and yours to demand it and whether he give it or give it not as he sees it most convenient for the ends of Government concerns neither Me nor my Writings seeing in both he exercises that Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction that I have asserted to be inherent in the Supreme Power At least you see what reason I had to discourse of the Kings Power rather than the Churches because that was the only Principle you endeavour'd to batter down and if once you could but tye up the Secular Arm you valued not the strokes of the Spiritual Rod so that had I opposed the Power of the Church to your attempts of Anarchy it had been as wisely design'd as to send forth a party of Church-men to encounter a Brigade of Horse with their Spiritual Weapons But because I see you are resolved not to spare for laying on load enough and have the confidence to impeach or suspect a man of any thing that is odious if he do not expresly protest against it and because some other men that I have more reason to satisfie than your self have fallen into the same suspicion of Erastianism take this short and plain account of the whole business for the prevention of future mistakes Religion then has a twofold End either as it relates to the affairs of this present life or of that which is to come and so is enforced with a twofold Jurisdiction or Power of Coaction suitable to its respective ends Now its design in reference to this present world is the peace of Societies and the security of Government and therefore it must be enforced by such sanctions as are proper to the attainment of that end and those are secular rewards and punishments so that this being the Office of the Civil Magistrate or as you word it according to that deep respect you profess to Princes the trade of Kings to provide for the safety or welfare of the Common-wealth all his Jurisdiction must be temporal and backt only by external inflictions as suited only to the ends of his Authority His Power then over Religion is of a Political Nature and is intended to the same purpose as his Power over all other affairs of State i. e. the publique peace and prosperity and therefore need only be exercised in the same way of Jurisdiction and this is that Authority that I have all along asserted to be the natural and unalienable Right of all Sovereign Princes But then secondly its design in reference to the world to come is purely spiritual and relates only to the welfare of the Souls of men hereafter and therefore is to be prosecuted by such enforcements as are apt to govern Souls without laying restraints upon their bodies Now the only sanctions proper in this case are the rewards and punishments of another life and this is the power of the Ecclesiastick State Authoritatively to declare the Laws of God to the People and to enforce their obedience to them from the threatnings and promises of the Gospel And to this purpose did our blessed Saviour depute the Apostolical order or succession of Apostles to superintend the Affairs of his Holy Catholique Church it is the right of their Office and Commission to consult advise and determine in all disputes that concern the Government and the welfare of all Christian Assemblies and their Decrees are obligatory upon the Consciences of men by vertue of their own proper Authority and under their own proper penalties For as all their Power is meerly spiritual so are all the Sanctions of their Laws and therefore though they cannot by vertue of their own inherent Jurisdiction punish the disobedient with Civil and Secular inflictions yet may they require and demand obedience to their constitutions under pain of the Divine displeasure and the lash of the Apostolical Rod and their sentence when regularly passed upon refractory offenders is valid and terrible as a decree of heaven and if there be any truth or sense in our Saviours words to the Colledge of Apostles that whatsoever they shall bind on Earth shall be bound in Heaven their Censures shall be approved and ratified by the judgement of the Almighty And that man deserves the wrath of God that is want only rebellious and incorrigible to the soft and gentle discipline of his Church this is such a desperate and malicious peevishness that it does of it self consign a man up to final contumacy and utter impenitence He is too stubborn and too impudent to be reclaim'd that dares rashly bid defiance to the wisdom and authority of his ghostly guides and governours but when the exterminating sentence is passed upon the Offender it smites like the sword of an Angel it throws him out of the Church and the ordinary capacities of Mercy and delivers him up to the wrath and judgment of God And this is no more than what is necessary to the very Being and Preservation of all Society in that Society cannot subsist without Order nor Order without Authority nor Authority without a Power of requiring and enforcing Obedience and therefore if our Saviour have founded a Church in the world and does design its continuance to the end of it it is necessary he should provide for its Preservation by delegating some peculiar persons to govern and guide the Society by Laws and Penalties otherwise his Church were no better than a wild and ungovernable Rabble that only meet together by chance or by humour and are under no enforcements of orderly and peaceable behaviour And this would be a worthy representation of the Church of Christ that it is only a Rout of rude People without Law or Government But as it is necessary that Ecclesiastical Affairs should be govern'd so is it that this should be done by Ecclesiastical persons whose profession and peculiar employment it is to study and understand those matters and 't is but reasonable to relye upon their judgement who ought to be presumed best skill'd in the nature of the thing it is no more than what common prudence directs to in all other affairs of life to consult and trust every man in his own profession we do not apply our selves to Physicians for the settlement of our Estates nor to Lawyers for the preservation and recovery of our healths But men are to be entrusted and employed with regard to their own proper skill and office and therefore though we should set aside the express Authority of our Saviours commission to the Apostles and their Successours for the perpetual Government of his Church the very rules of common prudence will cast the management of Ecclesiastical matters upon Ecclesiastical persons and this is so avowed a principle among mankind that the Jurisdiction proper to the Church was never yet invaded by any Laicks till t'other day the Tradesmen and Burgers of the Corporation of Geneva banish'd their Prince and Bishop and then took the Government both of Church and State into their own hands and seated the Power of the
Keys in Mr. Mayor and the Town-Clerk and issued out Excommunications under the Town Seal and every Fisherman upon the Lake Lemane if he were a Livery man of the City immediately became an Apostle and the Spirit of Infallibility forsook the whole Order of Church-men and setled upon every illiterate Mechanick that had a bold Face and a loose Tongue And with what Apostolical Wisdome and Gravity they made Religion it self ridiculous Mr. Calvin himself has inform'd us particularly in the cases of Bertileir and Perin who were absolved from the Sentence of Excommunication by the Common-Council and under the Town-Seal And 't is observable that those States that have made bold to despise or disregard the Power of the Clergy have always first prostituted the Revenues of the Church to the worst of men and in a little time the Government of it to the Scorn and Contempt of the Common Rabble And therefore all wise and pious Princes have ever chosen to govern Religion by the Counsel and Assistance of their Clergy and to be determined in Enquiries of Faith by their Decrees and Declarations for though all Power of External Coercion be vested in the Civil Magistrate yet that of teaching and declaring the Law of God is the Right and Office of Ecclesiasticks so that though they cannot force Princes to confirm and ratifie their Decrees yet may Princes be obliged by Vertue of an Higher Authority by regard to Piety and Religion by the Order and Decency of things to have reference to their Judgments though if they will not it is not in the Power of the Church to call them to an account for their Proceedings as the men of Rome and Geneva talk That shall be demanded at an higher Judicature they can only declare and discharge their Duty and leave the pursuance of their Cause to the Judgment of God For in all Affairs whatsoever capable of External Cognizance the Supreme Civil Power must and will over-rule this is absolutely necessary to the Order and Preservation of Government and the World must be govern'd as they will or not be govern'd at all And thus have I briefly proved that the Clergy must be vested with some Power peculiar to themselves both from the Institution of Christ and the nature of Society for as much as the Constitution of the Church as such is distinct from that of the Civil State so that all Christians are obliged to the Visible Profession of the Name of Christ not only without the leave but against the Edicts of the Supreme Authority of Kingdomes and Common-wealths The next thing to be consider'd against Erastus is that their Office is not merely declarative or ministerial but carries proper jurisdiction in all the Acts and Exercises of its Power and enforces all its Decrees by Penalties and Inflictions and wherever we find Coercion there is all that can be required to the Nature and Exercise of Jurisdiction that is nothing else but a Power of Imposing Laws and Inflicting Punishments and whoever has a Right to both these Acts of Government has all that Authority that is proper to Empire and Dominion and whatsoever Privileges and Prerogatives of absolute Sovereignty we can imagine they are all reducible to one of these swo Heads either a Power of requiring Obedience to its Commands or of punishing Disobedience by its Penalties and both these are apparently included in the Priestly Office that consists of two parts first the Authoritative Power of Preaching whereby they are enabled to declare Divine Laws under Penalty of the Divine Displeasure and this is proper Legislation and is declared to be so in his Original Commission granted by our Saviour to his Apostles and their Successours to the End of the World in that he sent them as his Father sent him to teach or disciple all Nations whereby he derived upon them the same Power that himself was furnisht with from above to pursue the same ends so that if he himself were entrusted with any proper Jurisdiction he has conveyed and imparted the same to the Apostolical Office and Order and that he was so is an unquestionable and granted Case on all sides and therefore he himself founds the Validity of their Commission upon the Right of his Power All Power in Heaven and Earth says he is given me of my Father therefore go c. I am now enthroned Sovereign Lord of the whole Creation and the Exercise of all my Fathers Power is entrusted to my Management and therefore in the first place I appoint and Authorize you and your Successors in my Name and by Vertue of my Supremacy to take care of the Guidance and Instruction of my Church this is the Office and Power to which you are deputed next and immediately under my self in the Discharge and Execution whereof I engage all my Power to be immediately assistant to you to the end of the World So that it is plain that their Power of Preaching and Declaring the Laws of the Gospel is properly Authoritative and of the same Nature though of a Subordinate force with our Saviours own Dominion over Mankind and all Men by Vertue of his Command and his Commission are bound to give Obedience to their Doctrines in the right and Faithful Discharge of their Trusts as to the Authorized Stewards of his Mysteries And then as for the other part of the Power of the Keys or Church Censures it is as full of Jurisdiction as any Secular Power whatsoever it judges gives Sentence and inflicts Punishment in Criminal Causes and though they do not execute their own Judgment but leave it to the Divine Justice yet where God has promised to abett their Censures by his immediate Power 't is the same thing as to all the purposes of Government as if it were done by the stroke of their own Arm and though they did but only minister to the Divine Judgement as to these immediate Inflictions of Heaven yet the sentence it self is a severe instance and exercise of Coercive Jurisdiction it cuts a man off from all the Advantages of the Communion of Saints and of our Saviours Incarnation and that is a Capital Execution and more affrightful to any man that makes Profession of the Christian Faith than all the Rods and Axes and Pillories and Whipping-posts of the Secular Power And as their Authority carries in it true and proper Jurisdiction so is it in its Kind Supreme Universal and Uncontroulable and extends to all Nations Ages and Conditions Kings and Princes are subject to the Spiritual Authority of their Doctrines they have Souls to be conducted to Heaven as well as their Subjects and therefore stand as much in need of Spiritual Guides and Instructors for if Christ have intrusted the Spiritual Government of his Church in the hands of his Apostles and their Successors then all its Members of what Rank and Quality soever are regularly to make enquiries and receive determinations of Conscience from their Mouths and when the
they thus magnifie the Kings pardons and dispensations but only out of hatred and opposition to the Government because by this means they suppose some part of the supreme power to be lopt off and then they are hearty friends to any thing that abates of that They are right Gibellines for any thing or any interest to make disturbance for King or Parliament or either or neither for their own ends and to oppose the Guelphs In the late War when the King declared against them and the Parliament for them they then fought for the Parliament against the Prerogative But after all the fatal Consequences of that Rebellion the King and Parliament both observing their Sea-marks joyn together to root up their principles of Schism and Sedition and then they declare against both for the Prerogative of God and every man's Conscience And now the King lately for reasons of State and perhaps to make an experiment of their good nature being inclined to suspend for a while the Penalties of the Laws in force against them then hey for the Prerogative above all Laws and Parliaments and they preach up nothing but Sibthorpianism and Absolute Government because it was the Rock on which the last King ruined They care not what becomes of King and Parliament and Kingdom too so they may gratifie their own Pride and peevishness Not that I believe they have all formed designs against the State they are most of them too simple to entertain thoughts so great but yet they are easily acted by those that have they are conceited and froward and apt to pick quarrels and take offence at the present management of affairs be it what it will And if they are not courted as well as humour'd by their Governours their proud hearts are liable to a certain Infirmity that is very troublesom and they are presently reflecting upon the Histories of former times the Roman Emperour the King of Poland Alexander the Great the King of Spain the Queen of Sweden the Flea Tyrant and the sturdy Swiss and a thousand more not such idle stories but that they can tell how to make use of them as well as Kings And if Kings will not be instructed by these Examples to behave themselves dutifully towards their Subjects they know how to take an Antipathy to Regal Government and then he is bound to be so civil as to refrain the use of it however not to press it upon them but if he have so little sense of common humanity as not to yield to their Weaknesses he makes himself an hard hearted and inflexible Tyrant and if he have so little discretion as to trust his Understanding to the Clergies keeping and to know nothing beyond Ceremonies and Sibthorpianism i. e. to take any care for the Execution of Ecclesiastical Laws if he ruine his Government upon that Rock by forcing them to rebel shrewdly against their Wills poor Innocents he may thank himself and his implacable Divines This is all your friendship to the Prerogative in matters of Religion to make all exercise of Ecclesiastical Power Acts of Tyranny And you are so far his Majesties friend as to advise him to be so satisfied with the abundance of his Power as to abate of its exercise by his discretion But though you are always excusing your self from medling with State affairs by reason of your private breeding your modesty and your not having been bound Prentice to the Trade of Kings and on the contrary accusing me for presuming to instruct and advise Princes yet are you always too prescribing to them Rules of Wisdome and Discretion teaching them when it is requisite to screw up and when to let down their Prerogative how to humour their Subjects to condescend to their Infirmities and bid them to be cover'd in their presence and sometimes as here to be content with having their Power without exercising it Whereas I have no where read them any Lectures how to govern their Islands but have only as became a dutiful Subject asserted their power against your principles of Anarchy and Rebellion And if they will forgo any part of it to condescend to your Infirmities they are more competent Judges of their own actions than I am and therefore I shall never censure them for it though I must confess they would be better natur'd than I think I should be in their Cases Though alas it is pity but you should be humour'd after all this experience they have had of your meekness and simplicity and after all that assurance you have given them of your peaceable resolutions and principles viz. that whereas you have heretofore embroil'd the Nation in a civil War for nothing and though you are now convinced of it your selves yet you will not so much as acknowledge it because forsooth it would be a blemish upon your Reputation and therefore you will admit of no terms of Peace unless we will condescend to your unreasonable humours only to save your paltry credit And if we will not we may look to our selves you will make good your own party And then if upon this the Government shall think it a little necessary to restrain you in these bold and factious courses it is Tyranny and a violation of the Divine Majesty You and your Consciences are exempt from all their Laws and are in the hand of God alone and that is all your real owning of the Prerogative Though if at any time it lets you alone in all your extravagances and suffers you to break the Laws you are then such friends to it as no men more You are for or against any thing so you may but have the comfort of affronting Authority All that I have hitherto discoursed concerns only those Non-conformists that at least pretend to Sobriety but as for all the inferiour Sects though they never agreed in any thing but in their implacable Zeal against their Prince yet I never troubled my self so much as to exhort them to Repentance because they have the privilege of all other mad men to do mischief without being responsible for it and therefore are not to be discoursed or advised into their wits because being insensible of the mischief they do they can only be bound and restrained from doing it and to give them their Liberty is not only to suffer them to act any extravagance they have a mind to but to spread and propagate the Infection of their Madness For there is no Frenzy in Religion that the lower sort of the People are not too apt to be tainted with so that instead of allowing them Conventicles it were more proper to build them Bedlams nothing can govern them but Chains and Keepers But as for your own part we are willing to excuse you from signal Marks c. because you have given such mighty proofs and demonstrations of your Loyalty and Good-will to the King by that wonderful Zeal that you have upon all occasions shewn for the Act of Oblivion and Indemnity which as
all my Writings to name but one good Quality that you possess that I have not granted you or one bad one that you disclaim and I have unjustly charged upon you and I will be content to suffer all the Engines of Clergy mens Cruelty the Pillorie the Whipping posts the Galleys the Rods the Axes and the Rhinolabides nay what is a more desperate Penance than all this I have stipulated to write a Panegyrick in praise of the Good Nature of the Presbyterians and the Sincerity of the Independants and I think it would puzzle the Wit of Mankind to invent a severer Penalty unless it were to write another in Commendation of your Wit and Learning But whilst you continue this out-cry against me only in general Terms without being able to produce particular Articles to vouch and justifie it you prove nothing but your want of breeding and better Arguments and the Calumny when you cannot drive it home recoils upon your own Heads He that charges another of an uncivil Crime when he cannot make it good indites himself And yet perhaps in spite of my Integrity I may have been too zealous for my King and Countrey Plain-dealing is too rough a Vertue for this false and self-designing Age. But be that as it will and as for the decency of the manner of my treating you when I have said all I can and I have said too much already I must leave it to the Judgment of the World I am now only concern'd to vindicate the matter of my discourses against you and here I have laid open your jugling so plainly that 't is a Reproach to Mankind that you should still persevere so immodestly in the same Impostures This is no bragging no man that had any consisistency in his Skull could have perform'd less in so plain and palpable a Case For what can be more notorious than that 1. When you exempt your Consciences from the jurisdiction of your Prince you exempt your selves both in that a man and his Conscience are one and the same thing and in that he is not capable of any obligation of Laws but purely by vertue of his Conscience 2. When you exempt matters of Religion from the same Power you in effect exempt all things there being nothing of any considerable weight or concernment in humane affairs that is not matter of Religion and much more so than those things that you contend about and this dashes in pieces all your general pleas But then 3. As for your particular pleas of Scandal and an unsatisfied Conscience and unscriptural Ceremonies c. what can be more evident than 1. That they are precarious and depend purely upon your own humours 2. That they are unavoidable in all Churches and all Constitutions in the world 3. That they are so unreasonable as that they may be adapted or applyed to subvert all Government in the Church as well as ours even your own And if after all this you will not learn to be quiet and peaceable you will first or last thank your selves for something that must follow and then your being big with conscience will not serve to reprieve you You are ferreted out of all your subterfuges and they are laid open to the view and scorn of all men And you have now nothing left to shelter your selves but only by slandering your Adversaries and perswading the people for you presume strangely upon their ignorance and stupidity that whilst we assert His Majesties Ecclesiastical Supremacy we invest him with an unhoopable Jurisdiction which being so bold and rank a forgery it is to all intelligent men i. e. all such as can either read or understand an ample demonstration of a desperate and baffled Cause But by the way how is this consistent with what you as often suggest that my design was to write against the Power of the King and to animate the People against the exercise of his Ecclesiastical Supremacy Are you not sufficiently furnished with informations against any man that can in the same indictment charge him for plotting and attempting at the same time to assert the unlimited Power of Kings and yet to allow them none at all certainly between two such wide extremes a man can never want for materials to make out an impeachment But how have I animated the People against the exercise of His Majesties Supremacy How have I not written expresly against his Indulgence to tender Consciences Not one syllable you know well enough I have only beat down and witnessed against your demands of Indulgence when you challenge it from the King by vertue of your Natural and Religious Rights and charge him as a Tyrant towards his Subjects and a Rebel against God if he presume to claim or pretend to any Jurisdiction over your Consciences or Religious Pretences the insolence of this kind of talk was not to be endured and therefore it was that I set my self to clear and defend His Majesties Supremacy against such plain and yet to the Rout plausible Principles of Anarchy and Confusion But I was no where so presumptuous as to censure or condemn the measures he has taken of his Government pardon me Sir for that we of the Bran of the Church of England have modesty enough to submit to the wisdome of our Superiours when ever they are pleased to declare their will and pleasure And whatever may be my own private Opinion neither I nor any other good Subject shall ever go about to confront it to the publique Declarations of the State so that as long as the Government shall think good to grant you Indulgence assure your self whatever you simply surmise I shall never trouble them with Remonstrances They understand the turns and junctures of their own affairs and are the most competent Judges what methods are fittest to procure both their own and our quiet And though they should at any time mistake yet if there were no other tye of duty it is more eligible they should be complyed with than that their Government should be affronted and the Common-wealth disturbed by every man that thinks himself wiser than his Governours But Sir though we are so dutiful to His Majesty as to submit to his granting Indulgence if he apprehends it seasonable for his present Affairs and as for his power of dispensing with Laws by vertue of his Prerogative we have nothing to do with it by vertue of our Office it is a matter forreign to our Judicature and therefore it is not only manners but duty in us to leave it to our Governours to adjust such disputes among themselves But yet though we are so entirely submissive to our Prince yet assure your selves we shall never be so civil to you as to suffer you to challenge a right to it in spite of his Power and to extort it from him as he would not stand charged before God of Tyranny and Usurpation You see now the vast difference between opposing the Kings Power to give Indulgence