this supreme obliging power in matters of faith and manners and upon the same ground hath always esteemed such hereticks in a damnable condition who have not as well beleeved or adhered to her proposals in faith in one subject as in another and as well to the end of the world as in the primitive times But they say that the burden of Christian religion will be greater then of the Jewes and intollerable if all are obliged to every declared truth in the Church which is contrary to Christ who saith Mat. 11. that his yoak is sweet and his burden is light This is easily answered in order to the Community of Christians whose implicite faith in the superstructures is sufficient according to the generally taught and received doctrin of Doctors Pastors indeed and Doctors have higher obligations to be able to give an account of their faith which obligation is much alleviated by the Synopses of Faith which the Church clearly and yet very contractedly propounds to keep them principally from misunderstanding the holy mysteries of our faith This is the weightiest objection which I finde in Mr. Hobb's besides those which I shall presently touch St. Chrysostome in his 10. homily upon St. Mathew in the person of Christ complaines of Mr. Hobbs Nolite de difficultate conqueri quesi qui doctrinam meam molestam esse dicatis we must not say Christ's doctrin is troublesome least with the Capharnaits we be committed abire retro to be put in the back side of Christ's book Surely St. August found Christian religion in another posture then Mr. Hobbs would have it in his 5. Chapter to Volusian Where he saith that Tanta est Christianarum profunditas literarum ut in eis quotidie proficerem si eas solas ab ineunte pueritia usque ad de erepitam senectutem maximo otio summa studio meliori ingenio conarer addiscere c. He experienced the mysteries of Christianity far to transcend the synagogue he esteemed his whole life though it were imployed in nothing else not to suffice for a perfect understanding of Christian profundities surely they were not so vulgar as Mr. Hebbs would have them There was among the Jewes a difference in points of faith some were ut adirces as the foundation of the rest the denying whereof would have destroyed the whole law others as rami branches where the danger was not so considerable These R. Menassieth in the beginning of his Treatise of the creation of the world declareth So in Christian Religion some things are simply necessary without which heaven is not to be gotten as the faith of Christ c. which our school-men place sub necessitate medij that is as absolutely necessary of which sort there are not so many Other things are necessary onely ex suppositione that is upon supposition that they are made known to us or sufficiently declared then there is necessitas praecepti a command to imbrace them and surely this is no great burden I will also touch that impertinent objection of the Socinians that the Church of Christ is a congregation of all Christians or of all who beleeve in Christ and not of any select body of them and consequently there are no hereticks to be declared so by any sentence of the Church but onely those are hereticks who by their own judgement are such as the Apostle speaketh That is such who against their own judgment do resist known truths not such who by a councel or body of men are declared such This to beleevers is easily made evident to be impious First That Christ hath a Church he hath said it that he also hath instructed her with a regitive power he hath also said it and said both together in these words Dic Ecclesiae and therefore addeth to such as obey not her decrees si eam non audierit sit tibi tanquam Ethnicus et publicanus we must complain to the Church for emergencies and she hath power to excommunicate if we obey not If this be true as it is in other crimes and causes it will easily conclude in the chiefest crime of heresie else we must blasphemously say that Christ hath made provision for the lesser difficulties and not for greater which is to condemn his omniscience or providence Again this regitive power is confirmed in the acts and attributes to the Holy Ghost Spiritus Sanctus vos constituit Episcopes regere Ecclesiam Dei Of this the new Testament in doctrin and practise is aboundant Further that the Church hath power to declare hereticks is evident besides the immediate consequence of it out of Christs words related out of the doctrin and practise of the Apostles They did teach how or did institute the manner post secundam monitionem to declare and excommunicate for heresie they also did declare de facto hereticks as is evident in almost all their Epistles and the Apocalipss and did forbid all commerce with them which is to excommunicate which they did for their false and seditious tenents or innovations in faith as is clear in the texts whence it followeth first that the Church hath this power as first Simon Magus for teaching it lawful to buy the Holy Ghost Secondly the Jewish Christians who taught it lawful to use Sacramental circumcision under Christ were excommunicated by St. John c. Whence it followes secondly that the Church is not a body of all Christians but of all who do joyn in the unity and integrity of faith else if declared by the Church to be hereticks they are no longer of her because by authority derived by Christ they are cast out of her Their own interior guilt will serve to accuse them in the Court of God in Heaven but it is the judicatory act of the Church upon their pertinacy which condemneth them in Earth and this sentence is confirmed in Heaven Quaecunque alligaveritis c. Mr. Hobbs in his 18. Chapter n. 2. requires two vertues necessary to Salvation Faith and Obedience Faith hath no other latitude in her acts then to beleeve Jesus to be Christ n. 5 6. and so forward Besides internal faith he saith that there is necessarily required a profession of many other articles which summarily are contracted compacted into that we call the Creed As he had touched before Chap. 17. n. 21. and afterward more fully in his Annotations to the number 6. Yet he esteemed not Christians bound to beleeve but to profess these if required This seems a bull in Christianity to be bound to profess in matter of belief what I am not bound to beleeve yet this he asserts Chap. 18. n. 6. necessary to salvation out of title of obedience That is I am bound to profess that I do beleeve what I am not bound to beleeve I propound this to Mr. Hobb's second thoughts he boggles much upon it in his Annotations utters evident contradictions and yet he comes not off Nay he saith ch 18. n. 14. that it is enough if one endeavour
Churches Monasteries old Hospitals and Colledges with the old forms of government and Statutes which without book are conveyed from hand to hand as in fasting keeping such and such holy daies in memory of certain miracles obtained by invocation of particular Saints Annual obsequies and solemn prayers for the dead benefactors institution of certain Masses to that and such other ends if they can read in running over the Chronicles and Histories of our country where you shall observe a constant memory of all these old truths but not any innovation or change of faith was ever noted by any Historiographer for so many ages together insomuch that our countryman Gulielmus Neubrigensis in his History l. 3. c. 3. witnesseth that neither Puritanisme nor any other heresy could fasten upon England though in alijs mundi partibus tot plluluaverint haereses all other parts of the world had been infected with them A great testimony written by so knowing a man in point especially of our Histories And Wicklef's case confirms all for he got grounds a thousand miles hence as in Bohemia but here was decayed before he was well born or what is more brief that the Church of England retained her primitive communion as well with the Roman as with all other Churches dispersed throughout the world except those which for heresie or schism were noted by the Councels besides our own Histories no Councel no Ecclesiastical History ever imposed the contrary upon our nation yea it appears by all monuments holy and profane that England did positively and clearly communicate with all other or what is all one that England conserved her primitive faith untouched and that was as is shewed before the Catholick faith or the faith of the Catholick Church therefore England till Henry the eighth was a member of the true Church of Christ from which he revolting made her Schismatical All this is witnessed by Ball in his Catalogue and Dr. Humfries Jesuitismes p. 2. and B. Usher in his tract of Succession whereunto an infinity of Protestant writers agree Some will say as of late a Protestant Doctor did that England was not therefore noted in this because there was none to note her besides her own in the West but it appears that invocation of Saints and many other doctrines were brought in as a matter of faith against the ancients that is to say that the Church of Rome did bring in those innovations in the Councel of Trent To this I answer First that the Doctor did not well observe into what a precipice this would cast him for if there were no known professions of Christ but such who were ours it 's evident that then the Roman Communion was the onely Church of God even then when it was in his judgment at the worst or else there was no Church This many of their greatest men have acknowledged as Perkins saith that for many hundred years this Communion had possessed the whole world Napier upon the Revelations that for a thousand years Popery had over-swayed the world to the same tenure many more of them speak All which concludes what I said I answer secondly That the first and purest times of the Church taught the same Truths as almost every one of them is confessed by those of Magdeburge in the fourth Century dedicated to Q. Elizabeth where they give us a list of Justification by works merits Sacramental confession Tradition Invocation of Saints Purgatory Transubstantiation the propitiatory sacrifice of the Mass miracles obtained at the reliques of Saints c. This testimony had from Protestants that is from a body of the most learned Protestants who joyntly had studied and examined ex professo the differences betwixt us were enough alone Daneus in his tract of the Church a very fierce Protestant dividing the whole time since Christ into ages giving to the Apostles the first age specifies that even then virginity was introduced as more worthy then marriage The Sacrifice of the body and blood of Christ and there was reverence used to the very symbols Parum importune a great deal to soon Traditionum indigesta moles whole heaps of Traditions were unwisely brought in ordination of Church ministers with anointing them which was also used in baptism extream unction and the like Bishops Primatus ecclesiae Romanae nescio qua credulitate in coelum sublatus est The Roman seats Supremacy I know not by what easie belief was even then cryed up to the very heavens and so began mysterium iniquitatis the great mystery of iniquity A fair confession and in the next age he is more prodigal but here is enough for any ingenious man if you would also read him upon St. Augustine his tract of heresies how he inverts the judgement of the old Church and will have those doctrines which then were esteemed heresies to be true doctrines and in this he shews how Protestants are constrained to turn the Church upside down which is indeed true Protestancy to make all old and first Christians heretiques with us To whom our country-man Perkins in his Problems agreeth bewayling that Gods Church above thirteen hundred years ago was polluted and overspread with these errors Usher in his latine book of Succession of Protestant Religion which in the frontispiece promiseth a deduction from the Apostles downward in the book it self he doth not once make any reall pretence to it as if he had wholly forgotten what was promised in the title he turns himself to discover where there is the least shadow the imperfections of our forefathers as if he gloried to see their nakedness which Christian Charity and modesty would cover but to shew the existence of any Protestantisme he doth not once touch it till the Albigenses began 1170. years after Christ wherein it is also most evident that he gaineth little to his purpose though after much strugling All this must needs convince what before in gross was declared from consent of Councels and the constant sense of the whole Church I answer thirdly As Christians have in all ages upon the same pretences replied to sectaries that some of these points were more explicitly declared in the councel of Trent against these new hereticks but they were generally preached every where even by the Greeks beleev'd before as all writers even our adversaries confess Nay Luther's own writings free the councel of Trent from this calumny because he accused the Church of all these things before the Councel of Trent was dreamed of it being convocated to repress his innovations or new condemnations of these general received truths otherwise not Luther but those Catholicks which first opposed him had been noted and accused of novelty by the rest of the body of the Church And further no man is ignorant that before the Councel of Trent England by Henry the eighth by B. Fisher by Sir Thomas Moore in his works as also in his Tindal c. Germany by Eckins Daventrius Vervesius Hofmesterus and others yes the universal Church
remaining obedient to the civil Magistrate can be guilty of Schism because they do so far subject Ecclesiastical persons and causes to civil magistracy that they do scarcely acknowledge any Ecclesiastical power at all contradistinct from the Temporal in a Christian Common-wealth except in things internal as Mr. Hobbs holds Chap. 17. n. 21 22. c. though afterwards he gives some smal nothings to them he will have the Prince supreme even in spirituals c. 18. n. 13. and therefore they must depend on the Prince in the use of all and at last in his last chapter and number he repeales all he had granted The truth is he is so zealous in his structure of a civil Common-wealth wherein he hath some excellent things that he either neglects or reduceth the spiritual common-weath or Church almost to a Platonical inexistent Idea Reason tells us that as natural so moral powers and offices are known to be specifically different and not onely numerically distinct by their several operations the difference of operations is known by their several objects or sometime by the very several tending to the same specifical object as Philosophers know Now the offices of ecclesiastical and civil magistracy are obviously known to have these ways to declare their real and specifical differences St. Paul in his fifth chapt to the Hebrews even from the very beginning sufficiently declares it from their operations and objects and tells us that the Priest is taken to his office from amongst men by men is understood the temperal power from whence this other power is severed by St. Paul I wish the ingenuous Reader to peruse it all and compare Mr. Hobbs his grounds to St. Paul and what I annex in the ensuing discourse I am sure besides scriptures the judgement oâ— ancient Christians was faâ— otherwise There were bounds for ecclesiastical and temporal magistracy alwayes acknowledged great Athanasius in his Epistle to these who observe Solitary life to this purpose reciteth and applaudeth anâ— epistle of Hosius of Cordubâ— to Constantius the Arriarâ— Emperor Cease I beseech thee and remember that thâ—â— art mortal fear the day of judgment intermeddle not with ecclesiastical matters neither do thou command us in this kinde but rather learn them of us to thee God hath committed the Empire to us he hath committed the things that belong to the Church and as he who with malicious eyes carpeth thine Empire gainsayeth the ordinance of God so do thou also beware least in drawing to thee Ecclesiastical matters thou be made guilty of a horrible crime It is written give ye the things that are Caesars to Caesar and the things that are Gods to God Therefore neither is it lawful for us in earth to hold the Empire neither hast thou O Emperor power over incense and sacred things This extent is far beyond internals or Mr. Hobb's limits St. Ambrose also to Valentinian in his fifth book of Epistles in his oration of delivering up of Churches Valentinian by ill advise of his mother Justina an Arrian required to have one Church deputed in Milan for the Arrians saith thus We pay that which is Caesars to Caesar and that which is Gods to God Tribute is Caesars it is not denied The Church is Gods it may not verily be yeelded to Caesar because the Temple of God cannot be Caesars right Which no man can deny but it is spoken with the honour of the Empire for what is more honorable then that the Emperor be said to be the Son of the Church for 〈◊〉 good Emperor is within the Church not above the Church He is diametpically opposite to Mr. Hobbs Out of these and infinite other texts or monuments of antiquity it is most clear that all Christians grounded upon Scriptures as they conceived did beleeve that the Church taken rigidly and strictly was understood to consist onely of spiritual men and a city or a common-wealth did and doth import a body of Christians considered as not consecrated to divine service and functions but as members of the civil or temporal body and that therefore though as civil persons they were subject onely to this or that city or country namely in civil or temporal things yet in Ecclesiastical they might be subject to Ecclesiastical power though sometimes seated in forrain countries Spiritual things are not circumscribed by place and consequently my own temporal Prince according to St. Ambrose might be a fellow subject with me in this which depends not at all upon the temporal power but is wholy of another and a higher nature though Mr. Hobbs denies it which I wonder at reason me-thinks will necessarily carry us to prefer spiritual before temporal and therefore St. Peter in his first Epistle Chap. 2. calls temporal magistracy a human creature that is in a peculiar way derived from man But St. Paul Acts 20. speaking of Ecclesiastical magistracy saith the Holy Ghost hath placed you to rule the Church of God and St. Ignatius contemporary to the Apostles gives us his own and the sense of Christians in those days when he exhorts the people of Smyrna in his Epistle to them first to honour God next the Bishop and then the King They are not therefore in the sense of Christians the same thing a Bishop and Christian King nor their office the same the one tending immediately to things which belong to God in order to souls The other immediatly to things of this world namely to the external peace of Subjects though secondarily with reference to God also but the Ecclesiastical by supernatural mediums the other properly by natural which is more remote and indirect and therefore St. Paul to the Hebrews cap. 5. saith this power is conversant circa ea quae ad Deum sunt which is no where simply asserted of the other and in the law those are called Sors Domini in a peculiar strain And to speak truth Mr. Hobbs had done very well if he had taken St. Paul along with him in framing his new model of a Christian City who distinguisheth each members office very often All authority is not in the Princes but Hebrews 13. lay people are commanded to obey their Provosts and to be subject to them c. where he sufficiently distinguisheth the Tribunals No Christian can be ignorant of the authority which the Holy Ghost giveth to Praelates regere Ecclesiam Dei to govern the Church of God so that this spiritual government is of God and it is a government and therefore not onely declarative or instructive as Mr. Hobbs saith even of Christ himself c. 17. n. 13. but it is a regitive power els S. Peter had most heavily transgressed his commission in adjudging Ananias and after his wife Saphira to present death for a spiritual crime St. Paul in his excommunicating the fornicator St. John and the rest had abused their power also which I touch in the seventh Chapter who went beyond pure declaration of their guilt expected not the cities sentence in it Mr.
Hobbs acknowledgeth indeed in Pastours a power to execute a spiritual sentence in case the Church that is the city judgeth of the offence and in like manner Priests may absolve if the city judgeth it fit else not St. Athan. in the place cited Quando ab avo condito auditum est Mark M. Hobbs Quando judicium Ecclesiae authoritatem suam ab Imperatore accepit It was never heard from the beginning of the world that the Church hath her power from temporal power In earnest I wish he had taken the sence of Christians along with him in his expounding holy Scriptures he should have read the old Councels in making Ecclesiastical lawes which power Christian Emperors submitted unto as from God Constantine in the Nicen Martian Leo and all others whom the Christian world esteemed not Antichristian as they did Constantius for intrenching St. Nazianzen in his oration concerning moderation in disputations tells us that Praelates have power to make lawes c. in order to the soul St. Damascen in his second oration of Images saith Kings have no power to prescribe lawes unto the Church and proves it out of St. Paul and therefore he shews that in framing the Church of God that is in declaring Christs model of his Church St. Paul never at all mentioneth Kings In fine I finde all Christianity from the infancy to these daies growth to have conveyed to us this sence as delivered from Christ without contradiction Which Topicks I insist upon by reason Mr. Hobbs will not be thought to reject them neither doth he use any other considerable principles though sometimes he glanceth at heavie inconveniences to a civil common-wealth if this be granted But I am not willing to take too much notice of it least any might fear his aim to be to destroy Christian Religion for surely the Romans insisted most upon that as the Roman Histories shew and it is clear in Julian the Apostate All which the very great Turk admits as a truth namely a spiritual power of governing among Praelats most consistent with his supreme rights over Christians and therefore stumbleth not at the spiritual power of the Patriarch of Constantinople which he exerciseth over Christians and corresponds with them in this kinde though not subject to the Turk and therefore Mr. Hobbs needs not fear in Christians what the Turk doubteth not Out of all this it followeth that there may be Schism in defect of obedience in order to the Church without breach of duty to the Prince Sacriledge of Schisms saith St. August l. 1. cont ep Far. c. 4. exceedeth all other crimes and St. Jerom gives the reason because they cut and divide the great and glorious body of Christ and as much as in them lieth kill it and therefore as he who should tear in peices the body or members of a man should be thought to do the greatest injury and damage So he who divideth the Church which is the body of Christ which he so loved that he gave himself for it doth commit a grievious fin against him Therefore we finde in holy scripture no crime more grievously punished or revenged with a more dreadful torment then Schism For when Core Dathan and Abiron by whom what other things is signified saith St. Ambrose l. de 42. mansi mans 15. then those who bring Schism Heresie into the Church had separated themselves by wicked Schism from Moses and Aaron not onely they but their wives and children with all their substance were swallowed up into the earth and descended alive into hell Numb 16. this truly happened to them visibly to be an argument to future ages how enormous the crime of Schism is before God to deter men from plotting or following the same Neither are present Schismaticks punish'd with lesser paines though they appear not to our eyes By the aforesaid example St. Augustine ep 164. writing to Emiritus the Schismatick gathereth how much this crime of Schism is esteemed in the divine judgment Read which I make no doubt you have read you shall finde Dathan and Abiron devoured by opening of the earth the rest who consented to them consumed with fire being in the midst of them Therefore our Lord God brandeth that sin with present punishment as an example to be avoided that whom he patiently spareth such he sheweth to reserve to the last punishment For as the same St. Augustine elsewhere saith whosoever is separated from the Gatholick Church although he thinketh he liveth laudably for this onely fin that he is disjoynted from the unity of Christ he shall not have life but the anger of God remains upon him and after him St. Fulgentius de fide ad Pet. c. 39. Hold certainly doubt not that what Schismatick or Heretick soever is baptised in the name of the Father Son and Holy Ghost if he be not joyned to the Catholick Church what alms soever he shall do though also he shall spill his blood for Christ can never be saved In fine we need not go further then to blessed St. Paul to learn the horror of Schism who in the 1 Cor. 13. If I should speak with the tongues of men and Angels and not have Charity I am but as brass sounding or a Cymbal gingling and if I have the gift of prophesie and shall know all misteries and all sciences and if I have so great faith as to remove mountains yet if I have not Charity I am nothing If I shall distribute all I have amongst the poor if I deliver my body up to the fire if I have not Charity that is if I shall adhere to Schism all is worth nothing A heavy sentence if deeply considered Alas what will follow out of this St. Pauls doctrin touching all those whom we have known and of others whom yet we do know who have been of untouched lives liberal to the poor of pious inclinations or what you will all is lost according to St. Paul being they were members of this Scismatical body Contrariwise who do not onely in themselves avoid Schism and keep inviolated the Church union but where they perceive any danger of breach each man in his rank and degree indeavouring with all his possible diligence to preserve it they piously and laudably bestow themselves and their endeavours and truly merit much of God and man Of such it may be truly said that the Charity of their neighbour doth urge them and the love of God as St. Augustine saith l. 15. de Trinit doth divide betwixt the children of the eternal kingdom and the children of eternal perdition thinking and worthily that they have not the charity of God who do not love his Church as much as in them do not procure her unity It is all one from what head insolent disobedience springeth from whence floweth Schism or I would say the reason of Schism is not altered in it self for the diverse motive of rebellion for whether from the ambition of Bishops as too often it happneth
of which we have sad examples in Histories or whether from emulation of equals or to conclude for what cause soever of the pride of subjects it ariseth if it maketh separation it is Schism and divorceth the souls of all those that formally knowingly adhere unto it as from the union of the Church so from the love of Christ I am not ignorant what the school men teach in a speculative sense touching the extent and effects of invincible ignorance in order not onely to Schism but Heresie but we abstract now from speculations or from cases which are accidental or onely immaginary and therefore considering Schism as it is understood in the common and practical notion which the word gives in the sence of Christians I have universally concluded that it separateth us from the love of Christ and consequently from heaven CHAP. 4. Catholicks and Protestants divided by Schism VVE said before that Schism was sometime taken for Separation from the Catholick faith sometimes taken for separation from communion onely although faith be kept entire Now whatsoever may be said of Schism of the first kind of which for the present I do not treat we say that Protestants are divided and separated from Catholicks whom they terme Papists at least by Schism of the latter kinde and that appears so manifestly that it needeth no proof for not onely Catholicks and Protestants do so abhor mutual communion in divine worship Sacraments prayer and holy rites that no Protestant will frequent Catholick service especially the holy sacrifice of Mass and every Catholick will avoid whatsoever is esteemed religious among Protestants as the bread of sorrow and esteem all that shall but touch them contaminate and defiled Moreover Catholicks excommunicate Protestants every year and Protestants Catholicks frequently in England yea they exhaust such as in law shall be convicted with pecuniary mulcts and by the publick statutes and lawes of the Land any one who shall convert a a Protestant to the Catholick faith is guilty of death but a Priest who shall celebrate Mass is made guilty of high treason How therefore can one Church grow up together of such different members Or who will deny that here is manifest Schism and division if ever any Schism was or can be made O how far is this from the spirit of old Christians they gloried in that which the ancient called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a sweet humane or neighbourly tenderness to delinquents of this kinde Spiritual sins the old Christian Church cured by spiritual Cataplasms at most proportioned to them when they contained not themselves within the compass of spirituallity but made eruptions into sedition and disturbance of the publick peace then their Authors justly lost the benefit of Ecclesiastical mildness and tasted sometimes the imperial severity but without death for many ages If our persecutors would limit their cruelties within this verge it would be less execrable they complain of the severity of Q. Maries daies and yet far exceed what they condemn in her Mr. Hobb's will put a difference in these cases for Chap. 13. n. 5. he tels us that Princes do against conscience who permit their subjects to practice a religion which they judge to be damnable to them This was Q. Maries case as all know but the case is far otherwise with us for it is evident that our Princes have professed with their Doctors that Salvation may be had in our Church and therefore according to Mr. Hobbs they should not disquiet their subjects in using their liberty in their Religion But to let Mr. Hobbs pass and come a little neerer to the business I will say one thing though not taking upon me to discuss or excuse her proceedings in every particular that the state of the question is wholy changed She punished for innovation in religion which even amongst Jewes Turks and the very Romans was reckoned a most enormous crime These punish us because we will not innovate but stick close to the religion of our and their forefathers a crime unheard of amongst all who have had any taste of God but most especially among true Christians Many indeed have for some years cryed out for immunitie in order to tender consciences and yet they themselves who were the heads of those Tenderlings did not endure to have Recusants accounted such who have title to it above all all things considered as being best able to manifest to the world their reluctancie in matter of conformity to all Changeable religions Indeed to be grounded upon true tenderness of conscience that is upon religious fear of offence of God and yet for this they are most strictly treated Is it not an unparalel'd exorbitancy with such high cruelties as quartering hanging and setting up the disserted quarters upon gates and cittadels for fouls to tear and devour of persons most innocent in their lives towards God and mens lawes most quiet in order to the weal publick onely for imbracing or teaching that religion of Christ which our and their forefathers in this nation followed for almost a thousand years a crime most horridly opposite to the first principles of nature Is it not parricide thus to profane the urnes of their forefathers Is it not to the uttermost of their power to exercise the forenamed cruelties upon them their own progenitors in doing them upon those who are guilty of no other crime then what they knowingly professed and endeavoured to transfuse to their posterity Their sanguinary proceedings against these clearly maketh known to the world their hearts venemous and bloudy rancor even against their Parents They commonly say that they do not punish us for religion but for acts of treason or fellony c. but it is not so common as impertinent Thus all persecutors of Christians did palliate their cruelties The Roman Historiographers will tell us it was for sedition that those cruel persecutions were against us the Jewes thus laboured to baptise their false accusations against our blessed Saviour and after against St. Paul Minutius Felix and other antient writers as Eusebius Theodoret c. will tell you of Christians accused of confederate conventicles against all their lawes when they had their religious solemnities Thus Julian to take the glory of Martyrdom from our constant religious progenitors laboured to deceive the vulgar The Roman Emperors made many edicts and some capital against all Christian conventions Julian against Christians children frequenting their Schooles against Bishops residing in their Seas c. For this point of debarring Chistians from their schools he had a specious prenence which he shrewdly urged that is because the Authors who taught in Schools Christians being not yet so commonly masters of Sciences were Ethnicks and therefore we had no title to them but this is far otherwise with you for all your learning is ours examine all your Schools fee the prefection of your studies of Philosophy Theolgie Can on or civil law Phisick are they not all ours Nay are not the founders
offended with the Popes Tertullian though persecuted for Montanism by that sea yet acknowledges the power 1. de pudicitia Audio edictum esse propositum et quidem peremptorium Pontifer scilicet maximus c. I understand that the Pope hath made a peremptory decree c. where he is angry at it because against his heresie but doubteth not of his power St. Cyprian as Erasmus in his notes confesseth everywhere acknowledgeth it even St. Stephen and Cornelius his adversaries Usher who boggles at all things because St. Cyprian calls Cornclius brother would seem to doubt but Erasmus less squintsighted will teach him that it is in respect of his conjunction in faith not equality of person St. Ireneus is so vulgarly known that all confess it Nay even Usher who seems to have sworn to corrupt the clearest passages of antiquity yet confesseth in the business of Easter that St. Victor Pope did then pretend his supremacy over the rest of the Churches as appears in his Catologue as he calls it in the second Century So that it is no new title of the Popes even according to Usher The full sway of this great Bugbear in every age according to the enlargment of Christian bounds appears still more gloriously in the Oeconomy of the Church before in after the four Councels to St. Gregory Therefore I touch this no more every Abodary controvertist forceth them to confess it to be truth Mr. Hobbs indeed c. 17. in the end of n. 26. denieth that there is or can be a Rector of the universal Church by whose authority the whole Church may be convocated He ventures also to prove it thus because to be a rector in that sense over the Church is to be rector and lord of all Christians in the whole world which is not granted to any but God If he had been a stranger in Christian principles it had been no wonder to have misunderstood so solemn and publick a Tenet The Supreme Pastor of the Church hath an acknowledged power for preservation of the Church in integrity of faith to convocate Bishops to a general deliberation and determination of things necessary to salvation and to this end he hath coactive power in the exercise of his spititual sword and no otherwise What connexion this hath with a Dominion over the world I know not which by God himself is denied him in holy Scripture and in this his power is distinguished from temporal principality His power is spiritual his weapons are spiritual the objects to which he tends are spiritual in this confinement he commands without prejudice to temporal rights wherein Princes are simply supreme and onely have the coactive sword of justice independently in respect of him and this onely is dominion He thinks this too much and therefore will not acknowledge that there is any subordination in Christianity out of each city or county but every city is supreme to it self in Spiritual and Ecclesastical matters and therefore no Prince or city or particular Church can be excommunicated or interdicted Supposing the antecedent the consequence would without much difficulty be proved for if the Prince is supreme in all things he cannot be excommunicated which is an act of superiority neither the common-wealth by it self for it were to dissolve it self into no city if it should deprive it self of mutual commerce which he acknowledgeth to be an effect of excommunication But he leapes over the proof of the Antecedent which had been indeed worth his doing by Topicks fit for him taken out of Scripture antiquity or reason subordinate to these principles At least he should have shewed an inconsistency of the publick welfare of a common-wealth with the spiritual subordination of particular Churches to a supreame seated out of the temporal confines Surely if there were not a most ordinate subordination all religion would turn to a Hidraes confusion which were to destroy Christs acquired spiritual kingdom on earth and is evidenlty against the light of reason and one main article of the Creed which he accepteth of communion of Saints The excellency of Christs kingdom is that though universal yet it troubleth not but much conserveth each kingdom in their particular Oeconomy though much different betwixt themselves St. Augustine in his city of God Orostus in his History and many others against the Gentiles demonstratively shew the benefits all places receive by this spiritual subjection to Christian principles Amongst which this was alwayes judged one of the most capital as St. Denise St. Ignatius and the rest shew of this Hierarchy instituted by God He would tell us not perswade us c. 17. n. 22. that all power which anciently the Church of Rome exercised over particular Churches or Cities was derived from the Soveraignty of the Emperors and was shaken off when their Empire was abdicated and in pursuit of this he saith that the Roman Church was indeed very large anciently but always confined within the limits of the Empire How false this is no man can be ignorant that hath perused antiquity Prosper assures us that Rome is made greater by the faith of Christ then by the civil Empire and so the rest of the Fathers but especially he de vacatione Gentium l. 2. c. 16. Roma per Apostolici Sacerdotij Principatum amplior facta est arce religionis quam solen Potestatis St. Ireneus indeed tells us that the reason why Rome was chosen for the head was because it had been the head of the Empire but none will say that it was confined by it or measured her spiritual territories by it Who knows not that even in the Apostles time and ever since vast Empires were reduced to this spiritual Empire of Rome which never had to do with the Romane Empire Our own countries ever acknowledged subjection to the Church of Rome under this title Scotland also and Ireland were most oxthodoxly subject to the mitre though not to the Scepter This is onely by the by to Mr. Hobbs But besides this the Patriarchal right which he hath over this our nation cannot be deposited by them for by the same causes authority should be destroyed by which it was set up as the Jurists agree seeing therefore that the Bishop of Rome hath had his Patriarchal power granted unto him by general Councels to wit by those four first which St. Gregory received as four Gospels and especially here by the Parlimentary lawes are esteemed sacred it followeth manifestly that by less power then a general Councel it cannot be abolished for our Britany is one of the seven provinces of the western Church which are the ancient bounds of the Roman Patriarchate as all know In times past I grant that the Arch-Bishop of Canterbury was called Patriarch by Pope Urbane the second with Anselme and Malmes and the Glosse c. Clero d. 21. as also the Bishop of Algar in the districts of Venice but this was for honors sake not for exemption as the thing it self speaketh and the
Gods glory How they do speak it they can declare no more then they are according to Mr. Hobbs and therefore onely things finite which is to confine God against the drift of the Psalms Philosophy and Scriptures teach us to finde God by his creatures as St. Paul 1 Rom. 20. remits us to the creatures Invisibilia à constitutione mundi per ea quae facta sunt intellecta conspiciuntur our understanding of God is from these visible things nay it is the onely natural way we have from the effect to finde the first cause and not from the first cause the effect and all things without his confinement So by pictures we ascend to what is represented not tying our selves to the manner in our worship of God under that representation In the pursuit we relinquish the manner and going forward with our discourse we find and with our devotions follow the Infinity of Gods goodness All representatives are essentially inferior to the Prototypes by many degrees yet safely conduct us to the knowledge of them without abasing their natures to the Images So here and all acts of acknowledgment of God in and by his creatures for we know the effect cannot equalize the first cause especially neither in nature nor in manner of existence and therefore we conclude Gods supreme essence and goodness to transcend all we see in the like manner we easily ascend by the use of pictures neither can we do otherwise if we use our reason so that there is no danger of Gods confinement and therefore no Idolatry I remember that Cassian in his Collations tells us of a poor ignorant Monk who out of error had framed to himself in his narrow imagination a conceipt of Gods being corporal and could very hardly be brought to entertain higher thoughts of Gods spiritual essence being unwillng to relinquish his Phantastically ill framed Image of God We are much beholding to Mr. Hobbs who is so tender of Christians dulness that least by their Images they should conceive God to be finite or corporal with this poor Monk he would remove all picturs though God himself not so careful as Mr. Hobbs hath been pleased to talk and walk with Adam which are acts of a corporal and finite creature and othertimes to make resemblance as if he had appeared in corporal shape as to Moses perchance to Jacob and others nay even the Son of God appearing in our poor nature all which would draw us into errors if God had not by his Prophets Apostles and daily by his Church and even by reason taught us the right use of such passages and to know that those sensible representatives were onely conductives to God himself as we teach Students by emblems to conceive things more remote from their present capacity All which will warrant our use of Images yet without Gods confinement and consequently without Idolatry Neither would this if true any way excuse them from sacrilegious Schism except all were compelled to Idolatry St. Augustine saith there can be no just necessity to cut off unity l. 2. Cont Ep. Parm. c. 2. and as he elsewhere Ep. 166. Our Heavenly Master hath so much admonished us to take heed of this That he would make the common people secure even of evil superiors that not for them the chair of saving doctrin should be destroyed Therefore the chair ought not to be forsaken much less destroyed for the errors of the Presidents O how St. Cyprian doth purge that poison of theirs to the quick Epist l. 3. Ep 2. If there be seen darnel to be in the Church our faith and charity ought not to be hindred thereby that because we see darnel to be in the Church we therefore leave the Church c. The Apostle in the second Epist to Timothy 2. saith In a great house there are not onely vessels of gold and of silver but also of wood and of earth and certain indeed unto honour but certain also unto contumely but it is onely lawful for God who hath a rod of iron to break the earthen vessels c. Let not any one assume to himself what the Father alone hath given to his Son c. It is saith he a proud obstinacy and sacrilegious presumption which wicked fury assumeth to it self Let our Country men think sadly of this It is objected to me that the Church of Rome doth force her Proselites to beleeve falshoods perniciously under Anathema in the Councel of Trent I answer That if we should make an impossible supposition against all the promises of Christ that the Church should in necessary points teach errors yet even in that case every child of the Church must exteriorly carry himself quiet and not make commotions for that were to seek a cure worse then the disease as in the like impossible supposition our Country-man Waldensis l. 2. c. 27. teaches Non perperam insilire debet He must not leap against the Churches face in rebellion Neither is he bound to beleeve an untruth nor yet is one in danger to incur the censure For the Church cannot reach the minde onely God in a just sentence confirming her act reaches home which cannot be in this case for he should confirm an injustice Whence it followeth that no man is or can be compelled to beleeve untruths but onely not to make Schism which by divine law is forbidden And therefore St. Augustines rule is still true There cannot be no necessity of cutting off the Church unity no not in supposition that she should command great errors But you will not object that if the articles commanded by the Church are in themselves true yet if I cannot perceive their truth after all diligence used to that end it were hypocrisie in me and therefore unlawful to adhere to that Church I conceive though falsly teacheth and commandeth false doctrins and extraordinary practises upon those grounds This truly is most seriously objected by some but without all Solidity For surely Christians are obliged by the law of God and reason to depose their own false judgments in obedience to God his Church else this will open a gap to all itching ears of whom we are premonished to introduce each man his fancy and prefer it before the wholesome doctrins of Christ delivered by his Church Neither is it difficult for man though learned to depose his own judgment especially in order to external actions for it is daily done by all sorts of timorate consciences who do mangre their own reason direct themselves by the authority of such whom they know to be more learned then themselves Mr. Hobbbs Chap. 15. and n. 13. saith unusquisque rationem privatam rationi totius civitatis submittere potest Here he labours to lay the grounds of the derivation of power in the Common-wealth to determine what belongs to matters of religion which he faith that the people have transferred to the Magistrate He proves it as he faith evidently I examine it not being pertinent to