most willingly thereunto even of reverence to the Most High with the Flower of whose sanctified Inheritance as it were with a kinde of Divine presence unless their Chiefest Civil Assemblies were so farr forth beautified as might be without any notable impediment unto their Heavenly Fâ—nctions they could not satisfie themselves as having showed towards God an Affection most duâ—iful Thus first in defect of other Civil Magistrates Secondly for the ease and quietness of Scholastical Societies Thirdly by way of Political necessity Fourthly in regard of quality care and extraordinancy Fifthly For countenance into the Ministry And lastly even of Devotion and Reverence towards God himself there may be admitted at leastwise in some Particulars well and lawfully enough a conjunction of Civil and Ecclesiastical Power except there be some such Law or Reason to the contrary as may prove it to be a thing simply in it self naught Against it many things are objected as first That the matters which are noted in the holy Scripture to have belonged unto the ordinary Office of any Minister of God's holy Word and Sacraments are these which follow with such like and no other namely The watch of the Sanctuary the business of God the Ministry of the Word and Sacraments Oversight of the House of God Watching over his Flock Prophesie Prayer Dispensations of the Mysteries of God Charge and care of mens Souls If a man would shew what the Offices and Duties of a Chirurgion or Physician are I suppose it were not his part so much as to mention any thing belonging to the one or the other in case either should be also a Souldier or a Merchant or an House-keeper or a Magistrate Because the Functions of these are different from those of the former albeit one and the same man may happily be both The Case is like when the Scripture teacheth what Duties are required in an Ecclesiastical Minister in describing of whose Office to touch any other thing than such as properly and directly toucheth his Office that way were impertinent Yea But in the Old Testament the two Powers Civil and Ecclesiastical were distinguished not onely in Nature but also in Person the one committed unto Moses and the Magistrates joyned with him the other to Aaron and his Sons Jehosophat in his Reformation doth not onely distinguish Causes Ecclesiastical from Civil and erecteth divers Courts for them but appointeth also divers Iudges With the Jews these two Powers were not so distinguished but that sometimes they might and did concâ—â— in one and the same Person Was not Ely both Priest and Judge After their return from captivity Esâ—â—as a Priest and the same their Chief Governour even in Civil Affairs also These men which urge the necessity of making always a Personal distinction of these two Powers as if by Iehosaphat's example the same Person ought not to deal in both Causes yet are not scrupulous to make men of Civil Place and Calling Presbyters and Ministers of Spiritual Jurisdiction in their own Spiritual Consistories If it be against the Jewish Precedents for us to give Civil Power unto such as have Ecclesiastical is it not as much against the same for them to give Ecclesiastical Power unto such as have Civil They will answer perhaps That their Position is onely against conjunction of Ecclesiastical Power of Order and the Power of Civil Jurisdiction in one Person But this Answer will not stand with their Proofs which make no less against the Power of Civil and Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction in one Person for of these two Powers Iehosaphat's example is Besides the contrary example of Heli and of Ezra by us alledged do plainly shew that amongst the Jewes even the power of Order Ecclesiastical and Civil Jurisdiction were sometimes lawfully united in one and the same Person Pressed further we are with our Lord and Saviour's example who denyeth his Kingdom to be of this Wold and therefore as not standing with his Calling refused to be made a King to give sentence in a criminal Cause of Adultery and in a Civil of dividing an Inheritance The Jews imagining that their Messiah should be a Potent Monarch upon Earth no marvail though when they did otherwise wonder at Christ's greatness they sought forthwith to have him invested with that kinde of Dignity to the end he might presently begin to reign Others of the Jewes which likewise had the same imagination of the Messiah and did somehat incline to think that peradventure this might be He thought good to try whether he would take upon him that which he might do being a King such as they supposed their true Messiah should be But Christ refused to be a King over them because it was no part of the Office of their Messiah as they did falsely conceive and to intermeddle in those Acts of Civil Judgement be refused also because he had no such Jurisdiction in that Common-wealth being in regard of his Civil Person a man of mean and low Calling As for repugnancy between Ecclesiastical and Civil Power or any inconvenience that these two Powers should be united it doth not appear that this was the cause of his resistance either to reign or else to judge What say we then to the blessed Apostles who teach That Souldiers intangle not themselves with the businesses of this life but leave them to the end they may please him who hath chosen them to serve and that so the good Souldiers of Christ â—ught to do The Apostles which taught this did never take upon them any Place or Office of Civil Power No they gave over the Ecclesiastical care of the Poor that they might wholly attend upon the Word and Prayer St. Paul indeed doth exhort Timothy after this manner Suffer thou evil as a noble Souldier of Iesus Christ No man warring is entangled with the affairs of Life because he must serve such as have pressed him unto Warfare The sense and meaning whereof is plain that Souldiers may not be nice and tender that they must be able to endure hardnesse that no man betaking himself unto Wars continueth entangled with such kinde of Businesses as tend only unto the ease and quiet felicity of this Life but if the service of him who hath taken them under his Banner require the hazard yea the losse of their Lives to please himâ— they must be content and willing with any difficulty any peril be it never so much against the natural desire which they have to live in safety And at this point the Clergy of God must always stand thus it behoveth them to be affected as oft as their Lord and Captain leadeth them into the field whatsoever conflicts perils or evils they are to endure Which duty being not such but that therewith the Civil Dignities which Ecclesiastical Persons amongst us do enjoy may enough stand the Exhortation of Paul to Timothy is but a slender Allegation against them As well might we gather out of this place that Men having Children or Wives
contrary Internal Powers Which whosoever doth think impossible is undoubtedly farther off from Christian Belief though he be Baptized then are these Innocents which at their Baptism albeit they have no conceit cogitation of Faith are notwithstanding pure and free from all opposite cogitations whereas the other is not free If therefore without any fear or scruple we may account them and term them Believers onely for their outward professions sake which inwardly are farther from Faith then Infants Why not Infants much more at the time of their solemn Initiation by Baptism the Sacrament of Faith whereunto they not onely conceive nothing opposite but have also that Grace given them which is the first and most effectual cause out of which our belief groweth In sum the whole Church is a multitude of Believers all honored with that title even Hypocrites for their Professions sake as well as Saints because of their inward sincere perswasion and Infants as being in the first degree of their ghostly motions towards the actual habit of Faith the first sort are faithful in the eye of the World the second faithful in the sight of God the last in the ready direct way to become both if all things after be suitable to these their present beginnings This saith St. Augustine would not happily content such persons as are uncapable or unquiet but to them which having knowledge are not troublesome it may suffice Wherein I have not for case of my self objected against you that custom onely then which nothing is more from but of a custom most profitable I have done that little which I could â—â— yield you a reasonable cause Were St. Augustine now living there are which would tell him for his better instruction that to say of a childe It is elect and to say it doth believe are all one for which cause sith no man is able precisely to affirm the one of any Infant in particular it followeth that precisely and absolutely we ought not to say the other Which precise and absolute terms are needless in this case We speak of Infants as the rule of piety alloweth both to speak and think They that can take to themselves in ordinary talk a charitable kinde of liberty to name men of their own sort Gods dear children notwithstanding the large reign of of Hyprocrisie should not methinks be so strict and rigorous against the Church for presuming as it doth of a Christian Innocent For when we know how Christ is general hath said That of such is the Kingdom of Heaven which Kingdom is the Inheritance of Gods Elect and do withal behold how his providence hath called them unto the first beginnings of Eternal Life and presented them at the Well-spring of New-birth wherein original sin is purged besides which sin there is no Hinderance of their Salvation known to us as themselves will grant hard it were that loving so many fair inducements whereupon to ground we should not be thought to utter at the least a truth as probable and allowable in terming any such particular Infant an elect Babe as in presuming the like of others whose safety nevertheless we are not absolutely able to warrant If any troubled with these seruples be onely for Instructions sake desirous to know yet some farther reason why Interrogatories should be ministred to Infants in Baptism and be answered unto by others as in their names they may consider that Baptism implieth a Covenant or League between God and Man wherein as God doth bestow presently remission of sins and the Holy Ghost hinding also himself to add in process of time what Grace soever shall be farther necessary for the attainment of Everlasting Life so every Baptized Soul receiving the same Grace at the hands of God tieth likewise it self for ever to the observation of his Law no less then the Jews by Circumcision bound themselves to the Law of Moses The Law of Christ requiring therefore Faith and newness of life in all men by vertue of the Covenant which they make in Baptism Is it toyish that the Church in Baptism exacteth at every mans hands an express Profession of Faith and an inevocable promise of obedience by way of solemn stipulation That Infants may contract and covenant with God the Law is plain Neither is the reason of the Law obscure For sith it rendeth we cannot sufficiently express how much to their own good and doth no way hurt or endanger them to begin the race of their lives herewith they are as equity requireth admitted hereunto and in favor of their tender years such formal complements of stipulation as being requisite are impossible by themselves in their own persons to be performed leave is given that they may sufficiently discharge by others Albeit therefore neither deaf nor dumb men neither surious persons nor children can receive any civil stipulation yet this kinde of ghostly stipulation they may through his indulgence who respecting the singular benefit thereof accepteth Children brought unto him for that end entrech into Articles of Covenant with them and in tender commiseration granteth that other Mens Professions and Promises in Baptism made for them shall avail no less then if they had been themselves able to have made their own None more fit to undertake this office in their behalf then such as present them unto Baptism A wrong conceit that none may receive the Sacrament of Baptism but they whose Parents at the least the one of them are by the soundness of their Religion and by their vertuous demeanor known to be Men of God hath caused some to repel Children whosoever bring them if their Parents be mis-perswaded in Religion or sot other mis-deserts ex-communicated some likewise for that cause to withhold Baptism unless the Father albeit no such exception can justly be taken against him do notwithstanding make Profession of his Faith and avouch the childe to be his own Thus whereas God hath appointed them Ministers of holy things they make themselves Inquisitors of mens persons a great deal farther then need is They should consider that God hath ordained Baptism in favor of mankinde To restrain favors is an odious thing to enlarge them acceptable both to God and Man Whereas therefore the Civil Law gave divers Immunities to them which were Fathers of three children and had them living those Immunities they held although their children were all dead if war had consumed them because it seemed in that case not against reason to repute them by a courteous construction of Law as live men in that the honor of their Service done to the Commonwealth would remain always Can it hurt us in exhibiting the Graces which God doth bestow on men or can it prejudice his glory if the self-same equity guide and direct our hands When God made his Covenant with such as had Abraham to their Father was onely Abrahams immediate issue or onely his lineal posterity according to the flesh included in that
man surmise that the difference between them was only by distinction in the former kind of power and not in this latter of jurisdiction are not the words of the Law manifest which make Eleazer the Son of Aaron the Priest chief Captain of the Levites and overseer of them unto whom the charge of the Sanctuary was committed Again at the commandment of Aaron and his Sons are not the Gersonites themselves required to do all their service in the whole charge belonging unto the Gersonites being inferiour Priests as Aaron and his Sons were High Priests Did not Iehoshaphat appoint Amarias the Priest to be chief over them who were Judges for the cause of the Lord in Ierusalem Priests saith Josephus worship God continually and the eldest of the stock are governours over the rest He doth sacrifice unto God before others he hath care of the Laws judgeth controversies correcteth offenders and whosoever obeyeth him not is convict of impiety against God But unto this they answer That the reason thereof was because the High-Priest did prefigure Christ and represent to the people that chiefty of our Saviour which was to come so that Christ being now come there is no cause why such preheminence should be given unto any one Which fancy pleaseth so well the humour of all sorts of rebellions spirits that they all seek to shroud themselves under it Tell the Anabaptist which holdeth the use of the sword unlawful for a Christian man that God himself did allow his people to make wars they have their answer round and ready Those ancient Wars were figures of the spiritual Wars of Christ. Tell the Barrowist what sway David and others the Kings of Israel did bear in the ordering of spiritual affairs the same answer again serveth namely That David and the rest of the Kings of Israel prefigured Christ. Tell the Martinist of the High-Priests great authority and jurisdiction amongst the Jews what other thing doth serve this Turn but the self-same shift By the power of the High-Priest the universal supreme Authority of our Lord Iesus Christ was shadowed The thing is true that indeed High-Priests were figures of Christ yet this was in things belonging unto their power of Order they figured Christ by entring into the holy place by offering for the sins of all the people once a year and by other the like duties But that to govern and to maintain order amongst those that were subject to them is an office figurative and abrogated by Christs coming in the Ministry that their exercise of jurisdiction was figurative yea figurative in such sort that it had no other cause of being instituted but only to serve as a representation of somewhat to come and that herein the Church of Christ ought not to follow them this Article is such as must be confirmed if any way by miracle otherwise it will hardly enter into the heads of reasonable men why the High-Priest should more figure Christ in being a Judge then in being whatsoever he might be besides St. Cyprian deemed it no wresting of Scripture to challenge as much for Christian Bishops as was given to the High-Priest among the Jews and to urge the law of Moses as being most effectual to prove it St. Ierom likewise thought it an argument sufficient to ground the Authority of Bishops upon To the end saith he we may understand Apostolical traditions to have been taken from the Old Testament that which Aaron and his Sons and the Levites were in the Temple Bishops and Presbyters and Deacons in the Church may lawfully challenge to themselves In the Office of a Bishop Ignatius observeth these two functions 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 concerning the one such is the prehemince of a Bishop that he only hath the heavenly mysteries of God committed originally unto him so that otherwise than by his Ordination and by authority received from him others besides him are not licensed therein to deal as ordinary Ministers of Gods Church And touching the other part of their sacred Function wherein the power of their jurisdiction doth appear first how the Apostles themselves and secondly how Titus and Timothy had rule and jurisdiction over Presbyters no man is ignorant And had not Christian Bishops afterward the like power Ignatius Bishop of Antioch being ready by blessed martyrdom to end his life writeth unto his Presbyters the Pastors under him in this sort O◠〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 After the death of Fabian Bishop of Rome there growing some trouble about the receiving of such persons into the Church as had fallen away in persecution and did now repent their fall the Presbyters and Deacons of the same Church advertised St. Cyprian thereof signifying That they must of necessity defer to deal in that cause till God did send them a new Bishop which might moderate all things Much we read of extraodinary fasting usually in the Church And in this appeareth also somewhat concerning the chiefty of Bishops The custome is saith Tertullian that Bishops do appoint when the people shall all fast Yea it is not a matter left to our own free choice whether Bishops shall rule or no but the will of our Lord and Saviour is saith Cyprian that every act of the Church be governed by her Bishops An Argument it is of the Bishops high preheminence rule and government over all the rest of the Clergy even that the Sword of persecution did strike especially always at the Bishop as at the Head the rest by reason of their lower estate being more secure as the self-same Cyprian noteth the very manner of whose speech unto his own both Deacons and Presbyters who remained safe when himself then Bishop was driven into exile argueth likewise his eminent authority and rule over them By these letters saith he I both exhort and COMMAND that ye whose presence there is not envied at nor so much beset with dangers supply my room in doing those things which the exercise of Religion doth require Unto the same purpose serve most directly those comparisons than which nothing is more familiar in the books of the ancient Fathers who as oft as they speak of the several degrees in Gods Clergy if they chance to compare Presbyters with Levitical Priests of the Law the Bishop they compare unto Aaron the High Priest if they compare the one with the Apostles the other they compare although in a lower proportion sometime to Christ and sometime to God himself evermore shewing that they placed the Bishop in an eminent degree of ruling authority and power above other Presbyters Ignatius comparing Bishops with Deacons and with such Ministers of the word and Sacraments as were but Presbyters and had no Authority over Presbyters What is saith he the Bishop but one which hath all principality and power over all so far forth as man may have it being to his power a follower even of Gods own Christ Mr. Calvin himself
universally either sufficient or necessary If they be nevertheless on your part it still remaineth to be better proved That the Form of Discipline which ye intitle Apostolical was in the Apostles time exercised For of this very thing ye fail even touching that which ye make most account of as being Matter of Substance in Discipline I mean the Power of your Lay-Elders and the difference of your Doctors from the Pastors in all Churches So that in faith we may be bold to conclude That besides these last times which for insolency pride and egregious contempt of all good order are the worst there are none wherein ye can truly affirm that the compleat Form of your Discipline or the Substance thereof was practised The evidence therefore of Antiquity failing you ye flie to the judgments of such Learned men as seem by their Writings to be of opinion that all Christian Churches should receive your Discipline and abandon ours Wherein as ye heap up the names of a number of men not unworthy to be had in honor so there are a number whom when ye mention although it serve ye to purpose with the ignorant and vulgar sort who measure by tale and not by weight yet surely they who know what quality and value the men are of will think ye draw very near the dregs But were they all of as great account as the best and chiefest amongst them with us notwithstanding neither are they neither ought they to be of such reckoning that their opinion or conjecture should cause the Laws of the Church of England to give place much less when they neither do all agree in that opinion and of them which are at agreement the most part through a courteous enducement have followed one man as their Guide finally that one therein not unlikely to have swerved If any chance to say it is probable that in the Apostles times there were Lay-Elders or not to mislike the continuance of them in the Church or to affirm that Bishops at the first were a name but not a power distinct from Presbyters or to speak any thing in praise of those Churches which are without Episcopal Regiment or to reprove the fault of such as abuse that Calling All these ye Register for Men perswaded as you are that every Christian Church standeth bound by the Law of God to put down Bishops and in their rooms to erect an Eldership so authorized as you would have it for the Government of each Parish Deceived greatly they are therefore who think that all they whose names are cited amongst the Favorers of this Cause are on any such verdict agreed Yet touching some material points of your Discipline a kinde of agreement we grant there is amongst many Divines of Reformed Churches abroad For first To do as the Church of Geneva did the Learned in some other Churches must needs be the more willing who having used in like manner not the slow and tedious help of proceeding by publick Authority but the peoples more quick endeavor for alteration in such an exigent I see not well how they could have staid to deliberate about any other Regiment then that which already was devised to their hands that which in like case had been taken that which was easiest to be established without delay that which was likeliest to content the people by reason of some kinde of sway which it giveth them When therefore the example of one Church was thus at the first almost through a kinde of constraint or necessity followed by many their concurrence in perswasion about some material points belonging to the same polity is not strange For we are not to marvel greatly if they which have all done the same thing do easily embrace the same opinion as concerning their own doings Besides mark I beseech you that which Galen in matter of Philosophy noteth for the like falleth out even in Questions of higher knowledge It fareth many times with mens opinions as with rumors and reports That which a credible person telleth is easily thought probable by such as are well perswaded of him But if two or three or four agree all in the same tale they judge it then to be out of Controversie and so are many times overtaken for want of due consideration either some common cause leading them all into error or one mans oversight deceiving many through their too much credulity and easiness of belief Though ten persons be brought to give testimony in any cause yet if the knowledge they have of the thing whereunto they come as witnesses appear to have grown from some one amongst them and to have spred it self from hand to hand they all are in force but as one testimony nor is it otherwise here where the Daughter Churches do speak their Mothers Dialect here where so many sing one Song by reason that he is the Guide of the Quire concerning whose deserved authority amongst even the gravest Divines we have already spoken at large Will ye ask what should move those many Learned to be followers of one Mans judgment no necessity of Argument forcing them thereunto Your demand is answered by your selves Loth ye are to think that they whom ye judge to have attained as sound knowledge in all points of Doctrine as any since the Apostles time should mistake in Discipline Such is naturally our affection that whom in great things we mightily admire in them we are not perswaded willingly that any thing should be amiss The reason whereof is for that as dead Flies putrifie the ointment of the Apothecary so a little Folly him that is in estimation for wisdom This in every profession hath too much authorized the judgment of a few This with Germans hath caused Luther and with many other Churches Calvin to prevail in all things Yet are we not able to define whether the Wisdom of that God who setteth before us in holy Scripture so many admirable patterns of Vertue and no one of them without somewhat noted wherein they were culpable to the end that to him alone it might always be acknowledged Thou onely art holy thou onely art just might not permit those worthy Vessels of his Glory to be in some things blemished with the stain of humane frailty even for this cause lest we should esteem of any man above that which behoveth 5. Notwithstanding as though ye were able to say a great deal more then hitherto your Books have revealed to the World earnest Challengers ye are of tryal by some publick Disputation wherein if the thing ye crave be no more then onely leave to dispute openly about those Matters that are inquestion the Schools in Universities for any thing I know are open unto you They have their yearly Acts and Commencements besides other Disputations both ordinary and upon occasion wherein the several parts of our own Ecclesiastical Discipline are oftentimes offered unto that kinde of Examination the learnedst of you have been of late years
in this case ye are all bound for the time to suspend and in otherwise doing ye offend against God by troubling his Church without any just or necessary cause Be it that there are some reasons inducing you to think hardly of our Laws Are those reasons demonstrative are they necessary or but meer probabilities onely An Argument necessary and demonstrative is such as being proposed unto any man and understood she minde cannot chase but invardly assent Any one such reason dischargeth I grant the Gonscience and setteth it at full liberty For the publick approbation given by the Body of this whole Church unto those things which are established doth make it but probable that they are good And therefore unto a necessary proofe that they are not good it must give place But if the skilfullest amongst you can shew that all the Books ye have hitherto written be able to afford any one argument of this nature let the instance be given As for probabilities What thing was there ever set down so agreeable with sound reason but some probable shew against it might be made It is meet that when publickly things are received and have taken place General Obedience thereunto should cease to be exacted in case this or that private person led with some probable conceit should make open Protostation Peter or John disallow them and pronounce them naught In which case your answer will be That concerning the Laws of our Church they are not onely condemned in the opinion of a private man but of thousands year and even of those amongst which divers are in publick charge and authority At though when publick consent of the whole hath established any thing every mans judgment being thereunto compared were not private howsoever his calling be to some kinde of publick charge So that of Peace and Quietness there is not any way possible unless the probable voice of every intire Society or Body Politick over-rule all private of like nature in the same Body Which thing effectually proveth That God being Author of Peace and not of Confusion in the Church must needs be Author of those mens peaceable resolutions who concerning these things have determined with themselves to think and do as the Church they are of decreeth till they see necessary cause enforcing them to the contrary 7. Nor is mine own intent any other in these several Books of discourse then to make it appear unto you that for the Ecclesiastical Laws of this Land we are led by great reason to observe them and ye by no necessity bound to impugne them It is no part of my secret meaning to draw you hereby into hatred or to set upon the face of this cause any fairer gloss then the naked truth doth afford but my whole endeavor is to resolve the Conscience and to shew as near as I can what in this Controversie the Heart is to think if it will follow the light of sound and sincere judgment without either cloud of prejudice or mist of passionate affection Wherefore seeing that Laws and Ordinances in particular whether such as we observe or such as your selves would have established when the minde doth sift and examine them it must needs have often recourse to a number of doubts and questions about the nature kindes and qualities of Laws in general whereof unless it be throughly informed there will appear no certainty to stay our perswasion upon I have for that cause set down in the first place an Introduction on both sides needful to be considered declaring therein what Law is how different kindes of Laws there are and what force they are of according unto each kinde This done because ye suppose the Laws for which ye strive are found in Scripture but those not against which we strive And upon this surmise are drawn to hold it as the very main Pillar of your whole cause That Scripture ought to be the onely rule of all our actions and consequently that the Church Orders which we observe being not commanded in Scripture are offensive and displeasant unto God I have spent the second Book in sifting of this point which standeth with you for the first and chiefest principle whereon ye build Whereunto the next in degree is That as God will have always a Church upon Earth while the World doth continue and that Church stand in need of Government of which Government it behoveth himself to be both the Author and Teacher So it cannot stand with duty That man should ever presume in any wise to change and alter the same and therefore That in Scripture there must of necessity be found some particular Form of Ecclesiastical Polity the Laws whereof admit not any kinde of alteration The first three Books being thus ended the fourth proceedeth from the general Grounds and Foundations of your cause unto your general Accusations against us as having in the orders of our Church for so you pretend Corrupted the right Form of Church Polity with manifold Popish Rites and Ceremonies which certain Reformed Churches have banished from amongst them and have thereby given us such example as you think we ought to follow This your Assertion hath herein drawn us to make search whether these be just Exceptions against the Customs of our Church when ye plead that they are the same which the Church of Rome hath or that they are not the same which some other Reformed Churches have devised Of those four Books which remain and are bestowed about the Specialties of that Cause which little in Controversie the first examineth the causes by you alledged wherefore the publick duties of Christian Religion as our Prayers our Sacraments and the rest should not be ordered in such sort as with us they are nor that power whereby the persons of men are consecrated unto the Ministry be disposed of in such manner as the Laws of this Church do allow The second and third are concerning the power of Iurisdiction the one Whether Laymen such as your Governing Elders are ought in all Congregations for ever to be invested with that power The other Whether Bishops may have that power over other Pastors and therewithal that honor which with us they have And because besides the Power of Order which all consecrated persons have and the Power of Iurisdiction which neither they all nor they onely have There is a third power a Power of Ecclesiastical Dominion communicable as we think unto persons not Ecclesiastical and most fit to be restrained unto the Prince our Soveraign Commander over the whole Body Politick The eighth Book we have allotted unto this Question and have sifted therein your Objections against those preeminences Royal which thereunto appertain Thus have I laid before you the Brief of these my Travels and presented under your view the Limbs of that Cause litigious between us the whole intire Body whereof being thus compact it shall be no troublesome thing for any man to finde each particular Controversies resting place
Nobility when the Matter came in tryal would contentedly suffer themselves to be always at the Call and to stand to the sentence of a number of mean persons assisted with the presence of their poor Teacher a man as sometimes it hapneth though better able to speak yet little or no whit apter to judge then the rest From whom be their dealings never so absurd unless it be by way of Complaint to a Synod no Appeal may be made unto any one of higher Power is as much as the Order of your Discipline admitteth no standing in Equality of Courts no Spiritual Iudge to have any ordinary Superior on Earth but as many Supremacies as there are Parishes and several Congregations Neither is it altogether without cause that so many do fear the overthrow of all Learning as a threatned sequel of this your Intended Discipline For if the Worlds Preservation depend upon the multitude of the wise and of that sort the number hereafter be not likely to wax over-great when that therewith the son of Syrach professeth himself at the heart grived men of understanding are already so little set by How should their mindes whom the love of so precious a Iewel filleth with secret jealousie even in regard of the lest things which may any way hinder the flourishing estate thereof chuse but misdoubt lest this Discipline which always you match with Divine Doctrine as her natural and true Sister be found unto all kindes of knowledge a Step-mother seeing that the greatest worldly hopes which are proposed unto the chiefest kinde of Learning ye seek utterly to extirpate as Weeds and have grounded your Platform on such Propositions as do after a sort undermine those most renowned Habitations where through the goodness of Almighty God all commendable Arts and Sciences are with exceeding great industry hitherto and so may they for ever continue studied proceeded in and profest To charge you as purposely bent to the overthrow of that wherein so many of you have attained no small perfection were injurious Onely therefore I wish that your selves did well consider how opposite certain of your Positions are unto the state of Collegiate Societies whereon the two Universities consist Those Degrees which their Statutes binde them to take are by your Laws taken away your selves who have sought them ye so excuse as that ye would have men to think ye judge them not allowable but tolerable onely and to be borne with for some help which ye finde in them unto the furtherance of your purposes till the corrupt estate of the Church may be better reformed Your Laws forbidding Ecclesiastical Persons utterly the exercise of Civil Power must needs deprive the Heads and Masters in the same Colledges of all such Authority as now they exercise either at home by punishing the faults of those who not as children to their Parents by the Law of Nature but altogether by Civil Authority are subject unto them or abroad by keeping Courts amongst their Tenants Your Laws making permanent inequality amongst Ministers a thing repugnant to the Word of God enforce those Colledges the Seniors whereof are all or any part of them Ministers under the Government of a Master in the same Vocation to chuse as oft as they meet together a new President For if so ye judge it necessary to do in Synods for the avoiding of permanent inequality amongst Ministers the same cause must needs even in these Collegiate Assemblies enforce the like Except peradventure ye mean to avoid all such absurdities by dissolving those Corporations and by bringing the Universities unto the Form of the School of Geneva Which thing men the rather are inclined to look for in as much as the Ministery wherein to their Founders with singular Providence have by the same Statutes appointed them necessarily to enter at a certain time your Laws binde them much more necessarily to forbear till some Parish abroad call for them Your opinion concerning the Law Civil is That the knowledge thereof might be spared as a thing which this Land doth not need Professors in that kinde being few ye are the bolder to spurn at them and not to dissemble your mindes as concerning their removal In whose Studies although my self have not much been conversant nevertheless exceeding great cause I see there is to wish that thereunto more encouragement were given as well for the singular Treasures of Wisdom therein contained as also for the great use we have thereof both in Decision of certain kindes of causes arising daily within our selves and especially for Commerce with Nations abroad whereunto that knowledge is most requisite The Reasons wherewith ye would perswade that Scripture is the onely rule to frame all our actions by are in every respect as effectual for proof that the same it the onely Law whereby to determine all our Civil Controversies And then what doth let but that as those men may have their desire who frankly broach it already That the Work of Reformation will never be perfect till the Law of Iesus Christ be received alone so Pleaders and Counsellors may bring their Books of the Common Law and bestow them as the Students of curious and needless Arts did theirs in the Apostles time I leave them to scan how for thosewords of yours may reach wherein ye declare That where as now many houses lie waste through inordinate Suits of Law This one thing will shew the excellency of Discipline for the Wealth of the Realm and quiet of Subjects That the Church is to censure such a Party who is apparently troublesome and contentious and without REASONABLE CAUSE upon a meer Will and Stomach doth vex and molest his Brother and trouble the Country For mine own part I do not see but that it might very well agree with your Principles if your Discipline were fully planted even to send out your Writs of Surcease unto all Courts of England besides for the most things handled in them A great deal further I might proceed and descend lower but for as much as against all these and the like difficulties your answer is That we ought to search what things are consonant to Gods Will not which be most for our own ease and therefore that your Discipline being for such is your Error the absolute Commandment of Almighty God it must be received although the World by receiving it should be clean turned upside down Herein lieth the greatest danger of all For whereas the name of Divine Authority is used to countenance these things which are not the Commandments of God but your own Erroneous Collections on him ye must father whatsoever ye shall afterwards be led either to do in withstanding the Adversaries of your Cause or to think in maintenance of your doings And what this may be God doth know In such kindes of Error the Minde once imagining it self to seek the execution of Gods Will laboreth forthwith to remove both things and persons which any way
this point Satan took advantage urging the more securely a false cause because the true was unto Adam unknown Why the Jews were forbidden to Plough their Ground with an Ox and an Ass why to cloath themselves with mingled attire of Wooll and Linnen it was both unto them and to us it remaineth obscure Such Laws perhaps cannot be abrogated saving onely by whom they were made because the intent of them being known unto none but the Author he alone can judge how long it is requisite they should endure But if the reason why things were instituted may be known and being known do appear manifestly to be of perpetual necessity then are those things also perpetual unless they cease to be effectual unto that purpose for which they were at the first instituted Because when a thing doth cease to be available unto the end which gave it being the continuance of it must then of necessity appear superfluous And of this we cannot be ignorant how sometimes that hath done great good which afterwards when time hath changed the ancient course of things doth grow to be either very hurtful or not so greatly profitable and necessary If therefore the end for which a Law provideth be perpetually necessary and the way whereby it provideth perpetually also most apt no doubt but that every such Law ought for ever to remain unchangeable Whether God be the Author of Laws by authorising that power of men whereby they are made or by delivering them made immediately from himself by word onely or in writing also or howsoever notwithstanding the Authority of their Maker the mutability of that end for which they are made maketh them also changeable The Law of Ceremonies came from God Moses had commandment to commit it unto the Sacred Records of Scripture where it continueth even unto this very day and hour in force still as the Jew surmiseth because God himself was Author of it and for us to abolish what he hath established were presumption most intolerable But that which they in the blindness of their obdurate hearts are not able to discern sith the end for which that Law was ordained is now fulfilled past and gone how should it but cease any longer to be which hath no longer any cause of being in force as before That which necessity of some special time doth cause to be enjoyned bindeth no longer then during that time but doth afterward become free Which thing is also plain even by that Law which the Apostles assembled at the Council of Ierusalem did from thence deliver unto the Church of Christ the Preface whereof to authorise it was To the Holy Ghost and to us it hath seemed good Which style they did not use as matching themselves in Power with the Holy Ghost but as testifying the Holy Ghost to be the Author and themselves but onely Utterers of that Decree This Law therefore to haue proceeded from God as the Author thereof no faithful man will deny It was of God not onely because God gave them the power whereby they might make Laws but for that it proceeded even from the holy Motion and Suggestion of that secret Divine Spirit whose sentence they did but onely pronounce Notwithstanding as the Law of Ceremonies delivered unto the Jews so this very Law which the Gentiles received from the Mouth of the Holy Ghost is in like respect abrogated by decease of the end for which it was given But such as do not stick at this point such as grant that what hath been instituted upon any special cause needeth not to be observed that cause ceasing do notwithstanding herein fail they judge the Laws of God onely by the Author and main end for which they were made so that for us to change that which he hath established they hold it execrable pride and presumption if so be the end and purpose for which God by that mean provideth be permanent And upon this they ground those ample Disputes concerning Orders and Offices which being by him appointed for the Government of his Church if it be necessary always that the Church of Christ be governed then doth the end for which God provided remain still and therefore in those means which he by Law did establish as being fittest unto that end for us to alter any thing is to lift up our selves against God and as it were to countermand him Wherein they mark not that Laws are Instruments to rule by and that Instruments are not onely to be framed according unto the general end for which they are provided but even according unto that very particular which riseth out of the matter whereon they have to work The end wherefore Laws were made may be permanent and those Laws nevertheless require some alteration if there be any unfitness in the means which they prescribe as tending unto that end and purpose As for example a Law that to bridle theft doth punish Theeves with a quadruple restitution hath an end which will continue as long as the World it self continueth Theft will be always and will always need to be bridled But that the mean which this Law provideth for that end namely the punishment of quadruple restitution that this will be always sufficient to bridle and restrain that kinde of enormity no man can warrant Insufficiency of Laws doth sometimes come by want of judgment in the Makers Which cause cannot fall into any Law termed properly and immediately Divine as it may and doth into Humane Laws often But that which hath been once most sufficient may wax otherwise by alteration of time and place that punishment which hath been sometimes forcible to bridle sin may grow afterwards too week and feeble In a word we plainly perceive by the difference of those three Laws which the Jews received at the hands of God the Moral Ceremonial and Judicial that if the end for which and the matter according whereunto God maketh his Laws continue always one and the same his Laws also do the like for which cause the Moral Law cannot be altered Secondly That whether the Matter whereon Laws are made continue or continue not if their end have once ceased they cease also to be of force as in the Law Ceremonial it fareth Finally That albeit the end continue as in that Law of Theft specified and in a great part of those ancient Judicials it doth yet for as much as there is not in all respects the same subject or matter remaining for which they were first instituted even this is sufficient cause of change And therefore Laws though both ordained of God himself and the end for which they were ordained continuing may notwithstanding cease it by alteration of persons or times they be found unsufficient to attain unto that end In which respect why may we not presume that God doth even call for such change or alteration as the very condition of things themselves doth make necessary They which do therefore plead the Authority of
the Law-maker as an argument wherefore it should not be lawful to change that which he hath instituted and will have this the cause why all the Ordinances of our Saviour are immutable they which urge the Wisdom of God as a proof that whatsoever Laws he hath made they ought to stand unless himself from Heaven proclaim them disannulled because it is not in man to correct the Ordinance of God may know if it please them to take notice thereof that we are far from presuming to think that men can better any thing which God hath done even as we are from thinking that men should presume to undo some things of men which God doth know they cannot better God never ordained any thing that could be bettered Yet many things he hath that have been changed and that for the better That which succeedeth as better now when change is requisite had been worse when that which now is changed was instituted Otherwise God had not then left this to chuse that neither would now reject that to chuse this were it not for some new-grown occasion making that which hath been betterworse In this case therefore men do not presume to change Gods Ordinance but they yield thereunto requiring it self to be changed Against this it is objected that to abrogate or innovate the Gospel of Christ if Men or Angels should attempt it were most heinous and cursed sacriledge And the Gospel as they say containeth not onely doctrine instructing men how they should believe but also Precepts concerning the Regiment of the Church Discipline therefore is a part of the Gospel and God being the Author of the whole Gospel as well of Discipline as of Doctrine it cannot be but that both of them have a Common Cause So that as we are to believe for ever the Articles of Evangelical Doctrine so the Precepts of Discipline we are in like sort bound for ever to observe Touching Points of Doctrine as for example the Unity of God the Trinity of Persons Salvation by Christ the Resurrection of the Body Life Everlasting the Judgment to come and such like they have been since the first hour that there was a Church in the World and till the last they must be believed But as for Matters of Regiment they are for the most part of another nature To make new Articles of Faith and Doctrine no Man thinketh it lawful new Laws of Government what Commonwealth or Church is there which maketh not either at one time or another The Rule of Faith saith Tertullian is but one and that alone immoveable and impossible to be framed or cast a new The Law of outward Order and Polity not so There is no reason in the World wherefore we should esteem it as necessary always to do as always to believe the same things seeing every man knoweth that the Matter of Faith is constant the Matter contrariwise of Action daily changeable especially the Matter of Action belonging unto Church Polity Neither can I finde that Men of soundest judgment have any otherwise taught then that Articles of Belief and things which all men must of necessity do to the end they may be saved are either expresly set down in Scripture or else plainly thereby to be gathered But touching things which belong to Discipline and outward Polity the Church hath Authority to make Canons Laws and Decrees even as we read that in the Apostles times it did Which kinde of Laws for as much as they are not in themselves necessary to Salvation may after they are made be also changed as the difference of times or places shall require Yea it is not denied I am sure by themselves that certain things in Discipline are of that nature as they may be varied by times places persons and other the like circumstances Whereupon I demand are those changeable Points of Discipline commanded in the Word of God or no If they be not commanded and yet may be received in the Church how can their former Position stand condemning all things in the Church which in the Word are not commanded If they be commanded and yet may suffer change How can this latter stand affirming all things immutable which are commanded of God Their distinction touching Matters of Substance and of Circumstance though true will not serve For be they great things or be they small if God have commanded them in the Gospel and his commanding them in the Gospel do make them unchangeable there is no reason we should more change the one then we may the other If the Authority of the Maker do prove unchangeableness in the Laws which God hath made then must all Laws which he hath made be necessarily for ever permanent though they be out of Circumstance onely and not of Substance I therefore conclude that neither Gods being Author of Laws for Government of his Church nor his committing them unto Scripture is any reason sufficient wherefore all Churches should for ever be bound to keep them without change But of one thing we are here to give them warning by the way For whereas in this Discourse we have oftentimes profest that many parts of Discipline or Church Polity are delivered in Scripture they may perhaps imagine that we are driven to confess their Discipline to be delivered in Scripture and that having no other means to avoid it we are in fain to argue for the changeableness of Laws ordained even by God himself as if otherwise theirs of necessity should take place and that under which we live be abandoned There is no remedy therefore but to abate this Error in them and directly to let them know that if they fall into any such conceit they do but a little flatter their own cause As for us we think in no respect so highly of it Our perswasion is that no age ever had knowledge of it but onely ours that they which defend it devised it that neither Christ nor his Apostles at any time taught it but the contrary If therefore we did seek to maintain that which most advantageth our own cause the very best way for us and the strongest against them were to hold even as they do that in Scripture there must needs be found some particular Form of Church Polity which God hath instituted and which for that very cause belongeth to all Churches to all times But with any such partial eye to respect our selves and by cunning to make those things seem the truest which are the fittest to serve our purpose is a thing which we neither like nor mean to follow Wherefore that which we take to be generally true concerning the Mutability of Laws the same we have plainly delivered as being perswaded of nothing more then we are of this That whether it be in Matter of Speculation or of Practice no untruth can possibly avail the Patron and Defender long and that things most truly are like most behovefully spoken 11. This we hold and grant for Truth
similitude between us and the Church of Rome in these things indifferent Secondly for that it were infinite if the Church should provide against every such Evil as may come to pass it is not sufficient that they shew possibilitie of dangerous Event unless there appear some likely-hood also of the same to follow in us except we prevent it Nor is this enough unless it be moreover made plain that there is no good and sufficient way of prevention but by evacuating clean and by emprying the Church of every such Rite and Ceremony as is presently called in question Till this be done their good affection towards the safety of the Church is acceptable but the way they prescribe us to preserve it by must rest in suspense And lest hereat they take occasion to turn upon us the speech of the Prophet Ieremy used against Babylon Rebold we have done our endeavour to cure the Discases of Babylon but she through her wilfulness doth rest uncured let them consider into what straits the Church might drive it self in being guided by this their counsel Their axiom is that the sound believing Church of Jesus Christ may not be like Heretical Churches in any of those indifferent things which men make choyce of and do not take by prescript appointment of the Word of God In the word of God the use of Bread is prescribed as a thing without which the Eucharist may not be celebrated but as for the kind of Bread it is not denyed to be a thing indifferent Being indifferent of it self we are by this axiom of theirs to avoid the use of unleavened Bread in their Sacrament because such bread the Church of Rome being Heretical useth But doth not the self-same axiom bar us even from leavened Bread also which the Church of the Grecians useth the opinions whereof are in a number of things the same for which we condemn the Church of Rome and in some things erroneous where the Church of Rome is acknowledged to be found as namely in the Article of the Holy Ghosts proceeding and lest here they should say that because the Greek Church is farther off and the Church of Rome nearer we are in that respect rather to use that which the Church of Rome useth not let them imagine a reformed Church in the City of Venice where a Greek Church and Popish both are And when both these are equally near let them consider what the third shall do Without leavened or unleavened Bread it can have no Sacrament the word of God doth tye it to neither and their axiom doth exclude it from both If this constrain them as it must to grant that their axiom is not to take any place save in those things only where the Church hath larger scope it resteth that they search out some stronger reason then they have as yet alledged otherwise they constrain not us to think that the Church is tyed unto any such rule axiom not then when she hath the widest field to walk in and the greate store of choyce 11. Against such Ceremonies generally as are the same in the Church of England and of Rome we see what hath been hitherto alledged Albeit therefore we do not find the one Churches having of such things to be sufficient cause why the other should not have them Nevertheless in case it may be proved that amongst the number of Rites and Orders common unto both there are Particulars the use whereof is utterly unlawful in regard of some special bad and noysom quality there is no doubt but we ought to relinquish such Rites and Orders what freedom soever we have to retain the other still As therefore we have heard their general exception against all those things which being not commanded in the Word of God were first received in the Church of Rome and from thence have been derived into ours so it followeth that now we proceed unto certain kinds of them as being excepted against not only for that they are in the Church of Rome but are besides either Iewish or abused unto Idolatry and so grown scandalous The Church of Rome they say being ashamed of the simplicity of the Gospel did almost out of all Religions take whatsoever had any fair and gorgeous shew borrowing in that respect from the Jews sundry of their abolished Ceremonies Thus by foolish and tidiculous imitation all their Massing furniture almost they took from the Law lest having an Altar and a Priest they should want Vestments for their Stage so that whatsoever we have in common with the Church of Rome if the same be of this kind we ought to remove it Constantine the Emperor speaking of the keeping of the Feast of Easter saith That it is an unworthy thing to have any thing common with that most spiteful company of the Iews And a little after he saith That it is most absurd and against reason that the Iews should vannâ— and glory that the Christians could not keep those things without their Doctrine And in another place it is said after this sort It is convenient so to order the matter that we have nothing common with that Nation This Councel of Laodicea which was afterward confirmed by the first General Councel decreed that the Christians should not take anleavened Briad of the Iews or communicate with their impiety For the easier manifestation of truth in this point two things there are which must be considered namely the causes wherefore the Church should decline from Iewish Ceremonies and how far it ought so to do One cause is that the Jews were the deadliest and spitefullest Enemies of Christianity that were in the world and in this respect their Orders so far forth to be shunned as we have already set down in handling the Matter of Heathenish Ceremonies For no enemies being so venemous against Christ as Jews they were of all other most odious and by that mean least to be used as â—it Church Patterns for Imitation Another cause is the Solemn Abrogation of the Jews Ordinances which Ordinances for us to resume were to chock our Lord himself which hath disannulled them But how far this second cause doth extend it is not on all sides fully agreed upon And touching those things whereunto it reacheth not although there be small cause wherefore the Church should frame it self to the Jews example in respect of their persons which are most hateful yet God himself having been the Author of their Laws herein they are notwithstanding the former consideration still worthy to be honored and to be followed above others as much as the state of things will bear Jewish Ordinances had some things Natural and of the perperuity of those things no man doubteth That which was Positive we likewise know to have been by the coming of Christ partly necessary not to be kept and partly indifferent to be kept or not Of the former kinde Circumcision and Sacrifice were For this point Stephen was accused and the Evidence which
meaneth Offence or scandal if I be not deceived saith he is when the example not of a good but of an evil thing doth set men forward to â—â—â— sin Good things can scandalize none save onely evil mindes Good things have no scandalizing Nature in them Yet that which is of it own nature either good or at least not evil may by some accident become scandalous at certain times and in certain places and to certain men the open use thereof nevertheless being otherwise without danger The very Nature of some Rites and Ceremonies therefore is scandalous as it was in a number of those which the Manichees did use and is in all such as the Law of God doth forbid Some are offensive onely through the Agreement of Men to use them unto evil and not else as the most of those things indifferent which the Heathens did to the service of their false gods which another in heart condemning their Idolatry could not do with them in shew and token of Approbation without being guilty of scandal given Ceremonies of this kinde are either devised at the first unto evil as the Eunomian Hereticks in dishonor of the Blessed Trinity brought in the laying on of Water but once to cross the custom of the Church which in Baptism did it thrice Or else having had a profitable use they are afterwards interpreted and wrested to the contrary as those Hereticks which held the Trinity to be three distinct not Persons but Natures abused the Ceremony of three times laying on Water in Baptism unto the strengthning of their Heresie The Element of Water is in Baptism necessary once to lay it on or twice is indifferent For which cause Gregory making mention thereof saith To dive an Insant either thrice or but once in Baptism can be no way a thing reproveable seeing that both in three times washing the Trinity of Persons and in one the Unity of the Godhead may be signified So that of these two Ceremonies neither being hurtful in it self both may serve unto good purpose yet one was devised and the other converted unto evil Now whereas in the Church of Rome certain Ceremonies are said to have been shamefully abused unto evil as the ceremony of Crossing at Baptism of Kneeling at the Eucharist of using Wafer-Cakes and such like the question is Whether for remedy of that evil wherein such Ceremonies have been scandalous and perhaps may be still unto some even amongst ourselves whom the presence and sight of them may confirm in that â—ormer error whereto they served in times past they are of necessity to be removed Are these or any other Ceremonies we have common with the Church of Rome scandalous and wicked in their very nature This no man objecteth Are any such as have been polluted from their very birth and instituted even at the first unto that thing which is evil That which hath been ordained impiously at the first may wear out that impiety in tract of time and then what doth let but that the use thereof may stand without offence The names of our Moneths and of our Days we are not ignorant from whence they came and with what dishonor unto God they are said to have been devised at the first What could be spoken against any thing more effectual to stir hatred then that which sometime the Antient Fathers in this case speak Yet those very names are at this day in use throughout Christendom without hurt or scandal to any Clear and manifest it is that things devised by Hereticks yea devised of a very heretical purpose even against Religion and at their first devising worthy to have been withstood may in time grow meet to be kept as that Custom the inventers whereof were the Eunomian Hereticks So that customs once established and confirmed by long use being presently without harm are not in regard of their corrupt original to be held scandalous But concerning those our Ceremonies which they reckon for most Popish they are not able to avouch that any of them was otherwise instituted then unto good yea so used at the first It followeth then that they all are such as having served to good purpose were afterwards converted unto the contrary And sith it is not so much as objected against us that we retain together with them the evil wherewith they have been infected in the Church of Rome I would demand Who they are whom we scandalize by using harmless things unto that good end for which they were first instituted Amongst our selves that agree in the approbation of this kinde of good use no man will say that one of us is offensive and scandalous unto another As for the favorers of the Church of Rome they know how far we herein differ and dissent from them which thing neither we conceal and they by their publick writings also profess daily how much it grieveth them So that of them there will not many rise up against us as witnesses unto the Inditement of Scandal whereby we might be condemned and cast as having strengthned them in that evil wherewith they pollute themselves in the use of the same Ceremonies And concerning such as withstand the Church of England herein and hate it because it doth not sufficiently seem to hate Rome they I hope are far enough from being by this mean drawn to any kinde of Popish Error The multitude therefore of them unto whom we are scandalous through the use of abused Ceremonies is not so apparent that it can justly be said in general of any one sort of men or other we cause them to offend If it be so that now or then some few are espied who having been accustomed heretofore to the Rites and Ceremonies of the Church of Rome are not so scoured of their former rust as to forsake their antient perswasion which they have had howsoever they frame themselves to outward obedience of Laws and Orders because such may misconster the meaning of our Ceremonies and so take them as though they were in every sort the same they have been Shall this be thought a reason sufficient whereon to conclude that some Law must necessarily be made to abolish all such Ceremonies They answer that there is no Law of God which doth binde us to retain them And St. Pauls rule is that in those things from which without hurt we may lawfully abstain we should frame the usage of our Liberty with regard to the weakness and imbecillity of our Brethren Wherefore unto them which stood upon their own defence saying All things are lawful unto me he replieth But all things are not expedient in regard of others All things are clean all Meats are lawful but evil unto that man that eateth offensively If for thy meats sake thy Brother be grieved thou walkest no longer according to Charity Destroy not him with thy meat for whom Christ died Dissolve not for foods sake the work of God We that are strong must bear the imbecillity of
men as contrariwise the ground of all our happiness and the seed of whatsoever perfect vertue groweth from us is a right opinion touching things divine this kind of knowledge we may justly set down for the first and chiefest thing which God imparteth unto his People and our duty of receiving this at his merciful hands for the first of those religious Offices wherewith we publickly honour him on earth For the instruction therefore of all sorts of men to eternal life it is necessary that the sacred and saving truth of God be openly published unto them Which open publication of heavenly mysteries is by an excellency termed preaching For otherwise there is not any thing publickly notified but we may in that respect rightly and properly say it is preached So that when the School of God doth use it as a word of Art we are accordingly to understand it with restraint to such special matter as that School is accustomed to publish We find not in the World any People that have lived altogether without Religion And yet this duty of Religion which provideth that publickly all sorts of men may be instructed in the fear of God is to the Church of God and hath been always so peculiar that none of the Heathens how curious soever in searching out all kinds of outward Ceremonies like to ours could ever once so much as endeavour to resemble herein the Churches care for the endless good of her Children Ways of teaching there have been sundry always usual in Gods Church For the first introduction of youth to the knowledge of God the Jews even till this day have their Catechisms With Religion it fareth as with other Sciences the first delivery of the Elements thereof must for like consideration be framed according to the weak and slender capacity of young Beginners unto which manner of teaching Principles in Christianity the Apostle in the sixth to the Hebrews is himself understood to allude For this cause therefore as the Decalogue of Moses declareth summarily those things which we ought to do the Prayer of our Lord whatsoever we should request or desire so either by the Apostles or at the least-wise out of their Writings we have the substance of Christian Belief compendiously drawn into few and short Articles to the end that the weakness of no mans wit might either hinder altogether the knowledge or excuse the utter ignorance of needful things Such as were trained up in these Rudiments and were so made fit to be afterward by Baptism received into the Church the Fathers usually in their Writings do term Hearers as having no farther communion or fellowship with the Church than only this that they were admitted to hear the Principles of Christian Faith made plain unto them Catechizing may be in Schools it may be in private Families But when we make it a kind of Preaching we mean always the publick performance thereof in the open hearing of men because things are preached not in that they are taught but in that they are published 19. Moses and the Prophets Christ and his Apostles were in their times all Preachers of Gods Truth some by Word some by Writing some by both This they did partly as faithful Witnesses making meer relation what God himself had revealed unto them and partly as careful Expounders Teachers Perswaders thereof The Church in like case Preacheth still first publishing by way of Testimony or relation the truth which from them she hath received even in such sort as it was received written in the sacred volumes of Scripture Secondly by way of explication discovering the mysteries which lye hid therein The Church as a Witness preacheth his meer revealed Truth by reading publickly the Sacred Scripture So that a second kind of preaching is the reading of holy Writ For thus we may the boldlier speak being strengthened with the examples of so reverend a Prelate as saith that Moses from the time of antient Generations and Ages long since past had amongst the Cities of the very Gentiles them that preached him in that he was read every Sabbath day For so of necessity it must be meant in as much as we know that the Jews have alwayes had their weekly Readings of the Law of Moses but that they always had in like manner their weekly Sermons upon some part of the Law of Moses we no where find Howbeit still we must here remember that the Church by her publick reading of the Book of God preacheth only as a Witness Now the principal thing required in a Witness is Fidelity Wherefore as we cannot excuse that Church which either through corrupt translations of Scripture delivereth instead of divine Speeches any thing repugnant unto that which God speaketh or through falsified additions proposeth that to the people of God as Scripture which is in truth no Scripture So the blame which in both these respects hath been laid upon the Church of England is surely altogether without cause Touching Translations of Holy Scripture albeit we may not disallow of their painful travels herein who strictly have tyed themselves to the very Original letter yet the judgment of the Church as we see by the practise of all Nations Greeks Latines Persians Syrians AEthiopians Arabians hath been ever That the fittest for publick Audience are such as following a middle course between the rigor of literal Translators and the liberty of Paraphrasts do with greatest shortness and plainness deliver the meaning of the Holy Ghost Which being a labour of so great difficulty the exact performance thereof we may rather wish than look for So that except between the words of translation and the mind of Scripture it self there be Contradiction every little difference should not seem an intolerable blemish necessarily to be spunged out Whereas therefore the Prophet David in a certain Psalm doth say concerning Moses and Aaron that they were obedient to the word of God and in the self-same place â—or allowed Translation saith they were not obedient we are for this cause challenged as manifest Gain-sayers of Scripture even in that which we read for Scripture unto the people But for as much as words are resemblances of that which the mind of the Speaker conceiveth and Conceits are Images representing that which is spoken of it followeth that they who will judge of words should have recourse to the things themselves from whence they rise In setting down that Miracle at the sight whereof Peter fell down astonished before the feet of Jesus and cryed Depart Lord I am a Sinner the Evangelist St. Luke saith the store of the Fish which they took was such that the Net they took it in brake and the Ships which they loaded therewith sunk St. Iohn recording the like Miracle saith That albeit the Fishes in number were so many yet the Net with so great a weight was not broken Suppose they had written both of one Miracle Although there be in their
finde by daily experience that those calamities may be nearest at hand readiest to break in suddenly upon us which we in regard of times or circumstances may imagine to be farthest off Or if they do not indeed approach yet such miseries as being present all men are apt to bewail with tears the wise by their Prayers should rather prevent Finally if we for our selves had a priviledge of immunity doth not true Christian Charity require that whatsoever any part of the World yea any one of all our Brethren elswhere doth either suffer or fear the same we account as our own burthen What one Petition is there found in the whole Litany whereof we shall ever be able at any time to say That no man living needeth the grace or benefit therein craved at Gods hands I am not able to express how much it doth grieve me that things of Principal Excellency should be thus bitten at by men whom God hath endued with graces both of Wit and Learning for better purposes We have from the Apostles of our Lord Jesus Christ received that brief Confession of Faith which hath been always a badge of the Church a mark whereby to discern Christian men from Infidels and Jews This Faith received from the Apostles and their Disciples saith Ireneus the Church though dispersed throughout the World doth notwithstanding keep as safe as if it dwels within the Walls of some one house and as uniformly hold as if it had but one onely heart and soul this as consonantly it Preacheth teacheth and delivereth as if but one tongue did speak for all At one Sun shineth to the whole World so there is no Faith but this one published the brightness whereof must enlighten all that come to the knowledge of the Truth This rule saith Tertullian Christ did institute the stream and current of this rule hath gone as far it hath continued as long as the very promulgation of the Gospel Under Constantine the Emperor about Three hundred years and upward after Christ Arius a Priest in the Church of Alexandria a suttle-witted and a marvellous fair-spoken man but discontented that one should be placed before him in honor whose superior he thought himself in desert became through envy and stomack prone unto contradiction and hold to broach at the length that Heresie wherein the Deity of our Lord Jesus Christ contained but not opened in the former Creed the coequality and coeternity of the Son with the Father was denied Being for this impiety deprived of his place by the Bishop of the same Church the punishment which should have reformed him did but increase his obstinacy and give him occasion of laboring with greater earnestness elswhere to intangle unwary mindes with the snares of his damnable opinion Arius in short time had won to himself a number both of Followers and of great Defenders whereupon much disquietness on all sides ensued The Emperor to reduce the Church of Christ unto the Unity of sound Belief when other means whereof tryal was first made took no effect gathered that famous Assembly of Three hundred and eighteen Bishops in the Council of Nice where besides order taken for many things which seemed to need redress there was with common consent for the setling of all mens mindes that other Confession of Faith set down which we call the Nicene Creed whereunto the Arians themselves which were present subscribed also not that they meant sincerely and indeed to forsake their error but onely to escape deprivation and exile which they saw they could not avoid openly persisting in their former opinions when the greater part had concluded against them and that with the Emperors Royal Assent Reserving therefore themselves unto future opportunities and knowing that it would not boot them to stir again in a matter so composed unless they could draw the Emperor first and by his means the chiefest Bishops unto their part till Constantines death and somewhat after they always professed love and zeal to the Nicene Faith yet ceased not in the mean while to strengthen that part which in heart they favored and to infest by all means under colour of other quarrels their greatest Adversaries in this cause Amongst them Athanasius especially whom by the space of Forty six years from the time of his Consecration to succeed Alexander Archbishop in the Church of Alexandria till the last hour of his life in this World they never suffered to enjoy the comfort of a peaceable day The heart of Constantine stoln from him Constantius Constantines Successor his scourge and torment by all the ways that malice armed with Soveraign Authority could devise and use Under Iulian no rest given him and in the days of Valentinian as little Crimes there were laid to his charge many the least whereof being just had bereaved him of estimation and credit with men while the World standeth His Judges evermore the self-same men by whom his accusers were suborned Yet the issue always on their part shame on his triumph Those Bishops and Prelates who should have accounted his cause theirs and could not many of them but with bleeding hearts and with watred checks behold a person of so great place and worth constrained to endure so soul indignities were sure by bewraying their affection towards him to bring upon themselves those molestations whereby if they would not be drawn to seem his Adversaries yet others should be taught how unsafe it was to continue his friends Whereupon it came to pass in the end that very few excepted all became subject to the sway of time other odds there was none amongst them saving onely that some fell sooner away some latter from the soundness of Belief some were Leaders in the Host of Impiety and the rest as common Soldiers either yielding through fear or brought under with penury or by flattery ensnared or else beguiled through simplicity which is the fairest excuse that well may be made for them Yes that which all men did wonder at Osius the ancientest Bishop that Christendom then had the most forward in defence of the Catholick cause and of the contrary part most feared that very Osius with whose hand the Nicene Creed it self was set down and framed for the whole Christian World to subscribe unto so far yielded in the end as even with the same hand to ratifie the Arians Confession a thing which they neither hoped to see nor the other part ever feared till with amazement they saw it done Both were perswaded that although there had been for Osius no way but either presently subscribe or die his answer and choice would have been the same that Eleazars was It doth not become our age to dissemble whereby many young persons might think that Osius in hundred years old and upward were now gone to another Religion and so through mine hypocrisie for a little time of transitory life they might be deceived by me and I procure malediction and reproach to my old
at all times edefie and instruct the attentive hearer Or is our Faith in the Blessed Trinity a matter needless to be so oftentimes mentioned and opened in the principal part of that duty which we ow to God our Publick Prayer Hath the Church of Christ from the first beginning by a secret Universal Instinct of Gods good Spirit always tied it self to end neither Sermon nor almost any speech of moment which hath concerned Matters of God without some special words of honor and glory to that Trinity which we all adore and is the like conclusion of Psalms become now at length an eye-sore or a galling to their ears that hear it Those flames of Arianism they say are quenched which were the cause why the Church devised in such sort to confess and praise the glorious Deity of the Son of God Seeing therefore the sore is whole why retain we as yet the Plaâ—ster When the cause why any thing was ordained doth once cease the thing it self should cease with it that the Church being eased of unprofitable labors needful offices may the better be attended For the doing of things unnecessary is many times the cause why the most necessary are not done But in this case so to reason will not serve their turns For first the ground whereupon they build is not certainly their own but with special limitations Few things are so restrained to any one end or purpose that the same being extinct they should forthwith utterly become frustrate Wisdom may have framed one and the same thing to serve commodiously for divers ends and of those ends any one be sufficient cause for continuance though the rest have ceased even as the Tongue which Nature hath given us for an Instrument of speech is not idle in dumb persons because it also serveth for taste Again if time have worn out or any other mean altogether taken away what was first intended uses not thought upon before may afterwards spring up and be reasonable causes of retaining that which other considerations did formerly procure to be instituted And it cometh sometime to pass that a thing unnecessary in it self as touching the whole direct purpose whereto it was meant or can be applied doth notwithstanding appear convenient to be still held even without use lest by reason of that coherence which it hath with somewhat most necessary the removal of the one should indamage the other And therefore men which have clean lost the possibility of sight keep still their eyes nevertheless in the place where Nature set them As for these two Branches whereof our Question groweth Arianism was indeed some occasion of the one but a cause of neither much less the onely intire cause of both For albeit conflict with Arians brought forth the occasion of writing that Creed which long after was made a part of the Church Liturgy as Hymns and Sentences of Glory were a part thereof before yet cause sufficient there is why both should remain in use the one as a most Divine Explication of the chiefest Articles of our Christian Belief the other as an Heavenly acclamation of joyful applause to his praises in whom we believe neither the one nor the other unworthy to he heard souncing as they are in the Church of Christ whether Arianism live or die Against which poyson likewise if we think that the Church at this day needeth not those ancient preservatives which ages before us were so glad to use we deceive our selves greatly The Weeds of Heresie being grown unto such ripeness as that was do even in the very cutting down scatter oftentimes those seeds which for a while lie unseen and buried in the Earth but afterward freshly spring up again no less pernicious them at the first Which thing they very well know and I doubt not will easily confess who live to their great both toil and grief where the blasphemies of Arians Samosatenians Tritheits Eutychians and Maccdonians are renewed by them who to hatch their Heresie have chosen those Churches as fittest Nests where Athanasius Creed is not heard by them I say renewed who following the course of extream Reformation were wont in the pride of their own proceedings to glory that whereas Luther did but blow away the Roof and Zwinglius batter but the Walls of Popish Superstition the last and hardest work of all remained which was to raze up the very ground and foundation of Popery that doctrine concerning the Deity of Christ which Satanasius for so it pleased those impious forsaken Miscreants to speak hath in this memorable Creed explained So manifestly true is that which one of the Ancients hath concerning Arianism Mortuis authoribus hujus veneni scelerata tamen eorum doctrina non moritur The Authors of this venom being dead and gone their wicked doctrine notwithstanding continueth 43. Amongst the heaps of these Excesses and Superfluities there is espied the want of a principal part of duty There are no thanksgivings for the benefits for which there are Petitions in our Book of Prayer This they have thought a point material to be objected Neither may we take it in evil part to be admonished what special duties of thankfulness we ow to that merciful God for whose unspeakable Graces the onely requital which we are able to make is a true hearty and sincere acknowledgement how precious we esteem such benefits received and how infinite in goodness the Author from whom they come But that to every Petition we make for things needful there should be some answerable sentence of thanks provided particularly to follow such requests obtained either it is not a matter so requisite as they pretend or if it be wherefore have they not then in such order framed their own Book of Common Prayer Why hath our Lord and Saviour taught us a form of Prayer containing so many Petitions of those things which we want and not delivered in like sort as many several forms of Thanksgiving to serve when any thing we pray for is granted What answer soever they can reasonably make unto these demands the same shall discover unto them how causeless a censure it is that there are not in our Book Thanksgivings for all the benefits forwhiâ—â— there are Petitions For concerning the Blessings of God whether they tend unto this life or the life to come there is great cause why we should delight more if giving thanks then in making requests for them in as much as the one hath penâ—â—veness and fear the other always joy annexed the one belongeth unto them that seek the other unto them that have found happiness they that pray do but yet sow they that give thanks declare they have reaped Howbeit because there are so many Graces whereof we stand in continual need Graces for which we may not cease daily and hourly to sue Graces which are in bestowing always but never come to be sully had in this present life and therefore when all things here have an end
therefore That to save the World it was of necessity the Son of God should be thus incarnate and that God should so be in Christ as hath been declared 55. Having thus far proceeded in speech concerning the Person of Jesus Christ his two Natures their Conjunction that which he either is or doth in respect of both and that which the one receiveth from the other sith God in Christ is generally the Medicine which doth cure the World and Christ in as is that Receipt of the same Medicine whereby we are every one particularly cured In as much as Christs Incarnation and Passion can be available to no mans good which is not made partaker of Christ neither can we participate him without his Presence we are briefly to consider how Christ is present to the end it may thereby better appear how we are made partakers of Christ both otherwise and in the Sacraments themselves All things are in such sort divided into Finite and Infinite that no one Substance Nature or Quality can be possibly capable of both The World and all things in the World are stinted all effects that proceed from them all the powers and abilities whereby they work whatsoever they do whatsoever they may and whatsoever they are is limited Which limitation of each Creature is both the perfection and also the perservation thereof Measure is that which perfecteth all things because every thing is for some end neither can that thing be available to any end which is not proportionable thereunto and to proportion as well excesses as defects are opposite Again for as much as nothing doth perish but onely through excess or defect of that the due proportioned measure whereof doth give perfection it followeth That measure is likewise the preservation of all things Out of which premises we may conclude not onely that nothing created can possibly be unlimited or can receive any such accident quality or property as may really make it infinite for then should it cease to be a Creature but also that every Creatures limitation is according to his own kinde and therefore as oft as we note in them any thing above their kinde it argueth That the same is not properly theirs but groweth in them from a cause more powerful then they are Such as the Substance of each thing is such is also the Presence thereof Impossible it is that God should withdraw his Presence from any thing because the very Substance of God is infinite He filleth Heaven and Earth although he take up no room in either because his Substance is immaterial pure and of us in this World so incomprehensible that albeit an part of us be ever absent from him who is present whole unto every particular thing yet his Presence with us we no way discern further then onely that God is present which partly by Reason and more perfectly by Faith we know to be firm and certain Seeing therefore that Presence every where is the sequel of an infinite and incomprehensible Substance for what can be every where but that which can no where be comprehended To enquire whether Christ be every where is to enquire of a Natural Property a Property that cleaveth to the Deity of Christ. Which Deity being common unto him with none but onely the Father and the Holy Ghost it followeth That nothing of Christ which is limited that nothing created that neither the Soul nor the Body of Christ and consequently not Christ as Man or Christ according to his Humane Nature can possibly be every where present because those phrases of Limitation and Restraint do either point out the principal subject whereunto every such attribute adhereth or else they intimate the radical cause out of which it groweth For example when we say that Christ as Man or according to his Humane Nature suffered death we show what Nature was the proper subject of Mortality When we say that as God or according to his Deity he conquered Death we declare his Deity to have been the cause by force and vertue whereof lie raised himself from the Grave But neither is the Manhood of Christ that subject whereunto Universal Presence agreeth neither is it the cause original by force whereof his Person is enabled to be everywhere present Wherefore Christ is essentially present with all things in that he is very God but not present with all things as Man because Manhood and the parts thereof can neither be the cause nor the true subject of such Presence Notwithstanding somewhat more plainly to shew a true immediate reason wherefore the Manhood of Christ can neither be every where present nor cause the Person of Christ so to be we acknowledge that of St. Augustine concerning Christ most true In that he is personally the Word he created all things in that he it naturally Man he himself is created of God and it doth not appear that any one Creature hath Power to be present withall Creatures Whereupon nevertheless it will not follow that Christ cannot therefore be thus present because he is himself a Creature for as much as onely Infinite Presence is that which cannot possibly stand with the Essence or Being of any Creature as for Presence with all things that are sith the whole Race Mass and Body of them is Finite Christ by being a Creature is not in that respect excluded from possibility of Presence with them That which excludeth him therefore as Man from so great largeness of Presence is onely his being Man a Creature of this particular kinde whereunto the God of Nature hath set those bounds of restraint and limitation beyond which to attribute unto it any thing more then a Creature of that sort can admit were to give it another Nature to make it a Creature of some other kinde then in truth it is Furthermore if Christ in that he is Man be every where present seeing this cometh not by the Nature of Manhood it self there is no other way how it should grow but either by the Grace of Union with Deity or by the Grace of Unction received from Deity It hath been already sufficiently proved that by Force of Union the Properties of both Natures are imparted to the Person onely in whom they are and not what belongeth to the one Nature really conveyed or translated into the other it hath been likewise proved That Natures united in Christ continue the very same which they are where they are not united And concerning the Grace of Unction wherein are contained the Gifts and Vertues which Christ as Man hath above men they make him Really and Habitually a Man more excellent then we are they take not from him the Nature and Substance that we have they cause not his Soul nor Body to be of another kinde then ours is Supernatural endowments are an advancement they are no extinguishment of that Nature whereto they are given The Substance of the Body of Christ hath no Presence neither can have but onely
assenteth unto all things and from the other nothing which Deity doth work is hid so that by knowledge and assent the Soul of Christ is present with all things which the Deity of Christ worketh And even the Body of Christ it self although the definite limitation thereof be most sensible doth notwithstanding admit in some sort a kinde of infinite and unlimited Presence likewise For his Body being a part of that Nature which whole Nature is presently joyned unto Deity wheresoever Deity is it followeth That his Bodily Substance hath every where a Presence of true Conjunction with Deity And for as much as it is by vertue of that Conjunction made the Body of the Son of God by whom also it was made a Sacrifice for the sins of the whole World this giveth it a presence of force and efficacy throughout all Generations of Men. Albeit therefore nothing be actually infinite in substance but God onely in that he is God nevertheless as every number is infinite by possibility of addition and every line by possibility of extension infinite so there is no stint which can be set to the value or merit of the Sacrificed Body of Christ it hath no measured certainty of limits bounds of efficacy unto life it knoweth none but is also it self infinite in possibility of Application Which things indifferently every way considered that gracious promise of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ concerning presence with his to the very end of the World I see no cause but that we may well and safely interpret he doth perform both as God by essential presence of Deity and as Man in that order sense and meaning which hath been shewed 56. We have hitherto spoken of the Person and of the presence of Christ. Participation is that mutual inward hold which Christ hath of us and we of him in such sort that each possesseth other by way of special interest property and inherent copulation For plainer explication whereof we may from that which hath been before sufficiently proved assume to our purpose these two Principles That every original cause imparteth it self unto those things which come of it and whatsoever taketh Being from any other the same is after a sort in that which giveth it Being It followeth hereupon that the Son of God being Light of Light must needs be also Light in Light The Persons of the Godhead by reason of the Unity of their substance do as necessarily remain one within another as they are of necessity to be distinguished one from another because two are the issue of one and one the Off-spring of the other two onely of three one not growing out of any other And sith they all are but one God in number one indivisible Essence or Substance their distinction cannot possibly admit Separation For how should that subsist solitarily by it self which hath no substance but individually the very same whereby others subsist with it seeing that the Multiplication of Substances in particular is necessarily required to make those things subsist apart which have the self-same General Nature and the Persons of that Trinity are not three particular Substances to whom one General Nature is common but three that subsist by one substance which it self is Particular yet they all three have it and their several ways of having it are that which maketh their Personal distinction The Father therefore is in the Son and the Son in him they both in the Spirit and the Spirit in both them So that the Fathers first Off-spring which is the Son remaineth eternally in the Father the Father eternally also in the Son no way severed or divided by reason of the sole and single Unity of their Substance The Son in the Father as Light in that Light out of which it floweth without separation the Father in the Son as Light in that Light which it causeth and leaveth not And because in this respect his eternal Being is of the Father which eternal Being is his Life therefore he by the Father liveth Again sith all things do accordingly love their Off-spring as themselves are more or less contained in it he which is thus the onely begotten must needs be in this degree the onely Beloved of the Father He therefore which is in the Father by eternal Derivation of Being and Life from him must needs be in him through an eternal Affection of love His Incarnation causeth him also as man to be now in the Father and the Father to be in him For in that he is Man he receiveth Life from the Father as from the Fountain of that Ever-living Deity which in the Person of the Word hath combined it self with Manhood and doth thereunto impart such life as to no other Creature besides him is communicated In which consideration likewise the love of the Father towards him is more then it can be towards any other neither can any attain unto that perfection of love which he beareth towards his Heavenly Father Wherefore God is not so in any nor any so in God as Christ whether we consider him as the Personal Word of God or as the Natural Son of Man All other things that are of God have God in them and he them in himself likewise Yet because their Substance and his wholly differeth their coherence and communion either with him or amongst themselves is in no sort like unto that before mentioned God hath his influence into the very Essence of all things without which influence of Deity supporting them their utter annihilation could not chuse but follow Of him all things have both received their first Being and their continuance to be that which they are All things are therefore partakers of God they are his Off-spring his influence is in them and the Personal Wisdom of God is for that very cause said to excel in nimbleness or agility to pierce into all intellectual pure and subtile spirits to go through all and to reach unto every thing which is Otherwise how should the same Wisdom be that which supporteth beareth up and sustaineth all Whatsoever God doth work the hands of all three Persons are joyntly and equally in it according to the order of that connexion whereby they each depend upon other And therefore albeit in that respect the Father be first the Son next the Spirit last and consequently nearest unto every effect which groweth from all three nevertheless they all being of one Essence are likewise all of one Efficacy Dare any man unless he be ignorant altogether how inseparable the Persons of the Trinity are perswade himself that every of them may have their sole and several Possessions or that we being not partakers of all can have fellowship with any one The Father as Goodness the Son as Wisdom the Holy Ghost as Power do all concur in every particular outwardly issuing from that one onely glorious Deity which they all are For that which moveth God to work is Goodness and
that which ordereth his Work is Wisdom and that which perfecteth his Work is Power All things which God in their times and seasons hath brought forth were eternally and before all times in God as a work unbegun is in the Artificer which afterward bringeth it unto effect Therefore whatsoever we do behold now in this present World it was inwrapped within the Bowels of Divine Mercy written in the Book of Eternal Wisdom and held in the hands of Omnipotent Power the first Foundations of the World being as yet unlaid So that all things which God hath made are in that respect the Off-spring of God they are in him as effects in their highest cause he likewise actually is in them the assistance and influence of his Deity is their life Let hereunto saving efficacy be added and it bringeth forth a special Off-spring amongst men containing them to whom God hath himself given the gracious and amiable name of Sons We are by Nature the Sons of Adam When God created Adam he created us and as many as are descended from Adam have in themselves the Root out of which they spring The Sons of God we neither are all nor any one of us otherwise then onely by grace and favor The Sons of God have Gods own Natural Son as a second Adam from Heaven whose Race and Progeny they are by Spiritual and Heavenly Birth God therefore loving eternally his Son he must needs eternally in him have loved and preferred before all others them which are spiritually sithence descended and sprung out of him These were in God as in their Saviour and not as in their Creator onely It was the purpose of his saving Goodness his saving Wisdom and his saving Power which inclined it self towards them They which thus were in God eternally by their intended admission to life have by vocation or adoption God actually now in them as the Artificer is in the Work which his hand doth presently frame Life as all other gifts and benefits groweth originally from the Father and cometh not to us but by the Son nor by the Son to any of us in particular but through the Spirit For this cause the Apostle wisheth to the Church of Corinth The Grace of our Lord Jesus Christ and the Love of God and the Fellowship of the Holy Ghost Which three St. Peter comprehendeth in one The participation of Divine Nature We are therefore in God through Christ eternally according to that intent and purpose whereby we are chosen to be made his in this present World before the World it self was made We are in God through the knowledge which is had of us and the love which is born towards us from everlasting But in God we actually are no longer then onely from the time of our actual Adoption into the Body of his true Church into the Fellowship of his Children For his Church he knoweth and loveth so that they which are in the Church are thereby known to be in him Our being in Christ by Eternal fore-knowledge saveth us not without our Actual and Real Adoption into the Fellowship of his Saints in this present World For in him we actually are by our actual incorporation into that Society which hath him for their Head and doth make together with him one Body he and they in that respect having one name for which cause by vertue of this Mystical Conjunction we are of him and in him even as though our very flesh and bones should be made continuate with his We are in Christ because he knoweth and loveth us even as parts of himself No man actually is in him but they in whom he actually is For he which hath not the Son of God hath not Life I am the Vine and ye are the Branches He which abideth in me and I in him the same bringeth forth much Fruit but the Branch severed from the Vine withereth We are therefore adopted Sons of God to Eternal Life by Participation of the onely begotten Son of God whose Life is the Well-spring and cause of ours It is too cold an interpretation whereby some men expound our Being in Christ to import nothing else but onely That the self-same Nature which maketh us to be Men is in him and maketh him Man as we are For what man in the World is there which hath not so far forth communion with Jesus Christ It is not this that can sustain the weight of such sentences as speak of the Mystery of our Coherence with Jesus Christ. The Church is in Christ as Eve was in Adam Yea by Grace we are every of us in Christ and in his Church and in his Church as by Nature we were in those our first Parents God made Eve of the Rib of Adam And his Church he frameth out of the very Flesh the very wounded and bleeding side of the Son of Man His Body crucified and his Blood shed for the Life of the World are the true Elements of that Heavenly Being which maketh us such as himself is of whom we come For which cause the words of Adam may be fitly the words of Christ concerning his Church Flesh of my Flesh and Bone of my Bones a true Nature extract out of my own Body So that in him even according to his Manhood we according to our Heavenly Being are as Branches in that Root out of which they grow To all things he is Life and to men Light as the Son of God to the Church both Life and Light Eternal by being made the Son of Man for us and by being in us a Saviour whether we respect him as God or as Man Adam is in us as an original cause of our Nature and of that corruption of Nature which causeth death Christ as the cause original of Restauration to Life The person of Adam is not in us but his nature and the corruption of his nature derived into all men by Propagation Christ having Adams nature as we have but incorrupt deriveth not nature but incorruption and that immediately from his own Person into all that belong unto him As therefore we are really partakers of the body of Sin and Death received from Adam so except we be truly partakers of Christ and as really possessed of his Spirit all we speak of Eternal Life is but a dream That which quickneth us is the Spirit of the Second Adam and his Flesh that wherewith he quickneth That which in him made our Nature uncorrupt was the Union of his Deity with our Nature And in that respect the sentence of Death and Condemnation which onely taketh hold upon sinful flesh could no way possibly extend unto him This caused his voluntary death for others to prevail with God and to have the force of an Expiatory Sacrifice The Blood of Christ as the Apostle witnesseth doth therefore take away sin because through the Eternal Spirit he offered himself unto God without spot That
Life in his Body and Blood by means of this Sacrament Wherefore should the World continue still distracted and rent with so manifold Contentions when there remaineth now no Controversie saving onely about the subject where Christ is Yea even in this point no side denieth but that the Soul of Man is the receptacle of Christs presence Whereby the question is yet driven to a narrower issue nor doth any thing rest doubtful but this Whether when the Sacrament is administred Christ be whole within Man onely or else his Body and Blood be also externally seated in the very Consecrated Elements themselves Which opinion they that defend are driven either to Consubstantiate and Incorporate Christ with Elements Sacramental or to Transubstantiate and change their substance into his and so the one to hold him really but invisibly moulded up with substance of those Elements the other to hide him under the onely visible shew of Bread and Wine the substance whereof as they imagine is abolished and his succeeded in the same room All things considered and compared with that success which Truth hath hitherto had by so bitter Conflicts with Errors in this point Shall I wish that men would more give themselves to meditate with silence what we have by the Sacrament and less to dispute of the manner how If any man suppose that this were too great stupidity and dulness let us see whether the Apostles of our Lord themselves have not done the like It appeareth by many examples that they of their own disposition were very scrupulous and inquisitive yea in other cases of less importance and less difficulty always apt to move questions How cometh it to pass that so few words of so high a Mystery being uttered they receive with gladness the gift of Christ and make no shew of doubt or scruple The reason hereof is not dark to them which have any thing at all observed how the powers of the minde are wont to stir when that which we infinitely long for presenteth it self above and besides expectation Curious and intricate speculations do hinder they abate they quench such inflamed motions of delight and joy as Divine Graces use to raise when extraordinarily they are present The minde therefore feeling present joy is always marvellous unwilling to admit any other cogitation and in that case casteth off those disputes whereunto the intellectual part at other times easily draweth A manifest effect whereof may be noted if we compare with our Lords Disciples in the Twentieth of Iohn the people that are said in the Sixth of Iohn to have gone after him to Capernaum These leaving him on the one side the Sea of Tiberias and finding him again as soon as themselves by ship were arrived on the contrary side whither they knew that by ship he came not and by Land the journey was longer then according to the time he could have to travel as they wondered so they asked also Rabbi when camest thou hither The Disciples when Christ appeared to them in far more strange and miraculous manner moved no question but rejoyced greatly in that they saw For why The one sort beheld onely that in Christ which they knew was more then natural but yet their affection was not rapt therewith through any great extraordinary gladness the other when they looked on Christ were not ignorant that they saw the Well-spring of their own Everlasting felicity the one because they enjoyed not disputed the other disputed not because they enjoyed If then the presence of Christ with them did so much move Judge what their thoughts and affections were at the time of this new presentation of Christ not before their Eyes but within their Souls They had learned before That his Flesh and Blood are the true cause of Eternal Life that this they are not by the bate force of their own substance but through the dignity and worth of His Person which offered them up by way of Sacrifice for the Life of the whole World and doth make them still effectual thereunto Finally that to us they are Life in particular by being particularly received Thus much they knew although as yet they understood not perfectly to what effect or issue the same would come till at the length being assembled for no other cause which they could imagine but to have eaten the Passover onely that Moses appointed when they saw their Lord and Master with hands and eyes lifted up to Heaven first bless and consecrate for the endless good of all Generations till the Worlds end the chosen Elements of Bread and Wine which Elements made for ever the Instruments of Life by vertue of his Divine Benediction they being the first that were commanded to receive from him the first which were warranted by his promise that not onely unto them at the present time but to whomsoever they and their Successors after them did duly administer the same those Mysteries should serve as Conducts of Life and Conveyances of his Body and Blood unto them Was it possible they should hear that voice Take eat This is my Body Drink ye all of this This is my Blood Possible that doing what was required and believing what was promised the same should have present effect in them and not fill them with a kinde of fearful admiration at the Heaven which they saw in themselves They had at that time a Sea of Comfort and Joy to wade in and we by that which they did are taught that this Heavenly Food is given for the satisfying of our empty Souls and not for the exercising of our curious and subtile wits If we doubt what those admirable words may import let him be our Teacher for the meaning of Christ to whom Christ was himself a School-master let our Lords Apostle be his Interpreter content we our selves with his Explication My Body The Communion of my Body My Blood The Communion of my Blood Is there any thing more expedite clear and easie then that as Christ is termed our Life because through him we obtain life so the parts of this Sacrament are his Body and Blood for that they are so to us who receiving them receive that by them which they are termed The Bread and Cup are his Body and Blood because they are causes instrumental upon the receit whereof the Participation of his Body and Blood ensueth For that which produceth any certain effect is not vainly nor improperly said to be that very effect whereunto it tendeth Every cause is in the effect which groweth from it Our Souls and Bodies quickned to Eternal Life are effects the cause whereof is the Person of Christ His Body and Blood are the true Well-spring out of which this Life floweth So that his Body and Blood are in that very subject whereunto they minister life Not onely by effect or operation even as the influence of the Heavens is in Plants Beasts Men and in every thing which they quicken but also by a far more Divine and
Mystical kinde of Union which maketh us one with him even as He and the Father are one The Real Presence of Christs most Blessed Body and Blood is not therefore to be sought for in the Sacrament but in the worthy Receiver of the Sacrament And with this the very order of our Saviours words agreeth first Take and eat then This is my Body which was broken for you First Drink ye all of this then followeth This is my Blood of the New Testament which is shed for many for the remission of sins I see not which way it should be gathered by the Words of Christ when and where the Bread is his Body or the Cup his Blood but onely in the very Heart and Soul of him which receiveth them As for the Sacraments they really exhibite but for ought we can gather out of that which is written of them they are not really nor do really contain in themselves that Grace which with them or by them it pleaseth God to bestow If on all sides it be confest That the Grace of Baptism is poured into the Soul of Man that by Water we receive it although it be neither seated in the Water nor the Water changed into it what should induce men to think that the Grace of the Eucharist must needs be in the Eucharist before it can be in us that receive it The fruit of the Eucharist is the Participation of the Body and Blood of Christ. There is no sentence of holy Scripture which saith That we cannot by this Sacrament be made partakers of his Body and Blood except they be first contained in the Sacrament or the Sacrament converted into them This is my Body and This is my Blood being words of promise sith we all agree That by the Sacrament Christ doth really and truly in us perform his promise why do we vainly trouble our selves with so fierce Contentions whether by Consubstantiation or else by Transubstantiation the Sacrament it self be first possessed with Christ or no A thing which no way can either further or hinder us howsoever it stand because our Participation of Christ in this Sacrament dependeth on the co-operation of his Omnipotent Power which maketh it his Body and Blood to us whether with change or without alteration of the Element such as they imagine we need not greatly to care or inquire Take therefore that wherein all agree and then consider by it self what cause why the rest in question should not rather be left as superfluous then urged as necessary It is on all sides plainly confest first That this Sacrament is a true and a real Participation of Christ who thereby imparteth himself even his whole intire Person as a Mystical Head unto every Soul that receiveth him and that every such Receiver doth thereby incorporate or unite himself unto Christ as a Mystical Member of him yea of them also whom he acknowledgeth to be his own Secondly That to whom the Person of Christ is thus communicated to them he giveth by the same Sacrament his holy Spirit to sanctifie them as it sanctifieth him which is their Head Thirdly That what merit force or vertue soever there is in his Sacrificed Body and Blood we freely fully and wholly have it by this Sacrament Fourthly That the effect thereof in us is a real transmutation of our Souls and Bodies from sin to righteousness from death and corruption to immortality and life Fifthly That because the Sacrament being of it self but a corruptible and earthly Creature must needs be thought an unlikely Instrument to work so admirable effects in Man we are therefore to rest our selves altogether upon the strength of his glorious power who is able and will bring to pass That the Bread and Cup which he giveth us shall be truly the thing he promiseth It seemeth therefore much amiss that against them whom they term Sacramentaries so many invective Discourses are made all ranning upon two points That the Eucharist is not bare a Sign or Figure onely and that the efficacy of his Body and Blood is not all we receive in this Sacrament For no man having read their Books and Writings which are thus traduced can be ignorant that both these Assertions they plainly confess to be most true They do not so interpret the words of Christ as if the name of his Body did import but the figure of his Body and to be were onely to signifie his Blood They grant that these holy Mysteries received in due manner do instrumentally both make us partakers of the Grace of that Body and Blood which were given for the Life of the World and besides also impart unto us even in true and real though mystical manner the very Person of our Lord himself whole perfect and intire as hath been shewed Now whereas all three opinions do thus far accord in one that strong conceit which two of the three have imbraced as touching a Literal Corporal and Oral Manducation of the very Substance of his Flesh and Blood is surely an opinion no where delivered in holy Scripture whereby they should think themselves bound to believe it and to speak with the softest terms we can use greatly prejudiced in that when some others did so conceive of eating his Flesh our Saviour to abate that error in them gave them directly to understand how his Flesh so eaten could profit them nothing because the words which he spake were Spirit that is to say they had a reference to a Mystical Participation which Mystical Participation giveth life Wherein there is small appearance of likelihood that his meaning should be onely to make them Marcionites by inversion and to teach them that as Marcion did think Christ seemed to be Man but was not so they contrariwise should believe That Christ in Truth would so give them as they thought his Flesh to eat but yet left the horror thereof should offend them he would not seem to do that he did When they which have this opinion of Christ in that Blessed Sacrament go about to explain themselves and to open after what manner things are brought to pass the one sort lay the Union of Christs Deity with his Manhood as their first foundation and ground From thence they infer a power which the Body of Christ hath thereby to present it self in all places out of which Ubiquity of his Body they gather the presence thereof with that sanctified Bread and Wine of our Lords Table The Conjunction of his Body and Blood with those Elements they use as an Argument to shew how the Bread may as well in that respect be termed his Body because his Body is therewith joyned as the Son of God may be named Man by reason that God and Man in the Person of Christ are united To this they add how the Words of Christ commanding us to eat must needs import That as he hath coupled the Substance of his Flesh and the Substance of Bread together so we together should receive both
may be in things that rest and are never moved Besides we may also consider in Rest both that which is past and that which is present and that which is future yea farther even length and shortness in every of these although we never had conceit of Motion But to define without Motion how long or how short such Continuance is were impossible So that herein we must of necessity use the benefit of Years Days Hours Minutes which all grow from Celestial Motion Again for as much as that Motion is Circular whereby we make our Divisions of Time and the Compass of that Circuit such that the Heavens which are therein continually moved and keep in their Motions uniform Celerity must needs touch often the same points they cannot chuse but bring unto us by equal distances frequent returns of the same times Furthermore whereas Time is nothing but the meer quantity of that Continuance which all things have that are not as God is without beginning that which is proper unto all quantities agreeth also to this kinde so that Time doth but measure other things and neither worketh in them any real effect nor is it self ever capable of any And therefore when commonly we use to say That Time doth eat or fret out all things that Time is the wisest thing in the World because it bringeth forth all Knowledge and that nothing is more foolish then Time which never holdeth any thing long but whatsoever one day learneth the same another day forgetteth again that some men see prosperous and happy days and that some mens days are miserable In all these and the like speeches that which is uttered of the Time is not verified of Time it self but agreeth unto those things which are in Time and do by means of so near conjunction either lay their burden upon the back or set their Crown upon the Head of Time Yea the very opportunities which we ascribe to Time do in truth cleave to the things themselves wherewith Time is joyned As for Time it neither causeth things nor opportunities of things although it comprize and contain both All things whatsoever having their time the Works of God have always that time which is seasonablest and fittest for them His Works are some ordinary some more rare all worthy of observation but not all of like necessity to be often remembred they all have their times but they all do not adde the same estimation and glory to the times wherein they are For as God by being every where yet doth not give unto all places one and the same degree of holiness so neither one and the same dignity to all times by working in all For it all either places or times were in respect of God alike wherefore was it said unto Moses by particular designation That very place wherein thou standest is holy ground Why doth the Prophet David chuse out of all the days of the year but one whereof he speaketh by way of principal admiration This is the day the Lord hath made No doubt as Gods extraordinary presence hath hallowed and sanctified certain places so they are his extraordinary works that have truly and worthily advanced certain times for which cause they ought to be with all men that honor God more holy then other days The Wise man therefore compareth herein not unfitly the times of God with the persons of men If any should ask how it cometh to pass that one day doth excel another seeing the light of all the days in the year proceedeth from one Sun to this he answereth That the knowledge of the Lord hath parted them asunder he hath by them disposed the times and solemn Feasts some he hath chosen out and sanctified some he hath put among the days to number Even as Adam and all other men are of one substance all created of the Earth But the Lord hath divided them by great knowledge and made their ways divers some he hath blessed and exalted some he hath sanctified and appropriated unto himself some he hath cursed humbled and put them out of their dignity So that the cause being natural and necessary for which there should be a difference in days the solemn observation whereof declareth Religious thankfulness towards him whose works of principal reckoning we thereby admire and honor it cometh next to be considered what kindes of duties and services they are wherewith such times should be kept holy 70. The Sanctification of Days and Times is a token of that Thankfulness and a part of that publick honor which we ow to God for admirable benefits whereof it doth not suffice that we keep a secret Kalender taking thereby our private occasions as we lift our selves to think how much God hath done for all men but the days which are chosen out to serve as publick Memorials of such his Mercies ought to cloathed with those outward Robes of Holiness whereby their difference from other days may be made sensible But because Time in it self as hath been already proved can receive no alteration the hallowing of Festival days must consist in the shape or countenance which we put upon the affairs that are incident into those days This is the day which the Lord hath made saith the Prophet David Let us rejoyce and be glad in it So that generally Offices and Duties of Religious Joy are that wherein the hallowing of Festival times consisteth The most Natural Testimonies of our rejoycing in God are first his Praises set forth with cheerful alacrity of minde Secondly Our comfort and delight expressed by a charitable largeness of somewhat more then common bounty Thirdly Sequestration from ordinary labors the toyls and cares whereof are not meet to be companions of such gladness Festival solemnity therefore is nothing but the due mixture as it were of these three Elements Praise Bounty and Rest. Touching Praise for as much as the Jews who alone knew the way how to magnifie God aright did commonly as appeared by their wicked lives more of custom and for fashion sake execute the services of their Religion then with hearty and true devotion which God especially requireth he therefore protesteth against their Sabbaths and Solemn Days as being therewith much offended Plentiful and liberal expence is required in them that abound party as a sign of their own joy in the goodness of God towards them and partly as a mean whereby to refresh those poor and needy who being especially at these times made partakers of relaxation and joy with others do the more religiously bless God whose great Mercies were a cause thereof and the more contentedly endure the burthen of that hard estate wherein they continue Rest is the end of all Motion and the last perfection of all things that labor Labors in us are journeys and even in them which feel no weariness by any work yet they are but ways whereby to come unto that which bringeth not happiness till it do bring Rest.
Sacrifices of the ungodly Our fourth Proposition before set down was that Religion without the help of spiritual Ministery is unable to plant it self the fruits thereof not possible to grow of their own accord Which last Assertion is herein as the first that it needeth no farther confirmation If it did I could easily declare how all things which are of God he hath by wonderful art and wisdom sodered as it were together with the glue of mutual assistance appointing the lowest to receive from the neerest to themselves what the influence of the highest yieldeth And therefore the Church being the most absolute of all his works was in reason to be also ordered with like harmony that what he worketh might no less in grace than in nature be effected by hands and instruments duly subordinated unto the power of his own Spirit A thing both needful for the humiliation of man which would not willingly be debtor to any but to himself and of no small effect to nourish that divine love which now maketh each embrace other not as Men but as Angels of God Ministerial actions tending immediately unto God's honour and man's happinesse are either as contemplation which helpeth forward the principal work of the Ministery or else they are parts of that principal work of Administration it self which work consisteth in doing the service of God's House and in applying unto men the soveraign medicines of Grace already spoken of the more largely to the end it might thereby appear that we owe to the Guides of our Souls even as much as our Souls are worth although the debt of our Temporal blessings should be stricken off 77. The Ministery of things divine is a Function which as God did himself institute so neither may men undertake the same but by Authoritie and Power given them in lawful manner That God which is no way deficient or wanting unto Man in necessaries and hath therefore given us the light of his heavenly Truth because without that inestimable benefit we must needs have wandered is darkness to out endless perdition and woe hath in the like abundance of mercies ordained certain to attend upon the due execution of requisite Parts and Offices therein prescribed for the good of the whole World which men thereunto assigned do hold their authoritie from him whether they be such as himself immediately or as the Church in his name investeth it being neither possible for all not for every men without distinction convenient to take upon him a Charge of so great importance They are therefore Ministers of God not onely by way of subordination as Princes and Civil Magistrates whose execution of Judgement and Justice the supream hand of divine providence doth uphold but Ministiers of God as from whom their anthority is derived and not from men For in that they are Christ's Ambassadours and his Labourers Who should give them their Commission but he whose most inward affairs they mannage Is not God alone the Father of Spirits Are not Souls the purchase of Jesus Christ What Angel in Heaven could have said to Man as our Lord did unto Peter Feed my Sheep Preach Baptize Do this in remembrance of me Whose Sins ye retain they are retained and their offences in Heaven pardoned whose faults you shall in earth forgive What think we Are these terrestrial sounds or else are they voices uttered out of the clouds above The power of the Ministry of God translateth out of darknesse into glory it rayseth men from the Earth and bringeth God himself from Heaven by blessing visible Elements it maketh them invisible grace it giveth daily the Holy Ghost it hath to dispose of that flesh which was given for the life of the World and that blood which was poured out to redeem Souls when it poureth malediction upon the heads of the wicked they perish when it revoketh the same they revive O wreched blindnesse if we admire not so great power more wretched if we consider it aright and notwithstanding imagine that any but God can bestow it To whom Christ hath imparted power both over that mystical Body which is the societie of Souls and over that natural which is himself for the knitting of both in one a work which antiquitie doth call the making of Christ's Body the same power is in such not amiss both termed a kinde of mark or Character and acknowledged to be indelible Ministerial power is a mark of separation because it severeth them that have it from other men and maketh them a special order consecrated unto the service of the most High in things wherewith others may not meddle Their difference therefore from other men is in that they are a distinct order So Tertullian calleth them And Saint Paul himself dividing the body of the Church of Christ into two Moyeties nameth the one part 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which is as much as to say the order of the Laity the opposite part whereunto we in like sort term the order of God's Clergy and the Spiritual power which he hath given them the power of their order so farr forth as the same consisteth in the bare execution of holy things called properly the affairs of God For of the Power of their jurisdiction over mens persons we are to speak in the Books following They which have once received this power may not think to put it off and on like a Cloak as the weather serveth to take it reject and resume it as oft as themselves list of which prophane and impious contempt these latter times have yielded as of all other kindes of Iniquity and Apostasie strange examples but let them know which put their hands unto this Plough that once consecrated unto God they are made his peculiar Inheritance for ever Suspensions may stop and degradations utterly cut off the use or exercise of Power before given but voluntarily it is not in the power of man to separate and pull asunder what God by his authority coupleth So that although there may be through mis-desert degradation as there may be cause of just separation after Matrimony yet if as sometime it doth restitution to former dignity or reconciliation after breach doth happen neither doth the one nor the other ever iterate the first knot Much less is it necessary which some have urged concerning the re-ordination of such as others in times more corrupt did consecrate heretofore Which Errour already quell'd by Saint Ierome doth not now require any other refutation Examples I grant there are which make for restraint of those men from admittance again into rooms of Spiritual function whose fall by Heresie or want of constancy in professing the Christian Faith hath been once a disgrace to their calling Nevertheless as there is no Law which bindeth so there is no cause that should alwaies lead to shew one and the same severity towards Persons culpable Goodnesse of nature it self more inclineth to clemency than rigour And we in other mens
Bishops in that the care of Government was also committed unto them did no less perform the offices of their Episcopal Authority by governing then of their Apostolical by teaching The word ' E 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 expressing that part of their office which did consist in Regiment proveth not I grant their chiefty in regiment over others because as then that name was common unto the function of their inferiors and not peculiar unto theirs But the History of their actions sheweth plainly enough how the thing it self which that name appropriated importeth that is to say even such spiritual chiefty as we have already defined to be properly Episcopal was in the holy Apostles of Christ. Bishops therefore they were at large But was it lawful for any of them to be a Bishop with restraint True it is their charge was indefinite yet so that in case they did all whether severally or joyntly discharge the Office of proclaiming every where the Gospel and of guiding the Church of Christ none of them casting off his part in their burthen which was laid upon them there doth appear no impediment but that they having received their common charge indefinitely might in the execution thereof notwithstanding restrain themselves or at leastwise be restrained by the after commandment of the Spirit without contradiction or repugnancy unto that charge more indefinite and general before given them especially if it seemed at any time requisite and for the greater good of the Church that they should in such sort tye themselves unto some special part of the flock of Jesus Christ guiding the same in several as Bishops For first notwithstanding our Saviours commandment unto them all to go and preach unto all Nations Yet some restraint we see there was made when by agreement between Paul and Peter moved with those effects of their labours which the providence of God brought forth the one betook himself unto the Gentiles the other unto the Jews for the exercise of that Office of every where preaching A further restraint of their Apostolical labours as yet there was also made when they divided themselves into several parts of the world Iohn for his charge taking Asia and so the residue other quarters to labour in If nevertheless it seem very hard that we should admit a restraint so particular as after that general charge received to make any Apostle notwithstanding the Bishop of some one Church what think we of the Bishop of Ierusalem Iames whose consecration unto that Mother See of the world because it was not meet that it should at any time be left void of some Apostle doth seem to have been the very cause of St. Pauls miraculous vocation to make up the number of the Twelve again for the gathering of nations abroad even as the martyrdom of the other Iames the reason why Barnabas in his stead was called Finally Apostles whether they did settle in any one certain place◠as Iames or else did otherwise as the Apostle Paul Episcopal Authority either at large or either restraint they had and exercised Their Episcopal power they sometimes gave unto others to exercise as agents only in their stead and as it were by commission from them Thus Titus and thus Timothy at the first though afterwards indued with Apostolical power of their own For in process of time the Apostles gave Episcopal Authority and that to continue always with them which had it We are able to number up them saith Irenaus who by the Apostles were made Bishops In Rome he affirmeth that the Apostles themselves made Linus the first Bishop Again of Polycarp he saith likewise that the Apostles made him Bishop of the Church of Smyrna Of Antioch they made Evodius Bishop as Ignatius witnesseth exhorting that Church to tread in his holy steps and to follow his vertuous example The Apostles therefore were the first which had such authority and all others who have it after them in orderly sort are their lawful Successors whether they succeed in any particular Church where before them some Apostle hath been seated as Simon succeeded Iames in Ierusalem or else be otherwise endued with the same kind of Bishoply power although it be not where any Apostle before hath been For to succeed them is after them to have that Episcopal kind of power which was first given to them All Bishops are saith Ierome the Apostles successors In like sort Cyprian doth term Bishops Prepositos qui Apostolis vicaria ordinatione succedunt From hence it may happily seem to have grown that they whom now we call Bishops were usually termed at the first Apostles and so did carry their very names in whose rooms of spiritual authority they succeeded Such as deny Apostles to have any successors at all in the office of their Apostleship may hold that opinion without contradiction to this of ours if they well explain themselves in declaring what truly and properly Apostleship is In some things every Presbyter in some things lonely Bishops in some things neither the one nor the other are the Apostles Successors The Apostles were sent as special chosen eye-witnesses of Jesus Christ from whom immediately they received their whole Embassage and their Commission to be the principal first founders of an House of God consisting as well of Gentiles as of Jews In this there are not after them any other like unto them And yet the Apostles have now their Successors upon earth their true Successors if not in the largeness surely in the kind of that Episcopal function whereby they had power to sit as spiritual ordinary Judges both over Laity and over Clergy where Churches Christian were established V. The Apostles of our Lord did according unto those directions which were given them from above erect Churches in all such Cities as received the Word of Truth the Gospel of God All Churches by them erected received from them the same Faith the same Sacraments the same form of publick regiment The form of Regiment by them established at first was That the Laity of people should be subject unto a Colledge of Ecclesiastical persons which were in every such City appointed for that purpose These in their writings they term sometime Presbyters sometime Bishops To take one Church out of a number for a patern what the rest were the Presbyters of Ephesus as it is in the History of their departure from the Apostle Paul at Miletum are said to have wept abundantly all which speech doth shew them to have been many And by the Apostles exhortation it may appear that they had not each his several flock to feed but were in common appointed to feed that one flock the Church of Ephesus for which cause the phrase of his speech is this Attendite gregi Look all to that one flock over which the Holy Ghost hath made you Bishops These persons Ecclesiastical being termed as then
Government is confirmed yea strengthened it is and ratified even by the not establishment thereof in all Churches every where at the first 2. When they further dispute That if any such thing were usedful Christ would in Scripture have set down particular Statutes and Laws appointing that Bishops should be made and prescribing in what order even as the Law doth for all kinde of Officers which were needful in the Iewish Regiment might not a man that would bend his wit to maintain the fury of the Petrobrusian Hereticks in pulling down Oratories use the self-same argument with as much countenance of reason If it were needful that we should assemble our selves in Churches would that God which taught the Iews so exactly the frame of their sumptuous Temple leave us no particular instructions in writing no not so much at which way to lay any one stone Surely such kinde of Argumentation doth not so strengthen the sinews of their cause as weaken the credit of their Judgement which are led therewith 3. And whereas Thirdly in disproof of that use which Episcopal Authority hath in Judgement of Spiritual Causes they bring forth the verdict of Cyprian who saith That equity requireth every man's Cause to be heard where the fault he was charged with was committed forasmuch as there they may have both Accusers and Witnesses in the Cause This Argument grounding it self on Principles no lesse true in Civil than in Ecclesiastical Causes unless it be qualified with some exceptions or limitations over-turneth the highest Tribunal Seats both in Church and Common-wealth it taketh utterly away all appeals it secretly condemneth even the blessed Apostle himself as having transgressed the law of Equity by his appeal from the Court of Iudea unto those higher which were in Rome The generality of such kinde of axioms deceiveth unless it be construed with such cautions as the matter whereunto they are applyable doth require An usual and ordinary transportation of causes out of Africa into Italy out of one Kingdom into another as discontented Persons list which was the thing which Cyprian disalloweth may be unequal and unmeet and yet not therefore a thing unnecessary to have the Courts erectted in higher places and judgement committed unto greater Persons to whom the meaner may bring their causes either by way of appeal ot otherwise to be determined according to the order of Justice which hath been always observed every where in Civil States and is no less requisite also for the State of the Church of God The Reasons which teach it to be expedient for the one will shew it to be for the other at leastwise not unnecessary Inequality of Pastors is an Ordinance both Divine and profitable Their exceptions against it in these two respects we have shewed to be altogether causless unreasonable and unjust XIV The next thing which they upbraid us with is the difference between that inequality of Pastors which hath been of old and which now is For at length they grant That the superiority of Bishops and of Arch-bishops is somewhat antient but no such kinde of Superiority as ours have By the Laws of our Discipline a Bishop may ordain without asking the Peoples consent a Bishop may excommunicate and release alone a Bishop may imprison a Bishop may bear Civil Office in the Realm a Bishop may be a Counsellor of State these thing antient Bishops neither did nor might do Be it granted that ordinarily neither in elections nor deprivations neither in excommunicating nor in releasing the excommunicate in none of the weighty affairs of Government Bishops of old were wont to do any thing without consultation with their Clergy and consent of the People under them Be it granted that the same Bishops did neither touch any man with corporal punishment nor meddle with secular affairs and Offices the whole Clergy of God being then tyed by the strict and severe Canons of the Church to use no other than ghostly power to attend no other business than heavenly Tarquinius was in the Roman Common-wealth deservedly hated of whose unorderly proceedings the History speaketh thus Hic Regum primus traditum à Prioribus morem de omnibus Senatum consulendi solvit domesticis Consillis Rempub. administravit bellum pacem foedera societates perse ipsum cum quibus voluit injussu Populi ac Senatus fecit diremitque Against Bishops the like is objected That they are Invaders of other mens right and by intolerable usurpation take upon them to do that alone wherein antient Laws have appointed that others not they onely should bear sway Let the Case of Bishops he put not in such sort as it is but even as their very heavyest Adversaries would devise it Suppose that Bishops at the first had encroached upon the Church that by sleights and cunning practises they had appropriated Ecclesiastical as Augustus did Imperial power that they had taken the advantage of mens inclinable affections which did not suffer them for Revenue-sake to be suspected of Ambition that in the mean while their usurpation had gone forward by certain easie and unsensible degrees that being not discerned in the growth when it was thus farr grown as we now see it hath proceeded the world at length perceiving there was just cause of complaint but no place of remedy left had assented unto it by a general secret agreement to bear it now as an helpless evil all this supposed for certain and true yet surely a thing of this nature as for the Superiour to do that alone unto which of right the consent of some other Inferiours should have been required by them though it had an indirect entrance at the first must needs through continuance of so many ages as this hath stood be made now a thing more natural to the Church than that it should be opprest with the mention of contrary Orders worn so many ages since quite and clean out of ure But with Bishops the case is otherwise For in doing that by themselves which others together with them have been accustomed to do they do not any thing but that whereunto they have been upon just occasion authorized by orderly means All things natural have in them naturally more or less the power of providing for their own safety And as each particular man hath this power so every Politick Society of men must needs have the same that thereby the whole may provide for the good of all parts therein For other benefit we have not any by sorting our selves into Politick Societies saving only that by this mean each part hath that relief which the vertue of the whole is able to yield it The Church therefore being a Politick Society or Body cannot possibly want the power of providing for it self And the chiefest part of that power consisteth in the Authority of making Laws Now forasmuch as Corporations are perpetual the Laws of the antienter Church cannot chuse but binde the latter while they are in force But we
consisteth in the matter about which the actions of each are conversant and not in this that Civil Royalty admitteth but one Ecclesiastical Government requireth many Supreme Correctors Which Allegation were it true would prove no more than only that some certain number is necessary for the assistance of the Bishop But that a number of such as they do require is necessary how doth it prove Wherefore albeit Bishops should now do the very same which the Antients did using the Colledge of Presbyters under them as their Assistants when they administer Church-Censures yet should they still swerve utterly from that which these men so busily labour for because the Agents whom they require to assist in those Cases are a sort of Lay-Elders such as no antient Bishop ever was assisted with Shall these fruitless jarrs and janglings never cease shall we never see end of them How much happier were the World if those eager Task-masters whose eyes are so curious and sharp in discerning what should be done by many and what by few were all changed into painful doers of that which every good Christian man ought either only or chiefly to do and to be found therein doing when that great and glorious Judge of all mens both deeds and words shall appear In the mean while be it One that hath this charge or be they Many that be his Assistants let there be careful provision that Justice may be administred and in this shall our God be glorified more than by such contentious Disputes XV. Of which nature that also is wherein Bishops are over and besides all this accused to have much more excessive power than the antient in as much as unto their Ecclesiastical authority the Civil Magistrate for the better repressing of such as contemn Ecclesiastical censures hath for divers ages annexed Civil The crime of Bishops herein is divided into these two several branches the one that in Causes Ecclesiastical they strike with the sword of Secular punishments the other that Offices are granted them by vertue whereof they meddle with Civil Affairs Touching the one it reacheth no farther than only unto restraint of liberty by imprisonment which yet is not done but by the Laws of the Land and by vertue of authority derived from the Prince A thing which being allowable in Priests amongst the Jews must needs have received some strange alteration in nature since if it be now so pernicious and venomous to be coupled with a Spiritual Vocation in any man which beareth Office in the Church of Christ. Shemaia writing to the Colledge of Priests which were in Ierusalem and to Zâ—phania the principal of them told them they were appointed of God that they might be Officers in the House of the Lord for every man which raved and did make himselfe a Prophet to the end that they might by the force of this their authority put such in Prison and in the Stocks His malice is reproved for that he provoketh them to shew their power against the innocent But surely when any man justly punishable had been brought before them it could be no unjust thing for them even in such sort then to have punished As for Offices by vertue whereof Bishops have to deal in Civil Affairs we must consider that Civil Affairs are of divers kindesâ— and as they be not all fit for Ecclesiastical Persons to meddle with so neither is it necessary nor at this day haply convenient that from meddling with any such thing at all they all should without exception be secluded I will therefore set down some few causes wherein it cannot but clearly appear unto reasonable men that Civil and Ecclesiastical Functions may be lawfully united in one and the same Person First therefore in case a Christian Society be planted amongst their professed enemies or by toleration do live under some certain State whereinto they are not incorporated whom shall we judge the meetest men to have the hearing and determining of such mere civil Controversies as are every day wont to grow between man and man Such being the state of the Church of Corinth the Apostle giveth them this direction Dare any of you having business against another be judged by the unjust and not under Saints Do ye not know that the Saints shall judge the World If the World then shall be judged by you are ye unworthy to judge the smallest matters Know ye not that we shall judge the Angels How much more things that appertain to this life If then ye have judgement of things pertaining to this life set up them which are least esteemed in the Church I speak it to your shame Is it so that there is not a wise man amongst you us not one that can judge between his Brethren but a Brother goeth to law with a Brother and that under the Infidels Now therefore there is utterly a fault among you because ye go to Law one with another Why rather suffer ye not wrong why rather sustain ye not harm In which Speech there are these degrees Better to suffer and to put up Injuries than to contend better to end contention by Arbitrement then by Judgement better by Judgement before the wisest of their own than before the simpler better before the simplest of their own than the wisest of them without So that if judgement of Secular affairs should be committed unto wise men unto men of chiefest Credit and Account amongst them when the Pastors of their Souls are such Who more fit to be also their Judges for the ending of strikes The wisest in things divine may be also in things humane the most skilful At leastwise they are by likelihood commonly more able to know right from wrong than the common un-lettered sort And what St. Augustin did hereby gather his own words do sufficiently show I call God to witness upon my Soul saith he that according to the Order which is kept in well-ordered Monasteries I could wish to have every day my hours of labouring with my hands my hours of reading and of praying rather than to endure these most tumultuous perplexities of other men's causes which I am forced to bear while I travel in Secular businesses either by judging to discuss them or to cut them off by intreaty Unto which toyles that Apostle who himself sustained them not for any thing we read hath notwithstanding â—yed us not of his own accord but being thereunto directed by that Spirit which speaks in him His own Apostleship which drew him to travel up and down suffered him not to be any where settled for this purpose wherefore the wise faithful and holy men which were seated here and there and not them which travelled up and down to preach he made Examiners of such Businesses Whereupon of him it is no where written that he had leisure to attend these things from which we cannot excuse our selves although we be simple because even such he requireth if wise men cannot be had rather than
that the affairs of Christians should be brought into publick judgement Howbeit not without comfort in our Lord are these travels undertaken by us for the hopes sake of eternal life to the end that with patience we may reap fruit So farr is Saint Augustin from thinking it unlawful for Pastors in such sort to judge Civil Causes that he plainly collecteth out of the Apostles words a necessity to undertake that duty yea himself he comforteth with the hope of a blessed reward in lieu of travel that way sustained Again even where whole Christian Kingdoms are how troublesome were it for Universities and other greater Collegiate Societies erected to serve as Nurseries unto the Church of Christ if every thing which civilly doth concern them were to be carried from their own peculiar Governors because for the most part they are as fittest it is they should be Persons Ecclesiastical Calling It was by the wisdom of our famous Predecessors foreseen how unfit this would be and hereupon provided by grant of special Charters that it might be as now it is in the Universities where their Vice-Chancellors being for the most part Professors of Divinity are nevertheless Civil Judges over them in the most of their ordinary Causes And to go yet some degrees further A thing impossible it is not neither altogether unusual for some who are of royal blood to be consecrated unto the Ministry of Jesus Christ and so to be Nurses of God's Church not only as the Prophet did fore-tell but also as the Apostle Saint Paul was Now in case the Crown should by this mean descend unto such Persons perhaps when they are the very last or perhaps the very best of their Race so that a greater benefit they are not able to bestow upon a Kingdom than by accepting their right therein shall the sanctity of their Order deprive them of that honour whereunto they have right by blood or shall it be a barr to shut out the publick good that may grow by their vertuous Regiment If not then must they cast off the Office which they received by Divine Imposition of hands or if they carry a more religious opinion concerning that heavenly Function it followeth that being invested as well with the one as the other they remain God's lawfully anointed both ways With men of skill and mature judgement there is of this so little doubt that concerning such as at this day are under the Archbishops of Ments Colen and Travers being both Archbishops and Princes of the Empire yea such as live within the Popes own Civil Territories there is no cause why any should deny to yield them civil obedience in any thing which they command not repugnant to Christian Piety yea even that civilly for such as are under them not to obey them were the part of seditious Persons Howbeit for Persons Ecclesiastical thus to exercise Civil Dominion of their own is more than when they onely sustain some Publick Office or deal in some business Civil being thereunto even by Supream Authority required As Nature doth not any thing in vain so neither Grace Wherefore if it please God to bless some Principal Attendants on his own Sanctuary and to endue them with extraordinary parts of excellency some in one kinde some in another surely a great derogation it were to the very honour of him who bestowed so precious Graces except they on whom he hath bestowed them should accordingly be imployed that the fruit of those Heavenly Gifts might extend it self unto the Body of the Common-wealth wherein they live which being of purpose instituted for so all Common-wealths are to the end that all might enjoy whatsoever good it pleaseth the Almighty to endue each one with must needs suffer loss when it hath not the gain which eminent civil hability in Ecclesiastical Persons is now and then found apt to afford Shall we then discommend the People of Milan for using Ambrose their Bishop as an Ambassadour about their Publick and Politick Affairs the Jews for electing their Priests sometimes to be Leaders in Warr David for making the High Priest his Chiefest Counsellour of State Finally all Christian Kings and Princes which have appointed unto like services Bishops or other of the Clergy under them No! they have done in this respect that which most sincere and religious wisdom alloweth Neither is it allowable only when either a kinde of necessity doth cast Civil Offices upon them or when they are thereunto preferred in regard of some extraordinary fitness but further also when there are even of right annexed unto some of their places or of course imposed upon certain of their Persons Functions of Dignity and Account in the Common-wealth albeit no other consideration be had therein save this that their credit and countenance may by such means be augmented A thing if ever to be respected surely most of all now when God himself is for his own sake generally no where honoured Religion almost no where no where religiously adored the Ministry of the Word and Sacraments of Christ a very cause of disgrace in the eyes both of high and low where it hath not somewhat besides it self to be countenanced with For unto this very pass things are come that the glory of God is constrained even to stand upon borrowed credit which yet were somewhat the more tolerable if there were not that disswade to lead iâ— him No practise so vile but pretended Holynesse is made sometimes a Cloak to hide it The French King Philip Valois in his time made an Ordinance that all Prelates and Bishops shuâ—â—ld be clean excluded from Parliaments where the Affairs of the Kingdom were handled pretending that a King with good Conscience cannot draw Pastors having Cure of Souls from so weighty a business to trouble their Heads with Consultations of State But irreligious intents are not able to hide themselves no not when Holiness is made their Cloak This is plain and simple truth That the counsels of wicked men hate always the presence of them whose vertue though it should not be able to prevail against their purposes would notwithstanding be unto their minds a secret corrosive and therefore till either by one shift or another they can bring all things to their own hands alone they are not secure Ordinances holler and better there stand as yet in force by the grace of Almighty God and the works of his Providence amongst us Let not Envy so far prevail as to make us account that a Blemish which if there be in us any spark of sound Judgement or of religious Conscience we must of necessity acknowledge to be one of the chiefest Ornaments unto this Land By the antient Laws whereof the Clergy being held for the chief of those Three Estates which together make up the entire Body of this Common-wealth under one Supreme Head and Governour it hath all this time ever born a sway proportionable in the Weighty Affairs of the Land wise and vertuous Kings condescending
are not fit to be Ministers which also hath been collected and that by sundry of the Antient and that it is requisite the Clergy be utterly forbidden Marriage For as the burthen of Civil Regiment doth make them who bear it the less able to attend their Ecclesiastical Charge even so Saint Paul doth say that the Married are careful for the World the unmarried freer to give themselves wholly to the service of God Howbeit both experience hath found it safer that the Clergy should bear the cares of honest Marriage than be subject to the inconveniencies which single life imposed upon them would draw after it And as many as are of sound judgement know it to be farr better for this present age that the detriment be born which haply may grow through the lessening of some few mens Spiritual labours than that the Clergy and Common-wealth should lack the benefit which both the one and the other may reap through their dealing in Civil Affairs In which consideration that men consecrated unto the Spiritual service of God be licensed so farr forth to meddle with the Secular affairs of the World as doth seem for some special good cause requisite and may be without any grievous prejudice unto the Church surely there is not in the Apostles words being rightly understood any lett That no Apostle did ever bear Office may it not be a wonder considering the great devotion of the age wherein they lived and the zeal of Herod of Nero the great Commander of the known World and of other Kings of the Earth at that time to advance by all means Christian Religion Their deriving unto others that smaller charge of distributing of the Goods which were laid at their feet and of making provision for the poor which charge being in part Civil themselves had before as I suppose lawfully undertaken and their following of that which was weightier may serve as a marvellous good example for the dividing of one man's Office into divers slips and the subordinating of Inferiours to discharge some part of the same when by reason of multitude increasing that labour waxeth great and troublesome which before was easie and light but very small force it hath to inferr a perpetual divorce between Ecclesiastical and Civil power in the same Persons The most that can be said in this Case is That sundry eminent Canons bearing the name of Apostolical and divers Conncils likewise there are which have forbidden the Clergy to bear any Secular Office and have enjoyned them to attend altogether upon Reading Preaching and Prayer Whereupon the most of the antient Fathers have shewed great dislikes that these two Powers should be united in one Person For a full and final Answer whereunto I would first demand Whether commension and separation of these two Powers be a matter of mere positive Law or else a thing simply with or against the Law immutable of God and Nature That which is simply against this latter Law can at no time be allowable in any Person more than Adultery Blasphemy Sacriledge and the like But conjunction of Power Ecclesiastical and Civil what Law is there which hath not at some time or other allowed as a thing convenient and meet In the Law of God we have examples sundry whereby it doth most manifestly appear how of him the same hath oftentime been approved No Kingdom or Nation in the World but hath been thereunto accustomed without inconvenience and hurt In the prime of the World Kings and Civil Rulers were Priests for the most part all The Romans note it as a thing beneficial in their own Common-wealth and even to them apparently forcible for the strengthening of the Jewes Regiment under Moses and Samuel I deny not but sometime there may be and hath been perhaps just cause to ordain otherwise Wherefore we are not to urge those things which heretofore have been either ordered or done as thereby to prejudice those Orders which upon contrary occasion and the exigence of the present time by like authority have been established For what is there which doth let but that from contrary occasions contrary Laws may grow and each he reasoned and disputed for by such as are subiect thereunto during the time they are in force and yet neither so opposite to other but that both may laudably continue as long as the ages which keep them do see no necessary cause which may draw them unto alteration Wherefore in these things Canons Constitutions and Laws which have been at one time meet do not prove that the Church should alwayes be bound to follow them Ecclesiastical Persons were by antient Order forbidden to be Executors of any man's Testament or to undertake the Wardship of Children Bishops by the Imperial Law are forbidden to bequeath by Testament or otherwise to alienate any thing grown unto them after they were made Bishops Is there no remedy but that these or the like Orders must therefore every where still be observed The reason is not always evident why former Orders have been repealed and other established in their room Herein therefore we must remember the axiom used in the Civil Laws That the Prince is alwayes presumed to do that with reason which is not against reason being done although no reason of his deed be exprest Which being in every respect as true of the Church and her Divine Authority in making Laws it should be some bridle unto those malepert and proud spirits whose wits not conceiving the reason of Laws that are established they adore their own private fancy as the supreme Law of all and accordingly take upon them to judge that whereby they should be judged But why labour we thus in vain For even to change that which now is and to establish instead thereof that which themselves would acknowledge the very self-same which hath been to what purpose were it fith they protest That they utterly condemn as well that which hath been as that which is as well the antient as the present Superiority Authority and Power of Ecclesiastical Persons XVI Now where they lastly alledge That the Law of our Lord Iesus Christ and the judgement of the best in all ages condemn all ruling Superiority of Ministers over Ministers they are in this as in the rest more bold to affirm than able to prove the things which they bring for support of their weak and feeble Cause The bearing of Dominion or the exercising of Authority they say is this wherein the Civil Magistrate is severed from the Ecclesiastical officer according to the words of our Lord and Saviour Kings of Nations bear rule over them but it shall not be so with you Therefore bearing of Dominion doth not agree to one Minister over another This place hath been and still is although most falsely yet with farr greater shew and likelyhood of truth brought forth by the Anabaptists to prove that the Church of Christ ought to have no Civil Magistrates but be ordered
the Council of Carthage where it was decreed That the Bishop of the Chief See should not be entituled the Exarch of Priests or the highest Priest or any other thing of like sense but onely the Bishop of the chiefest See whereby are shut out the name of Archbishop and all other such haughty titles In these Allegations it fareth as in broken reports snatched out of the Author's mouth and broached before they be half either told on the one part or on the other understood The matter which Cyprian complaineth of in Florentinus was thus Novatus misliking the easiness of Cyprian to admit men into the fellowship of Believers after they had fallen away from the bold and constant Confession of Christian Faith took thereby occasion to separate himself from the Church and being united with certain excommunicate Persons they joyned their wits together and drew out against Cyprian their lawful Bishop sundry grievous accusations the crimes such as being true had made him uncapable of that Office whereof he was six years as then possessed they went to Rome and to other places accusing him every where as guilty of those faults of which themselves had lewdly condemned him pretending that twenty five African Bishops a thing most false had heard and examined his Cause in a Solemn Assembly and that they all had given their Sentence against him holding his Election by the Canons of the Church void The same factious and seditious Persons coming also unto Florentinus who was at that time a man imprisoned for the testimony of Jesus Christ but yet a favourer of the error of Novatus their malicious accusations he over-willingly hearkned unto gave them credit concurred with them and unto Cyprian in fine wrote his Letters against Cyprian Which Letters he justly taketh in marvellous evil part and therefore severely controuleth his so great presumption in making himself a Judge of a Judge and as it were a Bishop's Bishop to receive accusations against him as one that had been his Ordinary What heigth of pride is this saith Cyprian what arrogancy of spirit what a puffing up of minde to call Guides and Priests to be examined and sifted before him So that unless we shall be cleared in your Courts and absolved by your sentence behold for these six years space neither shall the Brotherhood have had a Bishop nor the People a Guide nor the Flock a Shepherd nor the Church a Governor nor Christ a Prelate nor God a Priest This is the pride which Cyprian condemneth in Florentinus and not the title or name of Archbishop about which matter there was not at that time so much as the dream of any controversie at all between them A silly collection it is that because Cyprian reproveth Florentinus for lightness of belief and presumptuous rashness of judgement therefore he held the title of Archbishop to be a vain and a proud name Archbishops were chief amongst Bishops yet Archbishops had not over Bishops that full Authority which every Bishop had over his own particular Clergy Bishops were not subject unto their Archbishop as an Ordinary by whom at all times they were to be judged according to the manner of inferiour Pastors within the compass of each Diocess A Bishop might suspend excommunicate depose such as were of his own Clergy without any other Bishops Assistants not so an Archbishop the Bishops that were in his own Province above whom divers Prerogatives were given him howbeit no such Authority and Power as alone to be Judge over them For as a Bishop could not be ordained so neither might he be judged by any one only Bishop albeit that Bishop were his Metropolitan Wherefore Cyprian concerning the liberty and freedom which every Bishop had spake in the Council of Carthage whereat fourscore and seven Bishops were present saying It resteth that every of us declare what we think of this matter neither judging nor severing from the right of Communion any that shall think otherwise For of us there is not any which maketh himself a Bishop of Bishops or with Tyrannical fear constraineth his Collegues unto the necessity of obedience inasmuch as every Bishop according to the reach of his liberty and power hath his own free judgement and can have no more another his Iudge than himself be Iudge to another Whereby it appeareth that amongst the African Bishops none did use such Authority over any as the Bishop of Rome did afterwards claim over all forcing upon them opinions by main and absolute power Wherefore unto the Bishop of Rome the same Cyprian also writeth concerning his Opinion about Baptism These things we present unto your Conscience most dear Brother as well for common honours sake as of single and sincere love trusting that as you are truly your self Religious and Faithful so those things which agree with Religions and Faith will be acceptable unto you Howbeit we know that what some have over-drunk in they will not let go neither easily change their minde but with care of preserving whole amongst their Brethren the bond of Peace and concord retaining still to themselves certain their own Opinions wherewith they have been inuired Wherein we neither use force nor prescribe a Law unto any knowing that in the Government of the Church every Ruler hath his own voluntary free judgment and of that which he doth shall render unto the Lord himself an account As for the Council of Carthage Doth not the very first Canon thereof establish with most effectual terms all things which were before agreed on in the Council of Nice And that the Council of Nice did ratifie the preheminence of Metropolitan Bishops who is ignorant The name of an Archbishop importeth only a Bishop having chiefty of certain Prerogatives above his Brethren of the same Order Which thing since the Council of Nice doth allow it cannot be that the other of Carthage should condemn it inasmuch as this doth yield unto that a Christian unrestrained approbation The thing provided for by the Synod of Carthage can be no other therefore than only that the chiefest Metropolitan where many Archbishops were within any greater Province should not be termed by those names as to import the power of an ordinary Jurisdiction belonging in such degree and manner unto him over the rest of the Bishops and Archbishops as did belong unto every Bishop over other Pastors under him But much more absurd it is to affirm that both Cyprian and the Council of Carthage condemn even such Superiority also of Bishops themselves over Pastors their Inferiours as the words of Ignatius imply in terming the Bishop A Prince of Priests Bishops to be termed Arch-Priests in regard of their Superiority over Priests is in the Writings of the Antient Fathers a thing so usual and familiar as almost no one thing more At the Council of Nice saith Theodores three hundred and eighteen Arch-Priests were present Were it the meaning of the Council of Carthage that the Title of
which that surcease were likely to draw after it Let the Lord Maior of London or any other unto whose Office Honor belongeth be deprived but of that Title which in itself is a matter of nothing and suppose we that it would be a small maim unto the credit force and countenance of his Office It hath not without the singular wisdom of God been provided that the ordinary outward tokens of Honor should for the most part be in themselves things of mean account for to the end they might easily follow as faithful testimonies of that beneficial vertue whereunto they are due it behoved them to be of such nature that to himself no man might over-eagerly challenge them without blushing not any man where they are due withhold them but with manifest appearance of too great malice or pride Now forasmuch as according to the Antient Orders and Customs of this Land as of the Kingdom of Israel and of all Christian Kingdoms through the World the next in degree of Honor unto the Chief Soveraign are the Chief Prelates of God's Church what the reason hereof may be it resteth next to be enquired XVIII Other reason there is not any wherefore such Honor hath been judged due saving only that publick good which the Prelates of God's Clergy are Authors of For I would know which of these things it is whereof we make any question either that the favour of God is the chiefest Pillar to bear up Kingdoms and States or that true Religion publickly exercised is the principal mean to retain the favour of God or that the Prelates of the Church are they without whom the exercise of true Religion cannot well and long continue If these three be grented then cannot the publick benefit of Prelacy be dissembled And of the first or second of these I look not for any profest denyal The World at this will blush not to grant at the leastwise in word as much as Heathens themselves have of old with most earnest asseveration acknowledged concerning the force of Divine Grace in upholding Kingdoms Again though his mercy doth so farr strive with mens ingratitude that all kinde of Publick iniquities deserving his indignation their safety is through his gracious Providence many times neverthelesse continued to the end that amendment might if it were possible avert their Envy so that as well Common-weals as particular Persons both may and do endure much longer when they are careful as they should be to use the most effectual means of procuring His favour on whom their continuance principally dependeth Yet this point no man will stand to argue no man will openly arm himself to enter into set Disputation against the Emperors Theodosius and Valentinian for making unto their Laws concerning Religion this Preface Decere arbitramur nostrum Imperium subditos nostros de Religione commonefacere Ita enim plenicrem adquiri Dei ac Salvatoris nostri Iesu Christi benignitatem possibile esse existimamus si quando nos pro viribus ipsi placere studuerimus nostros subditos ad eam rem instituerimus Or against the Emperor Iustinian for that he also maketh the like Profession Per sanctissimas Ecclessias nostrum Imperium sustineri communes res elementissimi Dei gratia muniri credimus And in another place Certissimè credemus quia Sacerdotum puritas deâ—â—â—â— ad Dominum Deum Salvatorem nostrum Iesuis Christum fervor ab ipsis missa perpetua preces maltum favorem nostra Reipublica incrementum praebent Wherefore onely the last point is that which men will boldly require us to prove for no man feareth now to make it a question Whether the Prelacy of the Church be any thing available or no to effect the good and long continuance of true Religion Amongst the principal Blessings wherewith God enriched Israel the Prophet in the Psalm acknowledgeth especially this for one Thou didst lead thy People like Sheep by the hands of Moses and Aaron That which Sheep are if Pastors be wanting the same are the people of God if so be they want Governors And that which the principal Civil Governors are in comparison of Regents under them the same are the Prelates of the Church being compared with the rest of God's Clergy Wherefore inasmuch as amongst the Jews the benefit of Civil Government grew principally from Moses he being their Principal Civil Governor even so the benefit of Spiritual Regiment grew from Aaron principally he being in the other kinde of their principal Rector although even herein subject to the Soveraign Dominion of Moses For which cause these two alone are named as the Heads and Well-springs of all As for the good which others did in service either of the Common-wealth or of the Sanctuary the chiefest glory thereof did belong to the chiefest Governors of the one sort and of the other whose vigilant care and oversight kept them in their cue Order Bishops are now is High-Priests were then inregard of power over other Priests and in respect of subjection unto High-Priests What Priests were then the same now Presbyters are by way of their place under Bishops The ones Authority therefore being so profitable how should the others be thought unnecessary Is there any man professing Christian Religion which holdeth it not as a Maxim That the Church of Jesus Christ did reap a singular benefit by Apostolical Regiment not only for other respects but even in regard of that Prelacy whereby they had and exercised Power of Jurisdiction over lower Guides of the Church Preciates are herein the Apostles Successors as hath been proved Thus we see that Prelacy must needs be acknowledged exceedingly beneficial in the Church and yet for more perspicuities sake it shall not be pains superstuously taken if the manner how be also declared at large For this one thing not understood by the vulgar sort causeth all contempt to be offered unto higher Powers not only Ecclesiastical but Civil whom when proud men have disgraced and are therefore reproved by such as carry some dutiful affection of minde the usual Apologies which they make for themselves are these What more vertue in these Great ones than in others we see no such eminent good which they do above other mon. We grant indeed that the good which Higher Governors do is not so immediate and near unto every of us as many times the meane labours of others under them and this doth make it to be less esteemed But we must note that it is in this Case as in a Ship he that fitteth at the Stern is quiet he moveth not he seemeth in a manner to do little or Nothing in comparison of them that sweat about other toil yet that which he doth is in value and force more than all the labours of the residue laid together The influence of the Heavens above worketh infinitely more to our good and yet appeareth not half so sensible as the force doth of
we that no publick detriment would follow upon the want of honorable Personages Ecclesiastical to be used in those Cases It will be haply said That the highest might learn to stoop and not to disdain the advice of some circumspect wise and vertuâ—us Minister of God albeit the Ministery were nor by such degrees distinguished What Princes in that case might or should do it is not material Such difference being presupposed therefore as we have proved already to have been the Ordinance of God there is no judicious man will ever make any question or doubt but that fit and direct it is for the highest and chiefest Order in God's Clergy to be imployed before others about so near and necessary Offices as the sacred estate of the greatest on earth doth require For this cause Ioshua had Eliazer David Abiathar Constantine Hosius Bishop of Corâ—nba other Emperors and Kings their Prelates by whom in private for with Princes this is the most effectual way of doing good to be adminished counselled comforted and if need were reproved Whensoever Sovereign Rulers are willing to admit these so necessary private conferences for their Spiritual and ghostly good inasmuch as they do for the time while they take advice grant a kinde of Superiority unto them of whom they receive it albeit haply they can be contented even so farr to bend to the gravest and chiefest Persons in the Order of God's Clergy yet this of the very best being rarely and hardly obtained now that there are whos 's greater and higher Callings do somewhat more proportion them unto that ample conceit and spirit wherewith the minde of so powerable Persons we possessed what should we look for in case God himself not authorizing any by miraculous means as of old he did his Prophets the equal meaness of all did leave in respect of Calling no more place of decency for one then for another to be admitted Let unexperienced wits imagin what pleaseth them in having to deal with so great Personages these Personal differences are so necessary that there must be regard had of them 4. Kingdoms being principally next unto God's Almightiness and the Soveraignty of the highest under God upheld by wisdom and by valour as by the chiefest human means to cause continuance in safety with honor for the labors of them who attend the service of God we reckon as means Divine to procure our protection from Heavens from hence it riseth that men excelling in either of these or descending from such as for excellency either way have been enobled or possesing howsoever the rooms of such as should be in Politick wisdom or in Martial prowess eminent are had in singular recommendation Notwithstanding because they are by the state of Nobility great but not thereby made inclinable to good things such they oftentimes prove even under the best Princes as under David certain of the Jewish Nobility were In Polity and Council the World had not Achitophels equal nor Hell his equal in deadly malice Ioab the General of the Host of Israel valiant industrious fortunate in Warr but withal head-strong cruel treacherous void of Piety towards God in a word so conditioned that easie it is not to define whether it were for David harder to miss the benefit of his War-like hability or to bear the enormity of his other Crimes As well for the cherishing of those vertues therefore wherein if Nobility do chance to flourish they are both an ornament and a stay to the Common-wealth wherein they live as also for the bridling of those disorders which if they loosly run into they are by reason of their greatness dangerous what help could thereever have been invented more Divine than the sorting of the Clergy into such Degrees that the chiefest of the Prelacy being matched in a kinde of equal yoke as it were with the higher the next with the lower degree of Nobility the reverend Authority of the one might be to the other as a courteous bridle a mean to keep them lovingly in aw that are exorbitant and to correct such excesses in them as whereunto their Courage State and Dignity maketh them over-prone O that there were for encouragement of Prelates herein that lactimation of all Christian Kings and Princes towards them which sometime a famous King of this Land either had or pretended to have for the countenancing of a principal Prelate under him in the actions of Spiritual Authority Let my Lord Archbishop know saith he that if a Bishop or Earl or any other great Person yea if my own chosen Son shall presume to withstand or to hinder his will and disposition whereby he may be with-held from performing the work of the Embass age committed unto him such a one shall finde that of his contempt I will shew my self no less a Persecutor and Revenger than if Treason were committed against mine own very Crown and Dignity Sith therefore by the Fathers and first Founders of this Common-weal it hath upon great experience and fore-cast been judged most for the good of all sorts that as the whole Body Politick wherein we live should be for strengths sake a three-fold Cable consisting of the King as a Supreme Head over all of Peers and Nobles under him and of the People under them so likewise that in this conjunction of States the second wreath of that Cable should for important respects consist as well of Lords Spiritual as Temporal Nobility and Prelacy being by this mean twined together how can it possibly be avoided but that the tearing away of the one must needs exceedingly weaken the other and by consequent impair greatly the good of all 5. The force of which detriment there is no doubt but that the common sort of men would feel to their helpless wo how goodly a thing soever they now surmise it to be that themselves and their godly Teachers did all alone without controulment of their Prelate For if the manifold jeopardies whereto a people destitute of Pastors is subject be unavoidable without Government and if the benefit of Government whether it be Ecclesiastical or Civil do grow principally from them who are principal therein as hath been proved out of the Prophet who albeit the people of Israel had sundry inferior Governors ascribeth not unto them the publick benefit of Government but maketh mention of Moses and Aaron only the Chief Prince and Chief Prelate because they were the well-spring of all the good which others under then did may we not boldly conclude that to take from the people their Prelate is to leave them in effect without Guides at leastwise without those Guides which are the strongest hands that God doth direct them by Then didst lead thy People like Sheep saith the Prophet by the hands of Moses and Aaron If now there arise any matter of Grievances between the Pastor and the People that are under him they have their Ordinary a Judge indifferent to determine their Causes and to end their strife
Deductions cometh clearly unto our hands I hope it will not be said that towards the publique charge we disburse nothing And doth the residue seem yet excessive The ways whereby temporal men provide for themselves and their Families are fore-closed unto us All that we have to sustain our miserable life with is but a remnant of God's own treasure so farr already diminished and clipt that if there were any sense of common humanity left in this hard-hearted World the improverished estate of the Clergy of God would at the length even of very commiseration be spared The mean Gentleman that hath but an hundred pound Land to live on would not be hasty to change his Worldly estate and condition with many of these so over-abounding Prelates a common Artisan or Tradesman of the City with ordinary Pastors of the Church It is our hard and heavy lot that no other sort of men being grudged at how little benefit soever the Publick Weal reap by them no state complained of for holding that which hath grown unto them by lawful means only the Governors of our Souls they that study day and night so to guide us that both in this World we may have comfort and in the World to come endless felicity and joy for even such is the very scope of all their endeavours this they wish for this they labour how hardly soever we use to construe of their incents hard that only they should be thus continually lifted at for possessing but that whereunto they have by Law both of God and man most just Title If there should be no other remedy but that the violence of men in the end must needs bereave them of all succour further than the inclinations of others shall vouchsafe to cast upon them as it were by way of Alms for their relief but from to hour better they are not than their Fathers who have been contented with as hard a portion at the World's hands let the light of the Sun and Moon the common benefit of Heaven and Earth be taken away from â—â— if the Question were Whether God should lose his glory and the safety of his Church be hazarded or they relinquish the right and interest which they have in the things of this World But fith the Question in truth is Whether Levi shall be deprived of the portion of God or no to the end that Simeon or Reuben may devour it as their spoyl the comfort of the one in sustaining the injuries which the other would offer must be that Prayer powred out by Moses the Prince of Prophets in most tender affection to Levi Bless O Lord his substance accept than the work of his hands sâ—ite through the loyns of them that rise up against him and of them which hate him that they rise no more OF THE LAWS OF Ecclesiastical Polity Book VIII Containing their Seventh Assertion That to no Civil Prince or Governor there may be given such power of Ecclesiastical Dominion as by the Laws of this Land belongeth unto the Supreme Regent thereof WE come now to the last thing whereof there is Controversie moved namely The Power of Supreme Iurisdiction which for distinction sake we call The Power of Ecclesiastical dominion It was not thought fit in the Iews Commonwealth that the exercise of Supremacy Ecclesiastical should be denied unto him to whom the exercise of Chiefy Civil did appertain and therefore their Kings were invested with both This power they gave into Simon when they consented that he should be their Prince not only to set men over their Works and Countrey and Weapons but also to provide for the Holy things and that he should be obeyed of every man and that the Writings of the Country should be made in his name and that it should not be lawful for any of the people or Priests to withstand his words or to call any Congregation in the Country without him And if haply it be surmised that thus much was given to Simon as being both Prince and High-Priest which otherwise being their Civil Governor he could not lawfully have enjoyed We must note that all this is no more then the ancient Kings of that People had being Kings and not Priests By this power David Asa Iehoshaphat Iosiaes and the rest made those Laws and Orders which sacred History speaketh of concerning matters of meer Religion the affairs of the Temple and service of God Finally had it not been by the vertue of this power how should it possibly have come to pass that the piety or impiety of the Kings did always accordingly change the publique face of Religion which things the Prophets by themselves never did nor at any time could hinde from being done Had the Priests alone been possest of all power in spiritual affairs how should any thing concerning matter of Religion have been made but only by them in had it head been not in the King to change the face of religion at any time the altering of religion the making of Ecclesiastical Laws with other the like actions belonging unto the power of Dominion are still termed the deeds of the King to shew that in him was placed the supremacy of power in this kinde over all and that unto their Priests the same was never committed saving only at such times as the Priests were also Kings and Princess over them According to the pattern of which example the like power in causes Ecclesiastical is by the Laws of this Realm annexed unto the Crown and there are which do imagine that Kings being meer lay-Lay-persons do by this means exceed the lawful bounds of their callings which thing to the end that they may perswade they first make a necessary separation perpetual and personal between the Church and the Common-wealth Secondly they so tie all kind of power Ecclesiastical unto the Church as if it were in every degree their only right who are by proper spiritual functions termed Church-Governours and might not unto Christian Princes in any wise appertain To lurk under shifting ambignities and equivocations of words in matter of principal weight is childish A Church and a Common-wealth we grant are things in nature one distinguished from the other a Common-wealth is one way and a Church an other way defined In their opinions the Church and Common-wealth are corporations not distinguished only in nature and definition but in substance perpetually severed so that they which are of the one can neither appoint nor execute in whole nor in part the duties which belong to them which are of the other without open breach of the Law of God which hath divided them and doth require that so being divided they should distinctly or severally work as depending both upon God and not hanging one upon the others approbation For that which either hath to do we say that the care of Religion being common to all societies Politique such societies as do embrace the true Religion have the name of the Church given unto
every one of them for distinction from the rest so that every body Politique hath some Religion but the Church that Religion which is only true Truth of Religion is the proper difference whereby a Church is distinguished from other Politique societies of men we here mean true Religion in gross and not according to every particular for they which in some particular points of Religion do sever from the truth may nevertheless truly if we compare them to men of an heathenish Religion be said to hold and profess that Religion which is true For which cause there being of old so many Politique societies stablished through the world only the Common-wealth of Israel which had the truth of Religion was is that respect the Church of God and the Church of Jesus Christ is every such Politique society of men as doth in Religion hold that truth which is proper to Christianity As a Politique society it doth maintain Religion as a Church that Religion which God hath revealed by Jesus Christ with us therefore the name of a Church importeth onely a society of men first united into some publique form of Regiment and secondly distinguished from other societies by the exercise of Religion With them on the other side the name of the Church in this present question importeth not only a maltitude of men so united and so distinguihed but also further the same divided necessarily and perpetually from the body of the Common-wealth so that even in such a Politique society as consisteth of none but Christians yet the Church and Common-wealth are too Corporations independently subsisting by it self We hold that seeing there is not any man of the Church of England but the same man is also a member of the Common-wealth nor any member of the Common-wealth which is not also of the Church of England Therefore as in a figure Triangle the base doth differ from the sides thereof and yet one and the self same line is both a base and also a side aside simply a base if it chance to be the bottom and under-lye the rest So albeit properties and actions of one do cause the name of a Common-wealth qualities and functions of another sort the name of the Church to be given to a multitude yet one and the self-same multitude may in such sort be both Nay it is so with us that no person appertaining to the one can be denied also to be of the other contrariwise unless they against us should hold that the Church and the Common-wealth are two both distinct and separate societies of which two one comprehendeth alwayes persons not belonging to the other that which they do they could not conclude out of the difference between the Church and the Common-wealth namely that the Bishops may not meddle with the affairs of the Common wealth because they are Governours of an other Corporation which is the Church nor Kings with making Lawes for the Church because they have government not of this Corporation but of another divided from it the Common-wealth and the walls of separation between these two must for ever be upheld they hold the necessity of personal separation which clean excludeth the power of one mans dealing with both we of natural but that one and the same person may in both bear principal sway The causes of common received Errors in this Point seem to have been especially two One That they who embrace true Religion living in such Common-wealths as are opposite thereunto and in other publike affairs retaining civil Communion with such as are constrained for the exercise of their Religion to have a several Communion with those who are of the same Religion with them This was the state of the Jewish Church both in Egypt and Babylon the state of Christian Churches a long time after Christ. And in this case because the proper affairs and actions of the Church as it is the Church hath no dependance on the Laws or upon the Government of the civil State and opinion hath thereby grown that even so it should be always This was it which deceived Allen in the writing of his Apology The Apostles saith he did govern the Church in Rome when Nero bare rule even as at this day in all the Churches dominions The Church hath a spiritual Regiments without dependance and so ought she to have amongst Heathens or with Christians Another occasion of which mis-conceit is That things appertaining to Religion are both distinguished from other affairs and have always had in the Church spiritual persons chosen to be exercised about them By which distinction of Spiritual affairs and persons therein employed from Temporal the Error of personal separation always necessary between the Church and Common-wealth hath strengthened it self For of every Politick Society that being true which Aristotle saith namely That the scope thereof is not simply to live nor the duty so much to provide for the life as for means of living well And that even as the soul is the worthier part of man so humane Societies are much more to care for that which tendeth properly to the souls estate then for such temporal things which the life hath need of Other proof there needeth none to shew that as by all men the Kingdom of God is to be sought first for so in all Common-wealths things spiritual ought above temporal be sought for and of things spiritual the chiefest is Religion For this cause persons and things imployed peculiarly about the affairs of Religion are by an excellency termed Spiritual The Heathens themselves had their spiritual Laws and Causes and Affairs always severed from their temporal neither did this make two Independent estates among them God by revealing true Religion sioth make them that receive it his Church Unto the Iews he so revealed the truth of Religion that he gave them in special Considerations Laws not only for the administration of things spiritual but also temporal The Lord himself appointing both the one and the other in that Common-wealth did not thereby distract it into several independent Communities but institute several Functions of one and the self-same Communitie Some Reasons therefore must there be alledged why it should be otherwise in the Church of Christ. I shall not need to spend any great store of words in answering that which is brought out of the Holy Scripture to shew that Secular and Ecclesiastical affairs and offices are distinguished neither that which hath been borrowed from antiquity using by phrase of speech to oppose the Common-weal to the Church of Christ neither yet their Reasons which are wont to be brought forth as witnesses that the Church and Common-weal were always distinct for whether a Church or Common-weal do differ in not the question we strive for but our controversie is concerning the kind of distinction whereby they are severed the one from the other whether as under heathen Kings of the Church did deal with her own affairs within her self without depending
in dealing is tyed unto the soundest perfectest and most indifferent Rule which Rule is the Law I mean not only the Law of Nature and of God but the National Law consonant thereunto Happier that people whose Law is their King in the greatest things then that whose King is himself their Law where the King doth guide the State and the Law the King that Common-wealth is like an Harp or Melodious Instrument the strings whereof are turned and handled all by one hand following as Laws the Rules and Canons of Musical Science Most divinely therefore Archytas maketh unto publike felicity these four steps and degrees every of which doth spring from the former as from another cause 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The King ruling by Law the Magistrate following the Subject free and the whole Society happy Adding on the contrary side that where this order is not it cometh by transgression thereof to pass that a King groweth a Tyrant he that ruleth under him abhorreth to be guided by him or commanded the people subject unto both have freedome under neither and the whole Community is wretched In which respect I cannot chuse but commend highly their wisdom by whom the Foundations of the Common-wealth hath been laid wherein though no manner of Person or cause be unsubject unto the Kings Power yet so is the Power of the King over all and in all limited that unto all his proceedings the Law it self is a rule The Axioms of our Regal Government are these Lex facit regem The Kings Grant of any favour made contrary to the Law is void Rex nibil potest nisi quod jure potest Our Kings therefore when they are to take possession of the Crown they are called unto have it pointed our before their eyes even by the very Solemnities and Rites of their Inauguration to what affairs by the same Law their Supream Power and Authority reacheth crowned we see they are enthronized and annointed the Crown a Sign of a Military Dominion the Throne of Sedentary or Judicial the Oyl of Religious and Sacred Power It is not on any side denied that Kings may have Authority in Secular affairs The Question then is What power they may lawfully have and exercise in causes of God A Prince or Magistrate or a Community saith Doctor Stapleton may have power to lay corporal punishment on them which are teachers of perverse things power to make Laws for the Peace of the Church Power to proclaim to defend and even by revenge to preserve dogmata the very Articles of Religion themselves from violation Others in affection no less devoted unto the Papacy do likewise yield that the Civil Magistrate may by his Edicts and Laws keep all Ecclesiastical Persons within the bounds of their duties and constrain them to observe the Canons of the Church to follow the rule of ancient Discipline That if Ioash was commended for his care and provision concerning so small a part of Religion as the Church-treasure it must needs be both unto Christian Kings themselves greater honour and to Christianity a larger benefit when the custody of Religion and the worship of God in general is their charge It therefore all these things mentioned be most properly the affairs of Gods Ecclesiastical causes if the actions specified be works of power and if that power be such as Kings may use of themselves without the fear of any other power superior in the same thing it followeth necessarily that Kings may have supream power not only in Civil but also in Ecclesiastical affairs and consequently that they may withstand what Bishop or Pope soever shall under the pretended claim of higher Spiritual Authority oppose themselves against their proceedings But they which have made us the former grant will never hereunto condescend what they yield that Princes may do it is with secret exception always understood If the Bishop of Rome give leave if he enterpose no prohibition wherefore somewhat it is in shew in truth nothing which they grant Our own Reformes do the very like when they make their discourse in general concerning the Authority which Magistrates may have a man would think them to be far from withdrawing any jot of that which with reason may be thought due The Prince and Civil Magistrate saith one of them hath to see the Laws of God touching his Worship and touching all Matters and all Orders of the Church to be executed and duly observed and to see every Ecclesiastical Person do that office whereunto he is appointed and to punish those which fail in their office accordingly Another acknowledgeth That the Magistrate may lawfully uphold all truth by his Sword punish all persons enforce all to their duties towards God and men maintain by his Laws every point of Gods Word punish all vice in all men see into all causes visit the Ecclesiastical Estate and correct the abuses thereof Finally to look to his Subjects that under him they may lead their lives in all godliness and honesty◠A third more frankly prosesseth That in case their Church Discipline were established so little it shortneth the Arms of Soveraign Dominion in causes Ecclesiastical that Her Gracious Majesty for any thing they teach or hold to the contrary may no less then now remain still over all persons in all things Supream Governess even with that full and Royal Authority Superiority and Preheminence Supremacy and Prerogative which the Laws already established do give her and her Majesties Injunctions and the Articles of the Convocation house and other writings Apologetical of her Royal Authority and Supream Dignity do declare and explain Possidonius was wont to say of the Epicure That he thought there were no Gods but that those things which he spake concerning the Gods were only given out for fear of growing adious amongst men and therefore that in words he left gods remaining but in very deed overthrew them in so much as he gave them no kind of Action After the very self same manner when we come unto those particular effects Prerogatives of Dominion which the Laws of this Land do grant unto the Kings thereof it will appear how these men notwithstanding their large and liberal Speeches abate such parcels out of the afore alleadged grant and flourishing shew that a man comparing the one with the other may half stand in doubt lest their Opinion in very truth be against that Authority which by their Speeches they seem mightily to uphold partly for the avoiding of publike obloquie envie and hatred partly to the intent they may both in the cad by the establishment of their Discipline extinguish the force of Supream Power which Princes have and yet in the mean while by giving forth these smooth Discourses obtain that their savourers may have somewhat to alleadge for them by way of Apologie and that such words only sound towards all kind of fulness of Power But for my self I had rather construe such their contradictions in the better
part and impute their general acknowledgment of the lawfullness of Kingly Power unto the force of truth presenting it self before them sometimes above their particular contrarieties oppositions denyals unto that errour which having so fully possest their minds casteth things inconvenient upon them of which things in their due place Touching that which is now in hand weare on all sides fully agreed First that there is not any restraint or limitation of matter for regal Authority and Power to be conversant in but of Religion onely and of whatsoever cause thereunto appertaineth Kings may lawfully have change they lawfully may therein exercise Dominion and use the temporal Sword Secondly that some kind of actions conversant about such affairs are denyed unto Kings As namely Actions of Power and Order and of Spiritual Jurisdiction which hath with it inseparably joyned Power to Administer the Word and Sacraments power to Ordain to Judge as an Ordinary to bind and loose to Excommunicate and such like Thirdly that even in those very actions which are proper unto Dominion there must be some certain rule whereunto Kings in all their proceedings ought to be strictly tyed which rule for proceeding in Ecclesiasticall affairs and causes by Regal Power hath not hitherto been agreed upon with such uniform consent and certainty as might be wished The different sentences of men herein I will now go about to examine but it shall be enough to propose what Rule doth seem in this case most reasonable The case of deriving Supream Power from a whole intire multitude into some special part thereof as partly the necessity of expedition in publick affairs partly the inconvenience of confusion and trouble where a multitude of Equals dealeth and partly the dissipation which must needs ensue in companies where every man wholly seeketh his own particular as we all would do even with other mens hurts and haply the very overthrow of themselves in the end also if for the procurement of the common good of all men by keeping every several man is order some were not invested with Authority over all and encouraged with Prerogative-Honour to sustain the weighty burthen of that charge The good which is proper unto each man belongeth to the common good of all as part to the whole perfection but these two are things different for men by that which is proper are severed united they are by that which is common Wherefore besides that which moveth each man in particular to seek his own private good there must be of necessity in all publick Societies also a general mover directing unto common good and framing every mans particular unto it The end whereunto all Government was instituted was Bonum publicum the Universal or Common good Our question is of Dominion for that end and purpose derived into one such as all in one publick State have agreed that the Supream charge of all things should be committed unto one They I say considering what inconveniency may grow where States are subject unto sundry Supream Authorities have for fear of these inconveniencies withdrawn from liking to establish many 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the multitude of Supream Commanders is troublesome No Nan saith our Saviour can serve two Masters surely two supream Masters would make any ones service somewhat uneasie in such cases as might fall out Suppose that to morrow the Power which hath Dominion in Justice require thee at the Court that which in War at the Field that which in Religion at the Temple all have equal Authority over thee and impossible it is that then in such case thou shouldst be obedient unto all By chusing any one whom thou wilt obey certain thou art for thy disobedience to incur the displeasure of the other two But there is nothing for which some comparable reason or other may not be found are we able to shew any commendable State of Government which by experience and practice hath felt the benefit of being in all causes subject unto the Supream Authority of one Against the policy of the Israelites I hope there will no man except where Moses deriving so great a part of his burthen in Government unto others did notwithstanding retain to himself Universal Supremacy Iehosaphat appointing one to be chosen in the affairs of God and another in the Kings affair's did this as having Dominion over them in both If therefore from approbation of Heaven the Kings of Gods own chosen people had in the affairs of Jewish Religion Supream Power why not Christian Kings the like also in Christian Religion First unless men will answer as some have done That the Jews Religion was of far less perfection and dignity then ours our being that truth whereof theirs was but a shadowish prefigurative resemblance Secondly That all parts of their Religion their Laws their Sacrifices and their Rights and Ceremonies being fully set down to their hands and needing no more but only to be put in execution the Kings might well have highest Authority to see that done whereas with us there are a number of Mysteries even in Belief which were not so generally for them as for us necessary to be with sound express acknowledgement understood A number of things belonging to external Government and our manner of serving God not set down by particular Ordinances and delivered to us in writing for which cause the State of the Church doth now require that the Spiritual Authority of Ecclesiastical persons be large absolute and not subordinate to Regal power Thirdly That whereas God armeth Religion Iewish as Christian with the Temporal sword But of Spiritual punishment the one with power to imprison to scourge to put to death The other with bare authority to Censure and excommunicate There is no reason that the Church which hath no visible sword should in Regiment be subject unto any other power then only unto theirs which have authority to bind and loose Fourthly That albeit whilst the Church was restrained unto one people it seemed not incommodious to grant their King the general Chiefty of Power yet now the Church having spread it self over all Nations great inconveniences must therby grow if every Christian King in his several Territory shall have the like power Of all these differences there is not one which doth prove it a thing repugnant to the Law either of God or of Nature that all Supremacy of external Power be in Christian Kingdoms granted unto Kings thereof for preservation of quietness unity order and peace in such manner as hath been shewed Of the Title of Headship FOr the Title or State it self although the Laws of this Land have annexed it to the Crown yet so far◠we should not strive if so be men were nice and scrupulous in this behalf only because they do wish that for reverence to Christ Jesus the Civil Magistrate did rather use some other form of speech wherewith to express that Soveraign Authority which he lawfully hath overall both
hands of our Lord Jesus Christ with all reverence not disdaining to be taught and admonished by them nor with-holding from them as much as the least part of their due and decent honour All which for any thing that hath been alleadged may stand very well without resignation of Supremacy of Power in making Laws even Laws concerning the most Spiritual Affairs of the Church which Laws being made amongst us are not by any of us so taken or interpreted as if they did receive their force from power which the Prince doth communicate unto the Parliament or unto any other Court under him but from Power which the whole Body of the Realm being naturally possest with hath by free and deliberate assent derived unto him that ruleth over them so farr forth as hath been declared so that our Laws made concerning Religion do take originally their essence from the power of the whole Realm and Church of England than which nothing can be more consonant unto the law of Nature and the will of our Lord Jesus Christ. To let these go and return to our own Men Ecclesiastical Governours they say may not meddle with making of Civil Laws and of Laws for the Common-wealth nor the Civil Magistrate high or low with making of Orders for the Church It seemeth unto me very strange that these men which are in no cause more vehement and fierce than where they plead that Ecclesiastical Persons may not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 be Lords should hold that the power of making Ecclesiastical Laws which thing of all other is most proper unto Dominion belongeth to none but Ecclesiastical Persons onely Their oversight groweth herein for want of exact observation what it is to make a Law Tully speaking of the Law of Nature saith That thereof God himself was Inventor Disceptator Lator the Deviser the Discusser and Deliverer wherein he plainly alludeth unto the chiefest parts which then did appertain to his Publick action For when Laws were made the first thing was to have them devised thesecond to sift them with as much exactness of Judgement as any way might be used the next by solemn voyce of Soveraign Authority to pass them and give them the force of Laws It cannot in any reason seem otherwise than most fit that unto Ecclesiastical Persons the care of devising Ecclesiastical Laws be committed even as the care of Civil unto them which are in those Affairs most skilful This taketh not away from Ecclesiastical Persons all right of giving voyce with others when Civil Laws are proposed for Regiment of the Common-wealth whereof themselves though now the World would have them annihilated are notwithstanding as yet a part much less doth it cut off that part of the power of Princes whereby as they claim so we know no reasonable cause wherefore we may not grant them without offence to Almighty God so much Authority in making all manner of Laws within their own Dominions that neither Civil nor Ecclesiastical do pass without their Royal assent In devising and discussing of Laws Wisdom especially is required but that which establisheth them and maketh them is Power even Power of Dominion the Chiefty whereof amongst us resteth in the Person of the King Is there any Law of Christs which forbiddeth Kings and Rulers of the Earth to have such Soveraign and Supream Power in the making of Laws either Civil or Ecclesiastical If there be our controversie hathan end Christ in his Church hath not appointed any such Law concerning Temporal Power as God did of old unto the Common-wealth of Israel but leaving that to be at the World 's free choice his chiefest care is that the Spiritual Law of the Gospel might be published farr and wide They that received the Law of Christ were for a long time People scattered in sundry Kingdoms Christianity not exempting them from the Laws which they had been subject unto saving only in such cases as those Laws did injoyn that which the Religion of Christ did forbid Hereupon grew their manifold Persecutions throughout all places where they lived as oft as it thus came to pass there was no possibility that the Emperours and Kings under whom they lived should meddle any whit at all with making Laws for the Church From Christ therefore having received Power who doubteth but as they did so they might binde them to such Orders as seemed fittest for the maintenance of their Religion without the leave of high or low in the Common-wealth for as much as in Religion it was divided utterly from them and they from it But when the mightiest began to like of the Christian Faith by their means whole Free-States and Kingdoms became obedient unto Christ. Now the question is Whether Kings by embracing Christianity do thereby receive any such Law as taketh from them the weightiest part of that Soveraignty which they had even when they were Heathens Whether being Infidels they might do more in causes of Religion than now they can by the Laws of God being true Believers For whereas in Regal States the King or Supream Head of the Common-wealth had before Christianity a supream stroak in making of Laws for Religion he must by embracing Christian Religion utterly deprive himself thereof and in such causes become subject unto his Subjects having even within his own Dominions them whose commandment he must obey unlesse his Power be placed in the Head of some foreign Spiritual Potentate so that either a foreign or domestical Commander upon Earth he must admit more now than before he had and that in the chiefest things whereupon Common-wealths do stand But apparent it is unto all men which are not Strangers unto the Doctrine of Jesus Christ that no State of the World receiving Christianity is by any Law therein contained bound to resign the Power which they lawfully held before but over what Persons and in what causes soever the same hath been in force it may so remain and continue still That which as Kings they might do in matters of Religion and did in matter of false Religion being Idolatrous and Superstitious Kings the same they are now even in every respect fully authorized to do in all affairs pertinent to the state of true Christian Religion And concerning the Supream Power of making Laws for all Persons in all causes to be guided by it is not to be let passe that the head Enemies of this Headship are constrained to acknowledge the King endued even with this very Power so that he may and ought to exercise the same taking order for the Church and her affairs of what nature of kinde soever in case of necessity as when there is no lawful Ministry which they interpret then to be and this surely is a point very remarkable wheresoever the Ministry is wicked A wicked Ministry is no lawful Ministry and in such sort no lawful Ministry that what doth belong unto them as Ministers by right of their calling the same to be annihilated in
respect of their bad qualities their wickedness in it self a deprivation of right to deal in the affairs of the Church and a warrant for others to deal in them which are held to be of a clean other Society the Members whereof have been before so peremptorily for ever excluded from power of dealing for ever with affairs of the Church They which once have learned throughly this Lesson will quickly be capable perhaps of another equivalent unto it For the wickedness of the Ministery transfers their right unto the King In case the King be as wicked as they to whom then shall the right descend There is no remedy all must come by devolution at length even as the Family of Brown will have it unto the godly among the people for confusion unto the wise and the great by the poor and the simple Some Kniper doling with his retinue must take this work of the Lord in hand and the making of Church-Laws and Orders must prove to be their right in the end If not for love of the truth yet for shame of grosse absurdities let these contentions and stifling fancies be abandoned The cause which moved them for a time to hold a wicked Ministery no lawful Ministry and in this defect of a lawful Ministery authorized Kings to make Laws and Orders for the Affairs of the Church till it were well established is surely this First They see that whereas the continual dealing of the Kings of Israel in the Affairs of the Church doth make now very strong against them the burthen whereof they shall in time well enough shake off if it may be obtained that it is indeed lawful for Kings to follow these holy examples howbeit no longer than during the case of necessity while the wickednesse and in respect thereof the unlawfulness of the Ministery doth continue Secondly They perceive right well that unlesse they should yield Authority unto Kings in case of such supposed necessity the Discipline they urge were clean excluded as long as the Clergy of England doth thereunto remain opposite To open therefore a door for her entrance there is no remedy but the Tenet must be this That now when the Ministery of England is universally wicked and in that respect hath lost all Authority and is become no lawful Ministery no such Ministery as hath the right which otherwise should belong unto them if they were vertuous and godly as their Adversaries are in this necessity the King may do somewhat for the Church that which we do imply in the name of Headship he may both have and exercise till they be entered which will disburthen and ease him of it till they come the King is licensed to hold that Power which we call Headship But what afterwards In a Church ordered that which the Supream Magistrate hath to do is to see that the Laws of God touching his Worship and touching all matters and orders of the Church be executed and duly observed to see that every Ecclesiastical Person do that Office whereunto he is appointed to punish those that fail in their Office In a word that which Allain himself acknowledgeth unto the Earthly power which God hath given him it doth belong to defend the Laws of the Church to cause them to be executed and to punish Rebels and Transgressors of the same on all sides therfore it is confest that to the King belongeth power of maintaining the Laws made for Church-Regiment and of causing them to be observed but Principality of Power in making them which is the thing we attribute unto Kings this both the one sort and the other do withstand Touching the Kings supereminent authority in commanding and in judging of Causes Ecclesiastical First to explain therein our meaning It hath been taken as if we did hold that Kings may prescribe what themselves think good to be done in the service of God how the Word shall be taught how the Sacraments administred that Kings may personally sit in the Consistory where the Bishops do hearing and determining what Causes soever do appertain unto the Church That Kings and Queens in their own proper Persons are by Judicial Sentence to decide the Questions which do rise about matters of Faith and Christian Religion That Kings may excommunicate Finally That Kings may do whatsoever is incident unto the Office and Duty of an Ecclesiastical Judge Which opinion because we account as absurd as they who have fathered the same upon us we do them to wit that this is our meaning and no otherwise There is not within this Realm an Ecclesiastical Officer that may by the Authority of his own place command universally throughout the Kings Dominions but they of this People whom one may command are to anothers commandement unsubject Only the Kings Royal Power is of so large compass that no man commanded by him according to the order of Law can plead himself to be without the bounds and limits of that Authority Isay according to order of Law because that with us the highest have thereunto so tyed themselves that otherwise than so they take not upon them to command any And that Kings should be in such sort Supream Commanders over all men we hold it requisite as well for the ordering of Spiritual as Civil Affairs in as much as without universal Authority in this kinde they should not be able when need is to do as vertuous Kings have done Josiah parposing to renew the House of the Lord assembled the Priests and Levites and when they were together gave them their charge saying Go out unto the Cities of Judah and gather of Israel money to repair the House of the Lord from year to year and haste the things But the Levites hastned not Therefore the King commanded Jehoida the Chief-priest and said unto him Why hast thou not required of the Levites to bring in out of Judah and Jerusalem the Tax of Moses the Servant of the Lord and of the Congregation of Israel for the Tabernacle of the Testimony For wicked Athalia and her Children brake up the House of the Lord God and all the things that were dedicated for the House of the Lord did they bestow upon Balaam Therefore the King commanded and they made a Chest and set it at the Gate of the House of the Lord without and they made a Proclamation through Judah and Jerusalem to bring unto the Lord the Tax of Moses the Servant of the Lord laid upon Israel in the Wilderness Could either he have done this or after him Ezekias the like concerning the celebration of the Passeover but that all sorts of men in all things did owe unto these their Soveraign Rulers the same obedience which sometimes Iosuah had them by vow and promise bound unto Whosoever shall rebel against thy Commandments and will not obey thy words in all thou commandest him let him be put to death only be strong and of a good courage Furthermore Judgement Ecclesiastical we say is
necessary for decision of Controversies rising between man and man and for correction of faults committed in the Affairs of God unto the due execution whereof there are three things necessary Laws Judges and Supream Governours of Judgements What Courts there shall be and what causes shall belong unto each Court and what Judges shall determine of every cause and what Order in all Judgements shall be kept of these things the Laws have sufficiently disposed so that his duty who sitteth in any such Court is to judge not of but after the same Law Imprimis illud observare debet Iudex ne aliter judicet quam legibus constitutionibus aut moribus proditum est ut Imperator Iustinianaus which Laws for we mean the positive Laws of our Realm concerning Ecclesiastical Affairs if they otherwise dispose of any such thing than according to the Law of Reason and of God we must both acknowledge them to be amiss and endeavour to have them reformed But touching that point what may be objected shall after appear Our Judges in Causes Ecclesiastical are either Ordinary or Commissionary Ordinary those whom we term Ordinaries and such by the Laws of this Land are none but Prelates onely whose Power to do that which they do is in themselves and belonging to the nature of their Ecclesiastical calling In Spiritual Causes a lay-Lay-Person may be no Ordinary a Commissionary Judge there is no lett but that he may be and that our Laws do evermore referr the ordinary Judgement of Spiritual Causes unto Spiritual Persons such as are termed Ordinaries no man which knoweth any thing of the Practice of this Realm can easily be ignorant Now besides them which are Authorized to judge in several Territories there is required an universal Power which reacheth over all imparting Supream Authority of Government over all Courts all Judges all Causes the operation of which Power is as well to strengthen maintain and uphold particular Jurisdictions which haply might else be of small effect as also to remedy that which they are not able to help and to redress that wherein they at any time do otherwise than they ought to do This Power being sometime in the Bishop of Rome who by sinister Practises had drawn it into his hands was for just considerations by Publick consent annexed unto the Kings Royal Seat and Crown from thence the Authors of Reformation would translate it into their National Assemblies or Synods which Synods are the onely helps which they think lawful to use against such Evils in the Church as particular Jurisdictions are not sufficient to redress In which Cause our Laws have provided that the Kings supereminent Authority and Power shall serve As namely when the whole Ecclesiastical State or the Principal Persons therein do need Visitation and Reformation when in any part of the Church Errours Schismes Herusies Abuses Offences Contempts Enormities are grown which men in their several Jurisdictions either do not or cannot help Whatsoever any Spiritual Authority and Power such as Legates from the See of Rome did sometimes exercise hath done or might heretofore have done for the remedies of those Evils in lawful sort that is to say without the violation of the Laws of God or Nature in the deed done as much in every degree our Laws have fully granted that the King for ever may do not onely be setting Ecclesiastical Synods on work that the thing may be their Act and the King their Motioner unto it for so much perhaps the Masters of the Reformation will grant but by Commissions few or many who having the Kings Letters Patents may in the vertue thereof execute the premises as Agents in the right not of their own peculiar and ordinary but of his supereminent Power When men are wronged by inferiour Judges or have any just cause to take exception against them their way for Redress is to make their Appeal and Appeal is a present delivery of him which maketh it out of the hands of their Power and Jurisdictions from whence it is made Pope Alexander having sometimes the King of England at advantage caused him amongst other things to agree that as many of his Subjects as would might have appeal to the Court of Rome And thus saith one that whereunto a mean Person at this day would scorn to submit himself so great a King was content to he subject to Notwithstanding even when the Pope saith he had so great Authority amongst Princes which were farr off the Romans he could not frame to obedience nor was able to obtain that himself might abide at Rome though promising not to meddle with other than Ecclesiastical Affairs So much are things that terrifie more feared by such as behold them aloof off than at hand Reformers I doubt not in some Causes will admit Appeals but Appeals made to their Synods even as the Church of Rome doth allow of them so they be made to the Bishop of Rome As for that kinde of Appeal which the English Laws do approve from the Judge of any certain particular Court unto the King as the onely Supream Governour on Earth who by his Delegates may give a final definitive Sentence from which no farther Appeal can be made Will their Plat-form allow of this Surely forasmuch as in that estate which they all dream of the whole Church must be divided into Parishes in which none can have greater or less Authority and Power than another again the King himself must be but a common Member in the Body of his own Parish and the causes of that onely Parish must be by the Officers thereof determinable In case the King had so much favour or preferment as to be made one of those Officers for otherwise by their positions he were not to meddle any more than the meanest amongst his Subjects with the Judgement of any Ecclesiastical Cause how is it possible they should allow of Appeals to be made from any other abroad to the King To receive Appeals from all other Judges belongeth to the highest in power of all and to be in power over All as touching Judgment in Ecclesiastical Causes this as they think belongeth onely to Synods Whereas therefore with us Kings do exercise over all Things Persons and Causes Supream Power both of voluntary and litigious Jurisdictionsâ— so that according to the one they incite reform and command according to the other they judge universally doing both in farr other sort than such as have ordinary Spiritual power oppugned we are herein by some colourable shew of Argument as if to grant thus much to any Secular Person it were unreasonable For sith it is say they apparent out of the Chronicles that judgement in Church-matters pertaineth to God Seeing likewise it is evident out of the Apostles that the High-Priest is set over those matters in Gods behalf It must needs follow that the Principality or direction of the Iudgment of them is by Gods ordinance appertaining to the High-Priest and
consequently to the Ministry of the Church and if it be by Gods Ordinance appertaining unto them how can it be translated from them to the Civil Magistrate Which Argument briefly drawn into form lyeth thus That which belongeth unto God may not be translated unto any other but whom he hath appointed to have it in his behalf But principality of Judgement in Church-matters appertaineth unto God which hath appointed the High-Priest and consequently the Ministry of the Church alone to have it in his behalf Ergo it may not from them be translated to the Civil Magistrate The first of which Propositions we grant as also in the second that branch which ascribeth unto God Principality in Church-matters But that either he did appoint none but onely the High-Priest to exercise the said Principality for him or that the Ministry of the Church may in reason from thence be concluded to have alone the same Principality by his appointment these two Points we deny utterly For concerning the High-Priest there is first no such Ordinance of God to be found Every High-Priest saith the Apostle is taken from amongst men and is ordained for men in things pertaining to God Whereupon it may well be gathered that the Priest was indeed Ordained of God to have Power in things appertaining unto God For the Apostle doth there mention the Power of offering Gifts and Sacrifices for Sin which kinde of Power was not onely given of God unto Priests but restrained unto Priests onely The power of Jurisdiction and ruling Authority this also God gave them but not them alone For it is held as all men know that others of the Laity were herein joyned by the Law with them But concerning Principality in Church-affairs for of this our Question is and of no other the Priest neither had it alone nor at all but in Spiritual or Church-affairs as hath been already shewed it was the Royal Prerogative of Kings only Again though it were so that God had appointed the High-Priest to have the said Principality of Government in those maters yet how can they who alledge this enforce thereby that consequently the Ministry of the Church and no other ought to have the same when they are so farr off from allowing so much to the Ministry of the Gospel as the Priest-hood of the Law had by God's appointment That we but collecting thereout a difference in Authority and Jurisdiction amongst the Clergy to be for the Polity of the Church not inconvenient they forthwith think to close up our mouths by answering That the Iewish High-Priest had authority above the rest onely in that they prefigured the Soveraignty of Iesus Christ As for the Ministers of the Gospel it is altogether unlawful to give them as much as the least Title any syllable whereof may sound to Principality And of the Regency which may be granted they hold others even of the Laity no less capable than the Pastors themselves How shall these things cleave together The truth is that they have some reason to think it not at all of the fittest for Kings to sit as ordinary Judges in matters of Faith and Religion An ordinary Judge must be of the quality which in a Supream Judge is not necessary Because the Person of the one is charged with that which the other Authority dischargeth without imploying personally himself therein It is an Errour to think that the King's Authority can have no force nor power in the doing of that which himself may not personally do For first impossible it is that at one and the same time the King in Person should order so many and so different affairs as by his own power every where present are wont to be ordered both in peace and warr at home and abroad Again the King in regard of his nonage or minority may be unable to perform that thing wherein years of discretion are requisite for personal action and yet his authority even then be of force For which cause we say that the King's authority dyeth not but is and worketh always alike Sundry considerations there may be effectual to with-hold the King's Person from being a doer of that which notwithstanding his Power must give force unto even in Civil affairs where nothing doth more either concern the duty or better beseem the Majesty of Kings than personally to administer Justice to their People as most famous Princes have done yet if it be in case of Felony of Treason the Learned in the Laws of this Realm do affirm that well may the King commit his Authority to another to judge between him and the Offender but the King being himself there a Party he cannot personally sit to give Judgement As therefore the Person of the King may for just considerations even where the cause is Civil be notwithstanding withdrawn from occupying the Seat of Judgment and others under his Authority be fit he unfit himself to judge so the considerations for which it were haply no convenient for Kings to sit and give Sentence in Spiritual Courts where Causes Ecclesiastical are usually debated can be no barr to that force and efficacy which their Soveraign Power hath over those very Consistories and for which we hold without any exception that all Courts are the Kings All men are not for all things sufficient and therefore Publick affairs being divided such Persons must be authorized Judges in each kinde as Common reason may presume to be most fit Which cannot of Kings and Princes ordinarily be presumed in Causes merely Ecclesiastical so that even Common sense doth rather adjudge this burthen unto other men We see it hereby a thing necessary to put a difference as well between that Ordinary Jurisdiction which belongeth unto the Clergy alone and that Commissionary wherein others are for just considerations appointed to joyn with them as also between both these Jurisdictions And a third whereby the King hath transcendent Authority and that in all Causes over both Why this may not lawfully be granted unto him there is no reason A time there was when Kings were not capable of any such Power as namely when they professed themselves open Enemies unto Christ and Christianity A time there followed when they being capable took sometimes more sometimes less to themselves as seemed best in their own eyes because no certainty touching their right was as yet determined The Bishops who alone were before accustomed to have the ordering of such Affairs saw very just cause of grief when the highest favouring Heresie withstood by the strength of Soveraign Authority Religious proceedings Whereupon they oftentimes against this unresistable power pleaded the use and custom which had been to the contrary namely that the affairs of the Church should be dealt in by the Clergy and by no other unto which purpose the sentences that then were uttered in defence of unabolished Orders and Laws against such as did of their own heads contrary thereunto are now altogether impertinently brought in opposition against
them who use but that Power which Laws have given them unless men can shew that there is in those Laws some manifest iniquity or injustice Whereas therefore against the force Judicial and Imperial which Supream Authority hath it is alledged how Constantine termeth Church-Officers Over-seers of things within the Church himself of those without the Church how Augustine witnesseth that the Emperor not daring to judge of the Bishop's Cause committed it to the Bishops and was to crave paâ—â—â—on of the Bishops for that by the Donatists importunity which made no end to appealing unto him he was being weary of them drawn to give sentence in a matter of theirs how Hilary beseecheth the Emperor Constance to provide that the Governors of his Provinces should not presume to take upon them the Judgement of Ecclesiastical Causes to whom onely Common-wealth matters belonged how Ambrose affirmeth that Palaces belong unto the Emperor Churches to the Minister That the Emperor hath the authority over the Common-walls of the City and not in holy things for which cause he never would yield to have the Causes of the Church debated in the Princes Consistories but excused himself to the Emperor Valentinian for that being convented to answer concerning Church-matters in a Civil Court he came not We may by these testimonies drawn from Antiquity if wellst to consider them discern how requisite it is that Authority should always follow received Laws in the manner of proceeding For inasmuch as there was at the first no certain Law determining what force the principal Civil Magistrates authority should be of how farr it should reach and what order it should observe but Christian Emperors from time to time did what themselves thought most reasonable in those affairs by this means it cometh to passe that they in their practise vary and are not uniform Vertuous Emperors such as Constantine the Great was made conscience to swerve unnecessarily from the custom which had been used in the Church even when it lived under Infidels Constantine of reverence to Bishops and their Spiritual Authority rather abstained from that which himself might lawfully do than was willing to claim a Power not fit or decent for him to exercise The Order which hath been before he ratifieth exhorting the Bishops to look to the Church and promising that he would do the Office of a Bishop over the Common-wealth which very Constantine notwithstanding did not thereby so renounce all Authority in judging of Special Causes but that sometime he took as St. Augustine witnesseth even personal cognition of them howbeit whether as purposing to give therein judicially any Sentence I stand in doubt for if the other of whom St. Augustine elsewhere speaketh did in such sort judge surely there was cause why he should excuse it as a thing not usually done Otherwise there is no lett but that any such great Person may hear those Causes to and fro debated and deliver in the end his own opinion of them declaring on which side himself doth judge that the truth is But this kinde of Sentence bindeth no side to stand thereunto it is a Sentence of private perswasion and not of solemn jurisdiction albeit a King or an Emperour pronounce it Again on the contrary part when Governours infected with Heresie were possessed of the Highest Power they thought they might use it as pleased themselves to further by all means that opinion which they desired should prevail they not respecting at all what was meet presumed to command and judge all men in all Causes without either care of orderly proceeding or regard to such Laws and Customs as the Church had been wont to observe So that the one sort feared to do even that which they might and that which the other ought not they boldly presumed upon the one sort of modesty excused themselves where they scarce needed the other though doing that which was inexcusable bare it out with main power not enduring to be told by any man how farr they roved beyond their bounds So great odds was between them whom before we mentioned and such as the younger Valentinian by whom St. Ambrose being commanded to yield up one of the Churches under him unto the Arrians whereas they which were sent on his Message alledged That the Emperour did but use his own right forasmuch as all things were in his power The Answer which the holy Bishop gave them was That the Church is the House of God and that those things that are Gods are not to be yielded up and disposed of it at the Emperors will and pleasure His Palaces he might grant to whomsoever he pleaseth but Gods own Habitation not so A cause why many times Emperours do more by their absolute Authority than could very well stand with reason was the over-great importunity of wicked Hereticks who being Enemies to Peace and Quietness cannot otherwise than by violent means be supported In this respect therefore we must needs think the state of our own Church much better settled than theirs was because our Lawes have with farr more certainty prescribed bounds unto each kinde of Power All decision of things doubtful and correction of things amiss are proceeded in by order of Law what Person soever he be unto whom the administration of Judgment belongeth It is neither permitted unto Prelates nor Prince to judge and determine at their own discretion but Law hath prescribed what both shall do What Power the King hath he hath it by Law the bounds and limits of it are known the intire Community giveth general order by Law how all things publickly are to be done and the King as the Head thereof the Highest in Authority over all causeth according to the same law every particular to be framed and ordered thereby The whole Body Politick maketh Laws which Laws gave Power unto the King and the King having bound himself to use according unto Law that power it so falleth out that the execution of the one is accomplished by the other in most religious and peaceable sort There is no cause given unto any to make supplication as Hilary did that Civil Governors to whom Common-wealth-matters only belong may not presume to take upon them the Judgement of Ecclesiastical causes If the cause be Spiritual Secular Courts do not meddle with it we need not excuse our selves with Ambrose but boldly and lawfully we may refuse to answer before any Civil Judge in a matter which is not Civil so that we do not mistake either the nature of the Cause or of the Court as we easily may do both without some better direction than can be by the rules of this new-found Discipline But of this most certain we are that our Laws do neither suffer a Spiritual Court to entertain those Causes which by the Law are Civil nor yet if the matter be indeed Spiritual a mere Civil Court to give Judgement of it Touching Supream Power therefore to command all men and in all manner
of causes of Judgement to be highest let thus much suffice as well for declaration of our own meaning as for defence of the truth therein The cause is not like when such Assemblies are gathered together by Suream Authority concerning other affairs of the Church and when they meet about the making of Ecclesiastical Laws or Statutes For in the one they are onely to advise in the other to decree The Persons which are of the one the King doth voluntarily assemble as being in respect of quality fit to consult withal them which are of the other he calleth by prescript of Law as having right to be thereunto called Finally the one are but themselves and their Sentence hath but the weight of their own Judgment the other represent the whole Clergy and their voyces are as much as if all did give personal verdict Now the question is Whether the Clergy alone so assembled ought to have the whole power of making Ecclesiastical Laws or else consent of the Laity may thereunto be made necessary and the King's assent so necessary that his sole denial may be of force to stay them from being Laws If they with whom we dispute were uniform strong and constant in that which they say we should not need to trouble our selves about their Persons to whom the power of making Laws for the Church belongs for they are sometime very vehement in contention that from the greatest thing unto the least about the Church all must needs be immediately from God And to this they apply the pattern of the antient Tabernacle which God delivered unto Moses and was therein so exact that there was not left as much as the least pin for the wit of man to devise in the framing of it To this they also apply that streight and severe charge which God soosten gave concerning his own Law Whatsoever I command you take heed ye do it Thou shalt put nothing thereto thou shalt take nothing from it Nothing whether it be great or small Yet sometimes bethinking themselves better they speak as acknowledging that it doth suffice to have received in such sort the principal things from God and that for other matters the Church had sufficient authority to make Laws whereupon they now have made it a question What Persons they are whose right it is to take order for the Churches affairs when the institution of any new thing therein is requisite Law may be requisite to be made either concerning things that are onely to be known and believed in or else touching that which is to be done by the Church of God The Law of Nature and the Law of God are sufficient for declaration in both what belongeth unto each man separately as his Soul is the Spouse of Christ yea so sufficient that they plainly and fully shew whatsoever God doth require by way of necessary introduction unto the state of everlasting bliss But as a man liveth joyned with others in common society and belongeth to the outward Politick Body of the Church albeit the same Law of Nature and Scripture have in this respect also made manifest the things that are of greatest necessity nevertheless by reason of new occasions still arising which the Church having care of Souls must take order for as need requireth hereby it cometh to pass that there is and ever will be so great use even of Human Laws and Ordinances deducted by way of discourse as a conclusion from the former Divine and Natural serving as Principals thereunto No man doubteth but that for matters of Action and Practice in the Affairs of God for manner in Divine Service for order in Ecclesiastical proceedings about the Regiment of the Church there may be oftentimes cause very urgent to have Laws made but the reason is not so plain wherefore Human laws should appoint men what to believe Wherefore in this we must note two things 1. That in matters of opinion the Law doth not make that to be truth which before was not as in matter of Action is causeth that to be a duty which was not before but manifesteth only and giveth men notice of that to be truth the contrary whereunto they ought not before to have believed 2. That opinions do cleave to the understanding and are in heat assented unto it is not in the power of any Human law to command them because to prescribe what men shall think belongeth only unto God Corde creditur ore fit confessio saith the Apostle As opinions are either fit or inconvenient to be professed so man's laws hath to determine of them It may for Publick unities sake require mens professed assent or prohibit their contradiction to special Articles wherein as there haply hath been Controversie what is true so the same were like to continue still not without grievous detriment unto a number of Souls except Law to remedy that evil should set down a certainty which no man afterwards is to gain-say Wherefore as in regard of Divine laws which the Church receiveth from God we may unto every man apply those words of wisdom in Solomon My Son keep thou thy Fathers Precepts Conserva Fili mi praecepta Patris tui even so concerning the Statutes and Ordinances which the Church it self makes we may add thereunto the words that follow Etut dimitt as legem Matris tuae And forsake thou not thy Mothers law It is a thing even undoubtedly natural that all free and Independent Societies should themselves make their own Laws and that this power should belong to the whole not to any certain part of a Politick body though haply some one part may have greater sway in that action than the rest which thing being generally fit and expedient in the making of all Laws we see no cause why to think otherwise in Laws concerning the service of God which in all well-order'd States and Common-wealths is the first thing that Law hath care to provide for When we speak of the right which naturally belongeth to a Common-wealth we speak of that which must needs belong to the Church of God For if the Common-wealth be Christian if the People which are of it do publickly embrace the true Religion this very thing doth make it the Church as hath been shewed So that unless the verity and purity of Religion do take from them which embrace it that power wherewith otherwise they are possessed look what authority as touching laws for Religion a Common-wealth hath simply it must of necessity being of the Christian Religion It will be therefore perhaps alledged that a part of the verity of Christian Religion is to hold the power of making Ecclesiastical Laws a thing appropriated unto the Clergy in their Synods and whatsoever is by their only voyces agreed upon it needeth no further approbation to give unto it the strength of a Law as may plainly appear by the Canons of that first most venerable Assembly where those things the Apostle and Iames had concluded
labouring and suing for Places and Charges in the Church is not lawful Further whereas at the suit of the Church some of your Honours entertained the Cause and brought it to a near issue that there seemed nothing to remain but the commendation of my Lord the Archbishop of Canterbury when as he could not be satisfied but by my subscribing to his late Articles and that my Answer agreeing to subscribe according to any Law and to the Statute provided in that Case but praying to be respited for subscribing to any other which I could not in Conscience do either for the Temple which otherwise he said he would not commend me to nor for any other Place in the Church did so little please my Lord Archbishop as he resolved that otherwise I should not be commended to it I had utterly here no cause of offence against Mr. Hooker whom I did in no sort esteem to have prevented or undermined me but that God disposed of me as it pleased him by such means and occasions as I have declared Moreover as I have taken no cause of offence at Mr. Hooker for being preferred so there were many Witnesses that I was glad that the place was given him hoping to live in all godly peace and comfort with him both for acquaintance and good-will which hath been between us and for some kinde of affinity in the marriage of his nearest kindred and mine Since his comming I have so carefully endeavoured to entertain all good correspondence and agreement with him as I think he himself will bear me witness of many earnest Disputations and Conferences with him about the matter the rather because that contrary to my expectation he inclined from the beginning but smally thereunto but joyned rather with such as had always opposed themselves to any good order in this Charge and made themselves to be brought indisposed to his present state and proceedings For both knowing that God's Commandement charged me with such Duty and discerning how much on peace might further the good service of God and his Church and the mutual comfort of us both I had resolved constantly to seek for Peace and though it should flye from me as I saw it did by means of some who little desired to see the good of our Church yet according to the rule of God's Word to follow after it Which being so as hereof I take God to witnesse who searcheth the heart and reins and who by his Son will judge the World both quick and dead I hope no charitable Judgement can suppose me to have stood evil-affected towards him for his Place or desirous to fall into any Controversie with him Which my resolution I pursued that whereas I discovered sundry unsound matters in his Doctrine as many of his Sermons tasted of some sour leaven or other yet thus I carried my self towards him Matters of smaller weight and so covertly discovered that no great offence to the Church was to be feared in them I wholly passed by as one that discerned nothing of them or had been unfurnished of replies for others of great moment and so openly delivered as there was just cause of fear left the Truth and Church of God should be prejudiced and perilled by it and such as the Conscience of my Duty and Calling would not suffer me altogether to pass over this was my course to deliver when I should have just cause by my Text the truth of such Doctrine as he lead otherwise taught in general speeches without touch of his Person in any sort and further at convenient opportunity to conferr with him in such points According to which determination whereas he had taught certain things concerning Predestination otherwise than the Word of God doth as it is understood by all Churches professing the Gospel and not unlike that wherewith Coranus sometimes troubled his Church I both delivered the truth of such points in a general Doctrine without any touch of him in particular and conferred with him also privately upon such Articles In which Conference I remember when I urged the consent of all Churches and good Writers against him that I knew and desired if it were otherwise What Authors he had seen of such Doctrine He answered me That his best Author was his own Reason which I wished him to take heed of as a matter standing with Christian modesty and wisdom in a Doctrine not received by the Church not to trust to his own Judgment so farr as to publish it before he had conferred with others of his Profession labouring by daily Prayer and Study to know the will of God as he did to see how they understood such Doctrine Notwithstanding he with wavering replyed That he would some other time deal more largely in the matter I wished him and prayed him not so to do for the peace of the Church which by such means might be hazarded seeing he could not but think that men who make any Couscience of their Ministerie will judge it a necessarie dutie in them to teach the truth and to convince the contrarie Another time upon like occasion of this Doctrine of his That the assurance of that we believe by the Word is not so certain as of that we perceive by sense I both taught the Doctrine otherwise namely the assurance of Faith to be greater which assured both of things above and contrarie to all sense and human understanding and dealt with him also privately upon that point According to which course of late when as he had taught That the Church of Rome is a true Church of Christ and a sanctified Church by profession of that Truth which God both revealed unto us by his Son though not a part and perfect Church and further That be doubted not but that thousands of the Fathers which lived and dyed in the Superstitions of that Church were saved because of their ignorance which excuseth them mis-alledging to that end a Text of Scripture to prove it The matter being ofset purpose openly and at large handled by him and of that moment that might prejudice the Faith of Christ encourage the ill-affected to continue still in their damnable ways and others weak in Faith to suffer themselves easily to be seduced to the destruction of their Souls I thought it my most bounden duty of God and to his Church whilst I might have opportunitie to speak with him to teach the Truth in a general speech in such points of Doctrine At which time I taught That such as dye or have died at any time in the Church of Rome holding in their ignorance that Faith which is taught in it and namely Iustification in part by Works could not be said by the Scriptures to be saved In which matter foreseeing that if I waded not warily in it I should be in danger to be reported as hath fallen out since notwithstanding to condemn all the Fathers I said directly and plainly to all mens understanding That it was not indeed to be
behold saith the Apostle I Paul say unto you that if ye be circumcised Christ shall profit you nothing Christ in the work of mans salvation is alone the Galathians were cast away by joyning Circumcision and the other Rites of the Law with Christ the Church of Rome doth teach her children to joyn other things likewise with him therefore their saith their belief doth not profit them any thing at all It is true that they do indeed joyn other things with Christ but how Not in the work of Redemption it self which they grant that Christ alone hath performed sufficiently for the salvation of the whole world but in the application of this inestimable treasure that it may be effectual to their salvation how demurely soever they confess that they seek remission of sins no otherwise then by the blood of Christ using humbly the means appointed by him to apply the benefit of his holy Blood they teach indeed so many things pernicious in Christian Faith in setting down the means whereof they speak that the very foundation of Faith which they hold is thereby plainly overthrown and the force of the blood of Jesus Christ extinguished We may therefore disputing with them urge them even with as dangerous sequels as the Apostle doth the Galatians But I demand If some of those Galatians heartily embracing the Gospel of Christ sincere and sound in Faith this one only error excepted had ended their lives before they were ever taught how perillous an opinion they held shall we think that the danger of this error did so over-weigh the benefit of their faith that the mercy of God might not save them I grant they overthrew the foundation of Faith by consequent doth not that so likewise which the Lutheran Churches do at this day so stifly and so firmly maintain For mine own part I dare not here deny the possibility of their salvation which have been the chiefest instruments of ours albeit they carried to their grave a perswasion so greatly repugnant to the truth Forasmuch therefore as it may be said of the Church of Rome she hath yet a little strength she doth not directly deny the foundation of Christianity I may I trust without offence perswade my self that thousands of our Fathers in former times living and dying within her walls have found mercy at the hands of God 18. What although they repented not of their errors God forbid that I should open my mouth to gain-say that which Christ himself hath spoken Except ye repent ye shall all perish And if they did not repent they perished But withall note that we have the benefit of a double Repentance the least sin which we commit in Deed Thought or Word is death without Repentance Yet how many things do escape us in every of these which we do not know How many which we do not observe to be sins And without the knowledge without the observation of sin there is no actual Repentance It cannot then be chosen but that for as many as hold the foundation and have holden all Sins and Errors in hatred the blessing of Repentance for unknown Sins and Errors is obtained at the hands of God through the gracious mediation of Jesus Christ for such suiters as cry with the Prophet David Purge me O Lord from my secret sins 19. But we wash a wall of lome we labour in vain all this is nothing it doth not prove it cannot justifie that which we go about to maintain Infidels and Heathen men are not so godless but that they may no doubt cry God mercy and desire in general to have their sins forgiven them To such as deny the foundation of Faith there can be no Salvation according to the ordinary course which God doth use in saving men without a particular repentance of that Error The Galathians thinking that unless they were circumcised they could not be saved overthrew the foundation of Faith directly therefore if any of them did die so perswaded whether before or after they were told of their Errors their end is dreadful there is no way with them but one death and condemnation For the Apostle speaketh nothing of men departed but saith generally of all If ye be circumcised Christ shall profit you nothing Ye are abolished from Christ whosoever are justified by the Law ye are fallen from grace Gal. 5. Of them in the Church of Rome the reason is the same For whom Antichrist hath seduced concerning them did not S. Paul speak long before they received not the word of truth that they might not be saved therefore God would send them strong delusions to beleeve lies that all they might be damned which believe not the truth but had pleasure in unrighteousness And S. Iohn All that dwell upon the earth shall worship him whose names are not written in the book of life Apoc. 13. Indeed many in former times as their Books and Writings do yet shew held the foundation to wit salvation by Christ alone and therefore might be saved God hath always had a Church amongst them which firmly kept his saving truth As for such as hold with the Church of Rome that we cannot be saved by Christ alone without works they do not only by a circle of consequence but directly deny the foundation of Faith they hold it not no not so much as by a thred 20. This to my remembrance being all that hath been opposed with any countenance or shew of reason I hope if this be answered the cause in question is at an end Concerning general Repentance therefore what a Murtherer a Blasphemer an unclean person a Turk a Iew any sinner to escape the wrath of God by a general Repentance God forgive me Truly it never came within my heart that a general Repentance doth serve for all sins it serveth only for the common over-sights of our sinful life and for the faults which either we do not mark or do not know that they are faults Our Fathers were actually penitent for sins wherein they knew they displeased God or else they fall not within the compass of my first speech Again that otherwise they could not be saved than holding the foundation of Christian Faith we have not only affirmed but proved Why is it not then confessed that thousands of our Fathers which lived in Popish Superstitions might yet by the mercy of God be saved First if they had directly denied the very foundations of Christianity without repenting them particularly of that sin he which saith There could be no salvation for them according to the ordinary course which God doth use in saving men granteth plainly or at the least closely insinuateth that an extraordinary priviledge of mercy might deliver their souls from Hell which is more then I required Secondly if the foundation be denied it is denied for fear of some Heresie which the Church of Rome maintaineth But how many were there amongst our Fathers who being seduced by the common Error of
Presbyters and Bishops both were all subject unto Paul as to an higher Governor appointed of God to be over them But for as much as the Apostles could not themselves be present in all Churches and as the Apostles St. Paul foretold the Presbyters of the Ephesians that there would rise up from amongst their own selves men speaking perverse things to draw Disciples after them there did grow in short time amongst the Governors of each Church those emulations strifes and contentions whereof there could be no sufficient remedy provided except according unto the order of Ierusalem already begun some one were indued with Episcopal Authority over the rest which one being resident might keep them in order and have preheminence or principality in those things wherein the equality of many agents was the cause of disorder and trouble This one President or Governour amongst the rest had his known Authority established along time before that settled difference of name and title took place whereby such alone were named Bishops And therefore in the book of S. Iohns Revelation we find that they are entituled Angels It will perhaps be answered That the Angels of those Churches were onely in every Church a Minister Sacraments But then we ask Is it probable that in every of these Churches even in Ephesus it self where wany such Ministers were long before as hath been proved there was but one such when Iohn directed his speech to the Angel of that Church If there were many surely St. Iohn in naming but only one of them an Angel did behold in that one somewhat above the rest Nor was this order peculiar unto some few Churches but the whole world universally became subject thereunto insomuch as they did not account it to be a Church which was not subject unto a Bishop It was the general received perswasion of the ancient Christian world that Ecclesia est in Episcopo the outward being of a Church consisteth in the having of a Bishop That where Colledges of Presbyters were there was at the first equality amongst them S. Ierome thinketh it a matter clear but when the rest were thus equal so that no one of them could command any other as inferior unto him they all were controlable by the Apostles who had that Episcopal authority abiding at the first in themselves which they afterwards derived unto others The cause wherefore they under themselves appointed such Bishops as were not every whereat the first is said to have been those strifes and contentions for remedy whereof whether the Apostles alone did conclude of such a regiment or else they together with the whole Church judging it a fit and a needfull policy did agree to receive it for a custom no doubt but being established by them on whom the Holy Ghost was powred in so abundant measure for the ordering of Christs Church it had either Divine appointment beforehand or Divine approbation afterwards and is in that respect to be acknowledged the Ordinance of God no less then that ancient Jewish regiment whereof though Iethro were the Deviser yet after that God had allowed it all men were subject unto it as to the Polity of God and not of Iethro That so the ancient Fathers did think of Episcopal regiment that they held this order as a thing received from the blessed Apostles themselves and authorized even from heaven we may perhaps more easily prove then obtain that they all shall grant it wâ—o see it proved St. Augustine setteth it down for a principle that whatsoever positive order the whole Church every where doth observe the same it must needs have received from the very Apostles themselves unless perhaps some general Councel were the Authors of it And he saw that the ruling superiority of Bishops was a thing universally established not by the force of any Councel for Councels do all presuppose Bishops nor can there any Councel be named so ancient either General or as much as Provincial sithence the Apostles own times but we can shew that Bishops had their Authority before it and not from it Wherefore St. Augustine knowing this could not chuse but reverence the Authority of Bishops as a thing to him apparently and most clearly apostolical But it will be perhaps objected that Regiment by Bishops was not so universal nor ancient as we pretend and that an Argument hereof may be Ieroms own Testimony who living at the very same time with St. Augustine noteth this kind of Regiment as being no where antient saving onely in Alexandria his words are these It was for a remedy of Schism that one was afterwards chosen to be placed above the rest lest every mans pulling unto himself should rend asunder the Church of Christ. For that which also may serve for an Argument or taken hereof at Alexandria from Mark the Evangelist unto Heraclas and Dionysius the Presbyters always chose one OF THEMSELVES whom they placed in higher degree and gave unto him the Title of Bishop Now St. Ierom they say would never have picked out that one Church from amongst so many and have noted that in it there had been Bishops from the time that St. Mark lived if so be the self same order were of like antiquity every where his words therefore must be thus scholied In the Church of Alexandria Presbyters indeed had even from the time of St. Mark the Evangelist always a Bishop to rule over them for a remedy against Divisions Factions and Schisms Not so in other Churches neither in that very Church any longer then usque ad Heraclam Dionysium till Heraclas and his Successor Dionysius were Bishops But this construction doth bereave the words construed partly of wit and partly of truth it maketh them both absurd and false For if the meaning be that Episcopal Government in that Church was then expired it must have expired with the end of some one and not of two several Bishops days unless perhaps it fell sick under Heraclas and with Dionysius gave up the Ghost Besides it is clearly untrue that the Presbyters of that Church did then cease to be under a Bishop Who doth not know that after Dionysius Maximus was Bishop of Alexandria after him Theonas after him Peter after him Achillas after him Alexander of whom Socrates in this sort writeth It fortuned on a certain time that this Alexander in the presence of the Presbyters which were under him and of the rest of the Clergy there discoursed somewhat curiously and subtilly of the holy Trinity bringing high Philosophical proofs that there is in the Trinity an Unity Whereupon Arius one of the Presbyters which were placed in that degree under Alexander opposed eagerly himself against those things which were uttered by the Bishop So that thus long Bishops continued even in the Church of Alexandria Nor did their Regiment here cease but these also had others their Successors till St. Ieroms own time who living long after Heraclas and Dionysius had