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
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
Superstition and Idolatry avert them from our Church and make them sit down in the scorners chair Doth not this say in effect that all those good laws formerly made against Papists and all penalties and mulcts by virtue thereof inflicted were most unjust in punishing them for refusing to join with us in that form of worship which we our selves cannot approve of We may say with the Athenians Auximus Philippum nos ipsi Athenienses We have strengthned the hands of our Enemies against us by our own divisions and contentions It is an odious quality and that which obscures the lustre of all the commendable vertues which Franzius notes of the Cranes that oftentimes they are so vehemently enraged one with an other and maintain such a combate among themselves that they neither observe nor fear the coming of the Fowler Yea that they rather desire his approach and to be taken by him than to be reconciled to their mates with whom they are faln out It is a thing much to be feared that these men will never be at quiet and peace in the Church untill they make that true of themselves which I have read objected to the aforesaid people of Athens by way of reproach that they would never vouchsafe to treat or hear of peace but in mourning gowns namely after the loss of their friends and fortunes in the wars He hath no mind that considers not this nor heart that condoles it not Put the case that though the Liturgy of our Church was composed with so much piety and prudence yet there might remain any thing capable of amendment as a freckle in a fair Face what if it be not in all things suitable with every man's judgment or fancy as there is nothing in the world the Directory it self not excepted so well done that doth not displease some the best cook'd dishes please not every Palate yet as St. Augustine of old answered the Donatists Si peccavit Caecilianus non ideo haereditatem suam perdidit Christus Shall God therefore loose his publick worship and service shall it be trampled upon slighted and prophanely neglected because we differ about black and white as Bishop Ridley told Bishop Hooper in a Letter to him And though in these latter days preaching hath gotten ground of the Prayers of the Church in the opinion of some whom we shall see present now and then at the former but seldom or never at the latter yet withouâ— any detraction to that excellent ordinance of God be it spoken this most despised part of God's worship must needs be granted to have the preheminence of the other especially in these days wherein the Church is so maturely composed and throughly setled in the faith and the Book of the holy Scriptures so complete and common amongst us in our own Language by him that considers 1. First that it is the most proper and immediate worship of God and preaching but mediate as it is the means which God hath ordained to teach men how to pray and to fit them for that duty For how can they call upon him in whom they have not believed And how can they believe in him of whom they have not heard and how shall they hear without a preacher 2. Secondly it is a duty simply and entirely moral good in respect of its own nature and quality before any external constitution passed upon it and may be resolved into one of the dictates and principles of the Law of Nature imprinted universally in the hearts of all men at the creation For before the Law of the ten Commandments men began to call on the name of the Lord as being taught by the light of Nature that in God we all live move and have our being and that he is the Father of lights from whom cometh down every good and perfect gift But preaching and hearing are acknowledged by all to be instituted worship and moral onely by an external imposition and mandate of the Supreme Lawgiver 3. Thirdly it is a duty of longer duration than preaching the one being onely for this life the other for the life to come also the one proper and peculiar to men as members of the Church militant the other common to men and Angels in the Church triumphant The knowledge is small which we have on Earth concerning things done in Heaven notwithstandings thus much we know even of Saints in Heaven that they pray 4. Fourthly it is a duty of larger extent and benefit than Preaching is this onely profiteth those that be present that do hear it and attend upon it but Prayer is available even for those that are far distant yea though they be in the remotest parts of the world When Lot's preaching did no good at all to his hearers yet Abraham's prayers might have been so effectual as to have saved five wicked Cities if there had been but ten righteous persons in them What our Blessed Saviour's judgment was in this case we may easily gather by that place in the Gospel where he calls the Church 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 an house of Prayer not of Preaching Whence in the Primitive times all the Christian Temples were called and known by the name of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Oratories And publick Prayers of the Church have as much the preheminence of private as the duty it self hath of preaching in â—egard there is more force in these Prayers wherein the whole Church joyn together as one man than there can be in those that others though never so many make apart any where else I say unto you saith our Saviour that if two of you shall agree on Earth touching any thing that they shall ask it shall be done for them of my Father which is in Heaven Much more then if a Thousand and more if the whole Church They are two excellent and remarkable sayings of St. Chrysostome to this purpose which are quoted by Bishop Iewel in his reply to Harding's answer Non aeque exoras cum solus dominum obsecras atqâ—e cum fratribus tuis Est enim in hoc plus aliquid videlicet concordia conspiratio copula amoris charitatis sacerdotum clamores Praesunt enim ob eam rem sacerdotes ut populi orationes quae infirmiores per se sunt validiores eas complexae simul in câ—elum evehantur Thou dost not so soon obtain thy desire when thou prayest alone unto the Lord as when thou prayest with thy Brethren for herein is somewhat more the concord the consent the joyning of love and charity and the cry of the Priest For to that end the Priests are made overseers that they being the stronger sort may take with them the weaker Prayers of the People and carry them up into Heaven Again he saith Quod quis apud seipsum precatus accipere non poterit hoc cum multitudine precatus accipiet Quare Quia etiamsi non propria virtus tamen concordia multum
whilst he would strike his foe They cannot confute it without condemning themselves This unguided zeal will be sure to run far enough from Popery and so runs into it as he that sails round the Globe the farther he goes after he is half way the nearer he approacheth to the place whence he set out The Quakers a considerable part of the Nonconformists railed at Popery till they began to be taken for Jesuits or their Disciples The like Stygma the Apostle St. Iude casts upon such Persons There are certain men crept in unawares c. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 How disgracefully and disdainfully the Scripture seems to speak of them who irregularly and contrary to good order and lawfull appointment intrude themselves as Teachers into the Church under pretence of Religion They creep in amongst People they come in by stealth as if they came in at a Window or Back-door insinuating themselves into flocks and societies of God's People creeping to Conventicles professing themselves to be the onely Gospel-preachers and pure Worshippers of God as if all Religion were lost except what they bring and profess Whereas they are indeed unless we will mince the Appellation the Holy Scripture fastens on them but a new sort of Creepers gotten into the body of the Church From such saith the Holy Ghost turn away Again St. Paul Now we command you brethren in the name of the Lord Iesus Christ that ye withdraw your selves from every brother that walketh disorderly and not according to the Tradition he hath received from us With more Apostolical Gravity and Authority a Duty cannot be urged on Christians than this of withdrawing or separating from such as walk 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 disorderly The Metaphor say Expositours is borrowed from the custome of War wherein every Souldier hath his proper station and employment appointed him from which when he swerves he becomes 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 out of his rank Now in an Army every Officer hath his place Company and Command assigned him by his General whereunto he must keep and from which he must not stir And if he should leave his place and take upon him either to make an attempt on the Enemy of his own head without Commission and Orders from his General though with never so good success or Command in another Company than that which is assigned and allotted to him by Authority he is guilty of a breach of that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 good order and discipline that ought to be in an Army and brings in a most odious and destructive disorder and confusion and so deserves to be either quite cashiered or otherwise by Martial Law severely to be punished Yea so absolutely necessary hath it been thought in the opinion of experienced Souldiers that the Laws and Orders of Martial-discipline in an Army should be strictly observed that whosoever have erred from it though in the least Punctilio have been adjudged worthy of death without mercy Famous to this purpose is that story we reade in Valerius Maximus of Manlius Torquatus Consul of the Romans in the Latin War who commanded his own Son to be beheaded for fighting the Enemy without his Father's Privity and Command though he was provoked thereunto by Geminius Metius General of the Tusculans and although he had obtained a signal Victory and very much and rich spoil Satiâ—s esse judicans patrem forti silio quam patriam militari disciplina carere Judging it better that a Father should be deprived of a valiant Son than that his Country should want Military discipline The Church is by Christ twice together in one place said to be an Army with banners he that is the Commander in chief is God himself holy just and wise not the Authour of Confusion but the institutour and lover of order and the hater and punisher of such as wilfully transgress such good rules of wholsome discipline as he either immediately by himself or mediately by his Deputies on earth shall establish amongst his People And is Discipline so needfull in an Army and can it be thought needless in the Church Is our spiritual warfare of less danger of concernment than our bodily Shall it be thought to be a venial offence to be committed without danger when a person shall undertake to intrude himself into the place and company of another and lead on and engage a Party in the Church militant into ways of schism and profaneness in opposition to the way of true Religion and Worship of God established not onely without any lawfull allowance but contrary to all Law and Discipline both Civil and Ecclesiastical The baseness and wickedness of such doings is excellently displayed by Learned Doctor Henry More in his Apology annexed to the second part of his enquiry into the Mystery of iniquity Because some men saith he think themselves of more popular gifts for Prayer and Exhortation for these to spur out and run on in a Career without attending the direction of their Superiours were as if the Toy should take those Troopers that are best horsed to set madly a gallopping because they find their horses will goe so freely and so turn the orderly March of the Army into a confused Horse-race and put themselves into a rout even without the assault or pursuit of any Enemy Can it be pleasing to Christ that any should follow such men in their irregular and hare-brain'd ways when his Apostle bids all men from such to withdraw To what end should there be such flocking after them unless their followers could be partakers of some spiritual benefit from them But this cannot be For their disorderly walking and busie medling where they have not to doe renders all they doe unprofitable and is in effect a spending of a great deal of pains to no purpose wearying themselves out to weave the Spiders Webb and to sow to the wind The Apostle doth most excellently express it in a most elegant allusion of words 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 working not at all but are busie-bodies Their work is neither lawfull nor profitable For seeing that the Ministers of Christ are disposed of in the Church 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 according to the dispensation of God it doth follow that those things which they teach or doe receive their force and effect not from their own wills and authority but from the Authority Approbation and Concurrence of him that sends them And therefore what a Minister doeth contrary to the will of God cannot be of any force or effect at all as to the accomplishment of the end on mens souls for which God ordained the Ministry for he is bound to preach not onely those things but in that manner as God hath appointed God's Command for a separation and withdrawing from such dividing house-creeping and disorderly Persons must needs argue their Ministry not to be his ordinance since he so brands it and gives such Cautions against it ARGUMENT VII THAT
of the Apostle to the Corinthians I am jealous over you with a Godly jealousie Sumpta est metaphora à procis zelotypis as Beza notes a Metaphor taken from the manner of a Person espoused to a Woman who cannot endure any one to be a Companion or sharer with him in her affections For as a King cannot endure a rival with him in his Kingdom nor an Husband in the Marriage-bed 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 So neither can a Minister in his Parish And though in regard of internal spiritual everlasting and inseparable union Christ himself is the Husband of the Catholick Church Yet in regard of external and ministerial duty a particular Minister of Christ may be said to be married to that particular flock or portion of God's People over whom in a regular and orderly manner the Holy Ghost hath set him This made St. Ambrose expound that place of St. Paul A bishop must be the Husband of one wife allegorically unius uxoris Si ad superficiem tantum literae respiciamus prohibet digamum Episcopum ordinari si vero ad altiorem sensum conscendamus inhibet Episcopum duas usurpare Ecclesias If we respect the Letter of the text saith he St. Paul forbids any that hath had two Wives to be ordained a Bishop but if we ascend to an higher sense he forbids a Bishop to take to himself two Churches And St. Hierome argues out of those words Eph. 5. Husbands love your wives Audiant Episcopi audiant Presbyteri audiant Doctores subjectis suis se esse subjectos Let Bishops Priests and Doctours learn in this that when they have married themselves to a Flock or Congregation they are become subject to their Subjects How subject to their Subjects What are they become inferiour to their Flocks In no wise They are over you in the Lord saith St. Paul underlings then they are to none of them But they are so subject to their flock as an Husband is subject to his Wife and no otherwise Now she is to be subject to him and he by God's Law to rule over her So that the subjection he means is the subjection of Love As Pliny told Trajan the Emperour Nihil magis à te subjecti animo factum est quim quod imperare coepisti A King doeth nothing so like a subject as to love his subjects to devise ways and to use his power for their good Such a subjection is that of the Husband to the Wife and that of a Pastour to his flock to whom he is married and to no other Whence as Mr. Prinn observes he is stiled Parochus and his People Parochia by the Canonists and Lawyers because he is espoused to that peculiar Parish And to this agreeth the 15 th Canon of the Nicene Council matrimonium inter Episcopum Ecclesiam esse contractum c. There are several things that prove a very near relation betwixt a lawfull Pastour and his People 1. The titles the Holy Ghost gives in Scripture to Ministers and their People They are called watchmen and shepherds Es. 62. 6. These their flock over whom they watch and whom they keep Act. 20. 28. They are called Fathers 2. King 6. 21. 1 Cor. 4. 15. 1 Thes. 2. 11. These their Children 1 Cor. 4. 14. 2 Cor. 6. 13. â—al 4. 19. 1 Tim. 1. 2. Philom 10. 1 Ioh. 5. 21. Ministers are called husbandmen and builders and their people God's tillage and building 1 Cor. 3. 9. They are called steward their people God's household to whom they are to give their portion of meat Luâ— 12. 41. 2. The duties imposed by God on either party prove a very near relation betwixt them As a Minister is commanded to take the oversight of them to feed them and to perform the office of a faithfull servant of Christ that he may give an account to him for his flock So the People also are charged with many duties towards their Pastours As 1. To know and love them dearly as the Galatians did St. Paul and as he enjoins all Christians to doe toward their Ministers We beseech you Brethren to know them that labour amongst you and over you in the Lord and admonish you and esteem them very highly in love for their works sake Indeed the vulgar Latin reade it ut noveritis But Beza renders it ut adnoscatis that you acknowledge them as your Pastours and Teachers And as Learned Zanchi pro pastoribus vestris ac patribus reverenter amplectamini that ye reverently receive and embrace them as your Pastours and Fathers And as David saith in theâ—â—â—â—lms I will not know a wicked perâ—â—â— where not to know is to contemn so to know is to have in reverence and honour Thus our Saviour professeth to wicked men I never knew you Which places are urged both by Beza and Zanchi to prove their exposition And that you highly esteem them in love 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Some reade it abundantly Some exceedingly It properly signifies more than exceedingly Love in abundance in an overflowing measure an overplus of love Beza renders the same expression in another place summâ cum exuperantiâ with the greatest exuberance of love And here ut supra modum charos ducatis that you account them above measure dear to you 2. To obey them and submit to their pastoral office and rule over them Heb. 13. 17. 3. To afford them an honourable and liberal maintenance Matt. 10. 10. 1 Cor. 9. 6-15 Rom. 15. 27. Gal. 6. 6-8 1 Tim. 5. 17 18. Not out of charity as a free gift but of justice as a due debt 3 Ioh. 9. 4. To seek their comfort and to give them all duâ—â— encouragement that they may doe the work of the Ministry among them with joy and not with grief Heb. 13-17 All which duties would not have been enjoined on both parties pastour and people were there not a very near relation between them Whereas none at all of these are required either of a stranger to them or of them to a stranger And this is the Language both of the Presbyterian and Independent Ministers when they speak of the relation that is betwixt them and their People they say they are married to their Flock Now where one of these Demagogues and Patrons of Conventicles shall intrude himself into a Town or Parish and take upon him there to set up a course of house-preaching to administer the Sacraments to visit the sick and such like duties to the Ministry as they doe it tends directly to the breaking this bond and near relation that is betwixt Pastour and People and breeds such alienation of affection in them towards him as was betwixt the Iews and Samaritans between whom the Scripture saith there was no â—onverse For they being conscious to themselves of the guilt of that which upon a general presumption they cannot but believe he can in