the words of the righteous that is such as would be wise and righteous if it were not for the Gift or Reward But wo wo Wo be to them saith the Prophet that decree unrigteous decrees Isa 10.1 2 3. and that write grievousness which they have prescribed To turn aside the needy from judgment and to take away the right from the poor of my people that widows may be their prey and that they may rob the fatherless And what will ye do in the day of visitation and in the desolation which shall come from far to whom will ye flee for help and where will ye leave your glory Loth very loth will such men be that such measure as they meet it shall be measured unto them again then will they curse the keeping of false weights and false measures one to buy by and another to sell by except they indeed intend to be Weathercocks that is true Conformists yet never true nor stable but only true to every Wind that blows strongest But this is the wisdom the honesty and the policy mean while men might blush if they had any blush or grace in them this is a kind of blind Devotion or Implicite Faith Thus have I known a willing Court yare and ready at an Execution right or wrong upon a Bishop's significavit send a man to Gaol when the Bishop to my knowledg granted that significavit of one Excommunicate and knew no more of the matter or whether just or the merit of the cause more than the Man in the Moon but by Implicite Faith in the Register or his Eccho I mean Mr. Formality called a Surrogate or Official Sinner you ought to be Excommunicate Suspended saith Register or Vice-Register Excommunicetur Suspendatur quoth Eccho-Surrogate Wonderful Ecclesiastical-Policy and Kirk-Discipline Is there any Wit or Grace Law Reason Conscience or Equity in these Proceedings What Curse men Damn them Gaol them and all by Implicite Faith in a Silly Covetous Wretched Extorting Lack-Latin Register Sir How came you by the Keys of the Church These Keys of the Kingdom of Heaven and Earth These Keys that let in and out to Hell and the Gaol Did you come honestly by them speak man How came you Sir to say First Take him Devil Secondly and consequently Take him Magistrate Thirdly and lastly Take him Gaoler And in Gaol he must there lie and die without Bayl or Mainprize by 3 Edw. 1.15 How long Until he first please that is pay this same extorting Register 'till 1. He be pleas'd and as much he pleases at the will of this Lord or rather Tyrant of Souls and Purses 2. He must swear to obey the Ordinary and staremandatis Ecclesiae commandments of Holy-Church 3. He shall then be Absolv'd and have a Certificavit thereof to the Bishop who then in course grants a Signisicavit and then by Writ to the Sheriff the poor Excommunicate gets out of Hell and the other Hell the Gaol So that the Register the Vice-Register with Formality-Eccho have all the Keys at their Devotion for what the Bishop does by Significavit of Excommunication or Absolution delivering to and fro the Devil and the Gaol and all that the King's-Courts consequently do thereupon are all by blind Implicite-Faith in the Register and Eccho all in course only For these little Sell-souls do the feat vulnus opemque tulit the same hand again they Wounded you and they cure you the Bishop's Significavit and the Writ de Excommunicato capiendo are but necessary Consequents and things in Course So that I say again it is safer 1000 times safer to anger the Great Turk or Great Mogull than a sneaking rascally covetous extorting Register or Vice-Register that buys or hires the Sell-soul-place to my knowledg and if he buys the Devil he must fell him Thus I think we English men are at a fine pass when our Souls our Bodies our Properties and Liberties lye at this loose lock whilst a Register or Sumner keeps really and truly the Keys of all To see an old Formality-Priest sit in the Court of Arches behind Noon as if forsooth they could do nothing without the Keys for fashion-sake which Mr. Necessity-Priest has at his Girdle hanging and represents the Archbishop who is absent about greater matters than Markets of Souls and looks just like the Divinity-man amongst the Civil Lawyers in Trinity-Hall in Cambridg called Mr. Necessity because he has no Law but they are troubled with him poor man because they cannot pray without him Quite contrary in Doctors-Commons they must they must upon necessity be troubled with this Hackney-Journey-man-Divinity-driver because the mischief is the Doctors good Souls are willing enough but alas they cannot Curse and Deliver to the Devil without him nor Absolve without him although the Money for Absolution be not only agreed upon but they have the Livery and Seizin thereof in their Pocket Why What must be done then give the Word for Mr. Necessity the Arch-Bishops Representative or in inferiour Coutts the Bishops Representative or the Arch-Deacons Representative Come hither Mr. Necessity nay hold up your head and look like a Man sit down put on your Hat Mr. Necessity you must Subscribe this Curse or Anathema yea quoth Necessity give me my Spectacles and Pen and Ink. This fellow makes no more Bones of a Soul than if it had not a Bone in it nor knows wherefore it is delivered to Satan or more of the matter or merit of the Cause than the most Reverend Arch-Bishop Lord-Bishop or Mr. Arch-Deacon that are miles off and absent I 'le depose for Mr. Necessity he knows no Law Civil-Law nor Uncivil-Law all he minds or knows or enquires is only Wher 's my Gray-Groat for subscribing the Anathema or Curse Is it a good Groat I take no Brumiughams no Brumingham I. Then if ever the Soul be Absolv'd then Mr. Necessity has a Groat more for the Absolution-Oath he cares not how many are delivered to Satan so many Souls so many Groats in his Pocket ready Money but his vertue is he Prays as hard for their Absolution for every Soul Absolv'd is as good as a Groat in his Pocket Mr. Necessity to Curse takes pains But Registers and Doctors get the gains Copy-hold at the will of the Lord is the basest Tenure but that is regulated and bounded by custom and kept within the limits of reason But in this case upon the good will pleasure or desplensure of these Ecclesiastical-fellows depends all we have all our Liberties and Properties of Noblemen Gentlemen Yeomen all all are held at the will of these Spiritual Lords or rather Holy-Tyrants I mean Summers and Registers and such bran such Sell-souls we none of us can be assured of any thing we have if they be not curb'd in their career we cannot say our Souls are our own Are we not at a fine pass The thoughts hereof did so perplex the King and Parliament saith the Lord Cook Inst 1. Sect. 201. that though in antient time
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
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
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