and impotency of the people But you who have no better name for the people in a Commonwealth then the Rascal Rabble will have Kings at a venture to be of Divine right and to be absolute where as in truth if divine right be derived unto Kings from these of the Hebrews onely it is most apparent that no absolute King can be of Divine right For these Kings if they were such by the Law alledged then by the same Law they could neither multiply Horses nor wives nor Silver nor Gold without which â—o King can be absolute but were to keep all the words of this Law and these Statutes and so by consequence were regulated Monarchs nay could of right Enact no Law but as those by David for the reduction of the Ark for the regulation of the Priests for the Election of Solomon which were made by the suffrage of the people no otherwise then those under the Kings of Rome and ours under the late Monarchy what then is attributed by Calvin unto popular Magistrates that is not confirmed by Scripture and reason yet nothing will serve your turn but to know what power there was in the Sanhedrim to controle their Kings to which I answer that both Skickardus and Grotius with the full consent of the Talmudists have assured you that in case the King came to violate those Laws and Statutes it was in the power of the Sanhedrim to bring him unto corporal punishment Moreover it is shewn by the latter out of Josephus that Hircanus when he could not deliver Hierom from the Sanhedrim by power he did it by art Nor is your evasion so good as that of Hircanus while you having nothing to say to the contrary but that Herod when he was question'd was no King shuffle over the business without taking notice as to the point in controversie that Hircanus who could not save Herod from the question was King The manner of the restitution of the Sanhedrim made by Jehoshaphat plainly shewes that even under the Monarchy the power of the Sanhedrim was co-ordinate with that of the King at least such is the judgement of the Iewish Writers for saith Grotius the King as is rightly noted by the Talmudists was not to judge in some cases and to this the words of Zedekiah seem to relate whereto the Sanhedrim demanding the Prophet Jeremiah he said Behold he is in your hands for the King is not he that can do any thing without you nor except David had ever any King Session or vote in this Councell to which soon after he adds that this Court contiued till Herod the Great whose insolency when exalting it self more and more against the Law the Senator had not in time as they ought suppressed by their power God punished them in such a manner for the neglect of their duty that they came all to be put to death Herod except Sameae onely whose foresight and frequent warning of this or the like calamity they had as frequently contemned In which words Grotius following the unanimous consent of the Talmudists if they knew any thing of their own orders expresly attributes the same power unto the Sanhedrim and chargeth them with the same dury in Israel that is attributed unto the three Estates in a Gothick Moddel and charged upon these by Calvin Thus that there never lay any appeal from the Sanhedrim unto Moses except when the Jews were in captivity or under provincial Government to any other Magistrate as also that they had power upon their Kings being that your self say Iâ— the objection paramount and which not answered you confess that the three Estates convened in Parliament or any other papular Magistrate Calvin dreams of notwithstanding any discontinuance or non-usage on their parts or any prescription alledged by Kings to the contrary may resume and exercise that authority which God hath given them when ever they shall find a fit time for it And this letter shewing plainly that you have in no wise answered this objection it remains that your whole Book even according to your own acknowledgement is confuted by this letter Or if you be of another mind I shall hope to hear further from you 3. These are the very words of that you Letter to which an answer is required though to no part thereof but that which doth concern the Spartan Ephori and the Iewish Sanhedrim I can by any rules of disputation be required to answer the rest of your discourse touching the balancing or over-balancing of such degrees and ranks of men of which all Government consist is utterly Extrinsecally and extravagant unto my design which was not to dispute the severall forms of Government and in what the differences between them did most especially coâ—sist but onely to declare that neither the Spartan Ephori nor any such popular Magistrates as Calvin dreams of had any authority originally invested in them to controul their Kings much less to murder or depose them Howsoever I shall not purposely pass by any thing which by your self or any indifferent Reader shall be thought material without giving you my judgement and opinion in it Some things you say I writ as a Polititian a silly one I am God help me and some things as a Polititian and divine too And as a Polititian I am charged by you to have affirmed that the Spartan Kings were as absolute Monarchs as any in those times till Euripon the 3d. King of the Race of Hercules and the 2d King of the younger house to procure the favour and good will of the Rascal rabble loosened the raigns of Government and thereby much diminishing the Regall power This I affirm indeed and this you deny but you neither Answer my Authorities nor confute my Reasons my Authorities I derive from Plutarch first who speaking of the said Euripon whom he calleth Eurition affirms that till his time the Government of Sparta was 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 sufficiently Monarchical if it were not more And secondly from Aristotle who calls the Government of Charilaus the sixt King of that House who as you say was generally affirmed to be a good man by the name of a tyranny And if it might be called a Tyranny then when the Regall power was under such a diminution by the folly of Euripon there is no question to be made but that the Spartan Kings were absolute Monarchs before any such diminution had been made To these two proofs you answer nothing nor say you any thing at all in confutation of the Reason by me brought to prove it Which is That having acquired the Estate by conquest and claiming by no other title then by that of Armies there was no question to be made but that they Governed in the way of absolute Monarchs it being not the guise of such as come in by conquest to covessant and capitulate with their Subjects but to impose their will for a Law upon them This being the custome of all Kings who
who on the rooting out of the Hereticks should possess the same to the end that he might keep it in the holy Faith But this was with a salvojure a preservation of the Rights and Interests of the Lords in chief if they gave no hindrance to the work And with this clause that it should after be extended to those also which had no Lord Paramount superiour to them According unto which decree the Albigenses and their Patrons were warred on by the Kings of France till both sides were wearied with the War and compounded it at last upon these conditions viz. That Alphonso younger brother to King Lewis the 9. of France should marry Joan daughter and heir to the last Raimond and have with her the full possession of the Country after his decease provided also that if the said parties died without issue the whole estate should be escheated to the Crown as in fine it did An. 1270. 39. This the occasion of the Canon and this the meaning and the consequent of it but what makes this to the Deposing of Kings and such supreme Princes as have no Lord Paramount above them For if you mean such inferiour Princes as had Lords in chief your argument was not home to the point it aimed at If you alledge that Emperours and Kings as well as such inferiour Princes are hooked in the last clause of viz eadem nihilominus lege servata circa eos qui dominos non habent principales I answer with the learned Bishop of Rochester in his book De Potestate Papae â— 1. c. 8. clausulam istam à Parasito al quo Pontificiae tyrannidis ministro assutam esse that it was patched unto the end of the decree by some Parasite or other Minister of the See of Rome And this he proves by several reasons as namely that Christian Kings and Emperours are nâ—â— of such low esteem as to be comprehended in those general words qui dominos non habent principales without being specially designed and distinguished by their soveraign Titles Secondly that if any such thing had been intended it is not likely that the Embassadors of such Kings and Emperors who were then present in that Councel would ever have consented to it but rather have protested against it and caused their Protestation to be registred in the Acts thereof in due form of Law Thirdly In one of their Rescripts of the said Pope Innocent by whom this Councel was confirmed in which â—e doth plainly declare That when inferiour persons are named or pointed at in any of his Commissions majores digniores sub generali clausula non intelligantur includi that is to say that persons of more eminent rank are not to be understood as comprehended in such general clauses Adde hereunto that in the manner of the proceeding prescribed by this Canon such temporal Lords as shall neglect to purge their Countries of the filth of Heresies were to be excommunicated by the Metropolitan and other Bishops of that Province per Metropolitanum ceteros com provinciales Episcopos as the Canon hath it before the Pope could take any cognizance of the cause And I conceive that no man of reason can imagine that the Metropolitane and Provincial Bishops could or durst exercise any such jurisdiction upon those Christian Kings and Emperours under whom they lived I grant indeed that some of the more turbulent Popes did actually excommunicate and as much as in them lay depose some Christian Kings and Emperors sometimes by arming their own Subjects against them and sometimes giving their Estates and Kingdomes to the next Invador But this makes nothing to your purpose most of those turbulencies being acted before the sitting of this Councel none of them by authority from any Councel at all but carried on by them ex plenitudine potestatis under pretence of that unlimited power which they had arrogated to themselves over all the world and exercised too frequently in these Western parts 40. Such is the Argument by which you justifie M. Burton in his first position viz. That the Popish Religion is Rebellion and may it not be proved by the very same argument that the Calvinian Religion is Rebellion also Calvin himself hath told us in the closes of his Institutions that the 3 Estates in every Kingdome Pareus in his Comment on Rom 13. that the inferiour Magistrates and Buchannan in his book Dejure Regni that the people have a power to curb and controll their Kings and in some cases as in that of Male-administration to depose him also which is much as any of the Popes Parasites have ascribed unto him If you object that these are only private persons and speak their own opinions not the sense of the Churches I hope you will not say that Calvin is a private person who sate as Pope over the Churches of his platform whose writings have been made the Rule and Canon by which all men were to frame their judgments and whose authority in this very point hath been made use of for the justifying of Rebellious actions For when the Scots Commissioners were commanded by Queen Elizabeth to give a reason of their proceedings against their Queen whom not long before they had deposed from the Regal Throne they justified themselves by the authority of Calvin whereby they endeavoured to prove as my Author hath it That the Popular Magistrates are appointed and made to moderate and keep in order the excesse and unrulinesse of Kings and that it was lawful for them to put the Kings that be evil and wicked into prison and also to deprive them of their kingdoms Such instances as this we may find too many enough to prove that none of the three above mentioned though the two last were private persons delivered their own opinions only but the sense of the party The Revolt of the Low-Countries from the King of Spain the manâ—old embroilments made by the Hugonots in France the withholding of the Town Embden from its natural Lord the Count of Friesland the commotions in Brandenburg the falling off of the Bohemians from the house of Austria the translating of the Crown of Sweden from Sigismond K. of Poland to Charles Duke of Suderman the father of the great Gustavus the Armies thrice raised by the Scots against King Charls and the most unnatural warrs in England with the sad consequents thereof by whom were they contrived and acted but by those of the Calvinian Faction and the predominancy which they have or at the least aspired unto in their several Countries The Genevians having lead the dance in expelling their Bishop whom they acknowledged also for their temporal Prince the daughter Churches thought themselves obliged to follow their dear Mother Church in that particular and many other points of Doctrine sic instituere majores posteri imitantur as we read in Tacitus 41. But against this blow you have a Buckler and tell me that if any Protestant Writer should teach the same that
his presence would bridle and restrain the people but Lycurgus applyed not himself unto either being resolved to frame both into one Common wealth To the form of this Common-wealth you say That whatsoever the King loâ—â— the people got little by this alteration being left out of all employment in affairs of State and forced to yeild obedience unto 30. Masters whereas before they had but two A strong affirmation seeing the Oracle containing the Model of Lacedemon is thus recorded by your Author When thou hast devided the people into Tribes and Lineages thou shalt establish the Senate consisting with the two Kings of thirty Senators and assemble the people as there shall be occasion where the Senaâ—e shall propose and dismiss the people without suffering them to debate Now who seeth not that the people having no right to debate must therefore have had the right to resolve or else were to be assembled for nothing But the ultimate result is the soveraign Power in every Government It is true the Greek of the Oracle is absolute and abstruce but then it is not only interpreted by Plutarch in the sense I have given but by the verses of the Poet Tyrteus which the Kings themselves though they would have made other use of acknowledged unto the people to be Authentique They having of Apollo sought This Oracle from Delphos brought Vnto the Spartan Kings among The Senators it doth belong To moderate in Royal Chairs And give their votes in all Affairs And when they have proposed these The people chuse what are they please Of many other testimonies I shall add no more then one out of Isocrates I am not ignorant saith he to the Areopagites that the Lacedemonians flourish for this cause especially that their Government is popular To the infirmity of this form and the cure of it you say That the Royalty and power of the Kings being thus impaired the people absolutely discharged from having any hand at all in publique Government and the Authority of the Senate growing every day more insolent and predominant by reason that albeit the Senators were elected by the people they had their places for tearm of life the Kings resolved upon a course of putting the people into such a condition as might inable them to curb and controul the Senatours to which end they ordained the Ephori Magistrates to be annually chosen out of the body of the people In which first you make that to be a practise of the Kings against the Senate which by your Author is plain to have been a combination of the Kings and the Senate against the people for the people upon the insolency and predominancy of the Kings and the Senate fell as in that case the inevitable nature of them upon counsel how to defend themselves and so assumed the power of debate Hereupon the Kings Theopompus and Polidore would have added unto the tenour of the Oracle that if the people went about by debate to change the propositions of the Senate it should be lawful for the Kings and Senate to null the result of the people which practise if it had past must have made the Kings and the Senate altogether uncontroulable Wherefore the people incensed at it put a bitt into the mouth of the Senate by the institution of the Ephori This is the clear sence of Plutarch which he taketh out of Plato who affirmeth the Ephorate to have been set up against the Hereditary Power of the Kings with whom agree both Aristotle and Cicero the former affirming in as much as the people have obtained it were quiet and the latter that the Ephori in Lacedemon were so opposed to the Kings as the Tribunes in Rome to the Consuls Now if other Authors attribute the institution of Ephori unto the Kings and there be a story as well affirmed by Plutarch as others that Theopompus having created the Ephori and being told by his Queen he had done that which would leave narrower power to his children answered well that it would leave narrower but longer This is neither any riddle nor kind of contradiction to the former sense seeing when we say that Hen. 3. instituted the Parliament to be assistant to him in his Government we do no more doubt of that then how it is to be understood nor if his Queen had said as she of Lacedemon and our King had made the like answer would that have altered any thing or proved the woman to have been as you well have it the better Prophet seeing either Government lasted longer for either Reformation nor came to alter but through the alteration of the Ballance which was nothing to the womans Prophecy The ruine of this Ballance and corruption of the Common wealth you wholly omit to the end that picking up your objections against the Government in vigour Out of the rubbish and dissolution of it you may cast dust in mens eyes or perswade them that the Ephori trusting to the power and interest they had in the Commonalty came to usurp upon the Kings and to be Tyrants as they are called by Plato and Aristotle so you affirm But the truth is thus recorded by Plutarch in the life of Agis So soon as the Lacedemonians having ruined Athens became so full of gold and silver the Common-wealth began to break Nevertheless the lots and division of Lands made by Lycurgus yet remaining the equality of the foundation held good till Epitadeus an ill natured fellow became Ephore and having a mind to dis-inherit his son got a Law to pass whereby any man might dispose of his lot as he pleased This by him pursued of meet malice to his son was hurried on by the avarice of others whose riches came thus to eat the people out of their lands that in a short time there remained not above an hundred Free holders in all Sparta This he shews to have been the rise of the Oligarchy The Oligarchy thus ballanced totally excluded the people and murthered Agis the first King that was ever put to death by the Ephori and to these times about which Plato and Aristotle lived relateth that tyranny which they who as was shown commended the Ephorate in the Common-wealth now laid unto it in Oligarchy Thus have you fetcht an argument against a Common-wealth that are nothing to it Again whereas Agis and Cleomenes by the restitution of the lots of Lycurgus were Asserters of popular power you insinuate them to have been Asserters of Monarchy such is your play with humane Authors or as a Polititian Now let us see whether you have dealt any thing better with Scripture or been more careful as a Divine In order to this Discovery I shall repeat that piece of Calvin which you call the stumbling block of disobedience Calvin having preached obedience to your good approbation comes at length to this expression But still I must be understood of private persons for if there be now any popular Officers ordained to
claim by conquest it must belong to you to prove the contrary and tell me why the Spartan Kings should not observe the same rule in the Acts of Government as all others did Crowns which are purchased by the Sword seldome sit fast upon the head of the Conquerors if they deliver up that Sword by which they were purchased And therefore it was noted for a great error in Julius Cesar a man of greater parts and power then a King of Sparta to hope that he might hold that supream Authority by love of the people which he got by force of Arms and was so to hold it Against this you object First That the Spartan Kings could not be absolute because they had a Nobility Peâ—ple to gratifie But then you should have told us by what rule in Government the Spartan Kings who preceded Eurypon could be obliged to gratifie either the People or Nobility of that Country which they had conquered by the Sword And whereas you alledge in defence of Eurypon That his letting loose the Reines of Government to obtain favour with the people was a confession of the infirmity of the Monarchy and that his Action in so doing was not so voluntary in it self as unavoidable imprudence It was indeed a plain confession of the infirmity of the Monarch in not being able to hold the Kingdom in the same Estate in which it had been held by his Father and Grand father Of the infirmity of the Monarchy that is to say the form of Government by them established and to which the Spartans formerly had been accustomed I cannot think it to be any confession at all nor can I see how that imprudent Act of his can be affirmed to have been unavoidable in point of prudence by that which you produce from the words of Agis the five and twentieth King of Sparta of the younger house where he affirms that a King of Sparta could never come to be equal unto any other King but only by introducing equality among the people But first a King of Sparta might be as absolute in his own Dominions as any other King whatsoever of a larger Territory with whom he could not be thought equal in power and Riches The absoluteness or Autocraty of Kings if I may so call it depending not upon the greatness of their revenues or extent of Empire but only in their form of Government And secondly I would fain know how by the introducing an equality among the people could render a poor King of Sparta equal to any other King either of any greater power or larger Territory It was not possible for Agis aâ— he said himself in his address unto his Mother se alios reges pecunia aquare posse to equal other Kings in wealth and riches and therefore he resolved upon some exploit by which his name and reputation might grow great in the sight of the people and no exploit seemed in his eyes so probable to obtain that name and reputation which he aimed at then by introducing equality among the people which probably might make him a great King in the love and estimation of the common people for I must no longer call them the Rascal rabble though in no bodies else Nor could the low condition of the Kings of Sparta impose any such necessity upon Eurypon to change the Government as you say it did neither Eurypon nor any of his Successors encreasing either in power or riches by the alteration and finally whereas you seem to justifie this necessity by those words of Agis in which he told his Mother That a Servant or Lievtenant of Selinus or Ptolomey was worth more then ever were all the Kings of Sparta put together First Agis speaks not of any of the Lievtenants of those two Princes who possibly might amass more treasures then all the Kings of Sparta had done before but only of the Servants of those Leivtenants for it is Satraparum famuli servi Procuratorum in the translation of Xyland with which not having the Greek by me I content my self And secondly these words being spoken of the Servants of such Lievtenants and of the Servants of such great Persons which lived under either of those two Kings must needs have more of Rhetorique in them then of real truth For Agis did not only tell the people when he came to put this project in execution that he would devide amongst them his own Fields and Pastures of which he had very many in his own possession but that he would deliver up ten thousand Talents to be put into the common Treasury And if this one King were so rich in Lands and so stored with Money Dives agris dives positis in soenore nummis it must be very strange to think that a Servant of any of the Princes or Lievtenants of either of the said two Kings should be worth more then all the Kings of Sparta were they put together 4. But here before we can proceed I must clear my self from that Parenthesis of yours in which you say that I commonly call the people by the name of Rascal rabble as in another place you tell me that I have no better name for them then that but I hope you do not and I am sure you cannot gather out of any such words that I bestow that title on the people generally which either make up the main body of a Common wealth or comprehend all sorts of people which are not in the Rank and order of titular Nobility There is a great difference in the ellegancy and propriety of the Latine tongue between Plebs and Populus Populus signifying somtimes the agregative body of a State as Irasci populo Romano nemo sapienter potest in the words of Livie Somtimes all such of a State or Nation that are not in places of command as Senatus populusque Romanus in the vulgar stile of Republick But Plebs is of lower alloy relating unto none but those of inferiour quality as Laborers Handicrafts Artificers which commonly make up the greatest part of a State or Nation and yet pass under the account of the Rout or Rabble And such are they of whom Aristotle telleth us in his Books of Politiques That they are not only base or wicked Judges in their own Cases and that many of them differ little from Beasts You may do well to quarrel him for the one or not me for the other 5. In the next place you let us know That the Monarchy that is or can be absolute must be founded upon an Army planted by military Colonies upon the over balance of Land being in the Dominion of the Prince And so far I concur in opinion with you seeing it proved by late experience amongst our selves that no Prince can be an absolute Monarch without an Army that is to say without some standing Forces to be ready at command upon all occasions But then what reason have you to think that Aristodemus having conquered the Realm of Sparta
given us by their opinions To both which you return this Answer First that you wish you hâ—d spared my name as well as I. Secondly that you never took me to be of Grotius his Religion and therefore that I needed not to have called for proof of it And thirdly that though it was in the sensing of the word Puritan in which you were pleased to use my name telling the world whom you took for a Puritan yet upon further consideration you ascribe it unto your temerity the ordinary concommitant of hast and having blamed your self for mentioning me upon the trust of your memory after above twenty years for so long it is as yâ—u please to tell us since you saw my Book against M. Burton wherein you thought to have found such a description of a Puritan You father the chiefest part thereof upon M. Dow who had writ likewise against M. Burton much about that time It seems your notions are like ware mislaid in a Pedlers pack you have them but you know not where to finde them whether in me or in M. Dow for D. Pocklinton comes in upon another occasion it is hard to say Two Books of the same argument coming into your minde you were perswaded first that it was in mine next that the chiefest parts of that description were to be found in M. Dow's and finally that somwhat of it more or less might be found in both though perhaps in neither How ever we have here that great advantage spoken of by the Orator Confitentem reum which gives me as much private satisfaction as I could desire And when you have made good your promise in publishing an account of your misunderstanding me with your following satisfaction to the world to do me right for doing whereof you have declared so great a readiness I shall then much applaud your ingenuity in doing me that peice of justice and shall with chearfulness affirme in the Poets language Vna eademque manus vulnus opemque tulit That the same hand hath righted me which had done me wrong 11. If your Letter had been ended here it would have put a period to all differences and disputes between us But much I fear that by giving you new matter of provocation you will not give me any such cause of magnifying that ingenuity in you of which I cannot see the expected fruits For contrary to the former part of your Letter wherein you had absolved me from that accusation which you laid against me in your Preface and charged it in M. Dow you use your best indeavours to prove me guilty of that charge implicitely and by consequents at the least if not in terminis and expresly But first how may we be assured that you deal better with M. Dow then with Peter Heylyn for you allow neither of us the title of Doctors considering that you direct us not to that part of his Book in which we may find any such description of a Puritan as you put upon him as you have sent us to pag. 185. of the very same Book in which he is said to speak of the Authority which some of the Popes Decretals and other parts of the Canon Law have obtained in England But admitting what you tell us of him to be true yet all that you have told us from him amounts not to a full description of the Puritans by their opinions but only to a principal part as you now confess of what you intended and what you intended in those words will be hard for any man to say unless you make a further explication of them then you have done hitherto For if you have no other meaning then your words in the common sense import may not D. Dow tell us as perhaps he doth of what judgment or opinion the Puritans are in the points of predestination perseverance or inability to fulfill the Law c. But presently this must be taken for a Description of the Puritans by their opinions as you please to word it I am sure you never learned this in Baxter's Logick published at Frankford Anno 1593. which was a Book in some credit at my first coming to Oxon nor in your Aditus ad Logicam or your Breerwoods Element In all or any of these you might have learned that the Definition is to be Reciprocal with the thing defined as Omnis homo est animal rationale omne animal rationale est homo And though a description by the rules of Logick be of a larger latitude then a definition yet there is par ratio in them both the description being to be made commensurate to the thing described so that though D. Dow might say that every Puritan was a Calvinist in matters of predestination grace free will c. yet cannot this be called the character or description of a Puritan as you please to make it because it followeth not è converso that every one who followeth Calvin's judgment in the points aforesaid is a Puritan also no more then if a man should say Every Presbiterian is an enemy to the Authority of the King and supream Magistrates in the concernments of the Church and therefore it must follow also that all which do not allow any such Authority in the supream Magistrate Papists of all sorts Jesuites yea the Pope himself must be Presbiterians 12. Having thus rescued D. Dow I shall next come unto my self in whom you hope to find such a description of a Puritan as you have charged on me in your Preface though but just now you had ascribed that charge unto your temerity and seem to cry pecavi for it for you say next that so much you have found in a Book of mine against M. Burton as justifies what you said of me if you can understand me and if you cannot understand me 't is no fault of mine who commonly speak plain enough to be understood and shall now give you leave to understand me in your own sense or in any other which shall please you better I have not so much of the Frenchman in me as either to speak what I do not think or not to write as I speak nor so much of the Hypocrite Ore aliud retinens aliud sub pectore condens as we know who saith as to write otherwise with my pen then my heart inditeth My heart and my tongue goes still together and my pen keeps pace with both leaving equivocation to the Jesuites and mental reservation to the Presbiterians who are better studied in them both then I can pretend to I am a kind of plain Tom tell troth and have so much in me of the old Spartan as to call a Spade a Spade 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as they phrased it without fear or wit so that you might have spared your Metaphysical discourse about the nature of words as they are the expressions of the mind and the suspition that you have that I reserve some other meaning to my self then my words in the
hunts the Hare is the Hare which is hunted so that although the Religion of the Church of Rome had defined the Deposition of Kings by the Pope for denying Transubstantiation c. as it never did yet could not the Popish Religion upon that account be called Rebellion Rebellion by the Law of England 25. Edw. 3. c. 2. is defined to be an actual levying of War against our Soveraign Lord the King in hâ— Realm or an adhering to the Kings enemies in his Realm giving to them aid and comfort in the Realm or elsewhere And by the Civil Law all those qui arripiant arma contra eum cujus jurisdictioni subditi sunt who tak up arms against such persons to whose Authority they are subject are declared to be Rebels for which see Spigelus in his Lexicon of the terms of Law But that Religion which defineth the Deposition of Princes by the Pope because they deny Transubstantiation c. is not an actual levying of War against our Soveraign Lord the King in his Realm or an adhering c.. Nor the the taking up of Arms against such persons to whose Authority they are subject Therefore that Religion which defineth the Deposition of Princes c. neither is really or nominally to be called Rebellion if either the laws of England or the Civil laws do rightly understand what Rebellion is as I think they do And whereas you hope to mend the matter by calling it a Rebellion doctrinal you make it worse on your side then it was before For besides that there is no such thing as Rebell on doctrinal though some Doctrines there may be too frequently preached for inciting the people to Rebellion you find not the word Doctrinal in the proposition which you have undertook to prove and wh en presents it self simply to you in these words that the Religion of the Papists is Rebellion 37. Such being the faultinesse of your Mejor we will next consider whether the Assumption or your Minor be any thing more evident then your Major was Your Minor is that the Popish Religion is such that is to say such a Religion that defineth the Deposition of Kings by the Pope because they deny Transubstantiation c. This is the matter to be proved and you prove it thus That which is defined by a Pope and General Councel is the Popish Religion But the aforesaid Doctrine is defined by a Pope and an approved General Councel viz at the Laterane under Innocent the 3. Erge c. This makes it evident indeed that you never saw the Cannons nor Decrees of the Laterane Councel and possibly your learning may not lie so high but that you took this passage upon trust from some ignorant hand which had seen them as little as your self Your Major I shall grant for true but nothing can be falser or mere unable to be proved then your Minor is Consult the Acts of that Councel search into all Editions of them and into the Commentaries of such Cannonists as have writ upon them and you shall neither find in the one or the other that the Deposition of Kings and Princes by the Pope was defined to be lawful for that I take to be your meaning either for denying Transubstantiation or for any other cause whatsoever Most true it is that the word Transubstantiation then newly hammered on the Anvil by some of the Schoolmen to expresse that carnal presence of Christ in the Sacrament as they then maintained was first received in this Councel and received then ad â—vitandaâ— haereâ—icorum tergiversationes as my Author hath it for avoiding the wranglingâ— and fallacious shifts which Hereticks otherwise might use But that the word was made such an Idol in this Councel that all Christian Kings and Princes which would noâ— fall down and worship it were to be deposed hath neither colour nor foundation in the Acts of that Councel And therefore I wil first lay down the Canon which I think you aim at for otherwise there is none in that Councel which you can pretend to and then acquaint as well with the occasion and the meaning of it and your own mistakings 38. And first the words of the Canon as these now stand in the Tomes of the Councels are these that follow Si quis Dominus temporalis requisitus monitus ab Ecclesia terram suam purgare neglexerit ab hac haeretica foeditate per Metropolitanum com provinciales Episcopos excommunicationis â—inculo innodetur Etsi satisfacere contempserit infra annum significetur hoc summo Poniifici ut ex tunc ipse vassallos ab ejus fidelitate denunciet absolutos terram exponant catholicis occupandam qui eam exterminatis haereticis â—ine ulla contradictione possideant in fidei puritate conservent salvo jure domini principalis dummodo super hoc ipse nullum praestet obstaculum nec aliquod impedimentum oppâ—nat eadem nihilominus lege servata circa eos qui non habent Dominos principales such is the Canon or Decree And this was the occasion of it The Albigenses and Waldenses differing in many points from the received opinions of the Church of Rome and constantly denying the Popes Supremacy amongst other things some years before the calling of this Councel was grown to a very great power and insolencie countenanced therein by the two last Raimonds Earls of Tholouse and some of the Petit Lords of Gascoyn all which though absolute enough in their several Territories in respect of their vassals but were fudataries either to the Empire or the Kings of France as the Lords in chief for the reduction of these Albingenses to the Church of Rome Dominick a Spaniard the Founder afterwards of the Order of Dominical Fryars used his best endeavours in the way of Argument and perswasion but failing of his design therein he instigated Pope Innocent the 3. to call this Councel Anno 1215. and the Prelates there assembled to passe this Canon for the suppressing both of them and their Patrons also for having summed up the principle heads of that Religion which was then publickly maintained in the Church of Rome they framed an Oath to be taken by all secular Magistrates ut haereticos universos ab Ecclesia denotatos bona fide pro viribus ex terminare studeant to use their best endeavours for the exterminating of all Hereticks that is to say all such as did oppose those Doctrines before laid down out of their dominions and then it followeth as before si quis vero dominus temporalis c that if any Temporal Lord being thereunto required by the Church should neglect to purge his Territories of that Infection he should be excommunicated by the Metropolitan and other Bishops of that Province in which he lived and if he gave no satisfaction within the year notice thereof was to be given to the Pope that thereupon he might absolve his vassals from their Allegiance and give their Countries to the next Catholick Invador
puts it not into our Creed as this is in theirs But first I hope you do not think that whatsoever is agreed in a General Councel is presently put into our Creed or becomes an Article of the Faith there being some things determined in the first General Councel held by the Apostles in Jerusalem which being long disused are not now binding at all and such as are now binding not being observed because they were decreed in that Councel but as they have their foundation in the Moral Law Secondly if you think the doctrine of Deposing Kings is put into the Papists Creed you must tell me in what Creed it is in none of their old Creeds I am sure of that nor in the new Creed made by Pope Pius the fourth nor in the Roman Catechism published by the authority of the Councel of Trent nor in any other Authentick Record or publick Monument of that Church for if this doctrine had been made a part of their Creed as well before as since the Laterane Councel so many learned men in the Church of Rome as Brian Marsepius Butavinus and divers others had not writ against it nor had so many secular Priests living or abiding here in England so freely written in behalf of the Oath of Allegiance in which this doctrine is disclaimed had it been entertained in that Church as a part of their Creed And on the other side why may we not conceive that this doctrine of Deposing Kings is made an Article of the Creed by the Sect of Calvin considering first how generally it is defended how frequently practised and endeavoured by them as before was said considering secondly that though many National and Provincial Synods have been held by them in their several and respective Churches yet did they never in any one of them disclaim this doctrine or seek to free their Churches from the scandal of it All which clearly shews that they did very well approve the doctrine together with all the consequents thereof in the way of practice And then quid interest utrum velim fieri an gaudeam factum as the Orator hath it what will the difference be I pray you between advising before hand such ungodly practises and approving of them on the post-fact as they seem to do For were it otherwise amongst them they never had a better oportunity to have cleared themselves from being enemies to Monarchical Government from justifying such seditious writings from having a hand in any of those commotions which had before disturbed the peace of Christendome then in the Synod of Dort Anno 1618. where the Commissioners or Delegates of all the Calvinian Churches both in the higher and the lower Germany those of Geneva and the Switzers being added to them were convened together Their doing nothing in it then declares sufficiently how well they liked the doctrine and allowed the practice 42. Having thus justified M. Burton in his first assertion you next proceed unto the maintenance of his second which is that the Papists Faith is Faction and how prove you that Marry thus You say if it be an article of the Popish Faith that none are Members of Christ and his Church but the subjects of the Pope then the Popish Faith is Faction But the Antecedent is true being defined by the Pope Leo the 10. in a General Councel This is the Argument by which you hope to justifie M. Burtons second proposition though afterwards you would be thought to be no approver of his wayes But let me tell you M. Baxter your Hypothetical Syllogism is as faulty and halts as much on both legs as your Categorical For taking it for granted that such an article of the Faith was made by Pope Leo the 10. in a General Councel yet can you not with any reason or justice either upbraid the whole Faith of the Papists with being a Faction because of the obliquity and partiality of one article of it Nor 2ly can the Papist Faith be termed Faction supposing that any such article had been made in that Councel for it would follow thereupon that if a Canon had been made in the Convocation of the Bishops and Clergie which make the representative body of the Church of England that whosoever should oppose the Rites and Ceremonies by Law established should not be capable either of the Sacraments or Sacramentals that Canon might be called Faction whereas the Faction lies not in the Canon but in them that do oppose the Ceremonies Or if any act or statute should be made in a free and lawful Parliament that every one who shall not pay the Subsidies and Taxes imposed on them by the same should be put out of the protection of the Laws of the Land that Statute could not be or be called Faction because the Faction lies not in the Act or Statute but in them who do refuse the payment My reason is because the main body of a Church or State or any of the Products or results thereof cannot in any propriety of speech be held for Faction whether considered in themselves or in relation to some few who dislike the same and violently pursue their dislikes thereof For Faction to speak properly is the withdrawing of a smaller or greater number from the main body either of a Church or State governing themselves by their own Councels and openly opposing the established Government as here in England they who communicate not with the Church in favour of the Pope of Rome are commonly called the Popish Faction as they are called the Puritan Faction who conform not to the Rites and Ceremonies by Law established But on the other side the whole body of the Church is by no means to be called a Faction in reference to either of the opposite parties And then again you should have told us whether you take the word Faith in your proposition for a justifying historical temporary Faith or a Faith of Miracles whither you take it for the Habit or Act of Faith by which they believe or for the Object of Faith or that is to say the thing believed If you can take the word Faith in none of these senses as I think you cannot it must be taken in a more general comprehension for the true knowledge and worship of God and then it signifies the same with the word Religion the Christian Faith and the Christian Religion denoting but one and the same thing under divers names so that upon the whole matter you are but where you were before the Papists Religion being no more properly to be called faction in this Proposition then it was Rebellion in the former Had you formed your Proposition thus viz. If it be an Article of the Papists faith that none are members of Christ and his Church but the Subjects of the Pope then the Papists faith or rather that one Article of the Papists faith tends to the making of a faction you had come neerer to the truth but standing in the same tearms in
were subject to the Pope Neither indeed was there any need at that time of this Councel that any such Definitions should be made no new Heresie or any new doctrine which by them might be called Heresie being then on foot for Luther did not rise in Germany till this Counsel was ended which might create any disturbance to the peace of that Church If any such priviledges were arrogated by Pope Leo the 10. that none should be accounted members of Christ and his Church but such as were subject to the Pope which you cannot find definitively in the Acts of that Councel you must rather have looked for it in the Bulls of that Pope after Luther had begun to dispute his power and question his usurped authority over all the Church In one of which Bulls you may finde somewhat to your purpose where you shall find him saying that the Church of Rome is Mother and Mistress of all Christians and that her doctrines ought to be received of whosoever would be in the Communion of the Church If this be that you mean much good do it you with though this be rather to be taken for a Declaration then a Definition 45. But if your meaning is as perhaps it may be that the Papists Faith may be called Faction because they appropriate to themselves the name of the Church and exclude all other Christians from being members of Christ and his Church which are not subject to the Pope as indeed they do take heed you lose not more in the Hundreds then you got by the County for then it may be proved by the very same Argument if there were no other that the Puritan Faith is Faction and so to be accounted by all that know it because they do appropriate unto themselves the name of the Church as the old Affrican Scismaticks confined it intra partem Donati For proof whereof if you please to consult Bâ—shop Bancrofts book of Dangerous Positions anâ— Proceedings c. part 3. chap. 15. you will find them writing in this manner viz I know the state of this Church make known to us the state of the Church with you Our Churches are in danger of such as having been of us do renounce all fellowship with us It is long since I have heard from you saith one Blake of the state of the Church of London Another By M. West and M. Brown you shall understand the state of the Churches wherein we are A third If my offence may not be passed by without a further confessiâ—n even before God and his Churâ—h in London will I lye down and lick the dust off your feet where you may see what it is which the heavenly-mindednesse the self-denial meeknesse and Humility which the brethren aim at and confesse it c. I have received saith the fourth a Letter from you in the name of the rest of the Brethren whereby I understand your joining together in choosing my self unto the service of the Church under the Earl of Leicester I am ready to run if the Church command me according to the holy Decrees and Orders of the Discipline Lay all which hath been said together and tell me he that can my wits not being quick enough for so great a nicety whether the Papists Faith or that of the Puritans most properly and meritoriously may be counted Faction 46. The third thing in which you seem unsatisfied in what I say concerning Popery is whether it be true or not that the Popes Decretals the body of the Canon Law is to be accepted as not being abrogated which being made for the direction and reiâ—lement of the Church in general were by degrees admitted and obeyed in these parts of Christendome and are by Act of Parliament so far still in force as they oppose not the Prerogative royal or the municipal laws and statutes of this Realm of England These words I must confesse for mine owning Hist Sab. pa. 2. ch 7. p. 202. and not 210. as your Letter cites it your parenthesis being only excepâ—ed and you name it this Kingdome in stead of the Realm of England though both expressions be to one and the same effect In which you might have satisfied your self by M. Dow who as you say gives some reason for it out of a Statute of Hen. 8. But seeing you remain still unsatisfied in that particular I shall adde something more for your satisfaction In order whereunto you may please to know that in the Stat. 29. Hen. 8. ch 19. commonly called the Statute of the submission of the Clergy it is said expresly First that the Clergie in their convocation promised the King in verbo Saâ—erdoris not to enact or execute any new Canons but by his Majesties royal assent and by his authority first obtained in that behalf and secondly that all such Canons Constitutions Ordinances and Synodals Provincial as were made before the said submission which were not contrary or repugnant to the Laws Statutes and Customes of this Realm nor to the dammage or hurt of the Kings Prerogative Royal were to be used and executed as in former times By which last clause the Decretal of preceding Popes having been admitted into this Land and by several Canons and Constitutions of the Church of England and the main body of the Canon-law having for a long time been accounted for a standing rule by which all proceedings in the Courts Ecclesiastical were to be regulated and directed remain still in force and practice as they had done formerly But then you are to know withall that they were no longer to remain in force and practice then till the said preceding Canons and Constitutions as appears by the said Act of Parliament should be viewed and accommodated to the use of this Church by 32. Commissioners selected out of the whole body of the Lords and Commons and to be nominated by the King But nothing being done therein during the rest of the Kings reign the like authority was granted to King Edw. 6. 3. 4. Edw 6. c. 11. And such a progresse was made in it that a Sub-committee was appointed to review all their said former Canons and Constitutions and to digest such of them into form and order as they thought most fit and necessary for the use of this Church Which Sub committee consisted of eight persons only that is to say Thomas Lord Archbishop of Canterbury Thomas Lord Bishop of Eli Dr. Richard Cox the Kings Almoner Peter Martyr his Majesties professor for Divinity William May and Rowland Taylor Doctors of the Law John Lucas and Richard Gooderick Esquires who having prepared and digested the whole work into form and order were to submit the same to the rest of the 32. and finally to be presented to the King for his Royal Assent and confirmation And though the said Sub-committee had performed their parts as appears by the Book entituled REFORMATIO LEGUM ECCLESIASTICARUM ex authoritate primum Regis HENRICI VIII inchâ—aâ—a Deinde
per Regem EDW. VI. provecta c. Reprinted not long since at London 1641. But that King also dying before the said Canons so digested and accommodated could be confirmed and ratified by the Royal Assent and authorised under the Great Seal of England the former Canons Constiâ—utions and Ordinances and consequently the Decretals of the Popes and the body of the Canon law according to the limitations and restrictions by the Statute of King Hen. 8. did remain in force and so continue to this day so that your hopes of their not being in force amongst us declares you for as sorry a Lawyer as you confesse your self to be 47. Next when you say how little you know by what authority the Popes Decretals are laws to theâ— Church in genâ—ral or to us I will improve youâ— knowledge in that particular also as far as I can and for so doing I am to put you in mind that the Popes for a long tract of time were possessed of the Supreme power in Ecclesiastical matters over all the Churches in the Western and North-western parts and amongst others in this also and that he did pretend the like authority over all the Churches in the East and South so that their Decretals were made by them intentionally to serve for a rule and reiglement of the Church in general but were admitted only in the Churches of the Western and North-western parts which did acknowledge his Supremacy and made themselves subject to his power But having now shaken off his power in the three Kingdomes of England Scotland and Ireland in the three Realms of Denmark Norway and Sweden in the united Provinces of the Netherlands and many great Provinces and Estates of the Higher Germany besides some thousands of the Protestant Churches in the Realm of France he hath now lost that power which before he challenged of making laws for the Government of the Church in general though such of them as we here received are still so far in force as I have affirmed that is to say according to the sad restrictions and limitations before laid down And therefore I can well maintain that the Pope and his Councels had a power you never heard me say he hath of imposing his Decretals and the body of the Canon law as a law for the Government of so much of the Church as was then actually under his command having been made intentionally for the reiglement of the Church in general and that being here received are still so far in force that is to say in such form and maner as I have affirmed and yet not grant that he and his Councels have any such power at this present time or that are and all other Christians must be thought to be his Subjects which is the thing you seem glad to understand if ever I should put my self to the trouble of writing to you again as I have done now 48. Having thus laid before you the true state of the Question I am in the next place to answer such Objections as you make against it and your Objections being built chiefly on your own thoughts and such hopes as you had fancied to your self For want of knowledg in these matters will be easily answered You object first That you will yet hope that they are not in force but I have proved to you that they are And you object next That you thought the Acts that impose the Oathes of allegeance and supremacy had disobliged us from all forreigue power and nulled the Pope's authority in England and though you thought well enough in this yet if you think that because those Acts of Parliament above mentioned have disobliged us from all forreign power and nulled the Popes authority in England and therefore that all the Decretals of the former Popes or Canons and Constitutions Ecclesiastical made in times of Popery are either by those Acts and Oths anulled and abrogated your thoughts will prove to be as deceitful as your hopes are groundless and therefore when you say that if ever you live to see another Parliament which you are like to do very shortly if the news be true you will crave a freedom from that bondage I would fain know from what bâ—ndage you desire this freedom If from subjection to the Pope you are freed from it by the Act primo Eliz. cap. 1. by which all the Popes authority and jurisdiction in the Realm of England as well over the consciences as the pens of men were finally exterminated and abolished If from their Canons and Decrees made and in force within this Realm before the 25. of King Henry 8. they were confirmed by the Parliament of that year according to the limitations before expressed and are so complicated since that time with the Laws of the Land that the alteration will be far more difficult then you may imagine so that you may do well to spare your address to the following Parliament and reserve that strong influence which you believe you have upon it for some greater occasions or at the least for such as are more possible to be compassed then this present project Besides you may be pleased to know that a great part of the Civil or Imperial Laws are in force amongst us and that they are the standing rules by which the Court of Admiralty as also that for the probate of Wills and Testaments are generally regulated and directed and yet you may conclude as strongly that because no forreign Prince Person Prelate State or Potentate hath or ought to have any jurisdiction power superiority preheminence or authority within this Realm no not the Emperour himself though honoured with the Title of Augustus Cesar and such like glorious attributes belonging to the Roman Empire therefore the Civil and Imperial Laws so long continued in this Kingdom are to be reckoned of no force and effect amongst us but to be utterly abrogated and abolished also which if it should be took for granted as you take the other you must then double your design in moving and soliciting the next Parliament to free you from that yoke of bondage that the Pontificial and Imperial laws may be for ever banished and expelled this Kingdome that so it may be said of us as Haman once objected against the Jews their Laws were contrary to all Nations Divisâ—s orbe Brittannos even in that sense also It is reported of Alphonso surnamed the Wise one of the Kings of Castile in Spain that he used many times to say never the wiser for so saying that if he had stood at Gods elbow when he made the World many things should have been ordered better then they were in the first Creation Take heed left that you be thought no wiser then Alphonso was in pressing at the Parliament dores and urging your desires for abrogating all those ancient Canons and Constitutions by what name soever they are called and by what Authority soever they were first enacted which so many Kings and Queens of
no other issue could be expected then the curse of God in making a perpetual rent and destruction in the whole body of the state pag. 39. was not because they were so in and of themselves but for other Reasons which our great Masters in the Schools of policy called Reason of State That King had said as much as this comes too of the Puritans of Scotland whom in the second Book of his Basilicon Doron he calls the very pests of a Common-wealth whom no deserts can oblige neither Oaths nor Promises bind breathing nothing but sedition and calumny c. Advising his Son Prince Henry then Heir of the Kingdom not to suffer the Principles of them to brook his Land if he list to sit at rest except he would keep them for trying his patience as Socrates did an evil wise And yet I trow your adversary will not grant upon these expressions though he might more warrantably do it in this case then he doth in the other that Puritans are not to be suffered in a State or Nation especially in such a State which hath any mixture in it of Monarchical Government Now the Reason of State which moved King James to so much harshness against the Remonstrants or Arminians call them which you will was because they had put themselves under the Patronage of John Olden Barnevelt a man of principal authority in the Common-wealth whom the King looked upon as the profess'd Adversary of the Prince of Orange his dear Confederate and Ally who on the other side had made himself the Patron and Protector of the Rigid Calvinists In favour of which Prince that King did not only press the States to take heed of such infected persons as he stiles them which of necessiry would by little and little bring them to utter ruine if wisely and in time they did not provide against it but sent such of his Divines to the Synod of Dort as he was sure would be sufficiently active in their condemnation By which means having served his own turn secured that Prince and quieted his neighbouring provinces from the present distemper he became every day more willing then other to open his eyes unto the truths which were offered to him and to look more carefully into the dangers and ill consequence of the opposite Doctrines destructive in their own nature of Monarchial Government a matter not unknown to any who had acquaintance with the Court in the last times of the King Noâ— makes it any thing against you that his Majesties repeating the Articles of the Creed two or three days before his death should say with a kind of sprightfulness and vivacity that he believed them all in that sense which was given by the Church of England and that whatsoever he had written of this faith in his life he was now ready to seal with his death For first the Creed may be believed in every part and article of it according as it is expounded in the Church of England without reflecting on the Doctrine of Predestination and the points depending thereupon And secondly I hope your Adversary doth not think that all the bitter speeches and sharp invectives which that King made against Remonstrants were to be reckoned amongst those Articles of his faith which he had writ of in his life and was resolved to seal with his death no more then those reproachful speeches which he gives to those of the Puritan Faction in the conference at Hampton Court the Basilicon Doron for which consult my answer to Mr. Baxter neer 29. and elsewhere passim in his Writings 44. The greatest part of his Historical Arguments being thus passed over we will next see what he hath to say of his Late Majesties Declaration printed before the Articles An. 1628. and then proceed unto the rest He tells us of that Declaration how he had learned long since that it was never intended to be a two edged Sword nor procured out of any charitable design to setle the Peace of the Church but out of a Politique design to stop the mouths of the Orthodox who were sure to be censured if at any time they declared their minds whilst the new upstart Arminians were suffered to preach and print their Heterodox Notions without controul And for the proof hereof he voucheth the Authority of the Late Lord Faulkland as he finds it in a Speech of his delivered in the House of Commons Anno 1640. In which he tells us of these Doctrines that though they were not contrary to Law yet they were contrary to custome that for a long time were no ofter preached then recanted Next he observes that in the Recantation made by Mr. Thorne Mr. Hodges and Mr. Ford it is not charged upon them that they had preached any thing contrary to the Doctrine of the Church according to the ancient Form of the like Recantations enjoyned by the ancient Protestants as he calls them but onely for their going against the Kings Declaration which but only determined not having commanded silence in those points Thirdly that the Prelatical oppressions were so great in pressing this Declaration and the other about lawful Sports as were sufficient in themselves to make wise men mad 45. For answer to these Arguments if they may be called so I must first tell you that the man and his Oratour both have been much mistaken in saying that his Majesties Declaration was no two edged sword or that it tyed up the one side and let loose the other for if it wounded Mr. Thorn and his companions on the one side it smote as sharply on the other against Dr. Rainford whose Recantation he may find in the Book called Canterbury's Doome out of which he hath filched a great part of his store He is mistaken secondly in saying that this Declaration determined nothing for it determineth that no man shall put his own sence or Comment to be the meaning of the Article but should take it in the Literal and Grammatical sense which Rule if the Calvinians would be pleased to observe we should soon come to an agreement Thirdly if the supposition be true as I think it be that the Doctrines which they call Arminianism be not against the Law but contrary to custome only then is the Law on our side and nothing but custome on theirs and I think no man will affirm that Custome should be heard or kept when it is against Law But fourthly if the noble Oratour were mistaken in the supposition I am sure he is much more mistaken in the proposition these Doctrines being preach'd by Bishop Latimer and Bishop Hooper in King Edwards time by Dr. Harsnet and Peter Baroe in Queen Elizabeths time by Dr. Howson and Dr. Laud in King James his time none of which ever were subjected to the infamy of a Recantation Fiftly if the Recantation made by Mr. Thorn and his companions imported not a retracting of their opinions as he saith they did not it is a strong argument of the
mildness of his Majesties Government and the great Moderation shown by Bishop Laud in the use of his power in not compelling men to say or do any thing against their Conscience a moderation which we find not amongst those of the Sect of Calvin when any of the opposite party fell into their hands Sixthly whereas it might be thought that the Ancient Protestants as he merrily calls them had past many such severe censures upon those whom he stiles Arminians he instanceth in none but in Barret and Bridges which make too small a number for so great a bragg Quid dignum tanto and the rest And finally for answer to the Prelatical oppressions I shall referre you to my former Discourse with Mr. Baxter num 20 21 23 repeating only at the present that the Proceeding of the Bishops were mild and gentle compared with the unmerciful dealings of the Presbiterians by whom more Orthodox Learned and Religious Ministers were turned out of their Benefices within the space of three years then by all the Bishops in England since the Reformation 46. But the King must not think to carry it so the Puritan Faction being generally Calvinistical in Doctrine as well as in Discipline prevailed so in the House of Commons Jan. 28. 1628. that they agreed upon this Counterpoise or Anti-declaration following viz. We the Commons now assembled in Parliament do claim profess and avow for truth the sense of the Articles of Religion which were established in Parliament 13. Eliz. Which by the publick Acts of the Church of England and the general current Exposition of the Writers of our Church have been delivered to us and we reject the sense of the Jesuites and Arminians and all other wherein they differ from us Which counterpoise made in direct opposition to the Kings Declaration your adversary makes a product of the Civil Authority whereas the House of Commons was so far at that time from being looked on as the Civil Authority of the English Nation that it was of no Authority at all nor could make any Order to bind the Subject or declare any thing to be Law and much less Religion till it was first countenanced by the Lords and finally confirmed by the Royal assent But this he doth in correspondence to the said Protestation in which the Articles of Lambeth are called the publique Acts of the Church of England though made by none but the Arch Bishop of Canterbury two Bishops of which onely one had actually received Consecration one Dean and half a dozen Doctors and other Ministers or thereabouts neither impowered to any such thing by the rest of the Clergy nor authorized to it by the Queen And therefore their determinations can no more properly be called the Acts of the Church then if one Earl with the eldest Sons of two or three others meeting with half a dozen Gentlemen in Westminster Hall can be affirmed to be in a capacity of making Orders which must be looked on by the Subject as Acts of Parliament 47. Your Adversary begins now to draw toward the Lees and in the Dreggs of his discourse offers some Arguments to prove that those doctrines and opinions which he calls Arminianism were countenanced to no other end but to bring in Popery And for the proof hereof he brings in Mr. Prinn's Report to the House of Commons in the Case of Montague An. 1626. In which it is affirmed that the whole frame and scope of his book was to discourage the well affected in Religion and as much as in him lay to reconcile them unto Popery He gives us secondly a fragment of a scattered Paper pretended to be written to the Rector of the Jesuites Colledge in Bruxels In which the Writer lets him know that they had strongly fortified their Faction here in England by planting the Soveraign Drug Arminianism which he hoped would purge the Protestants from their Heresie Thirdly he backs this paper with a clause in the Remonstrance of the House of Commons Anno 1628 where it is said that the hearts of his Majesties Subjects were perplex'd in beholding the dayly growth and spreading of the faction of Arminianism that being as his Majesty well knew so they say at least but a cunning way to bring in Popery All which he flourishes over by a passage in the Lord Faucklands Speech before remembered in which it is affirmed of some of the Bishops that their work was to try how much of a Papist might be brought in without Popery and to destroy as much as they could of the Gospel without bringing themselves in danger of being destroyed by the Law c. To all which being but the same words out of divers mouths I shall return one answer only which is briefly this Your adversary cannot be so ignorant as not to know that the same points which are now debated between the Calvinians and the Old Protestants in England between the Remonstrants and Contra-remonstrants in the Belgick Churches and finally between the Rigid and Moderate Lutherans in the upper Germany have been as fiercely agitated between the Franciscans and Dominicans in the Church of Rome the old English Protestants the Remonstrants and the moderate Lutherans agreeing in these points with the Franciscans as the English Calvinists the Contra-Remonstrants and the Rigid Lutherans do with the Dominicans So that there is a complyance on all sides with one of the said two parties in the Church of Rome And therefore why a general compliance in these points with the Friers of St. Dominick the principal Sticklers and Promoters of the Inquisition should not be thought as ready a way to bring in Popery as any such compliance with the Friers of St. Francis I would fain have your Adversary tell me when he puts out next 49. The greatest of the storm being over there remains only a few drops which will make no man shrink in the wetting that is to say the permission of some books to be frequenly printed containing the Calvinian Doctrine and the allowance of many questions to be maintained publiquely in the Act at Oxon contrary to the sence of those which he calls Arminians Amongst the Books so frequently printed he instanceth in the Practise of Piety Perkins his Principles Balls Catechism c. which being incogitantly licensed to the Press at their first coming out could not be afterwards Restrained from being Reprinted notwithstanding the many inconveniences which ensued upon it till the passing of the Decree in Star-Chamber July 1637. concerning Printing by which it was ordered to the great grief and trouble of that Puritan faction that no Book whatsoever should be reprinted except Books of the Law till they were brought under a review and had a new License for reprinting of them And though D. Crakanthorps Book against the Archbishop of Spalato was but once printed yet being called Defensâ—o Ecclesiae Anglicanae it serves your Adversaries turn as well as if it had been Printed an hundred times over How so because
any Article for casting dust into mens eyes the better to perswade them to give credit to any thing which may serve my turn when I have said nothing in all this business about the Ephori but what is justified by the Authority of the most famous States-men and renowned Writers who have committed to our knowledge the true condition of Affairs in that Common-wealth so that you might have spared the story of Hipitadeus the selling of his lot or his portion of Lands contrary to the Laws of Lycurgus the following of that bad example by other men and the reducing of all the Free-holders in that Common-wealth to the number of 100. only unless you had found any thing in that Book of mine which had sounded contrary unto it But whereas you infer in that which followeth That the ingrossing the Lands of that Common wealth into such few hands altered the Government into an Oligarchy that by this it was no Oligarchy that Agis was murthered and that in reference to this Oligarchy Plato and Aristotle called the Government of Sparta by the name of Tyranny in all these things you may be said to cast dust into the eyes of the Readers that they may not see the light of truth For certainly the Government of the State of Sparta consisting in the Kings and Senate remained only as it was before by the Laws of Lycurgus the superinduction of the Ephori being added to it not altered any thing at all by the ingrossing of the Lands of that Common-wealth into those few hands Nor was it by the Authority of those ingrossers whom you call the Oligarchy though possible enough at their instigation that Agis was murthered by the Ephori nor was it finally in relation to these Ingrossers that the Government of Sparta was called a tyranny there was no reason why it should both by Plato and Aristotle but only in reference to the unparaleld cruelties and abominable insolencies of the Ephori committed on and against their Kings it being said by Aristotle in as plain tearms as may be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that the Ephorate and not the Oligarchy of Ingrossers was an absolute Tyranny Thus have you fetcht Arguments against an Oligarchy in the State of Sparta which you find not in it And for the close of all you say That whereas Agis and Cleomenes by the restitution of the Lots of Licurgus were assertors of popular power they are insinuated by me to have been assertors of Monarchy But first the restitution of the Lots of Licurgus by the industry and endeavours of those two Kings improved not at all the power of the people who were still kept under as before but only reduced them unto that equality in respect of Riches which might secure them from being trampled on and insulted over by their fellow Commoners And secondly it appears by Plutarch that the designe of those two Kings in that restitution was to get glory to the one and preservation to the other which could not be effected but by gaining the good will of the common people and make them sure unto their side whensoever they should be ready for that great design of destroying the Ephori And so much in Answer to that part of your Letter which concerns the rise insolencies and destruction of those popular Villains which Calvin makes his first example for opposing Kings 14. Such being my play no foul play I am sure with humane Authors or as a Polititian you will next show me whither I have dealt better with the Scripture or been more carefull as a Divine But first you must look backwards upon somwhat which was said before And having laid down the words of Calvin which occasioned this discourse between us you cannot but confess that what he saith of Demarchy of Athens is a plain mistake they being officers as you truly say of another nature and then why he may not be as much mistaken in the Spartan Ephori and the Roman Tribunes as in the Athenian Demarchy you can show no reason For if he be of a fallible spirit in one point he can be infallible in none Which mistake notwithstanding it betrayes his ignorance in the Greek Antiquities you tell us not to be such an one as destroyes no other part of his Assertion First The supereminent Authority of the Ephori over the Kings of the Tribunes over their Consuls standing good however The contrary whereof to use your own words hath been already proved by Plato Aristotle and Plutarch though you would willingly perswade the Reader that they speak for you Which said you put me to it once again as a Polititian and tell me that no Polititian in the world can show a reâ—son Why the Estates in a Gothick Moddel should be of less power then either the Spartan Ephori or the Roman Tribunes So much I shall be willing to grant that the Estates in a Gothick Moddel have as much power in the publick Government and over the persons of their Kings as the Ephori had over their Kings and the Tribunes over their Consuls at their first institution But that they had the like power in either case as the Ephori and the Tribunes exercised by violence and usurpation in their severall Cities no Polititian in the world can be able to show me And this we may the better see by looking on their power in matters which concern the publique in the Realm of Spaine the Kings and people whereof those of Portugal excepted onely are of Gothick race and therefore likely to retain most of the Gothick Moddels And looking on it we shall find first that their Curias or General conventions consist there as in other places of the three Estates Prelate Peer and People And secondly that though the Government of that King be not so Arbitrary Despotical as it is in France yet he both rules and manageth those Conventions to his own contentment For neither can they meet together but by his appointment nor are their acts and consultations of any effect further then as they are confirmed by the Kings consent nor finally can they sit any longer or depart any sooner then as it may stand most with the Kings conveniency But Bodin goes a little further And having showed us with what Reverence and Devotion the the three Estates of France addressed themselves to Charles the 8th in a convention held at Tours at what time the Authority of the Assemblies was greater and more eminent then it hath been since affirms expresly Majorem etiam Obedientiam majus obsequium Hispanorum regi Exhiberi The King of Spain hath more obedience and observance from his three Estates then that which was afforded to the King of France The General conventions of both Kingdoms being much alike may seem to have been cast in the same mould for the French neighbouring the Goths who then possest those Provinces in the Realm of France which lie on the west side of the Loire could not
suppose like a Divine 20. But you have another use to make of the Prophet Hosea whose words you cite unto a purpose that he never meant namely to prove that Kings are not of Divine Right For having said that such Divines who will alwaies have Kings to be of divine right are not to be hearkned too seeing they affirm that which is clean contrary to Scripture you add that in this case said Hosea they have set up Kings and not by me they have made Princes and I knew it not But first these words are not spoken by the Prophet touching the institution of Kings in General but onely of a particular fact in the ten Tribes of Israel by with drawing themselves from the house of David and setting up a King of their own without consulting with the Lord or craving his approbation and consent in the business Secondly If it may be said that Kings are not of Divine Right and institution because God saith here by the Prophet that some Kings have been set up but not by him you have more reason to affirm that Kings are of Divine Right and institution because he saith in another place less capable of any such misconstruction as you make of this by me Kings reign All Kings are said to reign by God because all reign by his appointment by his permission at the least And yet some Kings may be truly said not to reign by him either because they are set up by the people in a tumultuous and seditious way against the natural Kings and Princes or else because they come unto their Crowns by usurpation blood and violence contrary to his will revealed and the establisht Laws of their severall Countrys Which Argument if it should be good we could not have a stronger against such Papists as hold alwayes for it seems no mater if they did hold so but somtimes that the Pope by Divine right is head of the universall Church then by showing them out of their own Histories how many Popes have raised themselves into that See either by open faction or by secret bribery and by violent and unjust intrusion Of whom it may be said and that not improperly that though they pretend to be Christs Vicars and the successors of St. Peter yet were they never plac't by Christ in St. Peters Chair Now to dispute from the persons to the power and from the unjust wayes of acquiring that power to the original right and institution of it is such a sorry piece of Logick as you blaming those who dispute from the folly of a people against an Ordinance of God For upon what ground else do you lay the foundation of the legall Government especially amongst the Hebrews but on the folly of the people p. 11. the imprudence and importunity of the people p. 14. upon which ground also you build the supream authority of the Judges who onely by the meet folly of the people came to be set up in Israel p. 13. But certainly if their desires to have a King were folly and imprudence in them it must be felix fatuitas a very fortunate imprudence and a succesful folly I am sure of that that people never live in a settled condition till they come to the Government of Kings For was it not by the fortunate conduct of their Kings that they exterminated the rest of the Canaanites broke the Amalekites in pieces and crusht the power of the Phylistins growing by that means formidable unto all their Neigbours Was it not by the power and reputation of their Kings that they gained some strong Towns from the Children of Ammon and enlarged their Territories by the conquest of some parts of Syria that they grew strong in shipping and mannaged a wealthy trade from Esion-Geber in the streights of Babel-Mandel to the Land of Ophir in the remotest parts of India Prosperities sufficient to justifie and endear such burdens as by the alteration of the Government might be said upon them 21. From such Divines in Generall as will always I must keep that word have Kings to be by divine Right you come to me at last in my own particular charging me that at a venture I will have Kings to be of Divine Right and to be absolute whereas in truth say you if Divine Right be derived unto Kings from these of the Hebrews onely it is most apparent that no absolute King can be of Divine Right And first to answer for my self for having sometime been a Parson I shall take leave to Christen my own Child first I think that I was never so rash nor so ill advised as to speak any thing at aventure in so great a point as the originall institution and divine right of Kings Secondly I am sure I have not so little studied the Forms of Government as to affirm any where in that Book against Calvin as you call it that all Kings be absolute The second Sect. of the sixt Chapter of that Book being spent for the most part in shewing the differences between conditional Kings and an absolute Monarch And Thirdly They must be as sorry Divines and as bad Historians as my self who ascribe the absolute Power or the Divine right of Kings to the first institution of a King amongst the Hebrews For who knows not if he know any thing in that kind that there were Kings in Aegypt and Assyria as also of Scycionia in Peleponesus not long after the Flood Kings of the Aborigines and the Trojan race in Italy in that of Athens Argos and Micenae amongst the Greeks of the Parthians Syrians c. in the Greater and of Lydia in the lesser Asia long time before the Raign of Saul the first King of the Hebrews all which were absolute Monarchs in their several Countrys And as once Tully said Nulla gens tam barbara that never Nation was so barbarous but did acknowledge this principle that there was a God so will you hardly find any barbarous Nation who acknowledge not the supream Government of Kings And how then all Nations should agree in giving themselves over to the power and Government of Kings I believe none cannot show me a better reason then that they either did it by the light of natural reason by which they found that Government to be fittest for them or that the first Kings of every Nation were the heads families that retained that paternal right over all such as descended of them as might entitle their authority to divine institution For proof whereof since you have such a prejudice against Divines you need look no farther then your self who tells us p. 12. That Kings no question where the ballance is Monarchical are of Divine right and if they be good the greatest blessing that the Government so standing can be capable of or if you will not stand to this then look on the first Chapter of Aristotles Politicks where he makes the Regall Government to stand upon no other bottom then paternal Authority Initio
civitates regibus parebant c. At the first saith he Cities were Governed by Kings and so still at this day are such Nations as descended of men accustomed to the King by Government For every houshold is governed by the eldest as it were by a King and so consequently are the Colonies or Companies multiplyed from thence governed in like sort for Kindreds sake Which words of Aristotle seconded by the general practice of all Nations I look on as a better Argument of the Original institution Divine Right of Kings that great Philosopher in the 4th Book of his Politicks cap. 2. giving unto the Regall Government the attribute of Divinissima or the most Divine then to fetch either of them from the institution of the first King among the Hebrews so that you might have spared the labour of showing the inconsequences of arging from a contingent case to a matter of absolute necessity as from the making of the first King amongst the Hebrews to the necessity of making Kings in all other Nations unless you could have found some adversary to contend withal And with like thrift you might have saved your self the trouble of proving that the words of Moses in Deut. 17. v. 18. touching recourse to be had unto the Judge which should be in those dayes in some certain cases inferred not a necessity of having any such supream Judge as God raised up from time to time to govern and avenge his people in their greatest misery unless you have met with any which I know not of which trust as much to that Text of Scripture for those supream Judges as you rely upon it for the Court of Sanhedrim of which more anon The corollary wherewithal you close this passage I like well enough had you grounded your discourse on some clearer Text For I conceive as well as you that those Judges are not necessitated by the will of God but foreseen onely by his providence not imposed by the Law but provided by iâ— as an Expedient in case of necessity 22. But before I come to examine the Text of Scripture on which you ground both the Authority of the Sanhedrim and those supream Judges which governed in their several times the affairs of Israel I must first see what form of Government it is which you chiefly drive at and in comparison whereof you so much vilifie and condemn the Regall And fiâ—st the Government you drive at musâ— be plainly Popular and such Popular estate call iâ— Timocraty or a Democratie or what else you please into which the old Agrarian laws must be introduced for the better settling of equality amongst the people And such a Common-wealth as this you fancy to be most agreeable to the natural liberty of Mankind and Divine institution There is nothing say you more clear nor certain in Scripture then that the Commonwealth of Israel was instituted by God p. 14. and settled on a popular Agrarian p. 12. And that the Restitution of their Common-wealth was fore-signified in these words of the Prophet Hosea I will be thy King cap. 13. 10. But if you have no better grounds for the Institution then for the Restitution of this Common-wealth they are too weak for foundation of so great a building The Prophet speaks in that place particularly to the house of Ephraim v. 1. the people of the Realm of Israel v. 9. as appears more distinctly by their kissing the Calves the Golden Calves of Dan and Bethel v. 2. Of whose reduction to their native Country after their being carried away captive by Salmanasser King of Assyria there is nothing signified in the Scripture in the way of prophesie nor no relation of it as a matter of Fact Nor can you show me any clear and evident text by which I may be sure that this Commonwealth was instituted by God considering that Moses during the whole time of his life governed authoritatively and supreamly without any appeal unto the people or unto any other power either co-ordinate with him or superior to him which I believe is more thenyou can show me in any Duke of Venice or any State-holder of the Netherlands or any other Prince in a Common-wealth which onely serve as second Notions in a State to put their business into form and give date to all publick instruments as the Keepers of the Liberties not long since in England Nor do I finde that Josuah abated any thing of that power which Moses had advising sometime with the Elders of the people but not governed by them so that the first Government amongst the Israelites had more in it of the Regal then the popular Forms to which they did desire to return again upon the apprehension of the Anarchy and confusion under which they lived when there was no King in Israel as in other Nations And as for your Agrarian laws your Popular Ballance as elsewhere upon which this Commonwealth is supposed to be settled I conceive it will be very hard for you to prove that also For though the Land of Canaan was divided by Lot amongst the Tribes yet neither had the Tribes themselves their equal portion nor every family in those Tribes their equal shares in those unequal portions with one another some of the Tribes enjoying little or nothing of the lot which had fallen unto them and some of the Families of those Tribes being scattered up and down the Country as Jacob had prophesied of Simeon in the Book of Gen. which utterly destroyes that popular Agrarian on which this Common-wealth is supposed to be founded and in which you say they might have continued but that they desired to have a King like other Nations 23. Your second Argument for a preferring a popular Estate before a Monarchy is derived from reason and that reason grounded on the natural liberty of all mankind which cannot better be preserved them in popular Governments God never required as you say of any Man or any Government that they should live otherwise then according to their estate that there are rules in Scripture to show the duty of a servant to such whose wants have made them servants but that there is no rule in Scripture that obligeth a man unto the duty of a servant which can live of himself And finally having askt this question whether God hath less regard of a Nation then he hath of a man you tax the Israelites for making themselves servants by desiring a King to be set over them when they might have continued as they were in a free condition But first that natural liberty of Mankind which our great Polititians so much talk of hath no ground in nature for as servants are bound by positive Lawes to obey their Masters so women are bound by the law of Nature to submit themselves unto their Husbands and children by the same law to be obedient to their parents This if the Scripture had not taught you you might have learnt from Aristotle as he did from Homer
c. which no man can conceive to relate onely to the Judges of the lower Courts Nor find I any variation in the rest that follows no nor in that which comes after neiher v. 14. where those directions do begin which concern the people and not the Priests or Judges onely in the Election of their King And therefore give me leave to think and laugh not at me I beseech you for my singularity that there is no other meaning in that Text but this i e. That if a doubt or scruple should arise amongst them in their severall dwellings in matters which concerned Religion and the right understanding of the law of God they should have recourse to the Priests and Levites for satisfaction in the same according unto that of the Prophet Malachy that the people were to seek the Law from the mouth of the Priest as before we had it But if it were a civil controversie matters of difference which they could not end amongst themselves and by the interposition of their friends and Neighbours they should refer it to the Judge or Judges in whose times they lived to be finally decided by him And for this Exposition I have not onely some authority but some reason also My Authority shall be taken from the words of Estius who makes gloss upon the Text viz. Haec sententia modo sacerdotem modo judicem nominat propter duplicem magistratum qui erat in populo dei sacram civilem quamvis contingeret aliquando duplicem magistratum in eandem personam concurrere My reasons shall be taken first from that passage in the 12. verse in which it is said that the man that will do presumptuously and will not hearken unto the Priest that standeth to Minister there before the Lord thy God c. Where the Priest seems to be considered in personal capacity as he stands ministring before the Lord at his holy Altar not as he sits upon the bench and acts â—with other of the Judges in an open Court But whether that be so or not certain I am that many inconveniences must needs happen amongst the people if the Text be no otherwise to be understood as you would have it It is confest on all hands that there was some intervall of time from the death of every one of the supream Judges and the advancing of the next though in Chronologies the years of the succeeding Judges are counted from the death of his Predecessor And you your selfe confess p. 14. that the Sanhedrim did not continue long after Josuah And I can find no restitution of it till the time of Iehoshaphat For though you tell us p. 16. that never any King except David had Session or Vote in this Councel by which you intimate that the Sanhedrim was on foot again in the time of David Yet you have shewed us neither reason nor authority for it And therefore you may do me a greater favour as your own words are then you suddenly imagine to tell me really in what Book of Scripture or in what other Author I may find it written that either the Sanhedrim was on foot again in the time of David or that David did at any time sit and vote amongst them Hereupon I conclude at last that if the Text be to be understood as you would have it and as you say it is understood in the sence of all Authors both Iewish and Christians then must the people be without remedy at the least without remedy of Appeal in their suits and controversies during the interval of time betwixt the Judges and without remedies also in their doubts scruples touching the meaning of the Law for the whole space of time which past betwixt the death of Iosuah and the raign of Iehoshaphat which comes to 511. years or there abouts which I desire you seriously to consider of 32. And yet the matter were the less if having given the Sanhedrim the Dernier Resort or the supream power in all appeals you did not ascribe to them an authority also to controul their Kings For proof whereof you tell us that both Skickardus and Grotius with the full consent of the Talmudists have assured you that if the King came to violate the Laws and the Statutes it was in the power of the Sanhedrim to bring him unto corporall punishment How far Skickardus hath assured you I am not able to say not being directed by you to any Book or Books of his where it may be found But if you find no more in Skickardus then you do in Grotius you will have little cause to brag of this discovery For Grotius in his first Book de jure belli c. cap. 3. and not cap. 1. as is mistaken in the print first telleth us thus viz. Samuel jus regum describens satis ostendit adversus Regis injurias nullam in populo relictam potestatem c. Samuel saith he describing the power of the King of Israel showes plainly that the people had no power to relieve themselves from the oppressions of their Kings according unto that of some antient Writers on those words of David Against thee onely have I sinned Psal 51. And to show how absolutely Kings were exempted from such punishments he presently subjoyns the testimony of Barnach monus an Hebrew In dictis Rabinorum titulo de judicibus which is this nulla creatura judicat regem sed benedictus that is to say that no creature judgeth or can judge the King but onely God for ever blessed According unto which I find a memorable Rule in Bracton an old English Lawyer relating to the Kings of England viz. Omnem esse sub rege ipsum sub nullo sed tantum sub deo That every man is under the King but the King is under none but God Betwixt which passages so plainly destructive of the power ascribed to the Sanhedrim Grotius interlopes this following passage from some Iewish Writers viz. Video consentire Hebraeos regi in eas leges quae de officio regis scriptae extabant peccanti inflicta verbera sedâ—a apud illos infamiâ carebant a rege in signum penitentiae sponte suscipiebantur ideoque non a lictore sed ab eo quem legisset ipse probatur suo arbitrio verberibus statuebat modum I have put down the words at large that the learned and judicious Reader may see what he is to trust to in this point The sence whereof is this in English viz. that stripes were inflicted on the King if he transgressed those Lawes which had been written touching the Regal office But that those stripes carried not with them any mark of infamy but were voluntary undergone by him in testimony of his repentance upon which ground the said stripes were not laid upon him by a common Officer but by some one or other of his own appointment it being also in his power to limit both the the number and severity of those stripes which they were to give him
zeal and ignorance A writing is subscribed on the 10th of May by Finch Lord Keeper Manchester Lord Privy Seal Littleton Chief Justice of the Common Pleas Banks Atturney General Witsield and Heath his Majesties Serjeants at the Law in which it was declared expresly that the Convocation being called by the Kings writ ought to continue till it was dissolved by the Kings Writ notwithstanding the dissolution of the Parliament But what makes this unto the purpose Our Author a more learned Lawyer then all these together hath resolved the contrary and throw it out as round as a boul that after the dissolution of the Parliament the Clarks of Diocesses and Cathedrals desisted from being publick persons and lost the notion of Representatives and thereby returned to their private condition The Animadvertor instanced in a convocation held in the time of Queen Eliz. An. 1585. which gave the Queen a Benevolence of two shillings in the pound to be raised on the Estates of all the Clergy by the meer censures of the Church without act of peachment Against which not able to object as to the truth and realty of it in matter of Fâ—ct he seems to make it questionable whecher it would hold good or not in point of Law if any turbulent Clergy-man had proved Recusant in payment and having slighted by the name of a blâ—ck â—wan a single instance of an unparliamented inpowred Convocation he imputes the whole success of that â—ash adventure rather unto the popularity of so Peerless a Princess the necessity of her occasions and the tranquillity of the times then to any efficacy or validity in the act it self And to what purpose all this pains but to expose the poor Clergy of the Convocation An. â—640 to the juster censure for following this unquestioned precedent in granting a more liberal benevolence to a gracious soveraign by no other authority then their own 34. If the â—ppealant still remain unsatisfied in this part of the Churches power I shall take a little more pâ—ins to instruct him in it though possibly I may tell him nothing which he knows not already being as learned in the Canons as in the common Law In which capacity I am sure he cannot chuse but know how ordinary a thing it was with Bishops to suspend their Clergy not onely ab officio but a Beneficio and not so onely but to sentence them if they saw just cause for it to a deprivation Which argues them to have a power over the property of the Clergy in their several Diocesses and such a power as had no ground to stand on but the authority of the Canons which conferred it on them And if our Author should object as perhaps he may that though the Canons in some cases do subject the Clergy not only to suspentions but deprivations of their cures and Benefices â—in which their property is concerned yet that it is not so in the case of the Laity whose Estates are not to be bound by so weak a thred I must then lead him to the Canons of 1603 for his satisfaction In which we find six Canons in a row one after another for providing the Book of Common Prayer the Book of Homilies the Bible of the largest Edition a Font for Baptism a fair Communion Table with a Carpet of Silk or other decent stuff to be laid upon it a Pulpit for Preaching of Gods Word a Chest to receive the alms for the Poor and finally for repairing of the Churches or Chappels whensoever they shall fall into any decay all these provisions and reparations to be made at the charges of the several and respective Parishes according to such rates as are indifferently assest upon them by the Church wardens Sides men and such other Parishioners as commonly convened together in the case which rates if any did refuse to make payment of they were compellable thereunto on a presentment made to the Ordinary by the said Church-wardens and other sworn Officers of the several and respective Parishes And yet those Canons never were confirmed by Act of Parliament as none of the like nature had been formerly in Queen Eliz time though of a continual and uncontroled practise upon all occasions The late Lord Primate in * a Letter more lately published by D. Barnard assures the honourable person unto whom he writ it that the making of any Articles or Canons at all to have ever been confirmed in that Kingdom by Act of Parliament is one of Dr. Heylyns Fancies And now it must be another of the Doctors Fancies to say that never any Articles or Canons had ever been confirmed by Act of Paliament in England though possible they may relate unto the binding of the subject in point of Poperty 35. But our Author hath a help at Maw and making use of his five fingers hath thrust a word into the proposition in debate between us which is not to be sound in the first drawing up of the issue The Question at the first was no more then this whether such Canons as were made by the Clergy in their Convocations and authorized by the King under the broad Seal of England could any further bind the subject then as they were confirmed by Act of Parliament And Secondly Whether such Canons could so bind either at such times as the Clergy acted their own Authority or after their admission to King Hen. the 8. in such things as concerned Temporals or temporal matters otherwise then as they were confirmed by national Customes that is to say as afterwards he expounds himselfe until they were consirmed by Act of Parliament Which points being so clearly stated by the Animadvertor in behalf of the Church that no honest evasion could be found to avoid his Argument the Appealant with his five fingers layes down life at the stake and then cryes out that the Animadvertor arrogates more power unto the Church then is due unto it either by the laws of God or man maintaining but he knows not where that Church men may go beyond Ecclesiastical Censures even to the limbs and lives of such as are Recusants to their Constitutions p. 2. so 53. And having taken up the scent he hunts it over all his Book with great noise and violence assuring us that such Canons were constantly checkt and controlled by the Laws of the Land in which the temporal Estate life and limbs of persons were concerned p. 2. fol. 27. As also that the King and Parliament though they directed not the proceedings of Ecclesiastical Courts in cases of Heresie which is more then his History would allow of yet did they order the power of Bishops over declared Hereticks without the direction of the Statute not to proceed to limb and life p. 2. fol. 45. And finally reduceth the whole Question to these two Propositions viz. 1. The proceedings of the Canon Law in what touched temporals of life limb and estate was alwayes limited with the secular Laws and national Customes of England And