were altogether unacquainted with the Doctrines of Ecclesiastical greatness Liberties or Licence rather Immunities and Jurisdictions that are now claimed by the now degenerate and Bastardized Romanists who tho of Rome yet are not true Romanists indeed who under a Spiritual pretence but with a secret ambitious end and desire of Worldly Wealth and Domination would free themselves from the obedience due unto the Prince and by false insinuations take away the love and reverence due by the people unto their Prince and cement it unto themselves And to bring these things to pass they have lately invented a Doctrine of Vniversal Monarchy and have erected an Order of Jesuits and a Court of Inquisition whose main concern and design is to maintain the Popes Power to be above that of Kings which Doctrine was unheard of till the dayes of Hildebrand I. Gregory the Seventh 1073. neither is there any Book found concerning it till about the year 1300. then did they begin to write of it scatteringly Vide Gold astum but there were not above two Books which treated of nothing else but this until about the year 1400. and three until the year 1500. after this the number encreased a little but it was tolerable But after the year 1560. this Doctrine began to encrease in such manner that they gave over writing of other Doctrines and little was printed in Italy but Books in diminution of Secular Authority and exaltation of the Ecclesiastical The Confessors likewise need no other learning to be approved of whence is universally spread a perverse opinion that Princes and Magistrates are humane Inventions yea and Tyrannical that they ought only by compulsion to be obeyed that the disobeying of Laws and defrauding the Publick Revenues is no sin and he that doth not pay if he can but fly from it remains not guilty before God And contrarywise that every beck of Ecclesiastical persons without any other thought ought to be taken for a Divine Precept and binds the conscience And this Doctrine above all others is the chiefest cause of most or of all the Inconveniencies which have happened in these latter Ages In Italy Books that defend the Princes Temporal Authority and affirm that Ecclesiastical Persons are also subject to publick Constitutions and punishable if they violate the publick tranquillity these are condemned Books and suppressed more than any others They have gelded the Books of Antient Authors by new Printing of them and taken out all which argue or plead for Temporal Aurhority so that if in Authors we find no good Doctrine favouring Temporal Authority we know who hath taken it away If we find any that exalteth the Ecclesiastical we know who hath put it in and in truth we can be assured of the truth of no Book that hath been under their censures And it is also most evident that those who desire to have an unquestionable liberty to brand the lawful Temporal Power and that Doctrine which opposeth it self to their attempts with the name of Tyranny do design that under pretence of Religion they may become Arbitrators of all Government From henceforth these Doctrines and Tenets did wonderfully increase and multiply spawning out others as prodigious and Monstrous as themselves so that in the Sixteenth Century and in the dayes of Paul the Fifth more especially they arrived unto most admirable perfection for in his dayes Books were Printed as one well observes by hundreds Padre Paolo nay by thousands the purports of which being summarily collected by a diligent Observator and Contemporary of the same time he hath Recorded them to be that the Temporal Power of Princes is subordinate to the Power Ecclesiastical and subject to it consequently that the Pope hath Authority to deprive Princes of their Estates for their faults and errors which they commit in Government yea tho they have not committed any fault when the Pope shall judge it fit for the good of the Church that the Pope may free Subjects from their obedience and from their fidelity which they owe unto their Princes in which case they are obliged to cast off all subjection and even to pursue the Prince if the Pope command it and altho they all agreed to hold these maximes yet they were not all at Accord touching the manner for they that were touched with a little shame said so great an Authoriy did not reside in the Pope because Jesus Christ had not given him any Temporal Authority but because this was necessary for the Spiritual Wherefore Jesus Christ giving Spiritual Authority had given also indirectly the Temporal which was a vain shift seeing they made no other difference than of words But the greater part of these men spake plainly that the Pope hath all Authority in Heaven and Earth both Spiritual and Temporal over all Princes of the World no otherwise than over his Subjects and Vassals that he might correct them for any fault whatsoever that he is a Temporal Monarch over all the Earth that from any Temporal Soveraign Prince men might appeal to the Pope that he might give Laws to all Princes and annul those which were made by them for the exemption of Ecclesiasticks they all with one voice denied that they held it by the Grace and Priviledges of Princes altho their Laws to that purpose Constitutions and Priviledges be yet extant but they were not agreed how they had received it some of them affirming that it was de Jure Divino others that it came by constitutions of Popes and Councils But all consented upon this that they are not subject to the Prince no not in case of Treason and that they are not bound to obey the Laws unless it were vi directivâ And some passed so far as to say that the Ecclesiasticks ought to examine whether the Laws and Commands of the Prince be just and whether the People be obliged to obey them and that they owe not unto the Prince either contributions customs or obedience that the Pope cannot erre or fail because he hath the assistance of the Holy Spirit and therefore that it is necessary to obey his Commandments whether they be just or unjust That to him appertains the clearing of all difficulties so as it is not lawful for any to depart from his resolution nor to make reply tho the resolution be unjust That tho all the World differ in opinion from the Pope yet it is meet nevertheless to yield to him and he is not excused from sin who follows not his advice tho all the World judge it to be false Their Books were full also of such other Maxims that the Pope is a God upon Earth a Son of Justice a light of Religion that the Judgment of God and the Pope is one and the same thing as also the Tribunal and the Court of the Pope and God That to doubt of the Power of the Pope is as much as to doubt of the Power of God And it is notable what Cardinal Bellarmine hath
Catholicorum haec explicantium citantium inseruntur By this holy Inquisition also these men so wise are they in their Generation have endeavoured to appropriate and monopolize unto themselves the whole power of the Press and as much as in them lyes to cajole the secular power thereof and not without grand reason of State Ecclesiastick for they have been so dexterous at it that they have already expunged the ancient Authors and Councils of all that makes for temporal Authority Ab initio non fuit sic The matter of Fact stands thus the reasonableness of the Practice shall follow In the primitive Church Heretical Books were examined and declared to be such by the Councils but not prohibited by them nor by the Pope but by the Prince The first Council of Nice condemned the Heretical Doctrine of Arius but Constantine the Emperor did forbid his Books by Imperial Law The second Council of Constantinople did declare Eunomias to be an Heretick but the Emperor Arcadius did prohibit the Books of the Eunomians and Maniches by a Law which is in the Theodosian Code The third Council of Ephesus declared Nestorius to be an Heretick and his Books were forbidden by a Law of Theodosius which is in the body of the Civil Laws The fourth Council of Chalcedon condemned the Eutychians and their Books were forbidden by a Law of the Emperor Martian which is in the same aforesaid Book and in Spain the King Ricaredus those of the Arrians This was the manner of the Church until the year 800. since which Times the Popes of Rome have by Usurpation declared divers Writers to be Hereticks and heretical that will not subscribe to the Canons of that Conventicle of Trent But all this while the Press was not guarded nor Transcribing forbidden but left free Books only and those but few censured and prohibited until after the year 1200. and then also but sparingly until about the time of Wickliff H-usse and Jerome of Praghe which was about 1371. in the days of Edw. 3d. Rich. 2d and Pope Martin 5th who by his Bull excommunicated all Sects of Hereticks in their esteem especially Wicklefists and Hussites and had recourse also unto a stricter Guardianship of the Press and also to Excommunication nay to Fire and Fagot also against them and their Books and good reason and high time it was so to do for that their Doctrines touched to the quick the Reformation of the Heretical Doctrines and lewd practices of the Court of Rome and therefore that faithless and jugling Council of Constance in a time of Schism did condemn them their * Counted to be 200 Volumes by Aenaeas Sylisias and Jo. Cocleus in his Book de Historia Hussitarum Books and Bones though Wickliffe had been quiet in his Grave above 40 years before causing them to be taken up burned and their Ashes to be thrown into the River such was their rancour of heart since which Times the Popes succeeding have made it their grand Concern to prosecute the same design which is still on foot at this very day viz. to lay Foundations to maintain and make great the Authority of the Court of Rome by depriving men of knowledge which is absolutely necessary to defend themselves from Abuses Vsurpations and Delusions with which the Court of Rome is full fraught And therefore Paul 4th caused an Index to be composed which being perfected Anno 1659. was so severe and strict that there scarcely remained a Book to be read if rightly observed for that therein many Authors and Books were condemned which for 1 2 or 300 years had usually been read by the Romanists with the privity and without the Contradiction of the Popes then ruling and amongst the Modern some of those which were Printed in Italy even in Rome it self with approbation of the Inquisition and allowed also by the Brief of the Pope himself are forbidden as Erasmus on the New Testament which Leo 10th having read approved by his Brief dated the tenth day of September One thousand five hundred and eighteen But which is most considerable as to the main of my intent and purpose is to shew that where the Hogen Mogen Pontiff not unlike the chief Musty doth domineer there the very bowels of orthodox and sound Books wherein the Authority of Kings and Civil Magistrates is defended from the Vsurpations of the Clergy and in which the Hypocrisies and Tyrannies of the Clergie are manifested are hellishly raked into purged prohibited and condemned with strange Cruelties and which is yet more abominable this is done under the colour of Faith and Religion by which the people under that very pretence of Religion are miserably cheated and deluded A greater mystery of Iniquity was never broached then to use Religion so dirtily as under pretence thereof to make men as much as in them lyes insensible nay brutish by keeping them from the knowledge and consequently from the love of the truth What is this less then Antichristian and like men abominable disobedient and to every good work reprobate and to sit as God in the Temple of God as Judex vivorum mortuorum working after the working of Satan with all power and deceivableness of unrighteousness But though the Court of Rome hath assumed to it self to prohibit Books whether they concerned Religion or other Matters yet before these latter years they have not been so impudent as to dare to say that the Prince also hath not power to forbid Books Cardinal Baronius was the first that spake that boldly but was not seconded by any a long time after but he in the beginning of the year 1605. printing the 11th Tome of his Ecclesiastical Annals libelled therein the Monarchy of Sicily with much bitterness and against many Kings of Arragon and especially against King Ferdinand the Catholick and the Progenitors of the Fathers side of him who then reigned which Book coming to Naples and Millan were prohibited by the King's Officers whereof the Cardinal having notice made a bitter Invective against those Officers unto the Colledge of Cardinals assembled in the vacancy of the See of Clement the 8th for that in so doing they had forsooth laid hands on Ecclesiastical Authority And afterwards when Paul the 5th was chosen Pope he wrote unto the King of Spain the 13th of June the same year wherein amongst other things he concluded that to the Pope only did belong the approving of Books of all kinds much more Ecclesiastical ones Notwithstanding the King of Spain was so wise as to abett and continue the Prohibition of his Officers at which the Cardinal was so netled that he could not contain himself but printing his 12th Tome 1607. he inserted a Discourse stigmatizing that Prohibition as abominable and impious affirming that Princes do it because the Books rebuke their unjust acts and that it was to take out of St. Peter's hands and putting into the Prince's one of the Keys given him by Christ viz. the Key of knowledge to
appointed by God and practised by his People And if it appears that both Precept and Practice doth abet and favour the Liturgists then I hope our Author will not be so peremptory in casting Aspersions on Liturgies § First consult the Old Testament and you shall find that Moses gifted no doubt himself took the Book of the Covenant and read in the audience of all the People and therefore publick Service and they said all that the Lord hath said will we do and be obedient Exod. 34.7 Likewise the command to the King Deut. 17. was That when he sate upon the Throne of his Kingdom that he shall write him a Copy of this Law in a Book c. and shall read therein all the days of his life c. v. 17 18 19. The like command was to the Priests and Elders of Israel to whom Moses delivered the Law written That when all Israel Men Women Children Strangers come to appear before the Lord thy God in the Place where he shall choose thou shalt read this Law before all Israel in their hearing of Sermons in those days there is no mention to the end and Liturgies are to the same end that they may hear and learn and fear before the Lord your God Deut. 31.9 10 11 12. Moreover of Reading and of the success and benefit thereof the Scripture farther witnesseth That when the Book of the Law had been some time missing and was afterwards found the good King Josiah which heard it but only read by Shaphan tore his Cloaths and confessed that great is the wrath of the Lord that is poured out upon us and thereupon went up into the House of the Lord and all the Men of Judah and Inhabitants of Jerusalem and he read in their Ears all the Words of the Book of the Covenant that was found in the House of the Lord c. 2 Chr. 34.18 19 c. whereby it is abundantly manifest that here was not only a Command performed according to Deut. 31.13 Thou shalt read this Law but repentance wrought by only reading of the Word the like effect I mentioned before Exod. 34.7 Again the Solemn and Religious manner of reading and hearing the Law and the Comfort and Instructions the People received thereby is plainly and in terminis set down Nehem. 8. And all the People gathered themselves together as one Man c. and they spake unto Ezra the Scribe to bring the Book of the Law of Moses c. And Ezra the Priest brought the Law before the Congregation and he read therein from the Morning until the Mid-day before the Men and the Women and those that could understand and Ezra the Scribe stood upon a Pulpit and opened the Book in the sight of all the People and therefore publick Service and Ezra blessed the Lord the great God and all the People answered Amen Amen with lifting up their hands also day by day from the first day to the last day viz. seven days he read in the Book of the Law of God v. 1 2 3 4 5 6.18 There is also a Promise of blessing annexed to it That the Deaf shall hear the Words of the Book of the Lord Isa 29.18 and a Command from the same Prophet Seek ye out the Book of the Lord and read Ch. 34.16 § Having now out of some few of many places of the Old Testament made good the Precept and the Practise of the Old Prophets Kings and Priests let us now see what the New Testament Christ and his Apostles will afford us that by two such unquestionable and immutable Witnesses every word may be established first That Christ himself is of the same Opinion with the Prophet appears by Luke 16.31 where he saith That if they would not hear Moses and the Prophets neither will they be perswaded though one arose from the dead Nay how often doth Christ send the Scribes Pharises and Saduces unto the Scripture saying How readest thou or have you not read as in the matter of pulling the Ears of Corn on the Sabbath-day Mat. 12.3 So concerning Divorces Mat. 19.3 The Peoples crying Hosanna Mat. 21.16 and concerning the Stone which the Builders refused 42. and the Resurrection of the Dead C. 22.31 nay when he came to Nazareth where he had been brought up and as his custom was he went into the Synagogue on the Sabbath-day and stood up for to read Luke 4.16 and Paul coming to Antioch went into the Synagogue on the Sabbath-day and sate down and after the reading of the Law and the Prophets the Rulers of the Synagogne sent unto them that if they had any word of Exhortation to the People to go on then Paul declared and laid the condemning of Jesus to the charge of those that dwelt at Jerusalem and their Rulers because they knew him not nor yet the Voices of the Prophets which are read every Sabbath-day Acts 13.14 15.27 28. So the Apostles and Elders being solemnly met together in Council at Jerusalem declared that Moses of old time had in every City them that preached Christ being read in the Synagogues every Sabbath-day Acts 15.24 By which it seems in the esteem of the Apostles and Elders in those days that reading was esteemed preaching and the result of their meeting being written in an Epistle and delivered to the Churches and read they rejoyced for the Consolation 30.31 Likewise the Apostle Paul required that those things which any one Churches Affairs gave particular occasion to write might for the Instruction of all be published and that by reading and therefore commands That when this Epistle is read among you that it be read also in the Church of the Laodiceans and that likewise that ye read the Epistle to Laodicea Colâ—s 4.16 the like charge he gave to the Thess 15.27 I adjure or charge you by the Lord that this Epistle be read unto all the Holy Brethren 1 Thes 5.27 so you see that the Charge is peremptory or with great vehemency and therefore I shall confidently say with St. John Blessed is he that readeth because the Word it self doth pronounce him so if he also observe the same Rev. 1.3 Adjurations we find none in use amongst Gods Servants save when some duty of weight is charged upon the Adjured And so Paul uses it here adjuring to performance of it and thereby notising unto us of how great necessity and use to Gods People is the reading of Scriptures in the Congregation neither is it to be limited to this Epistle only for that all Scriptures have the same Author and are of the same use to the Church of God and the like charge is given for other Scriptures Coloss 4.16 Now consider the Use in all Ages to Jewish Church Nehemiah and others as before give Testimony for their times and no doubt but after-times continued it Josephus against Appian In unaquaque septimana ad legem audiendam conveniunt universi Every Week they all come to hear the Law and records the
it is possible so it is very probable that both the Independent and Presbyterian Government would incroach and intrench on the Civil Powers so natural is it for every power to incroach upon another and either jostle it quite out of doors or make the Civil subservient to the ecclesiastical Power the sad effects of which hath been manifested in Scotland already where the Presbytery when they will speak out plainly claim to be coordinate at least with the Civil Jurisdiction and if we consult their practises we shall find them Paramount § According to Sa. Rutherford there is a mutual and reciprocal subjection of Magistrate and Pastor Pastors as subject in a Civil Relation and Magistrates as they have Souls and stand in need to be led to Heaven are under Pastors and Elders For if they hear not the Church and commit incest they are to be cast out of the Church 18. Matth. 1. Cor. 5.16 Rom. 17.1 1. Thes 3.14.15 that God respecteth not the Persons of Kings and we find them not excepted If the Preachers of the Gospel be to all believers over them in the Lord 1. Thes 5.12 1. Tim. 5.17 they have some Authority over the Christian Magistrate Divine Right of Church Government and Excommunication Presbytery displayed printed 1644. and reprinted 1663. together with the forms of Church Policy claimed and presented to the Convention at Edenburgh in January 1560 drawn up by Knox and to the Parliament of Scotland and sitting in Striveling 1578. by Mr. Andrew Melvil and together with their particular proceedings justifying their Arguments by their Facts truly related by King Charles the first in his large Declaration concerning the late tumults in Scotland printed 1639. do abundantly make it appear that their Maxims relating to Church and State Policy are the same with the Jesuits their Sermons delivered according to the Dialogue of Becanus Scippius and Eudaeman Johannes and their Arguments to be taken out of Bellarmine and Suarez as may also appear by King James his monitory Preface and his Apologia for the Oath of Allegiance and by the Books written in Defence of them both To this Assertion also give Testimony the Writings of Buchanan and Knox c. of old and Sa. Rutherford in his Lex Rex printed 1644. and his Plea for Presbytery printed 1642. and his Divine Right of Church Government and excommunication printed 1646. and a 100 more Pamphlets of later days § If we examine their practises in particulars most notoriously known we shall find them answerable to their Positions Upon the return of Angus Arrol and Huntley Popish Lords Fugitives for some Rebellious designs into Scotland Anno. 1596. K. I. and convention meeting in August at Falkland intended to shew some favour to them which being ratified at another convention of the States at Dunfermling in Septemb. the Church forsooth took pet at it and thereupon entred into a Combination to cross and prevent it K. J. for the better preservation of his Realm in peace and setled quietness consulted with much kindness Mr. Robert Bruce as one for whom the King had a particular kindness and the most leading man amongst them who was very willing that Angus and Arrol should return on the conditions proposed but by no means would admit that Huntley should return though he marryed the Kings Cousin whom he accounted as his own Daughter and offered to satisfie the Church and fulfil the conditions required and one who had the greatest power amongst them and therefore his Interest most likely to do the K. most service or most prejudice whereupon Bruce most insolently replyed I see Sir that your resolution is to take Huntly into favour which if you do I will oppose and you shall choose whether you will lose Huntley or me for us both you cannot keep There 's your Presbiter in his right Colours This done the Commissioners of the Church which Stile they most wrongfully assume and monopolize to themselves only as if the King his Council and Parliament I might say the meanest of their Congregations were not as much of the Church as themselves assembled at Edenburgh where they ordained to acquaint all the Presbiteries with what had been done and passed finding great fault with the Conditions granted to Huntly and the rest by the King and the Conventions as bringing a manifest hazard both to Church and State and therefore was desired to inform their flocks and both by publick Doctrine and private Conference to stir up the Country people to apprehend the danger to be in readiness to resist the same Oh brave Sheba's Trumpeters of Sedition and Commotion a speedy way to set a whole Kingdom against the King in a trice they proceeded yet farther by proclaiming a day of Humiliation through the whole Country to be on the first Sunday mark that in December that in Nomine Domini they might with the better grace fast for strife and debate and to smite with the fist of Wickedness and the cause assigned was the return of the excommunicated Lords whereby danger was threatned to Religion mostly made a Dequoy to intice heady and highminded men and despisers of Government not modeled by themselves to Rebellion and therefore the Presbyteries should call before them their Entertainers Resetters and such as keep company with them and proceed summarily with the censures of the Church una citatione quia periclitatur salus ecclesiae Reipublicae I wonder where this Jure Divino Power is to be found that they assumed this Prerogative to Cite Summon c. any for causes of Rebellion or censure by excommunication A meer device of their own which they can never make clearly out either what it is or of what extent or if there be any such thing that they only have power to execute it or that they can delegate it Nor rested they here but ordained that a number of Commissioners selected out of all the quarters of the Country should reside at Edenburgh to receive advertisements as should be sent from other places and take advice upon the most expedient in every case and in every business that occurred by direction of this Council which by a new name was now forsooth called the Council of the Church And was not this to erect Regnum in Regno If the punishment and pardon of Rebels be not a civil affair I do not see what is But rather than they will have their power docked they will by their Inordine ad Spiritualia their Pastoral Sheep-hook hook even Crowns and Diadems within the verge of their mitered Caps and Powers Whilst these things were agitated divers conferences passed between the King and them wherein the King and his Council made many prudent and gracious Offers and condescentions with great respect to the priviledges of the Church but no reasonings prevailing with them the King was forced to express and said that there could be no agreement so long as the marches of the two Jurisdictions were not distinguished that in their
Baptism or the like then they stiffly cry out where is your Rule your Warrant in Scripture for them And may not the Magistrate with as good Logick demand of Presbyter and Independent their express Warrant and Rule of Scripture for their Governments for receiving the Communion sitting or for their altering the time of taking of it or their Preaching in their Caps in a Cloak or Buff Coats as lately they did If men were humble and not wedded to their own fancies they might see the right Independency already established in this Kingdom and with no great difference from that of the Independents who would have only Churches voluntarily gathered and submitted unto whereby those that would might be of Peters or of Pauls or of any Ministers Congregation and those that would not might refuse to be of either or indeed of any so that in effect they having no power to compel the whole Kingdom might be either Atheists or Papists Quakers or Fanaticks nay Jews or Ranters or indeed what not if no better care were taken But the great wisdom of our Princes armed with the Sword and with Power to Command and Compel from on High well knowing it a duty incumbent upon them as it was once upon Paul to take care of all the persons and Churches within their Dominions and that they were to be accomptable to God for their good or evil Government in Church and State have divided this whole Nation into Precincts Parishes or Congregations call them what you will and hath allotted to every Parish a Church to which all are enjoyned to resort and frequent and a Minister endowed with maintenance who is to execute his Pastoral Office over them and his Parishoners are compellable by by the Laws Canons and Edicts of the Prince to receive their spiritual Food and Bread of Life at his hand and mouth and it is not left to them to come or not to come to the Church of God and hear the Law and the Gospel of Jesus Christ at their pleasure But care hath been and is still taken that the Ministers and Pastors shall not be without their Flocks nor the Flocks without their Pastors who are licenced and enjoyned to Pray Preach Baptize Now what is the difference The Congregational way is voluntary unlimited and unprescribed the Parochial is quodam modo compulsory bounded and circumscribed and so it ought to be or else how can Princes rationally give any good Accompt to God of their care of his Churches if they should leave every man to do herein what seemeth best in his own eyes as once in Israel when there was no King And if Princes have no Power to Prescribe Compel and Punish why should they be blamed and punished for the Idolatrous and otherwise erronious Worship of others And if they have power why do the Non-conformists quarrel at the use thereof one Parish is as little dependant on another as the Congregational men would have their Congregations to be and yet both Parishes and Congregations are properly and rather homogenial parts of Englands Church than so many distinct Churches though Quodam Modo they may be stiled Churches as Paul did Families in Houses in his time § Both Presbyters and Independents willingly oblige themselves to no form being against all set forms but leaving themselves at large in all their Administrations Our Supream Governours as in duty bound prescribe and enjoyn as in our Liturgy the daily teaching of the Fundamentals of Christianity that all his Subjects may be sure to have them sincerely dispenced unto them If there be no form for dispencing of them how can the Prince be sure that they are rightly dispenced and taught nay how can he be sure that they are taught at all and if not certain thereof how can he give to God a good and sure account that they were sincerely taught or that the Alcoran Talmude or Trent Creed were not taught instead thereof If our Liturgy be daily used the very solemn days which by Antient Institution of the Church are to be celebrated for the Commemoration of the Blessed Trinity Advent of our Saviour his Nativity Circumcision Passion Resurrection and Assention will so preserve these things among the Common People that is scarcely imaginable that they should be so grosly ignorant as not to have explicite knowledge of those mysteries of Christ so publickly and frequently solemnized in the Church The want of which Liturgy hath in these late times ushered in much ignorance even of the necessary fundamentals and made a wide Gap for ignorance nay Atheism not only to creep but to leap in amongst us How many Congregations or Parishes wanted the Holy Communion for the greater part of twenty years together in the late times now who was to blame or responsible to God for so hainous a sin as the keeping back the Bread of Life the Incumbent or the Civil Magistrate or both and who was in fault when it was afterwards given yet to those only that would sit and take it at a long Table denying it to others that desired to receive it in the most reverend manner by kneeling the Incumbent or the Magistrate that might have ruled it otherwaies thereby excommunicating in their sence at least with exclusion a Sacris all the Parish at one breath save a few What could his Imperial Infallible Holiness at Rome have done more imperiously then to deny the Bread of Life to those that would not submit to their ipse dixit The hainousness of this crime of robbing whole Parishes of the Lords own Supper Table Cup Body and Blood for so many years together in our late times is abundantly set forth attested and proved to be from Popish Principles in a Book entituled A new Discovery of some Romish Emissaries c. The sum then of the Contest will be between Prince and Priest whether Presbyterian Independant or Popish matters not much They being in the point of Domination not much different only the Independant is most moderate and the Pope most exorbitant extending his Supremacy and Jurisdiction over forrain Princes and beyond his own Territories even to the Excommunication nay Deposition of Kings and how much less the Presbyter claims Sa. Rutherford in the forenamed Book and his if I may call it his Book called Lex Rex do speak and as the Arguments are the same so the same Answer will reach them all § The Priests conceive by their mandate viz. Go teach all Nations Baptizing c. received from Christ Independant of any earthly Power that they have by vertue thereof Authority to put in execution that Mandate 1o. In their opinion to preach and pray what when and where they please Administer the Sacraments after what form and manner seems best unto every of them though never so different one from the other use any form of Discipline excommunicate whom and when they please and all this without being accomptable to any earthly power or having any Superior over them §
for Supremacy over Causes and Persons Ecclesiastical and Civil but let them accompt it their most Supreme Service to attend on that Supremacy so shall more honour and sanctity pass from Pope and Presbyter to Kings and Emperors and more efficacy and vertue from Kings to Ministers more Grace and happiness from both to the People § Excommunication The main Argument used both by Pope and Presbyter to raise the Miter and Consistory above the Crown is drawn from the power of the Church in Excommunication which Sword Church men only claim and wherewith they think they may as freely strike Princes as Princes may strike them with their Temporal Sword of both which a word in general and also in particular as it relates to Princes Excommunication that great Popish and Presbyterian Thunderboult and Diana of their Discipline claimed to be their due Jure Divino and so highly exalted by them that it is not more monopolized nor advanced higher at Rome than it would be here by them within their Precincts if not curbed by the Civil Magistrate so apt it is to be tyrannically abused by Pope and Presbyter for experience tells us that if they might have their Will they would by virtue thereof put such a Spiritual Pad-lock upon the Temporal Sword and by their In ordine ad Spiritualia take such fast hold of it themselves that if they and Christian Princes should chance to differ they may be sure so long as their Doctrine concerning it will be believed to have the drawing of it themselves and leave poor Christian Princes to whom the Sword of Right more antient than Papacy or John Calvins Presbytery more properly belongs to defend themselves with the Scabbard for which several of them have paid dear witness amongst others those 17 Scotish Ministers who being convented before the Council of Scotland for holding a solemn Assembly at Aberdeen without the Kings leave 2. July 1605. utterly denied the Authority both of King and Council in that behalf affirming that in matters Ecclesiastical they neither ow nor ought to acknowledge themselves in any subjection either to the King or to his Council and that all spiritual differences should be tryed and determined by the Church meaning thereby themselves the Clergy for which cause and for denying the Kings Supremacy 6 of the chief of them were arraigned and condemned at Blackness in Scotland January 10. 1605. and how insolently some of the same Tribe vsed King James more than once he himself hath published in Print and their imperious exhorbitances may be read as in several other Books so in Presbytery Displayed printed 1644. and how they used King Charles the first I. M. hath demonstrated in his Tenure of Kings therein manifesting that they founded the Premises that enabled the Phanaticks to conclude that sanguinary and unparalled Catastrophe And that their good deeds also may be remembred we do recount them to have been very instrumental in the restoration of the Son which is some kind of expiation for their injuries done unto the Father Some and those of no small esteem in the Church are of opinion that the exercise of Excommunication was then only needful when no visible Church had any legal or civil remedy to preserve its unity or purge it self of gross Offenders or that the right or power of Excommunication which the Apostles and immediate Successors had did utterly expire when once whole Cities and Common-wealths became Christian and were enabled from the Supreme Civil Magistrate to punish Offenders and to enact coercive and penal Laws and other means necessary for the spreading and promulgating of the Gospel Sure I am that experience hath made it more than probable that after the Church and Common-wealths were so linked and interwoven together that every Member of the Common-wealth was enforced to become a Member of the Church and to be so admitted by the Church Governours the edge of this spiritual Sword was very much abated and the force of former spiritual Ordinances became stifled with the multitude of those persons against whom they were directed whether the defect be in the power it self or in such as have but to do not use it as they ought certain it is that this branch of discipline is not in our days so effectual as in former times it hath been The meer spiritual Power with which alone the Apostles and their Immediate Successors were endued was of greater efficacy than both the remainder of the like spiritual Power in Dermier Bishops and Pastors and all the strength of secular Civil Power wherewith Princes States or Kingdoms since the mutual incorporation of Common-wealths and Churches have as they were in conscience and Jure Divino bound assisted Prelates and Church Governours of this nature seems to be the Apostolical Rod. 1. Cor. 4.21 wherewith Paul threatneth the Corinthians whereby is meant as he explains himself 2. Cor. 13.10 ch 10.16 ch 13.2 To use sharpness to revenge all unrighteousness not to spare all which are expressions of a certain miraculous vertue of impossing punishment Thus Annanias and Saphira fell down dead 14. Acts 13. Elymas was smitten with blindness 1. Tim. 1.2 Himeneus Alexander and the Incestuous Corinthian were delivered to Sathan 1. Cor. 55. § To deliver to Sathan was plainly a point of miraculous Power which inflicted torment on the Body such as Saul in former times felt after his departure from God as Chrisostome and other Fathers interpret This is certain when the earthly powers used not their right of punishing God had given them to purge and defend the Church what was wanting in human aid God himself supplied by divine assistance After the Emperors took on them the Patronage of the Church whose office was to punish them that troubled the Church without or within the forenamed divine punishment expired And most properly that divine execution of revenge was the jurisdiction of God not of Men because the whole work was Gods not the Apostles God that he might give testimony to the truth of the Gospel preached as at the Apostles Prayers or presence or touch he healed diseases and cast out Divils so at their imprecation commanded men to be vexed with Diseases and seized by Divils Nor did Paul more by delivering men to Satan than did Peter and John by curing the lame man who say they did nothing by their own Power Acts 12. and ascribe the whole effect to God At the Prayers also of the Church did God often shew the like signs of his displeasure therefore are the Corinthians 1. Cor. 5.2 blamed that they mourned not to the end the Incestuous person might be taken away from among them And to the same effect is that wish not command of the Apostles to the Galatians 5.12 would they were cut off that trouble you This kind of Excommunication if it may be so called was a Corporal punishment and there is no appearance of any internal obduration by the binding power of Pope or Presbyter and
the Fryers-Pardon-mongers in Germany in matters of Indulgencies as also with the Doctors of Rome did always say that he referred himself to the Pope and when Leo challenged the promise for real which was pretended only Martin did not only not keep it but inveighed more against his Holyness than he had done against the Pardon-Mongers I appeal to our Author himself was it ever found in any Story that ever any man or number of men were willing to have their Opinions Condemned rather if their Opinions were rejected they defended them more obstinately fortifying themselves the more by reason of Opposition by which means of many Sects many Heresies have sprung § But to come more closely to his desire let us consider and examine matter of Fact how far this Discourser and his Predecessors of the same perswasions have been gratified already in this way and what effect it hath had and how far it hath wrought upon them Was not the first Liturgy in Edward the 6th time Composed by as Learned and as Pious Men Men known to all the world to have been famous in their Generation for hazarding their Bodies to be burned in Queen Maries days or if they escaped the Fire were Banished or imprisoned and only because they would not submit to Popery and Superstition and upon as solemn deliberation as that Age could or perhaps as any Age since hath afforded was not that Liturgy ratified by Act of Parliament set forth March 17. 1549. and to gratifie some that fancied themselves to have a more pure Beam of light was it not revised again in the same King's time and re-established An. 5.6 Edward 6. And was it not taken again into most Solemn Consideration Eliz. 1. and before the Parliament would pass their Vote for it and put their Stamp unto it was it not held requisite that a Disputation should be held in English before them for the better clearing of some points therein as about Service in a Tongue unknown to the People about the Power of the Church concerning Ceremonies Ecclesiastical Rites c. and was it not held accordingly by 9 of each party which began the 30th of March each party one day delivering in Writing their Arguments and the other the next day answering them in Writing again § Did not King James in the very beginning of his Reign so far condescend as to comply with some of his more scrupulous Subjects who deeming themselves also to have a more pure beam of light than Prelates or Conformists Petitioned his Majesty for some amendments of our Liturgy on pretence of fitting it unto more encrease of Piety as after above 40 years establishment and quiet usage thereof to have it scanned and debated over again by a most Solemn conference at Hampton Court his Majesty with others of his Council being present and undoubtedly as well able to Judge as any that argued Pro or Con whose admirable dexterity in discerning whose Judgment and Learning in Affairs and Controversies of that Nature gave such satisfaction even to the Opponents themselves that they all seemed satisfied and promised Conformity and Obedience for the future and Dr. Sparks one of the chief favourers of that Petition did write a Book to perswade unto Conformity at which Conference the Abetters of the Petition gave so little satisfaction unto his Majesty that he deemed all their exceptions to be no other than the Phantasms of scrupulous Indiscretion and therefore concluded that if after 45 years injoyment of the clear light of the Gospel any did yet continue dissatisfied that such dissatisfaction did proceed rather out of stubbornness of Opinion than out of true tenderness of Conscience How far our Service Book was taken into sedate Consideration under the Reign of Charles the First of ever Blessed memory and also of Charles the Second since his Restauration and how little it hath wrought upon those for whose sake it was taken into Consideration is so Notoriously known and yet so fresh in our memories that it is enough I have only mentioned it And is it not now setled de Novo and ratified by that Power that gives Life unto all our Laws but yet if his desires should be granted and indeed our Liturgy should be found to stand in need of some few and small amendments and should be amended to the satisfaction of this Importunate Petitioner yet if his Book be a just portraicture of his Opinion he out-shoots Calvin one Bows length at least in that he is against all stinted Formes of Prayers and Praises to be Read and used by the Administrators of Gospel Ordinances in their Administration of them which Calvin was not yet it makes nothing against a Liturgy that may or doth need none and for such it is as I plead Besides Moses did not think it an Impeachment of the gifts of the Ministry nor yet of Edisication when he prescribed a set form of Blessing the People Numb 6.23.27 Besides what security will or can this Petitioner give that we shall from thenceforth have no more the like Impetuous and Importunate desires from others and that our Liturgy shall then rest unquarrelled at Or what security can he give if he should be gratified in taking away the Liturgy that the quiet State of the Kingdom shall not be disturbed or that Popery and Popish Worship in several Parishes if not in all shall not reenter Besides all great Councils in matters tending to Innovation in the Publick Government especially when Religion is concerned therein ought in prudence to be back't by Arms least they prove destructive to the undertakers which consideration made Edw. 6. to put himself at the Head of an Army for the preservation of his Person of his Council and even of the Reformation it self it was but prudence and high time so to do and that early too as the several Insurrections did shortly after demonstrate in which though Inclosures were pretended and were in the Front and Face of them yet returning to Idolatrous and Superstitious Worship was in the Heart and in the depth of their design Besides it is marvellous to consider that after the Act for Repealing of all such Statutes as any way seemed to touch the Subject in Life or Liberty for matter of Conscience made in the times of Richard the 2d and Henry the 4th against the Lollards who differed in Opinion from the Church of Rome or in the time of Henry the 8th as that Terrible Act of the 6 Articles made 31 Henry 8. and those other of a more mild Nature made 35 Henry 8. c. 9. for the qualification of the said 6 Articles and the Act prohibiting the Reading of the Bible in English made 34 Henry 3. c. 1. were passed and before the Liturgy was established All men seemed by such Repealing to have had a liberty of Reading Scripture and of being their own Expositors of entertaining what opinions in Religion best pleased their fancies and promulgating them such a Liberty is now
latter years Cardinal Bellarmine set forth a Book wherein he is so bold as to labour to make Princes subject to the Pope in Causes Temporal and most impudently dares to treat them all as Hereticks which say that the Prince in Temporal Affairs hath no Superior but God only thereby preferring the Ambitious ends of the Court of Rome before the Publick ends of Gods Holy Truth and of his Vice-gerents He pretends therein to write against Barclay but his main drift and design is to advance the Popes Power to the Zenith and top of omnipotency it self In this Book he treats of nothing but of the Popes Power over Princes wherein it is more than five and twenty times inculcated viz. That when the Pope judgeth a Prince for faults or unfitness unworthy to Govern or that he knows that it is profitable for the Church he may deprive him of his Government And he sundry times affirms therein That when the Pope commands that Obedience be not given to a Prince that is deprived by him that then he is no more a Prince but a private Person Nay he is so bold as to affirm That the Pope if he shall deem it expedient may dispose of all the goods of any Christian whatsoever and all must go for nothing if he only say it is his opinion Nay farther averrs That it is an Article of the Catholick Faith viz. that he is a Heretick that doth not believe the same and all this with strange impudence scarce to be parallel'd This Book was written by Bellarmine presently after the Murther of Henry the Great of France before whose death such Doctrines were but whispered and covertly broached but soon after his death they vomited them out most impudently leading Princes then as it were in Triumph as that they might be Excommunicated by the Pope deprived of their Kingdoms for unskilful Governing weakness of strength or any other cause or ineptitude that His Holiness shall deem just This Book was so offensive to some of the Roman Catholicks themselves not only because of those false Doctrines so broached but because he asserted those Doctrines to be the Doctrines and Faith of the Catholick Church and pronounceth all those that did think otherwise to be temerarious and scandalous Hereticks Parasites of Princes Ethnicks and Publicans Notwithstanding all these bold Averments the wise State of Venice fore-seeing the evil consequences of such Doctrines might follow to the disturbance of the Peace of a Nation they presently forbid the coming in of that Book into their Dominions lest their Subjects thereby should be seduced into the same errors Whoever shall wisely consider that Murder perpetrated by Ravillac 1610. throw the Instigation of the Jesuits and the Decree of the Sorbon clearing themselves and laying all the guilt thereof and of all Assassinating Doctrines and Principles on the Jesuits and shall also consider Anti-cotton's Refutation of Father Cotton a Jesuit and Confessor to the said Henry the Fourth who had highly oblidged him and the Society by giving them his House at La Flesche for a Colledge with 1000 Crowns yearly Pension for Twenty years and had otherwise marvellously obliged them by many favors thereby hoping to secure his Life but all in vain his Declaratory Letter to the Queen and shall also consider the Discourse to the Lords of Parliament at Paris touching the said Murther all manifestly proving the Jesuits to be the Plotters and Actors in that horrible Murther all printed soon after that detestable stroak viz. 1610. and shall also consider that the said Book of Bellarmine was the very same year Printed at Rome under the Popes Nose with an Imprimatur by Fr. Ludovicus Ystelli Magistri Sacri Palatii Apostolici And shall also consider the Popes silence and calmness in all these great concerns may well conclude that if the Pope were not Particeps Criminis yet he seemed to be accessory by his silence and to be content and very well pleased and that there was a right understanding between him and the Jesuits About this time also viz. 1610. as if Hell-hounds had been breaking loose the Jesuits were so insolent fierce and zealous to make His Holiness Almighty on Earth that there being in Rome a very great number above 150 Catchpoles Serjeants or Bayliffs whom they perceiving to be men of dissolute lives of profligated honesty and living very little like Christians the fitter for their turns they designed to erect in their Church a Society of them only pretending to teach them Christian Doctrine and to exercise them in frequent Confessions which the Governor and Court of Rome understanding and suspecting so strict a Practice of the Jesuits with such their Ministers they complained with the Pontiff Wherefore the Bishop of who had advanced them 30000 Crowns in order thereunto being near to death and died soon after then the Apostolick Chamber not approving the Donation took the Money as a Booty and applied it as they thought fit § That Reverence which is due and deservedly given to Religion hath been the cause that many abuses which came under the Vmbrage of that Sacred Canopy have had such easie admittance whereby the evil designs that have lain couchant under that pretence and the true ends of the designers have not appeared until time hath made a discovery when â—â— hath been too late to remedy them without great disturbances The Covetous desire of inlarging Phylacteries Wealth and Authority doth so naturally blind men even Ecclesiasticks that without any respect to plainness and sincerity of Gods own Holy Writ they betake themselves to Cavils only pittiful Blasphemous Cavils Averring that if God doth punish and hath punished Sinners the Pope and Inquisitors his delegates may and ought also to punish them Certainly to say no worse to draw Arguments from the Divine Omnipotency to Humane Authority agrees in no proportion with the Reverence due to the Divine Majesty Nothing more frequent and ordinary than for Judges whose Jurisdictions and Powers are limited by Paramount Authority to seek the enlargement thereof tho by the disabling of the General Jurisdiction as well Civil as Ecclesiastick And this proceedeth as well from the natural Inclination which all men have to command in chief as also from the profit and Grandeur which necessarily attends Soveraignty But if such Ecclesiasticks or others do seek enlargement of their Power beyond their Commission and natural duty the Supream Civil Magistrate is most to blame if he suffer it tho sometimes with good intent and success for that it can never be with Wisdom Therefore if Ecclesiastical persons shall fail in their duties the power will return to that Body who gave it without depriving it self of it Wherefore it is no wonder if the secular person ought to be an Overseer of him that exerciseth a charge which he himself hath given him The old and true Legitimate Romanists for the first 300 years and more whose Faith and Doctrine the Protestants at this day both own and defend
all these horrid Acts and Doctrines whereby it is manifest what influences they have upon Princes when once admitted to be their Consessors Deus Bone To what an incredible prodigious excess of wickedness are these men arrived unto and which is yet more detestable and formidable they are Implacable Incorrigible Indefatigable and persevering in their King-killing Principles and designs tho all Nations as well Papal as other abhor them make Laws against them nay banish them erect Pillars with Inscriptions to their perpetual Infamy to which bear witness the Parisians Almaignes Hungarians Venetians as unworthy to live under any honest Laws or any Civil Government and by express Decrees determined never to recall them and yet prevail they do and so they furiously drive on as if they designed to make Treason to stand in the first rank of Christian virtues and Marthering of Princes to be esteemed the fairest and shortest way to Heaven without ever coming to Purgatory To which purpose have they not Written Books â—râ—â—ted Schools wherein they teach the Method and manner of King-killing and reduced this horrid practice into an Art yea into a Kabala of that old Mahumetan of the Mountain of Saracen Progeny and Race of Moors used to confirm and resolve those that are his to kill Christian Princes in the Holy Land § These things in good earnest considered it is no time to Court compliance with or plead for Indulgence for them who will allow none to others but to abandon them and their Errors Superstitions Idolatries Deeds of darkness owned and justified by those men of sin the Sons of Perdition who oppose and exalt themselves above all that is called God or that is worshipped so that they as God sit in the Temple of God St. Peter's Chair shewing themselves that they are God Infallible working after the manner of Sathan with all power and signs and Lying Wonders Opt. Max. supr numen in terris with all deceivableness of unrighteousness and will not receive the love of the truth that they might be saved but have brought in damnable Heresies and boast themselves of Idols and take pleasure in unrighteousness 2 Thess 2 3 4. c. Mentior If I do not believe that so many demonstrable Characters of St. Paâ—l's men of sin Sons of Perdition can be so justly fastned on an Church in the World as on Rome's Church if they can then write that Church Antichristian and let Rome stand Candidate for Saint-ship Shall we then be Wheedled into Compliance and to trick it with Rome by a Jesuitical slight of contriving differences and enmity between Papists and Papists Divide impera distinguishing the Court of Rome from the Church of Rome between true Catholicks and State Catholicks i. e. the Jesuits from the rest of the Orders i. e. from all other Papists God forbid Can they be more divided than they are Or is there ever a Barrel better Herring of them Can there be greater enmity than there is already between the Jansenists and the Molinists between the Jacobins and the Jesuits between the Dominicans and Franciscans and indeed between the Jesuits and all their other Orders But to pass by all their differences of another nature between them let us bring it home in particular to our own doors and to our own concerns When Mary afterwards Queen of England desired of her Brother Edward the Sixth to have the free use of the Mass in her Family alledging her conscience that her House was her Flock c. The King by his Council answered that she should have her House or Flock but not exempt from the Kings Laws and Orders Religion Law and Reason forbidding it Policy abhorring it and Her Grace may not require it If we come to Queen Elizabeths dayes did not Herring-men in her dayes complain and bitterly rail against Fisher-men Clodius accuset Maechos Catilina Cethegum Be their differences and enmities one towards another in all other things what they will yet in this they all consent and agree and that by most solemn Oaths to set up their Lord God their Pope and to Plot and contrive the ruine and destruction of Protestants and Protestant Kings and Kingdoms quacunque arte Was ever more bitterness exprest by Tongue and Pen than was in her dayes exprest by the one against the other Jesuits against Seculars and Regulars and they against Jesuits and yet all plotted against the Queen and her Religion even whilst most highly courted by the writings both of the one and the other magnifying her Clemency and justifying her proceedings But the Queen and her Council would not be so wheedled but wisely considering that long before Jesuitism was spawned the Papists did universally incline and take part with the Popes against their Temporal Princes and therefore would not conside in them but banished both the one and the other and by wholsome Laws inflicting moderate punishments and Mulcts provided for their own safety against the one and the other And it is observable that some of those very Seculars viz. Watson and Clark that magnified the Queen to the skies in their Books were the very first that came to the Gallows for Treason against her and it is farther observed by the Lord Burleigh that tho the Seculars railed most bitterly against the Jesuits yet they never discovered any one Treason against her tho scarce four years passed all her Reign without a Treason Did not King James declare to his Parliament V. His works p. 494 495. May 19. 1603. that the Pope did not only claim to be Spiritual Head of all Christians but also to have an Imperial civil power over all Kings and Emperors dethroning and decrowning Princes with his Foot at pleasure c. And farther to clear himself before his Privy Council and Nobles in the Star-Chamber from favouring of Popery solemnly pray that before any of his Issue should maintain any other Religion than what he truly professed and maintained that God would take them out of the World V. Sir Geo. Crock's Report Part 2. Ter. 2. Jacobi Regis in Banco Regis And good reason King James had to be steady to Protestanism for in the very life time of Queen Elizabeth the common voice among the Jesuits was that if King James would turn Catholick they would follow him but if not they would all dye against him Watson Quodlibets p. 150. and Clement the Eighth by two Breves endeavored to exclude him from this Crown unless he would take an Oath to promote the Roman Catholick Interest And in a Book dedicated to Essex under the Counterfeit name of Dolman in which Book despising the right of Birth it is projected that the Antient Laws of the Land concerning Hereditary Succession to the Crown of England are to be altered that new Laws are to be brought in concerning Election that no man but a Roman Catholick of what blood soever they be is to be admitted King Are not now the same Principles as much
discern good Customs from bad But the King of Spain maugre his virulent Tongue and Pen was so far from recalling the said Prohibition of his Ministers that after long patience viz. in the year 1610. he published an Edict in Print all the World over wherein he condemned and forbade the Book in such grave and apt terms that he gave Baronius a Rowland for his Oliver Could there be a higher Affront or Indignity offered to temporal Majesty then for a foreign haughty Prelate to send into a Prince's Dominions a Book in Print against him and his Government and to justifie it to be lawful so to do and that under colour of Religion and the Authority of Christ given to St. Peter when God and the wisest World doth know that there never was any such donation and that it was unlawful for the Prince to withstand and prohibit it Deus bone What will not proud Prelates attempt per fas nefasque if their Copy-hold of Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction or Ecclesiastical Liberty be but touched It hath been long since observed by the judicious and worthy Servite Padre Paulo to be plain by all Histories that Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction and Liberty hath occasioned all the Disputes and Differences which have happened between his Holiness and other Princes in these latter Ages Thus far only to shew how when by whom and wherefore this politick piece of prudence of guarding the Press hath been invented and practised And farther to shew that Baronius chargeth the like Usurpation on temporal Majesty for ends that are not good when in truth the Pope and his Minorite Priests and Friars are much more guilty of that crime denying it to temporal Princes that they themselves only may rule uncontroulably from Dan to Beersheba from one end of the Earth to the other Divine Truths and right Reason are more universal and of more force and vertue then all the Councils that ever were or ever will be and ought more to be had in reverence and esteem and ought to be obeyed from what point of the Compass soever they come or from what Pen soever they flow and ought to have no restraint or prohibition put upon them which would give them check at least if not check-mate For that such Prohibition would discourage Learning and hinder Discoveries and put a damp upon searching and inquisitive Brains and Abilities and impeach that natural Right and Liberty which belongs to every Individual And thus to stifle and mortifie Reason and Truths is the worst of all Murders for that by such Prohibitions many Truths may be lost which may be an irrecoverable loss not unto particular persons only but to whole Nations and Kingdoms for if nothing must be printed but by the leave of some grand Dominican Inquisitor or chief Musty what Truth or Religion can we have other then that in Trentine Creed or Mahumetan Alcoran Falsest Seducers God himself never created men nor never gave talents of Reason or Judgment subject and captivate unto the Reason and Judgment of others but hath endued and trusted every man with his own proper talent of Reason to make his own choice according to which only he shall be judged at the Judgment of the great Day There would but little work be left for Priests and Preaching if Law Compulsion and such Prohibitions should take place and impose Doctrines which ought to be governed only by demonstration of Reason and by perswasive means What wisdom can there be to choose or refuse or what praise or dispraise reward or punishment can equally be distributed by doing or not doing good or evil without full knowledge of good and evil and that left to our own free choice What more ordinary then to have one Error exploded by another and for the Fathers themselves to endeavour to confute that for Heresie or Error which is the more orthodox Opinion and for the Popes whom Hen. the 8th was often pleased in Drollery to call his Vicars of Hell to disagree among themselves even about this or that Translation of the Bible it self witness that of Sixtus Quintus and of Clement the 8th Did not Arminius fall into those Opinions now denominated by his Name by undertaking to confute an Anonymus Discourse written at Delf The Story of Dr. Reignolds and his Brother converting each other from Protestant to Papist and from Papist to Protestant by disputing to convince each other is fresh and memorable Again Are all Licensers Apostolical endued with the Spirit of Truth and Infallibility and without Biasses Are the Fathers Inquisitors and all other Licensers more learned more judicious more honest or endued with a greater measure of the Spirit of Truth and Grace then all those that write Is it honest or just to use subtleties to deprive wise men of any Advantages for greater knowledge or for saving their souls for fear fools and ill men should make ill use of what is written or printed Veritas non quaerit Angulos Truth needs no such Artificers besides it is but a pitiful shift to guard one Avenew and leave others round about unguarded Why should we walk contrary to the Prescript of God and Nature by curtalling the means of knowing and distinguishing Truth from Error The Ingenuity of Truth requires it not and it is but a sad piece of prudence to put such an affront upon Learning and learned men for fear some Truth should rise up in judgment against some that manage Designs and Ends that are not good moreover it is marvellous difficult to fit a rigorous Law without offence to God that must equally respect good and evil as a Law of this nature and import doth and nothing doth more easily bring a Law into dis-use then the impossibility or great difficulty in keeping it and the great rigour in punishing the transgressors especially when the same good end may be obtained by ordaining only things necessary and moderate punishments The Gospel it self was at first a Schism or Heresie both to Jew and Gentile and yet was spread all the World over by Preaching before ever it was written or printed of such efficacy are divine Truths that first or last prevail they will so that in truth perhaps there was not much more wisdom in the first Contrivers of this Trick then was in Will. Fessy who in spite to a Warrenner would set open the Warren-Gates that his Conies might all run away or rather in that other Tony in the Fable who thought to impound the Rooks by shutting the Park-Gate only What advantage I pray was it to Martin the 5th and his Council of Constance that they condemned the Doctrines of Wickliffe and Husse their Books Are they not more believed now than then I do not mean such Doctrines as they falsified and foisted in which were none of theirs as Deus debet obedire Diabolo c. Or what Advantage got Leo the 10th by condemning Luther and his Books Or what Advantage was it to Pope Paul the 5th or to
his Cause that he prohibited a Treatise of Gerson's that had been printed above 100 years before and many other Books by Name then printed and all other Writings which should be made against his Interdict against the Venetians O! much many ways First It had the Fate of all such dishonourable and disingenuous Practices Effects contrary to expectation viz. that the most understanding persons did from such a practice conclude that Reason could not stand nor be on their side who would not suffer the Reasons on both sides to be made manifest and come to the Lydius lapis the Test of right Reason It was also judged marvellous strange that all Writings which might be made were prohibited which was to prejudge before they knew or could understand as if endued with the Spirit of Pithon or of Prophecy they did foresee that men could write nothing on their side that could abide the touch or the light or else that they were such Plenipotentiaries as that they had full Authority to extinguish indifferently the good with the evil Preposterous ways and therefore that wise Republick deem'd it more for their honour and justification and advantage not to imitate his Holiness nor the Advisoes of his sacred Conclave in that which they reprehended in them and therefore they permitted to print and read who would that thereby appealing unto all the World all the World might see on their part that nothing was palliated or disguised and that they did not distrust the judgment of the Universe on what they had done and this was done like a State full of Gravity and full of Wisdom Full contrary did those magnificent Cardinals Bellarmine Baronius and Colonna act whilst they imployed all their Wits and Learning not only to blot out those Hand-writings that were and would have made against them but by pitiful Sophistry and Querks to raise a dust or mist in the minds of their Readers by their own Writings to disguise and obscure the Truth that it might not be discovered nor ever come clearly to the Test and what honour they atchieved thereby Historians are full and such Fates commonly attend such pitiful Policies and Practices The truth is every Government is or ought to be such as to be above all little dirty Intrigues and this is no great one Nitimur in vetitum Books like Poma Adami the more forbidden the more desired it being ever suspected in such Cases that some Truths lye therein hidden which if discovered would fly in the faces of such Opponents as subtlely endeavour to trample them under foot besides such licensed Books are but the language of the present Times and have their Vicissitudes and alternate Fates We have experienced it in our own days and times when Episcopacy was to be pulled up root and branch then forsooth all Presses ought to be open and free it was the Peoples Birth-right and priviledge and the dawning of the day of Truth appearing after the Sun had gone down upon our Prophets and the day had been dark over them for some years past But no sooner had they unmitred the Prelates and minced Episcopacy as small as Herbs to the Pot that every Priest might be a Prelate in his several Parish under another title and vizard but that the old Acts were new broacht and trumpt up again March 2. 1642. and the freedom of the Press must be beleagured with a Committee forsooth of Examinations and a Commission of twenty and learning to her old Barnacles again This device was first set on foot by Antichristian mystery and design to smother Light and Truth that the Contrivers might the more cleverly set up the Kingdom of Antichrist in Cimerian darkness of ignorance and if it were possible to hinder all reformations of their Lives and Doctrines and to insinuate and establish Falshood Turkish policy To uphold their Aleoran they prohibit Learning and Printing worthy of Romish not Protestant Imitation Protestants need it not Truth which is their Shield and Buckler is as strong as the Almighty Magna enim veritas praevalebit Who ever knew her put to the worse Let Truth and Error enter like fair Combatants and Wrestlers into the Lists confuting by dint of Reason is the only Cornish Hug that can lay flat It is Error not Truth that stands in need of such lame Crutches write that write will Licensing or not Licensing may make Truth more or less visible or diffusive but not less victorious Contraria juxta se posita magis elucescunt Rectum est Index sui obliqui the crookedness of Error will the more appear if once brought to the light and true Rule Why are we then so be-Jesuited seeing by locking up the Press Truth is much more likely to be supprest then Falshood and Error The great and usual Clamour and Out-cry against the Liberty of the Press is that it encourageth Libellers against Kingdoms States and men in Authority If they characterize and represent falsly it is then a Libel and a Crime to be and may be punished by the Judges If they despise Dominion and wrong fully speak evil of Dignities quā tales it is a Crime of the same nature But if publication or declaration of Truths shall be esteemed Libels there 's no Law no Logick nor yet Divinity for that Nay it is derogatory even to the God of Truth Go tell Judah of her sins and Israel of her transgression If Ahab and his Fathers house trouble Israel it 's no crime for Elijah to tell him so nor in Nathan to say unto David Thou art the man And the prophane Prophets of Israel must be prophesied against All Governments were instituted by God for the good of the governed and it is not Libelling to tell them so Forbidding publication of Books without an Imprimatur first obtained is to make the Licensers Judges of all Truths and Opinions and it's odds that they will let nothing pass but what is calculated and fitted to their own Interest and the Interest and Genius of the present Times And is not this a Crime of the same nature with the Indices expurgatorii which all honest wise and pious men abhor It is at best but an oblique Art servant only to Times Parties and Interests destructive to Learning and Ingenuity to suppress Monuments of Reason used by their Adversaries on whose side happily Truth is The more noble and warrantable way is to abandon all such little and disingenuous Tricks and Devices and labour by all holy means and endeavours to suppress Vice To punish and discountenance sin and sinners is more glorious before God and man then to padlock Presses it being a shrewd sign that Truth is not on their side that suppress the adverse Reasons Truth is able to justifie it self and acquire its own glory and reward of Ingenuity and Christian Simplicity when suppressing or expunging betrays that we either distrust God for the maintenance of his own Truths or that we distrust the Cause or our selves