in that regard forbid us to minister to our Church I see not by what warrant in God's word we should think our selves bound notwithstanding to exercise our Ministry still except we should think such a Law of Ministry to lie upon us that we should be bound to run upon the Swords point of the Magistrate or oppose Sword to Sword which I am sure Christianity abominates 2. Yea suppose the Magistrate should doe it unjustly and against the Will of the Church and should therein sin yet doth not the Church in that regard cease to be a Church nor ought she therein resist the Will of the Magistrate nor doth she stand bound in regard of her affection to her Minister how great and deserved soever to deprive her self of the protection of the Magistrate by leaving her publick standing to follow her Minister in private and in the dark refusing the benefit of other publick Ministers which with the good leave and liking of the Magistrate she may enjoy 3. Neither do I know what Warrant any ordinary Minister hath by God's word in such a case so to draw any such Church or People to his private Ministry that thereby they should hazard their outward Estate and quiet in the Common-wealth where they live when in some competent measure they may publickly with the grace and favour of the Magistrate enjoy the ordinary means of salvation by another And except he hath a Calling to minister in some other Church he is to be content to live as a private member untill it shall please God to reconcile the Magistrate unto him and to call him again to his own Church From which words of this learned Non-conformist it may easily be gathered that those persons who are now by the unquestionable Legitimate power of the Kingdom for their Non-compliance with the present legal Establishment in the Church deposed from their Ministry if they contain not themselves in quietness and silence as other private Christians do and ought but will without a Call of Authority undertake still to preach the word and draw People after them to their private Ministry they are condemned by the most sober and judicious of their own party and the case of them and their followers is adjudged to be far different from that of the Apostles and primitive Christians their practice unwarrantable by the word of God and manifestly tending to Sedition and Schism But what speak I of the single Testimony and Judgment of one man of that way and perswasion though a learned and judicious one whenas we have extant to the World the like verdict agreed upon long since by the joint consent of sundry Godly and learned Ministers of this Kingdom then standing out and suffering in the cause of inconformity and published by Mr. William Rathband for the good of the Church and the better setling of mens unstable minds in the truth against the subtile insinuations and plausible pretences of that pernicious evil of the Brownists or Separatists For in the 4 th page of that Book First they justifie themselves against the objection of that faction in yeilding to the suspensions and deprivations of the Bishops acknowledging their Power to depose who did ordain them and their own duty to acquiesce therein and in quietness and silence to subject themselves thereunto in expressions so full to my present purpose that I should have transcribed them for the Reader 's satisfaction were it so that I had not been prevented by the reverend and worthy Authour of the Continuation of the Friendly Debate As to that place of Scripture Act. 4. 19. 20. which they acknowledge to be very unskilfully alledged by the adversary they make this threefold answer to shew the difference betwixt the Apostles case and theirs First they say they that inhibited the Apostles were known and professed Enemies of the Gospel Secondly the Apostles were charged not to teach in the Name of Christ nor to publish any part of the Doctrine of the Gospel Which Commandment might more hardly be yeilded unto than this of our Bishops who are not onely content that the Gospel should be preached but are also preachers of it themselves Thirdly the Apostles received not their Calling and Authority from men nor by the hands of men but immediately from God himself and therefore also might not be restrained nor deposed by men whereas we though we exercise as function whereof God is the Authour and we are also called of God to it yet are we also called and ordained by the hands and ministry of men and may therefore by men be also deposed and restrained from the exercise of our Ministry I cannot think that any of the Learned sort of the Non-conformists now are ignorant of these things nor that if their hearts were known their Judgments differ in this case from that of their ancient brethren but I fear the busie upholders and promoters of Conventicles in our Age notwithstanding their prohibition by Law to preach at all sin against their own light and conscience in so doing But I proceed 4. Now Laws being thus made against all such unlawfull Meetings and all such His Majestie 's Laws being no way contrary to God's word all his Subjects stand bound in the obligation of obedience to them and that for conscience sake Rom. 13. 5. 1 Pet. 2. 13. Tit. 3. 1. And under pain of Damnation if they wilfully resist and disobey Rom. 13. 2. And therefore it is that in the Schools they call disobedience to the King's Laws Sacrilege for though the trespass seem to be directed but against a man yet in that man whose Office and consequently his person is sacred God is opposed and his ordinance violated The King's Laws though in themselves in regard of their particular Constitution they put no special obligation upon us under pein of sin and damnation yet in a general relation to that God who is the original of all Power and hath commanded us to obey Authority their neglect or disobedience involves us in guilt and exposeth us to Sin and consequently to Damnation Civilibus legibus quae cum pietate non pugnant eo quisque Christianus paret promptius quo fide Christi est imbutus plenius Every Christian by how much the more he hath of the grace of faith by so much the more ready he is to conform to the Laws of men which are not contrary to the Laws of God All power is of God That therefore which Authority enjoins us God enjoins us by it the Command is mediately his though passing through the hands of men Hoc jubent imperatores quod jubet Christus quia cum bonum jubent per illos non nisi Christus jubet When Kings command what is not disagreeable with Christ's Commands Christ commands by them and we are called to obey not onely them but Christ in them But is not suffering obedience And if men are willing to submit
to the Penalty of the Law is not that sufficient to discharge the Conscience from the guilt of disobedience Casuists that are of that Judgment say it holds true onely in those Laws whereof there are but very few in the World that are purely penal And the Laws which we now speak of are not such for these are partly Moral binding to doe or to leave undone some moral Act and partly Penal in case of Omission of what the Laws command or Commission of what the Laws forbid then to undergoe the Punishment the Laws inflict Now in these mixt Laws suffering the Penalty doth not discharge the Conscience from the guilt of sin For it is a rule of sure truth which Casuists give in such cases Omnis praeceptio obligat ad culpam Every just Command of those who have lawfull Authority to command leaves a guilt of sin upon those mens Consciences who do not obey The reason is because where a Law made by lawfull Authority requires active obedience and imposeth a Penalty in case of disobedience the Conscience of the subject stands bound primarily and intentionally to the performance of the duty therein enjoined As for the Penalty threatned that is a secondary and accidental thing to the Law added to keep up the reputation and esteem thereof in the minds of those who are concerned in it and to affright them from the neglect and disobedience of it So that though the suffering the Penalty of the Law in case of the transgression of it be as much as can be required of the Law-giver yet God by whom Kings reign and who requires subjection to Authority and that for Conscience sake will not hold such persons guiltless that doe not the things commanded in the Law The malefactour satisfies the Law at the time of his execution but who will say that without repentance of his fact the guilt of sin remains not still upon his Conscience or that he shall be acquitted at God's tribunal 5. Neither are they the Laws of the Church and Kingdom of England onely that are against such Meetings and Ministry as are in question But the godly Kings and Princes of the primitive Christian-Church have ever made the like Eusebius tells us that Constantine the Great made a Law that no Separatists or Schismaticks should meet in Conventicles and commanded that all such places where they were wont to keep their Meetings should be demolished and that they should not keep their factious Meetings either in publick places or private houses or remote places but that they should repair to their parochial Churches And in the next Chapter he saith that by that Law the memory of most of those Sectaries was forgotten and extinguished Sozomen reports that Theodosius the great decreed that the Sectaries whose petition for liberty he had first torn in pieces should not assemble together but all of them repair to their own publick Congregations otherwise to be banished their Country to be branded with some infamy and not to be partakers of Common privileges and favours with others And our neighbours and brethren of Scotland of the Presbyterian judgment did in one of their late general Assemblies since the enacting of their solemn League and Covenant make a special Canon against all private Meetings the direct tendency there of being to the overthrow of that Uniformity by them covenanted to be endeavoured in all the Churches of the three Kingdoms The very Heathens themselves by their Laws have made all such Assemblies illegitimate which the highest Authority did not cause to meet though they were 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to doe solemn Sacrifice to their Gods as may appear by Solon's Laws and in their practice they have shewed themselves ready to yeild obedience to their Governours in desisting from such irregular Conventions when they have been required Though Demetrius his Assembly came together disorderly and of their own heads rushed into the Theatre and there kept a shouting and Crying two hours together some one thing some another not knowing most of them wherefore they came together Yet when the Town-clark who had Authority did dismiss them they added not one fault to another but broke off their disorderly Meeting presently And they shew themselves more refractary than Demetrius himself who doe otherwise And if it be well considered the practice in question will be found to interfere with it self and to carry in the very face of it a convincing Testimony of its evil and unwarrantableness For if it be lawfull for these men to preach in private Meetings as they do and have a long time done why do they not take upon them to adventure to preach in the publick and Church-assemblies also What is it that makes them abstain from the latter and yet take liberty in the former Is it in obedience to the Law of the Land which forbids them to preach in publick The same Law forbids them to preach in private also It cannot be denied but that one is forbidden as well as the other Then this must needs be turned upon them why do they not obey in the one as well as in the other since they cannot but acknowledge that both are forbidden in the same Law surely if it were the Care and Conscience and desire to obey lawfull Authority according as Christian duty binds them that makes them silent in publick the same Conscience the same care and desire would make them sit down in silence in private also If it be said that they therefore abstain from publick preaching because it more exposeth them to the danger and penalty of the Law than private doth Then this must be retorted upon them also that their obedience is not such as God requireth for Conscience but for wrath Good men obey for Conscience but those that obey for wrath have not the fear of God before their Eyes For none contemns the power of man unless he hath first despised the Power of God And shall that be accounted by any sober Christian to be the ordinance of God or means of his appointment to beget grace in mens souls that is so repugnant to good Laws both of Church and State which we all stand bound in Conscience to observe and obey is contradictory to it self and hath in it that which proclaims to all that will open their Eyes to look into it its unlawfulness and sin God forbid ARGUMENT II. THAT cannot be the ordinance of God or means of grace that is contrary to that order which God himself by his word hath established in his Church For God is not the Authour of disorder and confusion But the Devil In the Church God's Command is for order in all things Let all things be done decently and in order And St. Paul did as well rejoice to see the order as the faith of the Church of Coloss. Onely Death and Hell have no order And it is a kind of death to a godly Christian to see
not savouring the things of God but of men for dissuading his Master from going up to Ierusalem The means as well as the intention must be good if we would have our actions pleasing to God We grant God may and doth often bring good out of evil but that is no thanks to those that doe it Evil can naturally produce nothing but evil It must be no lese than the infinite Wisdom and Almighty power of God that must over-rule it into good As good Ends cannot justifie Evil means so neither will evil beginnings ever bring forth good conclusions unless God by a miracle of mercy create light out of darkness order out of confusion and peace out of our passions And as he hath not allowed us to doe any evil for the obtaining or procuring of the greatest good so he needs it not Wilt thou speak wickedly for God and talk deceitfully for him q. d. his cause his glory needs not any â—in of ours to promote it He will never thank any man for seeking his honour by sinfull means he can get himself glory and save mens souls otherwise He will say as Achish Have I need of mad-men that ye have brought this fellow to play the mad-man in my presence The way God hath taught us to gorifie him by in seeking or procuring the salvation of our own or the souls of others is always to doe that which is good and though he can bring good out of evil yet he never Commands ordains or allows our evil for that end But such Preaching and Meetings as are in question are sinfull acts Which will appear as by other reasons which shall be shewed hereafter so in this place onely because they are done in disobedience and opposition to the known Laws of the Church and Kingdom wherein we live and which we stand bound in Conscience towards God to observe and obey I begin with the Laws of the Church The Eleventh Canon of the Church of England saith Whosoever shall affirm or maintain that there are in this Realm other Meetings Assemblies or Congregations of the King's born-subjects than by the Laws of this Realm are held and allowed which may rightly challenge to themselves the names of true and lawfull Churches Let him be excommunicated and not restored but by the Arch-bishop after his repentance and revocation of such his wicked errour The sense of this Canon is large and comprehensive and contains in it virtually a prohibition of all Meetings Assemblies or Congregations whatsoever which are not allowed by the Laws of the Land as the Meetings in question will and God willing shall be made appear to be Neither can it be restrained onely if at all to any other Meetings than such as are under pretence of joyning in religious worship not authorized by the Laws of the Land which according to the title of the Canon are called Conventicles for there can be no other unlawfull Meetings so called for any other end but onely these two viz. First for Ministers and Lay-men or either of them to joyn together to make Rules Orders or Constitutions in Causes Ecclesiastical without the King's authority And that is censured and forbidden as unlawfull in the twelfth Canon Or else Secondly to consult about a course to be taken to impeach or deprave the Doctrine of the Church of England the book of Common Prayer or any part of the Government or Discipline established in the Church And this is forbidden under pain of Excommunication in the 73 Canon Any other end for any other unlawfull Meeting or Assembly other than what is aforesaid cannot easily be imagined therefore unless we will make the Reverend Pious and Learned Authors and Composers of those Canons and Constitutions which are so solemnly established by Supreme authority guilty of a gross tautology this Canon flatly prohibits all Meetings Assemblies or Congregations except the publick which are commanded and allowed by the Laws of the Land of any manner of persons in private houses or elsewhere which under pretence of religious worship take upon them to be called Churches Besides it is expressed in such terms as are commonly competible to none but such Meetings as are under pretence of religious worship What other Meetings are commonly called Congregations or do challenge to themselves the name of Churches but such Meetings as are in question The place and order of the Canon do prove the same for immediately after the impugners of the King's Supremacy the publick worship of God Articles of Religion Rites and Ceremonies Government established in the Church of England the Authours of Schism and maintainers of Schismaticks in the Church are censured is subjoyned this Canon censuring Conventicles as being the Nursery of all the former In the 71 Canon all Ministers whatsoever are forbidden to preach or administer the holy Communion in any private house except in be in time of necessity when any is either so impotent as that he cannot go to the Church or very dangerously sick under pain of Excommunication In the 72 Canon it is ordained that no Minister whatsoever shall without licence from the Bishop of the Diocese first obtained and had under his hand and seal presume to appoint any meetings for Sermons or Exercises in Market-Towns or other places either publickly or in private houses under pain of Suspension for tho first fault Excommunication for the second and Deposition for the third Now if a Minister may not doe this in his own Parish but onely in a case of necessity much less may a stranger intrude himself into another man's Parish where there is a Preaching Ministry established by Law and there set up a course of private house-preaching administring of Sacraments and performance of all Ministerial acts where there can be no need of his so doing so much as pretended But is will be thought by some that the Laws and Constitutions of the Church are not so greatly to be regarded as that the breach of them should be sinfull and that her Canons lay no such obligation on Conscience as that the neglect of their observation and contrary practice should be criminal Nay such is the state and condition of our times that is is rather thought a vertue to despise them than any fault to disobey them And they are reputed most pure and holy who with greatest boldness quarrel and cavil against the Authority Government and Lawfull Precepts of the Church Yet certainly the judgment and practice of Christians in former ages was otherwise When vertue and true piety did more abound they made more conscience of observing the Precepts and Constitutions of the Church which were made for decency order and good government And if any frowardly wilfully or constantly lived in any opposition or contrariety thereunto they were adjudged as evil doers Nec his quisquam contradicit quisquis sane vel tenuiter expertus est quae sunt jura Ecclesiastica And truly I see not why the same regard and respect
Name of God agreed on by Common-consent and without any Contradiction of the Scripture although they are not of the same Authority with the Scriptures Yet I beleive even those things to be from THE HOLY GHOST Hinc fit ut quae sunt hujusmodi c. Hence it comes to pass that those things which are of this nature I neither will disallow nor dare I with a good Conscience Quis enim ego sum c. For who am I that I should dissallow that which the whole Church approves of So far that worthy Authour The next whose judgment in this case I shall produce is Mr. Calvin in his Commentary on the Epistle to the Corinthians Quinetiam hinc colligere promptum est has posteriores scilicet Ecclesiae Leges non esse habendas pro humanis traditionibus quandoquidem fundatae sint in hoc generali mandato liquidam approbationem habent quasi ex ore CHRISTI IPSIVS Where shewing the difference betwixt the tyrannical Edicts of the Pope and the Laws of the true Church in which discipline and order are contained he saith Whence it is easie to be gathered that the Laws of the Church are not to be accounted humane traditions seeing they are founded upon the general precept of the Apostle and have as clear an approbation as if they had been delivered from the mouth of Christ Himself For saith he elsewhere Dico sic esse humanam traditionem ut simul sit divina It is so an humane tradition as that it is also divine Dei est quatenus est pars deeoris illius cujus cura observatio nobis per Apostolum commendatur hominum autem quatenus simpliciter designat quod in genere fuit indicatum magis quam expositum It is of God fo far forth as it is a part of that order and decency the care and observation whereof is commanded and commended to us by the Apostle It is of men so far forth as it simply names or signifies that which was in general uttered rather that particularly expounded Take a third testimony from that burning and shining Light of the French Church Licet quae a regia aliis Legitimis petestatibus rite praecipiuntur sunt de jure positivo quod tamen illis postquam ita constitutae sunt pareatur est de jure divino cum Legitimae potestates omnes a Deo sint Deique vices in suo ordine teneant dumque illis obedimus eorumque praecepta observamus Deo pariter in illis paremus Deique praeceptum voluntatem exequimur Although those things which are commanded by the King's Authority or other lawfull Powers under him are of positive right Yet it is of divine institution that we should obey them in those things which they command seeing all lawfull Powers are of God and supply the place of God in their several orders Therefore while we obey them and keep their Commandments we obey God in them and so fulfill the Will and Command of God Learned Beza shall be the next that shall give in his verdict to this truth Nam etsi Conscientias proprie solus Deus ligat c. For although God alone can properly bind the Conscience yet so far as the Church with respect to order and decency and thereby to Edification doth rightly enjoyn or make Laws those Laws are to be observed by all pious persons and they do so far bind the Conscience as that no man wittingly and willingly with a purpose to disobey can either doe what is so forbidden or omit what is so commanded without Sin To these above named add we in the last place the verdict of our own learned and judicious Mr. Hooker To the Laws saith he thus made id est according to the general Law of Nature and without contradiction to the positive Law of Scripture and received by a whole Church they which live within the bosome of that Church must not think it a matter of indifference either to yield or not to yield obedience Is it a small offence to despise the Church of God My son keep thy Father's Commandments saith Solomon and forget not thy Mothers instructions bind them both always about thine heart It doth not stand with the duty we owe to our heavenly Father that to the ordinance of our Mother the Church we should shew our selves disobedient Let us not say we keep the Commandments of one when we break the Laws of the other For unless we observe both we obey neither And what doth let but that we may observe both when they are not one to the other in any sort repugnant Yea which is more the Laws of the Church thus made God himself doth in such sort authorize that to despise them is to despise in them him Thus far that most judicious Authour Yea one of the reformed Churches have put it into their very Confession That those Laws of the Church deserve to be esteemed divine rather than humane Constitutions From all which it appears that Ecclesiastical Canons and Constitutions are not merely man's Laws but God's also both because they are composed and framed by those Fathers by divine Authority and have their general foundation in Scripture and also because they are ordained for the Glory of God for Edification order and decency of the Church and the better fulfilling and keeping the Laws of God For as we have a Command from Christ to tell the Church when any one is refractary and perverse So have they which are complained of to the Church that Command from Christ also to hear the Voice of God in the Church and in disobeying the Church they disobey God And if Children and Servants are bound by the Law of God to obey their Parents and Masters in all things that are reasonable honest and just and in their obedience they obey and serve God himself Eph. 6. 1. Col. 3. 20. 24. Tit. 2. 9. 10. then it can be no less pleasing to God that Christians who live in the bosome of the Church should be obedient and conformable unto the lawfull Precepts and Constitutions of their spiritual Mother the Church of Christ and the Rulers thereof It is very truly said by Calvin Semper nimia morositas est ambitiosa A frowardness and aptness to quarrell with the proceedings of the Church is accompanied with ambition and pride It is not because the Church takes too much power on her but because they would be under none It is ambition to have all Government in their own hands that is the Cause why some will not be subject to any All which hath been said of this matter is agreeable with the Doctrine of the Church of England who in her twentieth Article saith The Church hath power to decree and make Laws So in her 34th Article That whosoever through his private judgment willingly and purposely doth break the Traditions and Ceremonies of the Church which be not repugnant to the word of
by Law should be bonum positive that it should be an act of vertue but it is sufficient if it be bonum negative that is nothing sinfull or morally evil as all vices are Otherwise there should be no room for Laws about middle and indifferent things And suppose a Law should be defective in regard of the efficient final or formal cause yet if the matter of it be such as may be done without sin â—t binds the Subject to obedience And that the forbearance of such illegal meetings as are in question may be done without sin and that those dissenting brethren who have been ejected for their non-compliance in Uniformity to the present legal establishment being under a legal restraint as to the use of their Ministerial Function may without sin forbear the irregular use of their gifts and labours in the said private meetings to the undermining and confronting of the Laws the increase of Sedition Schism and divers other Horrid Evils I think is out of question Learned Beza thought so or else he had never returned such an answer as he did to that Case of Conscience which was proposed to him by certain English Ministers who in the Reign of Q. Eliz. were silenced for non-conformity The case proposed being Whether they might or ought not to preach notwithstanding their being prohibited by man's law His answer verbatim is Tertium illud nempe ut contra Regiam Majestatem Episcoporum voluntatem Ministerio suo fungantur magis etiam exhorrescimus propter eas causas quae tacentibus etiam nobis satis intelligi possunt He was so far from thinking it lawfull that he trembled at the thought of such a thing that they should exercise their Ministry contrary to the Queen's Laws and the will of the Governours of the Church And the same hath been the judgment of Antiquity in the like case The ancient and orthodox Fathers of the Church being met together in Council at Antioch in the first year of the Reign of Aurelianus the Emperour and in the year of Christ according to Eusebius 269. decreed Non licere Episcopo vel Clerico si exauthorizatus fuerit ministrare That if any Bishop being condemned by a Council or any Presbyter or Deacon by his Bishop should presume to Preach or meddle with any thing of or belonging to the Sacred Office of the Ministry there should never be any hope for him ever to be restored again by any other Council or Synod And all that Communicated with him should be cast out of the Church As may be seen more at large in that Canon Of the like judgment were the Divines of the Presbyterian-way touching those learned Godly and orthodox Ministers who suffered ejection out of their livings and deprivation of all they had in the late times of troubles by a pretended authority of Parliament for their adherence to his late Majesty of ever Blessed memory When the Earl of Northumberland discoursing with Mr Calamy about the supplying of above fifty Churches in London void of Ministers told him That they must restore some of the sequestred Clergy of London and admit them to preach again for unless they did so the Parliament could not find men of ability to preach in London Mr Calamy replied God Forbid As it is recorded and published to the world in a Book called Persecutio undecima Printed in the year 1648. page 42. And if the thought of the Restauration of those worthies to their Office how unjustly soever they were suspended from it was in the judgment of that person rejected with indignation as a thing offensive and either forbidden or wished to be forbidden of God how much more execrable and abominable a thing would he have thought it to be if they should have taken upon them as some now do under a lawfull power to preach again without any readmission by that power that silenced them yea in opposition and defiance of it And because no testimony is so fit to convince any party as that which proceeds from their own Mouths Let therefore the Judgment of a Non-conformist otherwise a Person in Learning Sobriety and Solidity inferiour to few of his generation be heard and weighed in this case He writes in defence of our Church assemblies against those who being silenced for Non-conformity as he was yet not as he did separated themselves from the publick Congregations and not enduring to have their Mouths stopped or to sit down in silence thought themselves bound according to the Example of the Apostles Act. 4. 19. and 5. 29. to exercise their Ministry though not in publick yet in private Meetings notwithstanding any Legal prohibition to the contrary First he distinguisheth betwixt the calling of the Apostles and that of the Ministers now The former as they had their ministry immediately from God so had they the designation of that ministry to their persons immediately from God also And therefore the exercise of it was not restrainable or to be forborn at the Commandment of men The latter though their ministry be from God also yet have their Calling to that ministry or the designation of that office to such and such particular persons from men in God's ordinary way and cannot exercise that function but by virtue of that Calling wch they have from men And therefore saith he in common sense they ought to obey man forbidding them the exercise of a Calling which they do exercise by virtue of a Calling from men Otherwise there should be no power so to depose a man from his Ministry but that notwithstanding any Command from the Church or State he is still to continue in the exercise of his ministry and should be bound to give that example which the Apostles did which is not onely absurd but a conceit tending plainly to manifest Sedition and Schism Afterwards he hath these words Neither were some of the Apostles onely forbidden so as that others should be suffered to preach the same Gospel in their places but the utter abolition of the Christian Religion was manifestly intended in silencing them But over Churches whereof we are Ministers are no private and secret Assemblies such as hide themselves from the face of a persecuting Magistrate but are publick professing their worship and doing their Religion in the face of the Magistrateâ— and State yea and by his Countenance Authority and Protection And we Are set over those Churches not onely by a calling of our People but also by Authority from the Magistrate who hath an armed power to hinder such publick actions who is also willing to permit and maintain other true Ministers of the Gospel in those places where he forbiddeth some And thereupon the said Authour makes this threefold Conclusion 1. If after our publick Calling to minister in such a known and publick Church not by the Church onely but by the Magistrate also the Magistrate shall have matter against us just or unjust as to our obedience it matters not and shall
God offendeth against the Common order of the Church hurteth the Authority of the Magistrate and woundeth the Conscience of the weak Brethren Where by traditions I suppose is meant the Laws and Canons of the Church as the words following do intimate which speak of the Common order of the Church and Authority of the Magistrate Thus much of the Laws of the Church Neither are such meetings onely against the Laws of the Church but against sundry statute Laws of the Kingdom also in that behalf made and provided In the Statute of 35 Eliz. 1. It is provided that if any person or persons above 16 years old shall refuse to repair to some Church Chapel or usual place of Common-prayer to hear divine Service and receive the Communion or come to and be present at any Assemblies Conventicles or Meetings under Colour or pretence of any Exercise of Religion contrary to the Laws and Statutes And if any person shall obstinately refuse to repair to some Church Chapel or usual place of Common-prayer or by any motion persuasion inticement or allurement of any other willingly joyn in or be present at any such Assemblies Conventicles or Meetings under Colour or pretence of any such Exercise of Religion contrary to the Laws and Statutes of this Realm as is aforesaid which refers to other Statutes formerly made and yet of force against Conventicles as well as this one shall be committed to prison and there remain without bail untill be conform and untill he make an open Submission in the words set down in the Statute viz. I. A. B. do humbly acknowledge and confess that I have grievously offended God in contemning her Majesties Godly and lawfull Government and Authority by absenting my self from Church and from hearing divine Service contrary to the godly Laws and Statutes of this Realm and in using and frequenting unlawfull and disorderly Conventicles and Assemblies under Colour and pretence of Exercise of Religion And I am heartily sorry for the same c. And I do promise and protest without any dissimulation that from henceforth I will from time to time obey and perform her Majesties Laws and Statutes in repairing to Church and hearing divine Service and doe my utmost endeavour to maintain and defend the same Neither can it be pretended as it is by some that this Statute was made or stands in force against any other sort of People than those in question viz. against Popish recusants onely and not against Protestant dissenters as they call themselves The answer is easie out of the words of the said Statute For in the beginning of the Statute the Persons that are concerned in obedience to it are expressed in these general and large words Any person or persons whatsoever above the Age of 16 which shall refuse to repair to Church and willingly join in and be present at any Conventicle or Meeting c. Which words comprehend and take in Persons of all Religions Sects and Persuasions whatsoever And whereas the penalty of the Statute to all that shall refuse Obedience and Conformity to it is abjuration of the Realm or to be proceeded against as Felons There is a Proviso toward the End of the Statute that sixeth the penalty altogether upon Protestant recusants and not on Popish In these words Provided that no Popish recusant or feme Covert shall be compelled or bound to abjure by virtue of this Act. And lest the Popish recusants should be the onely Persons therein meant or intended the Conventiclers of our Age make themselves more perfect Recusants than that Statute supposeth For whereas that makes absence from the Prayers of the Church for one Month together a Crime sufficient to render them obnoxious to the penalties of that Act these men for the most part withdraw themselves for many Years together and for ought I see if they are let alone resolve so to doe all the days of their lives In Anno 22. Caroli 2di Regis there was a Statute made to prevent and suppress seditious Conventicles as the Title of that Statute truly calls them wherein Every Person of the Age of 16 years and upward that shall be present at any Assembly Conventicle or Meeting under Colour or pretence of any Exercise of Religion in other manner that according to the Liturgy and Practice of the Church of England in any place within the Kingdom of England Dominion of Wales and Town of Berwick upon Tweed at which Conventicle or meeting there shall be 5 persons or more assembled together is made liable to suffer the penalties of 5 s for his first fault and for his second 10 s and so onward the Preacher to suffer the penalty of 20 ll And the owner of the house or ground that shall wittingly and willingly suffer such Conventicle Meeting or unlawfull Assembly to be held to suffer the penalty of 20 ll In the late Act for Uniformity all Non-conformist Ministers and disabled and prohibited from preaching any Sermon or Lecture indefinitely either publick or private And for as much as the King's Majesty by the Law of God and the Land of right is and ought to be master of all the assemblings together of any of his Subjects therefore what Meetings soever are not allowed and authorized by the Laws of the Realm are adjudged by the Learned in the Laws to fall within the compass of those Statutes that forbid and punish Riots and unlawfull Assemblies and are or may justly be presumed to be in terrorem populi and in the Event it is to be feared will prove to be contrary to the peace of our Sovereign Lord the King And by the Law all the King's Liege-people are commanded to assist in the suppressing of them upon pain of imprisonment and to make fine and ransome to the King Notwithstanding all which good Laws this practice hath continued in the Church these several years and still doth notwithstanding His Majesties reinforcement of their execution by his late Proclamation in open defiance and contempt of all Authority as if the Laws of the Church and Realm were but fulmen inane a shadow of a Cloud that vanisheth as soon as it is made and as if obedience to Magistracy were no part of Christian duty Concerning these Laws of the Realm to silence clamour I will touch lightly at five things I. That the King being next under God within his Dominions supreme in the Church on Earth hath Power and Authority over the Persons of Ministers as well as of any other his Subjects He being Custos utriusque tabulae having both tables committed to him as well the first that concerns our religious duties to God as the other that concerns our civil duties to men may and ought to make such laws as conduce as well to the peace and order in the Church as as godliness and honesty Pertinet hoc ad reges seculi Christianos ut temporibus suis pacatam velint matrem suam Ecclesiam unde