words Quilibet haereticus c. loquens cum Pontifice nec eum vocat Pontificem nec Archiepiscopum nec Religiosissimum nec Sanctum sed quid Reverentia tua nomina illi adducit communia ejus negans autoritatem Diabolus hoc tum fecit in Deo Ero similis Altissimo Non Deo sed Altissimo And another Father long before the days of the former did accordingly observe that Hereticks and Schismaticks did usually spring from no other Fountain but his Quod Sacerdoti Dei non obtemperatur nec unus in Ecclesia ad tempus Sacerdos ad tempus Judex vice Christi cogitatur
dispose them all according to his divine pleasure Yet the Parasitical and sottish Crew of Romish Canonists with the new Sectaries their Companions will assuredly moil and repine thereat telling us by the Pen of one of their Fellows the veriest Idiot we think amongst them That all Power Dominion and Worldly Principality was left by Christ after his Ascension unto St. Peter That two times are to be considered in Christ the one before his Passion when propter humilitatem he refused to judge that is to shew himself a Temporal Magistrate the other after his Resurrection and then he said All Power is given unto me in Heaven and in Earth That Christ after his Resurrection gave his Power to St. Peter and made him his Vicar and that ex potestate Domini the Power of his Vicar is to be measured And to advance that Power as highly as he can supposing that what he can say thereof doth belong to St. Peter he quoteth a number of places out of the Scriptures concerning the Dignity Honour Royalty and Majesty attributed to our Saviour Christ after his Resurrection and Ascension by reason of the Unition so oft before by us mentioned and doth conclude That cessantibus rationibus humilitatis necessitatis atque paupertatis that the reasons of his former humility necessity and poverty ceasing Christ did shew himself to be the Lord of all ut ascensurus ad Patrem eandem potestatem Petro relinqueret And moreover he is peremptory that Peter did exercise this temporal Power in suâ propriâ naturâ temporaliter in the proper nature of it temporally for it is said in the Acts c. 5. that he condemn'd Ananias and Sapphira pro crimine facti ad panam civiliter for the crime of a fact to a punishment civilly Now if Peter were so great a Temporal Monarch whilst he lived what must we think of his Vicar the Pope and how royal is the Estate of all Archbishops and Bishops that have any dependency upon him For as the especial Jesuit and Cardinal an Enemy to the Canonists in this point doth infer Si Papa est Dominus totius orbis Christiani supremus ergo singuli Episcopi sunt principes temporales in oppidis suo Episcopatui subjectis If the Pope be Lord of all the Christian World then it followeth that all particular Bishops are temporal Princes in the Cities and Towns subject to their Bishopricks To the manifestation of all which the said Canonist his so absurd and gross assertions before we proceed any further We hold it not unfit for the reasons elsewhere specified by us when we shewed that Christ was no temporal Lord nor had any temporal Dominion after the manner of other Kings First to hear the Cardinal how he shaketh the very ground-work and foundation of all these Vanities For whereas his Opposites would make St. Peter and consequently the Pope his Successor to derive such their infinite Power and temporal Authority from Christ after his Resurrection as he was then a Man immortal and glorious having cast off his former infirmities and mortality The Cardinal is resolute to the contrary and doth reason in this sort Christus ut homo dum in terris vixit non accepit nec voluit ullum temporale Dominium Summus autem Pontifex Christi Vicarius est Christum nobis repraesentat qualis erat dum hic inter homines viveret Igitur summus Pontifex ut Christi Vicarius atque adeo ut summus Pontifex est nullum habet temporale Dominium Christ as he was Man and lived upon the Earth neither did nor would receive any temporal Dominion But the Pope is Christ's Vicar and doth represent Christ unto us in that Estate and Condition that he lived in here amongst Men therefore the Pope as Christ's Vicar and so as he is the highest Bishop hath no temporal Dominion And again Dicimus Papam habere illud Officium quod habuit Christus dum in terris inter homines humano more viveret Neque enim Pontifici possumus tribuere officia quae habuit Christus ut Deus vel ut homo immortalis gloriosus sed solum ea quae habuit ut homo mortalis We say that the Pope hath that Office that Christ had when he lived in the Earth amongst Men after the manner of Men for we cannot ascribe unto him those Offices which Christ hath as he is God or as he is Man immortal and glorious but only those which he had as a mortal Man Neither doth he stay here but goeth on forward saying Add that the Pope hath not all that Power which Christ had as a mortal Man For He because he was God and Man had a certain Power which is called a Power of Excellency by the which he govern'd both faithful Men and Insidels but the Pope hath only committed unto him his Sheep that is such Persons as are faithful Again Christ had Power to institute Sacraments and to work Miracles by his own Authority which things the Pope cannot do Also Christ might absolve Men from their Sins without the Sacraments which the Pope cannot Nay the Cardinal was so far from believing that all Power and Worldly Principality was left by Christ unto St. Peter and so unto his Successors as he confesseth in effect that neither St. Peter as he was Bishop of Rome nor any of his Successors can challenge so much as a rural Farm or any other kind of temporal Possessions which have not been given unto them by the Emperours and other Temporal Princes And lest such gifts might be held by any to be unlawful he to prove the contrary alledgeth that they were godly Princes who so endowed the Church of Rome These are his words Qui donaverunt Episcopo Romano aliisque Episcopis Principatus temporales pii homines fuerunt eâ de causâ praecipuè à totâ Ecclesiâ commendati sunt ut patet de Constantino Carolo magno Ludovico ejus silio qui inde Pius appellatus est They who gave to the Bishop of Rome and other Bishops temporal Principalities were godly Men and for that cause especially were commended by the whole Church as appeareth ofConstantine Charles the Great and Lewis his Son who in that respect was called Lewis the Godly Again That the Pope holdeth in right that Principality which he hath may easily be perceived quia dono Principum habuit because he had it by the gift of Princes Of which gifts he saith the Authentical Instruments remain still in Rome adding nevertheless that if they had been lost abunde sufficeret praescriptio octingentorum annorum that a prescription of 800. years were abundantly sufficient to prove the Pope's right And unto these words of Bernard Forma Apostolica haec est interdicitur Dominatio indicitur Ministratio he answereth that Bernard doth speak of the Bishop of Rome secundum id quod habet ex Christi institutione Also
with Rods. I was once stoned I suffered thrice Shipwrack Night and day have I been in the deep Sea In Journying I was often in perils of Water in perils of Robbers in perils of mine own Nation in perils amongst the Gentiles in perils in the Wilderness in perils in the Sea in perils amongst false Brethren In weariness and painfulness in watching often in hunger and thirst in fastings often in cold and nakedness Besides these things which are outward I am cumber'd daily and have the care of all the Churches Much is not written of St. Peter by the Evangelist St. Luke but it is not to be doubted that his Case was as bad as any of his Fellows When he began to Preach he was call'd in question with great eagerness and vehemently threatned Also with some other of the Apostles he was cast into Prison and beaten Likewise when James was killed by Herod's Commandment Peter was again Imprisoned and loaden with Irons and had assuredly in all likelyhood escaped hardly with his Life but that the Angel of the Lord delivered him In a word after many Afflictions Injuries Calamities and Miseries endured by the Apostles whilst they lived in this World they were in the end as well St. Peter as almost all the rest most spitefully and cruelly by the Enemies of Christ and of their own Salvation put to Death During the course of whose lives in so great dangers and manifold distresses out of question they would greatly have marvelled their hard Estates consider'd but especially St. Peter if he had known himself to be the sole Monarch under Christ over all the World and that the Emperour and all other Kings had been at that time his Vassals and that likewise they the rest of the Apostles had been under St. Peter so many Soveraign and Temporal Princes to have commanded and ruled amongst them throughout the whole World Neither do we see any true cause that might have moved St. Peter to have concealed that his so eminent temporal Power and Authority if he had thought it to have been the Ordinance of God or at least if he for modesty would have been silent why the rest of the Apostles should not have published it that the civil and temporal States in those times who knew no such Ordination made by Christ might have been left inexcusable Besides the concealing of a truth of so great importance was an injury offered to all the faithful in those days who had they been truly taught in these Mens conceits ought to have left their Obedience to the Emperour in all temporal Causes and for the dignity of the Gospel to have adher'd unto St. Peter to have been directed in them by him their temporal Monarch The consideration of all which inconveniences and consequents doth perswade us to think that none of the Apostles ever dreamed of any such temporal Soveraignty notwithstanding that they knew well the Scriptures how Christ told them That All Power in Heaven and Earth was given unto him how St. Peter had two Swords and how Ananias and Sapphira for lying to the Holy Ghost were stricken suddenly from Heaven with Death Touching the two first of which places the same being notoriously abused and wrested by the Canonists and their Adherents to prove the Popes temporal Monarchy the said Cardinal doth very resolutely reject the Arguments which are thence by them deduced And to the first he answereth Potestatem de quâ hic loquitur Dominus non esse potestatem temporalem ut Regnum terrenorum sed vel tantùm spiritualem ut B. Hieronymus B. Anselmus exponunt qui hunc esse volunt sensum eorum verborum Data est mihi omnis potestas in coelo in terrâ i.e. ut sicut in coelo Rex sum Angelorum ità per fidem regnem in cordibus hominum vel ut addit Theophylactus esse potestatem quandam summam in omnes creaturas non temporalem sed divinam vel divinae simillimam quae non potest communicari homini mortali That the Power whereof the Lord here speaketh is not a temporal Power like the Power of terrene Kings but it is either a spiritual Power as St. Hierom and St. Anselm do expound the said place who will have this to be the sense of those words All Power is given me in Heaven and Earth which is to say that as in Heaven I am King of Angels so by Faith I do reign in the hearts of Men or as Theophylact addeth it is a certain supream Power not temporal but divine or most like to the Divine Power which cannot be communicated to any mortal Man And for the second Argument drawn from St. Peter 's two Swords the same is set down by our said Cardinal in these words Secundò objiciunt Scripturam Luc. 22. Vbi Dominus duos gladios Petro concedit Cùm enim Discipuli dicerent Ecce duo gladii hic Dominus non ait nimis est sed satis est Quare B. Bernardus 4. 4. de Consid Bonifacius octavus in Extravag Vnam sanctam de Majoritate Obedientiâ ex hoc loco deducunt Pontisicem duos gladios ex Christi institutione habere that is Secondly they object the Scriptures Luc. 22. Where the Lord doth grant two Swords to Peter For when the Disciples said Behold here are two Swords the Lord answered not they are too many but they are sufficient Therefore St. Bernard and Boniface the eighth do hence deduce that the Bishop of Rome by Christ's Institution hath two Swords Unto which objection our Cardinal saith thus Respondeo ad Literam nullam fieri mentionem in eo loco Evangelii de gladio spirituali vel temporali Pontificis sed solum Dominum illis verbis monere voluisse Discipulos tempore Passionis suae in iis angustiis metu ipsos futuros fuisse in quibus esse solent qui tunicam vendunt ut emant gladium ut ex Theophylacto aliisque Patribus colligitur I answer that according to the Letter there is no mention made in that place of the Gospel either of the spiritual or temporal Sword of the Bishop of Rome but that Christ meant only in those words to admonish his Disciples how they should be in the time of his Passion in those straights and fear wherein Men are accustomed to be who sell their Coat to buy them a Sword as it is to be collected out of Theophylact and other Fathers And for Bernard and Boniface he saith They did expound the said place mystically and meant not to have their words so far extended as the Objector would have them Which answer it is likely Bernard if he were now alive would take in good part but assuredly if any Cardinal in Bonifacius 's days had made it he would have smarted for it and might perhaps have tried the depth of Tiber. Neither do we suppose that the now Pope will give him any great thanks for it nor
that in all likelyhood he hath received any greater commendation for his plain dealing in answer to another Objection which is grounded upon the Authority of Pope Nicholas Who in an Epistle of his to Michael the Emperour of Constantinople doth write thus Christus B. Petro vitae aeternae clavigero terreni simul coelestis Imperii Jura commisti Christ did commit to St. Peter the Key bearer of Everlasting Lise the right and interest both of the Earthly and of the Heavenly Empire To which saying of Pope Nicholas the Cardinal maketh two answers Ad testimonium Nicolai dico Imprimis illud citari à Gratiano d. 22. Can. Omnes sed non inveniri inter Epistolas Nicolai Papae To the testimony of Pope Nicholas I answer First that the said is cited by Gratian but it is not to be found amongst the Epistles of Pope Nicholas As if he should have said That testimony is forged And the effect of his second Answer is That if any Man shall urge that Testimony of Pope Nicholas in the sense objected they make him directly repugnant to himself in the rest of the said Epistle And concerning the other Argument by our said Canonist alledged of the Death of Ananias and Sapphira the ancient Fathers in the Primitive Church would certainly have scorn'd it if ever they had heard of it Peter knowing by the instinct of the Holy Ghost that Satan had possessed both their hearts and how they lied not to Men but to God did only pronounce that Sentence of Death upon them which the holy Spirit did suggest unto him Wherein although there may appear what force the Sword of the Spirit which is the Word of God had when it was brandished by St. Peter through the Operation of the Holy Ghost there was assuredly no use of any material and civil Sword for if there had another manner of Form of outward Justice would first have been held before they had been Executed And to conclude this point We do freely profess That the nature of Christ his Spiritual Kingdom being throughly weighed we cannot find to what purpose either St. Peter or any of his Successors should have been made temporal Monarchs over all the Civil Magistrates in the World because all their temporal Forces and Swords joined together had not been able to have vanquished one wicked Spirit of the Air or have open'd the door of any one Man's heart for Christ or the Holy Ghost to have entered and have made their habitation in it CAN. VIII IF therefore any Man shall affirm under colour of any thing that is in the Scriptures either that our Saviour Christ hath otherwise committed the World to be governed under him by Kings and Soveraign Princes but so as he himself with his Regal Scepter doth rule and govern them all according to his Divine Pleasure or that it is not a sound Argument that the Bishops of Rome in taking upon them to be temporal Kings have wholly perverted the Institution of Christ in that behalf in that they are driven to justify their facts therein by the Examples of the Maccabees and those times of so great confusion or that our Saviour Christ whilst he was here upon the Earth did not fully content himself to be only a Spiritual King to rule in Mens hearts or that to the end he might erect such a Spiritual Kingdom he did not conquer the Devil Sin Death and Hell and thereby took possession in the hearts of all true Believers or that before our Saviour Christ doth begin to reign in Man's heart he doth not first by the Ministry of his Word beget a lively Faith in it or that whilst he lived here in the World he did not satisfy himself for our sakes with a very mean and poor Estate being in himself most rich because he was God and in his humanity the Heir of all things or that he did not Institute and Ordain a Priesthood or Ministry to continue to the end of the World for the continuance and augmenting of his Spiritual Kingdom or that the Children of God notwithstanding that they are redeemed through Faith by Christ and delivered out of the Iaws of Hell and Satan are not still to take heed and beware of him and to arm themselves accordingly against his Forces or that our Saviour Christ when he told his Apostles and Disciples That the Servant is not above his Lord but that whosoever would be a perfect Disciple should be as his Master did not mean that his Apostles and after them their Successors Archbishops Bishops and the rest of the Ministry should hold their Services and Offices under him to do as he did when he was a Mortal Man of poor Estate and subject to many bad Vsages and Injuries or that because our Saviour Christ after his Resurrection and Ascension when he was become a Man Immortal and Glorious did then enlarge the Commission of his Apostles and ordain'd by them a succession of the Ministry for the government of the Church he did thereby make them any more partakers of his Regal Authority whereof his humane nature was then actually possessed for the state and exercise thereof by reason of the free and unrestrained Operation of his Deity than he made their natural and corruptible Bodies incorrupt and spiritual Bodies or endowed them in this life with any of that Glory Power and Heavenly Estate which they were to enjoy after their Deaths and blessed Resurrection or that the Apostles after Christ's Death not exempting St. Peter did not find their Estates in this World very suitable to their Master's whilst he lived with them all things happening unto them as he had foretold them or that either St. Peter or any of the Apostles or of their Successors either then or since that time could challenge so much as this or that one temporal farm by virtue of their Ecclesiastical Functions more than their Master had or that either they were themselves possessed with as their own before they were called to that Ministration or than was afterward given unto them by godly Emperors Kings and Princes and other devout and religious Persons or that if St. Peter had known himself to have been under Christ the sole temporal Monarch of the World it had not been his duty to have made the same known at least to the Apostles and such as were converted to Christ to the end they might have honour'd him accordingly as his dutiful and loyal Subjects or that it had not in all probability if St. Peter meant to shew himself to be a temporal King by the Deaths of Ananias and Sapphira been much more expedient for the success of the Gospel in those days if he had used such his Regal Authority against those civil Magistrates which were Enemies to Christ and to all that Preached in his name or that it may be rightly imagin'd with our dutiful regard of St. Peter's Sincerity that ever he would have been so earnest with the
Nero who was a Persecutor and shall we think that St. Peter and St. Paul had taught the Christians in those days to have thrust Nero from his Imperial Seat by force of Arms if they had been able Certainly it is a blasphemous assertion and worthy of as great a Censure as if he had termed those holy Men in plain terms Dissembling Traytors or denied the Scriptures to have been written by the Inspiration of the Holy Ghost Again he himself is not ignorant how grosly he lieth even against his own Conscience in saying that it was for want of strength that the Christians in the days of the other persecuting Emperours did not rebel against them Tertullian in express terms affirming the contrary First that they the Christians in his times wanted no Forces to have born Arms and endanger'd the whole Empire And secondly That it was far from their hearts so to do because they had been taught otherwise by the Doctrine of Christ in his holy Gospel Besides it is apparent that in and about Tertullian's time these four were Bishops of Rome Victor Zephyrinus Calixtus and Vrbanus so as the Cardinal doth in effect cast a great Imputation upon them of negligence or insincerity that the Christians in their days wanting neither number nor strength to have bridled their bad Emperours they by their Papal Authority did not depose them Dioclesian began his Empire about the year 288. during the time of whose Government Gaius Marcellinus and Marcellus were Popes when the number of Christians was greatly encreased throughout all the World and yet for ought that appeareth to the contrary no Man living either Pope Priest or Prelate did so much as then dream of this damnable Doctrine Julian the Apostate began his Reign about the year of Christ 360. and Valens 8. years after him in whose times Liberius and Damasus were Bishops of Rome which Damasus was a Man that wanted no Courage nevertheless we do not read that either he or Liberius ever attempted to Excommunicate or depose either of those Emperours or that they held it lawful for them so to have done In the space of time betwixt Nero and Damasus the most principal Men of all the ancient Fathers lived as Justinus Martyr Irenaeus Clemens Alexandrinus Tertullian Origen Cyprian Athanasius Jerom and Augustin who never had learned nor did in their times teach it for sound Doctrine either that the Christians had Authority to bear Arms against their Soveraigns or that the Bishops of Rome might lawfully depose Kings and Princes either for Heresy or for Cruelty and thrust their Subjects to serve their turns into such furious and rebellious courses So as it was great boldness for the Cardinal of his own Head to broach so palpable an untruth especially seeing it carrieth with it so many Arguments to convince his want herein of all Honesty Sincerity and Conscience But why should we be so earnest with the Man considering that although it be certain that neither St. Peter not St. Paul nor any of the said ancient Fathers or Popes ever thought it lawful to depose such Emperours and Kings as before we have spoken of when they should be able through the Numbers and Forces of Christians so to do Yet the same did proceed in the most of them from their Ignorance and want of Learning For saith he that Christians if they had been able might so have done is apparent by the Apostle's words where it is plain that they had authority to make Judges and consequently that if they had been able they might have thrust the said wicked Emperours from their Thrones and have made to themselves new Kings of their own Assuredly the Devil himself did never abuse any place of Scripture for ought that we remember so palpably and grosly as the Cardinal doth this and therefore we will bestow no great Pains to refute him It shall be sufficient briefly to observe that in the Judgments of Jerom Austin Ambrose and Chrysostome the Judges which here the Apostle speaketh of were only such as might by way of Arbitrement end such Suits as arose amongst Christians in those days and not such Judges as by Law and Authority might have compelled them to have stood to their Sentences for that had been indeed to have encroached upon the Authority of the civil Magistrate which was far from the Apostle's intent and meaning And therefore saith Theodoret Sciendum est c. It is to be observed that these words of chusing Arbiters do not repugn to those things which are written to the Romans For here the Apostle doth not command Christians to resist the Magistrates but willeth them that are injured not to use the Magistrates meaning that it was fitter for Christians to compound their causes and quarrels amongst themselves rather than to the dishonour of their Profession contend before such Magistrates as were Infidels and were like enough to despise and contemn them because they could not better agree amongst themselves And the Cardinal 's own Doctor commenting likewise upon this place doth write in this sort Sed videtur c. But that which is here said by the Apostle doth seem to be contrary to that which St. Peter saith Be subject to every humane Creature for God whether to King as excelling or to Rulers as sent by him For it doth appertain to the Authority of a Prince to judge of his Subjects and therefore it is against the Law of God to prohibit that a Subject should submit himself to the Judgment-Seat of his Prince if he be an Infidel Sed dicendum c. But it is to be answered that the Apostle doth not here forbid but that faithful Men living under Princes that are Infidels may appear in their Judicial Seats if they be called for this were against the Subjection which is due unto Princes but he forbiddeth that faithful Men do not of their own accord voluntarily choose the Judgment-Seat of Infidels But if these Authorities will not serve we will be bold to present against him the Judgment of a whole College first published in Rhemes and then set out again the second time by the same College at Doway approved in both Places at Rhemes by Petrus Remigius Hubertus Morus Johannes Lebesque Guil. Balbus and at Doway by Will. Estius Barth Petrus Judocus Heylens all of them great Doctors of Divinity in those Places and one a Doctor of the Canon Law Vicar general of the Archbishoprick of Rhemes The said College writing upon these words But brother with brother contendeth in Judgment and that before Infidels saith thus To be given much to Brabling and Litigiousness for every trifle to spend a pound rather than lose a penny the Apostle much reprehendeth in Christian Men. For a Christian Man to draw another to the Judgment-Seats and Courts of Heathen Princes which then only raigned and not to suffer their Controversies and Quarrels to be taken up among themselves Brotherly and peaceably was a great
Churches for the space of 300. years brought the Ecclesiastical Commonwealth as here it is termed unto her Spiritual End as directly and fully as either the Bishops of Rome or any other Bishops have at any time done since and yet they took no Power and Authority upon them nor did challenge the same of disposing of temporal Kingdoms or Deposing of Princes Besides if such an indirect temporal Power be so necessary in these days for the upholding the Ecclesiastical Commonwealth as that without the same she cannot attain the Spiritual End or be a perfect Ecclesiastical Commonwealth when there are so many Christian Kings and Princes then was the same much more necessary for the attainment of the same end in the said times of Christ of his Apostles and of the Churches in the Ages following for 300. years when the civil Magistrates were Pagans and Infidels and for the most part Persecutors of the truth But we hope we may be bold without offence to say that there appeared then no such necessity of this pretended temporal Power and Authority in any Ecclesiastical Persons over Kings and Kingdoms for the disposing of them and that nevertheless the Ecclesiastical Commonwealth in those times did attain her Spiritual End and was as perfect an Ecclesiastical Common-wealth as it is now under the Pope's Government notwithstanding all his temporal Sovereignty wherein he so ruffleth Again we are perswaded that it cannot be shewed out of any of the ancient Fathers or by any general Council for the space of above 500. years after Christ that the Bishops of Rome were ever imagin'd to have such temporal Authority to depose Kings as now is maintained much less was it ever dream'd of during that time that such Authority was necessary for the attaining the Spiritual End whereunto the true Church of Christ ought to aim or that the Ecclesiastical Commonwealth ordain'd by Christ and his Apostles could not be perfect without it It were a miserable shift if any should either say that during all the times above-mention'd first the Apostles and then the holy Bishops Martyrs and Fathers after them were ignorant of this new temporal Power or at least did not so throughly consider of the necessity of it as they might have done or that whilst they lived there could indeed no such matter be collected out of the Scriptures for that in those days the Scriptures had not received such a sense and meaning as might support the same but that afterward when the Bishops of Rome did think it necessary to challenge to themselves such temporal Authority over both Kings and Kingdoms the sense and meaning of the Scripture was alter'd But be this shift never so wretched or miserable yet for ought we perceive they are in effect and still will be both in this cause and many others driven unto it the Scriptures being in their hands a very Rule of Lead and Nose of Wax as in another more fit place we shall have occasion to shew moreover if the Bishops of Rome have this great temporal Authority over Kings and Soveraign Princes to preserve the State of the Church here upon Earth that she may attain her Spiritual End assuredly he hath made little use of it to that purpose For it is well known and cannot be denied that for the first 300. years of Christ the Doctrine of the Gospel did flourish far and near in Greece Thracia Sclavonia Hungary Asia minor Syria Assyria Egypt and throughout the most part of Africk where there were many very worthy Apostolical and notable Churches in the most of which places there are scarce in these days any footsteps or visible Monuments of them And although afterward during the space of above 700. years much mischief was wrought in these parts of the World better known unto us than the rest by sundry sorts of Scythians and Northern People yet after the days of Gregory the Seventh when the Bishops of Rome did most vaunt of this their Soveraign Power over Kings and Princes the Turks gained and encroached more upon Christendom still retaining that which they then had so gotten than at any time before Whereby it is to us very evident that neither Christ nor his Apostles ever ordained that the means of building of the Church of Christ and the conservation of it should consist in the temporal Power or Authority of any of their Successors to deprive Emperours or Kings from their Imperial or Regal Estates and that the Bishops of Rome may be ashamed that having had so great Authority in their own hands extorted from the Emperours and other Kings per fas nefas since Gregory the Seventh's time they have made no better use of it but suffer'd so many famous Countries and Kingdoms to be utterly over-run and wasted by Pagans and Infidels considering that they pretend themselves to have so great an Authority for no other purpose but only the preservation of the Church that she might not be prevented of her Spiritual End But what should we speak of the shame of Rome whose forehead hath been so long since hardned or ever imagine that Almighty God either did or will bless her Usurpations and Insolencies against Emperours Kings and Princes for any good to his Church other than must accrue unto her through her Persecutions and Afflictions For it were no great labour to make it most apparent by very many Histories if we would insist upon it that the Bishops of Rome in striving first to get and then to uphold after their scrambling manner this their wicked and usurped Authority of troubling and vexing Christian Kingdoms and States with their manifold Oppressions and quarrels have been some special means whereupon the Saracens Turks and Pagans have wrought and by degrees brought so great a part of Christendom under their Slavery as now they are possessed of For it is but an idle and a vain pretence that the preservation of as much of Christendom as is yet free from the Turk and Paganism is to be ascribed to the Bishop of Rome and his Authority that so the Catholick Church might attain her Spiritual End which ought to be the planting of Churches and Conservation of 'em it being most manifest to as many as have any wit experience and sound Judgment that as the very situation of the said Countries which now Pagans enjoy made them very subject unto the Incursion and Invasions of Saracens and Turks God himself for his own Glory having his Finger and just operation therein so through his most merciful goodness and care of his Church he blessed the situation of the rest of Christendom being now free in that respect from those kind of violences and endowed the hearts of Christian Kings and Princes with such Courage and Constancy in defence of Christianity and of their Kingdoms as notwithstanding that the Popes did greatly vex them in the mean while they did mightily repel the Forces of their Enemies and most religiously uphold and maintain the
Soveraigns either for their Cruelty Heresy or Apostasie was ever taught in the Church of Christ by any of the ancient Fathers abovementioned during the Reigns of Dioclesian or Julian the Apostate or Valens the Arrian or of any other the Wicked Emperours before them or that it is not a wicked perverting of the Apostles words to the Corinthians touching their choice of Arbitrators to end dissentions amongst themselves rather than draw their Brethren before Iudges that were Infidels to infer thereof either that St. Paul intended thereby to impeach in any sort the Authority of the civil Magistrates as if he had meant they should have chosen such Iudges as by civil Authority might otherwise have bound them than by their own consents to have stood to their Award or to authorize Christian Subjects when they are able to thrust their lawful Soveraigns from their Regal Seats and to choose unto themselves new Kings into their places or that any of the said ancient Fathers or godly learned Men for many hundred years after Christ did ever so grosly and irreligiously expound the said place of the Apostle as our Cardinaliz'd Jesuit hath done or that it can be collected out of the Scriptures that either Christ or any of his Apostles did at any time teach or preach that they who meant to be Baptized must receive that Sacrament upon Condition that if at any time afterward they should not be obedient to St. Peter for his time and to his Successors they were to lose and be deprived of all their temporal Estates and Possessions or that it can be proved either out of the Scriptures or by any of the said ancient Fathers or shewed in any ancient Form of Administration of Baptism that ever there was any such Covenant made by any such faithful Persons when they were Baptized or required of them to be made by any that Baptized them or that if such a Covenant were by Christ's Ordinance to be made in Baptism it ought not as well to be made by Farmers by Gentlemen possessed of Mannours and by Lords of greater Revenues and Possessions as by Kings and Soveraign Princes or that it were not an absurd Imagination to think that Christ and his Apostles did only mean that Emperours Kings and Soveraign Princes should be received to Baptism upon the said Condition or that all Christian Men ought not to judge that the eleven Apostles if they had known of any such bargain or condition in Baptism would have dealt as faithfully with the Church and in the behalf of St. Peter in preaching and teaching the same as now our Cardinal and other such like Persons of the Roman strain do by their Writing Publishing and maintaining of it in the behalf of the Bishops of Rome or that either Christ or his Apostles knowing that Baptism ought to be received with such a Condition did think it convenient that the same should be concealed not only whilst they lived but for many hundred years afterward until the Bishops of Rome should be grown to such a head and strength as that they might without fear of any inconveniencies make the whole Christian World acquainted with it or that it is not an idle conceit for any Man to maintain that the Renunciation of the effects of Baptism doth deprive Men of their temporal Lands and Possessions which they did not hold by any force of Baptism or make them subject in that behalf to the deprivation of the Bishops of Rome or that Apostasy from Christ put on in Baptism doth any further extend it self than to the Souls of such Apostates in this Life in that the Devil hath got again the possession of them and so depriveth them in this World of all the comfort and hope they had in Christ leading them on to the bane both of their Bodies and Souls in the Life to come or that any Ecclesiastical Person hath any other lawful means to reclaim Wicked Heretical or Apostated Kings from their Impiety Heresy and Apostasy than Christ and his Apostles did ordain to be used for winning Men at the first to embrace the Gospel or that Christ himself while he lived did attempt either directly or indirectly to Depose the Emperour by whose Authority he was himself put to death as holding that the Church could not attain to her Spiritual End except he had so done or that by the death of Christ the Church did not attain to her Spiritual End without the Deposition of any Emperours or Kings from their Regal Estates or that ever the Apostles in their days either preached or writ that the Ecclesiastical Commonwealth could not be perfect except St. Peter for his time and after him the Bishops of Rome should have temporal Power and Authority to Depose Emperours and Kings that the Church might attain her Spiritual End or that the Church in their days did not attain to her Spiritual End although no such Authority was then either challenged or put in practice or that the Church could have attain'd to that her Spiritual End in the Apostle's times if the said temporal Power and Authority had been then necessary for the attaining of it or that our Saviour Christ and his Apostles did propound a Spiritual End unto his Church and left no other necessary means for the obtaining of it than such as could not be put in practice either in their days or for many hundred years after or that the Churches of Christ after the Apostle's times for the space of 300. years being wonderfully oppressed with sundry Persecutions did not attain to their Spiritual End without this dream'd off Temporal Authority of Deposing Kings and Emperours then their mortal Enemies not in respect of themselves but of the Doctrine of Salvation which they taught to their Subjects or that this new Doctrine of the Necessity that the Bishops of Rome should have temporal Authority either directly or indirectly to Depose Emperours and Kings for any cause whatsoever or that else the Church of Christ should not be able to attain to her Spiritual End was ever heard of for ought that appeareth for many hundreds of years after the Apostles times either in any Ecclesiastical History or in any of the ancient Fathers by us abovementioned or that the Bishops of Rome with all their Adherents whilst they would make the World believe that the Church of Christ cannot attain her Spiritual End except they have temporal Authority indirectly to Depose for some Causes Emperours Kings and Soveraign Princes are more learned now than either the ancient Fathers or the Apostles themselves were and that they know the sense of the Scriptures better than either they the said ancient Fathers did or the Apostles that writ them who for ought that was known for many hundred years never preached taught or intended to have any such Doctrine collected out of their Writings and Works or that it may without great Impiety be once imagined that if such a necessary point of Doctrine concerning the said
Noluit enim c. For he would not endure it as One saith that his Consent should be required in the Election of the Bishop of Rome nor that the Emperour according to his will should have the bestowing of the Bishopricks that were included within the limits of the Empire Surely it might have pleased him to have endur'd both the one and the other as sundry Popes his Equals had done before him And howsoever this Attempt of Gregory is eagerly maintain'd in these days and held to be Apostolical yet then it seem'd very strange to many Therefore an ancient Historiographer writeth in this sort Lego relego Romanorum Regum Imperatorum Gesta c. I read over and over again the Acts of the Roman Kings and Emperours but can find in no place that any of them before Henry the Fourth was excommunicated by the Bishop of Rome or deprived of his Kingdom And again the Empire was the more vehemently moved with Indignation through the Novelty of this Attempt because such a Sentence against the Emperour of Rome was never heard of before those times And another more ancient than the former and almost of 500. Years standing doth not only term the said Fact of the Pope a Novelty but saith in Effect that it was an Heresy These are his words Surely this Novelty I will not call it Heresy was never before heard of in the World viz. That Priests should teach the People that they owe no Subjection unto Evil Kings and that notwithstanding they have taken an Oath of Fidelity unto them yet they owe them no Fidelity nor are to be acounted perjur'd that violate the said Oath Nay that if any obey their King in that Case he shall be held for an excommunicate Person and he that attempteth any thing against such a King shall be absolved both from the Offence of Injustice and of Perjury To this Heretical Novelty and most insolent Attempt which since hath had many false Colours cast over it to cover the Lewdness and Deformity of it we might add the said Pope's very admirable Pride in permitting the said Emperour when he came unto him to be absolved from the said Excommunication to stand bare-footed in the Frost and Snow Three days at his Gates But that which ensued this Novelty or Heresie this Unpriestly and Inhumane dealing with so great a Person is most remarkable above all the rest viz. How he wound himself like a cunning Serpent into the Interest of the Empire and upon a sleight Occasion The said Rebels of Germany in their Fury against the Emperour having suggested unto him That the Empire was a Benefit belonging to the City of Rome to be bestowed where she thought fit although they added therewith that the same was to be done by the Bishop and by the People of Rome with the Consent of other Princes Yet he finding what would serve his turn and was most available to his own Designment did afterward of himself and by his own Authority take upon him to dispose of the Empire as being void by Virtue of a second Excommunication and did accordingly send a Crown of Gold to Rodulphus Duke of Suevia now also grown a Traytour with this Inscription Petra dedit Petro Petrus Diadema Rodulpho Christ gave St. Peter Authority to make Emperours and I his Successor do thereupon send you this Crown and by my Authority from St. Peter do give you the Empire It is plain and evident that many Emperours in former Ages bestowed the Papacy and sometimes took it from one and gave it to another but that ever Pope there before this Man did so dispose of the Empire we do not find it in any approved Author Neither can we conceive or easily believe that Christ ever gave St. Peter any such Authority as is here dreamed of Only we observe by the Report of One no Protestant That Gregory to justifie and colour his said Presumption bragged above measure that the West Empire was his that he was both Bishop and Emperour Christ having imposed upon him those two Persons that he had no Equal and much less any Superiour that he might take all Right and Honour from other Men and transfer the same unto himself and do much more than here we will mention But touching any Proof for all these great Prerogatives we find none Except this will serve his turn That St. Peter received power to bind and loose which we hold insufficient notwithstanding that the Papists now-a-days do allow them all and admire him for it It hath been a usual Custom for the Pope's Friends to extol those Bishops of Rome most who shewed themselves whilst they lived the greatest Practitioners and Traytors against the Emperours Agreeably whereunto One saith of him That he was a Man worthy of the Pontificalship because he depressed the Insolency of Politicks terrified Monarchs with the Glory of his Name and Zeal and delivered the Church from the Captivity and Servitude which it endured under Princes and that of all the Bishops of Rome he was One of chief Zeal and Authority and a Man verè Apostolicus truly Apostolical and most to be praised Proceres Populum sacramento praestito sanctè solvit ut Rodolpho adhaereant sanctius imperat he did godly absolve the Noblemen and People from their Oath of Allegiance to the Emperour and did more holily command them not to obey him What was thought long since of these so Godly and Holy Practices we have above touched and we must also of necessity confess that to be true which this Authour and his Fellows do write of Gregory's Greatness For it is further recorded of him that he did first erect Imperium Pontificium the Papal Empire But touching his Vertues if an ancient Cardinal that wrote his Life did know him there is no cause why any Man should be in love with them And as concerning this new and before unheard of Pontifical Empire if we may believe another of their own Authors it brought with it into the West Empire Wars Bloodshed Homicide Parricide Hatred Whoredome Theft Sacriledge Dissention and Sedition both Civil and Domestical Corruption of the Scriptures false and sycophantical Interpretations with many more Mischiefs there by him mentioned and yet saith he Gregory's Successours did uphold it by the space of 450. Years invito Mundo invitis Imperatoribus in spite of the World and of the Emperours and thereby drew both Heaven and Hell into their Subjecti on and Servitude Again In former times God as a most indulgent Father did often chastise the Western Christians by Saxons Hunns Normans Venetians Lombards and Hungarians Men differing from us in Religion but now as if God were become an angry Father towards us and we were neglected and dis-inherited by him we have for above 400. Years tyranniz'd amongst our selves worse than Turks We deceive we circumvent we kill we turn our
by the Romans was poysoned by one Maticus hoping thereby that Hircanus the High-Priest might have got a more absolute Authority and have been the chief Governour Alexander the Son of Aristobulus had been before very troublsome and carried many after him to their destruction but Antigonus his Brother did far exceed him who by the help of the Parthians rose up against Herod the Successour of Antipater and taking that Government upon him cut off Hircanus his Uncle's Ears that thereby he might be unable afterward to bear any more to his prejudice the Office of the High-Priest But shortly after he was subdued and put to death and his Father before him was poisoned by Pompey's Followers Howbeit no sooner were these Maccabees thus suppressed but divers other rebellious Persons thrust forward the People into Arms under pretence of their Love they bare to their Countrey and to the ancient Liberties thereof In which their wicked Fury sometimes they were content to follow this Man as their King and sometimes that Man such as were one Simon one Athrogus and Manahemus all of them very lewd and base Companions and at some other time every Rebellious Rout or Company would needs have a King of their own whereby in every corner of that Commonwealth there was a Petty King who still led the People by heaps to the slaughter and perished themselves with them Also there were some amongst them who finding no good success by having of such Kings did run into a contrary course affirming it to be unlawful for the Jews to acknowledge any Man but God himself to be their King and that they ought rather to suffer death than to call any Man Lord. The sum is That notwithstanding any great Distractions Dissention or bloody Combats amongst themselves which were very many and strange their Hearts were so hardened in Rebellion against the Romans and their Governours as they refused either to pay them any more Tribute or to pray for them but standing upon their Walls when they were besieged Caesari Patri ejus maledicebant There was never we think so obstinate and desperate a People for in their greatest extremities and when they saw nothing but imminent Death destruction of the Temple and the extirpation of their whole Nation no reasonable Conditions or Perswasions could move them Titus himself made a notable Oration unto them and commanded Josephus to deliver his Mind at another time more amply if it had been possible to have reclaimed them which Duty so imposed upon him Josephus performed very eloquently He told them that tho' the Romans had dealt sometimes very hardly with them yet their Rebellion was ever the cause of it that albeit Men might lawfully fight in defence of their Countrey when it was invaded by any yet being subdued and a new Government settled amongst them it was not lawful by Rebellion under pretence of Liberty to cast off that Yoke that their Fore-fathers being in Bondage under the Kings of Aegypt and Babylon and divers times in many other distresses did never of themselves by force of Arms seek their Liberty or Deliverance but ever expected the Lord's leisure who always in due time had compassion upon them and that although they were then in the greatest distress that ever People were and could expect nothing but utter Ruine and Desolation yet if then they would submit themselves they might be received to Mercy For saith he the Romans ask but their ordinary Tribute which your Fore-fathers paid unto their Predecessours and if yet they may obtain the same they will neither destroy your City nor touch your Sanctuary but grant unto you freely your Families your Possessions and the Practice of your Sacred Laws But all these Offers they refused Howbeit the compassion of Titus towards them still continuing he again when they saw their Destruction more apparently required the said Josephus to deliver his Mind to the same effect to their chief Captain that he had done before to the People which he accomplished but in the hearing again of the People very throughly and in the end finding them obstinate I my self deserve blame saith he quiâ—â— haec adversus fata suadeo Deique sententiâ condemnatos servare contendo Whereupon shortly after Titus protesting how loth he was thereunto assailed them with all his Forces which slew an infinite number of them burnt the Temple and destroyed the City Since which time they that then escaped and the rest of all the Race of the Jews have been dispersed far and near and lived like a cursed Generation in all Slavery and Servitude So that although we doubt not but that this heavy Judgment of God fell upon them principally for the hardness of their hearts in that they did not only refuse to hear the Voice of our Saviour Christ but likewise most malitiously unjustly and shamefully put him to death yet the immediate and apparent cause of it was their never-before-heard-of-like obstinate Rebellion CAN. XXXIII IF any Man therefore shall affirm either that Aristobulus the Father or either of his two Sons Alexander or Antigonus having all of them submitted themselves to the Government of the Romans did not sin when afterward they rebelled against them or that Maticus did not very wickedly in poisoning of Antipater because he thought thereby the better to strengthen Hircanus in his High-Priesthood or that the People ought not to detest all such seditious Persons as under pretence of Liberty and Religion shall sollicite them to Rebellion or that the Jews were not bound both to have paid their Tribute and to have prayed for Caesar without dissimulation sincerely and truly notwithstanding any pretence of Tyranny which they had willfully drawn upon their own heads or of any cause whatsoever or that such as cursed Caesar their chief Governour did not thereby deserve any corporal punishment which is due to be inflicted upon such Traytors or that the Rebellion against any King absolute Prince or Civil Magistrate for any cause whatsoever is not a sin very detestable in the sight of God and therefore by all that fear the Lord to be eschewed because it ever tendeth to mischief and sometimes to the overthrow of the Kingdom Principality and Country where it is raised He doth greatly Erre Placet eis CAP. XXXIV WE have spoken in the former Chapter of the Rebellion of the Jews against their civil Governours and the success thereof We made no mention either of the Priests or of any of those Sects of Religion which then bare sway amongst them Indeed it is likely that if they had done their Duties the People upon their Repentance might have regained God's Favour and prevented that utter desolation but it happen'd otherwise two factious Persons Judas and Matthias the best learned Men of the Jews and the most skilful Interpreters of the Laws of their Country growing into great favour with the People because of their said skill
Saviour having most willingly subjected himself to the obedience of the whole Law did very carefully upon every occasion shew himself most observant of this one Law amongst the rest For in the whole course of his Life here upon Earth we find not any alteration that he made in the Civil State where he was conversant which he must of necessity have done if his coming into the World had any way impeached the Authority of the civil Magistrates It is expresly recorded of him that he lived in subjection to his Parents herein fullfilling the said Fifth Commandment which containeth as well the subjection due to Authority Civil as Paternal He was made of the Seed of David according to the flesh as the Apostle speaketh and so had no doubt according to his Manhood great natural compassion of those Miseries and Afflictions which the Jews at that very time endur'd under the Romans Howbeit as knowing the duties of their Allegiance he neither moved nor any way encouraged them to take Arms against the Emperour nor filled their heads with shifts and distinctions how Subjects in this Case and that Case were superiour to their Soveraigns nor did any way approve of those rebellious courses in them whereunto they were of their own dispositions very greatly addicted He was so far from these exorbitant and bad Humours as still he shewed when there was cause his great detestation of them He did himself very willingly pay Tribute when it was demanded and upon fit Occasion gave all the Jews this following Rule that they living under Caesar were bound to pay unto him those things that were his meaning such Obedience Custom Tributes Tolls Taxation and Payments as by the Laws both Divine and Imperial were due unto Caesar And certainly if ever it had and might have been lawful for private Men in respect of their own Zeal to have used Force against Authority it seemeth to us that it might have been born with in the Apostles upon some such Accidents as then fell out Judas had betrayed their Master and thereupon a Multitude was sent with a publick Officer to apprehend him Which the Apostles perceiving conferred together as it seemeth how to make Resistance and said in their Zeal Master shall we smite them with the sword But Peter seeing of likelyhood the Haste Violence and Fury that was used by the said Multitude did upon the sudden pluck out his Sword and without any expectation what Christ would answer to the said Question smiting one of the Company did cut off his Ear. Now if we shall consult with Flesh and Blood who would not approve this Fact of St. Peter But our Saviour Christ being void of any Heat or Passion and only respecting the Will of God and the due Observation of the said particular Law did utterly condemn in St. Peter that violent and unlawful Attempt because he being but a private Man had nothing to do with the Temporal Sword which belonged to the Civil Magistrate and much less should have used it against Authority And therefore as well to let St. Peter see his Offence as also to leave a Caution for the bridling from thence forwards of all future rash Zeal in such a Case he justified the Law of God and did leave the same for a Rule to all Posterity saying All that take the sword shall perish with the Sword meaning all private Persons that shall at any time abuse after that sort the civil Sword which doth in no wise appertain unto them Besides it is manifest that our Saviour Christ if as he was God he had been disposed was able to have defended himself against all the World Nay as he was Man he might by Prayer to his Father have procured sufficient Assistance against the Force of all his Enemies had he not well known that Course to have been repugnant to the Obedience which he had undertaken of the said Commandment and no way agreeable to the Vocation and Work which he had in hand and therefore persisting in his Reproof of St. Peter Thinkest thou saith he unto him that I cannot now pray to my Father and he will give me more than Twelve Legions of Angels but it is ever apparent in all the Proceedings of our Saviour Christ whilst he lived in this World that he never liked in any the Resistance of Civil Authority by Force or approved of any inconsiderate and rash Zeal bent against Magistrates or any other Persons but was always ready to blame and check the same as he did when he found it in two other of his Apostles who to revenge an Injury offered to their Master sought to have had it punished from Heaven For when the Samaritans refused upon conference and direction we doubt not of those that were in Authority over them to give Christ entertainment and lodging in one of their Cities James and John were so moved therewith as they would needs have licence of him to command that Fire should come down from Heaven as Elias did shewing thereby that in their Heat if they had been able they would have had them all destroyed But our Saviour Christ disliking such fiery and rash Zeal rebuked them and said You know not of what spirit you are that is in effect as if he should have said You may pretend Elias's Fact but you are far from Elias's Spirit He only executed the Judgment of God as by the Spirit he was extraordinarily directed whereas Ye have received no such direction but are only in your Passion and Heat stirred up to Revenge The Conclusion hereof is That Christ our Lord all the time he remained here upon Earth did not only in his own Person shew himself obedient to civil Authority according to the said fifth Commandment but did likewise utterly condemn in others upon every occasion offered to him throughout the Four Evangelists all inconsiderate Zeal and Opposition against Temporal Magistracy Insomuch as concerning his own said Obedience when he was apprehended notwithstanding Peter's Sword he submitted himself to the publick Officer that was then sent for him and likewise being afterward carried to Pilate the Civil Magistrate at that time under the Emperour and before him falsly charged by his malicious Adversaries with Treason he behaved himself in such dutiful manner as was fit and convenient for him that truly had professed subjection and did in no sort seek to decline his Power and Authority either by alledging that he was not the Emperour 's Subject or that Pilate was not his competent Judge or by using any other Tergiversation or Evasion but acknowledged very freely his said Authority to be lawful and yielding himself thereunto did confess that it was given him from above CAN. I. AND therefore if any Man shall affirm under colour of any thing that is in the Scriptures either that the Doctrine of Grace in the New Testament doth more abolish the rules of Nature or Moral Law of God than it did in the Old
Death of Christ to repair to their Priests and Sanhedrims if either they meant to be truly instructed in the Laws or to have such manner of Offences lawfully punished by those kind of Censures that Christ in the said place speaketh of But what should we insist so much upon this point to prove that all the Jews that either believed in Christ or did reject him were bound before the Passion of our Saviour Christ to be obedient to the Ecclesiastical Governours established by God himself in that visible Church considering how careful our Saviour Christ was upon every occasion offered for the preservation of their Authority whilst it was to endure and with what Humility he did submit himself unto it For being sent for by them he was content at that time to go unto them and to be examined by them when he had found them many ways before to be his mortal Enemies and knew how at that present they were plotting to take away his Life by corrupting of Judas to betray him into their hands and by suborning of false Witnesses to accuse him as also how after they had examined him they would use him most despitefully and scornfully spit in his Face and buffet him beat him with Rods carry him bound as a Malefactour and deliver him to Pilate the Civil Magistrate Likewise how they themselves would be his Accusers how they would practise with the People to prefer Barabbas's liberty being a Murtherer before his and to cry out with them to Pilate Let him be crucified Let him be crucified Crucify him Crucify him their Outrage and Fury being so bent against him as that they themselves would have put him to death if by the Laws of the Romans whereunto they were then subject they might have been permitted so to have done CAN. III. AND therefore if any Man shall affirm under colour of any thing that is in the Scriptures either that our Saviour Christ whilst he lived upon the Earth was not obedient to the State Ecclesiastical as he was to the Temporal or that all Christians by his Example are not bound to be as well obedient to their Church-Governours as they are to their civil Magistrates or that Christian Kings have not now as full Authority to appoint some Festival Days of publick thanksgiving to God in remembrance of some great and extraordinary mercies of his shew'd unto them upon those days as Judas Maccabaeus had to ordain the Feast of the Dedication of the Temple to be yearly celebrated or that where any such Festival Days are appointed the Subjects of every such King ought not by Christ's Example in celebrating the said Feast to observe and keep them or that all the true Members of the Church are not taught by Christ's Example in his observing of the Ceremonial Law being then in force that they likewise are bound to observe all such Constitutions and Ceremonies as for Order and Decency are with all due Cautions established in any particular Church by the chief Governours of it until it shall please them the said Governours to abrogate them or that all Christians are not bound by Christ's Example to refrain all bitterness of Calumniation and Detraction and to deal temperately and mildly with their Ecclesiastical Governours in respect of their Authority that it be not brought into contempt though they find some imperfections either in their Persons or in their Proceedings as he our said blessed Saviour in the same respect dealt with the Priests of the Jews though they had many ways transgressed and were his mortal Enemies or that Christ by whipping Buyers and Sellers out of the Temple did either impeach the Authority of the Priests or practise therein any Pontifical or Temporal Power as if he had been a temporal King or did the same by any other Authority than as he was a Prophet or that Christians are not now as strongly bound in doubts of Religion to repair unto the chief Ministers and Ecclesiastical Governours although they are not always tied to do as they do as were the Jews in such like Cases bound to repair to them that sate in Moses's Seat or that every true Christian when for the said Cause he repaireth to the chief Ministers and Governours of the Church to be resolv'd by them is any further now bound to depend upon such their Resolutions than they are able to shew them unto him out of the Word of God or than the Jews were bound to believe the Scribes and Pharisees though they sat in Moses's Chair when they taught them any thing which was not agreeable to that which Moses had commanded or that Christ's Example in condemning the false Interpretations and Glosses of the Scribes and Pharisees and in restoring to the Law the true sense and original meaning of it hath not ever since warranted learned and godly Men when they found the Scriptures perverted by those that govern the Church of purpose to make their own gain thereof and to maintain their great Vsurpations to free the same by searching the said Scriptures from all such false Interpretations and Glosses and to make plain as much as in them did lie the true sense and meaning of them or that our Saviour Christ when he purged divers parts of the Law from the gross and erroneous Expositions of the Scribes and Pharisees did give any other sense and meaning of them or infer upon it any new Rules of greater perfection either as he was Man or as he was a Prophet than they had and contained originally when he first gave them to the Israelites as he was God or that it is not an erroneous and fond conceit like unto that of the Sectaries among the Jews especially of the Pharisees for any sort of Persons no way able to perform their duties to God in such manner and sort as they ought once so much as to imagine that by the observation of their own rules they are able to attain to greater perfection than by the observation of God's rules or that it is not as vain and fond an imagination as the former for any Christian Man to think that the enjoying of such Possessions and Riches as God hath blessed him with is repugnant to that perfection which God hath required at his hands or that the same are otherwise incompatible with the said perfection than in such cases only when either they must leave their Worldly Estates or Christ their Saviour or that our Saviour Christ by laying of some grounds for the future estate of the Church after his Passion did thereby erect any new Churches apart from that Church which was to continue until his Death or that the Example of Christ and his Apostles in holding Society and Communion with the Jews in the outward worship and service of God doth not condemn all such Sectaries as do separate themselves from the Churches of Christ whereof they were once Members the same being true Churches by lawful Authority established under pretence of they
know not what new Christianity or that there ought not to be now amongst Christians Ecclesiastical Courts for Ecclesiastical Causes as well as there were such Courts amongst the Jews for such kind of Causes or that all Christians are not now bound to repair as well to Ecclesiastical Courts and Governours for reformation of such Offences as are of Ecclesiastical Counusance as the Jews were bound to repair to their Sanhedrims to have those Evils redressed that were to be reform'd by those Courts or that as many as do profess themselves to be true Imitators of Christ in their Lives and Conversation are not bound to such obedience unto their Princes and Rulers how evil-disposed soever they be yea though they seek their Lives as Christ shewed and performed both to the Ecclesiastical and Temporal State of the Iews at what time he knew they were plotting his Death He doth greatly Erre CAP. V. The Sum of the Chapter following That our Saviour Christ after his Resurrection and Ascension did not alter the form of temporal Government establisht by himself long before his Incarnation and that therefore Emperours Kings and Soveraign Princes though they were then Infidels were nevertheless to be obey'd by the Subjects as formerly from the beginning they had been IT hath been before observ'd by us that our Saviour Christ whilst he lived in the World was no temporal King nor had any temporal Dominion Court Possessions Regal State Dukes Earls Lords or any other Subjects as other temporal Kings had to obey and serve him But perhaps after his Resurrection it was for otherwise with him Indeed so it was For whereas the Son of God God himself equal to the Father by being made Man did cease to put in practice the Glory and Majesty of his Deity in his humane Nature otherwise than by doing such Miracles as he thought necessary for the Conversion of those who were to believe in him Now after his Resurrection and Ascension the state of his humane Nature was become as it may well be said much more glorious because his Divine Nature did communicate unto his Humane Nature So many divine Dignities and operations of his Deity in respect of the hypostatical Union betwixt them as the same was capable of without turning of his Divine Nature into his Humane Nature It being always to be understood that the said hypostatical and real Union notwithstanding there was never any Confusion betwixt the two Natures of Christ both of them always retaining their distinct and essential Proprieties Which ground observ'd we may truly say that the Attributes are admirable which in regard of the said Union are and may be ascribed unto our Saviour Christ as he is Man especially after his Resurrection and Ascension For some short proof hereof these following Places may suffice Before our Saviour Christ commanded his Apostles to go and teach all Nations baptizing them in the name of the Father the Son and the Holy Ghost he told them lest they should have doubted whether he had any Authority to make them so large a Commission that all power was given him in Heaven and in Earth He also was before as the Holy Ghost testifieth of him made Heir of all things and so had a true Interest in them and after his Resurrection had the full possession of them We see Jesus saith the Apostle crown'd with glory and honour And again When God raised up Jesus from the dead he set him at his right hand in heavenly places far above all Principality and Power and Might and Domination and every Name that is named not in this world only but in that also which is to come and hath made all things subject under his feet And again The kingdoms of this world are our Lord's and his Christ's And again The lamb is Lord of lords and King of kings And to conclude He hath upon his garment and upon his thigh a name written The King of kings and Lord of lords Howbeit all that we have hitherto said notwithstanding though all the World doth actually appertain to our Saviour Christ now in Glory as he is Man in respect of the said Unition or hypostatical Union yet did he not alter after his Resurrection and Ascension the manner of temporal Government which he had ordained throughout the World before his Incarnation as he was God his humane Nature being invested by the power of his Divinity in manner before exprest with all his said Glory and Authority but doth still continue the sole Monarch over all distributing that his universal Kingdom as formerly he had done into divers Principalities and Kingdoms and appointing temporal Kings and Soveraign Princes as his Substitutes and Vicegerents to rule them all by the Rules and Laws of Nature if they be Ethnicks or if Christians then not only by those Rules but also as well by the Equity of the Judicial Laws which he gave to the Jews as by the Doctrine of the Gospel more throughly opened and delivered with all the parts of it by himself and his Apostles than in former times it had been Of Christian Kings we shall have fitter place to speak hereafter Now we will prosecute this point concerning the Regal Authority of Princes that are Infidels and consider more particularly Whether they did not and so consequently do not still as lawfully enjoy their Kingdoms and legal Soveraignties under our Saviour Christ after his Resurrection and Ascension as they did before either of them and likewise as they did before his Incarnation according to that which we have delivered in the former Chapter And the especial Reason that moveth us so to do is the audacious temerity of the before-named ignorant Canonists and of their adherents the new Sectaries of the Oratory Congregation who with the like Ignorance and Folly that they told us how all Kings lost their Interest and Authority over their Kingdoms by the birth of our Saviour Christ do furthermore endeavour very wickedly and sottishly to pervert such especial places in the Apostles Writings as are most aparently repugnant to their said Fancy or rather Phrenzy To make their dealing with one place apparent is sufficient for our purpose Whereas St. Paul writing to the Romans willeth them to be subject to the higher Powers or teacheth them as a late absurd Canonist abridgeth the place Obediendum esse Principibus that Princes are to be obeyâ—d He speaketh not saith he de Ethnicis as that place is corruptly alledged sed quatenus de illis intellexit that is in such a sense as he meant it And what the Apostle meant he is not ashamed to tell us in this sort saying 1. the Apostle speaketh of the Roman Empire which Christ had approved when he bad the Jews pay Tribute to Caesar 2. the Text doth expound it self for he writeth to Christians whom he counselleth to be obedient to Princes lest they should sin for Princes are not to be feared for good works
but for evil therefore he doth not simply command Obedience to Ethnick Princes c. 3. The like manner of writing St. Paul used in exhorting Servants to honour their Lords etiam infideles though they were Infidels for the Reasons by him there mentioned 4. By those Monitions meaning the said Commandments of the Apostle concerning Obedience of Subjects to their Princes and of Servants to their Masters just Dominion is not founded in the Persons of Ethnicks nam Paulus qui hec dicit non erat summus Pontifex for Paul who said so was not the chief Bishop c. 5. Furthermore in that time of the Primitive Church the Church could not de facto punish Infidels and transfer their Kingdoms c. Thus far this audacious and unlearned Canonist the very citation of whose Words we hold sufficient to refute them although he alledgeth for himself to support them very grave Authors the Distinctions forsooth the Gloss Hostiensis Praepositus adding that some other Canonists do concur with him Only we will oppose against him and all his Fellows to shew their Follies by a proof of this Nature the Testimony of the Pope's chief Champion the only Jesuit without Comparison now a principal Cardinal who maintaineth in express Terms That Infidel Princes are true and supream Princes of their Kingdoms and writeth thus against the said Assertion of the Canonist directly saying God doth approve the Kingdoms of the Gentiles in both the Testaments Thou art King of kings and the God of Heaven hath given thee thy Kingdom and Empire c. Restore those things unto Caesar that are Caesar's Note that he saith not Give but Restore those things that are Caesar's that is those things which in right are owing unto him And Give unto all Men that which is due unto them Tribute to whom you owe Tribute and Custom to whom you owe Custom Et jubet ibidem etiam propter Conscientiam obedire Principibus Ethnicis At certè non tenemur in Conscientiâ obedire illi qui non est verus Princeps that is and we are commanded in the same place even for Conscience to obey Princes that are Ethnicks but assuredly we are not bound in Conscience to obey him who is no true lawful or right Prince Hitherto the Cardinal We would not have cited this Man's testimony thus at large were not All that he hath said therein throughly supported by all the Learned Men as we suppose of his Society and sufficient to refel the Vanity of the Canonists and their Fellows in that folly For if we should insist herein upon the Authority of Men all the ancient Fathers do fully concur with us that through the whole course of the Scriptures Obedience was and is as well prescribed in the Old Testament to Ethnick Princes as unto the Kings of Judah and so likewise in the New Testament as well to Infidel Princes as Christian the Precepts of the Apostles in that behalf being general and so to be applied as well to the one sort as to the other in that they hold their Kingdoms of Christ equally as is aforesaid and therefore ought to be equally obeyed by their Subjects with that general Caution which was ever understood viz. in those things which they commanded them and were not repugnant to the Commandments of God And therefore the Judgments of the ancient Fathers being in this sort only remember'd by us we will not much insist upon them but give that honour which is due especially in a matter so apparent unto the sole Authority of the Holy Apostles who writing by the direction of the Holy Ghost those things which Christ himself before had taught them do give unto all Christians and Subjects to what manner of Kings soever these Precepts following Let every Soul be subject to the higher Powers for there is no Power but of God for the Powers that be are Ordained of God Whosoever therefore resisteth the Power resisteth the Ordinance of God and they that resist shall receive to themselves Judgment For Princes are not to be feared for good works but for evil Wilt thou then be without fear Do well So shalt thou have praise of the same for he is the Minister of God for thy Wealth But if thou do evil fear for he beareth not the Sword for nought for he is the Minister of God to take Vengeance of him that doth evil Wherefore ye must be subject not because of wrath only but also for Conscience sake For this cause ye pay also Tribute for they are God's Ministers applying themselves for the same thing In which words of the Apostle in saying that Princes have their Power from God and that he is God's Minister there is no repugnancy to that which we have abovesaid concerning the great honour and dignity of the humanity of our Saviour Christ after his Resurrection and Ascension to prove that Kings do hold their Kingdoms under Christ as he is Man the Lamb of God and Heir of all the World For we were very careful to have it still remembred that all the said Power and Dignity which he hath as he is Man doth proceed from his Divinity and likewise that by reason of the real Union of the two Natures in our Saviour Christ that which doth properly belong to the one nature may very truly be affirmed of the other So as it may in that respect be very well said and truly that all Kings and Princes receive their Authority from Christ as he is Man and likewise that they receive their Authority from Christ as he is God and that they are the Ministers of Christ being Man and the Ministers of God without any limitation But it is plain that the said words of the Apostle do very throughly refute the vanity mentioned of the Canonists and their new Companions in that by the said words it appeareth very manifestly That Kings do not otherwise hold their Kingdoms of the humanity of Christ than they did before of his divine nature They have their Authority saith the Apostle from God and they are God's Ministers And there is nothing written either by St. Paul or by any other of the Apostles which swerveth in any point from this Doctrine where they write of the obedience due unto all Kings and Soveraign Princes whose testimonies in that behalf we are as we promised a little further to pursue I exhort saith St. Paul that first of all Supplications Prayers Intercessions and giving of thanks be made for all Men for Kings and for all that are in Authority that we may lead a quiet and a peaceable Life in all Godliness and Honesty And again Put them that is both old and young and all sorts of Persons that are purged to be a peculiar People unto Christ in remembrance that they be subject to the Principalities and Powers and that they be obedient and ready to every good work Also St. Peter saith to the same effect Submit
your selves unto all manner of Ordinance of Man for the Lord's sake whether it be unto the King as unto the Superiour or unto Governours as unto them that are sent of him for the punishment of evil doers and for the praise of them that do well For so is the will of God that by well doing ye may put to silence the ignorance of foolish Men as free and not as having the liberty for a Cloak of Maliciousness but as the Servants of God Honour all Men love Brotherly Fellowship Fear God Honour the King And the same Apostle describing the nature of false Teachers which in times to come would thrust themselves into the Church and by feigned words make a Merchandise of their Followers amongst other impieties he noteth them with these That commonly they are despisers of Government presumptuous Persons and such as stand in their own conceits Men that fear not to speak evil of them that are in dignity but as brute Beasts led with sensuality and made to be taken and destroyed speak evil of those things which they know not And with St. Peter in this point the Apostle St. Jude doth concur where speaking of those who in future times should be Makers of Sects He termeth them Mockers and Men that had not the Spirit of God And speaking also of such like wicked Persons as were crept into the Church in the Apostles days he saith they did despise Government and speak evil of them that were in Authority In all which places thus by us noted concerning as well the dignity and Authority of Sovereign Kings and Princes as the fear duty and obedience which all their Subjects were truly and sincerely without murmuring or repining to yield and perform unto them though they were then Ethnicks When we consider the manner of their delivery of that Evangelical Doctrine and their grounds thereof as also how vehemently they have written against all such Persons as either did then or should afterward oppose themselves unto it by despising of civil Magistrates speaking evil of them or in any other sort whatsoever We are fully perswaded that they neither commanded taught or writ any thing therein but what they knew to be the will of God and did accordingly believe to be true for we hold it resolutely That whatsoever the Apostles did either write teach or command they writ taught and commanded it as they were inspired and directed by the Holy Ghost because when our Saviour Christ was to leave the World he promised to send unto them the Holy Ghost the Comforter and spirit of truth which should lead them not into any By-ways or shifting conceits but into the direct and plain paths of all truths and did very shortly after perform that his Promise when upon the day of Pentecost they were all filled with the Holy Ghost as St. Luke witnesseth Besides the Apostle St. Paul himself doth profess both in his own name and in the behalf of the rest of the Apostles his Fellows that their Master being the truth it self after he had so mercifully and liberally perform'd his said Promise unto them they did not deal with the word of God as Vintners Regraters or Merchants do with their mixed Wines and adulterated Wares that is mingle it with any untruths or superstitious conceits or vent it out otherwise than the truth did therein warrant them or did apply it with fraud either to serve their own or any other mens designments or deliver'd it with any such inward Reservations and mental Evasions as when they did most seem to their hearers to speak one thing directly they had such another meaning as when time should serve they might make use of But whatsoever they said they spake it sincerely sicut ex Deo as God did guide them by the Holy Ghost coram Deo as in the sight of God unto whom one day they were to give an account of their said sincerity in Christo as their blessed Saviour himself had preached taught them and had commanded them CAN. IV. THerefore if any Man shall affirm under colour of any thing that is in the Scriptures either that the Deity of our Saviour Christ doth not since his Resurrection and Ascension otherwise execute the Majesty and Glory thereof in his Humanity than it did before his Passion or that Christ now in Glory is not actually the Heir of all things as he is Man so highly exalted and both King of kings and Lord of lords or that he now sitting at the right hand of God in Glory and Majesty as he is Man hath made an alteration in the manner of temporal Government ordain'd by himself long before as he is God or that now all the Kingdoms in the World being but one Kingdom in respect of himself he doth not allow the distributing of that his one Vniversal Kingdom into divers Principalities and Kingdoms to be ruled by so many Kings and absolute Princes under him or that such Kings and Sovereign Governours as were Ethnicks were deprived by Christ's Ascension into Heaven and most glorious Estate there from the true Interest and lawful Possession of the Kingdoms which before they enjoyed or that the ancient Fathers were deceived in holding and maintaining that all Christians in the Primitive Church were bound to obey such Kings and Princes as were then Pagans or that the Subjects of all the Temporal Princes in the World were not as much bound in St. Paul's time to be subject unto them as the Romans were to be subject to the Empire not only for Fear but even for Conscience Sake or that St. Paul's Commandment by virtue of his Apostleship and assistance of the Holy Ghost of Obedience to Princes then Ethnicks is not of as great force to bind the Conscience of all true Christians as if he had been then Summus Pontifex or that any Pope now hath power to dispense with the said Doctrine of St. Paul as the said Canonist by us quoted doth seem to affirm where after he hath said That the Apostle St. Paul commanding all Men to be obedient to superiour Powers was not the highest Bishop he addeth these words Papa major est administratione Paulo Papa dispensat contra Apostolum in his quae non concernunt Articulos fidei The Pope is greater in Authority than Paul the Pope doth dispense against the Apostle in those things that do not concern the Articles of Faith or that the Primitive Church was not as well restrain'd de jure by the Doctrine of Christ's Apostles as de facto from bearing Arms against such Princes as were then Ethnicks and transferring of their Kingdoms from them unto any others or that St. Peter himself who our Adversaries would make the World believe was then the highest Bishop concurring with the Apostle St. Paul when he commanded the Christians in those days to submit themselves unto the King as unto the Superiour they both of them were assured commanding therein as they
were inspired by the Holy Ghost did leave this Doctrine so jointly taught to be dispensed with afterward by any Pope his Vicar led by what Spirit is easy to be discern'd being so far different from the Holy Ghost which spake as is aforesaid by the said Apostles or that it is not a most wicked and detestable assertion for any Man to affirm That the Apostles in commanding such obedience to the Ethnick Princes then did not truly mean as their plain words do import but had some mental Reservations whereby the same might be alter'd as occasion should serve or that the Apostles at that time if they had found the Christians of sufficient force for Number Provision and Furniture of Warlike Engines to have deposed those Pagan Princes that were then both Enemies and Persecutors of all that believed in Christ would no doubt have moved and authorized them to have made War against such their Princes and absolved them from performing any longer that Obedience which they as Men temporizing had in their Writings prescribed unto them or that when afterward Christians were grown able for number and strength to have opposed themselves by force against their Emperours being wicked and Persecutors they might lawfully so have done for any thing that is in the New Testament to the contrary or that these and such like Expositions of the meaning of the holy Apostles when they writ so plainly and directly are not very impious and blasphemous as tending not only to the utter discredit of them and their Writings but likewise to the indelible stain and dishonour of the whole Scriptures in that they were written by no other Persons of any greater Authority than were the Apostles nor by the Inspiration and direction of any other Spirit He doth greatly Erre CAP. VI. The Sum of the Chapter following That our Saviour Christ after his Resurrection and Ascension did not in Effect alter the Form of Ecclesiastical Government amongst the Jews the essential parts of the Priesthood under the Law otherwise than as the said Priesthood was typical and had the Execution of Levitical Ceremonies annexed unto it being instituted and appointed by God to continue not for a time but until the End of the World WE have deduced in our former Book the joint Descent of the State as well Ecclesiastical as Temporal from the Beginning of the World unto the Incarnation of our Saviour Christ Since whose Birth seeing we have found no alteration in the Temporal Government of the World either while Christ lived here upon the Earth or during the time of his Apostles assuredly we shall not find that the alteration which upon Christ's Death fell out in the Church was so great as some have imagined For as our Saviour Christ according unto his Divine Nature having created all the World was the sole Monarch of it and did govern the same visibly by Kings and Soveraign Princes his Vicegerents upon Earth so he in the same Divine Nature being the Son of God and foreseeing the Fall of Man and how thereby all his Posterity should become the Children of Wrath did of his infinite Mercy undertake to be their Redeemer and presently after the Transgression of Adam Eve put that his Office in practice Whereby as he was Agnus occisus ab origine Mundi he not only began the Erection of that one Church selected people and Society of Believers which eversince hath been and so shall continue his blessed Spouse for ever but also took upon him thenceforward and for ever to be the sole Head and Monarch of it ruling and governing the same visibly by such Priests and Ministers under him as in his heavenly Wisdom he thought fit to appoint and as we have more at large expressed in our said former Book Especially when he settled amongst the Jews a more exact and eminent Form of Ecclesiastical Government than before that time he had done In the which his so exact a Form he first did separate the civil Government from the Ecclesiastical as they were both jointly exercised by one Person restraining the Priesthood for a time unto the Tribe of Levi and the civil Government unto temporal Princes and shortly after more particularly unto the Tribe of Judah Concerning the Priesthood thus limited we need to say little because the Order and Subordination of it is so plainly set down in the Scriptures Aaron and his Sons after him by succession had the first Place and were appointed to exercise the Office of Highpriests and under their soveraign Princes and temporal Governours as we have shewed in our said first Book cap. 18. did bear the chief sway in matters appertaining to God Next unto Aaron there were 24. Priests of an inferiour Degree that were termed Principes Sacerdotum that governed the third sort of Priests allotted unto their several Charges and this third sort also had the rest of the Levites at their direction In like manner these Levites neither wanted their chief Rulers to order them according as the said third sort of Priests did command which Rulers were termed Principes Levitarum in number 24. Nor their Assistants the Gabionites otherwise called Nethinaei to help them in the Execution of their baser Offices Of this notable Form of Ecclesiastical Government it may be truly said in our Judgments That the same being of God's own framing it is to be esteem'd the best and most perfect Form of Church-Government that ever was or can be devised and that Form also is best to be approved and upheld which doth most resemble it and cometh nearest unto it We said upon a fit Occasion That by the Death of our Saviour Christ the Church-Government then amongst the Jews was greatly altered and therefore do think it very convenient in this place more fully therein to set down our meaning It is very true that before the Death of Christ the outward Service of God did much consist in Figures Shadows and Sacrifices the Levitical Priesthood itself as it was to Aaron and his Stock and in some other Respects being only a Type of our High Priest Jesus Christ But afterward when by his Passion upon the Cross he had fulfilled All that was signified by the said Figures Shadows and Sacrifices and had likewise not only abolished them but freed the Tribe of Levi of the charge of the Priesthood and removed the High Priesthood as it was typical from the said Priestly Tribe unto the Regal Tribe of Judah the same being now setled in himself our only High Priest according to the Order not of Aaron but of Melchizedech He hath by that his Translation of the Priesthood freed his Church from the Ceremonial Law which contained in it little but Patterns Shadows and Figures of that one Sacrifice offer'd by him upon the Cross which doth sanctifie all the faithful and purge their Consciences from dead works to serve the living God Nevertheless in this so great an alteration although all the said Figures
it and as all the particular Kingdoms in the World are called but one Kingdom as he is the Only King and Monarch of it or that our Saviour Christ hath not appointed under him several Ecclesiastical Governours to rule and direct the said particular Churches as he hath appointed several Kings and Sovereign Princes to rule and govern their several Kingdoms or that by his Death he did not abolish the Ceremonial Law and the Levitical Priesthood so far forth as it was Typical and had the Execution of the said Ceremonial Law annexed unto it or that he did any more abrogate by his Death Passion Resurrection and Ascension the Power and Authority of Church-Government than either he did the other two Essential parts of the said Priesthood or Ministry or the Power and Authority of Kings and Sovereign Princes or that he did more appoint any one chief Bishop to rule all the particular Churches which should be planted throughout all Kingdoms than he did appoint any one King to rule and govern all the particular Kingdoms in the World or that it was more reasonable or necessary as hereafter it shall be further shewed to have one Bishop to govern all the Churches in the World than it was to have one King to govern all the Kingdoms in the World or that it was more necessary or convenient to have every Parish with their Presbyteries absolute Churches independent upon any but Christ himself than that every such Parish should be an absolute Temporal Kingdom independent of any Earthly King or Sovereign Magistrate or that the Government of every National Church under Christian Kings and Sovereign Princes by Archbishops and Bishops is not more suitable and correspondent to the Government of the National Church of the Jews under their Soveraign Princes and Kings than is either the Government of one over all the Churches of the World or the setling of the Form of that National Church-Government in every particular Church He doth greatly Erre CAP. VII The Sum of the Chapter following That the Form of Church-Government which was ordained by Christ in the New Testament did consist upon divers degrees of Ministers one above another Apostles in Preeminence and Authority superiour to the Evangelists and the Evangelists superiour to Pastors and Doctours And that the Apostles knowing themselves to be mortal did in their own Days by the Direction of the Holy Ghost as the numbers of Christians grew establish the said form of Government in other Persons appointing several Ministers in sundry Cities and over them Bishops as also over such Bishops certain worthy Persons such as Titus was who were afterward termed Arch-Bishops to whom they did commit so much of their Apostolical Authority as they held then necessary and was to be continued for the Government of the Church WE had in our former Book the Scriptures at large containing the Histories and Doctrine both of the Law and the Gospel after the manner that was then prescribed from the time of the Creation until the days of the Prophet Malachy that is for above 3500. years Whereupon we did ground the particular Points by us therein handled concerning the Government as well Ecclesiastical as Temporal And for the Supply of the other years following till the Incarnation of our Saviour Christ we observed some things to the same purpose out of the Apocryphal Books second to the Scriptures and to be preferr'd before all other Writers of those times But now forasmuch as the New Testament is but in effect a more ample Declaration the Old shewing withal how the same was most throughly fulfilled by our Saviour Christ without the impeachment of any kind of Government by himself ordain'd as before we have exprest and because the Books of the Evangelists and Apostles do only contain the Acts and Doctrine of our Saviour Christ and his Apostles with the Form and Use both of the Temporal and Ecclesiastical Government during the time whilst they lived here upon the Earth St. John who lived the longest of them all dying about sixty six Years after Christ's Passion although the Holy Ghost did judge the said Books and Writings sufficient for the Church and all that profess Christianity to teach and direct them in those things which should appertain either to their Temporal or Ecclesiastical Government or should be necessary unto their Salvation Yet for the said Reasons we were induced for the upholding of the Temporal and Ecclesiastical Government in the New Testament to insist so much as we have done upon the Precedents and Platforms of both those kinds of Governments established in the Old Testament albeit we want no sufficient Testimonies in the New to ratify and confirm as well the one as the other First therefore we do verily think That if our Saviour Christ or his Apostles had meant to have erected in the Churches amongst the Gentiles any other Form of Ecclesiastical Government than God himself had set up amongst the Jew they would have done it assuredly in very solemn manner that all the World might have taken publick notice of it considering with what Majesty and Authority the said Form was erected at God's Commandment by his Servant Moses But in that they well knew how the Form of the Old Ecclesiastical Government in substance was still to continue and to be in time establish'd in every National Kingdom and Soveraign Principality amongst Christians as soon as they should become for number sufficient Bodies and ample Churches to receive the same as before the like opportunity it was not established amongst the Israelites they did in the mean while and as the time did serve them attempt the erecting of it in such sort and by such fit and convenient Degrees as by the direction of the Holy Ghost they held it most expedient without intermission till such time as the work was in effect accomplished It hath been before touched how our Saviour Christ here upon Earth did not only chuse to himself for the business he had in hand twelve Apostles who were then design'd in time to come to be the Patriarchs and chief Fathers of all Christians with some Resemblance as it hath been ever held of the twelve Sons of Jacob who had been in their days the Patriarchs and chief Fathers of all the Israelites But likewise he took unto him over and besides his said Apostles 70 or as some read 72 Disciples to be in the same manner his Assistants in imitation of Moses when he chose 70. Elders to be helpers unto him for the better Government of the People committed to his charge None of these either Apostles or Disciples had then any other Duties committed to them but only of Preaching and Baptizing for the Power of Ecclesiastical Regiment they might not then intermeddle with because it did appertain to the Priests and Courts of the Jews But afterward that want and some other defects in them were throughly supplied when our Saviour Christ upon his Resurrection and a little
before his Ascension enlarging their Commission did commit unto his Apostles the Administration of the Keys of the Kingdom of Heaven and shortly after furnished not only them but the said Disciples also according to their several Functions most abundantly with all such Gifts and Heavenly Graces as were necessary for them in those great Affairs which were imposed upon them Whereby we find already two compleat Degrees of Ecclesiastical Ministers ordained by Christ himself immediately viz. His 12. Apostles and his 70. Disciples the one in Dignity and Authority above the other the Disciples in that respect being termed Secondary Apostles and were the same as 't is most probably held who were afterward called Evangelists We will not intermeddle with the Prophets in those times of whom the Scriptures make mention because divers of them were no Ministers of the Word and Sacraments of whom only we have here taken upon us to intreat leaving in like manner the said 70. Disciples or Evangelists as before they had been assistants unto Christ so now to be directed by his Apostles Touching whose blessed calling it is to be observed that the end of it was not that they should only for their own times by Preaching the Word Administring the Sacraments and likewise by their Authority of Ecclesiastical Regiment draw many to the embracing of the Gospel and afterward to rule and order them as that they might not easily be drawn again from it but were in like sort to provide for a Succession in their Ministry of fit Persons sufficiently Authorized by them to undertake that charge and as well to yield some further assistance unto them whilst they themselves lived as afterward also both to continue the same in their own Persons unto their lives end and in like manner to ordain by the Authority of the Apostles given unto them other Ministers to succeed themselves that so the said Apostolical Authority being derived in that sort from one to another there might never be any want of Pastors and Teachers for the work of the Ministry and for the Edification of the Body of Christ unto the end of the World This being the duty of the said Apostles and that it may be evident what it was which they did communicate unto the Ministry it is to be observed that some things in the Apostles were essential and perpetual and was the substance of their Ministry containing the three Essential Parts before mentioned of Preaching administring the Sacraments and of Ecclesiastical Government and that some were but personal and temporary granted unto them for the better strengthning and approving of the said Ministry with all the Parts of it there being then many Difficulties and Impediments which did many ways hinder the first Preaching and Plantation of the Gospel In the number of the said personal or temporary Gifts or Prerogatives these may be accounted the Chief 1. That they were called immediately by Chirst himself to lay the Foundation of Christian Faith among the Gentiles 2. That their Commission to that purpose was not limited to any Place or Country 3. That they had power through Imposition of their hands to give the Holy Ghost by visible Signs 4. That they were directed in the performance of their Office by the especial Inspiration of the Holy Ghost and lastly That their Doctrine which they deliver'd in Writing was to be a Canon and Rule to all Churches for ever All which personal Prerogatives although they did then appertain and were then adherent to the Essence of the Apostolick Function and were necessary at the first for the establishing of the Gospel yet it is plain that they did not contain in them any of the said Essential Parts of the Ministry and likewise that they could not be communicated by the Apostles unto any others So as either the Apostles for the Propagation and Continuance of the Eccelesiastical Ministry did communicate to others the said three Essential Parts of it viz. Power to Preach to Administer the Sacraments and Authority of Government wherein must be Degrees some to direct and some to be directed or else they died all with them which were a very wicked and an idle conceit the Apostles having Power to communicate them all alike as by their Proceedings it will appear At the first they themselves with the Evangelists and so many of the Prophets as were Ministers of the Word and Sacraments after they had converted many to the Faith did execute in their own Persons agreeably to their several Callings all those Ecclesiastical Functions as were afterward of necessity and in due time to be distinguished and setled in some others Whereby it came to pass that the Church in Jerusalem during that time had no other Deacons Priests nor Bishops but the Apostles the Evangelists and the said Prophets But afterwards the Harvest growing great as to disburthen themselves of some charge they Ordained Deacons So their own Company Apostles Disciples or Evangelists and Prophets coming short of that number of Labourers which the said Harvest required they did for their future aid chuse unto themselves by the Inspiration of the Holy Ghost certain other new Disciples and Scholars such as they found meet for that work and after some good experience had of them made them by the Imposition of their hands Priests and Ministers of the Gospel but did not for a time tie them to any particular places as having design'd them to be their Fellow-Labourers and Coadjutors These Men the Apostles had commonly in their Company and did not employ their Pains and diligent Preaching for the speedier Propagation of the Gospel which was their first and most Principal Care but likewise did use to send them hither and thither their Occasions so requiring to the Churches already planted as their Messengers and Legates sufficiently authorized for the dispatching of such Affairs as were committed unto them Of this number were Timothy Titus Marcus Epaphroditus Sylvanus Andronicus and divers others who in respect of such their Apostolical Employments and because also the Apostles did oftentimes commend them greatly and join'd their Names with their own in the beginnings of sundry their Epistles to divers Churches were Men of great Reputation and Authority amongst all Christians in those days and had the name it self of Apostles given unto them as formerly it hath been observ'd of the 70. Disciples And these were the Persons who were afterward when they were tied to the oversight of divers particular Churches or Congregations termed Bishops as it will afterward appear Now because these Apostolical Persons were still to attend upon the Apostles and their Designments as is above mentioned and for that the number of Christians every where did still encrease the Apostles held it necessary to ordain by imposition of their hands a second degree of Ministers who were thereupon still to remain in the particular Churches or Congregations that were already planted in divers Cities for in those
populous places Churches were first setled whilst the Apostles Evangelists and Prophets that were Ministers with their Coadjutors were travelling from place to place as the Holy Ghost did direct them to plant and order other Churches in other Cities elsewhere as God should bless their labours The office of this second degree of Ministers was by Preaching and Administring the Sacraments to confirm and encrease to their utmost ability the number of Christians in those Cities where they kept their residence and likewise in the absence of the Apostles by their common and joint counsel to advise and direct every particular Congregation and Member of it as well as they could when any difficulties did occur Besides it appertained unto them by Preaching of the Gospel and of the Law and upon Conference with such as were Penitent to bind and loose Mens Sins and to keep back from receiving the holy Communion such as were notorious and obstinate Offenders until either willingly by their perswasion or afterwards by the Apostles further Chastisements they were brought to Repentance Only they wanted Power and Authority of Ordination to make Ministers and of the Apostolical Keys to Excommunicate For the Apostles had reserv'd in their own hands those two Prerogatives and were themselves during those first times now spoken of by us not so far from the said Cities Churches and Ministers but that they well might and did throughly supply all their wants whatsoever and also set an order in all matters of difficulty when they fell out amongst them concerning either Doctrine or Discipline sometimes themselves in their own Persons and sometimes by their Letters or Messengers as the importance of those Causes did require In these times it may well be granted that there was no need of any other Bishops but the Apostles and likewise that then their Churches or particular Congregations in every City were advised and directed touching points of Religion in manner and form aforesaid by the common and joint advice of their Priests or Ministers In which respect the same Persons who then were named Priests or Ministers were also in a general sense called Bishops Howbeit this course dured not long either concerning their said common direction or their names of Bishops so attributed unto them but was shortly after order'd far otherwise by a common Decree of the Apostles to be observ'd in all such Cities where particular Churches were planted or as one speaketh in toto Orbe throughout the World For the number of Christians growing daily in every City throughout those Provinces and Countries where the Apostles Evangelists Prophets with their Coadjutors first travelled to plant the Christian Faith it was still more and more necessary that they should be distinguished into more Congregations than they were before and that also the number of their said Ministers that were to be resident amongst them should be accordingly encreased By reason of which encrease as well of Christians and particular Congregations as of their said Ministers as also for that now it began to come to pass that neither the Apostles nor the Evangelists nor their Coadjutors and Messengers could be always so ready and at hand or present with them as before they had been many Questions Dissentions and Quarrels fell out amongst them both Ministers and particular Congregations mentioned as by the places quoted in the Margent it is evident the People being as apt through affection and private respects to adhere to one Man more than to another as sundry of their Ministers then were prompt for their own glory to entertain all Comers and to embrace every occasion that might procure them many Followers not sparing to oppose themselves in their Pride against the very Apostles and to charge them with ambitious seeking of preheminence above their Brethren Ministers as if they had meant to tyrannize and domineer over all Churches Insomuch as St. John complain'd in his time of such Insolencies and St. Paul was driven to purge himself but yet in such sort as he stood upon the Justification of his Apostolical Authority I grant saith he That they are Ministers of Christ but withal he addeth these words I am more protesting that although he was more than they were yet he sought to have no Dominion over the Faith of any The places quoted in the Margent deserve due consideration and many other to the same purpose might be added unto them Now forasmuch as the Apostles did well understand the said Oppositions Dissentions and Emulations and that the People had as well Experience what Equality wrought amongst their Ministers in every place whilst each Man would be a Director as he list himself and accordingly broach his own Fancies without Controulment or sparing of any that stood in his way as also how themselves the people were distracted and led to the embracing of Divers Sects and Schisms they the said Apostles having now no such leisure and opportunity as that they could themselves every where appease these Quarrels did find it necessary to settle another Course for the redress of them by others For whereas before the Apostles held it convenient when they first planted Ministers in every City to detain still in their own hand the Power of Ordination and the authority of the Keys of Ecclesiastical Government because they themselves for that time with the Evangelists and others their Coadjutors were sufficient to oversee and rule them Now for the Reasons above-mentioned they did commit those their said two Prerogatives containing in them all Episcopal Power and Authority unto such of their said Coadjutors as upon sufficient tryal of their Abilities and Diligence they knew to be meet Men both whilst they themselves lived to be their Substitutes and after their deaths to be their Succcessors both for the Continuance of the work of Christ for the further building of his Church and likewise for the perpetual Government of it And in this manner the Ministers of the Word and Sacraments who had the charge but of one particular Church or Congregation and were of an inferiour Degree were distinguished from the first and superiour sort of Ministers termed most of them before The Apostles Coadjutors and now and from thenceforth called Bishops Unto which sort of worthy and selected Coadjutors and unto some others also of especial Desert so advanced to the Titles and Offices of Bishops the Apostles did commit the charge and oversight of all the particular Congregations Ministers and Christian people that dwelt in one City and in the Towns and Villages thereunto appertaining And such were the Angels of the seven Churches in Asia who were then the Bishops of those Cities with their several Territories and so in all times and ages that since have succeeded have ever been reputed And unto some others the most principal and chief men of the said Number the Apostles did likewise give Authority not only over the
particular Congregations Ministers and People in one City and in the Towns that did belong unto it but likewise over all the Churches in certain whole Provinces and Countries as unto Timothy all that were in Asia the less and unto Titus all that were planted throughout the Island of Crete And this sort of Bishops who had so large Jurisdictions over the Bishops themselves in particular Cities were afterward called Archbishops Over whom in like manner as likewise over all the rest Bishops and Ministers and particular Churches the Apostles themselves as the chief Fathers and Patriarchs of all Churches had whilst they lived the chief preheminence and oversight to direct and over-rule all as they knew it to be most convenient and behoofull for the Church communicating notwithstanding unto the said Bishops and Archbishops now their Substitutes but in time to be their Successors as full Authority in their absence with the limitations mention'd for the ordering of Ministers for the use of the Keys and for the further Government of all the Churches committed to their charges by the good advice and counsel of the inferiour sort of Priests or Ministers under them when Causes so required as if they the Apostles themselves had been present or could have always lived to have performed those duties in their own Persons their Patriarchal Authority for Government not ceasing or dying with them Of this Authority of Ordination and Government given to Bishops by the holy Apostle St. Paul he himself hath left to all Posterity most clear and evident Testimonies where writing to two of his said Bishops Timothy and Titus he describeth very particularly the Essential parts of their duties and Episcopal Office in manner and sort following For this cause I left thee at Crete that thou shouldst continue to redress the things that remain and shouldst Ordain Priests or Elders in every City as I appointed thee Lay hands hastily on no Man neither be Partaker of other Mens Sins Let them first be proved then let them minister if they be found blameless Against a Presbyter or Priest receive no accusation but under two or three Witnesses Them that sin rebuke openly that the rest may fear I pray thee to abide at Ephesus to command some that they teach no strange Doctrine neither that they give heed to Fables and Genealogies which are endless and do breed Questions rather than godly Edification which is by Faith They would be Doctors of the Law and yet understand not what they speak neither whereof they affirm There are many disobedient and vain Talkers and Deceivers of Minds whose Mouths must be stopped which subvert whole Houses teaching things which they ought not for filthy lucre's sake Stay foolish questions and contentions reject him that is an Heretick after one or two warnings These things speak and exhort and rebuke with all Authority See that no Man despise thee What things thou hast heard of me the same deliver to faithful Men which shall be able to teach others also Put them in remembrance and protest before the Lord that they strive not about words which is to no profit but to the perverting of the Hearers Stay profane and vain bablings for they shall encrease unto more ungodliness Put away all foolish and unlearned Questions knowing that they engender strife I charge thee before God and the Lord Jesus Christ and the Elect Angels that thou observe these things without preferring one to another and do nothing partially Divers other particulars might be hereunto added were it not that these are sufficient for our purpose to show as well what Power was given to the said Timothy and Titus two Apostolical Bishops newly designed unto their Episcopal Functions as also what Authority the Apostle himself had whilst he lived both of prescribing rules unto them and also of exacting the due observation of them He retaining still in his own hands as full power and ample Jurisdiction over them as they the said Bishops had received from him over the rest of the Ministry within their several charges And thus we see how by degrees the Apostles did settle the Government of the Church amongst the Gentiles converted to Christ most suitable and agreeing with the Platform ordain'd by God himself amongst the Jews Ministers are placed in particular Congregations as Priests or Levites were in their Synagogues Four and twenty Priests termed Principes Sacerdotum had in that Kingdom the charge over the rest of the Priests and amongst Christians one sort of Priests named Bishops or Arch-Bishops as their Jurisdictions were extended had the oversight of the rest of the Ministry or Priesthood Lastly as over all the Priests of what sort soever and over the rest of all the Jews Aaron had the chief preeminence so had the Apostles over all the Bishops and Priests and over the rest of all Christians There was only this want to the full accomplishment of such a Church-Government as was settled amongst the Jews that during the Apostles times and for a long season afterward it wanted Christian Magistrates to supply the rooms of Moses King David King Solomon and of the rest of their worthy Successors There is no mention in the Scriptures of the particular success that the rest of the Apostles had in planting of Churches throughout all Africa and Asia the great and a great part of Europe but we doubt not but that they followed that same course in those parts nearer or better known to us they proceeding within their limits as St. Paul did within his And moreover we have sufficient warrant by the said Practice of our Apostles to judge that if all the Kings and Soveraign Princes of the World would have received the Gospel whilst the Apostles lived they would have setled this Platform of Church-Government under them in every such Kingdom and Sovereign Principality that as the three Essential parts of the Priesthood under the Law were translated to the Ministry or Priesthood in the New Testament so the external shew or practice of them might have been in effect the same under Christian Princes that it was under the godly Kings and Princes of Judah Christians of particular Congregations to be directed by their immediate Pastors Pastors to be ruled by their Bishops Bishops to be advised by their Archbishops and the Archbishops with all the rest both of the Clergy and Laity to be ruled and governed by their godly Kings and Sovereign Princes CAN. VI. AND therefore if any Man shall affirm under colour of any thing that is in the Scriptures either that the Platform of Church-Government in the New Testament may not lawfully be deduced from that Form of Church-Government which was in the Old or that because the Apostles did not once for all and at one time but by degrees erect such a like form of Ecclesiastical Government as was amongst the Jews therefore it is not to be supposed that they
meant at all to erect it or that their expectation of fit opportunity to establish that kind of Government in the Churches of the Gentiles being converted to Christ hath any more force to discredit it than had the want of it for many years amongst the Jews to blemish the dignity of it when it was there established or that the Apostles had no further Authority of Church-Government committed unto them after the Resurrection and Ascension of Christ than they had before his Passion or that there was not as great necessity of sundry degrees in the Ministry whilst the Apostles lived one to rule another to be ruled for the establishing and government of the Church as there was whilst the Priesthood of Aaron endured or that Christ himself did not after a sort approve of divers degrees of Ministers some to have preheminence over others in that having chosen to himself twelve Apostles he did also elect 70. Disciples who were neither superiour nor equal to the Apostles and were therefore their inferiours or that he did not very expresly after his Ascension appoint divers Orders and degrees of Ministers who had power and preheminence one over another Apostles over the Prophets and Evangelists and the Evangelists over Pastors and Doctors or that the Authority of Preaching of Administration of the Sacraments and of Ecclesiastical Government given to the Apostles was not to be communicated by the Apostles unto others as there should be good opportunity in that behalf or that because there were some personal Prerogatives belonging to the Apostles which they could not communicate unto others therefore they had not power to communicate to some Ministers as well their Authority of Government over other Ministers as their Authority to preach and administer the Sacraments or that in the Authority of Government so to be communicated unto others by the Apostles there are not included certain degrees to be in the Ministry some to rule and some to be ruled or that it was not lawful for the Apostles to choose unto themselves Coadjutors and to make them Ministers of the Word and Sacraments though they tied them for a space to no certain place more than they themselves and the Evangelists were limited or tied but kept them in their own Company as if they had been in a manner their Fellows and employ'd them in Apostolical Embassages as there were occasions or that the Apostles might not lawfully ordain a second Order of Ministers by Imposition of their hands to Preach and administer the Sacraments and to tie them to particular Churches and Congregations there to execute those their duties or that the Ministers of that second degree and Order so tied unto their particular Charges had any power committed unto them either at all to make Ministers or to pronounce the Sentence of Excommunication against any of their Congregation but by the direction of the Apostles when they had given the Sentence during all the time that the Apostles kept in their own hands the said two points of Ecclesiastical Authority or that it was not expedient for the Apostles to retain in their own hands the Power and Authority of Ecclesiastical Government for a time and whilst they were able to execute the same in their own Persons or by their Coadjutors as they should direct them and not to communicate the same either to any their said Coadjutors or other Persons of the Ministry until they themselves had good experience and tryal of them and that the particular Churches also in every City found the want of such Men so authorized to reside amongst them or that when the said Ministers placed in divers particular Churches in sundry Cities fell at variance amongst themselves which of them should be most prevalent amongst the People and drew their Followers into divers Sects and Schisms it was not high time for the Apostles seeing by reason of their great affairs and business otherwise they could not attend those particular brawls and inconveniencies to appoint some worthy Persons in every City to have the rule government and direction of them or that when such Men were to be placed in such Cities the Apostles did not make especial choice of them out of the number of their said Coadjutors and likewise out of the rest of the Ministry to execute those Episcopal duties which did appertain to their Callings or that when they had so design'd and chosen them to be Bishops they did not communicate unto them as well their Apostolical Authority of Ordaining of Ministers and power of the Keys as of Preaching and Administring the Sacraments or that it was not the meaning of the Apostle St. Paul that such Persons as Timothy and Titus were ought to be made Bishops in such Cities and Countries as were that Province of Ephesus and Kingdom of Crete to have the like Authority and Power given them in their several Cities with their Suburbs Diocess or Province that was committed to Timothy and Titus for the ruling of those Ministers and Churches under them or that the Authority given by the Apostle St. Paul or by any other of the Apostles to Timothy and Titus and such like other Bishops or Archbishops did any more diminish the Power and Authority which the Apostles had in their own hands before they appointed any such Bishops and Archbishops to rule and govern them all than their giving Power and Authority of Preaching and Administring the Sacraments did impeach their own Authority so to do He doth greatly Erre CAP. VIII The Sum of the Chapter following That the Churches and godly Fathers that were immediately after the Apostles times and all the Ancient Fathers since did account the Form of Church-Government established by the Apostles of Priests and Ministers for more particular Charges of Bishops superiour to the said Priests and of Arch-Bishops to have the care and oversight of the said Bishops and Churches committed unto them not to have been ordain'd for their times only but to be continued to the End of the World the same reasons exacting the continuance of it which moved the Apostles by the Direction of the Holy Ghost first to erect it WE have pursued the Form of Ecclesiastical Government so far forth as it is expressed in the Scriptures and as it was put in practice during the Apostles times For the further proof whereof we have thought it expedient briefly to observe what the primitive Church Ancient Fathers and the Ecclesiastical Histories have in their Writings testified and said of this matter as whether they held that Timothy and Titus were Bishops in the Apostles times and had Authority over the Churches and Ministry committed to their Charge and whether that Form of Church-Government in the Apostles times wherein were divers Degrees of Ministers one sort to direct and rule viz. Bishops and the other to be directed and ruled was only necessary for the first plantation of the Churches but not so afterward when the Churches were planted as if it
had been a lawful Form of Government whilst the Apostles lived but upon their Deaths it became presently to be unlawful It is very apparent and cannot be denied That in many Greek Copies of the New Testament Timothy and Titus are termed Bishops in the Directions or Subscriptions of two Epistles which St. Paul did write unto them These are the words of the said Directions The second Epistle written from Rome unto Timotheus the first Bishop elected of the Church of Ephesus And again To Titus elect the first Bishop of the Cretians written from Nicopolis in Macedonia Moreover agreeable to the said Subscriptions the ancient Fathers generally having no doubt upon their due searching the Scriptures fully considered of the Form of Ecclesiastical Government whilst the Apostles lived do with one consent whensoever they expound the Epistles of St. Paul to Timothy and Titus or have Occasion to speak of the Authority of those two Persons very resolutely affirm That they were by the Apostles made Bishops And the same also they do testifie of St. James the Apostle himself called the Lord's Brother that he was made by the rest of the Apostles his Colleagues Bishop of Hierusalem and so also of the Seven Angels of the Churches in Asia that they were so many Bishops of the Apostles Ordination Besides the said ancient Fathers did very well know that when St. Paul said to Timothy I charge thee in the sight of God and before Jesus Christ that thou keep this Commandment without spot and unrebukable until the appearing of our Lord Jesus Christ that it was impossible for Timothy to observe those things till the coming of Christ he being to die long before and that therefore the Precepts and Rules which St. Paul had given unto him to observe in his Episcopal Government did equally appertain as well to Bishops his Successors as to himself and were to be executed by them successively after his Death unto the Worlds End as carefully and diligently as he himself whilst he lived had put them in Practice One of the said Fathers doth write as followeth With great Vigilancy and Providence doth the Apostle give Precepts to the Ruler of the Church for in his Person doth the safety of the People consist He is not so circumspect as fearing Timothy's care but for his Successors that after Timothy's Example they should observe the Ordination of the Church and begin themselves to keep that Form which they were to deliver to those that came after them Again it is evident by the Ecclesiastical Histories that not only St. James Timothy and Titus were made Bishops by the Apostles but that likewise Peter himself was Bishop of Antioch so termed because of his long stay there and that the Apostles likewise made Evodius Bishop of Antioch after St. Peter and St. Mark Bishop of Alexandria and Polycarpus Bishop of Smyrna and that St. John returning from Patmos to Ephesus went to the Churches round about and made Bishops in those places where they were wanting and also that divers others of the Apostles Coadjutors besides Timothy and Titus were made by them Bishops and did govern the Cities and Provinces where they were placed according to the same rules that were prescribed to Timothy and Titus as Dionysius the Areopagite was the first Bishop of Athens Caius the first Bishop of Thessalonica Archippus the first Bishop of the Colossians and we doubt not but many more by diligent reading may be found that were in the Apostles times made Bishops Furthermore it is apparent by the testimonies of all Antiquity Fathers and Ecclesiastical Histories that all the Churches in Christendom that were planted and govern'd by the Apostles and by such their Coadjutors Apostolical Persons as unto whom the Apostles had to that end fully communicated their Apostolical Authority did think that after the Death either of any of the Apostles which ruled amongst them or of any other the said Bishops ordained by them it was the meaning of the Holy Ghost testified sufficiently by the practice of the Apostles that the same Order and Form of Ecclesiastical Government should continue in the Church for ever And therefore upon the death of any of them either Apostles or Bishops they the said Churches did always supply their places with others the most worthy and eminent Persons amongst them who with the like Power and Authority that their Predecessors had did ever succeed them Insomuch as in every City and Episcopal See where there were divers Priests and Ministers of the Word and Sacraments and but one Bishop only the Catalogues of the Names not of their Priests but of their Bishops were very carefully kept from time to time together with the Names of the Apostles or Apostolical Persons the Bishops their Predecessors from whom they derived their Succession Of which Succession of Bishops whilst the Succession of Truth continued with it the ancient Fathers made great account and use when any false Teachers did broach new Doctrine as if they had received the same from the Apostles choaking them with this that they were not able to shew any Apostolical Church that ever taught as they did Upon such an occasion Irenaeus Bishop of Lyons within 75. years or thereabout after St. John's Death doth write in this sort Habemus annumerare eos qui ab Apostolis instituti sunt Episcopi in Ecclesiis Successores eorum usque ad nos qui nihil tale docuerunt neque cognoverunt quale ab his deliratur And so likewise not long after him Tertullian to oppress some who as it seemeth drew Companies after them saith thus Edant Origines Ecclesiarum suarum Evolvant ordinem Episcoporum suorum ita per Successiones ab initio decurrentem ut primus ille Episcopus aliquem ex Apostolis aut Apostolicis viris qui tamen cum Apostolis perseveraverit habuerit autorem Antecessorem Hoc enim modo Ecclesiae Catholicae sensus suos deferunt And St. Augustin Radix Christianae Societatis per sedes Apostolorum Successores Episcoporum certâ per Orbem propagatione diffunditur Again forasmuch as it was thought by our Saviour Christ the best means for the building and continuing of his Church in the Apostles times to ordain sundry degrees of Ministers in Dignity and Authority one over another when such a kind of preheminence might have been thought not so necessary because the Apostles by working of Miracles might otherwise as it is probable have procured to themselves sufficient Authority How can it with any reason be imagined but that Christ much more did mean to have the same still to be continued after the Apostles days when the gifts of doing Miracles were to cease and when Mens Zeal was like to grow more cold than it was at the first It savoureth assuredly We know of what Faction Indiscretion or Affection for any Man either to think that Form of Church-Government to be unfit for our times
Timothy of of his Epistle to Titus though they are found in the ancient Copies of the Greek Testament are of no Credit or Authority or that such an Impeachment and Discredit laid upon them is not very prejudicial to the Books and Writings of the Holy Ghost or that it is not great presumption for Men in these days to take upon them to know better Whether Timothy and Titus were Bishops than the Churches and godly Fathers did which were planted and lived either in the Apostle's times or presently after them except they have some especial Revelations from God or that whilst Men do labour to bring into discredit the ancient Fathers and Primitive Churches they do not derogate from themselves such credit as they hunt after and as much as in them lieth bring many parts of Religion into a wonderful uncertainty or that it is probable or was possible for Timothy to have observ'd those Rules that St. Paul gave him unto the coming of Christ except as the Fathers expound some of them he meant to have them first observed by himself and other Bishops in that Age and that afterward they should so likewise be observed by all Bishops for ever or that the ancient Fathers and Ecclesiastical Histories when they Record it to all Posterity that these Men and those Men were made by the Apostles Bishops of such and such places are not to be held to be of more credit than any other Historiographers or Writers or that when the ancient Fathers did collect out of the Scriptures and practice of the Apostles the continuance for ever of that Form of Church-Government which was then in use they were not so throughly illuminated with the Holy Ghost as divers Men of late have been or that it was an idle course held by the Primitive Churches and ancient Fathers to keep the Catalogues of their Bishops or to ground Arguments in some Cases upon their Succession in that they were able to deduce their beginnings either from the Apostles or from some Apostolical Persons or that the Form of Government used in the Apostle's times for the planting and ordering of Churches was not in many respects as necessary to be continued in the Church afterward especially considering that many Churches were not left fully ordered nor in some places were at all planted when the Apostles died or that true and perfect Order grounded upon the very Laws of Nature and Reason and established by the Holy Ghost in the Apostles times was not fit for the Churches of God afterward to embrace and observe or that any Church since the Apostles time till of late years when it received the Gospel had not likewise Archbishops and Bishops for the Government of it or that divers of the ancient Fathers did not hold and that very truly for ought that appeareth to the contrary that our Saviour Christ and his Apostles in establishing the Form of Church-Government amongst the Gentiles had an especial respect to that Form which God had setled amongst the Jews and did no way purpose to abrogate or abolish it or that any since the Apostles times till of late days was ever held to be a lawful Minister of the Word and Sacraments who was not Ordain'd Priest or Minister by the Imposition of the hands of some Bishop or that it is with any probability to be imagin'd that all the Churches of Christ and ancient Fathers from the beginning would ever have held it for an Apostolical Rule That none but Bishops had any Authority to make Priests had they not thought and judged that the same Authority had been derived unto them the said Bishops from the same Apostolical Ordination that was committed unto Timothy and Titus their Predecessors or that the Apostles and all the ancient Fathers were deceived when they judged the Authority of Bishops necessary at all times for the suppressing of Schisms and that without Bishops there would be in the Churches as many Sects as Ministers or that when Men find themselves in regard of their disobedience to their Bishops so fully and notably described and censured by all the ancient Fathers for Schismaticks and contentious Persons they have not just cause to fear their own Estates if they continue in such their willfulness and obstinacy or that the Church-Government by us above treated of is truly to be said to savour of Judaism more than the observation by godly Kings and Princes of the Equity of the Iudicial Law given to the Jews may truly be said to savour thereof or that it doth proceed from any other than the wicked Spirit for any sort of Men what godly shew soever they can pretend to seek to discredit as much as in them lieth that Form of Church-Government which was established by the Apostles and left by them to continue in the Church to the end of the World under Archbishops and Bishops such as were Timothy and Titus and some others then called to those Offices by the said Apostles and ever since held by the Primitive Churches and all the ancient Fathers to be Apostolical Functions or to term the same or any part of it to be Anti-Christian He doth greatly Erre CAP. IX The Sum of the Chapter following That our Saviour Christ upon his Ascension into Heaven did not commit the Temporal Government of the whole World unto St. Peter That the Apostles and whole Ministry did succeed Christ not as he was a Person immortal and glorious after his Resurrection but as he was a Mortal Man here upon the Earth before his Passion That Christ left neither to St. Peter nor to the Bishops of Rome nor to any other Archbishops or Bishops any temporal Possessions all that since any of them have gotten being bestowed upon them by Emperours Kings and Princes and other their good Benefactors And that the Imagination of St. Peter's Temporal Sovereignty is very idle the same being never known unto himself for ought that appeareth and argueth great Ignorance of the true nature of the Spiritual Kingdom of Christ for the erecting whereof the spiritual working of the Holy Ghost with the Apostles and the rest of the Ministry of the Gospel was and is only necessary IT hath been shewed by us before that our Saviour Christ after his Resurrection and Ascension became actually in the State of the Heir of all things Governour of all the World and King of kings even as he was Man his divine Nature working more gloriously in his Humanity than formerly it had done Howbeit although we also made it plain that notwithstanding the said Glory Power Rule Dominion and Majesty wherewith Christ is really possest sitting in Heaven at the right hand of his Father he made no alteration in the Form and manner of Temporal Government but left the whole World to be ruled by Kings and Soveraign Princes under him as it had been before himself retaining still in his own hands the Scepter and chiefest Ensigns of Royal and highest Majesty to direct and
natural Being only but Schoolmasters do adorn by Instruction and beautify their Minds therefore School-Masters are more to be honour'd by young Lords and Princes than are their Lords and Kings their natural Parents Or thus One end why Men were first Created and afterward born be they Kings or Princes Priests or private Persons was to live in the World but for the supporting of Mens Lives Husbandry and many other Occupations are of greater Importance and Necessity than are either Kings Princes Lords or civil Magistracy therefore those Mens base Callings are to be preferr'd before the Callings of the other Or as if a Man should reason thus They that have the chiefest charge of Souls committed unto them are to be esteem'd as Men in this World of the highest Calling but all Christians generally have every one of them a greater charge committed unto them of their own Souls than any sort of Priests or Ministers have therefore every Christian is in that respect in Calling and Dignity to be preferred before the Calling of any one Pastor Priest Prelate or Pope Now after he hath dallied with such sophistications and comparisons betwixt the Body and the Soul the Flesh and the Spirit he falleth upon some particulars the more fully as he saith to express what he had formerly delivered The sum of which particulars is That although the Pope as he is Pope cannot ordinariè ordinarily depose temporal Princes or make civil Laws or judge de rebus temporalibus yet in ordine ad Spiritualia he may do them all And this he taketh upon him to prove by five main reasons grounded God knoweth upon very weak Foundations Of which his odd number for the glory of them this which followeth is the first Civil Power is subject to Spiritual Power when they are both part of a Christian Commonwealth therefore the Spiritual Princes may command temporal Princes and dispose of their temporal affairs in ordine ad Bonum spirituale n order to a spiritual good The Antecedent of which Argument may briefly be refuted for ought that he hath said to justify it in manner as followeth For in saying that this subjection of the temporal Power to the Spiritual is but where both these Powers are part of one and the same Christian Commonwealth he maketh the Estate of Christian Kings and Princes inferiour and worse than the Estate of those that be Infidels Whose political Power being no part of any Christian Commonwealth is not subject to the Ecclesiastical Again to prefer the Ecclesiastical Authority of the Church for honour and dignity in this World before the temporal Authority of Kings and Princes is in effect to prefer the poor and base Estate of our Saviour Christ as he was a mortal Man here upon Earth subject to many wants oppressions and injuries before the glory and majesty of his Divine Nature in that Kings have their Authority and Calling from Christ as he is God Whereas all Ministers even St. Peter himself and consequently the Pope are but Christ's Vicars and Substitutes as he was Man subject to the said wants miseries and Oppressions Moreover in that every Soul by the testimony of St. Paul is subject to the Power and Authority of temporal Princes and that they must be so not because of wrath only but also for Conscience sake forasmuch as the points of subjection there specified are commanded to all Men to be observed Sacerdotibus Monachis non solùm saecularibus to Bishops and Monks and not to secular Priests only as Chrysostom saith by our Interpretation adding to these words of the Apostle Let every Soul be subject to the higher Powers Etiamsi Apostolus sis si Evangelista si Propheta sive quisque tandem fueris although thou art an Apostle or an Evangelist or a Prophet or whosoever thou art and because for ought we have read none of the ancient Fathers do herein dissent from Chrysostom We hold it to be very plain and evident to our understandings that the Ecclesiastical Authority to be exercis'd in this World by any manner of Ecclesiastical Persons whosoever is inferiour and of a lower degree than is the Authority and Power of temporal Kings and Princes For if the Authority of such Ecclesiastical Persons whether Apostles Evangelists Prophets Bishops or Priests either Regular or Secular cannot exempt them from the Authority of Kings it must follow of necessity that it is subject and inferiour to their temporal Power and Authority Another of the Cardinal's Reasons whereby he would gladly prove the Pope's indirect temporal Power to omit the rest of his absurd trifling about the first is built upon a very traiterous Position never heard of in the Church in the times of the principal ancient Fathers For how earnest soever he seem'd before in refuting their Opinions who hold That no Princes are to be obey'd if they be Infidels he thinketh he is able to shift off that in effect with his jugling and indirect Fetches These are his traiterous words It is not lawful for Christians to tolerate a King being an Infidel or an Heretick if he endeavour to draw his Subjects unto his Heresy or Infidelity but to judge whether a King doth draw his Subjects to Heresy or no doth belong to the Pope unto whom is committed the charge of Religion and therefore it belongeth to the Pope to judge whether a King is to be deposed or not Concerning the Assumption of this Argument touching the presupposed charge of the Pope in matters of Religion over all the Churches in the World we shall have a fitter occasion to touch it after a sort in the next Chapter Now we will only briefly handle the falshood of his Proposition Of the Power of Subjects over their Soveraigns Where after he hath abused a place in Deuteronomy and spent some idle conceits of his own he writeth in this sort Although Christians in times past did not depose Nero and Dioclesian and Julian the Apostate and Valens the Arrian and such like id fuit quia deerant vires temporales Christianis it came to pass because Christians did then want temporal Forces For that otherwise they might lawfully so have done appeareth by the Apostle 1 Cor. 6. Where he commandeth new Judges of temporal Causes to be appointed by Christians that Christians might not be compelled to plead their Cause before a Judge that was a Persecutor of Christ Upon which Text the Cardinal maketh this Gloss Sicut novi Judices constitui potuerunt ita novi Principes Reges propter eandem causam si vires adfuissent as new Judges might have been appointed so might new Princes and Kings for the same cause if the Christians then had been able by reason of their Forces to have created to themselves such new Kings and Princes Thus the Cardinal Who undoubtedly was brought into some hard streight or else he would never have written in this sort St. Peter and St. Paul lived and dyed under
great temporal Power in the Pope over Princes as without the which the Church of Christ could not attain her Spiritual End had been known to the Apostles and Ancient Fathers they would not have been as careful and zealous to have preached and divulged the same unto all Posterity as now the Bishops of Rome and their Adherents are or that we ought not rather to believe that the Bishops of Rome and their Adherents through their forsaking the love of the Truth are given over by God unto those strong Illusions that they should believe lies and maintain them as stifly as though they were true than once to conceive that the holy Apostles and ancient Fathers were either ignorant of this supposed temporal Authority to Depose Kings and Princes for the end so often mentioned or thought it fit to dissemble it or to write of it so darkly as for many Hundred years it could not be understood or that God hath not wonderfully blinded the hearts and understandings both of the Popes and all their Adherents in this particular matter amongst many others in that the nature of the Church and Spiritual Kingdom of Christ considered they dare presume to maintain it so confidently that the said Spiritual Kingdom of Christ cannot attain to her Spiritual End without the Bishop of Rome his Temporal Authority indirectly in some Cases to Depose Kings and Soveraign Princes or that the true Spiritual End of the Church consisting in this that the Devil being banished out of the hearts of all her true Members Christ may retain his Possession of them through their Faith and diligence to repel Satan who daily laboureth to regain to himself his own Possession it is not more than a kind of phrensy to hold and maintain that any temporal Authority managed by the Pope or by his Commandment against Kings and Princes hath any force or power to work or procure this Spiritual End either by expelling or repelling of Satan or to nourish Faith or to continue the reigning of Christ in any Mens hearts or that it is not an impious and a profane assertion for any Man to defend that the Weapons and Armour of this Spiritual Warfare undertaken by Christ and his Apostles and by all godly Bishops and true Priests and Ministers of the Gospel are not sufficient of themselves to procure to the Church her Spiritual End without the Pope's carnal Weapons or temporal Authority to Depose Kings when to him with the assistance of his Cardinals it shall seem expedient He doth greatly Erre CAP. XI The Sum of the Chapter following That there is no more necessity of one visible Head of the Catholick Church than of one visible Monarch over all the World IN the 35 th and 36 th Chapters of our first Book We have shewed at large that our Saviour Christ the Son of God having created the World and taken upon him to be the Redeemer of Mankind after their transgression through Adam's Fall did not only as he was the Son of God govern all the World the same being in that respect but one Universal Kingdom and appoint several Kings and Sovereign Princes as his Substitutes to rule the same under him in their several Countries and Kingdoms leaving no one Emperour or temporal Monarch to govern them all but likewise as he was the blessed Lamb slain from the beginning of the World he did for his own Glory and our endless Comfort erect for himself in this World a Spiritual Kingdom called his Church consisting of such Men dispersed throughout the World as did profess his name and being himself the only Head and Governour of it in which respect it is rightly to be termed but One Catholick Church did appoint no one Priest over the whole Catholick Church but several Priests and Ecclesiastical Ministers to rule and govern the particular Churches in every Province Country and Nation And in such manner and form as our Saviour Christ did rule and govern his Universal Kingdom and Catholick Church before his Incarnation So doth he still rule and govern the same notwithstanding any of those vain pretences and ridiculous Usurpations which the Bishops of Rome or any of their Adherents are able to alledge and maintain to the contrary In the Gloss of one of the Books of the Canon-Law not long since Printed and approved by Gregory the Thirteenth a Glossographer and now an Authentical Canonist doth write in this sort Dicò quod potestas Spiritualis debet dominari omni creaturae humanae I say that the Spiritual Power ought to domineer over every humane Creature And why saith he so Forsooth Per rationes quas Hostiensis inducit in summa for certain causes and reasons which Hostiensis another Canonist doth alledge in his sum But he stayeth not there he hath another motive which he setteth down thus Item quia Christus c. Also because Jesus Christ the Son of God when he was in the World and also from everlasting was the natural Lord and by the natural Law he might have given Sentences against the Emperour and any other whatsoever of Deposition and damnation and any other Sentences Vtpote in personas quas creaverat donis naturalibus gratuitis dotaverat etiam conservabat As against Persons whom he had created and endowed with natural and free gifts and also whom he did preserve eadem ratione Vicarius ejus potest and by one and the same reason saith he his Vicar may so do What would Pope Gregory by his Canonists make Men to believe that all Emperours Kings and Soveraign Princes are Persons of the Pope's Creation or that he doth bestow on them freely any gifts or benefits of Nature or that their preservation doth depend upon his good favour and Providence But the idle Canonist his Wit doth serve him no better than to make in effect this fond Collection Christ the Creator of all things doth govern rule dispose and preserve all his own Creatures therefore the Pope must likewise govern rule dispose and preserve them all though he created none of them And why must he so do he wanteth not a very substantial reason that moved him so to collect which followeth in his own words Nam non videretur Dominus discretus fuisse ut cum Reverentià ejus loquar nisi unicum post se talem Vicarium reliquisset qui haec omnia posset Fuit autem iste Vicarius ejus Petrus Et idem dicendum est de Successoribus Petri cùm eadem absurditas sequeretur si post mortem Petri humanam naturam à se creatam sine regimine unius personae reliquisset For Christ should not have been thought a Person of sufficient discretion that with his Reverence I may so speak except he had left behind him one such Vicar who might do all these things And this his Vicar was Peter And the same is to be said of the Successors of Peter seeing the same absurdity must follow if after Peter's Death he
Vniversal Kingdom of Christ are not of as great validity to prove that there ought to be one temporal King under him to govern his Vniversal Kingdom over all the World as are the other Vnities touching the Church to prove that there must be one Bishop under him to govern all the particular Churches in the World or that because Kings when they have occasion to be absent from their Kingdoms do commonly appoint some Vice-Roy to Rule their People until their return it thereupon followeth that Christ supplying his corporal absence from his Spiritual Kingdom the Church by the comfortable presence of the Holy Ghost was of necessity to leave one carnal Man to be his Vicar-General over his said Spiritual Kingdom or that seeing our Saviour Christ held it expedient for his Catholick Church that he should deprive her of his corporal presence that she might be ruled by the Holy Ghost it is not to be thought great presumption for any Man to tell us that his corporal presence is necessary for the Government of the said Catholick Church as if he meant to put the Holy Ghost out of Possession or that either the said one Vniversal Kingdom of Christ the King and Creator of it is otherwise visible upon the Earth than by the particular Kingdoms and several kinds of Governments in it and perhaps in a sort and by Representation when some Neighbour Kings either in Person or by their Ambassadours may be met together for the good of their several Kingdoms or that the said one Catholick Church of Christ as he is the chief Bishop over all is otherwise visible on the Earth than by the several and particular Churches in it and sometimes by general and free Councils lawfully assembled or that it is a better consequent that if the Catholick Church have no visible Head all other Bishops Doctors Pastors and Ministers are needless than if one should say because there is no one King to govern all the World therefore there is no use of Emperours Kings and Soveraign Princes or civil Magistrates or that it doth more follow that Christ should have left his Faithful People in a confused Anarchy except he had left St. Peter and his Successors to govern the whole Church than it doth that the whole World hath been left by him in a Confusion without any Government in it in that he hath not left one Vniversal Emperour or that the intolerable Pride of the Bishop of Rome for the time still being through the advancement of himself by many sleights stratagems and false Miracles over the Catholick Church the Temple of God as if he were God himself doth not argue him plainly to be the Man of Sin mentioned by the Apostle or that every National Church planted according to the Apostle's Platform may not by the means which Christ hath ordained as well subsist of it self without one Vniversal Bishop as every Kingdom may do under the Government of their several Kings without one general Monarch He doth greatly Erre The End of the Second Book LIB III. CAP. I. IN pursuing our intended Course through the Old Testament and until the destruction of Jerusalem we overslipt and passed by the fulness of that time wherein the Son of God the Maker and Governour of all the World our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ was conceived by the Holy Ghost and born of the Virgin Mary So as now we are to return back and prosecute our said Course as we find the true grounds thereof are laid down confirmed and practised in the New Testament At our Entrance into which Course We confess our selves to be indeed greatly astonished considering the strange impediments and mighty stumbling blocks which through long practice and incredible Ambition are cast in our way in that we find the Estate of that Church which would rule over all to be degenerated in our days as far in effect from her primary and Apostolical Institution and Rules as we have shewed before the Estate of the Jewish Church to have swerved through the like Pride and Ambition from that excellent Condition wherein she was first established and afterward preserved and beautified by Moses and King David with the rest of his most worthy and godly Successors For except we should condemn the Old Testament as many ancient Hereticks have done and thereupon overthrow all which hitherto we have built and not that only but should furthermore either approve of their gross Impiety who read the Scriptures of the New Testament as if they were falsified and corrupted and by receiving and rejecting as much of them as they list do prefer before them as not containing in them all necessary Truth for Man's Salvation certain obscure and Apocryphal Writings Or should our selves impiously imagine that the New Testament as now we have it was but a rough Draught and a fit project compiled for the time by the Apostles to be afterward better order'd polished and supplied with certain humane Traditions and Doctrines by some of their Successors We can see no sufficient Warrant or probable reason why the Bishop of Rome should take upon him as he doth so eminent and supream Authority over all the Kingdoms and Churches in the World to rule them direct them bestow them and chop and change them under pretence of Religion as he from time to time shall think fit Sure we are if the Scriptures may retain their ancient Authority and continue to be true Rulers and principal Directors to all Apostolical Bishops that in them there will not be found any shadows or steps of those so high and lofty conceits To the proof whereof before we address our selves We have thought it very expedient for the carriage of our course more perspicuously and clearly to make it apparent by what degrees and practices the Bishops of Rome have proceeded in aspiring to that Soveraignty and Greatness which now they have attained Placet eis John Overall Prolocutor CAP. II. AS it was said long since Religion brought forth Riches and the Daughter devoured the Mother So may it very truly be said in these days The Empire begat the Papacy and the Son hath devoured his Father For as we suppose by the Effects no sooner did the Bishops of Rome even in the first times of Persecution get any rest and courage but they began to think with themselves That they were as able to govern all the Churches in the Empire as the Emperours themselves were to govern all the Kingdoms and Nations then subject unto them and that Rome was as fit a Seat for such a Bishop as it was for so great an Emperour Some Seeds of this Ambition began to sprout there when Victor presumed to threaten the Greek Churches concerning the Feast of Easter although Irenaeus then living did greatly dislike it and the Bishops of Asia little regarding him in that behalf said They nothing cared for such his threats And it was not we suppose an idle conceit of one who writing
time to the Papacy reporteth That they rather deserv'd to be termed Apotactaci Apostaticive potiùs quà m Apostolici Vnruly or Runnegates than Apostolical Bishops The last of which number was Leo the Ninth who within five or six years after the said Council of Sutrium renounced the Emperour's Favour whereby he was prefer'd to the Papacy being perswaded by one Hildebrand That it was unlawful per manum Laicam to take upon him that Government and was thereupon again chosen and admitted Pope by the Romans contrary to their former Oath and to the Decree of the said Council This Hildebrand being a man both of a great Wit and Courage and having an Eye himself unto the Papacy made his way in that behalf by thrusting five or six Bishops successively into Opposition against the Emperour of purpose that if it were his Fortune to come to that Place he might find the Ice broken by them to his own Rebellion and most traiterous Designments The said Leo became a Warriour and General of the Field against some troublesom Persons in Italy called Normans by Hildebrand's means as it seemeth Cujus Consiliis nutu Pontificatûs munus perpetuò administravit The like Sway he also bare with Pope Nicholas the Second who made him Archdeacon of Rome in requital for his helping of him to the Popedom and by whose Advice the said Nicholas held a Council in the Church of Lateran wherein it was Ordain'd That from thenceforth the Bishops of Rome should be chosen by the Cardinals with Approbation of the Clergy and People of Rome Also the said Hildebrand opposed himself against the Emperour and prevail'd therein for Alexander the Second the Emperour having appointed Honorius the Second to that Place Which Alexander so advanced made a Decree That no man should in time to come receive any Ecclesiastical Living or Benefice from a Layman because it was then called Symony so to do And thus these Popes by Hildebrand's Instigation decreed and did what they list to the great prejudice of the Emperour and of his Authority the same being now in respect of former times almost at the last cast Placet eis John Overall CAP. VIII IT was great Policy in the Emperours as we have shewed to do what they could for the Maintenance of their Authority in placing of the Bishops of Rome and in bestowing of other Bishopricks and Abbacies within their Dominions But such was the Ignorance Hypocrisie and Superstition of those Times so far spread by the inferiour Bishops and Priests and so rooted every where in men's Hearts by the Bishops of that See under colour of Religion and of their pretended Supremacy derived by them from St. Peter as they feared not to attempt any thing against any whosoever so the same might tend to the Advancement of their own Authority Again it was a great Oversight in Charles the Great considering his Wisdom and that he well knew the proud and aspring Minds of those Bishops that after his own Coronation at Rome by Leo the Third he did not provide for the benefit of his Successors that none of them after that time should ever be Crowned there or by the Bishop of that Place For that Slip and Omission being not well look'd to and Reform'd by any that did succeed him became at the last the great Bane of the Empire Besides the State of the Emperours shortly after the Days of the said Charles did very greatly decay Insomuch as within about Sixty Years Ludovicus the Second had but the Ninth part of the Empire the rest being diversly and by sundry Distractions and Divisions rent and drawn from it Which Weakness of the Empire being throughly known to the Bishops of Rome and it discern'd by them to decrease more and more they grew more insolent than ever they were and began to insist upon their Preheminence and great Superiority over the Emperours because forsooth they received at their hands the Diadem and Crown Imperial These things will appear manifestly by the Proceedings of those succeeding Bishops if we shall begin with Hildebrand before mention'd who after he had procured Six Bishops of Rome to be poyson'd by one Brazutus as many thought was upon the Death of Alexander II. Ann. 1073 or thereabout made Pope himself and termed Gregory the Seventh with the Consent of Henry the Fourth then Emperour as some say without it say others But whether with it or without it when he had gotten that Place so long by him expected he ruffl'd and bestir'd himself very notably in it About that time there was a great Rebellion against the Emperour in Germany by the Saxons who very well knowing the Pride and violent Disposition of the Pope against the Emperour and how apt he would be to take any Occasion that might tend to his own Glory and to the Honour of his Place desired his Assistance deprived the Emperour very shamefully and the rather to allure the Pope unto them told him by their Agents that the Empire was but Beneficium Vrbis and thereupon moved him that He and the People of Rome would together with them administer the Empire and take Order by a Decree of Council and Agreement of Princes who should be Emperour Grata admodùm Gregorio ist haec fuere These things pleased Gregory exceedingly as a Friend to Rome affirmeth He thought that in such a whirling of things he was not to sit idle as being perswaded that a fit time was come when he might free the Bishops of Rome from Servitude shake off the Yoak of the Emperour his Abilities being diminished abrogate his Authority lawfully translate the whole Powerto himself and so establish the Pontifical Principality And nothing seemed more Glorious for him than Fear being taken away to stand in dread of no mortal man and to enjoy the Liberty of the Church as he list himself there being an Emperour whose Arms and Force were not to be feared as who did Reign but at the pleasure of the Bishop of Rome Which Points thus debated with himself and probably resolved he joyned Friendship with the said Rebels and Traytors promising them his best Assistance agreeably to their own Desires and thereupon being furthermore strengthned by the Amity which he likewise had entertained with certain other Rebels in Italy and by the Purse of a great Lady in that Country one Machtilda his Concubine as it was supposed he following the traiterous Humours stirred up by himself and maintain'd a long time in sundry of his Predecessors did prosecute the Emperour with admirable Malice Pride and Contempt because he opposed himself in his own Right and for his own Defence against him Which the Pope took in such Scorn as he Cursed him by his Excommunication releas'd his Subjects from their Oaths of Allegiance and stir'd them up by all the means he could to take Arms and to enter into any wicked Practices that might tend to the Emperour's Overthrow
and throw down and build and plant And a little after You see who is this servant even the Vicar of Christ the Successour of Peter the Christ of the Lord the God of Pharaoh one plac'd in the midst betwixt God and Man short of God but beyond Man less than God but greater than Man Likewise from St. Peter's walking on the Water he maketh this Inference Forasmuch saith he as many Waters are many People and the Congregations of Waters are the Sea in that St. Peter did walk upon the Waters of the Sea he did demonstrate his Power over all the World Further this Innocentius having written a malapert Letter to the Emperour of Constantinople his Majesty in answer of it putteth him in Mind how St. Peter commandeth all Men to be subject to Kings whereunto the Pope replyed saying that St. Peter wrote so to his own Subjects and did not therein include himself and that moreover he might not only have remember'd that it was not said to any King but to a Priest Behold I have placed thee over Nations and Kingdoms and so followeth the words of the Text but likewise that as God made two lights in the Firmament of Heaven a greater and a less the one for the Day the other for the Night so for the Firmament of the Universal Church he made two dignities the Pontifical and the Regal the Pontifical resembling the Sun which is the great Light and the Regal the Moon which is the less Light to the end that thereby it might be known that there is a great difference betwixt Pontifical Bishops and Kings as there is betwixt the Sun and the Moon But here we must a little digress to observe that this Pope being swoln as big as the Sun cast his Beams not only into England and scorched King John exceedingly about the Year 1212. by thundering against him and interdicting the Kingdom and by exciting his Subjects to Rebellion and Treason the Weapons of those Bishops but likewise fired Otho the Emperour out of the Empire by raising up against him Frederick the Second And when he had played these two Feats amongst many other he held a Council at Lateran Anno 1215. wherein to strengthen such Traiterous Proceedings he caused it to be ordained as it is pretended That if any Temporal Lord being admonished by the Church should not purge his Countrey from Heresie the Metropolitan and other Comprovincial Bishops should excommunicate him and if within a Year he did not give satisfaction in that behalf the same should be signified to the Bishop of Rome that so he from thence forward might denounce his Vassals absolved from their Fidelity to him and expose his Land to Catholicks to be without Contradiction by them possessed Upon this Canon many in these days do much rely although indeed it was but a Project amongst many other to have been concluded in that Assembly wherein nothing could be clearly determined saith one of their Writers because by Wars it was broken off which the Pope labouring to suppress died in that Journey And now we return from whence we digressed and leaving Innocentius do address our selves to Boniface the Eighth who had as great dexterity as his said Predecessour in expounding of the Scriptures For whereas the Apostles upon a mistaking of Christ's meaning where he bad them to provide bags and scrips for themselves and that he who wanted a sword should sell his Coat and buy one they answered saying Lord we have two swords This Pope inferreth there is in the Church a Spiritual Sword and a Temporal and that consequently they are both at the Commandment of the Bishops of Rome Also to make the matter more clear touching the temporal Sword which should rule the World in all temporal Causes he saith Boniface that shall deny that St. Peter had this temporal Sword doth not well understand Christ's Words when he bad St. Peter after he had cut off Malchus's Ear that he should put up his Sword Again whereas the Apostle doth teach us that the spiritual Man judgeth all things but is judged by none this good Bishop doth ingross these words to the only Use of the Popes and thereupon concludeth that they have Power to judge and censure all Earthly Powers and Authorities but are themselves exempted from the Checks and Censures of any as being only subject to God and to his judgment And again that the Spiritual Authority may institute and judge the Terrestrial it is verified by the Prophecy of Jeremy Behold I have placed thee this day over Nations and Kingdoms for the perverting of which Portion of Scripture both this Pope and Innocentius the Third with all the Popes that since have followed were and are much beholding to Adrian the Fourth he being the first for ought we find that so did overstrain it Lastly That he might imitate as he seemeth the Governour of the Feast in the Gospel that brought forth his best wine in the end of the feast and likewise such skilful Rhetoricians as commonly build their principal Conclusions upon their most pinching Arguments His Holiness relying upon the Scriptures because it is not said In the beginnings but In the beginning God made Heaven and Earth Therefore except we will say with the Manichces That God did not Himself make all Things but that there was also another Creator as well as he It must needs be confessed that there is but One viz. St. Peter's Successor that is the chief and principal Ruler of all the World and so he cometh to his irrefragable Conclusion We declare we define and we pronounce that it is of the Necessity of Salvation for all humane Creatures to be subject to the Bishop of Rome We may not therefore marvel that having thus notably made perfect the rough Platform drawn out by Gregory the VIIth rubbed over by Hadrian the IVth and amended by Innocentius the IIId of so infinite a Soveraignty if He the said Boniface to make the Honour and Glory more conspicuous and memorable to all Posterity after He had thrice refused to yield the Crown of the Empire to Albertus Austriacus came forth one day amongst the people to be admired of them with a Sword by his Side and a Crown upon his Head saying That He and none but He was Caesar Augustus Emperour and Lord of the World It had been plain dealing if for the better strengthning of this his Greatness He had alledged the Words in the Gospel for the Honour of his Lord Paramount All these will I give thee because He did so worthily by his said Proceedings magnifie his Name and Authority Placet eis John Overall CAP. X. WE have hitherto followed the Bishops of Rome through many Windings from their mean and militant Condition like to their Brethren unto their Glorious Estate and as we may say Triumphant We found them at the first little better than their Master Who