it And it is seldom heard of for all the industry and subtilty of Rome that any Prince or State doth Voluntarily turn Papist that is once delivered from the Yoke and that ever again parteth with his power when he hath recovered it But yet that even this Argument from Notorious Interest doth not recover the Liberty of Countreys subject to the Pope you will the less wonder if you consider these three things 1. That the Papal Interest hath got such rooting in their Subjects minds that it is not in their power to reassume their right The Clergy are so numerous subtile ubiquitary and potent and the people so commonly deceived and so tenacious of ancient Customs that to make this Change might cast all into a flame And they think it better to lose part than all And no doubt but the examples of Henry the third and Henry the fourth of France maked some think that if they displease the Pope and his Consederates they have not sufficient security for their lives 2. And Princes stand usually on such terms of danger or jealousie from one another that they are fain to keep such a Peace at home lest they expose themselves to a greater mischief from abroad And they are broken by the Papal subtilty especially in Germany and Italy into such Fractions and petty Principalities that few of them are strong enough to defend themselves against the Confederates of the Pope when potent Emperours heretofore could not do it And many of them especially the House of Austria do take this Copartnership of the Pope to be a great part of their strength And as anciently many Emperours were forced to choose their Caesars and Copartners when the defence of the Empire was too hard for themselves alone so divers Princes are glad to make use of the Papal interest and power for their own security though upon terms that else would never be submitted to And in some Countreys the Rebellious disposition of the Subjects driveth them to accept of this dear remedy and they choose rather to strengthen themselves by a Copartner than to stoop to the wills of their inferiours For here you must take notice that the pretence of a Jus divinum and of Spirituality and the Interest of Christ and of the safety of their souls doth make this kind of servitude much less dishonourable than it is to be overtopt by a neighbour Prince or to be curbed by their subjects For what dishonour is it for a man to be subject to his Maker and Redeemer Nay what greater honour can there be And the Roman Clergy have used themselves to Canonize those Princes that have been most zealous for their Grandure and to raise the fame and praises of such as have raised that which they call the Church that the very ambition of the Clergies Praises doth do much to tempt some to a tame acceptance of a Copartner who pretendeth to be the Vicar of Christ When this servitude goeth for sanctity and carrieth not with it the reproach of other sorts of servitude 3. And it greatly furthereth their success that the Popes Agents are commonly bred up in Learning and so are made able to over-wit the Laity And that it is their great design to gratifie the Lusts of Princes by indulging their voluptuous sensual lives that so they may spend their dayes in such things as will never advance their understandings to an ability to discern the cheats of their Copartners And they detestably cherish the Ignorance of the Common Laity that they may be the fitter to be led and mastered by them even as men keep women from Learning and great attainments lest they should be the more uncapable of subjection And thus as Satan leadeth men to Hell so the Papal Usurper bringeth the Laity into their power by their own consent by such pleasing baits as make their servitude easie to them And it is not your telling them of their interest that will prevail against all these temptations They that will lose Heaven and their salvation by such cheats may lose half of their earthly Dominions by them as long as the other half sufficeth to satisfie their concupiscence and to maintain their honour and pleasure in the world The Roman Usurpation consisteth of two parts 1. The Usurpation of such a Pastoral Power as they have no right to 2. The Usurpation of a great part of the Magistrates power sometime directly and sometimes indirectly in ordine ad spiritualia and constantly by the cheat of the false name of Church power put upon the Magistrates part of Church Government as if it were the Clergies part I. The Usurpation of a Pastoral power which belongeth not to them is the chief part of their Iniquity And it consisteth in these among other particulars 1. In the impious and arrogant claim of an Universal Pastorship over all the world The Roman Prelate must be the Teacher of all the world the High Priest of all the world and the Spiritual Ruler of all the world which because he cannot do by himself he must do by others as far as he can to uphold his usurpation He must be the Law-giver and the Judge of all the world even at the Antipodes and where he hath no acquaintance nor access 2. By this he undertaketh to be a Bishop in other mens Diocesses and to rule in all matters where he hath no more power than any Pastor hath in another Pastoral Charge 3. And by this he undertaketh to be the Spiritual Father and Governour of all the Kings and Rulers of the Christian world and so to have the power of excommunicating them when he thinketh there is cause and to brand them as uncapable of Christian communion with their own Subjects or with any other Christians 4. By this he usurpeth authority of imposing what Pastors he please even such as will carry on his interest upon all the Churches in the world and depriving both Princes and people of their just liberty of choice 5. By this also he usurpeth the power of deposing what Bishops or Pastors he please and depriving the people of their necessary helps and faithfullest Teachers Yea of putting whole Nations under Interdicts of serving and honouring God in Church-assemblies commanding all Pastors to shut up the Church doors and forbidding them to perfom their office and to preach Christs Gospel or administer his holy Sacraments 6. By this he sendeth forth his Missionaries and setteth up Societies of Jesuits and Fryers to do his work and commandeth all Princes and people to receive and countenance them 7. By this he layeth claim to a right of maintenance for Himself and his Missionaries in all parts of the world in the name of Christ who hath said that the labourer is worthy of his hire 8. By this he granteth Dispensations Pardons Indulgences commandeth praying to Saints and Angels and praying for the Dead as being in Purgatory and by this he setteth up his whole new frame of self-devised Worship
Rebellion are to be disowned by all that will be true to God and to his Officers In my Sermon to the Parliament the day before they Voted the Restoration of the King I said somewhat of the difference of the Protestant and Popish Religion in this point And a Papist Gentleman first wrote an Invective against me as if I had given no proof of what I said And several persons of unknown names wrote Letters to me to urge and challenge me to prove it Blindly or wilfully overlooking the undeniable proof which I had there laid down from one of their General Councils viz. The Decrees of approved General Councils are the Papists Religion The Decrees of approved General Councils are for the Popes deposing Temporal Lords if they exterminate not such as deny Transubstantiation and giving their Dominions to others Ergo The Popish Religion is for the Popes deposing Temporal Lords in that case and giving their Dominions to others The Major is not questioned The Minor besides the Concil Rom. sub Greg. 7. which determineth that the Pope may depose Emperours I there proved from the express words of Concil Lateran sub Innoc. 3. Can. 3. which uttereth it at large And if any Protestant do with Dr. Tailor Dr. Gunning and Dr. Pierson doubt of the authority of those Canons that 's nothing to the Papists who justifie it as an approved Council and vindicate it as you may find with copiousness and confidence in the printed Answer to the last named Doctors What impudency then is it in these men to challenge me to prove and yet overlook my proof 99. CHRISTIANITY according to the Scripture and primitive simplicity in Doctrine Worship Government and Life doth constitute a CHRISTIAN and a Christian Church The making of humane additions and mutable adjuncts to seem things necessary doth constitute a SECT And alas how small a part of the Christian world is not entangled in some such Sect. To be united to all Christians in the bond of Christianity is to be a Catholick To trouble the Churches peace by striving to set up one Sect or Faction and suppress the rest is to be a Schismatick and Sectary So then if some will by a superstitious unscriptural rigour of Discipline make every Pastors power arbitrary or the peoples which is worse in judging of mens inward holiness and will lay by the Scripture Title which is a sober Profession of the Baptismal Covenant and think by this strictness to advance the honour of their party as to purity They will but endlesly run into divisions And by setting themselves at a greater distance from common Christians than God alloweth them provoke him to cast on them some greater shame And if any others will make their unnecessary forms of Synods and other adjuncts to seem so necessary as to enter into Leagues and Covenants to make them the terms of the Churches Unity God will not own such terms nor ways nor will they be durable while the ground is mutable And if in the Countreys where Popery and Church-tyranny prevail any other more lofty faction shall perswade the people that there must be no King any longer than their domination is upheld and shall seek to twist the corruptions grandure or mutable adjuncts of their function by Oaths into the very Constitution of the State Like the Trent Oath swearing the Subjects to obey the Church yea putting the Church before the State and swearing them not at any time though commanded by the King to endeavour any alteration in that Church-Government no nor to consent to any that so the subjects may be as fast bound to them as they are by the Oath of fidelity to their Kings It is time in such a case to pray God save the King and to write on our doors Lord have mercy on us And a true subject in such cases when it comes to swearing must learn Seneca's Lesson No man more esteemeth vertue than he that for the love of it can let go the reputation of it And must be content to be called Disloyal disobedient factious that he may not be so nor betray his Soul his Prince and his posterity 100. But to put my self out of the reach of any rational suspicion besides what is said I profess that I ascribe all that Power to Kings which is given them by any Text of Scripture or acknowledged by any Council General or Provincial or by any publick authentick Confession of any Christian Church either Protestant Greek or Popish that ever I yet saw And if this be not enough as to matter of Religion leaving the Cases of Law to Lawyers I can give you no more Object Eccles. 1. 18. In much wisdom is much grief and he that increaseth knowledge increaseth sorrow 7. 16. Be not righteous over much neither make thy self over wise why shouldst thou destroy thy self 9. 2. As is the good so is the sinner he that sweareth as he that feareth an Oath Isa. 59. 15. Truth faileth and he that departeth from evil maketh himself a prey 1 Kings 22. 13. Let thy word I pray thee be like the word of one of them and speak good Answ. V. 14. As the Lord liveth what the Lord saith unto me that I will speak Luke 12. 4. I say to you my friends Be not afraid of them that kill the body and after that have no more that they can do But c. 1 Thess. 2. 15 16. They please not God and are contrary to all men forbidding us to speak to the Gentiles that they might be saved to fill up their sins alwayes for the wrath is come upon them to the uttermost Acts 20. 24. But none of these things move me neither count I my life dear unto my self so that I might finish my course with joy and the Ministry which I have received c. 1 Cor. 4. 17 18. For our light affliction which is but for a moment worketh for us a far more exceeding eternal weight of glory While we look not at the things which are seen but at the things which are not seen For the things which are seen are temporal but the things which are not seen are eternal Sept. 21. 1669. Addition Of the Power of Kings and Bishops out of Bishop Bilson and Andrews LEst you should wrong the sober Episcopal Divines so as to think that they claim as jure Divino and as Pastoral any Coercive forcing power but only an authoritative perswading power and that of the Keyes of the Church I will transcribe some of the words of that Learned Judicious Bishop Bilson in his Tract of Christian Subjection By which you will see that all forcing power claimed by them is only Magistratical as they are the Kings Officers and not from Christ. Note also that constantly he distinguisheth the Magistrates power from the Pastors by the Sword as the instrument of execution which even about Ecclesiastical matters is proper to the Magistrate As the power of the Word and Sacraments or Keyes of
of Christ in those Countreys where Popery and Church-tyranny prevail hath long been by the Magistrates annexing their executions to the sentence of the Church as it is called and becoming the meer Executioners of the judgement of other men No Magistrate should be debased so as to be made the Churches Executioner If the Magistrate will punish a man it must not be meerly quatenus excommunicate that is as punished already but for the fault for which he was excommunicate And if so then he must try and judge him for that fault at his own barr and not punish him unheard because the Church hath sentenced him And if Rulers would more leave the Church to the exercise of its proper power and let excommunication do what it can of it self unless the nature of the crime require a distinct Secular judgement and punishment it would do much to heal all the divisions and perturbations in the Christian world For which course I have these Reasons following to urge 1. It is a great contempt and reproach to Christs institution of discipline to tell the world that it is a powerless uneffectual thing of it self unless the Secular Sword do enforce it Such Pastors vilifie their own power also which is so useless 2. It is a corrupting of Christs discipline and destroying the use of it For it cannot be known now what the Keyes do of themselves when the Sword goeth with them No man knoweth when Repentance professed is credibly real and moved by divine Motives and when it is dissembled for avoiding of the Secular punishment 3. It must leave the Pastors conscience unsatisfied in his administrations and bind him to abuse Christ when he must say to men If you had but rather say that you repent than lye in a Gaol I absolve you and give you the Sacraments and pronounce you pardoned by Christ. Who can administer on these terms 4. It is a dangerous deluding of the sinners soul that seemeth intimated by this way 5. It is a wilful corrupting and confounding of the Church when men shall be forced to be its members though they be Infidels Heathens or most impious if they had but rather say they are Christians than lye in Gaol And by this means it is that no man can know who are really of the Church of Rome or of any tyrannical Church but only who had rather say they are of the Church than be undone which any Infidel and Atheist will soon do Therefore let not Rome boast of the number of her members which are unknown 6. It is a changing of Christs terms of Covenant Christianity Communion and Absolution when Christ saith He that from his heart believeth and repenteth and forsaketh the flesh and the world for me shall be my Disciple and be pardoned and he that credibly professeth thus much shall be taken into the Church which are truly Christs terms now cometh the Church-tyrant and saith He that will say that he believeth and repenteth rather than he will forsake the flesh and the world and will choose the Church before a Gaol shall be pardoned and have communion with the Church or at least have the seals of pardon to delude him 7. By this means the Church is mostly constituted in such Countreys of the grossest wicked hypocrites And it is made a scorn to Infidels and Heathens and their conversion hindered thereby when they see that Christians are worse than they 8. And by this means these hypocrites ruine the Church it self as an enemies Souldiers in an Army And nominal Christians and Pastors that are heartily enemies to Christ do him more wrong and cause more divisions and ruines in the Church than they could have done if they had staid without 9. It destroyeth most of the hopes or the success of those Pastors as to the converting and saving of mens souls Because when the Magistrate is made but their executioner the people take all their sufferings as from them And they will bear that from a Magistrate which they will not bear from a Minister whose Office is to Rule them by Reason and by Love And so such Pastors are usually feared and hated by the people whereby they are disabled to do them that saving good which can be done on none against his will 1 Cor. 8. 13. 9. 22. 1 Tim. 4. 16. 10. And hereby a Church-tyranny is set and kept up in the world by which persecutions and divisions have been maintained for many hundred years and the Ministers of Christ have been forbidden to preach his Gospel to the unspeakable injury of souls and the lives of many hundred thousands have been a Sacrifice to the Pride and Avarice and Cruelty of the Clergy to the great dishonour of the Christian Name 11. And hereby Princes have had a power set over them to the diminution of their proper power and part of their dominion subjugated to others under the false name of Ecclesiastical Authority yea and their own standing made troublesome and unsafe and multitudes dethroned and Wars raised against them by the Clergies pretended power or instigation of which all the Wars between the â—erman Emperours and the Papalines are full proof recorded in all the Histories collected by Freherus Ruberus and Pistorius in Sabbellicus Nauclerus and multitudes of other Historians and our English Histories by Ingulphus Matthew Paris Hoveden c. And the Italian by Guicciardine and many others Nay what Countrey is there where the Papal and Tyrannical Clergy have not overtopt or troubled the State 12. And when all this is done they would deceive the Princes themselves into a Consent and so into the guilt of their own disturbance and their peoples misery And cast all the odium upon them and say we do but deliver you into the hands of the Secular Power it is they that do the execution on you when yet a General Council the Rule of their Religion Later sub Innoc. 3. Can. 2 3. deposeth such Temporal Lords that will not do such execution 65. He that desireth the Communion of the Church doth take it for a grievous punishment to be cast out of it And he that doth not desire it is unfit for it Therefore he that cannot feel the penalty of an Excommunication alone but only of a Mulct or Prison may be fit enough for further punishment but is unfit for the Communion of the Church 66. Yet is the Magistrate the Protector of the Church a Keeper of her Peace and Priviledges and of both Tables and must use his power to promote Religion 67. To which end he may prudently by moderate means constrain some that neglect their own salvation to hear Gods Word and confer with such as can instruct them and use those means which God hath made universally necessary to bring the ignorant to knowledge and may restrain them from actual open sin and from scorn and opposition of the means that should convert them and from hindering others from the means of salvation and from
Emperours Kings and Governours and to defend those to whom he hath given their Dominions How oft these Games have been seriously acted the German Histories lamentably tell us and Guicciardineâ— Italian and the English French and others are not wholly silent So if the Clergy be exempt from paying Taxes from Secular Judgements if their Lands and Estates be not under the Power of Kings if they set up Courts of Judicature with Offices like a Civil Court if they assume to themselves the sole judgement of Hereticks and Schismaticks and Apostates and also of Testaments of the dead and of Causes of Adultery and Fornication of lawful or unlawful degrees of Marriage and of Divorce if the Pope lay Taxes on the Clergy that are Subjects in all Princes Dominions if he dispose of Buildings Tythes Glebes Monasteries Lands Almshouses Colledges and abundance such like all this is not by the Sword but by perswading Kings and States that they are bound in Conscience to promote all this and obey the Pope as their Ghostly Father herein And that if they be stricken with the Thunderbolt of Excommunication they are in a state of damnation and if they so dye are undone for ever And by perswading other Princes and people that the Arms taken up against such Princes at the Popes Command according to the foresaid Councils are meritorious and shall procure their salvation And if Princes and people will believe all this and will be deceived and will voluntarily subject themselves to such an Usurper who can help it Though it excuse not the Pope yet they have little reason to complain that they lose that power which they voluntarily give away and that the Pope shall exercise that power which they give him And so much to your Cause against the Papacy II. But in your Epistle to Mr. Areskin and several others you lay much of the like charge upon the Reformed Churches and you take our great Reforming Divines to have kept up the Mysterie of Iniquity in their Discipline Concerning which give me leave to deal freely with you and to tell you that I am perswaded that your meaning is sincere and good and that it is an usurpation or devised imitation of Secular Government by the Clergy which you condemn and that too great a part of the Protestant Clergy have given you some occasion for these complaints But that really you deal not accurately in the Controversie and Accurateness is the thing you want You do not here exactly describe the true difference between the several powers where you seem to describe them you leave out much that should be said It is a more distinct way of handling this point that must decide the Controversie To which end I have laid you down an hundred Propositions on occasion of your former Writings sent me And as you say in Epist. ad D. Russellum p. 248. that in this you would believe one Physicion one Coxe Goddard Lower Ridgley c. Though I have reason to think that the first and last of these are more of my mind about Church Government than of yours before a thousand Augustines Hieroms Gregories yea Jewells Davenant Ushers Dallees so my opinion is that usually all men are wisest in their own Profession And though I am naturally somewhat unapt to take more than needs I must upon trust from any since I have had great experience of humane ignorance and vanity yet I had rather take a Physicions judgement in Physick and a Lawyers in points of Law and a Souldiers in Military matters and a Divines in Theology than any of their judgements about the matters of an aliene Profession Not but that now and then a man may arise that shall know more on the by than others that make it the study of their lives But that is not usual And that one man would have been yet wiser in those things if he had been of that Profession For surely caeteris paribus he that bestoweth twenty years or thirty or forty or threescore in the Study of Divinity alone with its subservient helps is liker to understand it than he that alloweth it but now and then a spare hour in the midst of other diverting Studies For my part if I follow not one thing only when I am upon it but divide my thoughts among things heterogeneal I cannot pierce deep into any great difficulties nor make any thing of distracted Studies neque quicquam recte fit quod fit praeoccupato animo God doth not use to give wisdom now by the way of Miracles but they that seek most are likest to find And therefore pardon me for telling you that though I am deservedly a great honourer of the Physicions you name yet I set more by the Judgement of one Usher one Davenant one Jewell one Dallaeus one Blondel one Camero one Le Blank one Petrus Molinaeus in matters of Theology than of abundance of Lawyers and Physicions And of one Lawyer and Physicion in matters of their Profession than of many Divines Being still of Pembles mind that one clear eye can see further than a Council of purblind ones And as to the matter of Partiality of which you suspect Divines it is not without cause as to all that party who seek for Riches Ease and Honours or Domination and Preferments and Preheminency in the world But such as that St. Martin whom you mention out of Severus who so vehemently opposed the Ithacian Violence and Maximus his using the Sword against the Priscillianists are as impartial as you Certainly if Christianity be what we all profess to take it for it will make that man best who is most a Christian And he that is best will be most impartially and self denyingly faithful to Christ and will prefer Christs honour incomparably before his own And he is like to be most a Christian who doth sincerely give up himself to the closest study of it all his dayes Deny this and your suspicions will fall upon Christianity it self But yet I will allow you to be moderately suspicious where you see that there is any great bait of carnal interest to tempt men A Popedome a Cardinalship I must name no more may make the Roman Heathen say I will turn Christian if you will make me Bishop of Rome c. But will you suspect that a good man yea and all such good men should be Partial where they put themselves on the greatest self-denyal Where they have no profit no preterment no man-pleasing no worldly honour to invite them Yea where it is like to diminish their gain to hinder them from preferment to make them hated by most on whom their discipline is exercised If a few out of a pang of Factious or Phanatick zeal may cast themselves on such a self-denying life it is not like that this will be the ordinary Case of Learned sober godly men If it be with whom shall the ignorant trust the conduct of their souls that will not make merchandize of them Would