and so train up youth into an enmity and scorn of that which should have their chiefest Love and Labour Alas if such a Serpentine Generation shall for staying so many years in Idleness and Lust in Universities be thought to have right to take the charge of multitudes of Souls that never took just care of their own and to have right to Church Dignity and Maintenance if any bad Patron will but present them how sad a case is such a Church and Nation in They will bring their Ignorance and Malice into the Pulpit and then those hearers that know bitter from sweet and the unclean from the clean will loath their folly And when the Priest seeth that he is despised or loathed he will become the Enemy of those that disesteem him and so he will become a Wolf to the Flock And then it is the Ungodly part that must be his Friends and Companions in Sin whom he will harden to their own Destruction Thus hath a bad Clergy been the ruine of many Churches § 13. And this will prove so strong a Temptation to the Religious part to disaffect the Ministry and to go too far in separations as that Schisms and Pernicious Divisions will be soon multiplied And then Persecution must be tryed on them instead of Light and Love § 14. But the Immediate dividing and dissolving of Churches and overthrow of the Peace of Christian Kingdoms is by Ignorant Malicious or Tyrannical Laws or Canons that impose things forbidden of God on pain of ejecting and silencing the most Faithful Ministers and scorning and ruining the most Religious People that will not sell their Souls for Worldly Interest nor to humour the ill designs of Tyrants These snares are often made by meer malice and revenge as Daniel was forbid to pray Because they could find no fault or accusation against him except it were concerning the Law of his God Especially when some great quarrels have exasperated revenge § 15. But usually error concurreth with Malice while Ignorance and Pride make Prelates and Priests still confident that all their Opinions and Impositions are just and blameless and that all are willfully erroneous that refuse them So rare is a humble understanding § 16. And it fixeth a National Church in this way to ruine when such an unworthy Ministry must be continued till they die and there is no great visible hope of removing them How many difficulties must be overcome before one Parish can get a cure of such § 17. And yet worse is it when there is small hope of a better when the bad Priest is dead but the corrupt Fountain is still sending forth polluted Streams and Money and Friendship chuse the Man And when the worst Man that hath but Money enough to buy a Patronage shall have the choice of a Pastor for Mens Souls § 18. And yet worse will it go when the Keys which are the most peculiar part of the Priviledge and Office of the Pastors shall be exercised by Lay Civilians in the Bishops name without his judging or consent And Government by the Word is managed by such Men in the manner that Secular Affairs are managed without due reverence to holy things § 19. And worst of all is it when the Body of the Nation is by such means brought to so much ignorance and sinfulness that they would have it so And are glad to have so much countenance to their malignity and sin and follow their malicious Military Leaders § 20. And last of all when their madness hath drawn their own Swords against each other or provoked God to let in a Foreign Enemy on them then they must expect that God avenge the quarrel of his Covenant specially when after great Mercy and long Patience they would not know the time of their Visitation nor in their day the things that belong to their peace but defend their sin Chap. XIV Whether the National Church of England be at the present of a sound Constitution And what is necessary to its Welfare Safety Reformation and Peace § 1. TO tell what particulars need Reformation I have done so oft to the great displeasure of the guilty that I have no encouragement to offend them more by doing it again § 2. And to give the true History of original causes and progress of our corruptions disorders and divisions will not be endured by them that still justifie their own and Predecessours sin and can see no fault in any but those that they first make and then call their adversaries I have found that the most notorious matters of fact will be denyed furiously by such men even what hath been said and done in their presence and mine before a multitude of Witnesses Bishops Doctors and divers others Yea things said and done in Parliaments and Armies and publickly notified are by such men contradicted with rage Therefore I will not here tell the World either what or who have been the causes of our sufferings and dangers having long purposed to have done it in a Treatise by it self called REPENT O ENGLAND and therein I. To declare my own Repentance II. To tell those called Presbyterians what they must Repent of III. And those called Separatists IV. And those called Antinomians V. And those called Prelatical especially the Ruling part But God seemeth to deny me time for that intended Work § 3. That which I shall now add is I. To shew what there now is in the English Constitution fitted to Christs Institution of a true National Church II. What is yet wanting III. And what are the Remedies § 4. I. I begin with that which is Good and Laudable Not only to avoid offence by unprofitable finding faults but especially to rectifie those prejudiced censures that call Good Evil and run away from Gods Mercies under the false name of Sin This hath had no small hand in our Divisions ever since the troubles at Frank-ford and our first Reformation The Adversaries of Popery did lay more of the personal Crimes of the Papists Bishops and Priests and Monks too on the Office and Order than they should have done § 5. I. The National Church of England is rightly constituted under one Supreme Royal Government as the Unifying Head as I have proved § 6. II. It is duely constituted of professed Baptized Christians and Churches as the subject matter § 7. III. It hath National Laws which profess their subserviency to the Law of Christ and the Nullity of all that is against it § 8. IV. It maketh none Magistrates but professed Christians No nor Burgesses and choosers of Magistrates § 9. V. It hath Diocesans that are General Overseers of many particular Churches as Successors to the Apostles and Evangelists in the ordinary parts of their Office which I before proved to be Christs Institution § 10. VI. It justly maketh Bishops Members of Parliament it being unfit to make Laws for Religion without the Pastors notice and advice § 11. VII It justly giveth large maintenance and
though they were but Provinces and parts of the Imperial Church And thus Judea became a National Church § 2. It is past question that many Kings who had given up their Kingdom to the Pagan Beast followed the success of Constantine and afterward did give up their Power to Christ yet no Kingdom was wholly converted at once nor of many years But yet while the Soveraign Power and Confederate Christian Pastors and Subjects had the chief Power it was truly a Christian Kingdom For the Form in capable matter doth denominate And tho' many Heathens were long permitted in Government that doth but prove that the Kingdom had two sorts of free Subjects one sort that were Christians and so were the chief Members who in all matters of Religion were exempted from Pagan Judicatures and the other Heathens who had a freedom in things secular § 3. Judea then was more eminently Christian than any other Nation of no greater extent There were Arch Bishops and Bishops and Presbyters and after a Patriarch And there were more Monasteries and Religious Societies and more Temples built there than in any Countrey that was no greater And more Christians flockt thither from other Nations out of a veneration for the place And indeed it was the Mother-Church out of which all other Churches sprang Therefore if any Province might be called a National Church it was Judea § 4. This was when the Fulness of the Gentiles came in that is when the Gentile Empire turned Christian And so the Gentile Powers turned Christian provoked the Jews to emulation and requited them by becoming Nursing Fathers to them and bringing their Glory to Jerusalem And so all Israel was saved that is the body of Abraham's natural Seed and also the faithful Gentiles that were the spiritual Seed were unitedly gathered to Christ § 5. Obj. But they were mostly Gentiles that then dwelt there And that proveth no Conversion of the Jews Ans The scattered Jews were in many Countreys of the Roman Empire And most of them had neither mind nor means to return to a small and barren Land But as many as were willing and were zealous for their Countrey did live there and none were forbidden And it is far most probable that the most that were there left were such as kept their old Habitations And the most that were kill'd were the military part In the days of Constantine and after their Churches flourished And what greater encouragement could they have now to return were they converted than they had None would make them go against their wills If Gentile Christians and Jews were there mixt they did the more fitly suit a Catholick Church-state when Moses Policy and their Peculiarity ceased Should they in the feigned Fifth Monarchy-state be confined to that Countrey which is like our Wales how contemptible a Nation would they be in comparison of what Constantine allowed them both in Judea and throughout all the Empire No Nation was wholly converted at the first and if the Christian Jews that lost their name being Catholicks had no great mind to go to Judea it is no wonder Chap. IV. Particular Churches and Pastors how far essential to a National Church and what are its materials § 1. THere is more essential to a National Church than the meer Formal Cause or Soveraign Matter is essential as well as Form Yet not all parts of the Matter neither though all be parts Integral As in the Body a man cannot be a man without a stomach liver and lungs and heart but he may without a finger or a hand or leg § 2. I doubt not but I have proved that the Soveraign Magistrate is the Formal Humane Head of his Kingdom and as Christian of the Kingdom as Christian And nothing remaineth disputable but de Nomine whether a Christian Kingdom must be named a Church which Custom Etymology and Scripture put past question Our Civilians such as Dr. Zouch Dr. Rich. Cousins c. and our Lawyers say trulier than most have believed that the King is persona mixta Custos utriusque Tabulae and Head of the Church as a Christian Kingdom And for want of knowing this and the true nature and bounds of his Office how foully many have miscarried I have shewed 1. Those called Erastians carry it too far and give the Magistrate part of the Office of the Pastors even the Keys of Admission into the Church as a Church and of Excommunication which God hath put into the hand of the Pastors by as immediate a Commission as he hath put the Sword into the hand of the Magistrate And by this over-doing they undo They would ruine the Prince on pretence of defending his Power For all Authority hath also Obligation to duty And must Princes and Magistrates be put on the task of trying the Faith and Repentance of all that are to be Baptized Confirmed Absolved or Excommunicated Then they must leave their own Calling for they will here find work enough This is like the Separatists making the People Judges by which they would undo them calling them from their Callings to take on them a work of which they are uncapable and about which they will never long agree and making them responsible to God for all their Male-administration As if the King must not only be Governour of Physicions but must be a Physicion himself and give Medicines and be answerable for the Patients lives Or must be a Schoolmaster because he governeth Schoolmasters And this puts them on a necessity of casting out true Discipline and holding the Opinion that Sacramental Communication should be common to the Godly and the openly Wicked as being a Converting Ordinance and that Excommunication is but Tyranny Just as those Diocesans that will have no Bishops but one over a thousand or many score or hundred Parishes by pleading for their sole Episcopal Power take on them the sole Obligation to Episcopal duty and so make themselves responsible for that work which requireth many hundred men and under themselves while they undo the Churches and leave all true Discipline undone and mock not God but men and themselves with names and ceremonious shadows 2. And the Papal and French Prelatists have by this Ignorance got a fixed false Opinion that as Pastors are the Constitutive Heads of Particular Churches so they must be of National Churches and that every National Church must be unified and specified by one Clergy Soveraignty in one person or in a Colledge or Aristocracy Or else that a Christian Kingdom is not properly a Church because it hath not a Priestly Head It 's true that it is not univocally a Church of the same species or rank as a Pastoral Church is but is more eminently and as fitly called a Church as Israel was 3. And the Independent Separatists and Anabaptists for want of understanding this as I said before cry down National Churches with scorn and run away from National Concord into endless Divisions and Sects while at the
Unmercifulness especially Rich Mens oppression of the Poor Landlords grinding their Poor Tenants and Judges Justices and Lawyers unrighteousness in Suits and Judgments are Sins threatned by the Prophets as the fore-runners of Destruction § 3. But especially when Rulers are the Leaders in Sin and the Patrons of the Wicked The Sins of Men in publick Place are publick Sins and sooner bring publick Judgments than the Sins of private Men. The publick Authors of the late Calamitous Wars of Ireland Scotland and England had a deep part in the Punishment as they had in the Guilt O what a Torrent of Guilt in the Reign of Charles the Second did from King and Court over-flow this Land by the shameless filth of all uncleanness When Men shall affectedly keep Whores as the way to please the Court by Conformity to the King as if it were an Honour or no great Dishonour what can be expected from such horrid wickedness but Publick Divine Revenging Justice § 4. When did it ever go well with Judah or Israel when they had a foolish wicked King How easie is it for such a King and a foolish wicked Senate or Parliament to undo a Nation by Laws of Heresie Cruelty Persecution Division and Iniquity How ordinarily do such make Snares for the Conscionable by commanding them on pain of Fining Imprisonment or Death or Banishment to do something that God forbiddeth or not to do what God commandeth and then to cry them down reproach and ruine them as unruly disobedient despisers of all Order and Government Schismaticks and Rebels And who may call them so with less contradiction than they that can at their pleasure make them seem such and few dare contradict them § 5. Great is the advantage that Supreme Rulers have to put the Name of Evil upon Good and of Good on Evil and to procure the Vulgar to say as they Saving that the Innocency and Worth of the Upright especially of Wise and Charitable Persons constraineth approbation from those that know them and are not deplorate in Diabolism The foolish words of Princes seem wise to ignorant flatterers But he that will dwell in Gods Tabernacle and be a Blessing and not a Plague to the Church must be a Contemner of vile Persons and an Honourer of them that fear the Lord Psal 15. Antishenes could say that the Nation is hopeless that cannot difference good Men from bad What maketh almost all under Papist Rulers to be Papists and under Turks to be Mahometans and under Heathens to be Heathens but the Interest of the Opinion Example and Power of their Rulers § 6. In England and most Nations that are Christian the King and Rich Patrons or the Pope and his Servants have the choice of Archbishops Bishops Deans and Pastors And can it be expected that bad Men and covetous Men and the haters of serious Piety should chuse Men that will promote the Doctrine and Practice which they hate If the King make the Church of England is it like if he be a Papist or Malignant that he will chuse a Protestant and pious Church Or that a Covetous Drunken Filthy Licentious Patron will chuse a Man that will Zealously Preach against his Sins § 7. But the great Cause of the Ruine of a National Church is the Ignorance Viciousness Pride Malignity Covetousness and Persecuting Cruelty of a Degenerate Carnal Worldly Clergy Magistracy and Ministry are Gods great Ordinances by which as his Instruments and partly Representatives he doth by an established Order govern and keep up Order and Piety in the World Magistrates represent him in his Super-eminence and Ruling Power And Ministers in his Guiding and Sanctifying Wisdom and Love And God that will not ordinarily turn setled Order into Miracles worketh by these according to the aptitude of the Instruments and the Receivers And where there is kept up a wise and holy Magistracy and Ministry when and where did it ever go ill with such a people by any publick desolation § 8. If Ministers be Ignorant or unskilful in their publick Work they will be despised If they be Worldly and Covetous the Poor will reproach them If they be Drunkards Gluttons Unclean Idle or any way Sensual they will become the common Scorn But if they be Enemies to serious Godliness or Revilers or Persecutors of Godly Men the wicked will be encouraged to be like them and hardned in their Sin but Pious and Sober men will abhor them as the Servants of Satan though they will not therefore cast off their Honour to the true Ministerial Office and Work It is not an Honourable Office or a Reverend Garb and Name and Title that will hide the shame of Ignorance Ungodliness Sensuality or Malignity Their White Cloathing and Sacred Titles which render their filthiness more visible and odious Bad Men will prove a greater injury to Sacred Offices than open Enemies And it is not the Holiness of the Office or the Goodness of Laws and Order that will serve to Reform or make Happy a Church or Nation in the hands of wicked Men. § 9. Therefore when Bishops shall be such who Ordain and Govern the Inferior Clergy that Church or Nation is near lost and ruined If bad Princes chuse bad Prelates and they Ordain bad Ministers and savouring nothing but Wealth and Reputation shall prove the Jealous Adversaries of Piety and Persecutors of the most serious Christians and Encouragers of the malignant vicious and profane that Church and Nation is next to dead though it have a Name to live and be called Honourable and Rich how comely soever its Order and Ornaments may be and though its Doctrine and profest Opinions be Orthodox § 10. And it will yet render the case more desperate if the same carnal worldly malignant Bishops and Clergy shall grow justly reputed the Adversaries of the most Learned Judicious Godly and Laborious and Powerful Preachers and shall seek to Silence Disgrace and Oppress them The sober part of the Nation will then be tempted to take them as the Devils Militia armed against Christ and Mens Salvation and this the more wickedly as doing it in Christs Livery and in his Name § 11. And if such a Clergy shall in enmity to the Godly flatter the profane Lords Knights and Rich men of the World and make them their upholders and patrons and party to strengthen them in their sin the Confederacy will threaten Gods Vengeance on them all § 12. And yet the case will be more desperate if the wicked in such power shall bring an Universal Infection of Idleness Sensuality and Factious Enmity to serious Godliness on the Universities and other Schools of Learning and shall make them to be Nurseries of Ignorance Errour Impiety and Malignity And if the Prelates and Priests shall teach their Pupils and Candidates to account men of Conscience that obey not their sinful Impositions to be Fanatical Schismaticks and on pretence of bringing Schism into disgrace shall cast their dirt in the Face of Piety
honours to the Superior Clergy that they may be a Protection to the Inferior and a relief to the poor and keep up Religion from the contempt and scorn of Worldly men § 12. VIII The King is justly the donor of such honours and great revenues § 13. IX The Parish Ministers according to the true Legal Reformed Church of Englaend are acknowledged true Pastors as to all the essentials of the Pastoral Office Word Sacraments Keys Discipline and Ordinations 14. X. The Inferior Ministers in Tythes and Glebe have mostly a laudable maintenance § 15. XI All the Parish Churches are to distinguish Communicating Members from Non-communicating Inhabitants and to refuse the scandalous and unconfirmed not ready or desiring confirmation And the Offices of Absolution and Burial are fitted to the Faithful were Discipline executed 16. XII Yet our Law for Dissenters Assemblies acknowledgeth them all true Members of the Church of England who agree in the essentials notwithstanding their dissent in divers lesser things as no doubt they are § 17. XIII We use one and the same Translation of Scripture and usually the same version of Psalms Time Place Utensils so far as allowed All these are laudable parts of the Constitution of a National Church 18. XIV To which I may add that we all renounce all humane Universal and Forreign Jurisdiction Civil and Ecclesiastical And all Traditions that pretend to be supplemental and perfecting to the Scripture and all Infallibility of Popes and Councils None of this therefore needeth a Reformation But what then doth § 19. Ans All these things following I. The entrance into the Church by Baptism of Infants is done so lightly and rashly while the Parents are forbidden to speak a word there as Dedicating their Children to God or Covenanting for them but all is laid on such Godfathers as never own the Children nor ever intend to do what they Vow And Baptism is refused if Crossing be refused II. The Bishop only being to Confirm all in many hundred or score Parishes where one of many hundred is not known to him much less examined by him Confirmation is commonly made a deceiving Ceremony and the Transition from the State of Infant Members into the State of Adult Communicants is made so wide that the Church too little differeth from Catechumens that I say not from those without III. The Parishes are many so large that the Incumbent knoweth not his Church-Communicants nor how many hundreds or thousands stay away IV. The Canons though they nullifie not the Incumbents Pastorship yet fetter him by unjust restraint from the due exercise of it V. Faithful able godly men are kept and cast out of the Ministry for not sinning against God or not obeying unnecessary and unfit terms of Ministration VI. And on the same account thousands of the Religious Laity are denied Communion and cast into Prisons and ruined by Fines and till lately forbidden all Publick Worship above four VII The Decretive Power of the Keys of Excommunication and Absolution is in the hands of Lay-men used pro formâ in the Bishops name VIII Patrons have too much power in chusing Parish Pastors for all the Land without the Flocks consent and sufficient caution of the Patrons qualifications IX Bishops are chosen without due consent or election of the Synods or People X. Ordinations are made by Bishops without Synods or any Presbyters but a few whom the Bishop taketh pro formâ XI The Episcopacy of Incumbents being denied by many it is grown a common imagination that none are Ordained by Bishops that are not Ordained by Diocesans XII The Personal ignorance viciousness and disability of a great part of the Ministry is of all the rest the worst and hardest to be reformed XIII The too loose tryal of the Ordained and their necessary qualification much causeth this XIV And the corruption of the Universities is the Seminary and Nursery of our sins and dangers XV. Many dangerous Oaths or Covenants and Professions are hurtfully imposed on the Ministers and People by which Guilt and Divisions are increased XVI And to compleat our dangers an enmity or deep jealousie is setled between the Publick Priests and a great part of the most seriously Religious People of the Land This distance hath long been causing and the causes are still continued The badness of Priests in the time of Popery and their contemptible insufficiency in the beginning of the Reformation tempted many zealous Protestants to too hard thoughts of the generality of them No Party hath been faultless It fell out that the Exiles in Germany who were most zealous in Religion against Popery and all ungodliness followed Geneva and set themselves too much against Bishops and our Liturgy that they might not partake of the sins of Popery But Dr. Ri Cox that had been K. Edw. 6. Tutor and had a great hand in making our Liturgy drew Horn and others to him and forced our Liturgy on them at Frankford and prevailing against them drove them to Geneva thinking that Reformation should receive as much of the antient Forms and Ceremonies as were not true Popery nor forbidden of God that the Papists might not challenge us as Novelists On these terms of difference they came over into England being on both sides generally godly Protestants The Queen Eliz. took part with the Conformists and made them Bishops and Dignitaries and discountenanced the Nonconformists The first Race of these good Bishops loved the godly Nonconforming Preachers and connived at them and encouraged them in their fervent plain Preaching and pious Living But as that Race wore out by death Bishopricks having great honour power and wealth had many seekers and seekers had many friends And he that loveth wealth and honour most is like to seek it most and he that most seeketh is likest to find And the greatest Lovers of the World are the worst men And so Bishops not all at once but by degrees were altered Then the Nonconformists not only refusing to be Bishops but too many declaring their Judgments to be for their fall the Bishops having more power resolved first to cast them down and to do their utmost to root them out And made their Book of Canons and Acts of Uniformity fitted to that use And so the Enmity turned into a ruining War became remediless save that on both sides the godly and moderate lived peaceably lamenting the extreams of the rest Qu. Eliz. and K. James I. having silenced many hundred Dissenters that were of great worth extraordinary piety and the Bishops causing this and in jealousie of the strictest People forbidding them to fast and pray together and some other exercises of piety and in K. Charles I. days carrying it yet higher to greater severity and this setled them in an Enmity to Bishops as the Enemies of serious Piety and the Bishops more sought to root them out of the Land Till Laud carrying it further and seeking a Coalition with those that were for a Foreign Jurisdiction
the additions of this Commentary and fuller proof and Mr. Beverly's little Treatise called The whole duty of Nations And when they hear two parties claiming the Name of the Church of England they will judge by the Reformers Law and Judgment which is worthy of that name and that the Nonconformists that are sound are as honourable sound parts of the true Church of England as the Conformists at least And that by this distinction of Bishops they will expound my Treatise of Episcopacy and my Church History of Councils and former Bishops The Lord pitty a self-destroying Clergy Chap. XV. The Case of Toleration of Dissenters from the Common Laws and Customs of a National Church more particularly answered § 1. THIS case about Toleration in and from a National Church hath been oft put to me and oft and largely answered And to what use such a work will serve I am unable to conjecture except it be to satisfie the Writers Conscience and set right the thoughts of them that desire what they cannot obtain And whether God will ever raise up a Generation that wearied with Divisions and the direful effects and forced by some Prince of Piety or Interest to consent to a healing Peace and Concord God knoweth and not I. § 2. But I will once more venture to repeat a Moral Prognostication That I think it ex causis exceeding probable that either England will have Popery setled in Power by a French Conquest in the French Fashion by the compliance of those of the English Clergy who are for a Foreign Church Jurisdiction Or else God will constrain the present Governours by the sense of their own interest if not of the interest of Religion and the common good to open the publick Church Doors to that Concord which they have been lockt against by the Act of uniformity and such like above thirty years and the unplacable Enemies of Peace will cast down themselves For I am past doubt of what my dear friend Judge Hale said to me that It must be a new Act of Uniformity that must heal this Church § 3. And should we treat of such a subject as Concord and Toleration with whom should it be If it be not with fit persons we have found that it will be in vain and worse It 's God that must make peace between the Wolf or Lion and the Lamb and not such as I. § 4. 1. If we treat with Proud Men they will have no Concord but by mens granting their unjust demands and submitting to their Wills whatever God and Reason say against it And they must be in Rule and the most Worthy and Innocent be at their mercy § 5. 2. If we treat with Worldlings and Self-seeking men their Worldly interest must be the measure of Concord And how various mutable and unrighteous is that like to be § 6. 3. If we treat with malignants their terms of peace will be directly or indirectly the suppression of serious Godliness § 7. 4. If we treat with Factious Schismaticks Hereticks or Papists their terms will be only that which furthereth and strengthneth their sects § 8. 5. If we treat with Fools they will not understand the case nor the reason that is urged They will not distinguish of Places Times Persons Causes the Sence of Words but rage and be confident in confusion § 9. 6. If we deal with Timorous Cowardly Hypocrites or low and self-saving Spirits they will but be Nicodemites and not venture on danger or difficulty but stay till they see which way will be strongest and most for their advantage Or till Governors drive them on And then it 's well if they do but consent § 10. 7. Shall we then leave all to the sober godly peaceable men It may that way do some personal and private good but I fear they will be so low as to be contemned and so few that in the Crowd and Noise of rage they will not be heard nor regarded unless as little Zaccheus they get up into a Tree by the help of some extraordinary Superior So that there is so little hope of the success of any such attempt and I have written so much of it long ago almost in vain that I will say now but this little following § 11. 1. The Terms of Toleration must differ according to the different Case of the Superiors and Imposers 2. And according to different Causes of Dissenters 3. And according to their different Capacities and Relations 4. And according to their different temper and behaviour in managing their cause 5. And as Rulers are able or unable to suppress them without more hurt than good § 12. I. If Superiors have made Dissenters by sinful Laws the Peace must be more than a Toleration by changing those Laws Shall the Throne of Iniquity have Fellowship with God when they frame Mischief by a Law § 13. II. A Dissenter that opposeth the Essentials of Religion or teacheth Damnable or Treasonable Doctrines must be differenced from those that only refuse to be Perjured or Lie and make a sinful Covenant and Promise or Profession or that scruple some small unnecessary thing which to them seemeth sin against Gods Laws § 14. III. A poor weak woman or unlearned man must not be imposed on and dealt with on the same terms as a man of wit and learning Nor the Laity as the Clergy § 15. IV. Those of a meek and quiet Spirit may be more suffered than turbulent unpeaceable men though it be in the same material points that they dissent Therefore much must be left to the Will of the Rulers who can difference between Man and Man when the Law cannot § 16. V. In a Country where the Preaching of faulty men though elsewhere useful is unnecessary by reason of a full number of better if such a Land there were the silencing of such men is more allowable than elsewhere And even Heresie and many faults may have impunity though not a justifying toleration in a time and place where punishment and suppression cannot be used without apparent doing more hurt than good Rulers are not bound to do what they cannot do And they cannot do that which they must not do because it will do more hurt than good § 17. VI. In a Country where the publick Ministry and Churches are so depraved that the Interest of the Church and Religion lieth more in saving People from them than in Uniting with them there the Tolerated must be most countenanced and strengthen'd But in a Country or Age where the Interest of Religion lyeth most in the publick Churches and the Dissenters are a weak mistaken sort of scrupulous honest People there the Tolerated Churches should be like so many Hopitals where weak People are cherished but it 's not desireable that it be the common case of all the City or Country § 18. Obj. But such Toleration will multiply Separatists and weaken the Church They will be still reproaching it Ans Persecution will not make them
which Ministers do with greater Obligation and Advantage than the People and Apostles above both And Kings and States are as much obliged to it as Bishops But they are not on that pretence to make one Universal King or Senate to be a Soveraign Power to them and all the Earth or Church But only by Diets or Confederacies to join their Powers and Endeavours to so good an End And so is it with Bishops and Churches § 23. If they say That it is Union and Concord with the Pope or Rome or their Councils that we are bound to let them but renounce their pretence to Government of all and we shall easily decide the other difference If we must not Unite to them as Governors but as Brethren they are as much bound to Love and Union with us as we with them And Christ is sufficient to be the Center of Union to the whole Body and hath made them the sufficient and only Laws of Universal Concord among themselves § 24. Obj. To be obliged by Gods Law to Concord and to have Councils and Bishops determine in what we must agree inferreth our Duty to agree in those Points which cometh to all one as Government by them Ans 1. If they be not Governors but Equals we have as much power to propose Articles of Agreement to them as they to us 2. There are no Articles of Universal Agreement in all the Churches on Earth necessary but what Christ hath made such And to pretend to make such and Usurp his Prerogative is a sin that we must not agree with 3. The vanity of their talk of true Universal Councils I have oft at large detected 4. We grant submission to the true power of National Governors and Councils but Universal we know not 5. Just National Laws must be obeyed But Conciliar Canons of Concord by Equals bind us not to Agreement when mistake maketh them against the common Good and Ends of Concord Nor do Mens Laws or Agreements bind us to any thing against the Laws of God § 25. XII We all own an Universal Church Government Partite or Exercised by parts as all the Physicions Medicate all England and all the School-masters teach them and all the Judges and Justices judge them And so Cyprian meant that Episcopatus unus est of which each one hath a part That is 1. In specie institutâ 2. Quoad Objectum All the particular Churches governed make one Universal Church 3. Quoad Finem But no Man nor any Senate or College or Council as una persona politica is Soveraign We have no Universal King but Christ Chap. XI Whether a National Church Soveraignty infer the need or lawfulness of a Humane Universal Church Soveraignty § 1. Ans NO For 1. Man is capable of one but uncapable of the other 2. Christ hath given Commission for one but not for the other 3. Every Kingdom hath one Humane Soveraignty in Sword Government But so hath not all the World one And there is less reason for and less possibility of one Humane Governing Soveraignty by the Word and Keys 4. God set one Moses and one Aaron or Priesthood over Israel but not over all the World If Adam or Noah was such while the World was but a Family or Tribe he would not have it so when it was uncapable of it 5. The Summons and Subscriptions and the Limits of the Imperial Power tell us that the most General Councils were but Imperial that is National in Extent as I have proved against Johnson And therefore no more can be claimed since § 2. Obj. But if a Presbyter must be Ordained by a Bishop as Superior and a Bishop by an Archbishop and he by a Patriarch what Superior shall make him but a Pope or Council Ans 1. You may next ask Who then must Make or Consecrate a Pope Is it a Superior Contrarily If a Pope may be made by Inferiors as they do a Patriarch a Metropolitan an Archbishop and a Bishop may quoad esse be validly made by Men of the same Order Yea and Presbyters too where Politick Order and Church safety forbid it not § 3. It is so far from being true as I once foolishly thought that National Church Supremacy inferreth Popery that it is a necessary or very great means against it without which though particular Souls may be saved from Popery a Nation cannot long nor ever was that I have read of For Popery is but the Invading of the power of all other Bishops and Kings And for each one to reassume his own power is the direct Deposing of the Pope As if one King or Senate claimed the Government of all Kings and Senates how should these Usurpers be Deposed but by every King and Parliaments reassuming their own § 4. But then every party that differeth in the Form of National Government must not pretend that it is only their Form that is the Bulwark against Popery National Church Concord and Strength may be kept up by a Supreme Christian Prince or State with a Concordant Ministry whether among themselves United as the Scots in General Assemblies or as in England by Archbishops Bishops and Convocations obeying the Laws of Christ and the just Laws of the King and State that are made for determining needful Circumstances supposing such Bishops qualified and chosen justly and usurping none of the Sword-bearers power § 5. That National Laws about matters of Religion may and must be made and that Princes consulting with Pastors must make them and that these are not to extend to all the World is a truth unquestionable In England the Law must command us to use English Bibles but not all over the World It is meet to bind the Churches to use one Translation of the Scriptures Else one will say Your Text or what you alledge is not in my Bible and another It is not in mine And many inconveniences would follow And one Form of Catechism one Form of Confession one Metre of singing Psalms and about the Sacraments and other Offices one Form moderately imposed or agreed on is convenient But if one part will too rigorously impose things needless or command things sinful or justly suspected or the other side refuse things lawful and fit because imposed National Concord will be broken Chap. XII The Three other Reasons for Popery answered briefly Quest III. SHould not the Roman Church Policy in reason be owned for the advantage of Christianity against Infidels Ans 1. We deny not but Unity Concord Power and Riches and the great number of Adherents is a great advantage to Christianity against Infidels And all these are Gods Gifts and as such do good 2. But the abuse of them though it do not quite frustrate the genuine Effects yet so depraveth them that it 's a doubt whether the hurt to the common Christianity be not greater than the advantage If Unity were maintained in Christs way it would have far better Effects than in the Papists way 3. Yet we
deny not but the Providence of God hath made use of the Roman Power Numbers Concord and Riches to uphold the common Cause But all is not Good that God over-ruleth and useth to good permitting Man to cause the Evil. As a Man may use the Cruelty without causing it of a Hound a Ferret or a Hawk against the Prey to fulfil his just will Had National Kingdom Churches been kept up under true Christian Kings and Pastors and these Kings and Pastors in Dyets and Councils kept due Confederacies by Consultation and Contract without mutual Jurisdiction the common Cause had been better promoted than it hath been by Popery that hath shamed it and weakened it by Persecutions Divisions Treasons and Wars Quest IV. Whether the Divisions of other Christians render the Roman Government desireable for Concord Ans 1. There are more that Unite in Mahometanism and far more in Paganism than all the Christians in the World And Satan knoweth how to advantage his Kingdom by Concord as well as to weaken Christs Kingdom by Division 2. The Bishops have made the greatest Schisms and Division in the Church that ever was made by sinful Usurpation and Corruption and Impositions and Persecutions Unchurching the far greatest part of Christians and appropriating the Church Title to his own Sect alone All the Bloody Murders of the Waldenses Bohemians and other Protestants the Inquisition the present Wars that France hath involved Europe in are on pretence of Unity We like not the Unity that Satan maintaineth and that at such a rate of Blood 3. But I have before and elsewhere proved that the Protestants for all their Divisions have a far better Unity than the Papal Church hath so that this Question is elsewhere and here sufficiently answered Quest V. Whether the Errors of the Protestants do not so disparage them as to make the Roman Church more Honourable Ans 1. That is should not Men chuse a Leprosie to cure an Itch We deny not but where Controversies shew our Differences among our selves one Party must needs be in an Error either de re or de nomine But we agree in all that 's necessary to Salvation and Brotherly Love And Pride and Envy and Malignity are more the Causes of our Disagreement than our Religion Especially unskilfulness in Words and stating Cases I have endeavoured to shew in many Books especially my End of Doctrinal Controversies my Catholick Theology and Methodus Theologiae that our Differences are most in Words whose sence is not mutually understood How many Loads of Controversal Volumes are written by Papists against each other And what heavy Charges of Simony Filthiness Heresie c. have even General Councils and Historians laid on the Popes and many Councils And note that the Pope or Council is the Essentiating Form of the Papal Church as such and therefore an Unholy or Debauch'd or Heretick Head proveth that the Church is Unholy or Heretical Because the Form denominateth and is Essential But it is not so with the Protestants that own no Universal Head but Christ who is Infallible and perfect This much I thought needful to add against them that pretend an Institution of Christ for a Political Universal Head and a Foreign Jurisdiction above a National Church or Christian Kingdom He that would compare Papists Errors with Protestants let him read Chamier Blondel de Ecclesia Molinaeus of the Novelty of Popery Rivet Downame de Antichristo Jewel Whitaker and other such § 7. How few Bishops or Church Doctors are for Learning equal to Boetius Joh. Picus Francis Picus Erasmus Hutten Goldastus Freherus Pistorius Faber Stephanus Father and Son Mornay Lord Du Plessis Mich. Hospitalius Thuanus the two Scaliger's Salmasius Grotius Sarravius Justellus and many other Lay-men And are Kings and Magistrates uncapable of Wisdom § 8. How vast is the difference between Governing one Kingdom and Governing all the World Do I need to aggravate it And is not one King with Wise Judges and Justices as capable of Governing one Kingdom as an Utopian College of Bishops that some dream of or a Pope and Cardinals of Governing all the World Can such ignorant vicious Monsters as Councils have condemned for the most odious Wickedness and Heresie better Rule at Abassia Armenia or the Antipodes than a Good King can Rule in England § 9. Councils consist of the Subjects of many Foreign Princes and usually their Princes chuse who shall go And they that are near the place of meeting will be the most And none can come against their Princes wills And few Bishops will disobey their Lords that send them or that they live under And must such Subjects of Papists Turks Infidels Heathens be Masters of England of King and People and of all the Religion in the World § 10. Cannot Bishops at hand here better try the Cause of one accused for Heresie Fornication Treason Murder c. and that by virtue of a Commission from God than a meeting of Bishops out of all the World a Thousand Mile off can try it § 11. But I shall here pass by my chief proof of this that God hath ordained no Humane Government distinct from meer consultation or Concord and Communion above National Headed by Christian Soveraignty Because I have ready for the Press a full Treatise of it in Two Books The first proving Historically by their own words that Archbishop Land Archbishop Bromhall Bishop Guning Bishop Sparrow Bishop Sam. Parker Dr. Pet. Heylin Mr. Thorndike Dr. Saywell and divers others have written for a Foreign and Universal Jurisdiction The second Book fully disproving it and proving that the Kingdom and Church is Sworn against it and that the Parliaments and the Church of England till Laud's days were against it And that this very Parliament and Convention having taken a new Oath against it besides the old Oaths of Supremacy to stigmatize the Church and Nation with the foresaid Perjury would dangerously presage the Rune of the Perjured if not of the Land Chap. XIII What are the dangerous Diseases of a National Church § 1. DEath cometh on Bodies Politick as on Natural Bodies by degrees as Diseases weaken and break them And while they are Diseased they are in an unlovely troublesome condition Gods Word and History and Experience hath told us what Diseases they be that are the usual presages of Confusion or Dissolution § 2. In general All sin is to the Soul what Sickness is to the Body and hath some tendency to destruction And the increase and abounding of Sin is a dangerous Prognostick sins of Sensuality Gluttony Drunkenness and Fornication when they grow common and impudent seldom go unpunished O how dangerous then is the case of England in which the Sin of Adultery and Fornication is commonly said to be so increased that multitudes are guilty now for One that was ever suspected of it before the Reign of K. Charles the Second And brutish Wretches scarce take it for a shame Sins of Injustice and