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cause_n	according_a	justice_n	law_n	1,616	5	4.3920	3	false

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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A54417	Samaritanism, or, A treatise of comprehending, compounding and tolerating several religions in one church demonstrating the equity, and necessity of the act and late vote of Parliament against non-conformists, from reason, the ancient church, and the opinions and practice of papists and Puritans now plotting and pleading for toleration.	Perrinchief, Richard, 1623?-1673.	1664 (1664)	Wing P1604; ESTC R36671	69,567	82

SAMARITANISM OR A TREATISE OF Comprehending Compounding and Tolerating SEVERAL RELIGIONS IN ONE CHURCH DEMONSTRATING The Equity and Necessity of the Act and Late Vote of Parliament against Non-conformists From Reason the Ancient Church and the Opinions and Practice of Papists and Puritans now Plotting and Pleading for Toleration LONDON Printed for Robert Clavel and are to be sold by Henry Broom in Little Brittain and Westminster-Hall Of Liberty of RELIGION CHAP I. A Preparative Enquiry into the Nature of Human Ecclesiastical Societies in general MAN being a Sociable Creature according to the Observation of the Philosopher and Common Experience That Human Societies ought to excell Herds and flocks of Cattel is most reasonable to conclude For a Multitude is one thing and a Society another and differ as much as a Common and a Common-wealth Yet as such is the sagacity and subtilty of some Animals as that witty Philosophers have had enough to do to distinguish the supream acts of some Beasts from the reasonable actions of Men so have some acute Observers of the nature and order of certain Animals in community discovered so much Decorum and perfection that they have entitled meerly sensitive Creatures to the dignity of Human Societies and do espy a semblance of Monarchy in the Regiment of Bees and Popular Government in that of Ants. But the definition which Bodin gives of a Commonwealth Bodinus de Rep. lib. 1. init Respublica est Familiarum rerumque interipsas communium summa potestate ac ratione moderate multitudo doth sufficiently put a difference between them which is this A Commonwealth is a multitude of Families and Common Matter administred by a Supream Power and Reason For what ever we may judge there is in some brutish Communities a Supream Command and that is founded on Sense and natural Instinct And in Human Societies there is and of necessity must be a Supream Authority founded on Reason and Natural Instinct For as Common Sense proceedeth from Natural Instinct given to Beasts so Reason proceedeth from or is the Natural Instinct in Man The Supream act in Man being termed Reason and the highest in Beasts Sense Though I confess the matter remains very difficult still to distinguish clearly the one from the other not in a definition for that is easie enough to frame but in the exercise of Acts whether they belong to or may be comprehended in the definition of Reason or no Let others strain their Wits to that purpose our present Subject calls us another way And in the first place to note freely the prety pitiful and fine presumptions of divers enquirers into the grounds and occasions of Human Societies which because forsooth taken from Reason at first some Men have imagined that Natural Instinct in Man was not principal in the Constitution of Commonwealths Some therefore have wittily at least as they suppose said That necessity was the cause why men combined together in one Necessity of heat drove divers stragling Men to the same fire and meeting there they took up several Discourses and Counsels for their common Welfare Others more seriously if not more wisely are of opinion That self-defence and preservation against common Adversaries impelled many persons to associate together and to elect some principal Defender of their Persons and Directer of their Affairs But they consider not nor give any account how such Enemies to some came first to conspire into such a powerful Society as to be able to offend others Was this occasioned likewise from fear of others If so I will demand perpetually How came those others so together And at length it must of necessity be answered From some other cause that cause must be at length Natural Reason Justice and Law whereby according to Man some were obliged to Subjection as some had right of Dominion Now what manner of Dominion that was I leave to be inquired into Yet withal I cannot but smile a little at the boldness and vain presumption of such who passing over the most visible original of Government and what de facto it first was which certainly in all reason must needs be the most natural way of making out the truth do betake themselves to the uncertain mazes and labyrinths of human imagination which we find to be swayed and bribed to argue and conclude according to Self-interest and particular cases of their own Thus we read the Assertors of the German Empire to strain their Reasons to prove the Constitution of that Government according to the famous Golden Bull of Charles the Fourth Emperor to be most perfect and natural But Experience sheweth us plainly that nothing hath divided and consequently weaken'd more that once most potent and flourishing Nation than those Immunities and Laws have and render'd the Supream Power so uncertain and obscure that 't is an hard matter to find where it is seated or if so to find that to be a Monarchy and not a Commonwealth or at lest a Combination of Monarchies and Commonwealths The like course hath Contarenus taken in his description of the State of Venice for that too must be held to be most natural bending his Wits to draw the Law and course of Nature to a conformity to his reason and his reason to the condition of that Commonwealth The same course hath Bellarmine and other especially Jesuitical Authors of the Church of Rome followed in his Previous Controversies to his Disputations of the Power and Regiment of the Pope contending hard that the Government is most Reasonable and Christian which suits best with the Actual Power of the Roman Bishop and Clergy And some have proceeded to that degree of admiration of that Form that they have ventured to affirm That Christ had not done wisely if he had not ordained and disposed matters just as they now stand among them And are not there to be found amongst us who have delivered the very same expressions in behalf of the Presbytery And this eying of instances rather than following the clue of his own most rational Wit was that which caused the Philosopher Aristotle to be so inconstant to himself in his Politicks For when he handled the case abstractly he judged excellently of the true nature of Government and the most natural Government But then having before his eyes what great offence he must necessarily give to his Country of Greece which abounded with several Polities of a strange nature he found it requisite to strain his Leather to their Lasts Especially considering that if those Nations who were for Wit and Learning the most eminent of all the World should disrelish his Schemes as in all probability they would as they disagreed from their plat-forms it might prove an incurable prejudice to his Works For as it is seen in Religion it happens in Civil Polities too that the more it is with acuteness and subtilty penetrated and discussed the more corrupt and degenerate it is in the use and practice For that there is a

which if it were impartially and conscionably considered me-thinks People would be more modest than to think all those Privileges and Liberties they can by flattery craft or taking advantage of necessities into which their Governours may be brought gain to themselves lawful spoil or indeed though at first sight they may appear so profitable for themselves For suppose we that a people studious of Liberty should not only procure a Law that they should be free from all contributions to common good but what voluntarily they should please to give August Devit Dei Lib. 2. ca. 21. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Plutarch De sera Numinis Psal 94.20 but likewise by such a Law that they should never be compelled which we vulgarly and corruptly call Pressed to the Warrs this surely would seem a glorious Liberty and benefit to the common sort but really would in short time prove the ruine of the whole There is such an Immunity claimed by the Commons of the Confederate Netherlands which hath endangered and certainly had not the Governours found out some prettie tricks to elude it had unavoidably brought those Commonwealths to nothing St. Austin in his Book of the City of God tells us That Scipio in Tullie calls an unjust King a Tyrant and unjust Nobles Governing a Faction and speaking of the excess of Popular Government to that saith he Nomen non reperit nisi ut etiam ipsum Tyrannum vocaret i.e. He could find no name for them but Tyrants also Neither have such just excuse because perhaps they have a Law on their side For the Law it self may have been extorted and if freely Enacted yet unjust in it self as that we last mentioned and that Law of which the Psalmist speaketh framing mischief and that Law which many vehemently plead for in Church-Discipline as that wherein consisteth as they fondly and falsly imagine or perhaps would seem to believe rather Christian Liberty That every man should do as he pleases in things so Indifferent that they are not under any Precept or Prohibition of Gods Word For this would inevitably produce differences and differences in such inconsiderable matters will infallibly proceed to Animosities and Divisions in greater matters and there terminate in the overthrow of all Discipline or Government I say All Discipline Now there is a Discipline which Mr. Beza held to be a third Essential part of a true Church Cartwright in Second Reply p. 53. Id. First Reply pa. 14. if we believe Mr. Cartwright relating his opinion or his own Which is That matters of Discipline and kind of Government are not to be distinguished from matters necessary to Salvation and Faith So that however they seem to be of this destructive Opinion and indeed they often and plainly affirm so much yet they be no longer of it than till such time as the Power be in their own hands just as the Miller stops the course of the Waters not that he is absolutely against Rivers what ever he may seem to be but till he shall find it necessary for his own Grist Now to return to the Application of what we have said concerning Tyranny which our Church-Government is commonly and boldly charged with by Sectaries and particularly in their Synodical Letters to Transmarine Churches They may learn at Length that no Government in its Nature is Tyrannical but the evil Administration of any Government makes any so though Democratical For it is not necessary that the Persian Turkish or Tararian Government should be Tyrannical more than That of Venice or of the Vnited Provinces For these have as Absolute and Arbitrary Dominion as they 'T is true these have more Moderate and Favourable Laws of Ruling than They But who shall constrain them to observe them if they please to break them The People So may the People bring those Barbarous Kings to more equal dealing if they can as well as the other If therefore Many in Authority whether Civil or Ecclesiastical do the same things and have as much Power as One the Tyranny of this differs from the Tyranny of them just as much as a pound of Lead doth from a pound of Feathers which is no small matter with vulgar Judges Therefore until Reformers of Governments deny the power to themselves which they deny to others and the exercise thereof let them accustom their mouths to more ingenuous and sincere language and either forbear to traduce others with that ignominious term or begin to hallow it by their profession and practice 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Aristot. Ethic. lib. 1. c. 10. Basil M. in Princip Prov. Isido Pelusiot lib. 3. Epi. 194. lib. 4. Epist. 142. For 't is but changing the singular into the plural number and Aristotle's description of a Tyrant will suit as well with States and Classes as with King and Bishops viz. The Tyrants seek their own good but Princes seek the good of them they govern Wherein he is followed by Saint Basil as is he by I sidore Pelusiotes But let us proceed to what follows Next in order nature and abuse is infamous Extremity immoderateness or want of moderation in managing Controversies and composingand curing Divisions and Differences For whoso shall go under such imputations of the Vulgar shall have enough to answer for though no more be objected against him Let us see therefore what is Moderation and consequently Extremities according to vulgar acception After this manner then Moderation is the same in effect with the art of cleaving of Billets cutting or chopping a thing in the middle and dividing the live-Child into two equal parts between the unjust pretender and the true Mother without any due consideration of the cause it self Plutarch in Symposias in justice but the peace of different Parties For as Plutarch observeth 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 With Fools and Knaves there is no such thing as the Mean as to the Thing But if Men be extreamly distant from or opposite to a thing or person then presently do they accuse the same of Extreams not considering that it is in the power of any Man to declare denominate a thing extream by his only act of extreamly departing from it as easily as it is in his power by turning himself about to cause a thing to stand to the left or right hand If then to reconcile Matters and come to a Mediocrity we shall think it fit to clap into the middle and give one of the Dissenters one part and another the other we shall quickly dispatch and destroy all Vertue all Religion and all Justice in pretending fairly and intending foully to conserve them But Truth as Plutarch hath wisely noted Plutarch de Adulatore is to be sought out 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 i.e. for Vertue 's sake not for the extream vice Unless therefore Men shall first agree upon a rule and standard to measure opinions and actions and accusations besides what is famed or defamed for Extream it is in

firmly do cast the odious termes of Extreams upon them they have so left and call their dragging us to them their coming home to us and their pulling us down to their pleasures their coming up to us And that it is dangerous appears from manifold Tenets interpreted clearly against their own temporizing Glosses by their apparently wicked attempts and practises And if there were no more then present ambiguous John Cerbet's Interest of England pag. 24. pag. 57. and two-handl'd Phrases whereby they Characterize themselves and distinguish themselves from others they are much to be suspected For we often do hear them Magnifying their Capacities and Genius's as that they are Free-born Subjects they are a free spirited People a free-born People and such like which as they are special pieces of flatteries to make the common sort proud of themselves so truly we cannot throughly understand what they signify but this we know such Phrases change like water in Weather-glasses If it be a fair and clear time with us than do they fall down low to a very tolerable sense but if fowl and troublesome then do they rise to a higher Meaning a great deal and Actions suitable And what possibility of Reconciliation and Peace durable is to be expected from those men whom nothing truly will content less than their entire Discipline but if they accept less for the present they take it only as men do debts hard to be got in in part of payment until they shall be able to recover all Hear what the above mentioned Pretended Moderator saith and you will begin to see what great hopes or advantage may be had of them The Publick State of these Differences is such John Corbet's Interest pag. 109. that the Prelatists may and ought to descend to the Presbyterians in the proposed Moderate Way but the Presbyterians cannot come up to the Prelatists in the hight of their Way For the Prelatists Condescention stands only in the omission of certain things which seem to them laudable but the Subjection of the Presbyterians stands in Subscribing and Conforming to certain things which seem to them unlawful Thus he But according to what Rule does it appear which is here weakly and childishly taken for granted that the Prelatists as this Jack-straw miscalls those of the Church of England are so high Let it be shewed what is the Mean they have so far exceeded and what Laws of Church-Government they have or do Transcend If they make their Interpretations of Scripture the Law their Models the Rule their Discipline the Mean we ought to compare examine and judge our selves by we must confess we are out we are in the Extream we are very high but who could be so bold besides these men to expect such a fond and absurd concession And who so stupid among us to yield to that most Ridiculous way of Tryal when We being the only Legal Visible Church of this Nation as to outward Constitutions in all equal Mens reason have a Right to judge them and rather Condemn them of Extream on the contrary side to which we neither can nor ought to descend But it will be said The Reformed Churches abroad may direct us Ye are to know and consider That there is not One Reformed Church that We can hear of that were it their Case as it is yours would thus tugg and stand out against us as Mr. Durel hath amply shewed Again Our Church hath no such Obligations to receive the Sentence of All the Reformed Churches put together as you have to submit to Ours as being generally Educated in and under the same And Thirdly I Appeal to all the World What an unwise and ungodly Charity it would be in us so to condescend to your Pitch and conceptions of Church-Government and Orders for the gaining of a very uncertain Peace with you and thereby put our selves out of a possibility of having any Communion or Peace with almost infinite Churches abroad who will receive into Communion and Fellowship none that want such things as you require us to lay away for love of you I speak not so much of the Romish Church as Greek and Eastern Chruches with whom to hold Communion and Peace by retaining such Constitutions and Orders as we now enjoy is ten times more desirable and Charitable than for your sakes to part with them And we are assured under your devices we shall never obtain it Furthermore whence hath this Author That they of the Church hold those things only Laudable wherein it differeth from Sectaries And that it is not as unlawful according to our Consciences to omitt them as it is with their Consciences to do them We do not 't is true hold them to have any Moral Good in them of themselves and therefore we call them Indifferent And the Presbyterians do not affirm they have any Moral Evil and therefore grant they may be observed There must therefore be something more in the wind than Conscience on these Mens parts which detain them For as much as neither they nor any man else can pretend an Offence of Conscience where there is neither real nor apparent Evil but 't is a contradiction that any thing should so much as appear to be Evil or Sinful while it appears Indifferent Therefore according to the Presbyterians own Tenets they may come up to us for it can only be pretended to be against their Consciences And if they Alledg any Cause why that which in it self is not Evil nor against their Conscience may be and is upon another account which 't is easie to guess at I will answer That just so it is with the Church of England Many things which being not absolutely and in themselves good or necessary and so consequently may be omitted with a safe Conscience for certain adventitious advantages and Exteriour Accounts no whit inferiour to those of the other side they cannot with a good Conscience be Abolished or Omitted And thus we see the Vanities and Mistakes in alledging Extremities Moderation Tyranny and tender Conscience in these Cases CHAP. III. A General determination of the Question according to Reason THat all Factions Parties Persons or Religions are not to be Tolerated or granted Liberty I think all agree It will be necessary then in the First place to lay down certain Distinctions serving to judge of the reasonableness of such Inhibition towards some rather than others And they may concern either the Persons or the Religion or lastly the kind of Tolerations or Restraint themselves Persons pleading for Liberty of Religion are First either such as are of themselves altogether Free from any Civil or Moral Subjection from us or such as by Birth and Education being incorporated into the same Body and Polity are and ought to be subordinate unto the Head thereof Secondly the Religion Insisted on and Pleaded for is either Repugnant to the light and prime Principles of Nature and human Society or Consistent with the same Thirdly because all

course hath been used towards Hereticks and Schismaticks since our Reformation in England it will not appear so great inhumanity to put in strict execution such Laws as have of old and later dayes been made against them In the Raign of Henry the Third saith Hollinshed were two Impostors hanged for giving out that they were Christs In the Raign of Richard the Second and Henry the Fourth of England Statutes were made for the putting Hereticks to death which stood in force until the Raign of Henry the Eighth who caused them to be repealed but in lieu of them he made such an Edict consisting of Six Articles called therefore The Whip with the six strings that thereby the Life's Blood of many a good and sober Christian was taken from them But in the First of Queen Mary the former Statutes as more for her Bloody purposes were revived and re-inforced of which as a thing too apparent for Impudence it self to encounter I shall not speak at present and but touch afterward But neither have there been wanting instances since the Reformation of such Capital Punishments executed For in the Fourth year of Edward the Sixth or Third as Mr. Stow hath it Joan Butcher Stow Chron. Ari. 3. Edw 6 otherwise called Joan Knell and vulgarly Joan of Kent was burn'd for her Heresie denying Christ to have taken Flesh of the Virgin Mary And on the 24th of April the same year George Paris a Dutchman was burnt in Smithfield for Arianism And in the same King's Raign an Anabaptist of Cholchester was burned And truly he that is of an Opinion that no man ought to suffer death purely for Religion may notwithstanding approve of the putting to death such as shall bear false witness in such a Caseat least as that of professing themselves to be that Person they in truth are not whereby manifest and intolerable evils are done to private Persons but much more to the Weal-Publick when one shall pretend himself to be some Prince or Publick Person Much more therefore he that shall have the Impudence to give out that he is Christ have he a particular Cant of his own to evade the common sense his words import when he comes into danger ought no less to undergo death than he that shall seek to Translate the Government of a People properly belonging to another Prince upon himself And as for Anabaptists though I think their Dogm's are a little purg'd of late over what some years since they have been as most Hereticks and Schismaticks are when they perceive they will not take nor be endur'd in their original Rankness yet if they stick but to one or two charged commonly on them such as are Denying to the Civil Magistrates Power of the Sword and affirming an Exemption of their Saints from human Laws suffering corporal death for the same they have no wrong done them neither can they plead Religion to protect them in causes of Civil cognisance as they are And to hold an opinion as many now adays do that their Governors have no Authority Ecclesiastical over them in things neither forbidden nor commanded by God's word is to draw very much nearer to the pernicious Extreams of the Anabaptist than can consist with the good opinion such have of themselves and would beget in others of being very moderate Men. But I return In the third of Queen Elizabeth one Jeffrey taught publickly Stow An. 3d. of Qu. Eliz. That John Moor was Christ who were both first whipt and then upon repentance were committed to Prison for half a year This was a favour shown upon repentance The more pittiful and strangely tender conscienc'd Judges were they in the Houses called a Parliament of late years who could discharge John Naylor an Impostor as foul and blasphemous as any of his Predecessors without any considerable notes of true repentance So far did the Doctrine of Liberty of Conscience drive many Patrons of it Again in the Seventeenth year of Queen Elizabeth Stow in Eliz. twenty-seven Anabaptists were brought to justice whereof two were burnt in Smithfield four renounced their Heresies at Pauls Cross and thereupon were released the rest were condemned to die but were only banished In the twenty one year of the same Queen Id. one Hammond a most insolent Arian denied Christ to be God and blasphemed Him and the Gospel and was burnt in Norwich And about three years after one John Lewis was burnt in the same place for the like Heresie And in the Raign of King James one Legate was burnt in Smithfield for Arianism For King James his Raign and Queen Elizabeth's it is generally known how they put not any Papist to death for their Religion though presently they were Sainted for dying in the Roman cause and as they will have it for Religion and if they will have it so so let it pass for me But then we must take leave to turn to and adhere to our old Notes which tell us of their Faith that it is Faction and their Religion Rebellion For were it so that the Laws interdicting Popish Priests of this Nation bred and ordained beyond the Seas from coming into this Nation this were no such sanguinary practise as many Popish Ministers loudly and indeed childishly give out For I would know whether the Supream power of this as well as any other Nation have not power to inflict the punishment of banishment upon lighter causes than this For instance Might it not be reasonable for an Act of Banishment to take place upon all such as should transport Wool or Fuller's-earth into foreign Countries The person that should do this returns into England and is put to death according to the Law But he cannot be said to be put to death for having transported prohibited Commodities but for breaking the Law of his Banishment No more can Popish Priests taking Orders from that Church and returning be said to suffer for taking Orders or for their Religion but for breaking the Act of their Banishment for by Law they all stand banished and if a greater punishment than banishment be not annext to that Decree to make it good instead of being sanguinary it will become ridiculous and ludicrous and so will the Authors of such Laws also In the year One thousand six hundred forty and one Ward Walker or Waller for as I take it the man after the Roman custom had three or four names being a Popish Priest was hanged at Tyburn where he confessed he had been banished no fewer than three or four times Do not such mockeries and contempt of Laws as this deserve death yea though the Law it self were unreasonable And now as to the other side with which we have to do the Puritan Faction let us see how they have been proceeded against before these three last Decads of years and whether it be so new and strange a matter that they should be molested or oppressed and the rather because of that Officious Author of the