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Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
faith_n	church_n	heresy_n	schism_n	4,424	5	10.0782	5	false

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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A49337	Of the subject of church power in whom it resides, its force, extent, and execution, that it opposes not civil government in any one instance of it / by Simon Lowth ...	Lowth, Simon, 1630?-1720.	1685 (1685)	Wing L3329; ESTC R11427	301,859	567

Castelvetrus her second Husband as Mr. Selden suggests or by the Archbishop himself what is necessarily hence to be inferr'd I 'le here again give in the words of our always to be reverenced Mr. Herbert Thorndike of the Laws of the Church Cap. Vlt. Pag. 394. Neither is the Publishing Erastus his Book against Excommunication at London to be drawn into the like Consequence that those who allow'd and procur'd it allow'd the substance of what he maintain'd so long as a sufficient Reason is to be rendred for it otherwise for at such time as the Presbyterian Pretences were so hot under Queen Elizabeth it is no marvel if it was thought to shew England how they prevail'd at home first because he hath advanced such Arguments as are really effectual against them which are not yet nor never will be answered by them though void of the Positive Truth which ought to take place instead of their Mistakes and besides because at such times as Popes did what them listed in England it would have been to the purpose to shew the English how Machiavel observes they were hamper'd at home and for the like Reason when the Geneva Platform was cried up with such Zeal here it was not amiss to shew the World how it was esteem'd under their own Noses in the Cantons and the Palatinate § XVII I am now to shew the concurrency of our Doctors in the Church and who still go along with me and say the same thing that Church Power as such is not from the Civil Magistrate and his supremacy in all Causes and over all Persons infers it not an induction would be too numerous the Particulars being so many I 'le only instance in two the one is Thomas Bilson then Warden of Winchester and afterward Bishop there in his Book entituled The true difference between Christian Subjection and un-christian Rebellion perused and allowed by publick Autority and dedicated to Queen Elizabeth and for writing of which he had his Bishoprick the other is Robert Sanderson then the King's Professor at Oxford and after Bishop of Lincolne in his Book called Episcopacie as establed by Law in England not prejudicial to the Regal Power written in the time of the long Parliament by the special Command of King Charles the I. but not published by reason of the Iniquity and Confusion of the Times and since printed and dedicated to our present gracious Soveraign King Charles II. two Divines as they flourished in our Church at a great distance of time from one another so are they at as great distance for their Worth and Merit beyond the generality of the Divines of their times and by which as we have the advantage of their greater Autority as to themselves to which add That they acted herein as publick Persons by Autority appointed to write in the Name of the Church of England and in such Cases Men generally are more careful how they vent their own private Niceties and Conceptions so also have we a farther benefit hereby that this was and is the continued constant Doctrine of our Church and Church-Men from Queen Elizabeth to King Charles II. Bishop Bilson thus speaks part 2d pag. § XVIII 124. printed at Oxford It is one thing who may command for truth and another who shall direct unto truth We say Princes may command for Truth and punish the refusers this no Bishop may challenge but only the Prince that beareth the Sword no Prelate has Autority from Christ to compel private Men much less Princes but only to teach and instruct them these two Points we stand on pag. 125. 126. he tells the Jesuite the Prince is Supreme to establish those things Christ has commanded and so he all along shews it the design of the Oath of Supremacy against the pretended outward Jurisdiction of the Pope claiming as Christ's Vicar on Earth a coercive Power in order to spiritual things over the Persons of all Christians whatsoever whose Subjects soever and in whatsoever Causes even our Kings themselves And that it is no more thence to be inferr'd that Princes because supreme Governors over all Persons in all Causes are therefore supreme Judges of Faith Deciders of Controversies Interpreters of Scripture Appointers of Sacraments Devisers of Ceremonies and what not then if it should be inferr'd Princes are supreme Governors in all Corporal things and causes ergo they are supreme Guiders of Grammar Moderators of Logique Directors of Rhetorick Appointers of Musick Prescribers of Medicines Resolvers of all Doubts and Judges of all Matters incident any wayes to reason art or action We confess them to be supreme Governors of their Realms and Dominions and that in all Spiritual things and causes not of all Spiritual things and causes we make them not Governors of the Things themselves but of their Subjects we confess that her Highness is the only Governor of this Realm the Word Governor doth sever the Magistrate from the Minister and sheweth a manifest difference between their Office for Bishops be no Governors of Countries Princes be these bear the Sword to reward and punish those do not pag. 127. They have several Commissions which God signed those to dispense the Word and Sacraments these to prescribe by their Laws and punish by the Sword such as resist them within their Dominions pag. 128. That no Clergy-Man by God's Law can challenge an exemption from earthly Powers pag 129. Princes have full Power to forbid prevent and punish in all their Subjects be they Lay-Men Clerks or Bishops not only Murders Thefts Adulteries Perjuries and such like Breaches of the second table but also Schisms Heresies Idolatries and all other Offences against the first Table pertaining only to the Service of God and Matters of Religion pag. 130. as the Kings of Israel did who are the Christian Princes example pag. 132. and it is the duty of Christian Kings to compel from Heresies and Schisms to the confession of the truth consent of Prayer and Communion of the Lord's Table to compel Hereticks and Schismaticks to repress Schism and Heresie with their princely Power which they receive from above chiefly to maintain God's glory by the causing the Bands of Virtue to be preserved in the Church and the Rules of Faith observed pag. 133. this is the Prince's charge to see the Law of God fully executed his Son rightly served his Spouse safely nursed his House timely filled his Enemies duely punished and he tells the Jesuite if he grants this he will ask no more And these the causes and things that be Spiritual as well as Temporal the Princes power and charge doth reach unto or in the words of St. Austin that Princes may command that which is good and prohibit that which is evil within their Kingdoms not in Civil Affairs only but in Matters that concern divine Religion Cont. Crescon l. 3. c. 51. pag. 134. to page 145. and this or power of the like nature was what was claimed and used in causes Ecclesiastical which

and in these Church Debates only upon the forementioned ends and purposes to secure the common Reputation both of Men and Governors and to see that former Sanctions be not violated to judge as to Matter of Fact and what was Law and Canon before and that nothing destructive be admitted and imbodied into the Empire and which many times was deputed to the Bishops themselves as we have instance in the Comments of Jacob Gothofred in extravagans de judicio Episcopali ad finem Cod. Theodos l. 1. and to be sure the Empire never determined but by the Clergy in any thing else and the Enquiry was only this an Ordinavit Antiquitas that nothing thwarring was introduced and imposed Nor can Theodosius himself be supposed to have done any more from the Relation made of him by Socrates Hist Eccles l. 5. c. 10. or by Sozomen l. 7. c. 17. where he is engaged in Points of Faith and which is so much insisted on by those that resolve all Power into the Prince in the determining and composing all differences arising in Points of Religion Vid. Grotium bona fides Lubber●i 48. alibi Theodosius was an acute Man and pursued his own Satisfaction in those Points or Articles he made Law 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and all he did upon his search was this he concurr'd in the same Opinion with the Bishops receiv'd their Reasons offer'd and allow'd of the Grounds they proceeded on and imbodied in the Empire the Decrees of the Council call'd by him at Constantinople upon the occasion of the Arians and other Business in the Eighth Chapter of that Book of Socrates And so again in Sozomen he gives out his Rescripts for equal Honor to be given to the Persons in the Trinity and declares those Hereticks which do it not and enjoyns Theophilus to follow the Nicene Faith for which the antecedent Church Canon is the rule lib. 7. cap. 4 5. 9. THE Laws of the Empire against Hereticks § XX are many and for the Rule of Faith and its Unity and against their meetings in the exercise of their Fancies they are turned out of the Publick Churches and expell'd the Cities and whatever favour hath been obtained for a Penal-mitigation by bribed Courtiers misrepresenting for such it seems there always was and will be the Grant is to be actually void the Houses they meet in are Confiscated they that have frequented them are Punished an Hundred Pounds and such as continue at them Fifty no Man is to read their Books they are all to be burned none is to Petition in their behalf their last Testaments are voided they are not permitted to Buy or Sell or Trade as do other Men all their Gifts Endowments and Revenues settled on their Sects are transferr'd to the Churches use Such of them as set up Schools and Teach are to be animadverted upon Vltimo Supplicio to be sure by a Punishment greater than others and they that learn of them are to Pay Ten Pounds No Lay-man that is an Heretick is to have or exercise any Government lest they be vexatious to the Bishops and Christians all the Moderators Governors and Under-Officers in Provinces that neglect to execute these Laws or permit them to be violated are to have a Mulct of Ten Pounds laid upon them No Civil or Military Power is to assist them in erecting their quasi Ecclesias falsly called Churches Speluncas fidei suae under the Punishment of Twenty Pounds of Gold He that entertains a Conventicle in his House if vilis of the Plebeians he is to be beaten with Clubs if an Ingenuous Person his Punishment is Ten Pounds and if they go from their Conventicles to Mutinies and Sedition 't is present Death and to such as frequent them t is Proscription of Goods with many more Penalties assigned Some greater and some less as was the temper of the Law-Maker and the apprehended Guilt as greater or less the Heresie of more or less danger in Church or State even to some as the Manichees their Children were not to inherit but then who and what these Hereticks and Heresies were what made a Conventicle or Schismatical Meeting what constituted this Rule of Faith and Unity this was not the work of the Empire nor did it pretend to be Judge and Decide She believed as did the Church determine whose Traditions and Confessions received Strength and Autority thereby the Civil Arm and Power concurring but the Catholique Faith is the Rule and Praedicationem Sacerdotum the Instructions of the Priests the Director Nor is any one condemned by the Law but such as are Strangers to and neglect the Church who are first condemned by her and 't is what Antiquity has ordained appoints and constitutes That Faith which St. Peter the Apostle Preached at Rome and which was then follow'd there by Damasus the present Bishop and Peter Bishop of Alexandria Nectarius of Constantinople Pelagius of Laodicea Diodonis of Tarsis Amphilochius of Iconium Optimus of Antioch c. Men led by the Apostolical Evangelical Discipline and Doctrine farther taught and recommended in the Four first Councils Determinantibus Sacerdotibus the Bishops there determining and the Exposition of Synods by the Imperial Autority and Laws called together Sacram Communionem in Ecclesia Catholica non percipientes à Deo amabilibus Episcopis Haereticos justè vocamus Justinian Novel 109. Praefat. The Heresie in its own Nature consists here when they unite and hold Communion out of the Catholick Church not receiving of it from God's beloved Bishops and so Schism is defined 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Can. 31. Apost 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Can. 6. Concil Gen. Constantinop when they despise and make Assemblies contrary to their Bishops So also Can. 31. Concil 6. in Trullo Can. 10. Concil Carthag and more expresly yet Can. 10. Concil Antioch and which we have occasionally made use of before if any Presbyter or Deacon separate from the Church contemning his own Bishop and makes a Private Congregation or Altar 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as in that 10th Canon Concil Carthag all which concerning Schism and Heresie and Conventicles with a great deal more may be seen at large and in every particular by whoso is conversant in the Canons and Church Proceedings and Determinations or which may be of more Autority with him at least not so lyable to Scorn and contempt to whoso pleases to read Cod. Justinian Tit. 1 2 3 4 5 c. Theodos 16 Tit. 1. l. 28. and in the several Titles and Laws with the various Novels and Constitutions treating expresly on these Subjects § XXI THERE are as many Laws and Directions Imperial concerning Ordinations the Person to be Separate and Consecrated to the Ministry of what Order soever whether Bishops Presbyters or Deacons perhaps many more as indeed they are very numerous giving Rules for Elections for the better discharge of their Duties providing against Symony for the daily Sacrifices and Ministerial Offices in the Liturgy and

Church 'T is his Proposal is so fatal to Christianity Sect. 14. Lay-men no Judges in Matters of Faith and the Determinations of Indifferencies The first Council at Jerusalem No Lay-Elders Sect. 15. CHAP. II. THis Power is not in the Prince The Child Jesus is Anointed Lord and Christ with all Power given him in order to Heaven to continue in the Gospel-Priesthood to the end of the World Sect. 1. These two Powers have and may reside again in the same Person are both for the general good of Man Emperors how call'd Apli Epi. Sect. 2. Their particular Power necessarily infer not one another The Priest as such is no more a King than the King as such is a Priest than a good Man is always knowing or the Despotical and Regal Power go together The mixing these several distinct Gifts and Powers is the inlet to all disorder The King and Priest have been brought to a Morsel of Bread by it Sect. 3. Kings have no Plea to the Priesthood by their Vnction the Jewish Custom and Government no example to us if so the consequent would be ill in our Government Our Kings derive no one Right from their being Anointed Blondel's Account of this Vnction The Error and Flattery of some Greeks herein Sect. 4. The Church how in the Common-wealth and the Common-wealth how in the Church and both independent and self-existent Sect. 5. The Church founded only and subsisting in and by Christ and his Apostles Sect. 6. Proved from Clemens Romanus Ignatius Irenaeus Origen Tertullian Justin Martyr Athenagoras Minutius Foelix Sect. 7. A distinct Power is in the Church all along in Eusebius Eccl. Hist Socrates c. Opposed to the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or the Power of the Prince so called all along in those Writings Sect. 8. This was not from the present Necessity when the Empire was Heathen if so the Christians had understood and declared it The Apostles God himself had forewarn'd and preinformed the World of it It continued the same when Christian only with more advantages by the Princes Countenance and Protection Sect. 9 10. In Athanasius Hosius St. Jerome Austin Optatus Chrysostom Ambrose Sect. 11. In Eusebius History from Constantine and other Historians downward the Emperor and Bishop have alike their distinct Throne and Succession independent as plain as words and story can report it Sect. 12. And the same do the Ancient Councils all along separating themselves from 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Sect. 13. This is not the Sense of the Bishops only in their own behalf and which is the Atheistical popular Plea and Objection the Cruelty of the French Reformers Sect. 14. The Emperors own and submit unto it as Constantine though misunderstood by Blondel Valentinianus Justinian Theodosius Leo c. Sect. 15 16. Blondel owns all this and yet does not understand it Sect. 17. All this farther appears from the Laws and Proceedings of the Empire and the Church as in the two Codes Novels and Constitutions from our Church Histories Photius Nomocanon Sect. 18. This farther appears from the Power of the Empire in Councils and particularly that so much talked of Instance in Theodosius Sect. 19. From their Power exercised on Hereticks Heresie is defined to be such by the Bishops Sect. 20. In Ordinations Sect. 21. Church-Censures Mr. Selden's Jus Caesareum relates only to the outward Exercise of the Jewish Worship and comes up exactly to our Model The state then of the Jews answers this of Christianity Sect. 22. The Christian Emperors never Excommunicated in their own Persons or by their own Power Mr. Selden says they did His Fergeries detected His ridiculous account of Holy Orders from Gamaliel He was a Rebel of 1642. Design'd a Cheat on the Crown when annexing to it the Priesthood Sect. 23. What the Empire made Law relating to Religion was first Canon or consented to by the Clergy Nothing the Empires alone but the Penalty So Honorius and Theodosius Valentinian and Marcian Zeno and Leo. Sect. 24 25. No need of present Miracles to Justifie this Power to Assert it does not affront Magistrates 'T is always to be own'd before them Dr. Tillotson's Sermon on this bottom Arianism was of old opposed against Constantius That this Power ceased when the Empire became Christian is a tattle It receiv'd many Advantages but no one Diminution thereby Sect 26. CHAP. III. CHurch-Power is a Specifick constituted by Christ in order to a Succession the erecting a new and lasting Government upon Earth a Community of divers Orders Offices Acts Stations every ways peculiar the Body of Christ Sect. 1. A Government to Rule and defend it self and Independent Sect. 2. The main Objection that it is against the Civil Power Common Sense and Experience confutes it The more a Christian the better Subject The Christians supported Constantine's Crown Sect. 3 4. They did not want Power to do otherwise nor consequently Integrity as is objected Sect. 5. To say they were Fools is more plausible to the Age but then the Empire must be so too who were equally ignorant of these destructive Consequences to their Government Sect. 6. The reason of the present Misunderstandings and that we do not see as the Ancients did because no Government own'd but that which is Temporal and outwardly Coercive Sect. 7. So 't was stated by an Anonymous Author 1641. All Power and Punishment was outward and bodily among the Jews and so it must be among Christians Sect. 8. So Mr. Selden allowing no Punishments but what are outwardly Coercive because none other as not under so nor before the Law Sect. 9. Erastus went the same way before him Sect. 10. And Salmasius and says the Apostles had no Power because without Whips and Axes Concludes against all Church-Power upon these terms and that he may surely take it from Bishops So does a French Reformer usually lose his Senses when running his Forehead against our Prelacy Sect. 11. Grotius is in this Error but oft corrects himself His Inconstancy is to be lamented He imputes it to his Education He fights with the very same Weapon against Church-Power in general the Jesuite does against the Supremacy in the Church of England Sect. 12. CHAP. IV. THe Objections answer'd Selden's Error that there are to be no other Punishments by Christ than was before and under the Law the Query is to be what Christ did actually constitute He mixes the Temporal Actions of the Apostles and those design'd for Perpetuity Adam and Cain might have more than a Temporal Punishment Sect. 1. The great Disparity betwixt the Jewish and Christian State considered no Inferences to be drawn from the one to the other but what is on our side Sect. 2. Theirs is the Letter ours the Spirit They Punish'd by Bodily Death we by Spiritual Sect. 3. If Government was judged so absolutely necessary by the dispersed Jews that they then framed one of their own for the present Necessity and whose Wisdom in so doing

and left first by Christ to his Apostles and from them in Succession devolved on the Bishops and Pastors of the Church in whom it now remains who alone have the Power of its conveyance and on whomsoever it is they shall lay their hands together with the offices of Prayer or by any other outward Symbol overt Act or Testimony which they shall use to evidence the Deputation transfer it unto these shall receive this Power of the Holy Ghost be thorowly enabled for the transacting betwixt God and Man the things that belong to Man's Eternity § IV THE design of this present Discourse is to take away the two former and establish the latter to make it evident upon a just Enquiry and certain Demonstration That all Church-Power was designed by Christ and actually left by his Apostles only to Church-Officers the Order of the Gospel-Priesthood the Bishops Presbyters and Deacons to be separated on purpose and successively instated in such the Jurisdiction and Government by such of themselves that had before received and were fully invested with it and this like other Successions to continue and be so managed till the End cometh and the Kingdom be delivered up to the Father So that the general Heads I shall insist upon will be these Three 1. That this Power is not in the People or Christians in common 2. That it is not in the Prince or Secular Government 3. That it is in the Bishops and Pastors of the Church of Christ a Power and Offices peculiarly theirs as to the execution with its special force and Laws reaching to all that come to Heaven by Christ Jesus and as not derived from so no ways thwarting or interfering with the Civil Government And all this as suitable to the received Faith and Polity of the Church in the best Ages of it down from Christ and his Apostles to us ward so it agreeing with the particular Establishments of the Laws of our Kingdom made for the owning and defence of our Christianity and also with the Religion of the same received and professed in our Church since the Reformation CHAP. I. The Contents Church Power is not in the People either as a Body in General or as one Single Congregation Sect. 1. This Power must first evidence it self to be given from God e're executed on or derived to others Holiness in its Nature does not infer it The Priesthood not made Common before the Law under it or the Gospel Admit that first Right by Nature to all Things and Offices 't was to be sure afterwards limited and those that lay it open again must shew by what Autority they do it Otherwise Fanaticks in the sense of St. Jerome Sect. 2. The word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 infers no such Power Sect. 3. The Peoples concurrency gives no Power even where their Notes are pretended to in the New Testament Sect. 4. Election and Vocation differ from Ordination in the Practice of our Saviour and first Ages of the Church still expressed by several words Sect. 5. The Votes of the People give no Power but yet are necessary because none is given without them both the People and Pastors are Christ's Vicars in the Case So Beza Blondel Sect. 6. Our Saviour's Practice and the Apostles are against them Sect. 7 8. That the People were not always at Elections Blondel allows He is contrary to himself Their Votes never reputed necessary and at last excluded quite Chap. 1. by reason of the Riots and Disorders in them Sect. 9. The concurrency of 12 Centuries down from the Apostles amount to a Divine Right Blondel's failure of it His injury to his Friends In what case Apostolical Ecclesiastical Practice is not immutable The ill Consequences attending his Power given to the People His Malice to the Order of Bishops Disreputing Christianity it self 'T is unpardonable in the French Reformation imposing their present harder necessity for our pattern The Deacon and Presbyter under the Bishop but neither in Subordination to the People Sect. 10. And this they do in point of Episcopacy also And we must have no Bishops in England because they have none in France and which is promoted by the advantage of the Rebellion and Schism among us Blondel offer'd his Service before to the Bishops of England but then he Prints his Apologia pro Hieronymo Dedicates it to the Rump Parliament and Assembly-Men Is nauseous in his Flatteries of both Commends the Scotch Covenant Is rude upon Bishops Soliciting their Ruine This the Sense of the Divines on that side the Sea Salmasius raves just so The Independents murder'd the King The Bishops not the Authors of all Heresies as black-mouth'd Baxter Andrew Rivet and so does Daulee Ignatius suffers for it He and Marcian and Valentinus compared Their few Complements does not acquit them We only lose by our Charity towards them The disadvantage thereby from our own Members The late Replyer upon Bishop Pearson and Doctor Beveridge is the same The late Letters from Paris Sect. 11. The People are only Witnesses of the good lifes of the Ordained Blondel's own Collection and the Autority of Cyprian is all along against him The Church Canons Our Ordinations at home The nature of the thing it self Sect. 12 13. The People are not to choose or refuse their Pastor as Blondel rudely and unreasonably contends with his usual Malice against Bishops and our Church 'T is his Proposal is so fatal to Christianity Sect. 14. Lay-men no Judges in Matters of Faith and the Determinations of Indifferencies The first Council at Jerusalem No Lay-Elders Sect. 15. § I THIS is not in the People and Believers in Common are not the Subject of Power Ecclesiastical The Power of the Keys is not seated in nor can it flow from or be devolved by them either as a Body in general or any one single Congregation in particular Their stretching or holding up the Hand their joynt-suffrages in the choosing numbring by the tale as by Stones Notes or Election deputing and assignation or whatever else in their own behalf they can make appear to be implied in the words 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which they lay great stress upon and wrest to their purpose are of no strength and validity at all of no more force to depute for the ministry to constitute in a new Order and Station to confer the Power of the Keys and place in that sacred Function then the common cry and rout of the Jews designing it devolved guilt on the head of our Saviour deposed him from his holy Offices took from him his Kingly Power when crying out with full throats We 'll have no King but Caesar we will not have this man to reign over us or their hands stretch'd forth in Prayer Isai 1. did bring a Blessing upon themselves when full of Blood but on the contrary hateful and abomination SUCH as pretend to this plead this Power § II for Deputation and that such only

ask no Directions receive nothing of Autority from them Nor did this Autority thus limited to themselves cease with their Persons or was it translated and deferr'd to any other than of their own assignation by their own Hands and on their own Deputies and Successors the Bishops and Pastors of the Church in whose hands and whose alone it was by them left and there remained with a Power so to depute others and with command to be executed accordingly The very same Church Power I say though not in the same particular Circumstances avouch'd and attended in the same outward manner nor in every single act and effusion does it thus remain and is it to be executed upon all for Salvation and as Christ promised to be with them always to the end of the World and this will fully appear from the Church Records commencing where the Scriptures end from the Concessions of Emperors their Laws and Constitutions made in Church Matters SAINT Clemens Romanus an Apostolical § VII Person and one that wrote his Epistle to the Corinthians not long after the Schism in Corinth mentioned by St. Paul tells us That the Apostles being sent from Christ as from God and Preaching the Word of God through the several Regions and Cities made Bishops and Deacons of the elder Christians such as were the first fruit of their labours and whom they first converted being found sufficient in order to the Service of them that should believe to the bringing more into the Fold and reducing them to Christianity St. Ignatius his Contemporary in part in his Epistle to those of Smyrna commands them to follow the Bishop 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 And in his Epistle to St. Polycarp 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 That they take heed to him as God And again in his Epistle to Smyrna That nothing be done without him in Matters that belong to the Church and Salvation 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and the meaning is not ill express'd by the additional Pseudo-Ignatius whoever he was 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the whole Character whatever of their Image and Power God and Christ design'd to devolve and impress upon his Church whether as to the Government or Ministery of it are found in the Bishop He is the Person to whose Faith and Trust the People of God are committed and of whom an account is required of their Souls 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 he governs as Head and all Church Power and Business is to be translated within themselves as in the Apostles Canons wdich bear date about this time Can. 34.39 Irenaeus who trode pretty near their heels says that he can reckon up them that were Bishops instituted by the Apostles and their continued Succession to his days Lib. 3. Adv. Haeres cap. 3. Ed. Paris Habemus eos annumerare qui ab Apostolis instituti sunt Episcopi in Ecclesiis successores eorum usque ad nos to whom and only whom the Gospel was committed Sine quibus nullo certitudo veritatis Ibid. And again Episcopis Apostoli tradidere Ecclesias that the Churches of God were committed to and intrusted with them Lib. 5. cap. 20. Origen if possible is plainer and distincter yet and in his Third Book against Celsus in so many express words distinguishes betwixt the Senate in the Church and that in every City Ed. Cantab. p. 129. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 And so again betwixt the Rulers and Governors of the Church and the Rulers and Governors of the City 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Ibid. And in his Eighth Book towards the end he declares a different Model 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 from that of the Empire in every City for which and whose safety and success in his Wars he contends and prays for and which he owns and acknowledges with it a Government framed constituted and erected 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 by the word which is God and which Government is the Church whose great King is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Word and Son of God who has his 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 his Governors still appointed resident and continued there ruling as he hath prescribed according to his own Laws and Dictates the Laws of the Empire being preserved inviolated by them Tertullian as plainly distinguishes betwixt the two Bodies in the Nine and thirtieth Chapter of his Apology against the Gentiles Corpus sumus de Conscientia Religionis Disciplinae unitate Spei foedere we Christians are a Body united in a sense of Religion under a different Discipline as well as hope altogether apart à Ministris corum Potestatibus à statu seculi from their Ministers and Powers and from the state of the World and tells us that Polycarp was made a Bishop in the Church of Smyrna by Saint John in the 23 Chapter of his Book of Prescriptions against Hereticks as also Clement over the Romans he returns to the Chairs of the Apostles which remained till his time in their Succession as the Authors of his Religion and 't is not from the Seat of the Empire but from Corinth and Phillippi from Ephesus and Rome he dates their Power and fetches their derivation Vnde vobis autoritas praestò est whence its rise and devolution And in his Fourth Book against Marcion cap. 5. Ordo tamen Episcoporum ad Originem recensus in Joannem stabit auctorem says that St. John is the Author of the Order of Bishops a Polity and Dispensation all along another thing from that of the Empire flowing from another fountain quite differing from and no ways depending upon it And 't is Tertullian's Argument in his Book De coronâ Militis that a Christian Souldier who fights in the Emperor's Camp and gives him his just Allegiance ought rather to lay down his Arms than wear a Laurel Crown on his Head though a mark of Favour from his Prince because relating too much to a religious Custom among the Ethnicks and he is no where commanded it in Scripture nor is it traditionally delivered to him by the Apostles or Bishops or Governors of the Church either in Precept or in Practice Quomodo enim usurpari quid possit si traditum prius non est quis denique Patriarches quis Prophetes aut Sacerdos aut 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 quis vel denique Apostolus aut Evangelizator aut Episcopus invenitur Coronatus Cap. 9. where though it was his mistake in accounting such a thing Matter of Religion as the wearing a Crown of Laurels upon the Commands of his Prince This is a different thing from that command of Licinius the Tyrant enjoyning all that would remain in his Camp to Sacrifice to Idols as in Eusebius his Church History Lib. 10. cap. 8. and which rather than do Christians ought not only to leave the Camp but lay down their Lives yet upon the mistake and supposure it is plain that he remov'd from the Secular Power all Matters of Religion such was to be received from Christ alone

only Regnante Christo and the Reign of the Empire is left out though it do no ways infer and prove that all Empire is originally in Christ both as to Spirituals and Seculars and that he that is his Succession the Church has the disposal of the Kingdoms of the World too Primarily and Originally in him as some zealous Parasites of the Roman Faith thence it seems have inferr'd and against whom the main Plot of D. Blondel in this his Book is laid and very well yet this it infers and evidently proves That our Saviour and his Succession the Church have been always supposed to have had a Kingdom in the World not to supplant and overturn to usurp and encroach upon but to bless that other of the World to render it Prosperous on Earth and by her holier Laws and Discipline to bring all to the Kingdom of Heaven when the Reign on Earth is at an end But this D. Blondel could not or would not see himself and therefore a thing too usual with him runs into the opposite extreme to his Adversaries is angry when this very Church-Power and its existence of which himself gives so evident a Demonstration is asserted solitary and not in the Empire as no ways flowing and included in its Constitution as the other will have no Empire but from and in the Church so hard a matter is it for some Men to contend for Truth and against the Church of Rome at once and as has above been observed but these Oversights if no worse are usual with him 't is like his ill luck in other cases § XVIII AND he that duly consults and considers the sundry Proceedings and Laws and judiciary Acts of the Empire about Church-Matters either as interspersed in our Church Histories or as Collected and United in the two Codes the Theodosian and Justinian in their several Laws Novels and Constitutions will readily grant all this and more that the Church and State the Worldly or Secular and Ecclesiastical or Spiritual Power were still consider'd reputed and proceeded on as quite distinct Bodies and Powers though both flowing from the same Original and Fountain yet as diverse as the Soul and Body with several Offices and Duties on each incumbent in different Channels convey'd and all aiming at the great and ultimate end the general advantage of Mankind and each individual both with their faces to the same Jerusalem but in several Paths and Determinations judiciary in order to it Hee 'l find that as the Church the Councils and Bishops were ever Conscientious and Industrious that they entrenched not on the Empire withheld not from it what was its due usurped not any thing was not their own paid all manner of Observances to Kings and Secular Governors in all manner of Duties as Prayers Thanksgiving Instructions Directions Admonitions Tribute Loyalty c. So again did the Empire preserve their Functions Persons and Estates give them Liberties Enfranchisements Protestations unless where Apostates as Julian where overmuch favouring Heresies as some time Constantius c. countenanced and provided for Truth and Holiness and sound Discipline according to the Rules Canons Directions Interpretations and Determinations given by the Bishops assembled in Council or occasionally otherways made and recommended unto them the Church still Petitioned and Supplicated the Empire when by the Affronts and Insolencies the greater Impieties and Obstinacies of the World the edge of their Spiritual Sword was dulled and blunted when Coercive outward Punishments alone could hope to prevail for Peace and Amendment of this we have several Instances upon Record as for the deposing Dioscorus in Evagrius his Ecclesiastical History l. 2. c. 4. in placing Proclus in the Episcopal Throne Socrat. Hist Eccl. lib. 7. cap. 4. which was immediately by Theodosius Maximinianus the defuncts Body being not yet laid in the Ground to prevent the Tumults of the People To this purpose we have the Case of one Cresconius a Bishop who left his own and invaded another's Church and upon a remand from the Council refusing to return the President of the Country is Petitioned and his Secular arm which alone has a Coercive Power over Mens Persons sends him back again according to the Constitutions Imperial Concil Carthag Can. 52. just such another Case as that of Paulus Samosetanus in the days of Aurelian the Emperor above-mentioned and the course of Proceedings we see is the same now as then both in Church and State as that Laws may be made to restrain such as were fled to the Church for refuge Can. 60. that the Riot and Excess be taken away on their Festivals which drew Men to Gentilism again by the obscener Practices and which were without shame and beyond Modesty Can. 65 66. that the Secular Power would come in eò quod Episcoporum autoritas incivitatibus contemnitur because the Power of the Bishops is contemn'd in the Cities Can. 70. ut Ecclesiae opem ferat to assist the Church against these Impieties so strenuous and prevailing Can. 78. as in the Case of the unrulier Donatists Can. 95 96. and the Thanks of the Bishops were given for their Ejection Can. 97. and the Emperor is Petitioned to grant Defensors to the Church Can. 10.109 and as the Church thus supplicated the Empire in these arduous Cases and when its assistance was wanting so on the other side did the Empire still advise with the Church when designing to make Religion the Municipal Law of the Empire to imbody it with the World under the same Sanctions either as to Punishments or Rewards to make it the Religion of the State also they still consulted antecedent Canons or present Bishops in Council or some Ecclesiastical Autority they created nothing anew gave the help of the World for Countenance Assistance and Confirmation to stablish what the Church had put its Sanction upon And those Emperors that designed to discountenance Christianity or set up some particular Heresie and stifle it in part or depose any great Church-men and some such there was they attempted it not but by the Clergy though of their own the Power as in themselves alone was not pretended to they had their own Synods and Bishops in order to it and what they did was done in their Names also and all this will readily appear to any one acquainted with the Canons of the Church and Laws of the Empire or if it seem too hard a task he 'l find it at least attempted to his hand and with Care and Industry reduced to a little room by Photius Patriarch of Constantinople in his Book therefore called the Nomo-Canon to shew the concurrency of the Laws and Canons the Canons still placed first as in course anteceding And in this sense only that of Socrates can be understood in the Proem to his Fifth Book of Ecclesiastical History 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Reges viz. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 So soon as Kings began to be Christians the things of the Church were managed and accomplished

by them By which things what is there intended and what the Power came into the Empires hand by becoming Christian the next words of the Historian clears making the Instance 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and the greatest Synods were by their Appointment Summoned and still are so I 'le bring here some instances of the Power and Procedure of the Empire in Church Businesses to render all more conspicuous if possible § XIX AND the first shall be this of Calling Synods just now mentioned the giving leave to Church-men to meet and unite in one Body in a certain place of the Empire limited to them Publickly to enquire examine debate and determine in Religion in which Councils if the Emperor himself was not present in Person he deputed some chief Minister of State there to represent him Thus Constantine himself sat in Person in the Case of Cecilianus and the Donatists Miltiades and the Bishop of Rome and the Clergy debating it as St. Austin tells us lib. 1. cont Parmen Donatist and Flavius Marcellinus is deputed afterwards by the Emperors Honorius and Theodosius in a Collation of that Nature as a Secular Cognitor and Supervisor 16. Cod. Theodos Lex 3. Tit. 11. they exercised a Power and Cognizance over all Persons in these Causes and Meetings they were then their Subjects as before and whom they commanded and though such Members were obliged at the Summons of the Bishops themselves and by consent among one another to be present at the Council to come in and appear there Can. 80. Concil Carthag yet the Emperor retain'd a Power above them and they might be absent altogether or depart after they had appeared if the Emperor 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 by his Letters required it Concil Sardicens Can. 7. they had a Power over the very Causes themselves in these Conciliary Clerical Debates and Determinations and were Judges here If all that was determined seem'd not duly reported or adjusted every ways clear and plain unto them if scruples and doubts notwithstanding remain if new matter proposed and adjudged considerable by the adverse Parties De Clericis judicantibus Praesidet Imperator ipse prout malè vel benè Judicat 16. Cod. Theodos l. 42. Tit. 2. and which Law though instancing in some Immunities as to Publick Secular things yet holds in other Decisions So Constantine heard the Cause of Cecilianus and the Donatists a second time when the Bishops had heard it before and Myltiades of Rome was there as above in St. Austin And it was the suit of the Bishops in the Council of Chalcedon that it might be decreed by a Law that all things at Ephesus since the first Synod there of which St. Cyril of Alexandria was Chief should not retain any force implying it in his Power to revise and reconsider and he may reexamine the Actions of Councils Compend Act. Synod Chalced. apud Evagrium Eccl. Hist l. 2. cap. 18. And Petrus de Marca gives us several instances of the like nature of Appeals made to the Empire upon the results of Councils and he accepted them De Concord Sacerd. Imper. l. 7. c. 2. that the Emperor had directed and limited in what Points and how far to proceed calling Councils only for particular occasions as De Marca Ibid. lib. 6. c. 22. and all this the Security of the Empire required in the common course of things that no Men imbody or unite locally upon any Plea whatever or Pretence of what Business soever and not by his Warrant under his Oversight and Protection whose Designation and Commissions come not from him and all which Christianity supposes and declared for upon its admission into the World and Kingdoms imbracing of it it appoints every Man wherein he was called there to abide if a state of Honesty and Justice not of that filthiness sometimes reign'd among the Gentiles and many times had a Chief Place in what they called Religious Worship this Christianity was designed to rectifie and remove but continue to Caesar the things that are Caesar's adds new Obligations to Government and gives new Arguments for Obedience to it but cancels no one takes no one subject in any one instance from under his Jurisdiction nor can any Governor be secure upon other terms that has so many Persons so considerable as so many Professors are or at least may be with Power to associate in his Jurisdictions as they shall please and when and not in all instances relating to such their imbodying his Subjects or though if not able to meet without his Call yet when together and not under his Inspection and Jurisdiction not Govern'd by his Rules and Laws with a Power to canvass and unhinge to insinuate and propose and manage as they shall list and how long in Ordine ad Spiritualia if they judge it useful to Religion This is the same in effect as to meet at their Wills no Government can bear it can subsist on such conditions all must or may at the Pleasure or Piques of such the associated be undermined and ruined Again the Empire is engaged as to preserve the Laws of the Church then in being so that in making new ones those the old be not entrenched upon and affronted or that the repeals be upon equitable accounts and agreeable with the Catholick Faith certainly received with former Sanctions of either their Ancestry or their own and these we find the Rules and Directions given by the Emperors Honorius and Theodosius to Flavianus Marcellinus their Secular Cognitor in the Debates about the Donatists Ea quae circa fidem Catholicam vel certa ordinavit antiquitas vel Parentum nostrorum autoritas Religiosa constituit vel nostra Serenitas roboravit Novella Superstitione remotâ inviolata custodire praecipimus suprà Cod. Theodos 16. Tit. 11. l. 3. and indeed it were an Imposition not to be indured in common Business betwixt one man and another when but a private Consent Confirmation and Autority is desired to deny liberty of Enquiring Demurring Discoursing or Debating or whatsoever may seem best to tend to Information as to particulars and then how insufferable if not allow'd the Prince when supplicated and call'd in by the Church to make Laws give the Royal Assent Stamp and Character and Protection to their Results and Determinations and which otherwise must want the edge and advantage of it and not upon a freedom to consider former Laws and Canons made and ratified with future inconveniences that may happen this were indeed to make Princes Lacqueys Hackneys or what vile and mean enough we can say to the Church to debase them into the order of Ideots or Pageants all true Church-men in their Offers and Proceedings have started at and abhorr'd it But then we are to note farther that when the Emperors appear'd in Councils whether themselves in Person or by their Proxies and Substitutes the most Politick and Prudent the more Acute and Ingenious as Theodosius or any other they acted there

by him and their Religion was allow'd after their own manner again The meaning of which can be only this that the Laws of the Empire gave License and Indempnity to their Persons in the ancient and accustomed exercise of it and which they accepted and were thankful for But does it hence follow that they acknowledged and return'd their Original Right either for their Worship in general or Excommunication in particular in and to Caesar and that they ceased to have any because denied by the Empire surely not they only were more streightned in its exercise when under his interdict Nor had they less right or stood they less bound to its Obligations in every respect when this liberty was not conceded under their Vassalage and though the Empire own'd them not even at this very time i. e. during their Captivity Mr. Selden says they assumed this Discipline of Excommunication or a naked Exclusion from outward Communion by consent among themselves the better to keep up and preserve this their Religion when so suppress'd by the Civil Power Ibid. suprà Cap. 7. pag. 141. 143. alibi as they would not this day in England or in what other Countries they are dispersed therefore forego such their Right should the present Government distress and frown upon them Nor do I know any one case or instance coming up nearer to the state of the Power and Right of the Prince in Ecclesiasticks and the Right of the Church Absolute too and Independent than this of the Jews under the Empire their Religion is from another Fountain and the Empire does not derive it unto them and Gallio the Secular Deputy could discharge his Duty without caring for any of these things when the Matters were purely of their Laws and Customs but yet their Persons and the Publick exercise of it are subject to this Government and Jurisdiction to limit or enlarge indulge or recall as may be the Reasons and Motives and is his Will and Pleasure Thus it stood with the Jewish Church in the days of our Saviour in the Flesh and of his Apostles and so it is to this day where the Association or imbodying is continued nor did the Empire conceive its Power any ways intrenched upon or abated thereby did he cease upon the account of their Worship to continue to them his Protection or had they any ingagement to withdraw their Obedience only those uncircumcised in Hearts and Ears which always resisted the Holy Ghost and Crucified the Lord of Life sometimes attempted Insurrections and Rebellions against him BUT however it was with the Heathen § XXIII Emperors in respect of the Jews Mr. Selden positively says it that the Christian Emperors did actually exercise the censures of the Church judicially Anathematize and Excommunicate in their own Persons and Rights he having first swollen up himself with an Opinion and a true one too true it is that himself is the great Searcher of Records and Authors and Laws of the Books and Practice of all Ages and if the mighty the laborious Selden has said it it must be so there can be no doubt of there needs no other search after it otherwise he could never have ventur'd to obtrude it on the world as out of the Imperial Code that Princes have so Excommunicated whose Laws Declarations Practice Positive Assertions and Dogmatical Resolutions are quite another ways as I have already made it appear in these foregoing Pages which Collection and Citations if any one distrust let but himself peruse the particulars with much more that might be added out of the Nomocanon Church-story and Primitive Fathers concurring with and giving strength to such the Relations and the Grounds he delivers it from is such that a Man may swear 't was his bloated conceit of his Name at the Fount like gild to the Pills possessed with as aery a Phancy that any thing would down of his wrapping up in the following Pages could engage him to it I confess could any one have found such things out none likelier than he his Zeal and Industry being singular I wish his Integrity had been so too he seldom missing of any thing within the compass of his designed subject that may be any ways useful to his present Plot and Enquiry had he as little fail'd in his use and applying of them The places he produces for Evidence in his Treatise De Synedriis lib. 1. cap. 10. pag. 318. is out of the Sixteenth Code Theodosian Tit. 5. Lex 6. where Gratianus Valentinianus and Theodosius thus give the charge to Eutropius not Hesperius as he That all Hereticks especially such as oppose the Nicene Faith Ab omnium summoti Ecclesiarum limine penitus arceantur communione Sanctorum inhibentur c. with others to the same purpose in the following Laws both here and in the Justinian Code That Justinian oft in his own Name thus speaks Anathematizamus Anathematizentur sub Excommunicatione fiet c. and which are to be found Code lib. 1. That such be not suffer'd to come into the Church be inhibited the Communion of Saints we do anathematize them Let him be Anathematized let him be under Excommunication c. by which all that can be meant is only this and which is the Province of every good Christian Governor to see that the Laws of the Church be duly put in Execution that the royal Will and Pleasure is it should be so the Laws and Canons of the Church the Rule of Faith to be believed and adhered to requiring it and to which his Imperial concurrence is annexed which he confirms and strengthens by his Autority and will stand by in the Execution as 't is explain'd Novel 42. and that is to be his sense if the Codes may interpret themselves which is much more proper than for Selden to do it it being there most certain that the judicial Act was from the Church and Phrases must be interpreted according to the present Subject and designed Matter and no more is meant then that Prerogative which we see to have been given always to all Godly Princes in Holy Scripture by God himself that they should rule all Estates and Degrees committed to their Charge by God whether they be Ecclesiastical or Temporal and restrain with the Sword the stubborn and evil doers as 't is expressed in our Seven and thirtieth Article and he himself confesses unawares in the next lines having a Quotation to bring in and cannot either omit it or tell where else to do it That they only simply judged them cursed of God 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as in the Georgick Laws and that their design was they should be notabiles and marked out for it by whose act and judicial Sentence 't is not express'd And what he brings out of the Hundred and three and twentieth Novel cap. 11. and Photius his Nomocanon 9.9 to prove it the Act of the Empire is quite another thing and none but he arrived to that strange Presumption as to

believe that every one that reads his Book is sworn to his Name and Words could possibly have produced them The Emperor only there takes care that Excommunication be according to the Church Canons suitably as Ecclesiastici hoc Canones fieri jubent in the Nomocanon the formal Power and Act is always supposed to be in and to be done by the Bishop or Priest if the Bishop or Presbyter Excommunicate otherwise than as the Canons enjoyn the Person so Excommunicated is to be absolved by another Bishop or Presbyter who has the inspection of them à Majore Sacerdote in the Novel and that Bishop or Presbyter that did the wrong is to be censured by the Bishop under whose Inspection or in whose district he is and lye under the Mulct at his Pleasure nor is there one word sounds that way that the Emperor did Excommunicate Nor can the Emperor with any more shew of reason be said to pass the formal Sentence of Excommunication by taking care and making Provision that it be done according to the Laws and Canons of the Church than he can be said to make Articles of Faith and determine in the high Points of the Trinity for which he appoints that the first Council at Nicea shall be the Rule and often enacts and resolves it shall be so explain'd and believed and professed accordingly as in that Council He may as well be said to make Creeds which he enjoyns to be done but by the Patriarchs and Bishops and the particular Faith to be professed by them or to Baptize for which Directions are given especially about Re-baptization and he judges him unfit for the Priesthood that does it Cod. Justinian l. 1. Tit. 6. Ne Baptismus iteretur he may no otherwise be said to Excommunicate than to obstruct Conversion or hinder Repentance and yet 't is the Imperial Edict against and Punishment upon Apostates Nè unquam in Pristinum statum revertentur nè flagitium morum obliterabitur Poenitentiâ Cod. 16. Theodos Tit. 6. l. 1. that they are never to return to their ancient state that the vileness of their Manners be never blotted out by Repentance intimating only the greatness of the Sin and the height of his indignation against them or that he did publickly officiate in his own Person in the daily Sacrifices because he takes care for a just Performance of the publick Liturgies and Services and when he declares against Oaths and Blasphemies that the guilt is not antecedent and from another Sanction Novel 78. and to put an end to these like instances that he Ordains in Person and makes Priests by whom so many Laws and Rules and Limitations and Qualifications are set and appointed as is above to be seen But as for this last instance Mr. Selden has found out so handsom an expedient for the Original of Holy Orders otherways and thereby renders them so accidentally trifling inconsiderable a thing that he answers his aim evacuates and baffles so effectually all Church-Power and indeed upon his Hypothesis so inconsiderable a thing it is that a Church-man would not desire it upon such terms much less is it a Prerogative fit for a King a Jewel for the embellishing the Crown Imperial so that he needs not contend to have this in the Magistrate as he doth the Church Censures He tells us De Synedriis lib. 1. cap. 14. pag. 569 570 571. and lib. 2. cap. 7. pag. 313 314 c. That Holy Orders has no more in it than an imitation of that particular School wherein St. Paul was educated under Gamaliel where it was usual for one that had arrived to a degree of Eminence above others as that of a Doctor to appoint and send out others under and after him And so St. Paul did in the managery of his Apostleship But did our Saviour also take this great Example of Gamaliel's School in his Eye when he sent forth his Twelve and Seventy or was it from his particular Education in some such place he took his Autority and Platform or did the Holy Ghost do the l●ke when placing Overseers in that Church which Christ had Purchased with his own Blood was not as the Purchase that of his own Blood so the Power by which he gathered and established it that All Power in Heaven and Earth first given unto him peculiar and extraordinary or did St. Paul himself say it was from Gamaliel's School or from the Will of any Man or from the Will of God he received his Apostleship himself and thereby had a Power to depute others as Timothy and Titus And surely unless his bare fiction of Story and Eutopian Plot must go for Truth and without any search and enquiry there can be nought in it to engage any assent or adherency unto it it is so precarious a begg'd thing that only those that deserve to be begg'd themselves can believe it and Mr. Selden doubtless pleased himself mightily to think how many fools it would meet with and he was sure of others of as ill a mind and design with himself to tread under foot the Ministry when it was down that it rise no more especially at that time when he wrote at least laid the contrivance of those his Tracts De Synedriis when the Sword of the Libertine alone bore rule and he took the advantage of it Nor has any one reason to believe that he bore better Will to the King than to the Church for he was a Member of that Rebellious Parliament of Forty Two and continued actually amidst them and bore a special sway in their Traiterous Actings and however his Pretence was That all Church-Power as from Christ was an Imposture and invading the Prerogative of the Crown it was in reality only to serve his Parliamentary Designs to take away the chief Support of the Crown that Church which mostly upheld it and 't was a sadder Sight yet to see it not only the usual fate of common Subjects but the Case of the greatest Prince then in Europe to be first stript of his Crown and Kingly Power to be made and publish'd a Bankrupt in the State lost as to his worldly Imployments and then made a Priest to have only the Power and Benefit of his Clergy remaining in and confirm'd unto him § XXIV THE sum of all is this The Empire it self never made any thing Law that related to the Church but what was first made Canon by the Church it self and those Powers always took their Direction from Church-men either in full Council or from the Practice of particular Churches or eminent Bishops of the Christian World and superadded their own Sanctions put under it their Secular Arm adjoyn'd their Autority to support and stablish them all those Directions to the several Patriarchs Exarchs Primates and Metropolitans were only to see their own Results at Councils practiced all the Edicts Laws Novels and Constitutions were first Church-Law and then the Law of the Empire receiv'd into the World and imbodied

extraordinary Commissions have ceased which the Apostles and firsh Publishers of the Gospel had though by present Miracles not to be justified And this equally enabling and warranting the Church of God such as can evidence the Succession of Power in its own and appointed way as when Miracles were annexed to affront is an improper Speech but to Teach Declare and Protest against the Establish'd Religion of a Nation if a false one openly to draw Men off from the Profession of it in Contempt is again an ill Expression but in different ways and rules of Duty then those false ones of the Law and Magistrate though the Men of the World do Publish their dislike and threaten and punish and go on into a Law against them as they did when Christianity was first Taught and Church-Power first came down was setled and professed in the World though the Kings of the Earth stand up together and the Rulers take Council they rise up as one Man as did Herod and Pontius Pilate and all the Gentiles against the Child Jesus as it was then the Apostles so is it no less our Duty thus to speak before Kings and not be ashamed Church-Power came first into the World as not from the School of Gamaliel so nor from the Thrones of Kings and 't is independant and distant as in its rise so in its execution though embellish'd assisted and strengthened advantaged much by the outward favours of Princes their many Adjuncts and royal Appendages and which where conferr'd will equally embellish and add to their own Crowns to be sure in Heaven And upon these terms to suffer will be our Duty if what we profess be not received it will amount to Martyrdom If the King's wrath be the return and our Doctrine with our selves be cast out and if we do not this it will come too near the Traditores in the days of the Donatists or to those that offer'd at Heathen Shrines in the Persecutions before what will it be but to give up our Bibles and Profession upon the Summons of any prevailing Party to give up to be sure our Church-Power and which amounts to in effect the same nor can Christianity continue without it when upon Perswasion of the Arians first upon point as he thought of interest receiving his Father's Will from an Arian Priest and then by the Miletians joyning with them Constantius the Emperor engaged against the Faith of one Substance and great and rigorous Persecutions were its consequent Athanasius and his followers that adhered to the Nicene Faith in that Doctrine did not therefore in point of Conscience submit and say nothing with but silence give over and desert the Truth but the rather were more vigorous and active for it even to the greatest Calumnies and Distresses which through the malicious instigations of the Arians and Meletians as evil Men always unite against Truth the Emperor laid upon them And though Liberius of Rome and Hosius of Corduba this latter the ancientest Bishop then in the Christian World and who was one of the Council of Nice and Penned that Creed and Gregory Nazianzen and others even the whole World becoming Arians as St. Jerome complain'd by the height of Threats and succession of Miseries after sharp trials and resistancies did at length submit and subscribe to their Doctrines yet it cost them both repentance and tears as Gregory Nazianzen declares in particular in the Life of Athanasius And all this they did and thought themselves bound in Conscience to do not as extraordinarily Commissioned as the Apostles and first Publishers of the Gospel were as warranted and justified by Miracles but as commissionated in course by their Holy Orders instated with the same Autority though not in so open a shew and equally bound to render an account to God of such their trust and charge committed then and therewith unto them as the same Stewards of his Mysteries and this not upon the receipt of any new Revelation from Heaven but upon the score of their ordinary Ministry contending for the Faith once delivered to the Saints guided and directed by the Tradition of Faith delivered by the Apostles and conserv'd in the Church by a continued devolution and to which St. Athanasius and all the Catholick Bishops which strove against Arianism always referr'd themselves and is evident on all Occasions from Church History as Socrat. Eccl. Hist l. 2. c. 46. l. 3. c. 7. Athanasius ad Serapion ad Epictet Ep. that Faith into which when recommended to him and explain'd the Emperor Theodosius was Baptized Socrat. Hist Eccl. l. 5. c. 6. upon which rule all the Councils proceeded in their Conciliary Acts and Determinations as Can. 13. Conc. Nic. 1. Can. 19. Conc. Hab. in Trullo Can. 2. Conc. 2. Nic. Athanas Orat. 1. Cont. Arios and they proceeding upon this bottom what they Decreed is to be receiv'd for Truth by all Christians is to be subscribed and assented to is to be taught before Kings when denying of it 't was this Theodosius himself acknowledged at his Death 't is reputed as the Law the Voice of God himself as St. Basil ad Diodorum among his Canons apud Pandect Can. Beverig and so by Constantine the Emperor in Socrates Hist Eccl. l. 1. c. 9. Sozom. l. 1. cap. 20. 25. and in particular it will be expected that that common 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that usual shift be omitted so usual among us when this known Power of the Church is urged That 't is accidental only in its Original introduced by the present necessity and upon a common consent and compact the Christians being then under Heathen Governors to whose Judicatures it was neither for their Safety nor Honor to Appeal and stand their Trial and Verdict and therefore they resolv'd it all into the chief Church-men and which Power Constantine becoming Christian and so the succeeding Emperors confirmed by his Royal Autority and continued of his own choice and motion unto them This is the common tattle of the wiser Men as they think and are generally so reputed reporting it to the World with much Confidence and yet upon no other ground than old Womens Stories are told and bottom'd at the farthest they 'l tell you that Mr. Selden and Mr. Hobs said so and every one is as secure of its Autority and Credit as if they had read it in the Gospel of our Saviour or in one of St. Paul's Epistles when 't is all as false as the Gospel it self is true Great and many were the Priviledges Royal Favours and Immunities that Constantine bestow'd upon the Church and Church-men he receiv'd them with both hands and with him in the Comedy could he have found a third he would have gave it them He annex'd to them Adjuncts and Appendages which their Lord and Master Christ Jesus did not could not would not do his Kingdom being not of this World nor was it his business to divide Inheritances and he had all the reason in the world

own'd and attributed as hers in those days of the Church Justinian writing to John Patriarch of Old Rome as he there stiles him and his See Novel 9. says enough of the See it self Sortita est ut Originem legum ita summi Pontificatûs apicem nemo est qui dubitet And he goes on and calls Rome Patriam Legum Fontem Sacerdotii veneranda Sedes summi Apostoli Petri. She is the venerable Seat of the chief Apostle St. Peter the top of the Pontificate the Mother of Laws and Fountain of the Priesthood By all which thus much is only imply'd That Eminent and Renowned was that See at that time great and huge her Care and Service in the Church of God something peculiar was effected but that the Original Power and Autority was special also and by which she acted none other equalling of her this cannot be granted The Applications and Instructions for Government had then in course been accordingly which we have observed was to none higher than the Patriarch And let but Justinian explain himself as 't is all the reason in the world he should have leave so to do and all will be plain and easie Papa veteris Romae est Caput omnium Sacerdotum Dei vel eò maximè quod quoties in iis locis haeretici pullularunt Sententiâ recto judicio illius Sedis coerciti sunt Cod. l. 1. Tit. 1.7 The Pope of Old Rome is the Head of all the Priests of God upon this account especially that in those Places or within his Districts Heresies did spring up and by the Sentence and right Judgment of that Venerable Seat they were Suppressed meaning he was more expedite and happy strenuous and successful than other Bishops in such those like Undertakings Otherwise Peter of Alexandria as well as Damasus of Rome are proposed as Leaders and Examples of the Catholick Faith in that very Code Title And the Four first General Councils of Nice Constantinople c. are the Conviction of Hereticks and such reputed Hereticks that refuse Communion not with the Bishop of Rome but with Procerius of Alexandria Tit. 5. Ibid. 8.3 And so 't is again Cod. Theodos 16. Tit. 1. l. 16. and this very often elsewhere and these very Complements or rather due Characters we have here given to the Bishop of Rome we find given also to much privater Bishops on the like Occasions for their particular learning Piety and Service in the Church So Acholius is called by St. Ambrose murus fidei And Gregory Nazianzen calls St. Basil 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and which are produced by Jacob Gothofred in his Comments on the fore-mentioned place and no Inserences of a solitary appropriate Power and Jurisdiction was ever thence inferr'd or but attempted But this is the usual proceeding with the Romanist Zelot from some one or more occasional Character Power Concession or particular Priviledge devolved granted and affixed on the Bishop of Rome to deduce general Rules and manage them to a Perpetuation give them in charge as standing marks and Laws immutable exclusive to all others What if Athanasius did Appeal to Rome in his Cause was it that none else could equally hear and legally determine it He fled thither perhaps as Sozomen tells us his Successor Peter did because of the same Faith with him Lib. 2. Hist Eccl. cap. 22. or rather because his Vogue and Autority was more in the World than that of Eugubium the far abler to Protect and give Autority to his Sentence given for him as no one in England but would fix upon Canterbury rather than Landasse had he the like occasion Besides each Bishop as such has the Care of the Universal Church committed unto him 't is given in his Orders And since the several Districts by after Laws particular Bishops have oft interposed and intermedled by their Care for some Churches and Proceedings foreign to their particular Exarchies or Bishopricks and 't is recorded as their true Zeal and Merit of which we have abundance of instances given us by Spalatensis De Repub. Eccl. l. 2. c. 7. Sect. 6 7 8 9 c. and which might be the Motive in the case of Holy Athanasius The Council of Sardica gives something to Rome for the honor of St. Peter And how the Cyprians have gain'd much for the honor of St. Barnabas because his Reliques were found in their Island with the Gospel of St. Matthew upon his Breast fairly written with his own hand we are informed Lib. 2. Tripart Hist Eccl. Theodori Lectoris set forth by Vallesius at the end of the Ecclesiastical Histories Their Metropolis thereby became free and independent as much as Rome it self not subject to Antioch as formerly Peter upon whom by the favour of our Lord the Church is founded This is the usual saying of St. Cyprian Peter James and John are the Pillars of the Church and upon them is the Foundation of the Church laid So St. Jerome Comment in Galat. Cap. 2. with more to the same purpose and any one that is but a little skill'd in St. Cyprian and the Church-Affairs by him transacted will not easily believe that he resolved his Faith into the Bishop of Rome his own Opinion together with them of Carthage where he was Arch-Bishop about Rebaptization are too notorious Evidences to the contrary and no one gives to St. Peter and his Succession more glorious Epithetes than he all along does And that the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Privileges attributed to Rome and in which Constantinople is to be second Can. 3. Conc. Gen. Constantinop are not of real Power but only of Place and Honorary is plain from the 36 Can. Conc. in Trullo For the same Privilege Rome hath before Constantinople Constantinople has before Alexandria and Alexandria has before Antioch and Jerusalem is the lowermost Neither of which Four are pretended by any nor will the Church of Rome to be sure admit to have any thing of real Power over one another I shall end this Section and all that I have to say on this Head with that of the 42 Can. Conc. Carthag 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. That the first Bishop or Bishop of the first Seat be not called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Prince of Priests or the chief Priest but only the Bishop 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of the first Seat and which first Seat that it is in no manner dependent on Rome and the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 so often mentioned in the following Canons ows not thither any Appeals nor can the Bishop of Rome wrest the Audience out of his hands is so clearly the sense of that Council that nothing can be more it being there Positively and on set purpose decided and determined against him upon the detection of that Fraud of the Bishop of Rome's design'd upon them in the very Case and but just now by me mentioned or more plainly in the Scholia on Aristenus upon that Canon The Dignity of the

where there is a doubt and no sure witness to avouch the Baptism pretended once to be administred or the Persons themselves are not able to give an account of the Mysteries then delivered unto them as Can. 57. Conc. Carthag and which Canon was occasioned by their Embassador with the Moors who usually brought such Children from the Barbarians but yet there is no instance in the first Canons of rebaptizing those who were certainly known to be baptized in the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost upon any accident by Lay-men and yet such we have reason to believe there was Hence Baptism once appearing to have been administred as to the Matter and Substance of it and in the words of the Institution and by such as were not of the Hieratical Order they adjudged it the safer way to trust the Mercy and Goodness of God for a supply of whatever defect might be in one or two outward Circumstances than to run the hazard of an attempt of what seemed so visibly and notoriously unlawful viz. a second admission by that Sacrament or a violation of that known and sacred rule or instance of our Belief one Baptism for remission of Sins And this as in all defects and where something is wanting it ought to be permitted and pardoned only under the present and unhappy Circumstances as also in the after practice of the Church but never produced and urged as a Rule enacted into a Law Infirmities are never made Presidents unless for Pity and Pardon and to quicken future care and watchfulness against them the common course of things abhors nor is it to be endur'd if otherwise Potestatem regenerationis demandans suis discipulis cum dixit iis Euntes docete omnes gentes baptizantes c. Iren. l. 3. c. 19. Christ Jesus then demandated or devolved the Power for Regeneration unto his Disciples when he bad them go and teach all Nations baptizing them c. and certainly such as attempt it ought first to receive the same Autority in Succession from him without which his Disciples that in Person attended him did it not Tertullian represents it as the height of impudence and irregularity for a Woman to baptize forsitan tingere a more sawcy act then to teach in the Church De praescr c. 41. then which no Book was ever wrote with a more Primitive Spirit and speaks of it as a thing in general forbad a Woman de Virgin Veland c. 9. He limits it to the Bishop Presbyter and Deacon only in necessity it comes to the Lay-man Sufficiat sc ut in necessitatibus utaris sicubi aut loci aut temporis aut personae conditio compellit tunc enim constantia succurrentis excipitur quam urgit circumstantia periclitantis De Baptism c. 17. and surely that which is but one never to be reiterated 't is Sacriledge 't is incest to do it to which so many and great Titles Eulogies and Effects are given by the Ancients it would be endless to repeat them so many to be sure more are not spoken of any one Service in the whole City of God That which first enters us into the Body and Association of Christians with so large Promises upon such solemn ties and obligations the Expectations and Duties of our whole life following and that which is performed and obtained with the same solemnity and invocation as in other Holy Mysteries invocato Deo Sanctificationis Sacramentum consequuntur aequae Tertul de Baptism c. 4. it is not agreeable that the Consecration and Solemnization be left and assigned promiscuously and to every hand and which is not in other Sacraments it must in course be equally peculiar and separate as to the separation of the Persons that are to be entrusted with the administration of it A further appropriated distinct Power to § XXX the Officers of the Church is to unite and determine in Council in the affairs of Religion as to Matters of Faith when less cleer when unhappily wrested and perverted by Hereticks in fixing things indifferent in their Nature for the more usefulness order and uniformity in the Worship of God for the setling of Consciences in the private apprehension of them and governing suitable to such the Laws and Canons in each case so made and constituted by them For this end the Apostles and Elders met together and united in Council at Jerusalem and determined concerning things offer'd to Idols and eating of Blood c. Acts 15. so those many subsequent Councils whilst the Empire kept off from the Church as against that Error of the Arabians that the Souls sleep upon the separation Euseb Hist l. 6. c. 37. in that against Novatus Cap. 43. against Paulus Samosetanus l. 7. c. 29. with several others in History transmitted to this purpose was that Body or Collection of Canons bearing the Title of the Apostles Canons upon several occasions made for the use and direction and government of the Christian Incorporation and Society such were the four first general Councils when the Empire became Christian and receiv'd the Church under its wings and protection The first under Constantine held at Nicaea against Arius and asserted the Eternity of the Son of God that he was not a meer Creature The second held at Constantinople under Theodosius the Great against Macedonius and asserted the Eternal divinity of the Holy Ghost who said the third Person was a meer Creature The third was held at Ephesus under Theodosius the lesser against Nestorius who own'd the both Godhead and Manhood of Christ but divided him into two Persons The fourth at Chalcedon under Marcian the Emperor against Eutiches who consounded the two Natures in one Person as Nestorius divided the Persons with others whether Oecumenical or Topical during or succeeding these and whose either Declarations as to what Faith was at first delivered and since received upon a just and traditional enquiry even to the placing some Books into the Canon of Scripture which were not with the earliest admitted or constituted Canons in Church-Polity were still thought obliging to all good and peaceable Christians determined and ended the present debate and only a Compliance was the issue of them and that either to all Christendom or particular Churches suitable as were the Councils either Universal or under single Metropolitans or particular Bishops accordingly did they oblige And this Legislative Power as originally given only to Church-Officers so is it alone residing in them to rule and to govern receive or reject to punish or reward according to such their own Laws as the reason and nature of such the Societies and their Constitution will direct and bear as unhappy Differences and Debates arose they were thus to be decided by the Convention of Councils who either confirmed what they found was well done before or passed farther Sanctions where the occasion was new or upon notoriety of failure in former Declarations For the Power of Councils was never asserted

〈◊〉 they obey their appointed Laws and by their exacter Lifes and stricter Conversations go beyond the Laws supererogate and are more perfect than their Rules require or Sanctions enjoyn them To which I 'le add that of Octavius to Cecilianus in Minutius Faelix De nostro numero carcer exaestuat Christianus ibi nullus est nisi aut reus suae Religionis aut Profugus your Prisons swarm the Walls will scarce contain them but there is no Christian unless Runawaies and Desertors of their Religion and when we assert the divine Right of Titles and that God himself assigned and separated such a Portion of the goods of the Earth for the maintenance of the Evangelical Priesthood also and which Sanction is to endure together with the Kingdom and to take away this is to rob God we do not then maintain them with any such Clause in the Charter or Conveyance warranting and enabling a forcible violent Entry as in the usual cases of Right and Property upon dispossession that Power St. Paul speaks of as to Eat and to Drink not to work with our hands but to live upon the Gospel and which we believe to descend with the Gospel is together with holy Orders invested in him is quite another thing and neither implies nor supposes Power like it it is bottomed only on the Grounds and Reasons of our Association nor has it any other motives but those which make us Christians and which did not at all depend on outward force Hence it was till the world came into the Church that the Priesthood was maintained by what every one offer'd upon the forementioned inducements and as he that denied this maintenance to him that served at the Altar was supposed still to deny withal his Faith and place in the Body of Christians and suitably is it with the greatest equity and proportion of things still the continued Practice of the Christian Courts to Excommunicate or cut off such an one from the Church Communion so neither could they which saw no reason why themselves should become Christians be supposed to be convinced by other reasons of the necessity of maintaining those who claimed no other right for the maintenance than their Preaching and Publishing such that Religion And therefore when upon with-holding of Tithes or the Churches Revenue we proceed farther than Excommunication to Personal Confinement or whatever outward restraint we have no Warrant or Power for this but from the Prince and the Laws of the Land alone enable us to do it 'T is true to have a Body or Government in it self distinct and apart from that which is Secular and with its own obligations for maintenance which way soever it arises but more especially when from so prevailing a motive and engagement as that which makes men Christians and entitles them to Eternity to have their own bank or stock to what ends or on what Persons soever erogated and expended it matters not whether on their Poor or on their Clergy to which add the Power to assemble for religious Worship upon the same Considerations is what may carry some appearance for Suspitions and Jealousies from the State and advantages are possible to be taken for undermining and overthrowing of it upon each occasion a Government indeed ought to be watchful and jealous in such Cases Premunires Eschetes and Confiscations are but due and equitable Provisions as by Law assigned that surely is a very unsafe Rule I find among other as bad laid down by Mr. Dean in his Sermon in a case not very unlike to this in hand He that acknowledges himself to derive all his Autority from God can pretend to none against him Unless wee 'l suppose there can be no Cheats nor Hypocrites double dealings in the World or that a power or trust duely received cannot be abused and estranged such as designedly Act against God pretend mostly to his Autority and often have it really in them And the truth is nothing but the peculiar constitution of this Christian Body or Incorporation could have then by any one been permitted as it was by some before Constantine or now be pleaded for whose humble innocent peaceable temper and complexion as above described was so undoubted and notorious in every instance experienced whose very essence was obedience whose design of making good Christians was to make them good Subjects the very Plot of the Gospel was in part this that Government be every ways preserved and entire administring new Motives and Arguments for it and that Princes if possible be more Sovereign and Glorious thereby whatever the Gospel Preaches and Commands is all along with a just regard and even subordination to it But then again since thus it is by the Blessings and Providence of God that Kings and Queens themselves are become Nursing Fathers and Mothers of the Church since our Church Doors are set wide open by their command our Revenues in our hands at the publick disposal of our Bishops to which is superadded their own Royal Bounty and Endowments together with more from the Piety of others their Subjects and eminent Christians among us and all by Law Established and Confirmed unto us as the rest of our Tenures still to plead the example of the Primitive Christians who were under no one of these Advantages to keep a part in distinct Assemblies to make Privy Purses and Fonds brings such as practise it under as great a suspicion of Hypocrisie and private ill-laid designs as those first Christians were notorious for their integrity when so doing and unsuspected not only that Government under which they live but all good Christians have ground enough for jealousie of their underhand indirect purposes to implead and seize on the one hand and to admonish and censure on the other as Delinquents no one consideration of State can countervail the Damage a toleration or connivance of such may bring unto it nothing can justifie the Practice it self but that alone which was pleaded by the Primitive Christians and was their real case that the Association and Assemblies of Christians for the Profession and Service of the Gospel must cease and fall without so doing that Christianity it self cannot otherwise stand and which our supposal overthrows as to any such Pleas now adays nor indeed dare any of our Dissenters openly say it § XLIII THAT the Clergy alone preside in their several Districts is no more prejudicial to Government in State than any of the other and which will appear from their Offices there performed as to be the Mouth in Prayer and thanksgiving and which is already consider'd to Catechize Teach and Instruct the People and admonish them in the ways to Heaven by Virtue and the instances of all sorts of Obedience as indispensably required and nothing but a thorow after-repentance and amendment upon failure will regain the Inheritance forfeited and I●le take it to be only an ill Phrasing or inconsideration in the Expression when Preaching the Gospel in the due sense

rather to be hazarded then to comply with and imbody into us any thing that is sinful even to gain a Protection for other instances of Virtue and Duty yet nothing but that which strikes at Religion it self will ingage or be a Warrant to proceed in this extreme utmost way upon him whose alone is the outward Coercive Power and who can weild his Sword at pleasure deny the Church that support countenance and assistance which our Saviour designed Religion should outwardly flourish under be in some respects propagated and preserved by become more notoriously visib●e and conspicuous to all Nations And what is said of Excommunication and other Church censures is to be said of Absolution which though a Power enstated alone in the Priesthood by Christ yet is not to be executed in an Arbitrary way and that not only as to the Laws of Christ but the Laws of Kingdoms also in many cases especially where Christian I 'le end this Section and Head of Discourse in the words of our Learned Dr. Hammond in his Book of the Power of the Keys Cap. 1. Sect. 1. The Power of binding and loosing is only an Engine of Christ's invention to make a Battery or impression upon the obdurate Sinner to win him to himself to bless not triumph over him it invades no part of the Civil Judicature nor looses the bonds thereof by these Spiritual Pretences but leaves the Government of the World just in the posture it was before Christ's coming or as it would be supposed to be if he had never left any Keys in his Church § XLV THAT the Church as a Body and Corporation of it self judiciarily determines in Council and lays obligations to Obedience infringes and inrodes no more than her other acts now mentioned if it be declarative of matter of Faith or Duty indispensably as received originally from Christ by Church conveyance the Determination is no more than the first Teaching and Promulgation of it was if it be constitutive of Laws and Canons for setling and enjoyning of Discipline the matter in it self indifferent but limited for present use and service and of which and to which purpose all Humane Laws Ecclesiastical or Civil are made and tend these Church Canons are as in the make and obligation so in the Practice and execution to retain that just regard to known Duties especially those of Allegiance that such the other Church acts and censures do and as already shewed 'T is true the great transcendent regard and reverence the Empire when Christian has had for the institution as from our Saviour for Religion it self in whose defence the Canons were made and for the high Dignity and Office of the Bishops his Commissioners that it still has made antecedent Canons the Rule of all Laws enacted if relating to or but bordering upon affairs Ecclesiastical as instances are already produced quas leges nostrae sequi non dedignantur Novel 83. and to command contra venerabilem Ecclesiam against the venerable Church Nullius est nisi Tyrannidis cujus actus omnes rescinduntur is reputed as the Act of a Tyrant and such Acts are null'd Cod. Justin l. 1. Tit. 2.16 nay farther Canones ubi agitur de re Ecclesiastica jure civili sunt preferendi and if the Canon and Civil Laws those of the Church and the State have happened to be different and in competition in any Ecclesiastical case the Canons have took place and obliged as in that Code and Title Sect. 6. and their general care and industry was mostly for these as the Determinations more immediately for the good of their Souls Novel 137. but this was from the greater Indulgence and Grace of the Christian Emperors and in particular cases and it cannot be supposed that the Church should designedly set up her Bishops and Laws above or in opposition to that Government which the frame of their Religion includes in Subordination to and by Protection of which it was to be propagated and preserv'd but of this we shall have occasion anon to consider farther And if it be reply'd that a Council cannot be convened or meet at all without the Prince's Grant at least his Letters of leave and how then can they have any Autority independent or should they otherwise assemble they are reputed Seditious Disturbers of the Peace and of Majesty and punishable as is the Law imperial 16. Cod. Theodos Tit. 1. l. 3. To this I answer neither can they nor ought they nor did ever any Christian Council otherwise unite in their Persons then by the Grant and Letters Imperial and that censure was just if any did otherwise attempt it But then it is farther to be consider'd that the form essence and force of a Council that which gives a right for Sanctions and invests with Autority Ecclesiastical is not their local personal meeting as in one place there convocated and sitting but a joynt-enquiry and resolution as to the Truth 's debated and concurrency as one man in the Laws enacted upon the true Motives and Reasons of Faith and the Gospel as by Tradition transmitted or in Discipline for Government and Peace useful and which may be done by the Bishops and Clergy dissite and in diverse Countries by their Letters Missive and Communicatory those Literae signatae or systaticae or circular Epistles to one another and which has been done under diverse Circumstances and when the state of the Church was so low and its Capacities not enabling her to do it otherwise as is plain from Church Story and Practice and that this was the course of the Church's 't is more than probable when that debate arose about the keeping of Easter an account of whose Epistles we have appearing to this purpose given us by Eusebius Eccl. Hist l. 5. c. 23. AND lastly that this Church Power is derived § XLVI only from the Church and her Bishops to others in the Succession exclusive to Kings and the Clergy are not in this sense his Ministers he ordains and substitutes them not carries nothing of opposition in the action it self nor any thing in the design than what the Incorporation and Offices themselves imply and which has been hitherto rendred altogether innocent The Leviathan scruples not to say That they all derive their Offices and Power only from the Prince and are but his Ministers in the same manner as Magistrates in Towns Judges in Courts of Justice and Commanders in Armies are and his account why they must be so is because the Government could not be secure upon other terms If the Soveraignity in the Pastor over himself and his People be allow'd of it deprives the Magistrate of the Civil Power and his Peoples dependency would be on such their Doctors both in respect of the opinion they have of their Duty to them and the fear they have of Punishment in another World Part 3. Cap. 42. but this mistake of his has been enough discovered all along in this Treatise and will be more

were made Law and establish'd by the Civil ●…veraign and they were to thank God it was no worse and did the King command to adore the Linnen or Font or Tables themselves they are not to gain-say and affront because affronting Laws and Magistracy to pretend to a farther obligation from Conscience and to oppose even a false Religion or to make Proselytes to their own though they be never so sure they are in the right is to be guilty of gross hypocrisie without an extraordinary Commission from God to that purpose they are no more obliged to do it here at home than to go into Spain or Italy or Turkey and there make Converts and which no Protestant holds himself obliged to do Sure I am the Bishops had had more Justice done them than they found in the Sermon and it seems very unequal that they should be supposed to redress and be left wide open to a popular Odium because not doing what never was in their Commission what would have been their gross hypocrisie in attempting because having neither an extraordinary Commission for it nor hath the Providence of God made way by the Permission of the Magistrate and all that can be reply'd is this that Mr. Dean chang'd his Judgment upon the writing his next Sermon which he hath declared to be by Nature mutable and thereby has this advantage is always ready for better information or rather to act the Aecebolius as occasion and to do him all the right I can this is to be said for him that he dissents from Mr. Hobbs something in this very passage of his Sermon for the inference on his side is strong that where extraordinary Commission by Miracles is evidenced a false Religion is to be opposed and the true one to be Preach'd though the Magistracy and Law be otherwise which Mr. Hobs will by no means allow he will not permit it to the Apostles Leviathan Part 3. Cap. 42. but then how Mr. Dean will avoid this Consequence that there is no Church Power on Earth nor is it lawful for any one to Preach the Gospel when it is not Law by the Civil Soveraign since those Miracles which alone were in the Apostles time and which is though less of it every whit as rank Hobbism I have not sagacity enough to see that he desires to do it is not very certain all that can be said for him is that he seems to have been but raw in the Controversie and is ready as all such ought to be to submit upon better Information and to which if these Papers contribute they so far answer the design of the Author BUT whatever either Mr. Hobs or his Adherents § VII have wrote or preached sure we are our Saviour calls for Confession before Men for the owning asserting and publishing his Truths and most of all then and most publickly when mostly opposed with the greatest hazard and jeopardy even before Kings and not to be ashamed when the Kings of the Earth stand up and the Rulers take Council together against us and Christ risen from the Dead is not only to be believed in the Brain and Heart but to be confessed too with the Mouth if Salvation the effect of it as St. Paul tells us 1 Cor. 10. whatever anteceding Law against us or what Power soever enacting 't is our very case now as was St. Peter's in the Acts and we are to obey God and not Man And as sure I am also that this was the Practice of the succeeding Holy Fathers and Professors of the Church in the best Ages of it who still opposed whatever Religion was false by what Law soever established and abetted and still possessed and preached the true in opposition to it with the hazard of whatsoever was merciless from this World could attend them for it Nor was it then thought a Contempt or Affront to the Persons or Laws or Offices of the Civil Magistrate nor was it believed so to be by the Empire it self where satisfaction desired or enquiry made as appears particularly in the days of Trajan who ceased his Persecutions and Jealousies too being well assured that they met before day to Pray and give Thanks to and Praise God and Christ covenanting against Adultery Murder and such like Iniquities 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and that they acted nothing at all against the Laws and the Government was not affronted nor endanger'd by it an account of which is to be seen Tertul. Apol. c. 1. and in Eusebius his Church History Lib. 3. c. 33. and not to Profess Christianity was to deny it and nothing but that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that second Baptism as 't is call'd in Sozomen's Church History that initiation or entrance by a new Engagement a thorow Change and severe Repentance could give again a Name or Interest in Christ replace such among the Candidates for Heaven And those that offered at the Heathen shrines at the Command of the Emperor that fell away and disown'd the Faith in the time of Persecution were not received nor had their Libellum Pacis admitted to a Reconciliation and Unity with the Church but upon severest Penance and a larger trial of after-adherency and such were never admitted into Holy Orders to any Charge or Publick Power in the Church or if in Holy Orders before he was deposed for ever of so much blacker a guilt was it not to Preach Christ than not barely only to confess him however Mr. Dean places no Duty at all in it but the quite contrary as appears all along in the Story of those times and the Rules and Canons of the Church made occasionally on such accounts And we have instances in some that when dragg'd to the Idol with Cenfers in their Hands and there forced to offer as it was one of the Devices of the Devil thus outwardly to gain Countenance to his Worship Men of greater Eminency in Christianity being reserv'd for this purpose and whose Examples were more prevailing and apter to perswade being represented as such that had freely offer'd these Christians did not satisfie themselves in their own innocency and that the Church did so repute and receive them but when released openly declared the force in the face of the Magistracy and their greatest Conventions and were again laid hold of for it went immediately to the stake or the Beasts suffer'd Martyrdom for it though the Laws of the Land Prohibited it and the doing of it was Death though indulged by the Church and the present Circumstances indemnified if not done yet all did not perswade when but in shew to the World their Christianity was not own'd and to the appearance of many denied by them they could on no other terms believe themselves Christians nor consequently design to live upon Earth than as on Earth they confessed their Saviour before Men on this account only did they expect that Christ should own them before his Father which is in Heaven And they were only the worst of

in the Objection the several Acts are these That no one Canon of the Church have the force of a Law but what is appointed by such Inspector of the Canons as he shall name and appoint That no Appeals be made to Rome upon the Penalty and Danger contained and limited in the Act of Provision and Premunire made in the 16th year of King Richard II. That all the Canons not repugnant to the Laws of the Realm or to the Damage of the King's Prerogative Royal are to be used and executed as they were before the making this Act. That no license is to be required from the See of Rome for the Consecrating and Investiture of Bishops That 't is in the King alone to nominate and present them That the Pope has no Power in Spiritual Causes to give Licenses Dispensations Faculties Grants c. all this is to be done at home by our own Bishops and in our own Synods and Councils cap. 21. and this Provision is particularly made Sect. 19. ibid. provided that this Act or any thing or things herein contained shall be hereafter interpreted or expounded that your Grace your Nobles and Subjects intend by the same to decline or vary from the Congregation of Christ's Church in any thing concerning the very Articles of the Catholick Faith of Christendom or in any other things declared in Holy Scripture and the Word of God necessary for yours and their Salvation but only to make an Ordinance by Policies necessary and convenient to repress Vice And for good conservation of this Realm in Peace Vnity and Tranquility from Ravine and Spoyl insuing much the old ancient Customes of this Realm in that behalf not minding to seek for any Relief Succor or Remedies for any worldly things and humane Laws in any case of necessity but within this Realm at the hands of your Highness your Heirs and Successors Kings of this Realm which have and ought to have an Imperial Power and Autority in the same and not obliged in any worldly Causes to any Superior § VII IN the 26th year of his Reign cap. 1. when declared Supreme Head of the Church of England in Parliament as before recognized by the Clergy the Power he thereby is invested with is also declared viz. To visit redress reform order correct restrain and amend all such Errors Heresies Abuses Offences Contempts and Enormities whatsoever they be which by any manner of spiritual Autority or Jurisdiction ought or may lawfully be reformed repressed order'd redressed corrected restrained or amended most to the pleasure of Almighty God the increase of Virtue in Christ's Religion and for the conservation of Vnity Peace and Tranquility of this Realm cap. 14. he appoints the number of suffragan Bishops the Places of their residence and the Arch-Bishop is to consecrate them In the 28th year of his Reign cap. 10. The King may nominate such number of Bishops Sees for Bishops Cathedral Churches and endow them with such Possessions as he will In the 31th year cap. 14. he defends the Doctrine of Transubstantiation the Sacrament in but one kind enacts that all Hereticks be burnt and their Goods forfeited that no Priest may marry for Masses Auricular Confession c. in the 34 5. cap. 1. recourse must be had to the Catholick Apostolick Church for the decision of Controversies And therefore all Books of the Old and New Testament in English being of Tindal 's false Translation or comprising any matter of Christian Religion Articles of the Faith or Holy Scripture contrary to the Doctrine set forth sithence Anno Domini 1540. or to be set forth by the King shall be abolished no Printer or Book-seller shall utter any of the said Books no Persons shall play or interlude sing or rhime contrary to the said Doctrine no Person shall retain any English Books or Writings concerning Matter against the holy and blessed Sacrament of the Altar or for the maintenance of the Anabaptists or other Books abolished by the King's Proclamation There shall be no Annotations or Preambles in Bibles or new Testaments in English the Bible shall not be read in English in any Church no Women c. to read the New Testament in English nothing shall be taught contrary to the Kings Injunctions and if any spiritual Person preach teach or maintain any thing contrary to the King's Instructions or Determinations made or to be made and shall thereof be convict he shall for his first Offence recant for his second abjure and bear a fagot for the third he shall be adjudged an Heretick and be burnt and loose all his Goods and Chattels In the 37. year cap. 17. The full Power and Autority he hath by being Supreme Head of the Church of England is To correct punish and repress all manner of Heresies Errors Vices Sins Abuses Idolatries Hypocrises and Superstitions sprung and growing within the same and to exercise all other manner of Jurisdiction called Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction Sect. 1. and Sect. 3. 'tis farther added To whom by Holy Scriptures all Authority and Power is wholly given to hear and determine all manner of Causes Ecclesiastical and to correct Vice and Sin whatsoever and to all such Persons as his Majesty shall appoint thereunto And so far is all this from deriving to himself and exercising any thing of the Priest-hood that he is totidem verbis declared and reputed only a Lay-Man in the first Section of that Chapter nor do any one of these Instances here produced amount to any more than to the defending and guarding by Laws Truth and punishing and repressing Errors whether in Doctrines or in Manners at least such as are so reputed by the Church and State § VIII 'T IS true and easily observable that just upon the assuming to himself the Title of the supreme Head of the Church there was ground enough for suspition that the Church her self and all her Power was to be laid aside and whereas the reason and end of every particular Parliament before and of each of his till then is still said to be for the honor of God and holy Church and for the Common-Weale and Profit of this Realm 't is abated and said only for the honor of God and for the Common-Weale and Profit of this Realm the benefit of holy Church is in words at least left out and in the room of it is once added to the conservation of the true Doctrine of Christ's Religion As if the design was according to the Models now adayes framed and endeavour'd by private Persons to be set up That the care was to be only of Doctrines in which and in charity and love and abatements to one another the Essence of Church-Unity in general and each Christian with another consists But yet however this so hapned or upon what design either in himself or others 't is certain he abridged not the Church-Men of any one Instance of that Secular worldly Power as that of the supremacie derived unto them is called 25

more private her Majesty declares in Parliament this very same thing in her first year Cap. 1. Sect. 14. Provided also that the Oath expressed in the said Act made in the first year shall be taken and expounded in such Form as is set forth in an Admonition annexed to the Queens Majesties Injunctions Published in the first year of her Majesties Reign that is to say To confess and acknowledge in her Majesty her Heirs and Successors none other Autority than that was challenged and lately used by the noble King Henry VIII and King Edward the VI. as in the said Admonition more plainly may appear § XI KING James who is next comes up to the same Point and in his Proclamation before the Articles of Religion thus declares That We are the Supreme Governor of the Church of England and if any difference arise about the external Polity concerning Injunctions Canons or other Constitutions whatsoever thereunto belonging the Clergy in their Convocation is to order and settle them having first obtained leave under Our Broad Seal so to do We approving their said Ordinances and Constitutions provided that none be made contrary to the Laws and Customs of this Land That out of Our Princely Duty and Care the Churchmen may do the Work that is proper for them the Bishops and Clergy from time to time in Convocation have leave to do what is necessary to the settling the Doctrine and Discipline of this Church SO that I think no more need be said to § XII satisfie any reasonable Person that the King and the Church are two distinct Powers in the sense of the Statute Book or in Parliament Language nor do our Kings interpose in Religious Matters any otherways than to make Religion Law what the Church in Convocation determines and recommends as the Tradition of Faith as agreeing to the Holy Scriptures and the Collections of the Ancient Fathers and Holy Bishops therefrom and to the guarding it with Penalties to be inflicted on such as oppose and violate it just as the first Christian Emperors did Nor can our Religion since the Reformation be any otherwaies called a Parliament Religion then it might have been called so before where the same Secular Power is equally extended and executed as in case of the Lollards certain supposed Hereticks Subverting the Christian Faith the Law of God and the Church and Realm to the extirpating of them and taking care that they be punished by the Ordinaries II. Henry V. Cap. VIII and so before IV. Henry IV. Cap. XV. where the Laws are these None shall Preach without the License of the Diocesane of the same place None shall Preach or Write any Book contrary to the Catholick Faith or the Determination of the Holy Church None shall make any Conventicles of such Sects and wicked Doctrines nor shall favour such Preachers Every Ordinary may Convent before him and Imprison any Person suspected of Heresie An obstinate Heretick shall be burnt before the People And VI. Richard II. Cap. V. Commissions are directed to Sheriffs and others to apprehend such as be certified by the Prelates to be Preachers of Heresies their Fautors Maintainers and Abettors and to hold them in strong Prison until they justifie themselves according to the Laws of Holy Church And which is more remarkable in the II. and III. of this King Cap. VI. the choice or Pope Vrban is made Law and confirmed in Parliament and 't is by them Commanded that he be accepted and obey'd But does the Pope of Rome therefore return and owe his Autority to the Parliament of England how would they of Rome scorn such a thing if but insinuated and yet the Act of Parliament was in its design acceptable and advantageous to them they had the Civil Autority thereby to back and assist them as occasion and which might work that Submission to the present Election his Holinesse's Bulls could not do at least so readily and effectually That this Nation did always understand the outward Policy of the Church or Government of it in foro exteriori to depend upon the Prince a learned Gentleman late of the County of Kent Sir Roger Twisden Knight and Baronet has given a very satisfactory account to them that will receive any in his Historical Vindication of the Church of England in Point of Schism c. Cap. 5. practised by the best of Kings before the Conquest Ina Canutus Edward the Confessor whose Praises are upon Record in the Romanists account of them and the last a Canonized Saint and to which they were often supplicated by the most Holy Bishops Upon the same Grounds are we to laugh at their Folly or Madness or rather Malice when they taunt us with a Parliament-Religion which has only the benefit of the Government for its Protection and our Kings do but that Duty is laid upon them by St. Paul take care that under them we may lead a quiet and peaceable life in all Godliness and Honesty Christianity it self ever since Constantine's time may be as well reproach'd that it was Imperial or which is in effect the same Parliamental Since the Empire was Christian and defended it nay while it was Heathen for some particular Emperors upon some occasions have adhered to and protected it and that it had no other bottom than Reasons of State and a worldly Complyance and the lewd Pen of Baxter in his Prophaner History of Bishops c. Cap. 1. Sect. 37. gives the same account of the Church's increase under Constantine on the score of Temporal Immunities That a Murderer that was to be hang'd if a Christian was but to be kept from the Sacrament and do some confessing Penance c. for those Governors then assum'd the same Power in Religious Matters as have done our Kings since the Reformation as must appear to him that compares the two Codes Novels and Constitutions at large or if hee 'l not take that pains the Abridgment is made above with our Statute Book both which only take care that the Religion receiv'd and own'd in the Church and by Churchmen be protected and every Man in his station do his Duty in order to it if the common words in the Statutes carry the usual common sense and are to be apprehended by him that is not a common Lawyer and which the Author of these Papers does not pretend to be § XIII ONLY Mr. Selden inrodes us here again and comes quite cross too against us he tells the World other things That Excommunication in particular and then they may as well do all the rest is what belongs to the Parliament and which has actually Excommunicated and the Bishops are impower'd only by Parliament to proceed in the like censures and but by a Derivation from both Houses he says in plain terms that all Power and Jurisdiction usually call'd Church Power and Jurisdiction is originally and immediately from the Secular and this he thinks he has demonstrated from several Acts of Parliament to this purpose

he proves thoughout the Church Historians Fathers and Imperial Laws thus declaring assenting to and practising pag. 146. If by the Church you mean the Precepts and Promises Gifts and Graces of God preached in the Church and poured on the Church Princes must humbly obey them and reverently receive them as well as other private Men so that Prophets Apostles Evangelists and all other builders of Christ's Church as touching their Persons be subject to the Princes power Mary the word of God in their Mouths and Seals of grace in their hands because they are of God and not of themselves they be far above the Princes Calling and Regiment and in those Cases Kings and Queens if they will be saved must submit themselves to God's everlasting truth and testament as well as the meanest of their People and yet they are for all this Supreme and subject only to God as to outward Process either from the Pope or from any other Power And so pag. 147. he brings in those Passages of Tertullian Optatus and Chrysostom à Deo secundum solo Deo minorem parem super terram non habet c. the word Supreme was added to the Oath for that the Bishop of Rome taketh upon him to command and depose Princes as their lawful supreme Judg to exclude this wicked presumption we teach that Princes be supreme Rulers we mean subject to no superior Judg to give a reason of their doings but only to God pag. 164 165 166. it must be confessed he speaks not home as might be required when explaining how Kings as well as other Christians are comprized under the duty of obeying their Rulers and to be subject unto them c. surely there is a true real obedience due even from Princes to Church-Officers and their Power devolved from Christ and this learned Man seems here and in other places not to be rescued from that common prejudice and possession seized upon too many and all along continued upon casting of the Popes Superiority here in England that there can be no Church-Power at all universally obliging and requiring obedience but what implyes and infers corporal bodily subjection a change in Seculars 't is this puts him upon that great mistake that the Pastors of the Church are not influenced by the Kingly power of Christ and what is regal in him is given to the Civil Magistrate and who only succeed him in that Office perpetual Government of the Church cap. 10. and Arch-bishop Bancroft confounding these two Powers gives Beza and Cartwright as much advantage in that Particular as their Disciples and Followers can now really wish and because they say that Christ as a King prescribed the form of Ecclesiastical Government being a King the head of the Church doth administer his Kingdom per legitime vocatos pastores by Pastors lawfully called he runs them upon this absurdity that their Autority must be without any controul The Pastors must be all of them Emperors the Doctors Kings the Elders Dukes and the Deacons Lords of the Treasury c. survey of the holy pretended discipline c. cap 24. and yet after all 't is mostly Name● and Titles that occasions this or the accidental pressing an argument as there will be occasion to consider anon and Bishop Bilson goes on and acknowledges all in effect only Bishops and Pastors are left out and tells us That the Church may be Superior and yet the Pope subject to Princes Princes be Supreme and the Church their Superior the Scriptures be superior to Princes and yet Princes supreme the Sacrament be likewise above them and yet that hindreth not their Supremacy Truth Grace Faith Prayer and other Ghostly Virtues be higher than all earthly States and all this notwithstanding Princes may be supreme Governors of their Countries and which though in over abating Terms and with too scrupulous a fear where no fear ought to be declares as fully as can be the thing it self viz. That Princes are to be subject to the Government in the Church settled by Christ in its Bishops and Pastors and which both as a Prophet a Priest and a King he derives unto them Church-Officers have a Power underived and independent to the Crown only 't is ill worded by the Warden Things Powers Gifts Virtues c. as standing and settled on Earth and not invested in Persons can really be of no force and command at all or rather and which at last will amount to the same will be what every one shall please to make them and the Prince will have as many Supremes as are pretenders to these Gifts of the Spirit and which will be enough as experience taught us this only then can be meant by these Circumlocutions and why it might not have been spoken in down-right terms I cannot imagine that the Bishops and Pastors of the Church with the Bible put into their hands as it is at their Ordination with full autority given for the Offices ministerial have a real Power and are truly Rulers in the Church have a Supremacy and Superiority peculiarly theirs and all that will come to Heaven must come under this Ministry or Government it 's jurisdiction and discipline be they Princes or Subjects on Earth or what ever worldly Government they are possessed of unless he 'l say every Man hath these Ghostly Virtues which can urge a Text of Scripture and which cannot be conceived of him and to this purpose he goes farther pag. 167 168. Though the Members of the Church be subject and obedient to Princes yet the things contained in the Church and bestowed on the Church by God himself I mean the light of his Word the working of his Sacraments the gifts of his Grace and fruits of his Spirit be far superior to all Princes The plain meaning of which can be but this Certain separate Persons invested by God beyond Christians at large with such Gifts and Graces the Bishops and Pastors of the Church and in which respect a good Emperor is within the Church and not above it as St. Ambrose is to this purpose here quoted by him pag. 171. You must distinguish the things proposed in the Church from the Persons that were Members of the Church the Persons both Lay-Men and Clerks by God's Law were the Princes Subjects the things comprized in the Church and by God himself committed to the Church because they were Gods could be subject to the Power and Will of no mortal Creature Pope nor Prince the Prince is above the Persons of the Church not above things in the Church pag. 173. 176. 178. you know we do not make the Prince Judg of Faith we confess Princes to be no Judges of Faith but we do not encourage Princes themselves to be Judges of Faith but only we wish them to discern betwixt truth and error which every private Man must do that is a Christian pag. 174 175 176. he approves of Ambrose's Answer to Valentinian that is was stout but lawful constant but

Christian when he refused to give up his Church to the Arians denied the Emperor's power over truth and to determine in Doctrines The Emperor might force him out if he pleased neither might he resist the force his Weapons being only Prayers and Tears but the truth must not yield up to him and he give his consent or seem to do it by his own departure that the Arian Doctrine be there preached this was not then thought an Affront to the Magistrate and Law nor had St. Ambrose a Commission immediate from Heaven and abetted with Miracles or was he judged a hypocrite in so doing because he did not go and preach the Cause against Arius amongst the Goths and Vandals who subscribed to his Creed at their receiving Christianity though Mr. Dean of Canterbury tells us he that pleads Conscience and preaches it in England and does not go and preach it also in Turkey is guilty of gross hypocrisie pag. 203 213. We do not make them Judges and Deciders of Truth but Receivers and Establishers of it we say Princes be only Governors that is higher Powers ordain'd of God and bearing the Sword with lawful and publick Autority to command for truth to prohibit and with the Sword punish Errors and all other Ecclesiastical Disorders as well as Temporal within their Realms that as all their Subjects Bishops and others must obey them commanding what is good in Matters of Religion and endure them with patience when they take part with Error So they their Swords and Scopters be not subject to the Popes Tribunal neither hath he by the Law of God or by the Canons of the Church any Power or Pre-eminence to reverse their Doings nor depose their Persons and for this Cause we confess Princes within their Territories to be supreme that is not under the Popes jurisdiction neither to be commanded nor displaced at his pleasure pag. 215 216. There be two Parts of our Assertion The first avouching that Princes may command for Truth and abolish Error The next that Princes be Supreme i. e. not subject to the Popes judicial Process to be cited suspended deposed at his beck The Word Supreme ever was and is defended by us to make Princes free from the wrongful and usurped Jurisdiction which the Pope claimeth over them pag. 217. 219. Bishops have their Autority to preach and administer the Sacraments not from the Prince but Christ himself only the Prince giveth them publick liberty without let or disturbance to do what Christ hath commanded them he no more conferreth that Power and Function than he conferreth Life and Breath when he permitteth to live and breath when he does not destroy the life of his Subjects That Princes may prescribe what Faith they list what Service of God they please what form of Administring the Sacraments they think best is no part of our thoughts nor point of our Doctrine for external Power and Autority to compel and punish which is the Point we stand upon God hath preferr'd the Prince before the Priest pag. 223. touching the Regiment of their own Persons and Lives Princes owe the very same Reverence and Obedience to the Word and Sacraments that every private Man doth and if any Prince would be baptized or approach the Lord's Table with manifest shew of unbelief or irrepentance the Minister is bound freely to speak or rather to lay down his life at the Princes feet than to let the King of Kings to be provoked the Mysteries to be defiled his own Soul and the Princes endanger'd for lack of oft and earnest Admonition pag. 226. by Governors we do not mean Moderators Prescribers Directors Inventers or Authors of these things but Rulers or Magistrates bearing the Sword to permit and defend that which Christ himself first appointed and ordained and with lawful force to disturb the Despisers of his lawful Will and Testament Now what inconvenience is this if we say that Princes as publick Magistrates may give freedom protection and assistance to the preaching of the Word ministring of the Sacraments and right using of the Keys and not fetch license from Rome pag. 236. Princes have no right to call and confirm Preachers but to receive such as be sent of God and give them liberty for their preaching and security for their Persons and if Princes refuse so to do God's Labourers must go forward with that which is commanded them from Heaven not by disturbing Princes from their Thrones nor invading their Realms but by mildly submitting themselves to the Powers on Earth and meekly suffering for the defence of the truth what they shall inflict A private liberty and exercise of their own Conscience and Religion was not then thought enough if the Religion of a Nation be false and though autority do abet it nor would the Autority in Queen Elizabeth's days have own'd that Person asserting and maintaining of it though not stubbornly irreligious but only wanting information in so notoriously a known case of practice pag. 238. In all spiritual Things and Causes Princes only bear the Sword i. e. have publick Autority to receive establish and defend all Points and Parts of Christian Doctrine and Discipline within their Realms and without their help tho the Faith and Canons of Christ's Church may be privately professed and observed of such as be willing yet they cannot be generally planted or settled in any Kingdom nor urged by publick Laws and external Punishments on such as refuse but by their consents that bear the Sword This is that we say refel it if you can pag. 252. to devise new Rites and Ceremonies for the Church is not the Princes vocation but to receive and allow such as the Scripture and Canons commend and such as the Bishops and Pastors on the Place shall advise not infringing the Scripture or Canons and so for all other Ecclesiastical Things and Causes Princes be neither the Devisers nor Directors of them but the Confirmers and Establishers of that which is good and Displacers and Revengers of that which is Evil which power we say they have in all things be they Spiritual Ecclesiastical or Temporal the Abuse of Excommunication in the Priest and contempt of it in the People Princes may punish excommunicate they may not for so much of the Keys are no part of their Charge pag. 256. The Prince is in Ecclesiastical Discipline to receive and stablish such Rules and Orders as the Scripture and Canons shall decide to be needful and healthful for the Church of God in their Kingdoms It is the Objection indeed and undue consequence the Church of Rome makes against us and the Oath of Supremacy and which is urged by Philander in this Dialogue betwixt him and Theophilus or betwixt the Christian and the Jesuite pag. 124 125. That we will have our Faith and Salvation to hang on the Princes Will and Laws that there can be imagined no nearer way to Religion than to believe what our temporal Lord and Master list in the

personal Conference with our Emperor suffering Banishment for it an account of which is given by Athanasius Apol. pag. 833. Ed. Paris Sozomen Eccles Hist l. 4. c. 11. and yet lassus injuriis provoked and tired out by oppressions he forsook Athanasius and went over to the Sect of the Arians Pag. 837. ibid. and so did the Divine Hosius then ancientest Bishop in the Christian World and who was in a manner the Author of the Determinations of the first Council of Nice Sulpitius Severus suspects he might be in his dotage and there is ground enough for the Suspition being an hundred years old as 't is in his Historia Sacra lib. 2. a Man if any that ever lived could be to be exempted one would think from so great an Apostasie as will appear by the Character Athanasius gives him Ep. ad solitariam vitam agentes pag. 840. and yet tormenta longaevus plagasque perpessus est unde etiam necessitate vehementi expositionibus tunc editis Syrmiensi Synodo consensit atque subscripsit Hist Tripartit l. 5. c. 9. being of a great Age and by reason of his many Sufferings through a more than usual force he consented and subscribed to the Expositions set forth in the Synod at Syrmium Gregory Nazianzen says in the Life of Athanasius that there was very sew to be found that were not contemptible for their obscurity or very eminent for virtue as the seed and root remaining in Israel whence the Truth was to spring out and reflourish as it did upon the return of Athanasius which did not for fear or gain by flattery or through ignorance tempori obsequi qui quamvis mente haudquaquam prolapsi fuerint subscribe with their hand amongst whom he confesses himself to be one but withal and which is not usual obliges the World with his Publick Acknowledgment and Recantation This is the time when St. Jerome adv Luciferian and in his Comments in Ps 133. says Totum orbem fuisse Arianum that the whole World was Arian and which only can be understood as St. John must be when he tells us if all that our Saviour did were written the whole World could not contain the Books i. e. there would be a great many and for this St. Jerome himself will become his own avoucher who in his Comments on Ezekiel cap. 48. thus bespeaks the Catholick Priests Audiat hoc sacerdotalis gradus c. that though over-power'd by the Arians yet as holding the true Faith so their manners be accordingly and that the Homousians were numerous and visible even then might be made to appear were I now to write that History I 'le add but one more way by which particular Persons are seduced and misled into Heresie 't is by Lies underhand Dealings and downright Forgeries obtruded upon Mankind Thus the Pelagia grew and was numerous still making use of the Names and feigned Counterfeit Letters of Bishops and Eminent Men in his Commendations and the savour of his Heresie as the same Publisher of Marius Mercator gives us an account also Ibid. And then since so much uncertainty in the Autorities of particular Doctors since liable to so many failures and under so many ill and provoking Circumstances and to many of which good Men are liable are over-sweigh'd and over-ruled thereby for some time how unequal unjust a thing is it to urge them each Circumstance not considered but most of all when an accidental saying or pressing a present Argument is reported to the World the sense and judgment of a Doctor against the whole course and design of all his other Writings and the publickly declared Doctrines of that Church of which he is a Member which he owns and professes submits and subscribes to That of Tertullian in his Prescriptions Cap. 3. is the more substantial and rational way Quid ergo si Episcopus si Diaconus lapsus à regula suit ideò haereses veritatem vid●bantur obtinere ex personis probamus fidem an ex fide personas what if a Bishop or a Deacon or whoever he be falls from the Rule shall Heresie thence obtain Truth shall we prove the Faith by the Persons or the Persons by the Faith if Theodosius the Great design'd any more than a Committee of Triers when appointing such a set number of Bishops to examine every one that was admitted to a benefice in the Church as so many Doctores Probabiles as he terms them in Communion with whom all must be that are instituted or inducted or whatsoever was the way and expression of then giving Titles and Possession Cod. Theodos 16. Tit. 1. l. l. 2 3. his Rule is unsafe and the Church may be imposed upon by it though the Bishop of Rome was one for Liberius once subscribed to Arianism nor indeed did he design any more and they were only as so many Examiners according to the Nicene Faith and which the Piety and Zeal of that Holy Emperor did design and endeavour to have took place throughout his Dominions and which is express in the Laws Nor was that so great a Secession from this Faith in the days of Constantius and then much less of one or two particular Doctors of the time thought to break off the Succession of such the Doctrine or render it less Catholick but it is notwithstanding declared to have continued from St. Peter the Apostle by Damasus and Peter Bishops of Rome and Alexandria usque nunc to his days that then Period of time safe and inviolated FINIS