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A49492 Six sermons preached before His Majesty at White-Hall Published by command. Tending all to give satisfaction in certain points to such who have thereupon endeavoured to unsettle the state, and government of the church. By the Right Reverend Father in God, Benjamin Laney, Late Lord Bishop of Ely. Laney, Benjamin, 1591-1675. 1675 (1675) Wing L351A; ESTC R216387 93,670 230

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and just That if the Pope would not know his business that Princes should know theirs This is my First Instance of the Troubles that by this means brake into the whole Church We need not go far from home for another We were in a sad case not long since in this Kingdom by a Civil War I meddle not with the fault let that sleep under the Act of Oblivion We may I trust without offence enquire into the cause of it What were they doing that gave us that disquiet Look upon the Standard set up for the War I mean the most Execrable COVENANT Quomodo legis how read you there was it not medling with business was none of their own They Covenanted first to extirpate the Government of the Church established by Law That Law with hands lifted up to Heaven they swore they would abolish The Legislative Power we know in whom it is to make or mend Laws it was none of their business In this they were certainly too bold with the Kings Scepter At the next turn they take hold of his Sword too and engage themselves to a mutual Defence against all Opposition This also was none of their business For though a Self-defence may be allow'd as natural to all it is against private not publick Opposition and then too as Divines generally resolve Cum moderamine inculpatae Tutelae never to the hurt of others that is Every man may defend himself clypeo but not every one gladio The Sword is the Kings and He that takes it from any hand but His where God hath plac'd it shall perish with the Sword In this the Covenanters as ill as they like Bishops would be in the Apostles phrase 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 1 Pet. 4.15 the worst sort of Bishops that is medlers in business was none of their own The Worshippers of the Covenant have therefore been well dealt with as the worshippers of the Golden Calf were by Moses Exod. 32.20 As he made them drink that so have they been made to eat this though some of them be found of so foolishly distempered stomacks that they choose rather to part with that which is their own than renounce a Business was none of their own But the Covenant is past and let it go I wish for quiet sake we may never hear of the like again This was transient But there still remains a permanent and habitual Disturbance of our Peace in the multitude and swarms of SECTS and Factions in Religion to which it is naturally and inseparably inherent An incurable mischief like the Leprosie on the walls that could not be cleansed but by pulling down the House From these we have felt already but too much and have cause yet to fear more But can we charge them with doing a business is none of their own Can any thing be more properly our own business than the care of our souls and to serve God in the best manner that our understandings and Consciences shall direct us They are mistaken that think the Charge lies upon this issue what every man may do for himself and his own salvation He may without question do very much for he may keep all Gods Commandments if he can and when he cannot he may be truly contrite and penitent for breaking them and then he may assuredly believe his sins shall be forgiven him by the merits and passion of our Lord Jesus Christ And again He may serve and worship God with as much fervency and devotion as he can and will he may abound in Charity Meekness Humility Patience and Temperance and all other Christian vertues And so long as ye thus follow that which is good saith S. Peter who will harm you And I may say too 1 Pet. 3.13 who can hinder you in all this but if he makes himself a party in a Sect if there be assembling together in companies gather Congregations incorporate in a Body module Churches give Laws of Doctrine and Worship set up Teachers and Leaders of their own to all this they have as little Right as they have need A man may go far ye see in Religion without troubling any and if then they fall into some Error or Misbelief in Religion they ought not to be severely handled but when they betake themselves to a Sect that alters the case it will then be compassion mistaken A Locust alone is no such perilous beast to be fear'd or regarded by any but when they come in shoals and swarms and cover the face of the earth they are a plague to the Countrey where they light So to look upon a Sectary single who out of simplicity and good meaning follows his Conscience our hearts should be every whit as tender for them as their Consciences are But if we look upon them in Company they are as ill and dangerous as the company they are found in and the danger of all popular Meetings and Associations to a State makes it the proper business of a King and his Ministers to look to it and to provide against it wherein the care hath been taken deserves a just commendation And yet when I assert and refer this business to the KING I look to be call'd to an account for that For they take the boldness by way of recrimination to turn the Text upon the King himself That His Power is Civil and Matters of the Church and Religion are Ecclesiastical and so none of his business This is I confess too weighty a matter to be here thrust into the corner of a Sermon yet it will be necessary to say so much as may somewhat lay that loud clamour against it For the Papists and Presbyterians both how ill soever they may agree in other matters hunt in couples against the Kings Power and SUPREMACY But as we denie not all to others in their places so we claim not all for the King If I shall but only now set out His Part in matters of the Church it will appear sufficiently that he is Rectus in Curia stands right in the Text and takes not upon him business which is not his own We acknowledge the Civil and Ecclesiastical to be two distinct Powers and though they may be both in one Person and were originally so yet by the Divine positive Laws both of Jews and Christians they were so distinguished that though one person were capable of both yet not without a lawful Title and Investiture to either I cannot therefore think That the King is an Ecclesiastical Person who was never Ordained or Consecrated to be so Therefore when some Learned in our Laws affirm That the KING is Supreme Ordinary and mixta persona it must be understood in some other sense and for some other purpose for we do not find that he attempts the doing any thing that is the proper act of an Ecclesiastical Person Yes they say he claims by his Title of Supremacy To govern all persons in all causes as well Ecclesiastical as Civil We
acknowledg this to be his just Title but deny that he doth any thing by it which is not properly his own business and in Right of his Crown That he is the Fountain also of all Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction though it be not expresly in his Title we acknowledge to be in his Power But here I must crave leave to say something of the nature and notion of JURISDICTION though it shall tast somewhat of the race and harshness of the School yet much of the Case depends upon it and no little mistakes there are about it It is agreed generally That there is in the Church a Power of Orders and a Power of Jurisdiction distinct that is for the Power though not distinct in the object and matter of that power for that is the same in both As preaching Gods Word administring the Sacraments or the Censures of the Church are of the power of Orders And the putting all or any of these in execution is by a power of Jurisdiction The former as Divines distinguish is a power in habitu the other in actu So that Jurisdiction is nothing else but a power to do actually what was potentially or habitually receiv'd in Orders I do not here take Jurisdiction in the strict vulgar sense to be a power jus dicendi inter partes litigantes only as the word imports but more largely as it reacheth to any act of Order without which it cannot lawfully be put in execution Now the Question here will be How a King can be the Fountain of the Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction us'd in his Dominions who neither givs Orders himself not executes any that is hath neither power of Orders nor Power of Jurisdiction My Answer to this Question is That the Kings Power lies without both these and is that which gives Commission and Faculty to persons ordained to execute their Orders within his Dominions And the Reason Ground and Necessity of that is Because the Ecclesiastical Function cannot be put in execution but by such ways and means as are absolutely and originally in the King and in Right of his Crown As first There must be some Subjects upon whom they may execute their Ecclesiastical Orders now all the Subjects within his Dominions are the Kings who must of necessity lose so much of the Right he had in them as any other assumes without Him From hence grows his Right to order and constitute Diocesses and Parishes and to set them their bounds and limits that is upon which of his Subjects and how far he will allow them respectively to execute their Orders for without those bounds it is not nor is us'd to be taken for any part of their business To the publick exercise of Religion the people must meet together And all assemblings of people together are absolutely in the Power of Princes all States in all times have ever been jealous of them and provided severe Laws against them for it is impossible be the pretences of meeting never so fair to govern people and keep them quiet long if they may have liberty to flock together at their pleasures When they are met together there must be some to teach and instruct them How dangerous a thing it is promiscuously to suffer Harangues and Orations to be made to the people by such who possibly may be Trumpets of Sedition who by slandering the Government and speaking evil of Dignities may inflame people to Rebellion We have known such things done It is therefore necessary that none be allow'd that liberty to speak to Multitudes assembled together but such with whom a King may safely trust his people And this gives him a Right and Capacity of Patronage and Nomination to Ecclesiastical Charges Lest the Doctrine which they teach the people should be such as would amuse them with Novelties or occasion Alterations and foment Divisions or any way disturb the Peace of the Kingdom it is just and reasonable that the King should confine them within the compass of certain Articles and Doctrines of Religion which gives Him a Right to that which in other respects no doubt belongs to the care of the Church But besides the Articles of Peace we find that the King in His Laws declares what is Heresie That if any thing seems to be the proper work of the Ecclesiastical Power yet even in that he is not out at his own Civil business For seeing meer Ecclesiastical Censures are found not to be of sufficient force to suppress dangerous and Heretical Opinions without the use of the temporal Sword Out of the care the King hath of the Lives and Estates of His Subjects he will not let His Sword loose to the will of others who by declaring what they please to be Heresie may bring them in peril He therefore confines them to such cases only wherein He is content His Sword should be made use of This is all and is that which must be allowed to be the proper business of the King to assign how far and in what cases His Temporal Power and Sword shall be employ'd and can be no invading the Ecclesiastical But lastly Is not this the same wrong and illusion we charge the Pope with who in order to his Spiritual End Usurps the Temporal Power so the King in order to his Temporal Government invades the Ecclesiastical No the case is far different If the Pope did order temporals by spiritual means only i. e. Ecclesiastice we had the less to say against him he is not out of the way of a Bishops power though he should abuse it But he for his spiritual end usurps temporal means and takes upon him to dispose of temporal Estates that is none of his business But the King in ordering Ecclesiastical things to His temporal end uses no Ecclesiastical means but temporal only which are his proper business He doth not excommunicate the Pope out of the Church as the Pope would do him out of his temporal Dominions But the King if he see cause may banish him and his Emissaries out of his Kingdom That cannot be deny'd to be the proper business of a King to secure and free his Kingdom from any thing that is destructive to it Now if in all this the King moves not out of his own civil Sphere to return to our Sectaries who put us upon this digression they still remain as we left them guilty of doing much that is none of their own business What then is to be done with them According to a late Statute a Mittimus I think might be made to send them to prison but the Apostle here deals more kindly with them and sends them only to School to study better which is my Fourth and last Point THat ye study to do your own business I will take no more out of the word Study then what any one understands to be in it A serious weighing and considering of the matter and there is need of it The first thing the Student is to do before he takes in hand