or be corrupted with pleasures Which if it were not thus the rule of Government prescribed by God in Deut. 17. must bâ— directly contrary unto the manner of the King that is to say the customary practise of those Kings in the course of their Government which God himself describes 1 Sam. 8. 17. And yet this manner of the King being told by Samuel unto the People was so farre from terrifying them from having a King as they desired that they cryed out the more vehemently Nay but we will have a King over us c. And which is more Samuel having again informed ihem at the auguration of Saul touching the manner of their King it follows in the Text â—hat Samuel wrote it in a Book and laid it up before the Lord 1 Sam. 20. 25. Which to what purpose it was done unless it were to serve for a standing measure both of the Kings power and the peoples obedience it is hard to say And if you look upon the practise of David and his posterity we shall find how little they conceived themselves to be circumscribed within those limits which you have assigned them of which you cannot take a better survey then what is given you by the excellent but unfortunate Sir Walter Rawleigh in his conjecture of the causes hindring the reunion of Israel with Judah during the troubles of that Kingdom Hist of the World Part. 1. cap. 19. Sect. 6. Where having first told us that the dis-affection of the ten Tribes if we look upon humane reason was occasioned by desire of breaking that heavy yoak of bondage wherewith Solomon had galled their necks discourseth further of the hinderances of a re-union of the Kingdoms in this manner following Surely saith he whosoever shall take the paines to look into those examples which are extant of the differing courses held by the Kings of Israel and Judah in the administration of Justice will find it most probable that upon this ground iâ— was that the ten Tribes continued so averse from the line of David as to think all adversity more tolerable then the weighty Scepter of that House For the death of Joab and Shimei was indeed by them deserved yet in that they suffered it without form of judgement they suffered like unto men innocent The death of Adoniah was both without judgement and without any crime objected other then the Kings jealousie out of which by the same rule of Arbitrary justice under which it may be supposed that many were cast away he would have slain Jeroboham if he could have caught him before he had yet committed any offence as appears by his confident return out of Aegypt like one that was known to have endured wrong having not offered any That which comes after in that Author being a recapitulation onely of the like arbitrary proceedings of Jehoram and other of the following Kings I forbear to add marvelling onely by the way that the Sanhedrim did not take these Kings to task for violating the standing rules of their Government laid down as you affirm in Deut. 17. and lay some corporall punishment on them as you say they might 27. This leads me on to the institution of the Sanhedrim their power and period In the two first whereof you place the greatest part of your strength for defence of Calvin though possibly you may be mistaken in all three alike In the first Institution and authority of the Jethronian Judges there is no difference between us The first thing you accept against is that I make the 70. Elders to be chosen out of the Iethronians concerning which you tell me that I may do you a greater favour then I can suddenly imagine to tell you really for what cause or upon what Authority my speech is so positive that is to say that God willed Moses to chuse the seventy Elders out of those that were chosen in the 18th of Exodus If I can do you any favour in this or in any thing else I shall not be wanting in any thing which I can do for your satisfaction And therefore you may please to know that my speech is grounded on those words in Numbers 11. v. 1. viz. And the Lord said unto Moses Gather unto me seventy men of the Elders of Israel whom thou knowest to be Elders of the people and officers over them And bring them unto the Tabernacle of the Congregation that they may stand there with thee c. By which you may perceive that the 70. were not to be chosen out of the Elders onely but out of the Elders and Officers and other Officers at that time there were none to be found but those which were ordained by Moses in Exo. 18. to be Rulers of thousands Rulers of Hundreds Rulers of fifties and Rulers of â—ens for the determining of such smaller differences and suits in Law that might arise among the people And Secondly it is consonant with reason that it should be so that none should be admitted into the number of the 70. but such of whose integrity and abilities there had been some sufficient trial in the lower Courts Concerning which take here the Gloss of Deodati on the former words viz Elders viz. chosen out of the greater number of the other heads of the people Exo. 18. 25. that is to say Rulers of thousands Rulers of hundreds c. for to make up the great Councel or Senate Thou knowest viz. those thou hast thy self chosen into office or known and approved of in the exersising of it Would you have more for I am willing to do you any favour within my power then know that Ainsworth a man exceedingly well versed in all the learning of the Hebrews hath told me in his Notes or Comment on the former Text that by Officers in this place it seemeth to be meant of such Elders and Officers as were well known and had approved themselves for wisdome and good carriage for which they might with comfort be preferred to this high Senate For they that have Ministred well as the Apostle saith Purchased to themselves a good degree 1 Tim. 3. 13. And more particularly thus Our wise men have said that from the great Sanhedrim they sent into all the Land of Israel and made diligent enquiry whomsoever they found to be wise and afraid to sinne and meek c. They made him a Judge in his City And from thence they preferred him to the Gate of the Mountain of the House of the' Lord and from whence they promoted him to the Gate of the Court of the Sanctuary and from thence they advanced him to the great Judgement Hall for which he citeth Maimony one of the chief Rabbines in all that part in his Book of the Sanhedrim cap. 2. Sect. 8. which gives me very good assurance that the seventy were first chosen by Moses out of the Iethronian or Ruling Elders which were afterwards called Judges in the Gates because they were chosen out of that body in the times
these passages these breathings of M. Burton in his Apologie and Appeal In which he calls on the Nobility To rouse up their spirits and magnanimous courage for the truth and to stick close to God and the King in helping the Lord and his anointed against the mighty upon the Judges to draw forth the sword of Justice to defend the Laws against such Innovators who as much as in them lieth divide between the King and People upon the Courtiers to put too their helping hands and prayers to rescue our religion and faithful Ministers then suspended from the jaws of those devouring Wolves and tyrannizing lordly Prelates c. Upon the people generally to take notice of the desperate practises innovations and Popish designs of these Antichristian Prelates and to oppose and redress them with all their force and power And yet as if this had not been enough to declare his meaning he breaths more plainly in his Libel called The News from Ipswich in which he lets us know That till his Majesty shall hang up some of these Romish Prelates Inquisitors before the Lord as the Gibbeonites once did the seven sons of Saul we can never hope to abate any of Gods plagues c. What think you of these breathings of Buchannan in his book De Jure Regni apud Scotos where he adviseth Regum interfectoribus proemia discerni c. that Rewards should publickly be decreed for those who kill a Tyrant and the meekest King that ever was shall be called a Tyrant if he oppose the setting up of the holy Discipline as usually are proposed to those who kill Wolves or Bears And finally what think you of these breathings in one of the brethren who preaching before the House of Commons in the beginning of the long Parliament required them in the name of the Lord to shew no mercie to the Prelatical party their wives and children but that they should proceed against them as against Babylon it self even to the taking of their children and dashing their brains against the stones Call you these holy breathings the holy breathings after Christ which you so applaud Or are they not such breathings rather aâ— the Scripture attributes to Saul before his conversion who in the ninth chapter of the Acts is said to be Spirator minarum caedis adversus discipules Domini that is to say that he breathed out threatnings and slaughter against the disciples of the Lord. 27. As are their breathings such also is their meekness their humility their hatred of known sin their heavenly mindedness and that self-denial which you so commend for of their love to God I can take no notice As well as they are known unto you may you not be deceived in your opinion of them and take that first for a real and Christian meekness which is but counterfeit and pretended for their worldly ends Doth not our Saviour tell us of a sort of men false-preachers seducers and the like which should come in sheeps clothing but inwardly they are ravening wolves What means our Savior by sheeps clothing but that innocence meekness and humility which they should manifest and express in their outward actions it being the observation of Thomas Aquinas that grand dictator in the Schools In nomine â—vis innocentiam simplicitatem per totam Scripturam designarâ— And yet for all this fair appearance they were inwardly but ravening Wolves greedily thiâ—sting for the prey and hungry after spoil and rapine Astutam rapido gestanâ—es pectore vulpem in the Poets language This you may find exemplified in the Sect of the Anabaptists who at their first appearance disguised themselves in such an habit of meekness and humility and Christian patience as gained them great affection amongst the people but when they were grown unto a head and had got some power into their hands what lusts what slaughter what unmerciful cruelties did they not commit when Tyrannie and K. John of Leyden did so rage in Munster But because possible you may say that these are not the men whom your character aims at tell me what spirit of meeknesse you find in Calvin when he called Mary Q. of England by the name of Proserpine and tells us of her that she did superare omnes diabolos that all the Devils in hell were not half so mischievous or what in Beza when he could find no better title for Mary Q. of Scots then those of Athaliah and Medea the one as infamous in Scripture for her barbarous cruelty as the other is in heathen Writers or what of Peury Vdal and the rest of the Rabble of Mar Prelates in Queen Elizabeths time to whom there never was the like generation of railing Rabshakehs since the beginning of the world Or what of Dido Clariâ—s who calls King James for neither Kings nor Queens can escape them intentissimum Evangelii hostem the most bitter enemy of the Gospel and I say nothing of the scandalous reports and base reproaches which were laid upon his son and successor by the tongues and pens of too many others of that party 28. Look upon their humility and you shall find them exalting themselvs above Kings Princes and all that is called God the Pope and they contending for the supreme power in the Church of Christ For doth not Traverse say expresly in his Book of Discipline Huic Disciplinae omnes principes fasces suas submittere necesse est that Kings and Princes must submit their Scepters to the Rod of that Discipline which Calvin had devised and his followers here pursued so fiercely Have not some others of them declared elsewhere that Kings and Princes must lay down their Scepters at the Churches feet yea and lick up the dust thereof understanding always by the Church their one holy Discipline did they not carry themselves so proudly in the time of that Queen whom they compared to a sluttish housewife who swept the middle of the room but left the dust behinde the door and in every corner that being asked by a grave Counsellor of State whether the removal of some Ceremonies would not serve the turn they answered with insolence enough ne ungulam esse relinquendam that they would not leave so much as an hoof behind And that you may perceive they have been as good at it in Scotland as ever they have been in England Take here the testimony of King James who had very good experience of them in the Preface to his Basilicon Doron where telling us what he means by Puritans he describes them thus I give this stile saith he to such brain-sick and Headie Preachers as refusing to be called Anabaptists participate too much with their humours not only agreeing with the general rule of all Anabaptists in the contempt of the Civil Magistrate and in leaning to their own Dreams and Revelations but particularly in accounting all men prophane that swear not to all their phantasies in making for every particular question of the Policie of the
Church as great commotion as if the Article of the Trinitie were called in controversie in making the Scriptures to be ruled by their conscience and not their conscience by the Scripture and he that denies the least jot of their Grounds sit tibi tanquam Ethnicus Publicanus not worthy to enjoy the benefit of Breathing much less to participate with them of the Sacraments and before that any of their Grounds be impugned let King People Law and all be trod under foot Such holy Warrs are to be preferred to an ungodly Peace no in such cases Christian Princes are not only to be resisted unto but not to be prayed for for Prayer must come of Faith and it is not revealed unto their Consciences that God will hear no prayer for such a Prince I would to God you had not put me to these remembrances which cannot be more unpleasing unto you then they are to my self But taking them for most good truths may we not thereupon inferr that as the Masters were such are the Scholars or as the Mother was such are the Daughters and as the Fathers were such are the Sons Nil mirum est si patrizent filii saith the old Comoedian 29. Then for their Heavenly mindednesse we have seen somewhat of it before and shall see more thereof as also of their hatred of all known sin in that which follows And here again we will take the Character which King James makes of them in the second Book of his Basilicon Doron before mentioned In which he telleth us That there never rose Faction in the time of his minority nor trouble since but they that were upon that factious part were ever carefull to perswade and allure those unruly Spirits among the Ministry to Spouse that quarrel as their own and that he was calumniated by them to that end in their popular Sermons not for any evil or vice which they found in him but only because he was a King which they thought to be the highest evil informing the People that all Kings and Princes were naturally enemies to the Libertie of the Church and could never patiently bear the yoke of Christ After which having spoken of the violence wherewith they had endeavoured to introduce a parity both in Church and State he gives this counsel to the Prince Take heed therefore my son saith he to such Puritans very pests in the Church and Common-weale whom no deserts can oblige neither oaths or promises bind breathing nothing but sedition and calumnies aspiring without measure railing without reason and making their own imaginations without any warrant of the Word the square of their conscience protesting to him before the great God that he should never find with any Highlander baseâ— Thieves greater ingratitude and more lies and vile perjuries then with those fanatick spirits And suffer not saith he to his son the principles of them to brook your Land if you like to sit at rest except you would keep them for trying your patience as Socrates did an evill wife Such is the heavenly-mindednesse and such the hatred of all known sin which you have observed in many of those who differ from me as you say in some smaller things nec ovum ovâ— nec lac lacti similius as you know who said 30. And then as for their Self-denial I could wish you had spared it unless you had some better ground for it then I doubt you have For if you ask the Country people they will tell you generally that they have found in those who live upon Sequestrations so little self denial that they are more rigorous in exacting of their Tithes even in trifling matters and far less hospitable for relief of the Poor or entertainment of the better sort of the Parishioners and consequently to have more of Earth and Self in them then ever had been found or could be honestly complained of in the old Incumbents whom if you look on with an equal and impartial eye you will find them to be of another temper notwithstanding all the provocation of want and scorn which from day to day are laid upon them neither repining openly at their own misfortune nor railing malitiously on those whom they know to be the Authors of them nor libelling against the persons nor wilfully standing out against the pleasure and commands of the higher Powers but bearing patiently the present and charitably hoping for some better measure then hath been hitherto meeted to them as best becomes the scholars of that gracious Master who when he was reviled reviled not again when he suffered he threatned not but committeth himself to him that judgeth righteously but the Crow thinks her own birds fairest and so let them be 31. But you proceed and tell us That if God love them not that is to say the persons whom you so extol you have not yet met with the people whom you may hope he loveth and if he do love them he will scarcely take my dealing will spoken with confidence enough But how came you to know the mind of the Lord or to be of his Councel that you can tell so perfectly whom he loveth or hateth eâ— nos scire Deus voluit quae oportet scire ad vitam aeternam consequendam as the Father hath it God hath communicated to us all those things which are fit and necessary to be known for the attaining of everlasting salvation but keeps such secrets to himself And though we are most sure and certain that the Lord knoweth who are his yet how may we be sure or certain that he hath made you acquainted with it I cannot easily believe that you have been either wrapt up into the third heaven or perused the Alphabetical Table to the Book of Life or have had any such Revelation made unto you by which you may distinctly know whom the Lord loveth or whom he doth not But if you go by outward signs and gather this love of God unto them from the afflictions and chastisements which they suffer under God chastning every son whom he doth receive that mark of filiation runneth on the other side those of your Partie injoying as much worldly prosperity as the reaping of the fruits and living in the houses of other men which you call by the name of carnal accommodations can estate them in If you conclude on their behalf from their outward prosperity you go on worse grounds then before for David tells us of some wicked and unrighteous persons that they are neither in want or misery like other men that they live plentifully on the lot which is fallen unto them and leave the rest of their substance unto their babes And Christ the Son of David tells us that the Lord God makes the Sun to shiâ—e and the rain to rain as well on the sinners as the just All mankind being equally capable of those temporary and temporal comforts and finally if you collect it from those spiritual graces and celestial gifts which
you have attributed to them as far as the effects can shew the heart to others I have before took some pains to let you see how easily men may be mistaken when they behold a man through the spectacles of partiality and defection or take the visible appearances for invisible graces the fraudulent art fiâ—â—s and deceits of men for the coelestial gifts of God And as for that which you have inferred hereupon viz. that if he love them he will scarcely take my dealing well You should first prove the Premises before you venter upon such a strange conclusion and not condemn a Christian brother upon Ifs and Ands. 32. In the next place you please to tell me that you are not an approver of the violence of any of them and that you do not justifie M. Burtons way and that you are not of the mind of the party that I most oppose in all their Discipline as a Book now in the Press will give the world an account In the two first parts of which Character which you have given us of your self as I have great reason to commend your moderation and hope that you will make it good in your future actions so I can say little to the last not having heard any thing before of the Book you speak of nor knowing by what name to call for it when it comes abroad But whereas you tell us in the next that you are sure the Church must have unity and charity in the ancient simplicity of Doctrine Worship and Government or not at all I take you at your word hold there and we shall soon agree together Vnity and charity in the ancient simplicity of Doctrine Worship and Government no man likes better then my self bring but the same affections with you and the wide breach which is between us in some of the causes which we mannage on either side will be suddenly closed but then you must be sure to stand to the word ancient also and not to keep your self to simplicity only if unity and charity will content you in the ancient Doctrine in the simplicity thereof without subsequent mixtures of the Church I know no doctrine in the Church more pure and ancient then that which is publickly held forth by the Church of England in the book of Articles the Homilies and the Chatechism authorized by Law under the head or rubrick of Confirmation Of which I safely may affirm as S. Augustine doth in his Tract or Book Ad Marcellinum if my memory fail not his qui contradicit â—ut à Christi fide alienus est aut est haereticus that is to say he must be either an Infidei or an Heretick who assenteth not to them If unity and charity in the simplicity of Worship be the thing you aim at you must not give every man the liberty of worshiping in what form he pleaseth which destroys all unity nor cursing many times in stead of praying which destroyes all charity the ancient and most simple way of Worship in the Church of God was by regular forms prescribed for the publick use of Gods people in their Congregations and not by unpremeditated indigested prayers which every man makes unto himself as his fancy shall lead him which I hope I have sufficiently proved in my Tract of Liturgies And if Set Forms of Worship are to be retained as I think they be you will not easily meet with any which hath more in it of the ancient simplicity of the Primitive times then that by which we did officiate for the space of fourscore years and more in the Church of England And finally if the ancient simplicity in Government be the point you drive at what Government can you find more pure and ancient then that of Bishops of which I shall only present you with that Character of it which I find in that Petition of the County of Rutland where it is said to be That Government which the Apostles left the Church in that the three ages of Martyrs were governed by that the thirteen ages since have alwayes gloried in by their succession of Bishops from the Apostles proving themselves members of the Catholick and Apostolick Church that our Laws have established so many Kings and Parliaments have protected into which we were baptized as certainly Apostolical as the observation of the Lords day as the distinction of Books Apocryphal from Canonical as that such Books were written by such Evangelists and Apostles as the consecration of the Eucharist by Presbyters c. An ample commendation of Episcopal Government but such as exceedeth not the bounds of truth or modesty Stand to these grounds for keeping unity and charity in the ancient simplicity of Doctrine Worship and Government in the Church of God and you shall see how cheerfully the Regal and Prelatical party whom you most oppose wil join hands with you and embrace you with most dear affections 33. But you begin to shrink already and tell me that if I will have men live in peace as brethren our Union must be Law or Ceremonies or indifferent Forms This is a pretty speculation I must needs confesse but such as would not passe for practicable in any well-governed Common-wealth unless it be in the Old Vtopia or the New Atlantis or the last discovered Oceana For how can men possibly live in peace as brethren where there is no Law to limit their desires or direct their actions Take away Law and every man will be a Law unto himself and do whatsoever seemeth best in his own eyes without control then Lust will be a law for one Felony will be a law for another Perjury shall be held no crime nor shall any Treason or Rebellion receive their punishments for where there is no law there is no transgression and where there is no transgression there can be no punishment punishments being only due for the breach of Laws Thus is it also in the service and worship of Almighty God which by the hedge of Ceremonies is preserved from lying open to all prophaneness and by Set Forms be they as indifferent as they will is kept from breaking out into open confusion God as S. Paul hath told us is the God of Order not of Confusion in the Churches If therefore we desire to avoid confusion let us keep some order and if we would keep order we must have some forms it being impossible that men should live in peace as brethren in the house of God where we find not both David hath told us in the Psalms that Jerusalem is like a City which is at unity in it self and in Jerusalem there were not only solemn Sacrifices set Forms of blessing and some significant Ceremonies prescribed by God but Musical Instruments and Singers and linnen vestures for those Singers and certain hymns and several times and places for them ordained by David Had every Ward in that City and every Street in that Ward and every Family in that Street and perhaps every
it that after the Schism made by Pope PIVS V. little or nothing for many years together comparatively with those of the other party was writ against it that being newly translated into the Latine tongue about the year 1618. it gave great content to the more moderate sort of Papists amongst the French as Bishop Hall informeth us in his Quo Vadis and being translated into Spanish at such times as his late Majesty was in Spain it gave no less contentment to the learned and more sober sort amongst the Spaniards who marvelled much to see such a regular order and form of Divine Worship amongst the English of whom they had been frequently informed by our English Fugitives that there was neither form nor order to be found amongst us But on the other side the Genevians beginning to take up the cry called Puritans upon that account in the 6. or 8. year of Q. ELIZABETH animated by Billingham and Benson conntenanced by Cartwright and headed by the Earl of Leicester followed it with such a violent impetuosity that nothing could repress or allay that fury neither the patience and authority of Arch-Bishop Whitgift the great pains and learning of Bishop Bilson the modesty of M. Hooker nor the exactness of D. Coâ—ens all which did write against them in Q. ELIZABETHS time was able to stop their current till the severity of the Laws gave a check unto them Nor was King JAMES sooner received into this Kingdom but they again revived the quarrel as may appeare by their Petitions Admonitions and other Printed Books and Tractates to which the learned labours of Bishop Buckridge Bishop Morton and D. Burges who had been once of that party but regained by K. James unto the Church were not by them thought to give such ample satisfaction that they must be at it once again during the life of K. James in their Alâ—are Damuscenam in which the whole body of the English Liturgie the Hierarchy of Bishops the Discipline and Equâ—nomy of the Church of England was publickly viâ—â—ified and decried How egerly this game was followed by them after the first ten years of his late Majesty K. Charles till they had abolished the Liturgie destroyed the discipline and pluckt up Episcopacy both root and branch is a thing known so well unto you that it needs no telling And this I hope hath satisfied you in your first enquiry viz. why and in what respects it was said in the Preface to my Ecclesia Vindicata That the Papist was the more moderate adversary and for the other words which follow viz. That the Puritan faction hurried on with greater violence c. which you find in the 17. Sect. of it they relate only to the violent prosecution against the Episcopal Government in which how far they out went the Papists is made so manifest in that and the former Section that it is no small wonder to me that you should seek for any further satisfaction in it read but those Sections once again and tell me in your second and more serious thoughts if any thing could be spoken more plainly or proved more fully then that the Puritan â—action with greater violence and impetuosity were hurried on towards their design that is to say the destruction of Episcopal Government then the Papists were Secondly You seem much unsatisfied that I maintained against M. Burton That the Religion of the Papists is not rebellion nor their faith faction But this when I maintained against M. Burton I did it not in the way of laying down my own reasons why it neither was nor could be so but in the way of answering such silly Arguments as he here brought to prove it was but now that I may satisfie you and do right both to the Church and State you shall have one Argument for it now and another I shall give you when I shall come in order to answer yours The Argument which I shall give you now is briefly this shall be founded on a passage of the Speech made in the Star Chamber by the late Arch Bishop at the sentencing of D. Bastwick M. Burton c. in which he telleth us That if we make their Religion to be Rebellion then we make their Religion and Rebellion to be all one and that is against the ground both of State and the Law for when divers Romish Priests and Jesuites have deservedly suffered death for Treason is it not the constant and just profession of the State that they never put any man to death for Religion but for Rebellion and Treason only Doth not the State truly affirm that there was never any Law made against the life of a Papist quatenus a Papist only And is not all this stark false if their very Religion be Rebellion For if their Religion be Rebellion it is not only false but impossible that the same man in the same act should suffer for his Rebellion and not for his Religion And this â—aith he K. James of ever Blessed Memory understood passing well when in his Premonition to all Christian Monarchs he saith I do constantly maintain that no Papist either in my time or in the time of the late Queen ever dyed for his conscience therefore he did not think their very Religion was Rebellion thus he And if for all this you shall thus persist and say that the Popish Religion is Rebellion you first acquit Papists from suffering death banishment or imprisonment under the Raign of the three last Princes for their several Treasons and Rebellions and lay the guilt thereof upon the blood-thirstiness of the Laws and of the several Kings and Parliaments by which they were made And secondly you add hereby more Martyrs to the Roman Kalender then all the Protestants in the world ever did besides 36. But this you do not only say but you prove it too at the least you think so Your argument is this 1. That Religion which defineth the deposition of Princes and absolving their subjects from their fidelity by the Pope because they deny Transubstantiation c. is rebellion doctrinal But such is the Popish Religion that is to say the Popish Religion defineth the Deposition of Kings and absolveth their Subjects from their fidelity by the Pope because they deny Transubstantiation c. The Minor you say is evident but I am willing to believe that you mean the Major that this only is an escape of the pen because you do not go about to prove the Major but the Minor only To the whole Sylogisme I answer first that it is of a very strange complection both Propositions being false and therefore that it is impossible by the Rules of Logick that the conclusion should insue that the Proposition or the Major as they generally call it is altogether false may be proved by this that the thing which teacheth cannot be the thing which is taught no more then a Preacher can be said to be the word by him preached or the Dog which
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
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
Brownist Ranters Quakers may not as well pretend that our first Reformers were of their Religion as the Calvinists can if Wicklifâ— doctrines be the Rule of our Reformation 27. It is alledged in the next place that the Calvinistical Doctrines in these points may be found in the writings of John Fryth William Tyndall and Dr. Barnes collected into one Volumne and to be seen the easier as he knows who saith because it was printed by John Bay 1563. Who as they suffered death for their Religion in the time of King Hen. 8. so Mr. Fox in his Preface to the said Book calls them the Ring-leaders of the Church of England But first I do not take Mr. Fox to be a fit Judge in matters of the Church of England the Articles of whose confession he refused to subscribe being thereto required by Arch-Bishop Parker and therefore Tyndal Fryth and Barnes not to be hearkened to the more for his commendation Secondly If this Argument be of any force for defence of the Calvinists the Anti-Sabbatarians may more justly make use of it in defence of themselves against the new Sabbath speculatioâ—s of Dr. Bound and his Adherents imbrac'd more passionately of late then any one Article of Religion here by Law established For which consult the History of the Sabbath lib. 2. c. 8. Let Fryth and Tyndal be admitted as sufficient Witnesses when they speak against the Sabbath Doctrines or not admitted when they speak in behalf of Calvin and then the Brethren I am sure will lose more on the one side then they gain on the other Thirdly taking it for granted that they maintain'd the same opinions in these points which afterwards were held forth by Calvin yet they maintained them not as any points of Protestant Doctrine in opposition to the Errors of the Church of Rome but as received opinions of the Dominican Friars in opposition to the Franciscans the doctrine of the Dominicans by reason of their diligent Preaching being more generally received in England then that of the other Fourthly it is to be considered that the name of Luther at that time was in high estimation as the first man which brake the Ice and made the way more easie for the rest that followed who concurring in judgment with the Dominicans as to these particulars drew after him the greatest part of such learned men as began to fall off from the Pope And so it stood till Melancthon not underservedly called the Phaenix of Germany by moderating the rigours of Luther and carrying on the Reformation with a gentlier hand became a pattern unto those who had the first managing of that great work in the Reign of King Edward Fiftly it is Recorded in the 8th of St. Mark that the blind man whom our Saviour at Bethsaida restored to sight at the first opening of his eyes saw men as trees walking v. 24. that is to say that he saw men walking as trees quasi dicat homines quos ambulantes video non homines sed arbores mihi videntur as we read in Maldonate By which words the blind man declared saith he so quidem videre aliquid cum ante nihil videret imperfecte tamen videre cum inter homines arbores distinguere non posset More briefly Estius on the place Nondum ita clare perfecte video ut discernere possim inter homines arbores I discern somewhat said the poor man but so imperfectly that I am not able to distinguish betwixt trees and men Such an imperfect sight as this the Lord gave many times to those whom he recover'd out of the Aegyptian Darkness who not being able to discern all divine truths at the first opening of the eyes of their understanding were not to be a Rule or precedent to those that followed and lived in clearer times and under a brighter beam of illumination then the others did 28. In the third place he referres himself to our Articles Homilies Liturgies and Catechisms for the proof of this that the Calvinistical opinions were the establish'd doctrines of the Church of England and if his proof holds good in this he hath gained the cause But first he directs us to no particular place in the Catechisms Homilies or Liturgies where any such matter may be found but keeps himself aloof and in generals only and we know who it was that said Dolosus versatur in generâ—libuâ— When he shall tell us more particularly what he would insist on I doubt not but I shall be able to give him a particular answer Secondly skipping over those passages of the Liturgie and Catâ—chisms which maintain the Universality of Redemption by the Death of Christ and taking no notice that the possibility of falling from grace is positively maintained in the 16th Article and the Cooperation of mans will with the Grace of God as clearly published in the tenth he sets up his rest on the 17th Article touching Predestination and Election as if the Article had been made in favour of Calvin's Doctrine But first the Papists have observed two Reformations in the Church of England the one under King Edward the 6th which they called the Lutheran and the other under Queen Elizabeth which they called the Calvinian And thereupon we may conclude that the 17th Article as well as any of the rest being framed approved and ratified under Edward 6. was modelled rather in relation to the Lutheran then Calvinian doctrines the Reformers of the Church of England and the Lutheran Doctors holding more closely to the Rules of Antiquity and the practise of the Primitive Church then the Zuinglians and Calvinists were observed to do Secondly The 17th Article doth visibly presuppose a curse or state of Damnation in which all Mankind was presented to the sight of God which overthrows the Doctrine of the Supra-lapsarians who make the Purpose and Decree of Predestination to precede the Fall and consequently also to precede the curse Thirdly It is to be observed that the Article extends Predestination to all those whom God hath chosen in Christ out of Mankind that is to say to all true Believers For so the phrase Ephes 1. 4. is generally interpreted by the ancient Fathers For thus St. Ambrose amongst others Sicut eligit nos in ipse as he hath chosen us in him Prescius enim Deuâ— omnes scit qui credituri essent in Christum for God saith he by his general Prescience did fore-know every man that would believe in Christ The like saith Chrysostom on that Text. And that our first Reformers did conceive so of it appears by that of Bishop Latimer in his Sermon on the third Sunday after the Epiphany When saith he we hear that some be choseâ— and some be damned let us have good hope that we be amongst the chosen and live after this hope that is uprightly and godly then shall we not be deceived Think that God hath chosen those that believe in Christ and Christ is the book of life If thou believest lievest
much better in his instance of D. Laud inveighed against most bitterly in a Sermon preach'd by the said D. Robert Abbot then Vice-Chancellor on Easter Sunday doth affirm it was For in that Sermon there is nothing charged upon him in the way of Arminianism which was the matter to be proved but that under Colour of preaching against the Puritans he showed himself so inclinable to some Popish opinions that he seemed to stand upon the brink and to be ready on all occasions to step over to them a Censure which hath little truth and less charity in it that Renowned Prelate giving a greater testimony of his aversness from the Romish Religion at the time of his death then any of his persecutors and accusers did in the best Act of their lives 40. More pertinent but not more memorable is the case of Peter Barâ—e Professor for the Lady Margaret in the University of Cambridge a forrainer by birth but one that better understood the Doctrine of the Church of England then many of the Natives his Contemporaries in the University Some differences falling out between him and Whitakers in the Predestinarian points the whole Calvinian Faction rose in Armes against him Tyndal Some Willet Perkins Chatterton and the rest of the tribe siding with Whitaker in the quarrel But not being able altogether to suppress him by Argument they resolve to work their Ends by power apply themselves to Archbishop Whitgift to whom they represent the danger of a growing Faction which was made against them to the disturbance of their peace and the disquiet which might happen by it to the Church in general By their continuall complaints and solicitations they procure that Reverend Prelate to advise with such other Bishops as were next at hand that is to say the two Elected Bishops of London and Banger with whose consent some Articles were drawn up and sent down to Cambridge for the appeasing of the controversies which were then on foot These Articles being nine in number contained the whole Calvinian Doctrine of Predestination with the concomitants thereof received at Cambridge for a time and again suppressed rejected by King James in the conference at Hampton-Court Anno 1603. inserted by D. Vsher afterwards Archbishop of Armah in the Articles of Ireland Anno 1615. and finally suppressed again by the Repeating of those Articles in a full Convocation Anno 1634. Concerning which your Adversary tells us many things which must be examined 41. For first he tells us that his Arminianism did not only lose him from his place but lost him the affections of the University But I must tell him that his Arminianism as he calls it caused not the losing of his place for I am sure he held his place till the expiring of the term allowed by the Lady Margarets Statute whose professor he was Which term expired he left it in a just disdain of seeing himself so over-powered and consequently exposed unto contempt and scorn by the Arts of his Enemies Secondly If he lost the affection of the university which is more then your Adversary can make proof of unless he mean it of that part of the university onely which conspired against him yet gained he as much love in London as he lost in Cambridge For dying there within few years after it was ordered by Bishop Bancroft that most of the Divines in the City should be present at his interment which may be a sufficient argument that not the Bishop onely but the most eminent Divines of London were either inclinable to his opinions or not so much averse from them as not to give a solemn attendance at the time of his Funeral In the next place he quarrels with Bishop Mountague of Chichester for saying that those Articles were afterwards forbid by Authority and brings in M. Fuller making himself angry with the Bishop for the when and the where thinking it strange that a Prohibition should be conspired so softly that none but he alone should hear it But first the Bishop living in Cambridge at that time might hear it amongst many others though none but he were pleased to give notice of it when it came in question And Secondly the noise thereof did spread so far that it was heard into the Low Countries the making of these Articles the Queens displeasure when she heard it her strict command to have them speedily supprest and the actual suppression of them being all laid down distinctly in a Book published by the Remonstrants of Holland Entituled Necessaria Responsio and Printed at Leyden 1618. almost seven years before the comming out of Mountague's Book 42. And now I am fallen upon this Bishop I cannot but take notice of your adversarys most unequal dealing against him and you in his discrediting that part of your Argument which contains K. James's Judgment of him the incouragement he gave him to proceeed in his appeal and his command to have it Dedicated unto him to which you might have added for further proof of the Kings concurring in opinion with him that he had given him his discharge or quietus est from all those calumnies of his being a Papist or Arminian which by the two Informers had been charged upon him And secondly that the appeal being recommended by that King to D. Fr. White then Dean of Carlisle exceedingly cried up at that time for his zeal against Popery was by him licensed to the Press as containing nothing in the same but what was agreeable to the publique Faith Doctrine and Discipline established in the Church of England And whereas your adversary doth not think that the King should command any Book written by a private Subject to be Dedicated to himself which to my knowledge is a matter not without examples he doth not so much clash with you as put a lye into the mouth of the Reverend Prelate from whose hand you took it That Bishop certainly must be a man of an unheard of and unparalleld impudence in putting such an untruth on the King deceased to gain no greater favour from the King then Raigning then what of ordinary course might have been presumed on 43. For other points which are in difference between you upon this account I leave them wholly to your self advertising you only of these two things First that when King James published his Declaration against Vristius in which there are so many bitter Expressions against Arminius Bertius and the rest of that party he was much governed by the Counsels of Dr. James Montague who having formerly been a great stickler against Barnet and Baroe in the stirrs at Cambridge was afterwards made Dean of the Chappel Bishop of Bath and Wells and at last of Winton an excellent Master in the art of insinuations and the Kings Ecclesiastical Favourite till the time of his death which happened on the 19th of July 1618. Secondly that the Reason why King James so branded the Remonstrants in the Declaration That if they were not with speed rooted out
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
Dr. Abbot said of that Treatise that it was the most accurate piece of Controversie which was written since the Reformation If you are not affrighted with this Apparition I dare turn you loose to any single Adversary made of flesh and blood These words if spoken by D. Abbot being spoken by his Ghost not the Man himself For D. Abbot dyed in March Anno 1617. And Crakanthorps Book dedicated to King Charles as your Author noâ—eth came not out till the year 1625. which was eight years after Nor can your Antagonist help himself by saying he means the other Abbot Archbishop of Canterbury who lived both at and after the coming out of the Book for he speaks positively by name of that Dr. Abbot whom King James preferred to the See of Salisbury At the Ridiculousnes of which passage now the the first terrible fright is over you may make your self merrier if you please then Mr Fuller is said to make himself with the Bishop of Chichester 49. To set out the next Argument in the fairer Colours he tells us of some Act Questions were appointed by the Congregration to be disputed of at the Publick Acts which were maintained by the Proceeders in a Calvinistical way And this he â—sherâ—th in with this Interrogation Whether the Vniversity did not know the opinions of the Church of England or would countenance any thing which had so much as the appearance of a contrariâ—ty thereunto Had this Question been particularly propounded voted and allowed in the General Convocation of that University as M. Prinne affirms they were it might be Logically inferred as M. Prinne concludes from those faulty premises that the Judgement and Resolution of the whole University is comprised in them as well as of the men that gave them For which see Anti-Armin p. 241. But I hope your Adversary will not say the like of the Congregation in which onely those Articles are allowed of consisting of no other then the Vice-Chancellor the two Proctors the Regent Masters and some Regents ad plaâ—itum few of which the Vice-Chancellor and Proctors Excepted onely are so well studied in those Deep points of Divinty as to be trusted with the Judgement of the University If any be now living as no doubt there be who heard this Question maintained negatively by D. Lloyd Anno 1617. viz An Ex Doctrina Reformatorum sequatur deum esse Authorem Peccati He may perhaps be able to tell what satisfaction the Calvinians received in it But he must be as bold a Man as your Antagonist who dares affirm That the Arminian Doctors shewed themselves rather Angry then able Opponents Howsoever you have here some Arminian Doctors in the year 1617. At what time D. Laud was so far from sitting in the Saddle as your Author words it that he had scarce his foot in the stirrup being at that time advanced no higher then the poor Deanry of Glocester 50. And as the Bishop so the Duke was but Green in favour when those Arminian Doctors shew'd themselves such unable Opponents his first honours being granted to him but the August before and his Authority at that time in the blossome onely so that I must needs look upon it as an act of impudent injustice in your Antagonist to ascribe the beginning of those doctrines which he calls Arminian to Laud and Buckingham and a high degree of malice in him as to affirm that the last had so much of an Herod as would not have suffered him so long to continue with friendship with the former if he had not had too little of a St. John Baptist And yet not thinking he had given them a sufficient Character he tells us within few lines after that their â—â—â—rishing was the decay of Church and State that neither body could well recover but by spewing up such evil instruments Whether with more Puritanical Passion or unmannerly zeal it is hard to say Methinks the fellow which dares speak so scandalously of such eminent persons should sometimes cast his eye on those who have suffered condign punishment for such libellous language Scandalum magnatum being a crime which the most moderate times have published in most grievous manner For my part I must needs say to him as Cicero once did to Marcus Antonius Miror to quorum facta immittere earum exitus non per horrescere that I admire he doth tremble at the Remembrance of the punishments of so many men whose facts he imitateth But as Abigal sayes of the Churle her Husband that Nabal was his name and Folly was with him so I may say that there is somewhat in the name of your Adversary which betrayes his nature and showes him to be I will not say as she did a man of Belial but a man of scorn For if Hickman in the Saxon Tongue signifie a Scorner a man of scorn or one that sits in the seat of the scornful as I think it doth this fellow whom a charitable man cannot name with patience hath showed himself abundantly to be vere scriptor sui nominis as the Historian once affirmed of the Emperour Pertinax Let me beseech your pardon for these rough expressions to which my pen hath not been accustomed and which nothing but an invincible indignation could have wrested from me And then for his part let the shame and sence thereof work so far upon him as to purge out of him all Envy Hatred Malice and uncharitableness from which good Lord deliver us for the time to come 51. And here I might have took my leave both of him and you in reference to the Historical part of his tenpenny trifle which we have before us so far forth as it concerns your selfe and your particular ingagings But finding some other passages in it relating to the late Archbishop and the other Prelates which require Correction I shall not let them pass without endeavouring to rectifie his Errata in them And first he asks How was the late ArchBishop an obedient Sonne of the Church of England who put Mr. Sherfield a Bencher of Lincolne Inne and Recorder of Salum to so much cost and a disgraceful acknowledgement of his fault and caused him to be bound to his Good behaviour for taking down a Glasswindow in which there were made no less then seaven Pictures God the Father in form of a little old Man clad in a blew and red Coat with a Pouch by his side about the bigness of a Puppet A question easie to be answered and my Answer is that the Archbishop did nothing in it but what became a true Sonne of the Church of England and more then so that he had not shewed himselfe a deserving Father in this Church if he had done otherwise For take the story as it stands apparell'd with all its circumstances and we shall find such an encroachment on the Episcopal power and jurisdiction as was not to be expiated with a gentler sentence They had a Bishop in the City continually Resident amongst
them and one that hated the Idolatries and superstitions of the Church of Rome with a perfect hatred This Reverend Father must not be consulted in the business for fear it might be thought that it was not to be done without him A Parish Vestry must be called by which M. Sherfield is inabled to take down the offensive Pictures and put new white Glass in the place though he be transported with a fit of unruly zeal instead of taking it down breaks it all in pieces Here then we have an Eldership erected under the Bishops nose a Reformation undertaken by an Act of the Vestry in contempt of those whom God and his Majesty and the Laws had made the sole Judges in the case An example of too sad a consequence to escape unpunished and such as might have put the people upon such a Gog as would have leâ—t but little work to the late Long Parliament Non ibi consistent Exemplaubi ceperunt sed in tenuem recepta tramitem latissime evagandi sibi viam faciunt as my Author hath it 52. But he proceeds according to his usual way of asking Questions and would fain know in what respect they may be accounted the obedient Sons of the Church who study by all their learning to take off that ignominous name of Antichrist from the Pope of Rome which had bin fastned on him by King James Archbishop Whitgift Bishop Andrews and the late Lord Primate and finally by the whole Clergy in their Convocation An. 1605. In the recital of which Proof I find not that the name of Antichrist was ever positively and and in terminis ascribed unto the Popes of Rome by any Article Homily Canon or injunction or by any other publick Monument of the Church of England which leave it to the Liberty of every man to conceive therein according as he is satisfied in his own mind and convinced in his understanding Arch-bishop Whitgift the Primate Bishop Andrews conceived the Pope to be Antichrist and did write accordingly Archbishop Laud and Bishop Mountague were otherwise perswaded in it and were not willing to exasperate those of the Popish Party by such an unnecessary provocation yet this must be accounted amongst their crimes For aggravating whereof he telleth us that the Pope was proved to be Antichrist by the Pen of King James which is more then he can prove that said it K. James used many Arguments for the proof thereof but whether they proved the point or not may be made a question Assuredly the King himself is to be looked on as the fittest Judge of his own intentions performance And he declared to the Prince at his going to Spain that he writ not that discourse concludingly but by way of Argument to the end that the Pope and his Adherents might see there was as good Arguments to prove him Antichrist as for the Pope to challenge any temporal Jurisdiction over Kings and Princes This your Antagonist might have seen in his own Canterburies doom fol. 264. Out of which Book he makes his other Argument also which proves the name of Antichrist to be ascribed unto the Pope by the Church of England because the Lords spiritual in the upper house and the whole Convocation in the Act of the subsidy 3. Jacobi so refined â—â— If so If any such Definition passed in the Convocation it is no matter what was done by the Lords Spiritual in the upper House of Parliament for that I take to be his meaning as signifying nothing to the purpose Wherein Gods name may such an unstudied man as I find that definition not in the Acts of Convocation I am sure of that and where there was no such point debated and agreed upon all that occurs is to bee found onely in the preamble to the Grant of Subsidies made at a time when the Prelates and Clergy were amazed at the horror of that Divellish plot for blowing up the Parliament Houses with the King Prelates Peers Judges and the choicest Gentry of the Nation by the fury of Gun-powder But were the man acquainted amongst Civilians they would tell him that they have a Maxime to this Effect that Apices juris nihil ponuns The Titles and preambles to Laws are no definitions and neither bind the subject in his purse or Pater-noster 53. As for the rest of the Bishops I find two of them charged particularly and the rest in General Mountague charged from D. Prideaux to be merus Grammatius and Linsel charged from M. Smart to have spoken reproachfully of the first Reformers on the Book of Homilies But as Mountague was too great a Scholar to be put to School to D. Prideaux in any point of Learning of what kind soever so Linsol was a Man of too much sobriety to use those rash and unadvised speeches which he stands accused of And as for Mr. Smart the apology of D. Cosens speaks him so sufficiently that I may very wel save myself the labour of a Repetition More generally he tells us from a speech of the late Lord Faulkland that some of the Bishops and their adherents have destroyed unity under pretence of uniformity have brought in superstition and scandal under the title of Reverence and decency and have defiled our Churches by adoring our Churches c. p. 40. and not long after p 64. That they have so industriously laboured to deduce themselves from Rome that they have given great suspition that in Gratitude they desire to return thither or at least to meet it half way Some have evidently laboured to bring in an English though not a Romish Papacy not the out side and dress of it onely but equally absolute a blind dependence of the People on the Clergy and of the Clergy on themselves and have opposed Papacy beyond the Sea that they might settle one beyond the water But these are onely the evaporations of some discontents which that noble Orator had contracted He had been at great charges in accommodating himself with necessaries for waiting on his Majesty in his first expedition against the Scots in hope of doing service to his King and Country and gaining honour to himself dismist upon the Pacifiation as most of the English Adventurers without thanks of honour where he made himself more sensible of the neglect which he conceived he suffered under then possibly might consist with those many favours which both Kings had shewed unto his Father But no sooner had that noble soul dispers'd those clouds of discontent which before obscured it but he brake out again in his natural splendor and show'd himself as zealous an advocate for the Episcopal order as any other in that house witness this passage in a speech of his not long before the dismissing of the Scottish Army Anno 1641. viz. The Ground of this Government by Episcopacy is so ancient and so general so uncontradicted in the first and best times that our most laborious antiquaries can find no Nation no City no Church no Houses
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
remain in them And then the Government of Sparta had been as meerly Popular and Democratical as of most other Cities in Greece but by no means to be accounted for an Aristocratie by which name Aristotle himselfe and most of our great Masters in the Schools of Politie do most commonly call it And therefore when Isocrates saith as here cited by you that the Lacedemonians flourish'd for this cause especially that their Government is Popular The word Popular is not to be understood in the stricter sence as differing the Government from that which they called an Aristocratie consisting of some part of the people though the wealthier better and more understanding men amongst them but as it did distinguish them from the Regall or Monarchical Government in which neither the whole body of the People nor any of the better wealthier and more sober men could pretend a share 11. And now at last you come to the institution of the Ephori affirmed by me and I had Plutarch for my Author to be ordained by Theopompus the 9th King of the second House with the consent of Polydorus his Colleague to curb the insolencies of the Senate in which you say that I 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 If so my Author must contradict himself I am sure of that For positively he ascribes the institution of the Ephori to no other end but the controlling of the Senate nor unto any other person or persons then to Theopompus as out of my Book against Calvin you relate the story That which you tell us out of Plutarch in another place is told by Plutarch upon another occasion which was indeed a combination of the Kings and Senate against the people and a just one too For as your self relates the passage out of Plutarch the people upon the insolency and predominancy of the Kings and the Senate fell upon councel how to defend themselves and so assum'd the power of Debate and that hereupon the Kings Theopompus and Polydore 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 the Senate to null the Result of the people This I acknowledg to be true But this makes nothing to the institution of the Ephori of which Plutarch speaks nothing in that place though he did soon after But whereas you subjoyn that the people incensed at the practise put a bit into the mouth of the Senate by the institution of the Ephori you make therein a grosser addition to the words of Plutarch then the two Kings and the Senate did to the words of the Oracle And then whereas you tell us out of Plato that the Ephorate was set up against the haereditary power of the Kings you either do mistake your Author or else must make him contradict himself as much in this place as you did Plutarch in the other Plato affirming in the place which you find cited in the Margin of the Book against Calvin so you please to call it that Lycurgus did not onely ordain the Senate but that he did also constitute the Ephorate for the strength and preservation of the Regal power But granting that it may be said by Plato in his 3 de legibus as you cite the place that the Ephorate was set up against the Hereditary power of Kings what reason have you to believe but that Plato might as well be mistaken in the end and purpose for which the Ephori were ordained as in the first Author of that institution which he makes to be Lycurgus himself contrary to Aristotle Plutarch and all other writers And finally whereas you tell us That Cicero agreeing in this point with Plato hath affirmed that the Ephori in Lacedemon were so opposite to the Kings as the Tribune in Rome to the Consuls You make therein an Argument against your self and I prove it thus As the Tribunes of Rome were first ordained to oppose the Consuls so were the Ephori of Sparta instituted to oppose the Kings but the Tribunes of Rome were not ordained at first to oppose the Kings but only to interpose in behalf of the people therefore the Ephori of Sparta were not instituted to oppose the Kings 12. The conference between Theopompus and his Queen touching his unadvisedness in ordaining these popular Officers and that which might ensue upon it you relate them no otherwise then I do but that you slight the womans foresight into business as not worth the noting indeed it had not been worth the noting if she had reproved that in the King which was the fact of the people only nor have you made any Answer to the other two Arguments by which I prove that the Ephori were instituted by the Kings and by none but them which might make a credulous man believe that they are unanswerable because unanswered And therefore being of such weight I shall add nothing to them to make them more weightier then they be but an explication of the second That second Argument I derive from the words of Cleomenes as they stand in Plutarch in which he lets the people know that one reason why the Ephori were instituted by the former Kings was that the Kings being ingaged in forreign wars might have some certain friends to sit in judgment in their stead whom they called Ephori And hereupon I may very well infer thus much That if the people had first instituted this Ephori as you say they did they would have chosen them out of such of their own number whom they might confide in and not have chosen them out of those who being the Kings especial friends must have a different interest from that of the people 13. Your discourse about the Ephori drawing towards an end you charge me with omitting as well the ruine of the Ballance as the corruption of the Common wealth which did thence arise and you charge it on me to this purpose That picking up my objections against the Government in vigor out of the rubbish and dissolution of it I may cast oust in mâ—ns eyes or perswade them that the Ephori trusting to the power or interest they had in the Commonalty came to usurp upon the Kings and to be Tyrants as thâ—y are called by Plato and Aristotle The first of which two charges is against all Reason for why should I be charged with omitting that which was extrinsecal unto my project and design it being no part of my intent to take notice of the several changes and corruptions in the State of Sparta but only of the institution of the Ephori their insolencies towards their King and their final ruine And the other of these charges is against all truth for how doth it appear or possibly can be made apparent that I have used
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
Nothing in all this which concerns the Sanhedrim nothing which speaks of such a power as the bringing of the Kings unto corporal â—punishment this punishment being onely such as the Kings had condemned themselves unto in the way of penance for their transgression of the Laws This is enough to show how little credit is to be given to the full and general consent of the Talmudists whom Grotius builds upon for proving the supream power in the Sanhedrim in bringing their Kings to corporal punishment which they never had And yet to make the matter clearer he presently subjoyns these words unto those before but whether they be his own words or the words of some of his Hebrew Writers let them judge that list viz. a paenis autem coactivis adeo liberi erant reges ut etiam excalceationis lex quippe cum ignominia conjuncta in ipsis cessaret There Kings saith he were so far exempted from the coactive power of Law that they were not liable to the penance of going barefoot because it carried with it a mark of infamy If there be any other place in Grotius which may serve your turn you must first direct me where to find it before you can expect it should have an answer 33. The Talmudists having failed you you have recourse unto the Scripture and to the Authority of Josephus a right good Historian but with no more advantage to the point in hand then if you had never lookt upon them You tell us of a Restitution of the Sanhedrim was made by King Jehoshaphat as I think it was for so I find it 2 Chron. 19. v. 8. Moreover saith the Text in Jerusalem did Jehoshaphat set of the Levites and of the Priests and the chief of the Fathers in Israel for the judgement of the Lord and for controversies when they return to Jerusalem But how can you inferre from hence that by the manner of this Restitution admitting that it relates unto the Sanhedrim as I think â—it may though other Writers make it doubtful doth so plainly show that ever under the Monarchy the power of the Sanhedrim was co-ordinate with that of the King which consequent if it can be rationally collected from that text of Scripture or any which depends upon it I have lost my Logick Jehoshaphat though a just King and a godly man could neither be so unskilful in his own affairs or so careless of the regalities of his posterity as to erect another power which might be co-ordinate with his own and might hereafter give a check to himself and them in all Acts of Government But then supposing Jehoshaphat to be so improvident as to erect a power which was to be co-ordinate with him yet being but a co-ordinate power it gave them no Authority to bring their King to corporal punishment as you say they did I know it is a rule in Logick Co-ordinate se invicem supplent that one co-ordinate doth supply the defects of another But I never heard of any such Maxime as Co-ordinata se invicem tollent that one co-ordinate power may destroy the other and if it hath no power to destroy the other then can it pretend to no power correcting the other which is the next degree to a totall destruction For par in parem non habet potestatem as the saying is Besides all which if any such power had been given the Sanhedrim either at the first institution of it by Almighty God or at the Restitution by Jehoshaphat there is no question to be made but that we should have either found it in the Original Grant or by some exemplications of it in point of practise but finding neither of the two in the Book of God or in any approved humane Authors I take it for a very strong Argument that no such power was ever given them Non apparentium non existentium eandem esse rationem was a good maxime in the Schools and I build upon it 34 But on the contrary you hope to help your self by two examples one of them being taken out of the Prophet Jeremiah the other out of the Jewish Antiquities you instance first in Zedekias who to the Sanhedrim demanding the Prophet Jeremiah made answer Behold he is in your hands for the King is not he that can do any thing without you Out of which words you would infer First that the King according to the opinion of some of the Talmudists was not to judge in some cases which whether he was or not is not much material most Kings conceiving it most agreeable to their own ease the content of their Subjects to divolve that power upon their Judges obliged by oath to administer equal Justice betwixt the King and his people You infer secondly from those words that the Sanhedrim were co-ordinate with the Kings of Judah though there be no such matter in them My answer unto this objection and my reasons for it you must needs have met with in the Book against Calvin as you call it of which since you have took no notice I am forced to bring them here to a repetition My answer is That Calvin whom it most concerned to have it so finds fault with them who did expound the place to that end or purpose which you most desire or though the King did speak so honourably of his Princes ac si nihil iis sit negandum as if nothing was to be denied them whereas he rather doth conceive that it was amarulenta Regis quaerimonia a sad and bitter complaint of the poor captivated King against his Councellors by whom he was so over-ballanced ut velit nolit cedere iis cogeretur that he was forced to yield to them whether he would or not which he punctually and expresly calls inexcusabilem arrogantiam an intolerable piece of sawciness in those Princes and an exclusion of the King from his legal rights This makes the matter plain enough that the Princes by whom you understand the Sanhedrim had no such power in Calvins Judgment as might make them equal to the King or legally enable them to controul his rections but the reason which I there give makes the matter plainer and my reason is that Calvin who is said by some to have composed his Expositions on the Scripture according to the Doctrine of his institutions would not have lost so fair an evidence for the advancing of his popular Magistracy and consequently of the three Estates in most Christian Kingdomes had he conceived he could have made it serviceable to his end and purpose for then how easy had it been for it in stead of the Demarchy of Athens in which you say he was mistaken to have understood the Jewish Sanhedrim in which he could not be mistaken if you judge aright Besides we are not very sure that the Princes mentioned in that place did make up the Sanhedrim or came unto the King in the name of Councell of which some of them might be members but rather that
they were the Peers and most powerful men of the Realm of Judah out of whose Families the Kings did use to chuse their wives Who being incensed against the Prophet and knowing that the King was not able to dispute the point with them as the case then stood preferred the executing of their malice against the one before their duty to the other But granting that by Princes here we must mean the Sanhedrim and that the Sanhedrim taking the advantage of those broken and unsetled times carried some things with an high hand against that King yet this is no sufficient proof that either by the rules of their institution or their Restitution they were co-ordinate with their Kings or superiour to them Great Councils commonly are intent upon all advantages by which they may improve their power as in the minority of Kings or the unsetledness of the times or when they meet with such weak Princes who either for want of natural courage or a right understanding of their own affairs suffer them by little and little to get ground upon them But then I hope you will not argue a facto adjus that because they did it therefore they might lawfully do it that maxime of the Civil Lawyers id possumus quod jure possumus being as undeniably true in the case of the Sanhedrim or any other publick Council as in that of any private person 35. Your second example is that of Herod and Hircanus which you found also in the Book against Calvin by which name you call it but press it quite beyond my purpose Baronius had affirmed of the Sanhedrim as you also do Eorum summam esse potestatem qui de lege cognoscerent Prophetis simul de regibus judicarent that they had power of judicature over the Law the Prophets and the Kings themselves which false position he confirms by as false an instance affirming in the very next words horum judicio Herodem regem postulatum esse That Herod being then actually King of Jurie was convented by them for which he cites Josephus with the like integrity so that I had no other business with Baronius then to prove that Herod was not King when he was summoned to appear before the Sanhedrim and having proved that point I had done my business without any shufflings and Evasions as you put upon me But since Hircanus must be brought in also to act his part in a controversie of which I was not bound to take any notice I must let you know that if Hircanus could not by power save Herod from the hands of the Sanhedrim and therefore shifted him away as you say by art it was not for want of power in the King but for want of spirit in the man For first Hircanus at that time was no more King of the Jews then Herod was though he be sometimes called so by my self and others because he succeeded in the Kingdom and was actually in possession of it upon the death of Alexandra But having afterwards relinquished the Kingdom to Aristobulus and not restored again by Pompey when the differences betwixt them came to be decided he was forced to content himself with the Dignity and Title of High Priest and was no other at such time as this business hapned But granting that he was then King yet living in a broken and distracted time and being a Prince of little judgement and less courage every one had their ends upon him and made him yield to any thing which was offered to him So that this Argument comes into as little purpose as that before of Zedekias and therefore for a further answer to it I refer you thither without giving any more trouble to my self or you But when you add and add it out of Grotius that this Court continued till Herod the G. who caused them all to be put to death except Sameas only it must needs follow hereupon that Herod did not onely destroy the Members of that Court but the Court it selfe For when you say that this Court continued till Herod the Great you tell us in effect that it contiued no longer and by so doing you must either contradict the four Evangelists who make frequent mention of this Councel as Mat. 5. 22. Joh. 11. 47. c. or the general current of Interpreters which have written on them Nor am I much moved with that which you say from Grotius supposing that he hath the Talmudists or his Auâ—hors in it that is to say that God punished the Sanhedrim for neglect of their duty in not supressing by their power as they ought to have done â— he insolencies of Herod in exalting himself against the Laws For I believe that neither Grotius nor the Talmudists or any who depends upon them were of Gods councel in the business or can tell us any more of it then another man And therefore if the three Estates in a Gothish Moddel have no better legs to stand upon then the authority of the Talmudists and the power of the Sanhedrim they can pretend to no such power after the persons or actions of soveraign Princes as Calvin hath ascribed unto them 36. But you draw towards a conclusion and so do I you tell me upon confidence of your former Arguments and take it as a matter proved that there never lay an appeal from the Sanhedrim unto Moses nor to any other Magistrate excepting onely when they lived under the Provincial Government of some forrain Princes as also that they had power upon their Kings You tell me that I must confess that the three Estates concerned in Parliament or any other Popular Magistrate Calvin doth dream of are to be left in that condition in which Calvin finds them And so perhaps I may when I see this proved which as yet I do not though there be no necessity on my part to make such confession and much less to acknowledge that the whose book is answered by your endeavour to make answer to some passages in it Had it been proved unanswerably that the Ephori of Sparta by the first Rules of their institution had a jurisdiction over their Kings and the Sanhedrim also over theirs which are the only two points to which you have endeavoured to return an answer you have no more reason to expect that I should acknowledge the whole Book to be fully answered then that you or any man may be said to have confuted all the Works of Cardinal Bellarmine because he hath confuted two or three of his chief Objections And thus in order to your expectation of hearing further from me which you seem to hope for rather then out of any desires engaging my self either with fresh Adversaries or new disputes I must needs say that I look upon you as a generous and ingenious Adversary as before I did Of whose society and friendship I should count it no crime to be ambitious had not my great decay of â—ight beside other infirmities growing on me rendered me
Caerleon upon Vske for any thing our Author can affirm to the contrary and was undoubtedly such at the first coming in of the Saxons though afterwards for the space of 140. years as before is said it remained Pagan so that our Author might have spared his pains in proving the Metropolitans of St. Davids to be successors unto them of Caerleon which was never denyed unless he could infer from thence that Caerl on was Senior in Christianity unto Canterbury for four hundred years as he expresly saith it was as well as in the Metrapolitical Dignity invested in it And this if he can do I shall conclude him willingly for a subtle Logitian though I shall hardly ever allow him for a sound Historian 27. The like imperfect defence he makes about the time when Lillies Grammer was imposed by King Hen. the 8. on all the Grammer Schools of England plac'd by him in the 11th year of that King Anno 1619 which was full eleven years before it was ordered by the Convocation of the year 1630. ut una edatur formula Authoritate hujus sacrae Synodi c. that one onely form of Teaching Grammer should be enjoyned from thenceforth by the authority of the Convocation to be used in all the Grammer Schools of the Province of Canterbury And questionless the Clergy in their Convocation would not have troubled themselves in ordering one onely Form of Grammer to be taught in all the Schooles of the Province of Canterbury if the King so many years before had commanded Lillies Grammer to be used in all the Schools of England Considering therefore that this order of the Convocation preceded the command of King Henry the 8. and that Lilly dyed some years before the making of this Order as our Author plainly proves he did the difference between us may be thus made up that Lillies Grammer being one of those many the multiplicity whereof had been complained of in that Convocation was chosen out of all the Râ—st by the Convocation as fittest for the publick use and as such Recommended by the King to all the Grammer Schools within his Dominions The Animadvertor was mistaken in making Lilly to be living after the Convocation who was dead before And yet he discovers no such indiscretion not made any such cavelling at a well timed truth in the Authors Book as the Appealant lays upon him the time of the imposing and not the making of Lillies Grammer being the matter in dispute in which the Appealant must be found as much mistaken for the Reasons formerly laid down as the Animadvertor in the other 28. His next defence is worse then this because he finds not any shift to convey himself out of the Reach of the Animadversion For finding it so clealy proved from the words of the instrument that the payment of the 100000. for the Province of Canterbury was to be made in five years and not in four which he held most probable he hopes to save himself by saying that not reckoning the first summe which was paid down on the nâ—il they had just four years assigned them for the payment of the remaindâ—r And so indeed it must have been if the first twenty thousand pound had been paid down upon the nail as he saith it was but indeed was not the instrument of that Grant bearing date the 22. of March 1530. and the first payment to be made at Michaelmas following As bad an Auditor he is in casting up the smaller summe of Pilkintons pension as in the true stating of this payment making no difference no great difference betwixt taking away 1000 l. yearly from the Bishoprick and charging it with an annual pension of 1000 l. For he that hath 1000 l. per annum in Farms and Mannors may pay a 1000 l. pension yearly out of it to a publick use and reserve a good Revenue out of it for his own occasions by fines and casualties in the Renovation of Eâ—â—ates and in such services and provisions for domestick uses as commonly are laid upon them 29 Our Author tells us of the Homilies as a Church Historian That if they did little good they did little harm but he avows as an Appealant that he hath as high an esteem of them as the Animadvertor p. 2. fol. 87. And then I am sure he must needs acknowledge them to be in a capacity of doing much good and no harm at all which is directly contrary to his first Position That the Homilies had been Reproached by the name of Homily Homilies by many of the Puritan faction I have often heard but never heard before that they had been called so by any of the same party with the Animadvertor and am as farre as ever I was from knowing whom that one man should be who did call them so he not being named by the Appealant Where by the way the Author hath uncased himself appears in his own proper person without any disguise for having first told us in the second Chapter of his Apparatus that he was one of the same party with Dr. Heylyn he now declares himself to be of the other and well it had been saith he for the peace and happiness of the Church if the Animadvertor and all of his party had as high an esteem as the Author hath c. where if the Author hath not plainly declared himselfe to be of a different party from the Animadvertor his many protestations pretences notwithstanding I must needs think my selfe as much darkned in my understanding as in my Bodily sight when he can extricate himselfe out of this entanglement I may perhaps think fit to enter on a set discourse whether the Images of God and his Saints may be countenanced in Churches I know by the word Countenancing whom he chiefly aims at without a visible opposition to the second Homily of the second Book but till then I shall not 30. As little am I bound to return any answer to his Argument taken Acts 2. 27. against the Local descent of Christ into Hâ—ll this being not a fit time and place for such set discourses The question and dispute between us relates unto the judgement of the Church of England touching this particular in which he cannot concur with the Animadvertor that any such Local descent hath constantly been maintained by the Church of England But that this is the positive Doctrine of the Church of England appears first by giving that Article a distinct place by its selfe both in the Book of Articles published in the time of King Edward the 6. Anno 1552. and in the Book agreed upon in the Convocation of the 5. of Queen Eliz. An. 1562. In both which it is said expresly in the self same words That as Christ dyed for us and was buried so is it to be believed that he went down into Hell which is either to be underderstood of a Local descent or else we are tyed to believe nothing by it but what