with them and to overtop them of which more anon 3. I grant you also that in all such Countreys as aforesaid where Popery and Church-tyranny prevaileth the name of Ecclesiastical Courts and Discipline is applyed to that mungrel power which is neither Fish nor Flesh and that the true Spiritual Power set up by Christ is corrupted and turned into a secular thing or by confusion a third sort arisen out of both And that Popish Princes are wofully abused by this deceit while that the reverence of the name of the Church and Church-Government doth perswade them to ruine the Church indeed and to set up their Subjects to be the Governours of themselves and to give away their own power to their servants and then to stoop to the power which they have given 4. And I grant you that all this mischief would much be cured if Magistrates would keep the Sword to themselves and use it only according to the judgement of their proper Courts and would leave the Power of the Church Keyes to the Pastors valeant quantum valere possunt and let it be thought penalty enough for an excommunicate person qua talis to be excommunicate And not to take him to be a penitent or worthy of the Communion of the Church that had rather be there than in a Gaol There be wiser wayes of bringing men to Repentance and to the Communion of the Church than by saying Choose this or the Goal You are worthy to be in the Church if you had but rather be in it than in a Prison Christ said Forsake all or ye cannot be my Disciples And some say Be Christs Disciples or forsake all The Church will receive you if you will but accept her communion rather than imprisonment or beggary A kind Church indeed of which more anon 5. But notwithstanding all these concessions I must further tell you that it is the Pastors of the Churches that must keep up the interest of Christianity in the world and that as the bad ones are the greatest plagues so the good ones are the greatest blessings of the earth even the salt and lights of the world And none but the enemies of Christ are their enemies as such And as the Ministry hath grown better or worse so hath Christianity either risen or fallen in all times and places of the Church on earth Of which see Two Sheets which I have written for the Ministery against the Seekers and Malignants long ago 6. And though the Carnal Clergy afore described deserve all the invectives in your Books and their Usurpations and turning Church Discipline into a secular thing do call aloud for a just detection and rebuke and it would be the happiness of the world if the eyes of all Christian Princes and Rulers were opened in this point yet I must tell you that I believe most sober pious Protestant Divines are really agreed in the main things that you desire and intend And that both you and some of your adversaries both do amiss to make the difference seem wider than indeed it is And that making Verbal differences seem real and small ones seem great is an ill employment when a few distinctions and clearer explications would make both sides see that they are almost of one mind Therefore all that I shall do in this business is to lay down my own judgement and I think the judgement of all the pious and sober part of the Episcopal Presbyterian Independents and Erastians or Politicians in certain brief Propositions which shall carry their own evidence past all contradiction of Learned and Considerate Christians Prop. 1. THe work of the Gospel-Ministry is not a work of meer Charity and Liberty but an Office-work Authority Reason and Love are its principles Matth. 28. 19 20. Titus 1. 5. Acts 14. 23. 2. This Office is instituted by Christ himself and by the Holy Ghost Ibid. Acts 20. 28 c. 3 It was instituted for great and necessary ends that the Ministry might be Christs Agents Messengers Sâ—ewardâ— c. for the furthering the affairs of his Spirituâ—l Kingdom and mens salvation in the world 1 Cor. 4. 1 2. 1 Tim. 3. 1 2 3 c. Acts 20. 28. 1 Thess. 5. 12 13. â—â—b 13. 17. 4. It was first put into the hands of Apostles châ—sâ—n by Christ himself who were to be the Gatherers Edifiers â—nd Guides of his Church and to be its foundation built on Christ and the transmitters of the Gospel and a stated Ministry to the following Ages 5. Though the extraordinary part of their work ceased with them the ordinary part continueth after them with a Ministry which is to continue to the end of the world Eph. 4. 11 c. 6. This Office was in time before a Christian Magistrate and must be the same where there is any such and where there is none Matth. 28. 20. Eph. 4. 12 14 16 c. 7. It consisteth in an Authority conjunct with an Obligation to do their proper work 8. This Ministerial Office is subordinate to Christ in the three parts of his Office Prophetical Priestly Kingly as they are commonly distinguished or in Teaching Worshipping God and Governing his flocks John 20. 21. Matth. 28. 19 20. 1 Cor. 4. 1 2. 1 Tim. 3. 2 3 c. 5. 17. Acts 6. 4. 9. It is essential to the Office to have all these in Divine Authority but not in Exercise nor in the Civil Liberty of exercising them which may be hindered Acts 5. 18 c. 10. The Office is to be judged of by Gods Institution and not by the Ordainers wills intention or contrary expressions if the essence of the Office be delivered in general words 11. Christ made these Officers the Key-bearers of his Churches that is the Rulers or Guides who have authority under him over Church communion to judge what members shall be taken in and who shall be put out Mat. 16. 19. Heb. 13. 17 24. 1 Thess. 5. 12 13. 12. The first and great act of this Key-bearing power never denyed them from Christs time to this day is the power of Baptizing and of judging who shall be admitted by Baptism into the Church or number of visible Christians Mat. 28. 19 20. Acts 2. 41. 8. 12 13 38. 13. This power is not arbitrary but Ministerial regulated by Christs universal Laws which describeth every mans Title to admittance which is his own or Parents if an Infants understanding voluntary serious Profession of Consent to the Baptismal Covenant Acts 2. 38. 8. 12. 10. 47 48. Mâ—r. 16. 16. Matth. 28. 20. 14. If one Minister refuse such Consenters others must admit him And if many should agree utterly to tyrannize both Magistrates by just Laws may correct them and the people desert them for better Guides 1 Kings 2. 27. 2 John 10 11. Mat. 7. 15. 16. 6. 15. The Churches Communion and Sacraments are not to be common to all the world Otherwise the Church were no Church as consisting of
Heathens Infidels and all that would come even purposely to pollute and scorn the holy Mysteries 1 Cor. 10. 16. 2 Cor. 6. 14. Acts 2. 47 c. 16. It is necessary therefore that some men be the Judges who are fit and who shall be admitted Else there can be no difference Of this see my Treatise of Confirmation 17. Every man is not to be the sole publick Judge for himself For then there would be still no difference nor the Mysteries kept from common scorns 18. The Magistrate is not made the first and proper Judge For then he must make a Calling of it and attend upon this very thing to try the baptized and the admitted which is no small work For he that judgeth must first try the Case and that with the diligence which the weight of it requireth Acts 8. 37. 19. The People are not to be the ordinary Judges for else they must all leave their Callings to attend baptizings and such works as thâ—se and must do that which most of them are unfit to do And Christ hath put all out of doubt by putting the Keys into the Pastors hands and commanding their study and attending to this work and calling them the Rulers Guides Pastors Fathers Stewards Overseers c. and commanding the people to obey them with submission and telling not the people or Magistrates but the Pastors of the great and dreadful account that they must give Heb. 13. 17. Matth. 24. 45 46 47. 1 Cor. 4. 1 2. 2 Tim. 4. 1 2. 1 Tim. 4. 15 16. 20. He that will lay this work upon people or Magistrates is their cruel enemy and brings on them a most heavy burden and consequently makes it their duty to prepare and study for it and to avoid all other business that hindereth it and would lay them under the terrors of a most tremendous reckoning unto God 21. Seeing it is a trust that must be committed to some or other common reason tells us that it is better in their hands that Christ hath put it in by Office and who spend their lives in preparation for it than in theirs that neither have the preparations nor the Office 1 Cor. 9. 16. 2 Cor. 5. 19 20. 1 Cor. 4. 1 2. 22. It is the great end of Christs coming into the world to destroy the works of the Devil and to purifie to himself a peculiar people zealous of good works and to save his people from their sins and to vindicate the Holiness of God And the world is so apt to judge of Christs doctrine by his followers that the Holiness and Concord of Christians is one of Christs great appointed means for his own and his Fathers glory in the world That as Gods greatness shineth forth in the frame of nature so might his Holiness in the Church And the Enemies of Holiness and condemned by their Creed when they profess to believe the Holy Catholick Church and the Communion of Saints And Rome it self doth own the name and pretence of Holiness 23. Travellers well know that the great hinderance of the Conversion of Infidels and Heathens Turks Persians Indians Tartarians c. is the wicked lives of the professed Christians that are next them when they see that Christians are more false and cruel and drunken and beastly and divided c. than themselves 24. Those therefore that would have the Church lye common without Christs Discipline to all the most prophane and wicked that will come in and have communion with it are indeed Antichristian even open enemies to the Church to holiness and to the saving of the Infidel and Heathen world 1 Cor. 5. 6 11 12 13. 1 Pet. 2. 9. Tit. 2. 14. 25. The Devil hath fought in all Ages as subtilly and diligently against the holy Discipline of Christ as against the Christian Doctrine 26. True Discipline doth so wonderfully displease the guilty and lose mens love and especially the Richer sort and all mens carnal interest and nature inclineth them so much to man-pleasing and flattery that Ministers have abundance more need to be driven to the exercise of Discipline than restrained from it except it be the corrupt and carnal Discipline which the Popish and tyrannizing Clergy do exercise where the Magistrate himself upholdeth them in Grandure and lendeth them his Sword Let Discipline be but such as Christ appointed and stand of it self and then it is but few that will have any more cause to be restrained from it than from too much preaching Though still I yield that there must be limits for the wilful and the indiscrâ—et 1 Cor. 5. 3 John 9. 27. The true Discipline of Christ hath been acknowledged to be his Ordinance in all the Churches almost in the world since the Apostles dayes till now save that as you open it since Constantines time it hath been much corrupted by the mixture of the secular force and the Emperours lending his Church-power to the Bishops and Councils 28. Government hath two parts Antecedent to mens facts which is Legislation and Consequent which is Judgement and Execution Christ is the only Lawgiver of Universal Laws to the universal Church and the Author of his own Doctrine and the substantials of his Worship But yet there are many undetermined circumstances which may and must be antecedently determined some by each Pastor some by a consent of Pastors and some by Magistrates if they please I will name you twenty lately named elsewhere 1. What day besides the Lords day and what hour the Church shall meet 2. How long the Prayers Reading and Sermons shall be 3. When and how often publick Fasts and Thanksgivings be 4. What place the Church shall meet in 5. Of the Form Ornaments Seats c. of the Temples 6. The place and form of the Pulpit 7. The subject of the present Sermon and the Chapter to be read 8. The Method of the Sermon 9. The Words of Sermons and Prayers 10. Of using or not using Books and Sermon Notes for memory 11. What Translation of Scripture to use 12. And what Version and Meeter of the Psalms 13. And what Tune to sing in 14. What form of Catechism to use 15. Of decent Habits especially in publick Worship 16. By what professing sign to testifie our consent to the Churches Confession of faith Whether by speaking or lifting up the hand or standing up 17. Of decent Gestures in the acts of publick Worship 18. Of Font Table Cups Cloathes and other Utensils 19. Making new Officers for these actions circa sacra as Door-keepers Clarks Churchwardens c. 20. Judging when any private man shall speak in the Church and when he shall be silent and such other Orders necessary to peace and Edification 1 Cor. 14. 28 29. 33. 26 40. 29. Most of these should be left to every Pastors judgement some may be determined by the Magistrate but yet some are fittest for the Concordant determination of Consociated Churches in a Synod or by consent But none of them
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
difference as Christ hath appointed us to make And doth our Baptismal Covenant contain no promise and profession of godliness and obedience as well as of Belief and so of Repentance and a better life 2. Who would you have to be Judge in this matter Shall every one be Judge himself Then all Pagans Murderers Blasphemers may come in and turn Religion and the Church into a scorn If any must judge you would not sure set the Magistrates or people such a task on pain of damnation to leave their Calling to try and judge of the qualifications of expectants or Church-members 3. Whom do you think Christ committed this business to Who were the Judges of the Capacity of persons to be baptized or the desert of persons to be rejected Diotrophes could not have rejected Christians injuriously if he had not then had some Governing power 4. Hath not all Christs Church exercised such a Discipline as I have described since the Apostles days till now saving the corruption of it by ill additions or carnal neglects And hath all this Church been from the beginning under a false Government in the main Or is not Reformation a righter way than extirpation of Discipline as well as of Doctrine and Worship 5. Is it not the wickedness of Christians that is the chief hardening of Turks and other Infidels against Christianity And would they not encrease this pollution that would have the most vicious to be equally received with the best 6. Is not Faith for Holiness and did not Christ come to purifie a peculiar people and restore us to the Image of God And if for want of Discipline Saints and Swine be equally Church-members and partakers of holy things is that agreeable to this design of our Redeemer 7. If Oeconomical Government and School Government and Colledge Government be no wrong to Kings neither is the Church Government which Christ hath instituted I do not say all this to intimate that you say the contrary But because your Charge on Luther Calvin and other Protestants sheweth that you do sure mistake them And to tell you that I joyn with you in disowning the KINGDOM and Magistracy of the Mock-Church of Rome and of all that will imitate them But that I take the Enmity to and grosse neglect of true Church-Discipline to be one of Satans principal services that is done him upon earth against true Godliness The Churches and the Magistrates Power stated in matters of Religion In an hundred Propositions which almost all sober Protestant Teachers are agreed in A Reconciliation of the sober Episcopal Presbyterians Independents and Erastians To my very Learned sincere and worthy Friend Ludovicus Molinaeus Dr. of Physick The Author of many Treatises on this subject Dear Sir UPON the perusal of your Writings which you sent me the love of the Church and of Truth and Peace and you doth command me to tell you as followeth 1. That I make no question but that the Pride of the Clergy with their Covetousness hath for above twelve hundred years been a greater plague to the Churches throughout the Christian world than all the cruelties of the Laity And that the sensless forgetting the matter and manner of Christs decision of his Apostles Controversie Which of them should be the greatest hath divided the East and West and corrupted and kept down Religion whilest that the lives of the Prelates have perswaded the observers that they still took it for a more important Question Which of them should be the greatest than Whether they or their people should be saved And it hath ever been a matter of easie remarque that there have been seldom any dangerous Schisms on one side or any cruel Persecutions on the other side which the Clergy have not been the principal causes of And that the Laity would be more quiet if the Clergy did not delude them or exasperate them And that even the more mistaken and violent sort of Magistrates would have some moderation in their Persecutions if the Clergy did not make them believe that a burning killing Zeal is the mark of a good Christian and is the same that in Tit. 2. 14. is called a zeal of good works and that to destroy the bodies of men truly fearing God is the way to save their own souls or their Dominions at least when indeed the zeal of Christs commanding is a zealous Love to one another and a zealous doing good to others and the Devilish zeal as St. James distinguisheth it James 2. 15 16 17. is an envious hating hurting zeal 2. That in all this the Laity are not innocent but must thank themselves for the evil that befalleth them and that on two notable accounts 1. Because they have ordinarily the choosing of the dignified and beneficed Churchmen and they have but such as they choose themselves They think it is their wisdom as well as piety to make the Honour and Profit so great as shall be a very strong bait to Pride and Covetousness And when they have so done the Proudest and most Covetous will certainly be the Seekers and that with as much craft and diligence as an ambitious mind can use their parts to And he that seeketh by himself and friends is likest to find And the more humble and heavenly any one is and consequently most honest and fit to be a Pastor of the Church the further he will be from the Seekers way So that except it be where the world hath Rulers so wise and strangely pious as to seek out the worthy who seek not for themselves its easie to prognosticate what kind of Pastors the Church will have And verily they that choose them are the unfittest to complain of them Whereas if the Churches maintenance were such as might but prevent the discouragements of such as seek the Ministry for the works sake and for the love of souls that so Students might not make it a Trade for wealth but a self-denying dedication of themselves to God the Churches would be accordingly provided And they that intend the saving of souls would be the Candidates by their own and their Parents dedication as now they that intend a Trade to live and serve the flesh by in an honourable way are too great a part of them Or men might be further rewarded ex post facto for their Merits without being tempted to study principally for that reward And if we will needs have carnal men let us not wonder if they live carnally And if the carnal mind be enmity to God and neither is nor can be subject to his Law Rom. 8. 6 7. we may easily prognosticate how Christs enemies will do his work and guide his Church and whether their wills and wayes will be such as the conscionable can conform to 3. And the Laity are unexcusable because it is they in all those Countreys where Popery and Church-tyranny prevaileth who put their Sword into the Clergies hands and give away their own authority and set up men to vie
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