circumstances thereof we have also the word of man as infallible as mans can be for that we may take upon good trust to be morally infallible which proceeds from men who neither deceive nor are deceived Now I suppose that the Parliament hath so fully declared their sincerity and discharged their trust in establishing this government that the most opposite thereunto cannot admit of such an unworthy thought as if they intended to impose any government upon the people which in conscience they thought not most agreeable to Gods word which as it cleareth them from the least suspicion of deceiving so it is also manifest that they have used the best and most approved means allowed to mortall man not to be deceived For in this waighty worke they have begun with the invocation of Gods infallible Spirit which is the Author and leader into all truth and have assembled Learned and religious men of the holy calling to enter into free deliberation and debate of that kind of Church-government which they should find most consonant to Gods word and if after all this we can imagine they have erred in their decrees How can we without presumption conceive the judgement of any private men to be more infallible Now if any shall think that this kind of government in every part thereof is established with such a perpetuall decree that it can never be changed We must know that many things may be infallibly true yet not alwayes necessary to be continued True in the Author of truth and true in the means of truth and yet may be laid aside when they are no longer usefull for edification an example hereof we may see in the ceremoniall Law which being appointed by God himselfe no man will doubt but it was infallibly true and being abolished by the same power that ordained it no man need doubt but that it was justly removed Infallibility doth not alwayes inferre immutability Things are not onely continued for their truth but also for their goodnesse and fitnesse and applicablenesse to present use So long as the Ceremoniall Law was to indure it was of divine infallibility needfull for the Church of the Jewes and during that time immutable by any power but divine but when the Evangelicall Law succeeded which by fulfilling ended the Ceremoniall the worship of God became more spirituall leaving the decencies circumstances and outward manner to the humane infallibility of the Magistrate set in authoriiy by God whose decrees in such matters are unchangeable by any inferiour power yet alterable by the same power that decreed them Moreover the Papists object against our doctrine that before Luther it was not known in thy world and the Prelates object against our discipline that before Calvin it was never known by both with aspersions they think to disgrace our doctrine and our discipline putting upon them the stamp of novelty as though they were but inventions of men But as our doctrine hath been sufficiently asserted against their calumnies to be the very doctrine of the spirit of God left recorded in the holy Scriptures So it is also plain that this government of Gods Church by the Presbytery was known and practised in the world before either Popery or Prelacy was in being both which are indeed novelties and the very spawn of corrupted men It is clearly demonstrated from the bosome of Antiquity That the Apostles and Evangelists knowing the mind of Christ did in all Cities and places where they collected Churches ordain a Colledge of Presbyters called the Presbytery with equall power to feed and govern the same This form of government continued in the Primitive Church about 1500 yeares in puritie and parity Afterwards by pride and contention of the leaders Bishops were set up above Presbyters and when that equality was once broken there was no stop Then Metropolitans were put above Bishop and Patriarks above Metropolitans and at the last whereunto all tended they brought forth that man of sin or son of perdition the Pope who perked above all and hath ever since contrary to the rules of Christ and his Apostles maintained by fraud fire and blood a prodigious tyrannie and oppression in the Church Bâ—t there is one testimony more which we can produce as a cleare light out of the very darknesse and dungeon of popery when there was no day of knowledge in the Christian world but all was overspread with Antichristian error and that was about 500 yeares ago when God moved Waldo a Citizen of Lions to discover the impostures of the popish Church who drawing after him many disciples were persecuted by the bloody Synagogue and driven from the society of men into mountains among beasts which they found lesse savage then their own kind there they multiplied into many Congregations and spreading themselves into divers places were called by divers names Then they found it necessary that the worship of God might be perfect among them to establish a discipline and government over all their Churches In which deliberation they had no pattern to follow no steps to tread in no helps from stories or records of antiquity which were all destroyed or corrupted Their onely guide and light to direct them was the word of God which the world was never able to extinguish and by his divine power was preserved among them There they sought and there they found the platform of their discipline and what was it no other then Presbyterian every Congregation governed by Pastors Elders and Deacons and as occasion required by a combination of them into Synods Councells and Assemblies Now if this way was practised among them wherein they were onely led by divine light How unjustly do some despise it as a novelty others reject it as a humane ordinance When as our own age also searching in the same holy monuments hath pitched upon the same discipline as in them held forth to the Churches of God Me thinks this would move the spirits of meek and sanctified men not to be wise above sobriety nor contest against such a cloud of witnesses For if the Primitive Apostolicall times the middle age of the Church under persecution and now the last generations wherein we live have all by the light of Gods word and guidance of his spirit concurred in one and the same discipline Why should any combine against it or suffer themselves to be perswaded rather to disturb the peace and unity of Gods Churches then yield a Christian conformity thereunto 3 But against this power of the Magistrate it may be further objected that although power be given him over the bodies and estates and outward adjuncts of men yet the conscience is the peculiar Court of God wherein man hath nothing to do but by intrusion when the body lies in prison the Judge by a habeas corpus can remove it but when the conscience is under bond no Judge can send a habeas conscientiam to deliver it and having no power to release he can have none to bind it
parcell of the Ceremoniall Law 2. That God by Christ hath restored men to that spirituall worship which Adam had in time of his Innocency 3. That Christ hath not appointed any set or absolute form of Government in his Church binding to all times and Nations 4. That whatsoever the Apostles wrote concerning outward Government it was not in nature of an universall Law but only by way of order and advice answerable to these Primitive times and occasions 5. That the Ministers of the Church as they are Ministers have no temporall Power Iudicature or maintenance positively and particularly alotted them by Christ or his Apostles but only in the generall that it be sufficient and plentifull that thereby they may be examples unto others of hospitality and good workes learning the manner and speciall determination to the Christian Magistrate and the Lawes of the Land 6. That the Christian Magistrate hath the highest power of ordering and governing the Church of God which is a visible company not onely of Ministers and Officers but of all Beleevers and is intrusted to him forasmuch as the Church is in the Common-wealth and not the Common-wealth in the Church 7. Whosoever hath a Mission to undertake the Ministery ought first to find himself inwardly called then undergo a lawfull Tryall and receive approbation with the prayers and benediction of the Presbitery Now concerning this great controversie in our Common-wealth about the government of the Church I shall from these Principles according to the small ability God hath given me unbyassed by any opinion or affection to any kind of Government nor yet for any covetous nor ambitious desire or designe in my self but meerly ayming at the good of Gods Church and of my Country set down how I conceive our supream Magistrate may establish such a Church government as might preserve Amity among Brethren yet not oppugne any rules Christ hath left behind him The two houses of Parliament have already upon ripe deliberation passed an Ordinance for a Presbyteriall government with all the limitations thereof Which government I am verily perswaded if it be duly executed will prove the best Moderator betwixt dissenting Brethren For it is such a government as taketh away the ill and exorbitance of any other reserving that which is good in them and so much the better it ought to be liked because it disliketh those parties that oppose it for surely hee is esteemed the best and most unpartiall Moderator who in reconciling parties in such indifferences displeaseth them all yet if this government may not have so much as an Vmpires power to constrain obedience or else putteth not that power in practise then it will be vilified and of no esteem Therefore that it may not prove a dead uselesse letter I doe first conceive that it should be established with Penalties and put in present execution and made positive without allowing a limited time unto it for approbation For without that it may be altered in whole or in part at the Judgement of the Makers but with that it would leave every man doubtfull and indifferent which will lessen or take away the true value and operation of it In the next place I conceive as an especiall wheel of this motion and a strong fortification of the Government that care be taken to keep and incourage the Ministers of the word in a perpetuall and constant practise of their Function and to remove all occasions which might any way divert them from their holy calling Howsoever it comes about I know not but certain it is that â—â—thence the Church was poysoned with a temporall revenue and carnall estimation given to Ministers for their masters sake Pride and covetousnesse have predominated amongst them who have bin and ever will bee the roots of much evill and combustions in those States and Churches where they have had any power so farre as forgetting their calling and the patterne of Christ they have ever bin observed for the maintenance of their secular pomp and greatnesse to bee the chiefe hinderers of Reformation to the purity and humility of the Gospell knowing it must first begin at themselves Therefore for the rooting out and preventing ambition among them it might bee good to take away those titles of separation and division which have had their originall from 〈◊〉 As to be called Clergy as if they were holy and the people prophane or Divines as if they were all heavenly and 〈◊〉 formed of the same earth with the people certainâ—y they can have 〈◊〉 higher title then to be called Ministers of the Gospell bringing from God to man the glad tyding of reconciliation and 〈◊〉 For place and dignities they are either Officiall which are 〈◊〉 taken away or Personall which should be left to the 〈◊〉 discretion of every man for if in humility they strive 〈◊〉 behind all men in place and before them in goodness the people will be ready to give even their eyes in testimony of their love and estimation of them I shall forbeare in this place to set down particularly how Covetuousnesse may bee also removed from the Ministery because the remedy thereof as of many other things conducing to the good of the Church how Religion may bee kept and perpetuated in truth and purity freed from the danger of relapsing to Popery how the Ministers may be for ever provided with a plentifull maintenance over all the Kingdome how their Widowes and Orphans if there be need may be relieved are already plainly and largely laid down in another Treatise by a well-wisher to the Peace of our Sion which wayteth only for a fit occasion to bee produced Wherein no new charge is laid upon the people but only part of the pious donations of our Ancestors to the Church and good uses are rectifyed and reduced This being done it may then seeme necessary so to hedge and defend this Government held forth by Parliament that it may neither receive damage from Enemies without not bee uncharitably torne and shattered by Schismes and opinions within It hath pleased God so miraculously to blesse this Kingdome that we have thrown off the yoke of Rome which neither we nor our Fathers could bear The Pope and the Bishops the head and the tayle are sent back from whence they came The gap which they had made is by Gods goodnes and care of this Parliament filled up with a moderate Presbyteriall government sufficiently armed to keep out the wild Boare that destroyed our Vineyard and that common implacable enemy from returning But there are some little Foxes yet among us that earth in our ground and annoy our Vineyard and by craft or rudenesse weaknesse or wilfulnesse bring scandals upon our holy profession That therefore our Church may injoy her peace and bee onely Militant against sin and Satan The Magistracie must take care to preserve it from disturbance As the present conjuncture of our Church standeth they who seeme most to distast or oppose this kind of government are
ought not to be condemned by one another In this case therefore things by nature indifferent should make no difference betwixt brethren but so to be used or not used that now and then for charity sake the expediency of them should suspend their lawfulnesse This is the Apostles doctrine instructing private Christians about indifferent things Which though they reach not the Magistrate in his office yet they do in his profession having given up his name to Christ and living in a Christian society And hath our religious Magistrate transgressed these rules Let us see what he hath done for the reliefe of tender consciences many grievances were complained of in the Episcopall times which the Parliament hath removed They have taken away consecration of dayes and places the superstition of meats and drinks Images and Altars Crosses and Surplices the usurpation of spirituall Courts and temporall Bishops which were all abused with a danger to introduce Popery and Idolatry will not these things satisfie weake and tender consciences unlesse they take away Government also which is commanded and sanctified by the Word therefore we must know that government of the Church in publike Assemblies is no indifferent thing nor to be reckoned in their number God is not the Author of anarchy and confusion but of order comlinesse and peace and when the manner of government and Gods worship in the circumstances thereof are rightly ordered according to the light of nature and Christian prudence deducted from the generall rules set down in the Word and setled by just and lawfull authority It is no longer left to the liberty of any man subject to the same authority to conform or not conforme thereunto as though it were a thing indifferent much lesse to pretend that because their consciences cannot approve thereof it should be permitted to them to set up another government which seemeth to be a most unreasonable demand that whiles they deny obedience to the Magistrates lawes they should neverthelesse seek for liberty and power from them to overthrow their own orders and make them crosse shinns with their own authority The power of the Magistrate and liberty purchased by Christ do not destroy but support one another for they are both truths avowed in the Word and no truth can overthrow another And if any man say that a weak conscience though it be in an error yet till it be convinced should sin in obeying the truth it may be replyed à fortiorâ— that the Magistrate determining the truth cannot tolerate any error without sinning against his conscience and partaking of those errors he condemneth 6. But the other objection proceeding from a conceit of strength marcheth with more assurance for some imagine that forasmuch as they are justified by grace and freed from sin and heirs of the promise they are consequently in a state of peâ—ection able to fulfill the law of God and delivered from all lawes of men For lex non ponitur justo They have no need of repentance being secur'd from falling Nor much of faith being already in fruition they are a law unto themselves under no Magistrate above all penalty as if they were out of the flesh having shaken off frailty and mortality and climed up to the new Jerusalem where there is neither sin nor sorrow This being a sweet fancy to them that are possessed with all will hardâ—y suffer it selfe to be removed by force of argumentation Otherwise we might say That never any man was without sin but Christ alone who was like to man in all things sin excepted That the blessed Apostle felt a law in his members which made him doe that he would not and will that he did not He biddeth us work out our salvation with fear and trembling not with surquedry and presumption when we have done our best and seem to be most perfect we are but unprofitable servants Many such divine testimonies might be brought to convince this opinion but it refuteth it selfe being contrary to the rule of faith and condition of humanity We must not think that the grace of God worketh against his will his will is that we should be militant in this life wherefore we must not expect to be triumphant till the warre be done his will is that we should grow to our full stature by degrees and scale the ladder of heaven not be taken up in a whirlwind His will is that we should be tempted and buffeted and fall and rise that seeing our frailty and our misery we should seek for the renewing of his grace and every day beg our daily pardon more duly then our daily bread Forasmuch as by strength of nature we may abstain awhile from food but by corruption of nature we cannot abstain awhit from sin This error puffing up the hearts of unstable men hath heretofore brought forth furious and pernicious effects The story of John a Leyden and Knipperdolling and of their phrensies at Munster is not yet forgotten I pray God our times be not pregnant of some such monster What is the meaning that so many in our dayes separate from their brethren as if all others were prophane Why do they gather in heaps together like biles and ulcers drawing the corruption with them and yet say the body is unclean In such manner began they of Munster they took upon them a garb of simplicity they seemed grave and dejected fervent in long prayers full of revelations lamenting the fashions and prophanesse of the times contemning honours despising money and neglecting Matrimonie wishing and weeping for reformation by such hypocrisies they captivated weak and wandring soules who tooke them onely to be the little flock of heaven that lived among wolves and was persecuted on earth Till having made up their musters and assembled their troops they set up a standard calling the multitude into their snare under the promise and proclamation of liberty Now the blessed time was come that the meek should inherite the earth that the Kings and Potentates and Adonibezecks of this world who had done dispite and violence to the Saints should be broken with a rod of iron and dashed in pieces like a Potters vessell Thence they fell into revelations and found it written in the beams of the Sun that John a Leyden was appointed by Christ to be King over all the world and rule the Nations in righteousnesse and in power After this the King was inspired to set up sundry Queens and to take to himselfe many wives at once to increase and multiply the holy seed upon earth But this imaginary kingdome was of short durance for the neighbour Princes finding their designe joyned against them as against the enemies of mankind and after they had indured a long siege their King by revelation assured them that before Easter they should have deliverance But when none appeared he told them that he had been in a trance six dayes in which time he had ridden on a blind Asse and that God the Father had laid upon
his back the sinnes of them all whereby they were set free and delivered from them And this was the deliverance he promised wherewithall they ought to rest contented Thereupon the Town was taken the deluded people disabused the King impostor executed to death and hung up in chaines upon the highest steeple thus ended this tragedy and ever tragicall is the end of such follies The Apostle noteth that factions and divisions are signes of carnality first men separate from others as unclean then they speak evill of government the next step is to blind the people with revelations from thence they fall into snares of the flesh at last they stir up sedition and last of all their end is destruction Hitherto I have laboured to shew that the Magistrate by his office being an ordinance of God is bound to provide for the Publick peace and safety in Church and Common-wealth which is done first by enacting just lawes and wholsome orders consonant to wisdome and the word of God and secondly by using his power to preserve them in vigor and execution as also to shew that the people are bound in conscience to give willing obedience to such Lawes and orders of the Magistrate whose duty it is to restrain the disobedient and reduce them to their duty Neverthelesse forasmuch as the power wherewithall God hath invested the Magistrate is alwaies to be used for publike good and requisite it is that a due distinction be made in the punishment of offenders between such as erre out of mistake or ignorance and those that resist out of wilfulnesse and contempt I shall in all humblenesse propound some few expedients how farre the Magistrate may please to slacken his power and so temper the lawes and penalties thereof as they may serve both waies as lenitives for the simple and corrasives for the stubborn who will not otherwise be reformed 1. I conceive that as it is unreasonable to demand so it would be dangerous to grant any toleration of Religion besides that which is established for such a liberty of conscience would breed a freedome of will and freedome of will would beget liberty of life which would breed a fearfull Independency when every one might do what they list In matters of faith necessary to salvation there is but one way and one truth all the rest is obsiquity and error Therefore when the truth hath been tried by the Word and ratified by the Magistrate he cannot suffer any falshood without being accessary thereunto Yet in matters of discipline and government there is a greater latitude for when it shall appeare that weak brethren agreeing in the same confession of faith but dissenting in outward forms out of tendernesse or ignorance to such a toleration or connivence or suspention of laws may be harmlesse and charitable till they be further satisfied and instructed 2. That whosoever living under the subjection of this state should be so far destitute of grace as to renounce Christ or speak blasphemously of him or any person of the Trinity contrary to the faith established in the Church he shall upon conviction be informed of the truth with a brotherly admonition not to divulge his error to the corruption or scandall of others or disturbance of the civill peace For the second offence he shall indure a years imprisonment be disabled in his testimony put out of protection of the Laws and wear some publike mark noting him for a Blasphemer For the third offence he shall suffer banishment or close and perpetuall imprisonment and if banished it shal be capitall for him to return without licence of the State For if he by our lawes deserveth death that seduceth any subject from the allegeance of his naturall Prince what deserveth he that seeketh to alienate the soule of any Christian from the dependance of God unto the divell 3. If any one out of an evill heart shall break forth into open reviling scorning disgracefull words against the present Church-government now established he shall not be connived at as a man of tender conscience for as he giveth himselfe power and liberty to dis-joyn from it so it is also in his power not to speak evill of it but doing it by choice and deliberation he cannot fall within the compasse of weaknesse For he that maketh no conscience of giving offence and scandall to the Christian Magistrate and all his godly brethren living in peaceable obedience cannot imagine that his private fancies though covered with weaknesse should be more tendered then the publike conscience of the Common-wealth Such a one therefore ought to be punished as a contemner of the civill power First by reproof and exhortation not to disquiet the peace of the Land Secondly by a pecuniary mulct for some publike use with disability of his credit Thirdly if he still persist with close imprisonment till he give publike satisfaction of his repentance 4. Forasmuch as no man ought to undertake the office and function of the holy Church Ministry without he be well assured of his inward calling thereunto neither can such men conceive themselves awhit the worse or that it might be any prejudice to their spirituall gifts to have an outward approbation by laying on the hands of the Presbytery and praying for divine blessing upon their persons and giving them an orderly mission into Gods harvest Therefore whosoever shall take unto himselfe the holy calling presuming to preach the Word or administer the Sacraments not being admitted nor ordained thereunto by lawfull authority he ought to be punished as the former were that contemned the civill power or rather more severely especially if they be found in their publike preaching to sow sedition among the people provided that such persons Masters of families or others meeting in their own houses or in their neighbours to repeat what they heard or learned out of Sermons preached by authority and upon that or the like occasion worship God by praying or singing of Psalmes conferring or arguing upon any part of the Word preached as also such who being required by any friend or neighbour when the advice of Ministers cannot be had to open or expound some text of Scripture or deliver his judgement upon any case of conscience for satisfaction of the parties be not comprehended under this Article or any penalty thereof because we are commanded to exercise the gifts and talents God hath given us in a sober and orderly way for the edification of one another 5. Whereas out of all doubt many things are contained in holy Scripture which are not yet fully manifested nor clearly understood and we know the Spirit of God bloweth where he listeth and is not confined to time place nor person but inspireth whom he pleaseth If therefore any man shall pretend to have a new opinion or new light revealed unto him of the sence of any part of Scripture fitting it were he should bring his knowledge to some godly Minister approved of or to the next Classiâ— where he liveth