the most wicked and debaucht except haply they were Circumcised before upon another score then indeed I do not know how they should be Circumcised again And God commanded Joshua not Eleazar to Celebrate the Sacrament or Passeover as soon as they had got over Jordan nor from that Sacrament was the most vitious debarr'd that ever we read of the greatest Sinner sure had most need of it for the whole have no need of Physick but them that are sick Ely was Lord-Chief-Justice and Chief-Priest too and so was Samuel King David also was the Prophet David 1 Chron. 23.5 6. 1 Chron. 24.3 and King Solomon the Wise was Ecclesiastes or the Preacher and both of them order'd the House of God and how matters should be carried on there and plac'd and displac'd the Priests and set them their Lessons and told them their business and their errand and when Solomon's Temple was Built he Consecrated it himself 2 Chron. 6. Indeed good King Jehosaphat made a Council of State or Sanhedrim or Synagogue of a mixt Company parte per pale Priests among the Lords Judges a compound of Clergy and Lay-Elders for the Judgment of the Lord and for Controversies 2 Chron. 19.8 9 10 11 and all Causes that should come before them between Man and Man City and City Blood and Blood according to the Law and Commandment Statutes and Judgment But afterwards the Chief-Priest got the superintendency and was the chief Magistrate But our Blessed Saviour did not like that Spiritual Men should dirty themselves with the World and Worldly matters and therefore refused to be a Judg when the Preferment was proferr'd him in Civil-matters and charges his Disciples that they likewise should not exercise Dominion nor Lordship as the Princes of the Gentiles Luke 22.25 26. And St. Peter reads the Bishops or Presbyters for a Bishop was a Presbyter in those days just such another Lecture 1 Pet. 5. But who minds what he or our Blessed Saviour either do say in the Case And yet we all pretend to be Christians Certainly that Constitution and Frame of Government that cometh nearest to the Platform and is most agreeable and suiting with the Laws of God and is the best Form and Frame of Government Keep therefore and do them says God by Moses Deut. 4.6 7 8. For this is your wisdom and your understanding in the sight of the nations which shall hear all these Statutes and say Surely this great nation is a wise and understanding people For what nation is there so great who hath God so nigh unto them as the Lord our God is in all things that we call upon him for And what nation is there so great that hath statutes and judgments so righteous as all this Law which I set before you this day And in all that Law I will maintain it against the World we do not read that any man living was for wickedness depriv'd of the benefit of the means of Grace of the comfort and help of the Sacraments Words Sacrifices or shut out and excluded the Church or Temple Indeed the Leper and the Unclean c. were debarred from the Crowd and Assembly for fear of Infection in that hot Country but no man's wickedness or ill life and conversation or misdemeanor or contempt or scandalous behaviour was punished by depriving him of the Word or Sacraments or means of Grace that we read of in the whole Scriptures either Old or New Testament And if it be not found in Holy-Writ you may easily know whose invention it was For the truth is Covetousness invented it and Pride together the Pope invented it and being greedy and rapacious with his Legions of Lordly Priests and Cardinals that topt the whole World and Money being a kind of necessary Utensil in the Grandieur of Courts as well as the sinew of War and crocking himself in vain by smutty Chymistry to find the Philosophers-stone he turn'd his Keys of Heaven and Hell into 't and made a Philosophers-stone of them and made them turn every thing they touch't to Gold Has any man a mind to go to Heaven you must ask the Porter leave he keeps the Keys he says of Heaven-gates Come enter in but first pay the Porter leave your Purse behind you you 'l need no money there therefore Deliver your Purse Our Blessed Saviour indeed does say to Peter Behold I give unto thee the Keys of the Kingdom of Heaven and whatsoever thou shalt bind on Earth shall be bound in Heaven and whosoever thou shalt loose on Earth shall be loosed in Heaven But what 's all that to the Pope more than other Presbyters For Christ gives the same Commission to all the Disciples after he had first breathed upon them the Holy-Ghost Joh. 20.22 23. Whose soever sins ye remit they are remitted unto them and whose soever sins ye retain they are retained And when the Pope or any other Popelings or any other sort of people are Successors to these gifts of the Holy-Ghost or that Christ would vouchsafe to breathe upon them or send down the Holy-Ghost upon them as he did upon the Disciples then and not till then has any Mortal man power upon Earth to forgive sins For who can forgive sins but God only said the Pharisees truly but they applied it wrongfully through their ignorance of the Divinity of our Blessed Saviour which he endeavoured to Discover unto them by that saying to the Cripple Thy sins be forgiven thee but they were blind and could not see Can any man in his wits imagine that God should give such power unto men the wickedest and vilest of men to forgive sins Can any man be a good man or indeed any thing in Religion in true Christian Religion without true Charity 1 Cor. 13. 't is impossible be his other qualifications and endowments never so great be he Pope or Bishop or Priest or what he will And yet the Pope makes the silly Papists believe that he can fetch Souls not only out of Purgatory but also make All-Souls in Hell All-Saints in Heaven and leave the Devils alone if he list Can he so the more uncharitable Devil he then by his own showing Had that wicked Levite a grain of Charity that seeing a poor distressed man miserably wounded and that fell among Thieves and turn'd his face hard heart and lookt another way and went on the other side of the way for fear he should reach a helping-hand give me the Samaritane for all such Levites Much less can the Pope have a grain of Charity or therefore any goodness indeed or Religion or any Christianity when he can if he do not lie redeem all the damned out of Hell now roaring in torments and will not and all the Souls out of Purgatory and the fire of Purgatory the Papists hold is hotter than Nebuchadnezzar's fiery Furnace but I cannot tell nor I hope never shall know and yet groaning and frying as they lie there the Pope hard-hearted
Evangelist but St. Matthew only should make any mention of it only St. Luke 17.3 makes some little hint of forgiving our Brother but not a word of putting him into Court or presenting him If we can but as well get over the 18th Verse I fear Excommunication will tremble and shake for fear of being Excommunicated its-self Matt. 18.18 Verily I say unto you Whatsoever ye shall bind on Earth shall be bound in Heaven and whatsoever ye shall loose on Earth shall be loosed in Heaven And to put in all the other Texts together that the Bonarges's or Sons of Thunder do muster up to maintain their Thunderbolts of Excommunication we read Whose soever sins ye remit they are remitted unto them and whose soever sins ye retain they are retained Joh 20.23 So also 1 Cor. 5. There 's an Order sent out for Excommunication thereby Decreeing the Incestuous Person to be Excommunicated And 1 Tim. 1.20 St. Paul says he delivered Hymaeneus and Alexander unto Satan to teach them better things than to Blaspheme Also a Heretick after the first or second admonition reject And for contempt 2 Thes 3.14 If any man obey not our word by this Epistle note that man and have no company with him that he may be ashamed Then 2 Cor. 10.4 5 6 For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal but mighty through God for the pulling down of strong-holds Casting down imaginations and every high thing that exalteth it self against the knowledg of God and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ And having in a readiness to revenge mark that all disobedience when your obedience is fulfilled Which last Clause I confess I do not understand Then there is that of With such an one no not to eat These are the chief if not the only places pretended to vouch the Excommunication But as idle and far from the purpose as if we should alledg Mark 16.17 18. to prove our selves Believers namely He that believeth shall not be damn'd And these signs shall follow them that believe In my name shall they cast out Devils hence comes the Popish Holy-Order called Exorcists or Conjurers They shall speak with new Tongues Hence came the Opinion of the necessity of University-Learning and to be a Linguist before you are capable of being in Orders or to be a Teacher or Preacher They shall take up Serpents and if they drink any deadly thing it shall not hurt them but here in this the Popish Mimickry and Mountebank-Tricks in endeavouring to imitate the Holy-Ghost wanted courage and faith to play tricks and try conclusions They shall lay hands on the sick and they shall recover there 's no danger in trying that experiment but because the Priest palming the poor sick man did not restore him to life they would palm him indeed in their Holy Unction and Anoint him with Oyl in the name of the Lord but being fruitless they say it is not for life but death not to cure but kill and they never anoint them but when the Physitians have given them over and past Recovery whereas the Apostles laying hands was for their Recovery But now in Popish Countries I know it if once the Physicians have given a sick man over the Clergy have him then and though nature as many times shakes off and Conquers the Disease yet they will not suffer the sick man to take either Food on Physick till they be paid for the Burial and Funeral charges and his Legacies to Monasteries Fryars Nuns c. made good in his life-time and paid live or die a most Barbarous Inhumane and Devillsh Religion as ever any Prince could be converted unto that did not also hope to go snips with them in their Arbitrary-Tyranny Cruelty Oppression and Bloody mindedness But I say those Texts to Legitimate Excommunication that has so vext and perplext and ruin'd the Peace of Christendom and all Christian-Societies and humanity it self the true Lycanthropye that has turn'd men to Wolves to worry one another is no more to the purpose to vouch Excommunication now a-days because the Apostles could bind and loose deliver to and free from Satan no more I say than that in Mark 16.16 17 18. can be brought to prove that we are all Infidels and shall be damn'd For immediately after he says He that believeth not shall be damn'd he adds marks and signs to know who shall be damn'd or who does and who does not believe namely They shall cast out Devils c. But hence comes the mischief in the Christian-Church men will take upon them to be Doctors and I know not what Interpreters of Scriptures but they never mind the context or if they do they imbibe their Principles from their Mother or School-Dame or Paedagogue or Tutor Hence men of equal Parts and Pregnancy live and dye Papists or Protestants Wherefore their Nurse and Paedagogue and Education were such a fine account and yet every man knows 't is true And they are no fools neither in Trade in Law in Human-Learning equally excellent but Imbib'd Superstitions few men have reason and strength to shake off as Sampson did his Cords and Wyths But every man is not a Sampson the same would have hamper'd an ordinary man and made him a foolish prey to the Philistines the Bloody Philistines and nuzled to it by a Female or a Wench a Dalilah CHAP. III. THus concerning Excommunication have men good men Pious men Learned men slavishly tyed themselves as I said before like Horses in a Team to follow those that have gone before them their Predecessors right or wrong especially if the Leaders be Jolly and Fat Brisk and well Accoutred and reputed in the World that seldom judges right of Truth but only through the false spectacles of Interest and Education so that they do not so much employ their Learning and Wit to confirm Truth but the Opinions that best fits their Preferment or best pleases their Genius namely as Imbib'd and Tinctur'd by Education Otherwise 't is impossible but men should know the fallacy of the consequence that what the Apostles could did or had order to do therefore we may or must do it What non-sence is this Peter trod Water at Christ's bidding and yet ne'er a Priest in England dare venture to follow him or imitate him except he can swim nor pretend herein to be his Successor Apostolical Peter kill'd Ananias and Saphira with a word there 's ne'er a Priest in the World I do not say will but can imitate him if he could he should not then need to have employ'd the Magistrate in his drudgery to Burn Hereticks and Jayl those that the Priests Excommunicate a mighty Honourable Employment and the Magistrate is mightily beholden to the Clergy for the Office mean while But this by Parenthesis Peter's shaddow passing by cured the sick they that pretend to his Apostolical Successors and Apostolical men never cured any man Peter with one Sermon Converted 3000 Souls The Apostolical
my own part quoth he I did never so much as see him in my life nor do I desire it except we could get him fast into some Pen or Pound And then Wherefore it was resolv'd to catch him and to that purpose they set their Shepherd's Dogs upon him but what the Issue was I cannot tell For here 's enough for Diversion of a Sheepish harmless Parable at which no man can be offended that is either innocent or wise for none but a fool will challenge it for his own for his own Character And if any man think that this is too Jocular a way of writing upon a serious Argument I have the great examples of the most Learned Erasmus and Sir Thomas Moor for my President And a Warrant in my Pocket beyond all exceptions I mean my Bible's in my Pocket where not only the Prophets but our Blessed Saviour gives countenance as well as Authority for Parables What got Joseph's Brethren by hating him yet the more for his Dreams and for his Words Gen. 37.8 And what got the Chief-Priests and the Scribes by seeking to lay hands on our Saviour and had done it then but that they feared the People when they perceived that he had spoken the Parable against them Luk. 20.19 Come come it is much more pleasing to God and good men to repent and amend our sins than show our teeth or bite such as tell us of them Nathan told the King his own but modestly by way of Parable at first yet afterwards plainly told him to his head Thou art the man If some men I know had had David's Power that want the grace that David had they would have put Nathan in Limbo for it or have been revenged on him one way or other But Holy David lov'd him the better for it all the days of his life and kept him his chiefest favourite to his dying day But Holy David was a man after God's own heart the evil Spirit is too great in some mens hearts the evil Spirit of malice and revenge possesses them too much to be good at any thing so readily as mischief mischief to their power I mean to their utmost It is a sin to bid such God speed I never read of a Persecutor though never so great but came to an ill end What should I tell of the first Persecuting Emperor Nero that stab'd himself to halves and not being able to dispatch himself out of his pains nor any body so kind to do his business for him roar'd out Nec amicum habeo nic inimicum And after him Dioclesan when he was glutted with Christian-blood fled from his Imperial Crown and hid his hated head in a Garden 'T is endless to tell Stories of this nature to come nearer home to Cardinal Pool and Queen Maries days that after a short and Bloody Reign died both in a day whilst the bloody Bishops of London and Winchester Bonner and Gardiner a precious couple of Shepherds it 's pitty they should be parted died soon after miserably Let them go some men will never take warning till the Devil fetch them Oh! how that bloody couple did lay about them and pay poor creatures off Body and Soul the Body delivered to the Flames and first their Souls to Satan by Excommunication a wonderful good employment some think I will not say Much good may 't do them Some cannot believe that any Man should so be divested of Humanity or humane King how forlornly wicked soever as to do what is storied of one persuade a Man when he had his Sword at his Breast to renounce his Christendom and Jesus Christ and then he would spare his Life Which the poor Creature did in hopes of a Reprieve and time to repent it in and then immediately he run him to the heart that he might kill Soul and Body at one fatal stab But sure I am 't is true of these Bloody Couple of Bishops before-mentioned for they never deliver'd any Man's Body to the flames but first they Excommunicated him and deliver'd him to Satan in Faith and Hope that they had at once murder'd Body and Soul together These are worse than Scribes and Pharisees for though they look't upon our blessed Jesus as a Friend of Publicans and Sinners nay as a Conjurer and one that had Confederacy with Beelzebub nay as a Samaritan and as one that had a Devil yet they never Excommunicated him nor the Apostles nor interdicted them the Divine Service Synagogues Temple Sacrifices or Sacraments No no this debarring and depriving Men of the Sacrament was brought in by Priestly Lordliness and Prelatical Covetousness for if they can once persuade silly Bigots that they are Apostolical men and can bind and loose and have got the Keys of Heaven gates and can open and let in and absolve and again upon displeasure can shut out and Excommunicate undoubtedly they may take the wall of all Mankind at least of all Christendome But alas alas They have got the wrong Key I 'll prove it to them before I have done with them our blessed Saviour's Keys that he left behind him to Peter were spiritual Keys and his Kingdom was not of this world nor the Men he left the Keys to worldly-minded Men and therefore he left not those Keys of binding and loosing on Earth in Heaven no not to his own Apostles until first he had enabled them to use them infallibly and therefore mind the Text before he would tell them Whosoever Sins ye Remit they are Remitted and whosoever Sins ye Retain they are Retained He first breathed on them and saith unto them Receive ye the Holy Ghost But if Men will turn Doctors and Preachers and Interpreters of Scripture and never mind the Context and out of a foolish Ambition ascribe all that Christ said to his Disciples as if spoken to their own silly sinful selves no wonder that they err not knowing the Scriptures nor the power of God The Gift of the Holy Ghost always infallible never Clavis errans never turning the Key the wrong way by hands awry crooked and warping as Interest and Revenge Pride and Covetousness Tyranny and Cruelty Malice and Wickedness does annuate and guide I hate and abominate this Apish Mimickry and Imitation Did the Apostles by laying on of Hands give the Holy Ghost The Pope would seem to be Some-body too he would lay on Hands too but Cui Bono who but a Bigotted Coxcomb found any good it did him Did the Apostles heal the Sick anointing with Oil in the Name of the Lord The Pope would Ape it too a little the clean contrary way and he and his little Priests will ' noint too not for Health and Life and to recover but for Death Did the Apostles cast out Devils The Pope would be a Devil-driver too and his little Exorcists though I never met with many of them that were Conjurers Did the Apostles speak with new Tongues Why the Pope then too makes it a necessary
Ay ay that 's the right and only way of return to God for manifestation of any Naked-Truth by his Servants to glorifie his Name for the same And why should not the Sanhedrim have glorified God for the same as well as the people Had not they Souls to save as well as the people What was this Sanhedrim or High-Court of Justice made up of Who were the Members of this Council It is answered Acts 4.1 The Priests Ay Ay I should have wondred else at a piece of mischief if I had not found the Jewish-Priests there in the first place next the Captain of the Temple and the Sadduces A fine medley of Priests Soldiers and Atheists for so were the Sadduces the Jewish-Church was like to be well govern'd nor do I wonder they went about in the next Verse Acts 4.2 to suspend the Apostles ab officio or silence them from Preaching being grieved good hearts that they taught the People Whereupon they put them in Jayl for that Night designing to get all or a greater number of their Council together upon so good an occasion too And then appears a great Motley crew made up of Rulers and Elders and Scribes and Annas the High-Priest and Caiaphas and John and Alexander and all the High-Priests Nephews Cousins and Cousin-Germans This is only to show you what the Church was that our Saviour speaks of Matt. 18.17 Tell it to the Church is as much as to say in England Complain in Westminster-Hall Sessions or Assizes For want of the knowledg whereof Excommunication has been counted a sacred Ordinance and every little gather'd Church as well as the great took upon them the Government and thought themselves some-body and would have power over their own Members to interdict deprive cut off c. and woful work they made with it Johnson and others that fled to Holland and had a gathered-Church and cut of and cut off Hereticks and wrong Believers till he left himself alone or but with one that just jumpt with him in all things And indeed as in the Mathematicks when a crooked Line deviates from a streight Line the further it reaches in length still the greater distance and more irreconcileable so here this Text of Matt. 18 17. being mistaken and wrong construed the longer the error lasts the greater mischief and the harder to be reconciled For this Interpretation has leaven'd not only Diocesan Synodical but Presbyterian Independent and Congregational-Churches till they have fought one another with this Spiritual-Weapon most Bloodily and they knew not wherefore they are mistaken in the words of their Commission Father forgive them they know not what they do I deny not but that a Bigot Papist Protestant Presbyterian or any other Sect that believes the Church has this power at this day to bind and loose and knows no better than the old Traditional-Interpretation of these words Tell the Church have and may still if they please be frighted out of their little Wit with the thunder of Excommunication thinking it Jure Divino and that the Thunder comes from Heaven But I doubt not but to prove how far it is a meer earthly Cracker and a Bugbear and frights none but Women and Fools were it not for the Writ de Excommunicato capiendo that follows in the Rear of it I know well how the Emperor Theodosius the younger was frighted out of his little Wit because a silly Monk had Excommunicated him and could not eat drink nor sleep till he absolv'd him there has and will be Bigotted Fools and Coxcombs to the Worlds end Nay men that are in all other things wise yet if they once be possessed with the Spirit of Bigottism and Superstition and be Priest-ridden not minding what the Holy Scriptures say but what comments the Priests for their own lucre and to uphold their Prelatical Hierarchy Dominion and Usurpation put upon it are easily Bugbear'd with this cracker of Excommunication as was that bravest of Men and Warriours the Emperor Theodosius the Elder Excommunicated by Ambrose the greater sinner of the two Not but that the Emperor might be in fault in some fault as what great Warriour and Conqueror as he was can possibly be innocent and have hands clean from any stain of Blood but whether he was in fault or no is not easie to determine read the Story in Nicephorus and though the Emperor did command the Soldiers to humble the City that were certainly Traytors and were Guilty laesae Majestatis in abusing most shamefully the Statues and Picture of his dear Wife and Empress and possibly the Soldiers might they are apt enough to exceed their Commission when there is good plunder in the case But the poor Emperor must pay for all and smart for all For indeed he was not Emperor but a Bigot I mean he did not know his own Strength Power and Authority but suffered himself to be nuzzled by Ambrose that formerly had been a Captain and now was made Bishop of the same Town Milan that he had formerly been Governour of but he forgot not his stout heart though he had put on his Canonical-Weeds read but the Story it is too long here to insert but you will then with me pity the poor Bigot Emperor got into ill-handling and under the clutches of a Priest that well knew the Ascendant he had over him For even in these days a Bishoprick begun to be a stately business and not only a good but a great thing and had been so of 100 years standing namely ever since the good Emperor Constantine had been so wonderfully Enamour'd of them Bishops and therefore he made them rich and riches are apt to make men proud and pride is apt to make men fall And there 's an end on 't But if the Sanhedrim or Synagogue had been a Spiritual-Court only as men make it that thus Construe Tell the Church then certainly it was a Bloody Court as well as a Bawdy Court for St. Paul confesses that he had a Commission from thence to Imprison men and put them to Death which surely was Law or else King Agrippa and Festus the Roman-Governour would have chastised him for it when he confest Acts 26.10 that many of the Holy men he shut up in Prison having received Authority from the Chief-Priests mark that and when they were put to Death he gave his Vote for it and punisht them oft in every Synagogue or Church so that I say Tell it to the Church or Synagogue is Complain to the Justice and no more And it is strange indeed that Christ should in those Words of Matt. 18.17 set up a new Jurisdiction in the World and the Apostles who at that time knew nothing of nulling any of the Law of Moses or that Christ should die and yet should make no exception to it or question to have it more explain'd if it were to be a standing Sacred Ordinance to vouch Excommunication to the Worlds end And as strange that none of the
Father never taught them thus to fight and quarrel upon the Road to Heaven Why suppose a Man will not go our way or think his Business rather lies another way a shorter cut a nearer way and a better Road. Must we because we think the Man is in an Error and Mistake draw our Weapons whether carnal or spiritual upon him where 's the Reason the Conscience the Christianity of it Does not every Man best understand his own Concern or if he doth not 't is not our loss but the harm is his own We may advise him friendlily and tell him of the dangerous way he is in of which yet none of us the wisest of us are certainly infallible and assured But if he will not take our Advice fare him well curse him not but pray for him and say God bless him and teach him and us the right way Indeed if our Actions and Manners be against the indisputable and unquestionable Laws of God and Nature as Blasphemy Adultery Drunkenness and Rebellion Treason c. Then take him Goaler and let the Magistrate correct him But to curse whip lash flash and Bridewel a Man for not thinking as we do Opinion and Thought being free and impossible to be compell'd is a Spanish Inquisition High-Commission and Romish Tyranny and a Lunacy to boot beyond that of Bedlam God grant us to be all of one Heart and Mind in God's Worship and Service and to keep the Unity of the Spirit at least in the Bond of Peace and Comprehension But if thus Praying will not do cursing and excommunicating and damning should not do I am sure Which makes me think of a Gain and I 'll not think it Battology to recite it again namely That admirable and Christian-like Direction and only safe Prescription of the said Incomparable Sir Matthew Hale amongst his said 18 Caveats given to himself in these Words That I be not too rigid in Matters purely consoientious where all the harm is Diversity of Judgment and if in Criminals it be a Measuring-cast to encline to Mercy and Acquittal This is true Plety indeed and the only true Christianity but the contrary is true Impiety and the only true Antichristianism Besides 'T is true Policy too no Man quarrels with another that is not just of his Size Complexion and Pitch and why not Because there 's no Law to sine every Man that is not of such a common Standard Size and Pitch if there were Covetousness and Tyranny would set the Uniform and common Sandard-men at work if it were but for the Fine sake to hale in the Nonconformists and dissenting Scanltings and then what old tugging and quarrelling goaling and baleing would there be to the perpetual Disturbance of the Neighbourhood and the Kingdom as well as to the shameful Scandal of Christianity that makes Doves and Lambs indeed but neither Wolves nor Bloody Bonners or Tygers Whereas now that we have a general Comprehension as to all Sizes of the Body and no Man is bound to grow to just such a Soantling and no higher we have no quarrelling about the Matter no more than there is in Holland about Religion where tho they have different Religions yet every Man being left to God and his Liberty to go to Heaven which way he please they never curse damn excommunicate or quarrel about the matter but leave every Man to stand and fall to his own Master and Creator further than Christian Admonitions and State-Encouragements and Preserments do invite or allure For they admit and courteously entertain like Men and Christians all Mankind except the said Inhospitable and Anrichristian Bloodhounds the Jesuits and those if they catch hunting or resting in any of their Dominions they immediately upon proof boil them to death in scalding Oil. And to this Severity they are forc'd and constrain'd through that Jesuitical Maxime that Dominion is founded in Grace and consequently All the Kingdoms of the World Territories People and Dominions ought to be subject to Christ's only Vicar or Vice-Gerent upon Earth the Pope For Severity and Cruelty may make many Hypocrites but cannot make one Saint it can do much Mischief when in Power the only thing that wicked Men mind but not any Good it can surrogate to Destruction but not to Edification it can like Erostratus get a Name and Fame for destroying the Temple and Church but wants the Heart of Holy David and the wise Head of Solomon and the Apostles to build the Temple and Church of God Our Blessed Saviour came neither to destroy the material or spiritual Temple but if Scribes Pharisees Hypocrites destroy it he said he could build it again in three days But some Mens Arts are like the late Bishop of London Bonner his Arts they can destroy and fire the Spiritual Temples of God in few days more than they will erect and build up all their Life-time Sic facilis descensus Averni The way to Hell is very easie And down-hill all way to 't an 't please ye And therefore away with Mens Prate and Talk vouching their private Malice and Revenge with the Constitutions of the Church The Church if they be not according to the Constitutions of Christ in the Gospel for as Cyprian says Serm. 5. de Lapsis non est Pax fed Bellum nec Ecclesiae jungitur qui ab Evangelio separatur Then trust ye not in lying Words Jer. 7.4 saying The Temple of the Lord The Temple of the Lord are these Behold ye trust in lying Words that cannot profit Will ye steal murder commit Adultery c. and come and stand before me in this Houses which is called by my Name and say We are delivered to do all these Abominations If this House which is called by my Name become a Den of Robbers in your Eyes Behold even I have seen it saith the Lord. But go ye now unto my Place which was in Shiloh where I set my Name at first and see what I did unto it for the Wickedness of my People c. Whence I note that no People or Church how dear soever it has been unto God has a Charter of Priviledges to offend rob or murder their Brethren under the Title Umbrage and Name of the Church the Church which Church is not exempt from God's Visitation and Punishment if not Extinguishment Which brings to my Mind what Heylin in his Geography says of Poland l. 2.150 The King at his Goronation takes an Oath to confirm all the Rights and Priviledges of the Subject granted by any of his Predecessors and also adds this Clause Quod si Sacramentum meum violavero incolae Regni nullâ nobis Obedientiâ tenebuntur That if I break my Oath the Subjects are not obliged to us in Allegiance or Obedience A Clause that seems to me proper only if proper at all for an Elective King as is the King of Poland and not for a King whose Kingdom is Hereditary as Sweden Denmark England France and Spain nor can it or