Christians have to study each others good to endeavour the conversion and confirming of one another Tu autem conversus confirma fratres It is a general Command to all and consequently a duty perpetually obliging to desire earnestly spiritual gifts but rather that they may prophesie according to 1 Cor. 1.14 in which Chapter by Prophets is not meant the Clergy only as it is generally so misunderstood but all Christians in general and by Prophesying is meant speaking unto men to edification and exhortation and comfort V. 3. the duty of every individual And I do not know but that a solemn private Assembly of Christians met in these our days in the name and fear of God exercising holy duties and Ordinances is as true a Church in Gospel understanding as the like number so congregated in the days of Christ and his Apostles according to Matth. 18. These things rightly considered I cannot but wonder and that not without some astonishment with what face or shew of conscience any especially of our Protestant Clergy for in our Alternate changes they have been all some way or other this way culpable whether Prelate Presbyter or Independent all striving to set up themselves can countenance advise or any way consent to forbid such Assembling is it not enough that submission to the present Established Government of Church and State be the qualification to all Ecclesiastical Livings and Preferments for those that can and will submit and conform thereto but they must silence dissenters as truly worshipping and serving God in truth as themselves tho happily not so modishly nor yet so Ceremoniously I pray God forgive them and that the Character of Whited wall given to the High Priest by St. Paul may never be their doom § In things indifferent and good so they be liberal and free it may so happen that an error may be committed against the Princes command but for those duties that are expresly commanded by God the 5. Acts 29. It s better to obey God than Man must take place Consider the contrary if a Prince command lawful things must we notwithstanding have license from another to obey him and without it is it a Non licet And shall not Gods Commands be lawfully obeyed without license from another Nature in all her sinal drifts giveth also such faculties and powers as are requisite and necessary for attaining the same and shall God prescribe an end and Commandments and shall they not be obeyed and put in practice without the favour and license of men Absit its too absurd and inconvenient I have been the freer herein because I have been so far from frequenting or countenancing such Assemblies by my presence that I have been but once at any one of them above these 20 years nor do I converse with any of them Happily I can conform with better satisfaction to conscience than they can that so congregate It is hard kicking against the Pricks Acts 26.14 and ill offending little ones a heavy doom lyes at the doors of such for their Angels do alwayes behold the face of God in Heaven Mat. 18.10 you know the charge was given to Kings themselves saying touch not mine anointed and do my Prophets no harm 105 Psal 14.15 stopping such mouths is injurious to God and man Doth the Law judge any man before it hear him and know what he doth 9 John 51. The sum then is that as all Men and Doctrines condemning sin and wicked lives are to be tollerated nay encouraged So to stop the Mouths and Pens of such is to hinder them from doing their duty and from obeying the Laws and Commands of God Now if such should in truth prove to be the very case of our Conventiclers and that their solemn meetings together be in good earnest for the better and not for the worse to wrestle with God with strong and importunate prayers for the Welfare of King and Kingdom of Church and State and to mourn not only for their own personal Sins but for all the abominations that are done in the midst of the Land and to preach Jesus Christ and him Crucified only and that he would make a high way of Holiness through the Land that way-faring-men tho fools may not err therein 35 Esay 8. To stir up the gifts and spirits that are in them by fruitful and seasonable conferences each borrowing light from his Brothers Candle If such should prove to be the truth of their case as they and their Auditors most solemnly aver it to be and it hath not yet judicially appeared to have been otherwise will not then the Oppugners of such Christian liberty Gospel precepts and Apostolick practices be accounted to have laid Snares in Mispah and spread Nets upon Tabor to have used Laws Menaces and Subtilties to keep Gods people from his Court and Sanctuary and to confine and oblige them to Worship after the modes of men And will not such obligations come within the lash and verge of the Woe denounced by Isaiah against those that make a Man an Offender for a word and lay a Snare for them that reprove in the Gate and turn aside the Just for a thing of naught 29.21 Nay will it not look like that old Machivilian trick Audacter calumniari the better to bring about ends and purposes little conducing to the power and encrease of Godliness It is an undoubted Gospel truth that no Power hath lawful Right and Authority to forbid Christians assembling together to Preach the Gospel and to perform Spiritual duties When God sent his own Son out of his own Bosom to take on him the form of a Servant and to become obedient to the death of the Cross for us Men and for our Salvation he gave him the Heathen for his Inheritance and the uttermost parts of the Earth for his Possession 2 Psal 8. and anoynted him with the Oyl of gladness above his fellows whereby he became King of Kings and Lord of Lords whose Throne was to endure for ever and ever and the Scepter of Righteousness to be the Scepter of his Kingdom 1 Heb. 8.9 who whilst in the dayes of his flesh did gather a Church a Kingdom out of Jews and Gentiles peculiar to himself and established the Government thereof sufficient to all its ends and purposes by his own Laws and Precepts far different and distinct from all other Governments in the World to which all other Kings and Governments in the World were to conform and submit and to become nursing Fathers and Mothers thereof and that under a severe prophetical Menace of being else broken with a rod of Iron and dasht in pieces like a Potters vessel 2. Psal 9. and therefore Christs Worship and Government being Independent and subject to no other Laws or Jurisdictions but his own which no Nation how great soever hath so Righteous 4 Deut. 8. no other Power or Principality can Lawfully forbid any Assemblies or Congregations to meet and worship him according to
sent it by Stephanus and others signifying unto them that though he were absent in Body but present in Spirit had already judged as present him that had so done and therefore advised them in the Name of the Lord Jesus Christ that being gathered together and his Spirit with the vertue of the Lord Jesus Christ to deliver such a one unto Sathan Now it is observable that when St. Paul wrote this Epistle he was absent at Philippi a City of Macedonia and directed it not to any one single person Pope or other but unto the Church of God which was at Corinth and to them that were sanctified in Christ Jesus called to be Saints with all that in every place call upon the Name of Jesus Christ our Lord both theirs and ours He did not according to Romish Custom write by his Breves I excommunicate such a one and in one Scrap of Paper send as much as in him lieth Kings and Queens and Emperors nay whole Kingdoms and States to the Devil but he wrote to the Church a Collective Body that being gathered together with his Spirit they should deliver that Incestuous person to Sathan And again when he wrote his Second Epistle he directed it also unto the Church of God which was at Corinth with all the Saints which are in all Achaia declaring it sufficient to such a Man is this Punishment which was inflicted of many admonishing them to forgive and comfort him lest perhaps he should be swallowed up with overmuch sorrow whereby it is plain and not to be gainsaid that the Delivering of him unto Sathan be the Punishment be the Censure what it will it was inflicted by many 2 Cor. 2.6 Now if Paul an Apostle would not excommunicate or deliver unto Sathan at his own will and pleasure but would consult the Church that the Matter being transacted by common Authority and Approbation the Censure the Punishment might be performed by Common Consent It being most just and equal and of Moral Right that they who to morrow must deliver such a one to Sathan whom to day they account as a Brother dear in Christ should be fully satisfied why and wherefore Now how came Signore Papa alone to be entituled to exercise Powers greater than the Apostle Paul would use What hath he to do with it more than the rest of his Brethren If so interrogated I can make no other Answer but Ignoramus Moreover hath the practice of Christ's Vicars at Rome been correspondent to that of Paul the Apostle of such esteem and prevalency is publick consent with God himself even in the Affairs of the Church that though in his secret Decree Paul and Barnabas were to be set apart for the Work of the Ministry yet by God's own appointment were they separated after Fasting and Prayer to the same by the Church which was at Antioch Acts 13.2 Thereby teaching us not to despise the Office of the Church i.e. of the Multitude of Brethren where it may be had By these very small Hints it is easily discernable what a Nose of Wax the Papalins make both of Scripture and Tradition and Excommunication their great and terrible Thunderbolt even against Kings and Kingdoms not considering the little efficacy it hath What was the State of Venice and her Duke or Queen Elizabeth and her Dominions the worse for Romish Excommunications and Interdicts or what the worse the Kings of Spain for being excommunicated every Maunday Thursday And indeed what the worse his Holiness at Rome for being solemnly excommunicated every year by the Muscovite Fops § Some indeed of later days have intimated a great and just dislike of those who have hitherto endeavoured to hang Excommunication on some doubtful Places of Scripture but yet endeavour to settle it on another Basis viz. on the Nature and Constitution of the Church Christian as a Society Instituted by Jesus Christ whereby they say it is manifest that if Excommunication cannot be established upon some better and other Bottom than what hath hitherto been laid by their Predecessors on some doubtful places of Scripture it must necessarily decay and fall to the ground moreover they most ingenuously confess themselves unsatisfied as to any convincing Argument whereby it can be proved that any were denied Admission unto the Lords Supper who were admitted to all other parts of Church-Society and owned as Members in them § Though I have said enough already sparsim that if rightly applied doth demolish this Fabrick of Fundamental Right yet I will add a little and but a little more viz. that if by the Word Church in these Positions be meant only the Clergy met or not met in Councils Synods Consistories Convocations or Assemblies as the Representatives of the Church Assembled by their own power as by a Fundamental Right grounded on Christs Institution then to say no more is hereby justified Robert Bruce David Blake and those seventeen Scottish Ministers before-mentioned and their Tenets denying the King and his Council to have any Authority in Matters Ecclesiastical For certainly if God hath given them power of themselves to Assemble and Consult and make Laws and hath not withal given them Force and Power to put them in execution they have only a mock and ridiculous Authority which God never instituted nor ordained And if it be not so meant then they either say nothing to the purpose or equivocate But if herein by the Word * By the word Church may be meant either all Believers holding saving Truth in general of what condition or quality soever or else more striftly the collective Body of the Clergy for if we speak right of the Church Universal or this or that Particular Church as of Spain France England c. this Term may be taken in either of those two Sences Church be meant the Civil Power and Laity together with the Clergy then we are Friends and that Fundamental Right arising from the Constitution of the Church derived from Christ himself of Right belongs to the Commonwealth if Christian and to every congregated Number of Believers gathered in any Gentile State or People and united into one Society and not only to the Clergy thereof and the Laity are as capable and have as much Right to be of such Councils and Synods as the Ecclesiasticks Or that the Church be not semper and perpetuo a peculiar Society separate and distinct from the Commonwealth as certainly it is not or that the Officers thereof as limited by these Positions unto Teachers and Pastors injuriously enough if they pretend beyond Teachings Administrations of Sacraments Imposition of hands for Ordination and the publick use of the Keys are not only inflicters or executioners of Church-Censures as certainly they are not then the very Foundation of this Fabrick for the Support and Justification of Excommunication must necessarily fall to the ground It is true that every Church is a Society or Body Politick though every Society or Body Politick is not a Church every
vel indignos recusandi quod ipsam videmusde divina Authoritate descendere ut sacerdos plebe praesente sub omnium oculis deligatur c. whereby it appears that the supream Power of choosing such Priests as are worthy and refusing unworthy doth principally rest in the People And he speaketh of Bishops particularly although in the words alledged he mentioneth Priests and withal it is not only St. Cyprians Epistle but the Epistle of thirty six Bishops and written to the Common People of Leon Asturia and Emerita Vide his 14. Epist of his 3. Lib. such Authorities we may alledge but not mystical and enforced Explications nor yet wrong Conclusions from right Premisses The Faithful Flock of Christ ought to resemble Sheep indeed in humility and innocency yet ought they not to be so sheepish or sottish as to decline the Authority which Christ their great Shepherd hath bestowed on them either of choosing them a Good or of judging a Wicked Shepherd St. Austin proves unanswerably that Doctrines are to be grounded on the Literal Sense of the Scripture and not on any Mystical Interpretation In this equivocating Art of Sophistry Bellarmine hath shewed both in this Subject as in others his great dexterity first to settle with the Reader the Relation which the Holy Church hath towards the Divine Majesty and then to conclude on the Relation towards the Pope such false Sophistry such disingenuity becomes not so great a Prince so great a Scholar as himself but the Parisians no Protestants conclude that God hath called the Church to the Faith and his Worship and that he hath placed Christ over it for an Head for ever who first himself did govern it on Earth in the days of his Flesh but being ascended into Heaven doth rule it with inward influence and assistance invisible unto the end of the World It is true that the Church is not a Common-wealth as Venice or as Geneva which give as much Authority as themselves please to their Dukes and Princes nor a Kingdom which may change the manner of governing it neither invisibly nor visibly because that Christ hath prescribed the manner much less is it such a Kingdom as England which hath a Blood-Royal where the Kings succeed by Birth neither as some other by Testament but as touching the Inward Government and meerly Spiritual it is not like unto any because it hath a perpetual Immortal and Eternal King who only knows the Heart and tries the Reins In the visible Government it hath a Ministry whose Authority was instituted by Christ and independing of the Church but as concerning the Application of this Authority unto this or that Person it is elective or depending of it Wherefore when he alledgeth I am constituted a King by him Our Lord God shall give him a Kingdom Luke 1.32 and 12.32 You chose not me but I have chosen you John 15.16 Thou hast made us to our God a Kingdom All these places and such like others are meant of the Invisible Spiritual and Interior Kingdom where the Pope hath no regiment nor influence at all but Christ is all in all governing by his Spirit and according to the Council of his own Will Thus he having laid down and proposed to use a Proposition or Doctrine quodammodo and in some sense true and having Validity under the Covert of an Universal yet having applied it to wrong Particulars it hath lost its Energy and Effort and its fallacy is discovered A piece of Artifice and Skill that runs through the Veins and Lines of most Popish Writers in the Controversies between us and them and what else is this but to make Lies their refuge and under Falshood to shelter themselves If Popes may now excommunicate as they pretend yet this concludes not that they may excommunicate Princes or Magistrates or whole Common-wealths The Primitives of old did use excommunication very sparingly and moderately and with great prudence and policy and with great respect to the good of the Church And therefore be the Power what or where it will St. Augustine holds an Excommunication against a Multitude though it were for some notorious and manifest sin too sacrilegious pernicious impious and insolent Lib. 3. contra Ep. Permen 23.4.4 c. non potest And Thomas putteth a Question whether any generality may be excommunicated and he answereth himself No and produceth Reasons for the same concluding that the Church appointeth with great Providence that no Community might be excommunicated And all other Divines with one accord determine the same And also Pope Innocent the 4th in the Chap. Rom. saith In Vniversitatem vel Collegium proferri sententiam Excommunicationis penitus prohibere de Sentent excom in 6. We must know that it is of worse consequence and example where â—t is used against Princes than divers other Bodies and Societies in as much as one Prince is of more consequence and power than thousands of other Lay-men We know also that in all Judgments there is a necessity of a Legal Trial to precede Conviction And that great Multitudes may be convented examined sentenced and punished with less disturbance of Peace less violation of Majesty than those that sway the Ball-Imperial Besides if the condemnation of Princes might be upon due Trials without violence yet the execution of the Sentence would produce more monstrous events in them than in private Men for how shall the People honour obey and reverence him in the State as Gods Lieutenant whom they see accursed cut off and abhorred in the Church as the Devils Vassal upon the excommunication of Princes whole Nations have been interdicted witness England Venice and other in the times of several Popes whole States subjected to ruine the Innocent with the Obstinate the Princes with the People all have have been sacrificed to Blood-thirsty-Popish-Priests under pretence of obedience to the Holy Catholick Church In what Code of the Ancient Church can it be found where any such strange kind of punishment was ever instituted as that for the offence of a few many Millions of Souls should be accursed cast out of the Church and in Popish construction damned How can they call that Power Apostolical that punisheth in this manner seeing the Apostolical Power was given for edification and not for destruction And yet so precipitate have some Popes been as to excommunicate whole States and Kingdoms Surely therefore we ought not so tamely to acquiesce on the bare ipse dixit of the Clergy pleading in their own Cause and for themselves only exclusive the Laity Certainly it is too small a security for so great a concern therefore let us a little examine what they urge for this exorbitant Power § If Kings be not this way punishable then they are no other way which is mischievous in the Church Sol. The Jewish Kings were as great and scandalous sinners as Kings-Christian now are yet God assigned no Rulers Spiritual for their Castigation and we must suppose that if it had
appointed by God and practised by his People And if it appears that both Precept and Practice doth abet and favour the Liturgists then I hope our Author will not be so peremptory in casting Aspersions on Liturgies § First consult the Old Testament and you shall find that Moses gifted no doubt himself took the Book of the Covenant and read in the audience of all the People and therefore publick Service and they said all that the Lord hath said will we do and be obedient Exod. 34.7 Likewise the command to the King Deut. 17. was That when he sate upon the Throne of his Kingdom that he shall write him a Copy of this Law in a Book c. and shall read therein all the days of his life c. v. 17 18 19. The like command was to the Priests and Elders of Israel to whom Moses delivered the Law written That when all Israel Men Women Children Strangers come to appear before the Lord thy God in the Place where he shall choose thou shalt read this Law before all Israel in their hearing of Sermons in those days there is no mention to the end and Liturgies are to the same end that they may hear and learn and fear before the Lord your God Deut. 31.9 10 11 12. Moreover of Reading and of the success and benefit thereof the Scripture farther witnesseth That when the Book of the Law had been some time missing and was afterwards found the good King Josiah which heard it but only read by Shaphan tore his Cloaths and confessed that great is the wrath of the Lord that is poured out upon us and thereupon went up into the House of the Lord and all the Men of Judah and Inhabitants of Jerusalem and he read in their Ears all the Words of the Book of the Covenant that was found in the House of the Lord c. 2 Chr. 34.18 19 c. whereby it is abundantly manifest that here was not only a Command performed according to Deut. 31.13 Thou shalt read this Law but repentance wrought by only reading of the Word the like effect I mentioned before Exod. 34.7 Again the Solemn and Religious manner of reading and hearing the Law and the Comfort and Instructions the People received thereby is plainly and in terminis set down Nehem. 8. And all the People gathered themselves together as one Man c. and they spake unto Ezra the Scribe to bring the Book of the Law of Moses c. And Ezra the Priest brought the Law before the Congregation and he read therein from the Morning until the Mid-day before the Men and the Women and those that could understand and Ezra the Scribe stood upon a Pulpit and opened the Book in the sight of all the People and therefore publick Service and Ezra blessed the Lord the great God and all the People answered Amen Amen with lifting up their hands also day by day from the first day to the last day viz. seven days he read in the Book of the Law of God v. 1 2 3 4 5 6.18 There is also a Promise of blessing annexed to it That the Deaf shall hear the Words of the Book of the Lord Isa 29.18 and a Command from the same Prophet Seek ye out the Book of the Lord and read Ch. 34.16 § Having now out of some few of many places of the Old Testament made good the Precept and the Practise of the Old Prophets Kings and Priests let us now see what the New Testament Christ and his Apostles will afford us that by two such unquestionable and immutable Witnesses every word may be established first That Christ himself is of the same Opinion with the Prophet appears by Luke 16.31 where he saith That if they would not hear Moses and the Prophets neither will they be perswaded though one arose from the dead Nay how often doth Christ send the Scribes Pharises and Saduces unto the Scripture saying How readest thou or have you not read as in the matter of pulling the Ears of Corn on the Sabbath-day Mat. 12.3 So concerning Divorces Mat. 19.3 The Peoples crying Hosanna Mat. 21.16 and concerning the Stone which the Builders refused 42. and the Resurrection of the Dead C. 22.31 nay when he came to Nazareth where he had been brought up and as his custom was he went into the Synagogue on the Sabbath-day and stood up for to read Luke 4.16 and Paul coming to Antioch went into the Synagogue on the Sabbath-day and sate down and after the reading of the Law and the Prophets the Rulers of the Synagogne sent unto them that if they had any word of Exhortation to the People to go on then Paul declared and laid the condemning of Jesus to the charge of those that dwelt at Jerusalem and their Rulers because they knew him not nor yet the Voices of the Prophets which are read every Sabbath-day Acts 13.14 15.27 28. So the Apostles and Elders being solemnly met together in Council at Jerusalem declared that Moses of old time had in every City them that preached Christ being read in the Synagogues every Sabbath-day Acts 15.24 By which it seems in the esteem of the Apostles and Elders in those days that reading was esteemed preaching and the result of their meeting being written in an Epistle and delivered to the Churches and read they rejoyced for the Consolation 30.31 Likewise the Apostle Paul required that those things which any one Churches Affairs gave particular occasion to write might for the Instruction of all be published and that by reading and therefore commands That when this Epistle is read among you that it be read also in the Church of the Laodiceans and that likewise that ye read the Epistle to Laodicea Colâ—s 4.16 the like charge he gave to the Thess 15.27 I adjure or charge you by the Lord that this Epistle be read unto all the Holy Brethren 1 Thes 5.27 so you see that the Charge is peremptory or with great vehemency and therefore I shall confidently say with St. John Blessed is he that readeth because the Word it self doth pronounce him so if he also observe the same Rev. 1.3 Adjurations we find none in use amongst Gods Servants save when some duty of weight is charged upon the Adjured And so Paul uses it here adjuring to performance of it and thereby notising unto us of how great necessity and use to Gods People is the reading of Scriptures in the Congregation neither is it to be limited to this Epistle only for that all Scriptures have the same Author and are of the same use to the Church of God and the like charge is given for other Scriptures Coloss 4.16 Now consider the Use in all Ages to Jewish Church Nehemiah and others as before give Testimony for their times and no doubt but after-times continued it Josephus against Appian In unaquaque septimana ad legem audiendam conveniunt universi Every Week they all come to hear the Law and records the
most true pessimus quisque asperrime rectorem patitur contra facile imperium in bonos qui metuentes magis quam metuendi Salust ad Caesarem the most wicked are the most impatient of Authority and contrarily the best men are the most obedient fearing others more than they are to be feared themselves And therefore that great Prince Augustus had wont to say that Religion and Piety did Deisie Princes The Piety of a Soverain consisteth in his care for the maintenance and preservation of Religion as the Propagator and Protector thereof This conduceth unto his own honour and Preservation for they that truly fear God dare not attempt nor think of any thing either against their Prince who is the Image of God upon Earth or against the State Nothing but Religion can maintain humane Society without it all manner of wickedness and Savage Cruelties would abound Religion only doth bridle and keep in Order Common-weals The State of the Romans saith Cicero himself did increase and flourish more by Religion than by all other means wherefore it ought to be the Princes chiefest care that Religion be preserved in its purity according to the just Laws and Ceremonies of the same He must likewise endeavor to hinder Innovations and Controversies therein For that change in Religion and a wrong done thereunto draweth along with it a change and declination in the Common-wealth as Mecenas well discourseth to Augustus Dion Religion of all Weapons is most potent overcometh all affections and charity it self and is the surest bond of Humane Society Kingdoms are more bounded and more divided by Religion than by any other Confines and Boundaries whatsoever He that is bigot in his Religion contemneth Wife Children Kindred nay his own Life if there be difference in Religion in the same Family the Father is against the Son and the Son against the Father The Mother against the Daughter and the Daughter against the Mother the Mother in Law against the Daughter in Law and the Daughter in Law against the Mother in Law Luke 12.5 3. it is storied to be the Observation of King James of ever Blessed Memory that the Puritans of that Age were not to be obliged and that not without great reason for that no obligation can be Paramount to that of Religion and Conscience wherein God hath the chief Throne As it is not to be tollerated that every one should shape out his own Religion and bring in new Rites at his pleasure and consequently trouble the publick peace so it is most necessary that every one both Kings Priests and People should amend themselves because a good life is a most vehement Orator to perswade And Magistrates are more bound than private men to fear God He that ruleth over men must be just ruling in the fear of God 2 Sam. 23.3 and it is an Abomination to Kings to commit Wickedness for the Throne is Established by Righteousness Pet. 16.12.14 to be zealous of Holy Faith that they discharge Christ his place in whose stead they are And they are also more bound to avoid Hypocrisie and Superstition to maintain their Power and State in the exercise of Religion to take great heed that that does not happen to their People which sometime fell out to the Jews through Moses long absence who thinking that in him they were deprived of the true God they made them one of Gold A thing which if it were well considered the World would not be at that pass which now it is at He that ruleth with the best Arts of peace useth this as a chief instrument to cause the people to believe this as a firm truth viz. that the Prince is ordained by God for the good of his people and ruleth with approbation of Divine Authority and the Subject consequently is obliged to obey him in all his lawful commands Princes of all others have most reason to justifie and advance Religion as having no other right or title consent excepted to Govern by that is Obligatory If they disclaim that Adieu to all other rights and pretentions For that over any one single person and much less over a multitude and such is every Politick Society in the World no one man nor yet any number of men have compleat lawful Authority to be Lord or Judge Paternal Government excepted which even nature it self hath Established from the very Creation of man all men having ever been taken as lawful Lords and Kings in their own Houses all the World over but by consent of men or by immediate appointment of God unto whom all the World is subject Hook Eccl. Pol. f. 70. As all Princes and Civil Magistrates whether of Kingdoms or Republicks have two callings the one of Christian the other of Governors so in both of them they are obliged by the strictest Bonds of Divine Precepts to serve God both as Christians in observing the Divine Precepts in general as every other private person with all their hearts minds and souls and as Princes also with well ordering of Laws and exemplarily encouraging and exhorting their Subjects to Piety Honesty and Justice punishing all such as transgress Gods Commandements especially those of the Decalogue This Power God hath given to Princes not peculiarly for their own use only so that they may not suffer it to be impaired without sin for that it proceedeth from God and is given by him for the good and benefit of the Governed and therefore they ought to be marvellous careful not to suffer it in the least to be diminished or Impeached by Pope or any other Ecclesiastick who for many Centuries under a shew of Zeal have quo jure quave injuriû endeavoured to make way for their Ambition and to usurp and monopolize that power to themselves which of indubitable Right belongeth to the civil Magistrate least it thereby become insufficient for good and intire Government and thereby both Prince and People suffer Injury and God be offended For if Princes be not bound to the governed yet to God it is a debt and duty which cannot be fully and truly paid but by preserving his publick Authority intire and by no means suffering it to be impeached or diminished which Power is not Arbitrary so as to govern according to fancy quod libet licet and so one mans will may become the cause of all mens misery such an apprehension might cause even a Saint to be misled and to walk besides his rule which is the word of God by me Kings Raign and Princes decree Justice Prov. 8.15 It is unknown to few how Ecclesiasticks for some hundreds of years by-past have with all their might laboured to Usurp Temporal Jurisdiction from Princes and how great progress they have made in it tho not without great disturbances of the Civil Governments wherein they have endeavored it and which the revolution of many Ages hath not as yet wholly recovered and for want of which whole Nations fare the worse unto this very day And of
to be Anti-Christ Thess 2.2 yet these men with the Quintescence of Sophistry have observed many new Mysteries in the Old and New Testament and plainly see the Pope in all his Pontificalibus in many Texts thereof which we may safely swear the Holy Prophets Evangelists and Apostles never saw nor intended nor possible for any mortal wit to make good As to the Text The Nation and Kingdom that will not serve thee shall be rooted out By thee if you will believe the Papists Esa 6â— 12 is now since the Incarnation of Jesus meant the Church of Rome that is in their Dialect the Pope which happily incouraged Pope Julius the Third to stamp his Coynes with this Circumscription Gens quae non servierit tibi peribit Now service in Romish understanding is to be Executioners of the Popes Commands without questioning whether just or unjust Sententia Pastoris sive injusta timenda and according to some tenenda I can easily be perswaded to believe that Papists do understand the true Scope and meaning of that Text and Chapter viz. Isay 60.12 as well as we but I cannot be so easily perswaded that they who draw such wrong Conclusions out of such right Premisses do believe themselves I doubt they rather presume to out-wit us by their Subtilties and Sophistry then convince us by sound reason The whole Scope and purport of that Chapter is only to set forth the Glory of the Church in the abundant Access of the Gentiles and the great and glorious blessings that shall accrew unto them after a short assliction Now if by intendment of the Prophet the Pope is meant by the 12. Verse we shall have brave Popes indeed for then unto them also must necessarily belong all those other glorious Attributes Recorded in the same Chapter for they all are relatives tending and pointing unto one and the same thing and if they belong unto Signior Papa then by the rule of consequences is the glory of the Lord risen upon them and darkness shall cover the Earth and gross darkness the People but the Lord shall arise upon him and his glory shall be seen upon him v. 1 2. and the Gentiles shall come to his light and Kings to the brightness of his rising v. 3. And the Sons of Strangers shall build up his Walls and their Kings shall Minister unto him his Gates shall be open continually they shall noi be shut day nor night that men may bring unto him the forces of the Gentiles and that their Kings may be brought and the Nation and Kingdom that will not serve him shall perish v. 10 11 12. And the Sons also of them that afflicted him shall come and bow unto him and all that despised him shall fall down at the Soles of his Feet to kiss his Feet and they shall call him not the Vicar of Christ but the City of the Lord the Sion of the Holy one of Israel not of Rome v. 14. And God will make him an eternal excellency not a Butcher of Kings and Saints but a joy of many Generations and he shall suck the Milk of the Gentiles and shall suck the Breasts of Kings c. and so to the end of the Chapter Now either all these glorious Consignments must belong peculiarly unto him or not any one of them as every one that hath learnt his Grammer can easily tell And he that is but little versed in Scripture can tell that they belong not to him but unto Christ What is this appropriating unto himself Attributes Divine less than to oppose and exalt himself above all that is called God or that is Worshipped so that he as God sitteth in the Temple of God shewing himself that he is God 2 Thess 2.4 who I beseech you is more omnipotent Christ the eternal Head and Law-giver of his Body the Church or his Romish Vicar that claims to Interpret and dispence with God's own Laws at his pleasure I wonder if ever such Blasphemies shall be forgiven Now under these borrowed figurative Speeches the Prophet describes the Glory of the Church of the Gentiles and more especially of Christ the Head thereof and doth thereby denote Christ's Spiritual Worship and Service and not the least hint of any Temporal Dominion to be devolved on Nostro Signior Papa so the Texts are admirable and true in their own proper sense and meaning but the Application of them made by the Papists is erroneous nay devillish even from their Father the Devil This misapplication of Texts is the general vein of Fallacy that runs quite thro most Popish Interpreters descanting on Texts of Scripture Now Kings and Kingdoms serve the Church not in that she exerciseth any Temporal Dominion of her self but because God hath given and committed the Sceptre of his Word by which he Rules and Governs unto the Churches Care and Custody So the Homage of bowing and falling down at the Soles of his Feet are honors indeed but not due to the Pope but to their and our Head Christ blessed for ever who is worshipped in the Church not as Papists deem who think they Worship Christ when they kiss his Vicars Pantable with the Cross imbroidered upon it but when they serve and honor him by obeying his voice in the Ministery of his word so the Strangers and Gentiles should willingly submit themselves to yield obedience unto Christ whose Majesty shines in the Doctrine which himself Administers by the Service of men so by Milk and Breasts are meant the Service and Obedience the Gentiles should render unto the Church to nourish her off-spring so all these sigurative expressions must be referred to the Spiritual Estate of the Church that God may be purely worshipped in her that the Ministery of the word may be advanced by all the Sons of the Church unto which the Pope is as much obliged as the meanest of his Vassals by all which it is apparent that there is not one Jota of that Text giving the least Temporal Power to the Pope over Kings and Princes In this saith St. Austin Kings serve God if in their Kingdoms they command that which is good and prohibit that which is evil not in Temporal affairs only but in matters of Religion also Cont. Cresc Lib. 3. c. 5.1 And again Ep. 48. Kings serve Christ in making Laws for Christ so that commanding the People to reverence the word and obey God and the making of strict Laws to keep men in the Faith and Church of Christ that is the true service which Princes owe to Christ and his Sion his Church and which Papists deny them to meddle withall and endeavor to prove that Popes only are Rulers of the Church out of Acts 20.28 take heed therefore unto your selves and unto all the Flock over which the Holy Ghost hath made you Overseers to feed the Church of God And out of Hebr. 13.7.17 Remember them which have the Rule over you who have spoken unto you the word of God whose faith follow
all these horrid Acts and Doctrines whereby it is manifest what influences they have upon Princes when once admitted to be their Consessors Deus Bone To what an incredible prodigious excess of wickedness are these men arrived unto and which is yet more detestable and formidable they are Implacable Incorrigible Indefatigable and persevering in their King-killing Principles and designs tho all Nations as well Papal as other abhor them make Laws against them nay banish them erect Pillars with Inscriptions to their perpetual Infamy to which bear witness the Parisians Almaignes Hungarians Venetians as unworthy to live under any honest Laws or any Civil Government and by express Decrees determined never to recall them and yet prevail they do and so they furiously drive on as if they designed to make Treason to stand in the first rank of Christian virtues and Marthering of Princes to be esteemed the fairest and shortest way to Heaven without ever coming to Purgatory To which purpose have they not Written Books â—râ—â—ted Schools wherein they teach the Method and manner of King-killing and reduced this horrid practice into an Art yea into a Kabala of that old Mahumetan of the Mountain of Saracen Progeny and Race of Moors used to confirm and resolve those that are his to kill Christian Princes in the Holy Land § These things in good earnest considered it is no time to Court compliance with or plead for Indulgence for them who will allow none to others but to abandon them and their Errors Superstitions Idolatries Deeds of darkness owned and justified by those men of sin the Sons of Perdition who oppose and exalt themselves above all that is called God or that is worshipped so that they as God sit in the Temple of God St. Peter's Chair shewing themselves that they are God Infallible working after the manner of Sathan with all power and signs and Lying Wonders Opt. Max. supr numen in terris with all deceivableness of unrighteousness and will not receive the love of the truth that they might be saved but have brought in damnable Heresies and boast themselves of Idols and take pleasure in unrighteousness 2 Thess 2 3 4. c. Mentior If I do not believe that so many demonstrable Characters of St. Paâ—l's men of sin Sons of Perdition can be so justly fastned on an Church in the World as on Rome's Church if they can then write that Church Antichristian and let Rome stand Candidate for Saint-ship Shall we then be Wheedled into Compliance and to trick it with Rome by a Jesuitical slight of contriving differences and enmity between Papists and Papists Divide impera distinguishing the Court of Rome from the Church of Rome between true Catholicks and State Catholicks i. e. the Jesuits from the rest of the Orders i. e. from all other Papists God forbid Can they be more divided than they are Or is there ever a Barrel better Herring of them Can there be greater enmity than there is already between the Jansenists and the Molinists between the Jacobins and the Jesuits between the Dominicans and Franciscans and indeed between the Jesuits and all their other Orders But to pass by all their differences of another nature between them let us bring it home in particular to our own doors and to our own concerns When Mary afterwards Queen of England desired of her Brother Edward the Sixth to have the free use of the Mass in her Family alledging her conscience that her House was her Flock c. The King by his Council answered that she should have her House or Flock but not exempt from the Kings Laws and Orders Religion Law and Reason forbidding it Policy abhorring it and Her Grace may not require it If we come to Queen Elizabeths dayes did not Herring-men in her dayes complain and bitterly rail against Fisher-men Clodius accuset Maechos Catilina Cethegum Be their differences and enmities one towards another in all other things what they will yet in this they all consent and agree and that by most solemn Oaths to set up their Lord God their Pope and to Plot and contrive the ruine and destruction of Protestants and Protestant Kings and Kingdoms quacunque arte Was ever more bitterness exprest by Tongue and Pen than was in her dayes exprest by the one against the other Jesuits against Seculars and Regulars and they against Jesuits and yet all plotted against the Queen and her Religion even whilst most highly courted by the writings both of the one and the other magnifying her Clemency and justifying her proceedings But the Queen and her Council would not be so wheedled but wisely considering that long before Jesuitism was spawned the Papists did universally incline and take part with the Popes against their Temporal Princes and therefore would not conside in them but banished both the one and the other and by wholsome Laws inflicting moderate punishments and Mulcts provided for their own safety against the one and the other And it is observable that some of those very Seculars viz. Watson and Clark that magnified the Queen to the skies in their Books were the very first that came to the Gallows for Treason against her and it is farther observed by the Lord Burleigh that tho the Seculars railed most bitterly against the Jesuits yet they never discovered any one Treason against her tho scarce four years passed all her Reign without a Treason Did not King James declare to his Parliament V. His works p. 494 495. May 19. 1603. that the Pope did not only claim to be Spiritual Head of all Christians but also to have an Imperial civil power over all Kings and Emperors dethroning and decrowning Princes with his Foot at pleasure c. And farther to clear himself before his Privy Council and Nobles in the Star-Chamber from favouring of Popery solemnly pray that before any of his Issue should maintain any other Religion than what he truly professed and maintained that God would take them out of the World V. Sir Geo. Crock's Report Part 2. Ter. 2. Jacobi Regis in Banco Regis And good reason King James had to be steady to Protestanism for in the very life time of Queen Elizabeth the common voice among the Jesuits was that if King James would turn Catholick they would follow him but if not they would all dye against him Watson Quodlibets p. 150. and Clement the Eighth by two Breves endeavored to exclude him from this Crown unless he would take an Oath to promote the Roman Catholick Interest And in a Book dedicated to Essex under the Counterfeit name of Dolman in which Book despising the right of Birth it is projected that the Antient Laws of the Land concerning Hereditary Succession to the Crown of England are to be altered that new Laws are to be brought in concerning Election that no man but a Roman Catholick of what blood soever they be is to be admitted King Are not now the same Principles as much
private resolutions can abrogate the Laws of a Nation wherein he lives For as Civil Law being the Act of a whol Body Politick doth therefore overrule each several part of the same Body so there is no reason that any one Common-wealth it self should to the prejudice of another annul that whereupon the whole world hath agreed Now as there is great cause of Communion and consequently of Laws for the maintenance of communion amongst Nations so amongst Nations Christian the like in regard even of Christianity hath been always adjudged needful And in this kind of correspondence amongst Nations the force of General Councils doth stand For as one and the same Law divine is unto all Christian Churches a rule for the chiefest things by means whereof they all in that respect make one Church as having all but one Lord and Lawgiver Christ one Faith one Baptism Jam. 4.12 Eph. 4.5 So th◠urgent necessities of mutual communion for propagation of the Gospel and for preservation of unity in these things as also for order in some other things convenient to be every where uniformily kept maketh it requisite that the Church of God here on earth have her Laws also of spiritual commerce between Christian Nations Laws by vertue whereof all Churches may enjoy freely the use of those reverend religious and sacred consultations which are termed Councils General a thing whereof Gods own blessed Spirit was the Author a thing practised by the holy Apostles themselves a thing always afterwards kept and observed throughout the world a thing never otherwise than highly esteemed of till pride ambition and tyranny began by factions and vile endeavours to abuse that divine Invention unto the furtherance of wicked purposes But as the just Authority of Civil Courts and Parliaments is not therefore to be abolished because sometimes there is cunning used to frame them according to the private intents and interests of men over-potent in the Common-wealth so the grievous abuse which hath been of Councils should rather cause men to study how so gracious a thing may again be reduced to the first perfection than in regard of the stains and blemishes sithence growing be held for ever in extreme disgrace What hath been here affirmed of the Laws of Nations in general and of General Councils to make the thing we treat of more evident and reasonable the same reasons are as applicable and adequate to all intents and purposes of every particular Kingdom and Government and runs parallel throughout all Laws both of Church and State made by every particulat Church and Nation and it cannot be otherwise without shaking and hazarding the very foundation of all peaceable and good Governments in the World For should it be in the power of any small or greater numbers less than the whol to confederat and avowedly to act contrary to publick established Sanctions either of Church or State what issue could be expected but abominable disorder and confusion and every man to do what seems best in his own eyes as once in Israel when there was no King for as the Civil Laws of every Nation so of England are made for the whole Kingdom primarily and to the particular Divisions and Fraternities secondarily and obedience is yielded unto them not as Eastern or as Western Northern or Southern men but as Subjects of the same Kingdom So the Laws of Christ are given to the whole Church primarily and yet they oblige every particular Church to the observation of them but not because in such a particular congregated Brotherhood but because Subjects of Christs visible ministerial Church I am verily perswaded that it cannot demonstratively be made appear by any that every congregated Church in the best and purest times after the days of the Apostles was a Plenipotentiary Church unto it self to all intents and purposes I must confess that they would very much have obliged us if they had at any time given us any one instance of such a Church but they having not yet done it I take it for granted that it is not to be done though if such an instance could be made yet the posture of Ecclesiastical persons and affairs being so much different now from what it was then may quite alter the case I must confess it cannot reasonably be imagined that it could then be otherwise because in those days all Kingdoms and Governments were so far from being friends to Christianity or Christian Churches that they were all Persecutors thereof and therefore not possible that there should be any National Churches and happily were none till the lays of Constantine the first Christian Emperor § Their Maxim or Position is this viz. 1. That they who are called out of the world by the ministry of the Gospel as all Christians are have power given them by Christ being a competent number to gather themselves together in his name 2. That a Church so gathered becomes a Body or spiritual Corporation and being joyned thus by mutual assent of each person have power one over another as in all Fraternities and liberty from Christ to choose their Officers censure Offenders make Canons and Orders in Circumstantials for the regulating of their affairs § Unto the first part of their Position I can so far subscribe that it is tru that where but two or three whether with or without a Priest are gathered together in Christs Name the presence of Christs Spirit is by promise annexed unto them Matth. 18.20 and the particular Assemblies of Christians were thereby intended and approved by Christ viz. to have communion in the publick exercise of holy duties mentioned Act. 2.42 46. viz. breaking of bread and prayer But that it doth describe or purport a mutual agreement which doth formally constitute them a Church Independent without any regard had to the National Church wherein they live is not so very clear the Text not warranting the same in the least if it do then every Family by the same Text might claim Independency § As unto the other part of the Position I can by no means submit without very great qualifications But if the second part of their Position be tru of every particular Assembly it must necessarily be much more tru of the whole or National Church for which they were primarily given and ordained and unto other Churches under the same Government but secondarily and subordinat Moreover consider the Original Commission for gathering of Churches Go teach all Nations and baptize them in the Name of the Father Son and Holy Ghost Matth. 28.19 which Commission was before the Church was cantonized into divisions and subdivisions by publick Authority or the Independent Congregational Fraternities set up by any particular men The distinction of Churches fell out naturally and necessarily as this or that City or Nation was here or there converted by some one or other of the Apostles and their Successors and so division of Churches came secondarily for convenient administration of Ordinances and communication of
neighbouring Villages and indeed throughout al Palestine The Persecution increasing 19 Tiberii Paul himself being as it were Signiser or Inquisitor Haereticorum great cruelty being used towards the Christians caused the Apostles and some of their Disciples to dispose of themselves into neighbouring Nations whereby the great wisdom and counsel of God was eminent that thereby the propagation of the Gospel became more universally spread yet so that some of the Apostles were always at Jerusalem as the principal Seat of the Church of Christ always ready to confirm and strengthen the Brethren under their Persecutions and though they made often excursions from Jerusalem into other Regions yet they many times returned thither again Paul himself returned thither five times after his conversion from whence he was carried prisoner to Rome where though detained two years a prisoner yet preached the Gospel even then and there All this while no footsteps of any Dependency that any one Church throughout all Palaestine or the Regions round about had of another Communications and Advisoes reciprocal there might be between the gathered Churches far and near but no dependencies obligatory upon one another Soon after Christs ascention the Gospel was preached by the Apostles to al Nations both in Asia Africa and Europe and in the mediteranean Islands as Cyprus Crete Samothracia and in the Aegean Sea Lesbon Chion Samon Trogyllium Pathmos Sicily Melita Though there were thousands of Churches gathered by the Apostles yet there are no footsteps remaining that the Churches gathered by any one Apostle were subject or did depend on any one or more Churches gathered by any other or more Apostles The like I may say after the death of the Apostles that no one Church by what Apostle soever gathered was left subject to any other Church gathered by any other Apostle no nor yet subject to any Church of their own converting and gathering but every Church was to be governed by its own peculiar Body observing Gospel precepts viz. to love one another and to do all things in decency and in order c. How and when the Supremacy of the Clergy came in Histories are ful and plain and would have been yet more ful and plain had but our Holy Fathers Inquisitors been as Innocent as Doves as they were cursedly wise as was that Divelish Serpent that beguiled Eve whilst they have scarce left us a Father or Monument of Antiquity whose very bowels they have not raked out and yet still retain that Hellish and daring Impudence to persevere in that embowelling trade and yet every hedge Priest to boast that All they cannot speak less than all the Fathers are on their side though their very Hearts and Intrals had they not been raked out by such unreasonable and cruel hands would have born witness against them and for us § By all which it appears that the Summ and meaning of the visible Church and of the Government thereof upon Earth lies in a very narrow room and is very plain and obvious to every understanding though Ecclesiastick's of all perswasions have by perverting plain truths and texts rendred them as obscure as they could that they might not appear clear unto poor Laick's And which aggravates the more we find by woful experience that as of old so now they still are very well content and pleased that we should yet be kept on in an amaze and Laberinth and to know no more of Church and Church-Government then what will stand with the grandeur benefit and domination of Ecclesiastick's only and still continuing blinded in extreme ignorance We should have them only in admiration as if Gods and Oracles indeed Bellarmine in his tract against Gerson magnifying the Popes Power above the Skies saith and saith truly that the holy Church is not like the Common-wealth of Venice or of Geneva La christ Santa non è similâ— aâ—la Rep. di Venâ—tia c. p. 318. or of other Cities which confer upon their Dukes that Power which themselves please in regard whereof it must be said that the Common-wealth is above the Prince neither is it like to an earthly Kingdom in which the People transfer their own Authority unto the Monarch and in certain cases may free themselves from Royal Dominion and reduce themselves to the Government of inferior Majestrates as did the Romans when they passed from Dominion Royal to Consular-Government for that the Church of Christ is a most perfect Kingdom and an absolute Monarchy which hath no dependance on the People neither from them had its Original but dependeth only on the Divine Will which Christ sheweth when he saith ye have not chosen me but I have chosen you 15. John 16. Luke 32.33 2. Psal 6. but what strange Blasphemous Conclusions he hath drawn out of these premises and texts which relate only to Christ himself by applying them to his Vicar General I will not in this place concern my self at all The position it self is thus far true that the Church is not a Common-wealth as Venice much less a Kingdom as England which hath a Blood Royal and Kings succeed by Birth nor as some other Kingdomes by Testament which hapily may change the Government because the Church which is Christs Body hath Christ for its perpetual and immortal Head and King who whilst Man in the daies of his flesh first made the Body the Church and not the Body him the Head thereof governed it both visibly and invisibly invisibly by influencing his Body and conferring Gifts and Graces upon men fit for his Body the Church now touching this inward and merely Spiritual Government it is not like unto any Government no Prince Pope or Prelate having any such Government at all but only Christ who knoweth the hearts of all men which are deceitful above all things and can only influence them and can confer Gifts and Graces upon them whereby they are made and may become free Denizens of the Heavenly Jerusalem And because Christ was always to have his Body the Church on earth even unto the end of the world to be composed of visible Men and Members and not of one visible Man the Pope as the same Bellarmine and others would make us believe he hath appointed the Authority which his Body should have after his Ascention with promise that he would be with them unto the end of the world and therefore he set some in the Church as Apostles Prophets Teachers and after that Miracles then Gifts of Healing Helps in Government Diversities of Tongues 1 Cor. 12.28 Some of which as Miracles Diversities of Tongues and Gifts of Healing died and ceased with the Apostles who only were extraordinarily and Infallibly Gifted and inspired as necessary only for the first planting of the Gospel Therefore when Christ Ascended on high he gave Gifts unto Men 68. Psal 18.4 Eph. 8. yet diversly and in divers Measures and according to his Promise John 14.26 Sent the Holy Ghost the Comforter amongst them which should
teach his Body the Church all things and should continue with them unto the end of the World § For soon after his Ascention the Apostles together with the rest of the Body being met together in a great Assembly and after they had prayed the place was shaken where they were assembled together and they were all filled with the Holy Ghost and great Grace was upon them all 4. Act. 31.32.33 and accordingly the manifestation of the Spirit is given to every Man to profit withal to one the Word of Wisdome to another the Word of Knowledge to another faith c. and all by the same Spirit 1. Cor. 12.7.8 and all these for the edifying of the Body of Christ 4. Eph. 12 For though the Body be one yet hath it many Members and all the Members of that one Body being many are one Body whereof Christ is the head 1. Cor. 12.12 In the visible Government of the Church Christ appointed and instituted a Priesthood in which likewise it is dissimilar to all temporal Governments which quodam sensuis Independent of the Church though touching the application of the Authority to the Person it is elective and depending of the Body of the Church under this Priesthood is comprehended Bishops and Presbiters now what their Authority and Powers are vide their Commission 28. Mat. 19.20 go teach all Nations Baptizing them in the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you and loe I am with you always unto the end of the world other Powers besides these and laying on of hands especially coercive I know none derived unto them by any text of Scripture These Bishops these Presbiters these Ministers or Pastors are not Lords and Masters as in the Roman Church but are Servants to the Body of the Church For we preach not our selves but Christ Jesus the Lord and our selves your Servants for Jesus sake 2. Cor. 4.5 and these Authorities are not coercive but are given them to exhort reprove rebuke beseech intreat for Christs sake and by the mercies of God c. 12. Rom. 3. chap. 15.30 1 Thes 4.1 according to the Doctrines Precepts Rules and Commands set down in Scripture which are able to make us wise unto Salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus and which is profitable for Doctrine for reproof for Correction for instruction in righteousness that the Man of God may be perfected throughly furnished to all good works 2 Tim. 3.16.17 These and such like only are all the Powers that belong unto the Priesthood by any Law of God and there is no need of any other for what concerns punishment for Sins or the breach of moral Duties or municipal laws the Body hath Power to make laws and ordain punishments for any of its Members § I know that they have a long time hooked in by Head and shoulders a kind of coercive Power Excommunication by usurping to themselves the Power of Excommunication a thing I must confess that hath made a great noise and buzz in the world but in truth a magnificum nihil a meer ignis fatuus there being no such thing in the whole new Testament as now used and that which Pope and Presbiter would have to be it is as much in the Power of the Laicks against them as in them against the Laicks and most truly in the Body of the Church In the Romish Church the Bishop or his Vicar excommunicateth without the advice or participation of any many times also the Register only and that which is most important by Authority deligated a Clark of the first Tonsure deputed Comissary in some slight Cause doth excommunicate a Priest Yea Leo. 10. in the Council of Lateran in the 11. Session by a perpetual constitution of his hath granted faculty to a secular person to excommunicate the very Bishops and that which doth more import Navar saith c. 27 no. 11. that if any man shall obtain an excommunication of some Prelate if the obtainer shall not have an intent that the party be excommunicated he shall not be excommunicated moreover he saith ch 23. num 104. that the excommunication pronounced by the Law it self against him that payeth not a Pension for example sake on the Vigil of the Nativity is not incurred by him that payeth it not no not in many month's and years after if the Creditor thereof would not have it incurred But if on the other side after many Month's or Years he would have it incurred it is reputed to have been incurred from the day of the debt from the Vigil of the Nativity and so is the stile of the Court but the Council of Trent hath now expresly provided otherwise Ses 25. c. 3 forbidding secular Princes that they hinder not Prelates to excommunicate nor command that any excommunication be revoked considering that this is no part of their Office by this you may in little see what a nose of wax is made of excommunication and all this and much more grounded and occasioned from wrong Glosses put upon plain Texts But of this more fully hereafter § Though the Congregational men have not fully modelled out unto us the Platform of their Government and Discipline as the Presbyterians have done yet in general they do affirm Independency and Church-Government that to each gathered Church Christ hath given all Power and Authority requisite unto that Order and Discipline which he hath instituted for them to observe and to execute the same with Commands and Rules as before And negatively that there is not instituted by Christ any person or Church more extensive or Catholick entrusted with Power over other Churches and that each particular Church consists of Officers and Members which Members they call Brethren and the Officers they stile Pastors Teachers Elders and Deacons and that there are no stated Synods in a fixed combination of Churches nor any Synods appointed by Christ in any way of sub-ordination to one another nor no one Church to have Power of Censures but of inspection only over other Churches and Members thereof that Counsel and Advice might mutually be communicated That it was so in the days of the Apostles and continued so for some Generations after every Individual gathered Church every Christian Societie as it is natural to all Societies as well Christian as Civil governing it self by its own Laws and Constitutions whithout being obliged to any other superintendency hapily is so manifest that it would not be gainsaid But when the Church became planted and spread its Branches and took root in divers Nations and whole Common-wealths became Christian and Kings and Queens and other Civil Governments became Nursing-Fathers and Mothers of the Church then of necessity for the quiet state of the whole the case came to be altered it being then impossible that every individual Member or Brother of any Christian Kingdom or Common-wealth should personally meet to make Laws
would continue together so long as conveniently they might They sent also some of their Number to the Octavians or Councellors that were trusted with the management of all affairs of the Kingdom for their assistance but the President with some Choller answered that as these Controversies were begun so they should end without their advice Having failed herein they sent to the King humbly entreating a surcease of the Process against Mr. Blake c. to which the King returned this gracious Answer that if yet they would pass by the Declinator or declare at least that it was not a general but particular Declinator used in the case of Mr. David Blake as being a cause of flander and pertaining to the judgment of the Church he should also pass from the Summons and surcease the Suit This not pleasing they resolve to stand to the Declinator unless the King would pass by the Summons and remitting the Suit to the Ecclesiastical Judge make an act of Council that no Minister should be charged for his Preaching at least before the meeting of the general Assembly Whereupon the Proclamation was published the Commissioners charged to depart out of the Town and Mr. Blake by a new Summons cited to the last of November The Commissioners being advertised thereof they advised a Petition to the King and Noblemen praying the King that he would remit the determination of the differences to a lawful Assembly and not to incroach upon the limits of Christs Kingdom upon any pretence exhorting the Noblemen that as they had been so they would still keep themselves free from working any prejudice to the liberty of the Gospel and being Executionres of the Malicious devices of those who sought the thraldome of the Gospel and that they would procure by their credit a continuation of all Controversies unto a free and lawful Assembly This Petition prevailing nothing Blake appeared and was convicted it being sound that the crimes and accusations contained in the Summons were seditious and treasonable and that his Majesty his Council and other Judges substituted by his Authority were competent Judges in all matters either Criminal or Civil as well to Ministers as other Subjects Though Robert Pont after the Summons were read protested that the Process in hand and whatsoever followed thereupon should not prejudice the liberty of the Church in matters of Doctrine whereunto the King answered he would only censure Treasonable Speeches of a Minister in a Sermon which he and his Council would judge Notwithstanding all this so gracious was the King that he sought by all gentle means and sound reasons prosering Pardon Amnesty and Restauration to Blake c. But the more gracious his condescentions were which were not a few the more refractory stubborn and insolent were the Presbyters insomuch that when the King sent to them that he did not intend to use Blake with rigor Mr. Robert Bruce in the Name of the rest answered that if the matter had concerned Blake alone the offer might be accepted But the liberty of Christs Kingdome had received such a wound by the said proceedings usurping spiritual Judicatory as if Blakes life and the lives of twenty others had been taken it would not have grieved the hearts of good Brethren so much as these injurious proceedings had done and that either these things behoved to be retreated or they would oppose so long as they had breath Brave Blades still and they were as good as their words standing it out to the uttermost by somenting sedition and raising tumults till at last some of the chiefest of them were forced to fly to New-Castle Upon all these Conferences with the King and answers returned of his Messages the Burden of their Song was still That their Messages and Commission ought not to be controuled in a Civil Judicature nay tho they preached seditiously or rebelliously for which tho they ought to be punished yet it ought to be first cognossed by the Church unto which the King once replied and shall not I have power to call and punish a Minister so preaching but must come to your Presbytery and be a Complainer I have good proof in the Process of Gibson and Ross what justice you would do me When nothing would satisfie them on the second of December sentence was given that Blake had fasly slandred and treasonably calumniated the King and his Queen Queen Elizabeth the Lords of his Council and Session therefore his punishment being remitted to the King it was ordained that till his Majesties pleasure should be declared he should be confined beyond the North Water and enter into his ward within six days There were several Treaties after this Sentence in order to an accommodation but still the same spirit reigned in them and they returned as proud and insolent answers in so much that the Lord Lyndsey told the King on their behalf that they durst convene against his Proclamation and do more than so and that they would not suffer Religion to be overthrown at which the King leaving the room Lyndsey returned to the Church and said there was no course but one Let us stay together that are here and promise to take one part and advertise our Friends and the Favourers of Religion to come unto us for it shall be either Theirs or Ours Hence a great clamour to Arms to bring out Haman others cryed The Sword of the Lord and Gideon so great was the fury of the People This produced new Petitions and new Conferences yet all but second parts to the same tune Great is Diana of the Ephesians the Liberties and Prerogatives and Scepter of the Church they will cry some hours some weeks together rather than they will lose their spiritual Independent Monarchy and Judicatory over King Council and People and during this furious contest Mr. John Welch preaching in the High Church said the King was possessed of a Devil and one Devil being cast out seven more was entred in place And that the Subjects might lawfully rise and take the Sword out of his hand which he confirmed by the example of a Father that falling in a frenzy might be taken by the Children and Servants of the Family and tied hand and foot from doing violence Brave Gospel Doctrine fit for Antichrist and his Pulpits who may perhaps grant Priviledges and Prerogatives to his Church exempting his Clergy and Ministers from all questioning But my Creed is that happily such Priviledges and Liberties may be in their Books or in their Alcoran but not in Bibliis sacris Thus the Chorus and Burden of the Song is that every Contradiction of a waspish Priest is an incroachment upon the limits of Christs Kingdom a prejudice to the liberty and seeking the thraldom of the Gospel c. whereas in truth it is the Priests that have incroached and usurped upon the Priviledges and Rights of the Church truly so called Deus bone as slight as they make of the King and his Council and other the Laity
by avowing that the spirit of the Prophets must be subject only to the Prophets What Rule have these Presbyters to judg by what Logick what way of Ratiocination that the Laity have not and know not and understand not as well as they what Infallibility above Kings and other the Laity have these men I must confess I never found them writing in terminis for this Infallibility But if we may guess at their meaning by their mumping their Actions and their Arguments are premisses which to some may seem to yield such conclusions that they would fain have their Doctrines though treasonable to be embraced as Oracles Are not these Doctrines purely Romish surely yes St. Paul was certainly more infallible than they and yet he submitted his Preachments to his Auditory in general not exclusive the Laity Judg ye what I say Nay the Layity as well as Priests are commanded to search the Scriptures and try Spirits and shall not the King and his Sages Judg of Doctrines because delivered in a Pulpit which may concern the bene esse nay perhaps the very esse quiet state and weal of a Kingdom If I were put to it I should not doubt but to make it out that there is as good warrant in Scripture for the infallibility of Kings as there is for either Pope or Presbyter though I must profess there is no sound ground no nor yet probable appearance for either If the Presbiter will have his Doctrines received without controulment and contradiction he must shew better warrant than the Pope because he pretends to judg what I think the Pope doth not even Affections Spotsw Hist Mr. Andrew Melvil in his form of Church Policy presented by him to the Parliament sitting in Striveling Anno 1578. hath this head The Magistrate commands in external things only and actions done before Men But the Spiritual Ruler such as Mr. Melvil and his fellow Presbyters are judgeth both the Assections and the external Actions in respect of conscience by the word of God In which form there are other dangerous heads sutable to what Mr. Blake and the Presbyteries so sharply contended for in his cause and what tumults c. ensued thereupon in the Contest for that desperate form Histories do abundantly shew but I forbear But seeing they make so desperate ill use of 1 Cor. 14.32 by perverting very plain texts I am resolved though no Presbyter to try if I can hit the true and natural sense and meaning thereof seeing they have not and perhaps will not it not being for their interest and prerogatives § It s true the Spirit of the Prophets is subject to the Prophets 1 Cor. 14.32 but what doth this avail Pope or Presbyters surely they will not say that the Prophets of the New Testament since the Apostles days are so authentick and infallible as those of the Old Besides what if the terms Prophet and Prophesying are in some senses and places and happily in this as applicable to the Laity as to the Clergy nay what if in this very Text by Prophets is meant in general all Believers those within the Pale of the Church excluding those only without as unfit to judg such matters Mark the Contest First Prophesying in general serveth not for them that believe not but for them which believe v. 22. Secondly If therefore the whole Church not Priests only come together in one place and all speak c. v. 23. and All prophesy v. 24. And every one of you hath a Psalm hath a Doctrine c. 26. If any man speak v. 27. Let the Prophets speak two or three and let the other judg v. 29. If any thing be revealed to Another that sitteth by let the first hold his peace v. 30. For ye may all prophesie one by one that all may learn and all may be comforted v. 31. And the spirits of the Prophets are subject to the Prophets v. 32. Let the Women keep silence c. v. 31. wherefore Brethren covet to prophesy v. 39. Now if the words or terms of Whole Church All Every one Any man The other Another Brethren be words and terms of universality and differencing then certainly the words Prophets and Prophesying are in this Chapter more especially applicable to the Auditory the Brethren than to the Presbyters themselves and is an admonition and warrant to the faithful to assemble and speak to edification besides the commanding of the Women silence is a pregnant presumption if not an affirmation That all the Brethren might speak so likewise is the command to the Brethren to covet to prophesy But be it as they would have it that by Prophets are meant Presbyters only which is impossible in true construction but the contrary yet those Presbyters by the command of the same Apostle v. 29. are to be judged by the other that are not Presbyters which is a better warrant to the King and his Council and Judges to judg them than they can shew to Judg King and Council and to usurp Judgment to themselves only Besides the very command in the very first verse is to all to follow Charity to desire Spiritual gifts but rather that they may prophesy and by prophesying by the scope of this Chapter is clearly meant speaking to edification and exhortation and comfort that our words might minister Grace to the Hearers which certainly is the duty of every man and which if Mr. Blake had observed he had never been called in question Now tell me how much less doth the Presbyter claim than the Pope who pretends that every Clergy or Church-man both they and their Family nay the very Concubines of Priests are exempt from all Jurisdiction Temporal and that jure divino and that from the same Apostle Paul 2 Cor. 2.15 He that is spiritual judgeth all things yet he himself is judged of no man The same Scripture is as strong for the Presbyter as the Pope and it is to be feared that if he were as fast in the Saddle as the Pope is that he would claim it as peremptorily and therefore sit to be prevented by the wisdom of Princes But were the Allegations true and pertinent either there should be no Spiritual man besides the Pope or Presbyter and so the subject of the Proposition should be homo singularis one man only or if there be more Spiritual men they should all of them be Popes or Presbyters to judg all others and be judged of none no not of the Pope of Rome himself unless he be no body For those are convertible he that saith all excepteth none and he that saith none excepteth all Touching the Prophesy we hold saith J. Robinson f. 45 46. the very same that the Synod held at Embden 1571. hath declared Harm Synod Belg. p. 21 22. viz. 1o. In all Churches whether but springing up or grown to some ripeness let the order of Prophesy be observed according to Pauls institution 2.o. Into the Fellowship of this work are to be admitted not
acquiesce till then we are justly to be excused and I hope you will not blame us if we prefer the universal judgment of the Primitive Church touching the Church Government by Bishops before particular and late dreams They were nearer the Apostles times than Calvin whom for his other great pains and Abilities for the good of Christ's Flock I do much honour who broached not his new Church Polity until about Anno 1500. Was it possible I appeal to your selves that all the Churches of Christ dispersed far and near over the face of the Earth should at one time and that immediately after the last surviving Apostle and as it were Momento temporis joyn or jump in one and the self same Government Episcopal had it not been delivered and setled by the Apostles and their Disciples that converted the World We construe the Apostles Writings by their doings others measure the Scriptures by their own humours first framing Churches to their fancies and then conceit that the Scriptures answer and favour their Chimaera's and by their so doing come within the Verge of the Paroenesis If Bishops claim or usurp more than is their due or abuse the power which Gods Law or the favour of Princes justly alloweth to them and Pastors in Nomine Dei spare them not let the world know it but do not attempt to put out the lights of our Firmament because Phanatics and Men intoxicated stumble or miss their way whilst they shine § Gods promise to his People is Dabo vobis Pastores juxta cor meum 3 Jer. 41. pascent vos scientia doctrina It is evident that the firm of all Pastoral charge consisteth in preaching of the Gospel in administration of Sacraments and by mistake according to some in the punishment of such offences as absolutely exclude us out of the Kingdom of God These being the main things which Christ recommended to his Apostles committing them to their charge the which things only were practised by them as also by their immediate Successors and I hope our Bishops will not be found insufficient for these great Mysteries nor will be found to have warped or swerved from them though we have not wanted Coblers of Glocester the vanity of the present Churches and many other Ichabods heavily complaining § Besides for great and just reasons of State Concerning Innovators in general prudent Magistrates ought to be very circumspect and jealous and to fear the sequels of Church Innovations and Combinations even beyond all apparent cause of fear for that they who believe the Attempts for new Discipline without the licence of Civil Powers are lawful as most Innovators and Men given to change do and that not without some design as well to remove some persons out of the Saddle that themselves might be therein seated as to reform some errors will easily dispute what may be attempted against Superiors which will not have the Scepter of their new Discipline to rule over them For they that will not stick to affirm Amat â—ai ranam ranam nuit else Dianam That the Discipline which they say they have and we want is one of the essential parts of Gods Worship and therefore the better to introduce a good opinion of their own Diana they have not stuck andaciter calumniari and to style Episcopal Regiment Antichristian will as little scruple to affirm withal That the People themselves upon peril of Salvation without staying for the Magistrate may gather themselves into it always having in a readiness to say that they never found that God ever made any Precept or Command which to perform we must needs have leave of another § Moreover as every order of Religious men so every Form of Church-Government that only excepted which Christ instituted besits not every Civil Government nor Kingdom nor every State and therefore the Kingdom of France and renowned State of Venice for great reasons of State banished the Jesuits And we have an excellent example of this in the famous Government of the Kings of Castilia where without the Kings licence no new Religious Order and of such nature is every differing Church-Discipline from the Discipline by Law established could have entrance into those Kingdoms and therefore the Capuchin Friers could not be admitted thither The Foundations of these and the like Decrees are no less equal reasonable and lawful than most necessary and most antient For Cicero in oratione pro domo sua sheweth that no man could consecrate an Altar injussu populi so that the equity of such Laws hath time out of mind been apparently known unto the World And Mecoenas his counsel to Augustus in Dione was very prudent Eos qui in divinis aliquid innovant odio habe coerce non Deorum solum causa sed quia nova numina hi tales introducentes multos impellunt ad mutationem rerum unde conjurationes seditiones conciliabula existunt res profecto minime conducibilis-principatui legibus quoque expressum est quod in religionem committitur in omnium sertur injuriam For it would not in any wise be permitted to a great Number of a strange State and such are all Papists having sworn obedience to another Head contrary to their customs of life and divers ends from those of the present Governments to enter into the state of such a Common-wealth Gather themselves together into one or divers places to make amongst them one or more Heads or Governors and in secret to practise with the Princes Subjects seeing this would be presently accounted as one or more Conventicles of very dangerous consequence and accordingly would be prohibited and interrupted so under the pretext of some new Church Polity be it Popish Presbyterian or Quaking all alike as to the thing in question not by that State established many very many not only of the same but of other Nations also may frequently assemble and gather together under one or more Heads Presbyters or Teachers contrary in Customs and Affections to the established Church-Discipline and perhaps unto true Doctrine also and the many opportunities they have through Confessions Meetings Sermons and other spiritual Conferences insinuating with the Princes Subjects they may by such secret vast diffused scarcely to be discerned and powerful means and opportunities corrupt them in their sidelity and withdraw them from their Allegiances of which we are not without sad experience of elder and later days both from Papists and others not a few of several perswasions And the danger of union in an united confederacy or conspiracy is to be avoided for that it prevails more than number besides discontented minds in the beginning of tumults when any happen occasioned by themselves or others will easily agree though their ends be divers each one hoping thereby to get uppermost or to turn up that Trump that they have most mind to follow and so endanger the State For these many excellent causes all Church Congregations ought very diligently and narrowly to be
Friends the one to persecute the other for slight pretences about things owned to be indifferent Were it not better and more secure to allow them publick places only I do not say preferments that all the World might hear their Doctrines and Preachments and punish or not punish accordingly if Papalins their Doctrines Tenets and Vows of Obedience to another Head and forreign Power being publickly known to all the World and as publickly professed and avowed by them for sound and true though in truth salse and erroneous Doctrines render them uncapable of Toleration because in their own very Nature they are destructive unto our Government King and Nation unto our Laws Liberties Religion and Worship and what were it else but to establish Idolatry and Superstition by a Law Besides the Pope pretends Right and Title to our very Church and Kingdoms In the dayes of Henry 8. the Earl of Desmond profered Ireland to the French K. the Instrument whereof yet remains on Record in the Court of Paris and the Pope afterwards transferred the Title of all our Dominions unto Charles 5th which by new grants was confirmed unto his Son Philip in the time of Queen Elizabeth with a resolution to settle this Crown on the Spanish Infanta c. and when times serve makes no bones by his Bulls and his Assassinates as much as in him lies to Crown and Vncrown our Kings and Queens and absolve their Subjects of their Obedience to them and to exhaust our Treasury as part of his own Patrimony to maintain the pride and luxury of his Court and Prelates And since we have in great part shaken off his Antichristian Yoak and Usurpations he yet continues to keep his Agitators and Spies here even at our charge and hath not ceased by his Bulls Jesuits Assasinates and Emissaries at once to destroy both King and Parliament and by the bold and impudent Impostures of his Priests and Jesuits perpetually to seduce corrupt and pervert from the right wayes of the Lord as many as they can of our Nobility Gentry and Pesantry not sparing the Royal Family making them turn Tenants for their Lives and Souls which they hold only at the will and pleasure of their Lord God the Pope and Tributary for their estates Whether therefore it be fit or reasonable to tollerate Men thus desperately set and Principl'd against this Church and State I submit to the wisdome of King and Parliament who are best able to provide for their own and the publick safety of our King and Kingdom As to that they nick-name and miscal their Catholick Religion more justly the most Catholick Heresie in the World it is such a piece of Linseywolsey-stuff interwoven with so many ridiculous Ceremonies borrowed from Jews Turks Heathens peculiar Absurdities Blasphemies Superstitions and Idolatries imposing not only on our Understandings but on our very Senses V. les Conformitez des Ceremonies c. A Leyde 1667. Traite des Anciennes Ceremonies c. 1 is 73. in owning the Scriptures to be the word of God and yet denying the free and common use thereof commanding to believe very Bread and Wine to be Flesh and Blood attributing infallibility to his Holiness by vertue whereof he may take away the Bread in the Eucharist from the Laity as well as he hath already deprived and cheated them of the Wine may make lying with other mens Wives no Adultery Robbing no Theft Killing Innocent men even Kings and Queens under pretence of Heresie no Murder whereof we have had sad experience even in these our dayes in sum who ever submits to the Popes infallibility renders himself Captive to be led into all Heresie and even to Hell it self as if the Scripture in good earnest had come from Heaven meerly to make the Pope optimum maximum et supremum numen in terris that he is sole Interpreter of all Scriptures and Judge of all Controversies and that his Tribunal and Gods are all one and 1000 more absurdities which in effect is to renounce Christianity and to yield blind obedience and implicite Faith to his ipsedixit and to become Antichristians For by their own Doctrines of Intention they have given us just cause to question their very Christianity for if they hold true to that Doctrine it 's impossible they should infallibly know that they have either true Pope true Bishop true Priest or that they are true Christians and therefore they may thank themselves and their own Doctrines if we allow them at best to be but Mungril Christians like those of Samaria who feared God yet served Idols and like those of Israel who swore by the Lord and Melcom And therefore not worthy to be called a Religion at least Christian unless by way of Complement and civility they Exalting the Pope above all that is called God endeavouring by the impudent impostures of Baals Priests to enslave whole Nations to his vile ends and purposes quo jure quâve injuriâ and all this under the Vizard of his false Religion All which considered I humbly conceive that no Tolleration is to be allowed Papists whether we respect either Church or State policy tho there are those among our selves for what good ends is past my understanding except to make us as very Mungrils as the Papists that would lead and wheedle us into a fair way of reconciliation by a School-trick of distinguishing between the Court and Church of Rome What Is it possible that Righteousness can have fellowship with Unrighteousness Can light have Communion with darkness Can Christ and Belial agree together What agreement can the Temple of God have with Idols Can we joyn our bodies to the very Mother of Harlots and not be one body with her From such we are commanded to come out and seperate not tollerate 52 Esay 11.31 Jerem. 1. 1 Cor. 6.16 2 Cor. 6.14.15 16 17 18. And then God will be a Father unto us and we shall be his Sons a d Daughters We are seperate we are come out for shame then let us not hanker after nor talk of returning to Onyons and Garlick nor with the Dog to his Vomit we are washed and cleansed from the dregs and silth of Rome and therefore never to return with the nasty and beastly Sow that was washed to her wallowing in the mire If Quakers they are as little to be indulged for reasons diametrically opposite for that the very Scriptures are not heartily and throughly owned by them nor are they a Rule of Faith unto them Indeed they have no known Rules no established Principles no Doctrine infallible to be Governed by the light within them being only the Rule and Guide of their Consciences which may be Hosanna to day and Crucifige tomorrow no Connivence no Tolleration due to those Religions whose Principles are unknown or destroy our Government If Presbyter or Independents the case as to them is far different they owning the same Scriptures for their Rule and Guide professing the same Articles of
Faith the same Doctrines and Worship and the providence of God having called and sixed them here as if to this great work of Preaching the Gospel designed their Mouths cannot justly be stopt but upon some politick Accounts and reasons of State only Prudence not Conscience is then to be the guide of Councils For Example If a Presbyter hath swallowed a solemn League and Covenant so solemnly that he cannot nor will not renounce it what should the Government do Indulge those that will not protect that It portends a dangerous Reserve a sower Leaven Tinder in the Bosom apt to take sire apt to relapse into the same prodigious mischiefs Is it not much more agreeable to sound reason that the Royal Son should pare the Nails of those that cannot disgorge themselves of that fatal Covenant which introduced those Premises which yielded that sanguinary Conclusion which made the Father a Glorious King by bringing of him to the Block Conscience of factious Priests or of Covenanters in such cases is not adust in any measure Adaequate in the Ballance against the safety peace and quiet of Crowns and Kingdoms for that we have no Lydius lapis no infallible touch-stone to discover whether Consciences are truly weak or only pretended to be so the searcher of hearts only knows that insallibly And if pretence may be a just excuse to warrant disobedience unto established Sanctions Laws would then be no Laws at all for he that would might and he that would not might choose whether he would obey or no for that no Man can distinguish between real and pretended Scrupulosities That some should be indulged and others not ought to be no cause of complaint neither for that every thing is n t convenient for every Body nor for every Sect and State the same Legislators that have power to Indulge some may by the same right forbid others and indeed make any Laws convenient For the Common-wealth ought to be always kept in a quiet and peaceable temper even ad pondus if possible enough This only by way of Hint and Caution that there be great waryness and circumspection in granting and denying Indulgences If Priests otherwise Orthodox and worthy be silenced for such or the like reasons this ariseth not from the discipline of the Church nor from the Nature of Lyturgies but from the Government of the State What Must there then be no relief for scrupulous and tender Consciences that cannot renounce Covenants or comply with Innocent Ceremonies and Commands yes if they are truly so and do not enter-sere with the Established Government of Church and State 1. Consciences really and truly Scrupulous and tender if they break not out into overt act are not within the Magistrates Province but if rashly without consideration of obtaining or foresight of peril or perturbation of the Church or State they will adventure to take Solemn Leagues and Covenants to introduce a separate Mode or Government in Church or State contrary to that already established by the Magistrate then they most properly come within his verge and cognizance 2. Consciences ought generally not to be forced nay cannot whilst they are in their proper circle but are to be gained and reduced by dint of Argument and force of Truth by moderate connivence and by the use of good Instruction and perswasion 3. Consciences when they rove and become excentrick moving beyond their proper circle and bounds and being out of their proper Sphear tend and prove to be matter of Faction loose their proper Nature and forfeit their just Priviledges and Prerogatives then and not till then the civil Magistrate may take notice and justly restrain or punish their undue practises and contempts if such though guilded most speciously with pretences of Conscience and Religion § As happily their opinion is not so infallibly orthodox who affirm that all Church Discipline and Reformation must be after one Platform and that they which will perfectly reform must bring and reduce the form unto the State which it was at in the days of the Apostles A thing in the opinion of Judicious Hooker neither possible nor certain nor yet absolutely convenient For that which was used in their dayes the Scripture he saith doth not fully declare so that making those times the Rule and Canon of Church Government they make a Rule which not being possible to be fully known is as impossible to be fully kept so happily their opinion is as little Orthodox and as little convenient who deem it no good policy to alter or innovate any thing in Church affairs or to endeavour to reduce it to that State wherein it stood in the dayes of the Apostles the one opinion conducing to bring Reformation to Anullity the other to an Impossibility In elder times soon after the dayes of the Apostles and more especially after Constantines dayes there were imperfections no doubt and warpings from the Apostolical Rules and practises and happily in some things greater than in the present Antiquity therefore ought not so to be revered and adored as that something in these latter Ages may not be reputed better and more convenient there being no necessity that the same publick things should be always ordered in one and the self same manner but as times have mutations so it may be sit to alter or change the Government of Church or State It is possible that the Antient manner of Governing may not be profitable except the Antient state of the Church do return also But if Antiquity must be so revered as not to admit of the least Innovation then without all peradventure that Government which Christ and his Apostles instituted and lest unto his Church must necessarily be the most Antient and have the fairest pretence unto Jus divinum for its justification and then for those very reasons ought to remain unto this very day unalterable and all other Modes and Forms can be but Prudential only and at the discretion of the Church rightly so called And there can be no doubt but that Christ left such a Government to his Church as might be exercised in any Kingdom Christian or other without enterfering or clashing with the Civil Government of any Nation or Kingdom wheresoever the Apostles and their Successors in all Ages and Countries should preach the Gospel and gather Churches And that the self-same Government is plainly set down in the new Testament and that it was instituted by the Apostles and that the Antient Fathers after their example did prosecute the same for about 250 years after Christ with great success and increase of Converts unto Christianity And such Government being practicable then notwithstanding the great enmity that all Nations and Governments had even unto Christianity it self there can be no doubt and no reason can evince but it may be as practicable now which is the opinion of very many and those not Phanaticks And then Independents will have very fair and antient Records to shew for their Congregational way if
a great wonder in his Judgment that the Pope was never thought infallible till this last age since this Pasce implies this also so clearly and if the Hereticks do not believe that his Holiness hath power to make new Articles of Faith and when they cry shame upon Pope Pius the Fourth for adding Twelve new Articles to the old Apostles Creed it is because they are ignorant and know not what Pasce signifieth In sum this one Word with them contains more Matter than all the Bible besides It works Miracles makes the Pope omnipotent gives him all power not only in Heaven and on Earth but even in Purgatory a place that God knows nothing of for if you ask by what Authority he takes upon him to pardon Sins and Souls after Death to give or sell the Saints Merits to dispence with Oaths to depose Kings and dispose of their Kingdoms or if he list to murder them c. If you look the Popes Lexicon as Dr. Potter well observes you shall find that Pasce expresly denotes all this Authority and enables him to be not only a Prince or a Pastor or Bishop but even a Butcher too by the self-same Logick for what is murdering of Kings and that by Mariana his quacunque arte less than savage Butchery For according to Sententia Baronii Cardinalis super excommunicatione Venetorum Ministerium Petri est duplex pascere occidere Feed my Sheep Joh. 21.15 16 17. Kill and eat Acts 10.13 dixit enimei Dominus Pasce oves meas Joh. 21.15 16 17. Audivitque è Coelo vocem occide manduca Acts 10.13 The Words I confess are plain and words of truth and their natural Sence obvious to every Capacity but such Conclusions and Deductions from them as are drawn by the Popes Partizans and Sycophants are strangely uncouth and utterly unknown to right Reason and so notoriously false that they carry their own Confutation in their Foreheads that they that run may read them and need no other Answer yet in their due place they shall be touched § But to return The Esteem and Powers allotted to the Brethren or body of the Church by the Apostles they did preserve unto themselves above 250 years after Christ which is very plain and manifest by the abundant Testimony of the most Antient Fathers and Old Canons as by Clement First Bishop of Rome who lived in or near the Apostles days by Tertullian and Cyprian who lived in the Third Century with divers others but because to cite the whole Caravan of Witnesses at large and in particular would make this very Paragraph swell into a Volume I forbear and shall only gently touch some of them hereafter that by them you may guess at the rest § As in the first and purest times the Name and Title of Church was common to all Congregations and Societies of Believers so unto them also according to all antient Records did belong also the Use and Propriety of the Goods which were called Ecclesiastical in which times the poor and the Ministers had their Food and Rayment from one common Fund or Bank and which is observable those were more principally provided for than these But not long after this excellent Use was perverted by the Subtilty of the Clergy and the poor put in the lowest place which according to the former Use ought to have continued in the first and chiefest And when the Name of the Church became appropriated to the Clergy only all other Christians being excluded then that was applied to few which belonged to all and that to the rich which first served for the poor In the beginning of those Times the Clergy having divided among themselves all the Revenues of the Church the Charges which before were and were called Ministeries and Offices of Spiritual Care the Temporalty and Profits being now most esteemed were now called Benesices and so long as the Old Canons remained that one man should not be Ordained unto Two Titles Titulus was the Old Word for a Church Many Ages after Christ A Bishoprick before the World was divided into Parishes was called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a Parish and whoever was Ordeined in and for one Bishoprick he could not belong unto two And for many Ages there were no Tithes paid or due but the Church and Clergy were maintained by the Oblations of the People and those by the old Canons divided into four parts none could have more than one Benefice But the Revenues being by Wars or Inundations diminished and become not sufficient for their Maintenance one Man might hold two yet so as that he should attend them both This was begun in favour not of the Man Benesiced but of the Church which because it could not have a proper Minister might have at least some other Service upon pretence of the insufficiency of the Benefice and that none could be found to serve in them they began to grant more of them unto one though no necessity appeared for the Service of the Churches and the Mask being taken away by little and little they were not ashamed to do it for the Man Benesiced But the World being scandalized thereat there was a Moderation used whereupon a distinction began of Men tied to Residence and not tied and of Benesices compatible and not compatible calling those of Residency incompatible one with another Trattato delle materie benesiciarie 144 145 c. and the other compatible with these and with themselves yet the Gloss of the Canonist to make a shew at least of Honesty always declared that many Benefices should not be given to one but when one is not sufficient for maintenance But they cut this Sufficiency very large proportioning it not to the Person but to the Quality not esteeming it sufficient for an ordinary Priest if it were not enough for himself the Family of his Parents three Servants and an Horse and more if he were Noble and Learned And it is strange how much they allowed for a Bishop in regard of the Decorum he was to keep For Cardinals it is sufficient to note the common Saying of the Court that they are equal unto Kings by which they conclude Aequiparantâ—r Regibus 144. that no Revenue is too much for them except it be more than enough for a King The Custom being begun and neither the World nor Equity being able to resist it the Popes reserved to themselves power to dispence with the Incompatible and to have more than two of the other But to find a colourable way to put this in practice they laid hold on Commendaes Commendaes a thing instituted at first to good purpose but after used to this end only For when by reason of Wars Pestilence and other such Causes the Election or Provision could not be made so soon the Superiour did recommend the vacant Church to some honest and worthy man to take care of it besides the care of his own until a Rector were provided who
Member of the Militant Church is ordinarily a Member of the Christian Commonwealth or Kingdom wherein he lives and è contra That which differenceth the Church properly so called from a Society or Body meerly Civil is the diversity of Laws and Ordinances and the different manner of Union betwixt the Members of it A Church A Commonwealth or Body Civil are not necessarily two Bodies contra-distinct or Opposite as the Romanists often dream or presuppose in their Arguments brought for the Prerogatives of the Roman Church alledging that those have first their being and then they frame their Government and therefore are free and that all Jurisdiction is originally in them which they do communicate to Magistrates without depriving themselves of it But the Church did not make it self and its Government but Christ did first Institute Laws by which it should be Governed and then did Christ assemble it but rather one Body endowed with several or distinct Powers or Perfections when a Kingdom or Commonwealth becomes Christian and Consequently a Church it looseth nothing of what it had but rather acquires a New Perfection and Accomplishment by the Accrument of Divine Powers added to the Civil It may be true that when the Church was first Founded by Jesus Christ that it was altogether distinct from the Commonwealth for indeed it could not be then otherwise for that all Kingdoms and Commonwealths were then open and professed Enemies to the Gospel and therefore the Regiment given unto the Church by Jesus Christ was accordingly such as might be exercised by the Members thereof in any Nation and among any People be their Government what it would or their Enmity to the Gospel never so great without clashing or interfeering with it or with them and without the least disturbance of the quiet State of the Kingdom or People whereunto they were sent for their Conversion But when that Prophesie that Kings should be the Nursing Fathers and Queens the Nursing Mothers of the Church was to be fulfilled and whole Kingdoms embraced the Gospel and became Christians then the Church and Commonwealth became one and were no longer contra distinct Certainly the Justifying of Excommunications or Church Censures in this manner on such grounds and Positions is to speak modestly scarce safe or defensible For that they seem too much to Countenance and to approach too near unto the Positions of the Papists which are 1º that the Spiritual Power is above all Secular and Civil Power which Assertion were it rightly limited and Stated is in it self Orthodox as here is declared but the more Orthodox it is in it self the more Pernitious and deadly it makes the second Position unto which they seek to Wed it viz. 2º that this Supream and Spiritual Power is totally Stated in the Clergy as in a Body distinct from the Body Politick And the most of them hold the plenitude of this Power to be in the Pope from whom all Spiritual Power of Jurisdiction is derived unto the rest of the Clergy after the same manner as Jurisdiction in causes Temporal is derived unto the Inferior Magistrates from the Civil Monarch in each Kingdom And that the Regiment of the Church is Regimen Monarchicum a Visible Monarchy of which the Pope is the visible Monarch therefore without all doubt it is not only less Obnoxious to Cavils and Sophisms but also more truly Orthodoxal and more Justisiable to aver and maintain that the Church and Commonwealth Christian tho happily like Man and Wife before their Intermarriage were two Bodies two contradistinct Societies but being once Incorporated by mutual and reciprocal Wedlock do become one Body one Society endowed with several Powers and several Perfections newly acquired by such Intermarriage wherewith she was not endowed before her Intermarriage and so consequently the Powers of the Church do escheat into that of the Commonwealth whensoever it becomes Christian whereof the Pastors and Teachers are special Members and Officers according to their Commission but for no other ends nor purposes above the Laity though the Authors of these Positions do fully acknowledg that the Person of the Supream Magistrate must and ought to be exempted as to any outward effects of the Power of Excommunication Yet these Positions are subject unto so many nice and School distinctions that it is much to be feared that perverse and subtle wits would strongly Combate with us with our own Weapons and find or make a way to render the Power of the Magistrate only serviceable unto the Power or Interest of the Clergy Do but a little consider how subtelty Bellarmine in his tract against Gerson of Excommunication doth endeavour to erect and prove Regimen Ecclesiasticum to be Monarchicum upon the like fundamental right f. 4.142 whilst he affirms that the holy Church is not like to the Commonwealth of Venice or of Geneva or of other Cities which confer upon their Dukes and Princes that Power which themselves please in regard whereof it may be said that the Commonwealth is above the Prince neither yet is it like to an earthly Kingdom in which the People transfer their own Authority unto the Monarch and in certain Cases may free themselves from Royal Dominion and reduce themselves to the Government of Inferior Magistrates as did the Romans when they changed from Dominion Royal to Consular Government for the Church of Christ is a most perfect Kingdome and an absolute Monarchy which hath no dependance on the People neither from them had its Original but dependeth only upon the Divine Will and that this Kingdom doth not depend on Men Christ sheweth when he saith you chose not me but I chose you 15 John 16. thou hast made us unto our God Kings and Priests and we shall Reign on the Earth 5. Apoc. 10. And this is the cause why this Kingdom is in the Scripture resembled to a Family who then is a faithful and wise Servant whom his Lord hath made Ruler over his Houshold 24. Matth. 25. Because the Father of the Family doth not depend on the Family neither from them hath his Authority So by consequence the Vicar general of Christ doth not depend on the Church but only on Christ from whom he hath his Authority and doth affirm that Christ doth declare that a Bishop in his particular Church and the Pope in the Church Vniversal is as it were a high Steward in Gods Family quis enim fidelis dispensator et prudens 12 Luke 42. and hath Power over the Family and not the Family over him contra-Gers Yet by the leave of so great a Prelate St. Cyprian tho no Cardinal yet of greater reputation saith that the practise of those times which were freest from Corruption even when the Holy Martyrs were Bishops was that Pastors were subject to the Censures of the Church And lib. 1. c. 4. giveth an express Testimony where speaking of the People he saith Quando ipsa plebs maxime habeat potestatem vel eligendi dignos sacerdotes
snug and played least in sight as long as the six Articles were in force and afterwards was Corrected by the Kings own Hand and approved by the Convocation Assembled 1543. and published under the Title of a necessary Doctrine and Erudition for any Christian Man He likewise commanded all Curates to teach the Lords Prayer the Creed Avy Mary and the ten Commandments in English and also the Bible in English to be placed in every Parish Church by his Injunctions Anno 1536 1541. Then by his Injunctions May 6. 1546. he caused an Extract to be drawn out of the Latine Service containing many of the best and most edifying Prayers which with the Letany he caused to be made English that the People might the better understand the Prayers of the Church which was called his Primer so far and farther did this great Spirited Prince proceed towards Reformation sweeping away some of those many Romish Rubbish and Corruptions wherewith Religion was then Tainted with a fierce Beesom of Destruction which none durst to have attempted or gone about as the posture of things then stood at home and abroad but a Prince able to match the very Mother and Mrs. of those very Abominations in sierceness and haughtiness of Spirit of whom it is storied that he never spared Man in his Anger nor Woman in his Lust And thus did God by fomenting an evil spirit between two such fierce Enemies unto the truth and purity of his Church and worship turn the malice and mischief of his Churches Enemies unto his own Glory and his Churches use and advantage and by his providence and disposal made use both of their Persons and Purposes even against their own wills to his own most Righteous and wonderful ends secretly and mightily directed their wicked designs and Machinations to the Comfort of his Church and chosen in the Accomplishing whereof he shall ever be admired by all those that Believe that they who in succeeding Ages shall gather themselves against Syon and say let her be defiled and let our eyes see it may themselves fear and tremble to be gathered as Sheaves into the Floor and the Daughter of Syon to arise and thrash them with Horns of Iron and Hoofs of Brass Henry 8. Having by thus breaking the Ice made some way towards Reformation tho happily not Intentionally unto what followed marched of the Stage of this World unto the Generation of his Fathers to give an Account unto the King of Kings and Lord of Lords as all his Predecessors had before done and all his Successors must do of all the things he had done in the Flesh whether they were good or whether they were evil his Son Edw. 6. Ascends the Throne Inheriting his Fathers Crown but not his Vices who Josiah-like both in Minority and Piety took care in Cunabulis in the very Infancy of his Reign that his Council should consult and use all their endeavours to make a more Gospel-like and through Reformation in which he did not patrizare as his Sister Queen Mary did after him march furiously with Fire and Faggot nor yet according to the advice that Calvin who fond of his own Chymara and Pettish at all Princes that in Reformation would not tread in his Steps gave to the Protector viz. to go on without fear or wit but proceeded therein pacatè and consultò well knowing that his Father by the rough handling of his Wives of the Pope and of other great Princes and Persons provoked and lest many great and bitter Enemies to his Crown and that more he should raise against himself on the score of his intended Reformation but he considered withal that Dimidium facti qui bene coepit habet that Alterations begun and founded in Wisdom and prosecuted with care would continue firm and durable Therefore he and his Grave sages were not as some of more puny dayes were for the violent pulling up of root and branch plant and build who would and who could but they took all things into consideration As that tho Reformation ought to be yet could not be without the Alteration of long received and Established Laws and Orders Rites and Ceremonies such as had been from Generation to Generation an Impediment unto Piety and true Gospel Worship and unto which the generality of the People were wedded having been Trained up therein from their Cradles that as the change of all Laws and more especially of such as related to Religion ought very circumspectly to be proceeded in Laws as all other sublunary things being subject to Imperfection and many times grounded and made on Sandy and unsure Foundations and wrong Suggestions that many times tho they be enacted as behooful yet in Experiment and Practise prove very Inconvenient and dangerous if continued that Experience daily finds just reason to abrogate many Laws tho of long standing and Laws that are expedient for one Age not to be so for another that sometimes alteration of Laws tho from the worse to the better which was the case of our Reformers and Reformation is many times attended with Inconveniences and those very considerable and therefore wise Legislators do not always choose nor enact that nor all which is most behooful but that which is most behooful and may be practised with least disturbance to the quiet State of the Church or Kingdom David knew many things fit to be done in his Kingdom yet for great reasons of State would not do them himself but when he lay on his Death Bed left them in Charge with his Son to do saying thou art a wise Man do thou according to thy wisdom 1 King 2.6.9 Therefore our prudent and pious Josiah did as early as he could abolish such things as might be abolished and establish others as might be received with least disturbance and most approbation of the Peoples minds and without danger leaving other some to be cancelled and abrogated by himself if God had lent him longer life and sit opportunities or by his Successors if God so pleased or by disusage through tract of time Did not Christ and his Apostles Steer the same moderate course when they introduced Gospel Worship whilst they dispensed for a season with Circumcision and other Ceremonies in the Proselites of the Gate which afterwards became absolete meerly through tract of time and disusage Did not Circumcision continue in the Church for the Succession of 15 Bishops next Succeeding the Apostles having been all Circumcised And might not our Reformers for the same reasons justly retain such Innocent Ceremonies as they did declaring as they did declare might not Naaman the Syrian go Innocently into the House of Rimon the Idol Temple not to VVorship but to do his Master service declaring publickly as he did I know that there is no God in all the Earth but in Israel thy Servant from henceforth will offer neither burnt Offering nor Sacrifice unto other Gods but only to the Lord. 2 King 5.15.17 This most excellent Prince tho he were
earnestly but inconsiderately pleaded for again But what did this Liberty produce but Factions Schisms and variety of Fashions and Modes in Celebrating the common Service and Administration of the Sacraments and other Rights and Ceremonies of the Church nay it is observed as intimated before in the Register of Petworth that many at this time affirmed the most blessed Sacrament to be of little regard that in many places it was irreverently used and cast out of the Church and many other great enormities committed nay many of the Licensed Preachers appear'd as Active against the Kings proceedings as any of the unlicensed Preachers had been found to be now what security can this our Author give to our Prince that if the like Liberty should now be Indulged to him and others that it shall not be abused nor produce the like or worse effects All which together with the Insurrections in Cornwall Devon Norfolk Suffolk and other Counties springing therefrom the King and his Council seeing the dangerous consequence thereof concluded that Uniformity was the best remedy against Schisme Heresie Faction and for the quiet State and Weal of the Kingdom and therefore gave Order to the Arch-Bishop of Canterbury and other Learned and Pious Men rather than to use Severity against his Subjects that a publick Liturgy should be drawn and Confirmed by Parliament with several Penalties to be Inflicted on all those who should not readily conform to the Rules and appointments of it and accordingly it was so signified unto the Kingdom by Proclamation Queen Elizabeth who was not unacquainted with such Sollicitations nor with the Consequences of them gave that reason in her time for not suffering any deviation from the established Form viz. that the English Angli beliâ— intrepidi as they were Zealous in their Religion so they were a Stout and Warlike Nation and the difference in Rites and Worship would unavoidably beget words and disputes which would certainly beget Animosities and consequently Blows and Insurrections the experience whereof she had seen in the first years of her Brothers Reformation for the Commissioners attending the Kings Injunctions met in many places with Scorn and Reproach and Railing and the farther they went from London the worse they were handled in somuch that as one of them was pulling down Images in Cornwall was Stabbed by a Priest who tho Hanged in Smithfield which quieted all matters for a time yet the next year the Storm arose more violently than before not only in the Western parts but in a manner all the Kingdom over which great Commotions the Council foreseeing as the most probable consequence of such Alterations especially when they are sudden and pressed too fast did let the People understand that there was no Intention to abolish their Antient Ceremonies which might consist with Piety or the Peace or Prosit of the Nation and therefore the King both by his Proclamation dated in Jan. 1548. commanded a strict observance of Lent and also pursued it by his own observance thereof in his Court by which and other like Innocent complyances did the King make good and established his most happy Reformation and yet is he and his work and his prudent Innocent Complyances evil spoken of by some Boarnarges hot and fiery spirits because forsooth there were some that had a Beam of Light of equal Lustre that would have had it otherwise The most eminent whereof were Bonner Calvin John Alasco and Hooper the very first Anti-Liturgists Pardon I beseech you that I name that Sanguinary Bonner the same day with those Pious Men. John Alâ—sco and Hooper having suffered very much for the truth and Bonner having made the truth highly to suffer and Calvin who setting aside the fondness of his own Brat the Chimera of his own Invention his Church discipline and also his rigid opinions concerning Election and Reprobation now even in this our Age become the Darling arguments of our Atheists or which is as bad of all those that live as it were without God in the World who tho they profess God with their Mouths yet in their Works do deny him was both as wise a Man and as orthodox in points of Doctrine as any as that age did afford and did Write so much yet so it is that the Beam of light which Bonner and his Gang enjoyed led him and his Complices as much to make the Liturgy a Bone of Contention to them in that it took away so much and retained so little as the Beam of Light of the others did make it a Bone of Contention to them because it took away no more and retained so much For Bonner did still suffer sundry Idolatrous private Masses of peculiar Names as the Apostles Mass the Ladies Mass and the like to be daily solemnly sung within certain particular Chappels of St. Paul cloaking them with the Names of the Apostles Communion and our Ladies Communion not once finding any fault therewith until commanded by the Council and that by several Letters 1265. Tho I am far from thinking that any Person or any Reformation can be too pure when God hath commanded us to be Holy as he is Holy and perfect as our Heavenly Father is perfect it can then be but an accursed modesty even next unto Atheism to believe that any Man or any Reformation can have a Nimis of Purity and Piety yet I can no more renounce moderation reason and Prudence in guiding and Governing Church than State Assairs nor yet subscribe unto Calvins Counsel unto Bucer viz. to take heed of his old fault viz. of running a moderate course in his Reformations nor yet his Advice to the Protector Advising him to take away all Ceremonies and to Reform the Church without regard unto peace at home or Correspondency abroad such considerations being only to be had in Civil matters but not in matters of the Church wherein not any thing is to be exacted which is not warranted by the Word and in managing whereof there is not any thing more distastsul in the eyes of God than Worldly Wisdom either in moderating cutting off or going backwards but meerly as we are directed by his Will revealed Ep. ad Protect More particularly for example sake see the ill Fruits and Effects of such Liberty as our Discourser Pleads for being granted unto John Alasco A Polonian born and unto his Congregation of Germans and other Strangers by Edw. 6th about the year 1550. who being persecuted in their own Country for the same Religion which was then here professed fled hither for Succour to whom the King by the Advice of his Council out of great Zeal to the propagation of the true Religion and out of most wonderful Commiserations unto those that were persecuted for the profession and exercise thereof most graciously afforded them Favour Entertainment and Protection and did assign them the West part of the Church then lately belonging unto the Augustine Fryers for their Exercising of Religious Duties and made them a
when differences about Doctrine and Worship have been broached and disorders in Church and State have ensued § About the year 1548. Paul 3. when the Emperor Charles the 5th had by â—is own Authority Published a Reformation of the Clergy which contained about 130 Precepts so just and Equitable that scarce any former Reformation was more exact or less partial without Subtilties or Snares to inâ—rap the unadvised and which might have been acceptable to Rome her self except in a point or two but being made by the Emperor it seemed more insupportable than the Interim which Rome could by no means indure it being a fundamental maxime of that Court that the Seculars of what degree or honesty soever cannot give Laws to the Clergy tho to a good end and because the Pope and his Conclave were not able to endure such an affront or Tyranny as they called it nor yet able to resist it he presently so for humbled himself to Heresie as that he quickly dispatch't Nuncio after Nuncio into Germany first the Bishop of Fano and then the Bishop of Verona and Terentino for his Nuncij with a Bull of large Faculties and Pâ—â—â—â—rs dated the last of August to Pardon and Embrace all to remit some things of the old Discipline giving them faculty fully to absolve in both Courts all secular Persons tho Kings or Princes Regulars Câ—llâ—â—ges and Communities from all Excommunications and Censures even from Temporal Punishments incurred for matter of Heresie tho relapsed 〈◊〉 to diâ—â—ence with Irregularities in what case soever even for Bigamy to restore them to Fame Honour and Dignity to remit every abjuration and Penance due to absolve from Oaths and Homages made and Perjuries committed and to absolve the Regulars from Apostacy giving them Power to wear the Regular Habit under the Habit of a Secular Priest to give leave to every Person tho Ecclesiastick to eat flesh and forbidden Meats in Lent and fasting dayâ—s to moderate the number of Feasts to grant the use of the Chalice indeed any thing rather than to approve of a Reformation made by the Emperor or any Secular Prince tho never so Potent and conducing to the saving of Souls To descant upon the Absurdities and Contradictions of this Bull in taking upon him to restore Kings and Princes to Honours Fame and Dignity to absolve from unlawful Oaths which need none and from just Oaths which no Man can obsolve to absolve the Friars which forsook their Cloysters to wear the Habit covered as if the Kingdom of God did consist in a Colâ—â—r or vestment which not being worn in shew yet it was necessary to have it in secret is not to my purpose but it is observable and remarkable to shew that if Rome her self that proud Imperious Usurper of Powers Omnipotent could so far humble her self even to her Hereticks and Heresies as to dispence with so much of her old Discipline and to grant such Liberties to them rather than to admit of a Reformation made by a Secular Prince may it not suffice England and be Honourable just and becoming her Protestant self to Reform things which are a shame to the Church and a scandal to the People and that having Power over the Goods and Lives of Nonconformists and of Dissenters Hereticks Schismaticks Separatists names not justly applycable either to them or to their Opposites each equally differing one from the other but neither one from the other in Doctrines fundamental but in things indifferent and Ceremonial only which neither Conformists nor yet Non conformists can Infallibly know who Infallibly hath or hath not the truth on their side and therefore ought to bear with each other the stronger with the Infirmities of the weaker not accounting and reviling each other as Enemies but admonishing each other as Brethren those Ignominious separating terms of Schismaticks Separatists c. more properly belonging to Papists who err not in Ceremonials Circumstantials and Superstructures only but in Doctrines Fundamental and therefore may justly separate from such to let them make publick Profession of the same Gospel the same Religion with the Church of England to avoid suspicion by Private Conventicles or Assemblies and to suffer their Consciences to be free and to belong to God and themselves only who desire only to save Souls the most precious thing that ever God Created § About the year 1559. the Duke of Savoy sent one expresly to desire Pope Pius the 4th that by his favour he might make a Colloquy of Religion within his own Dominions to instruct his People of the Vallies who were generally Alienated from the Old Religion of Rome these were a part of those Waldenses who 400 years before forsook the Church of Rome and in regard of their persecutions fled into Polonia Germany Puglia Provence and some of them into the Valleys of Montesenis Lâ—cernia Angrovia Perosa and St. Martin but the Pope answered that he would by no means consent thereunto but offered to send a Legate with Divines to instruct and Authority to absolve his Subjects when Converted yet said withal that he had little hope to Convert them because the Hereticks were obstinate and whatsoever is done to exhort them to acknowledge their fault they expound to be a want of force to Compel them that it cannot be remembred that any good was ever done by moderation and that experience hath taught that the sooner Justice is used and force of Arms when the other is not sufficient so much the better the Success is and if he would proceed to Arms he would send him assistance Your Servant Sir Ghostly Council I wot more becoming a Wolf or an Hireling than a good Shepherd and it is a shrewd sign that he never entred into Christs Sheepfold by the Door which is Christ but climbed up some other way to Steal and to Kill and to Destroy 10 of John 1.10 But the Duke not liking at all the sending of a Legate because it would have provoked his Subjects the more and forced him to have proceeded according to the Interests of others thinking it better to take Arms which the Pope Commended more and promised Assistance wherefore the Duke resolving to make them receive the Catholick Religion rectius Heresy he caused many to be Burned and to be put to death by other means and to be condemned to the Gallies being more especially instigated thereunto by Inquisitor Thomaso Jacamello a Dominican Fryer which strange Persecution forced them * Here note that in the Church of Rome the Popes were the first Preachers of Force and Violence and that St. Dominick was one of the first that Preached the Doctrine of Death and Tortures for Opinions in Religion he was the Founder of the begging Orders of Friers Preachers and therefore in honour of him the Inquisition is intrusted only to the Friers of his Order And if their own Legends speak truth his own Mother the Night before he was born Dreamed that she was brought to Bed of a great
Dog with a fire Brand in his Mouth the signification and application whereof I leave to every Reader to make Only his deportment towards the Albigenses is storied to be rabying against whom he so Preached adeo quidem ut câ—ntum haereticorum millia uh octo Millibus catholicorum fusa intersercta fuisse perhibeantur saith one of him and of those who became Captives 180 were Burnt to Death the first Example that I find in the Church of Rome of putting Dissenting Bretheren to Death Of this order was this precious Inquisitor Jacomello to Arms alleadging for their Justification that Magistrates were set over them by God and themselves for the good and behoof of the Governed and not the Governed Ordained for the Lusts of Magistrates to be destroyed and killed at pleasure that their Condition being desperate they might use Arms in their own Defence and that in their Condition their appeal unto Arms was not so much against the Prince as against the Pope who usurped more Authority than did Dejure belong unto him and did also abuse the Authority of their Prince by subtle and crafty seducements for his own sinister ends Hence there were War all this year and part of the next And the Duke having made more than a years tryal to reduce them by Wars and Punishments being therein assisted with Money from the Pope and at last after many Skirmishes an Appeal being made unto the Lord of Hoasts by a formal pitcht Battel the Duke lost 7000 men slew but 14 of his Enemies and tho he did often recruit his Army yet had he always the worst Therefore the Duke wisely considering that he did thereby only make his Subjects the more Warlike and teach and inure them more Stoutly to Offend him Consume his own Country and VVast his Treasury he resolved to receive them into favour and made an agreement with them 5º Junij in which he pardoned all past faults gave them Liberty of Conscience appointed them places where they might meet gave leave to those that were Fled to return and restitution of Goods to those that were Banished Which Agreement very much distasted the Pope that an Italian Prince who had been Assisted by him and might have more need of him should yet permit Hereticks to Live freely in his Territories and for that the example would be urged by greater Princes when they inclined to permit another Religion whereof he bitterly complained in the Consistory comparing the Ministers of the most Catholick King with the Duke who having about the same time discovered 3000 Lutherans who went out of Cosenza and retired themselves to the Mountains to Live according to their Doctrine did Hang some Burn others and put the rest into the Gallies but the Duke justifying his Cause with such Reasons which the Pope not being able to answer did Acquiesce And are not such Councils such Advisocs greater marks of an Hireling or a Butcher than Obedience to the Pope a true Mark of the Church Appello ad Caesarem Deum Deorum Dominum Dominorum qui non accipit personam neque recipit munus 10 of Deut. 17. § About the same time there were great Troubles and Disorders in France for cause of Religion Multitudes disdaining to see poor Innocent Christians drawn every day to the Stake to be Burned Guilty of nothing but of Zeal to Worship God to keep a more intimate near and dear Communion with their God and to fave their own Souls These Humors were not Purged nor yet allaied neither by Punishments nor Pardons proferred and Proclaimed but that greater Tumults were raised in Province Languedoc and Poicton whether the Preachers of Geneva were called and came willingly by whose Sermons the number of the Protestants did daily increase examples of great fear being always joyned with others of equal boldness for the quieting of which Humors Francis the 2d the 11º Aprilis 1559. intimated a National Synod as a proper Remedy But the same Hireling Pius the 4th as before in the cause of the Duke of Savoy did most severely complain that the King had Pardoned Hereticks and Errors committed against Religion wherein none had Power but himself and that he would not by any means Consent to an Assembly of Prelates either in France or elsewhere for that a National Council of that or of any other Kingdom would be a kind of Schism from the universal Church give bad example to other Nations and make Prelates proud assuming greater Authority with Diminution of his own and that to consent to a National Synod was to consent that the Axe should be laid to the Root of the Papacy and that by consequence it was an Alienation from the Apostolick See As if God had not given to every National Church and State all things necessary to Govern themselves by but that they must all run to Rome and Romish Priests for redress nay this good Shepherd commanded his Nuntio to intimate farther to the King that if he would resolve to compel his Subjects by force that he would assist him with all his Power and Labour that the King of Spain and Princes of Italy should do the like But if he refused to compel his Subjects by force then his Nuntio was to insinuate to him that all the mischief and Poyson came from Geneva that the extirpation of that root would take away great part of the nourishments of the Evils that disquieted his Dominions § Dissentions and Troubles Fears and Jealousies still increasing in France the King maugre all the Popes Arguments and Interests called a great Assembly at Fountain Bleau 21 Aug. 1560. who being Petitioned by the Reformatists desired nothing but a moderation of their cruel Punishments and that they might make publick profession of their Religion to avoid suspition which might arise by Conventicles or private Assemblies John Monluc the Bishop of Valence did therein complain that Provision had not been made against them because the Popes had no other aim but to hold the Princes in Wars and the Princes thinking to suppress the Evil with Racks and Tortures having not attained their desired end nor the Magistrates and Bishops justly performed their Duty the principal Remedy was to fly unto God to assemble Godly Men to find a way to root out the Vices of the Clergy to forbid Infamous and Immodest Songs and instead of them to Command the Singing of Psalms and Holy Hymns in the Vulgar Tongue And farther shewed that they did grievously erre who troubled the Publick with Arms upon pretence of Religion and that their error was as great who Condemned to Death those that adhered to the New Doctrine only for the Opinion of Piety During these disorders Francis the first Dying the 5th of Dec. 1560. and Charles the 9th Aged 10 years Succeeding he more like the good Shepherd than he that Styled himself Pius by the mature advice of his Council after Solemn and great Consultations and deliberations about the Troubles and Disorders in
Religion Ordained that all that were in Prison for Religion should be set at Liberty their Processes made void their Offences pardoned and their Goodsrestored and tho the Pope and Parliament did much regret and repine at these Liberties yet in the year 1561. the King by his Edict did Command that no man under pretence of discovering the Congregations for Religion which were forbid should enter with many or few into another Mans House that Prisoners for Religion should be set at Liberty and that those that fled since the time of Francis the 1st might return and repossess their Goods § And in the year 1562. the Queen of Navar Prince of Conde Admiral and the Dutchess of Ferrara having long made request that Places should be allowed to the Huguenots for their Sermons and Worship which being mainly opposed by the Pope and his Papalins Tumults did arise as in other places so more especially in Dyon and Paris most notorious for the Death of many for quieting whereof the King and his Council called the Presidents of all the Parliaments to consider of a remedy that might be sit and Adaequate to the troubles of the whole Kingdom these being all Assembled on the 17th of January it was resolved tho not without great Opposition that the Edict of July should be in part remitted and that the Protestants have leave to exercise their Religion without but not within the City and that they should not be molested in their Sermons and Assemblies Congregated out of the City nor hindred by the Magistrates tho the Magistrates and Officers might be present at their Sermons and Meetings if they pleased Tho the Parliament could hardly be brought to accept of this Edict yet it did take effect and was Published the 6th of March but with this Proviso that it was not to approve the New Religion but only by way of provision until it was otherwise ordained by the King which was soon after For the Enemy of all Righteousness full of all subtilty and all mischief like the Child of the Devil did not cease to pervert the right wayes of the Lord by whose Instigation the Parliament of Paris made a Sanguinary Decree in July following viz. that it should be lawful to slay all the Hugonots which by publick order was to be Read every Sunday in every Parish Thus you see Indulgences have frequently been granted by the Papalins that crudele genus even unto Protestants Hereticks in their esteem when the Peace of the Kingdom and obedience of Subjects become questionable non obstante the Bishop of Rome who cannot think no Persecution severe enough that is less than fire and faggot or what was formerly used against the Albigences of whom Philippus Augustus put to Death 600 in one day and against the Waldenses who were choaked in the Caves whither they fled to hide themselves Herein I desire to be fairly understood that I do not by thus arguing Plead for Tolleration or Connivence towards any Perswasion or Religion who either have no sound Gospel Principles of good Life and good Doctrine or whose Principles and Doctrine are averse and chag-reen to the Publick and Just Interests of States and Kingdoms or whose Morals are like those of the Jesuits or who fail in fundamentals but for those on whom are obtruded or required more performances as necessary than ever God made necessary whereby the Door into the Church and the Gates of Heaven are by the Commands of Men made narrower than ever God made them Opinions and Problems about things indifferent and not fundamental nor yet absolutely necessary ought to keep their just Forms and Bounds and not to be Imposed as Oracles which being of doubtful disputation and the truth of them not to be made evident by any infallible Power of Judicature ought not to be brought into the Family or Tribe of Faith and therefore not to be obtruded or Imposed necessarily because they cannot be made clear Infallibly and because they have no Warrant from Scripture so to do Some Doctrines are absolutely necessary others as clearly not necessary let those be urged as necessary these only left to Men indifferently because indeterminate by Scripture Both Governors and Governed are like Men and subject to like Passions and Biasses peevishness and Impatience of Contradiction or Glory of Conquest may bear sway in either the best of Men are but Men at the best To be free from all Ignorance and error is the great Priviledge of the Church Triumphant when our Faith shall be turned into vision and our dark knowledge into clear Comprehension and therefore to expect an absolute and general assent in all particles of truth is a marvelous Vanity and to exact it a greater Tyranny of pernitious Consequence in the Church Heretofore Wise Princes unless some times over born by the unreasonable importunities of proud and haughty Popes and Prelates indulged Tolleration unto dissenting Brethren whose opinions did not disturb the Publick Peace and Interest of Nations And these latter Ages have given us an undeniable Argument from the good success thereof not without this great reason that prudent Indulgence doth not disturb but secure publick Peace because by so doing there is not so much as the pretence of Religion left to make quarrels withal because it is indulged unto them see the fruits of it in our neighbour Nations whilst France fought against the Hugonots it did but spill her own blood exhaust her own Treasure weaken her own strength and could do no great things abroad but becoming wiser how powerful at home how formidable abroad both by Sea and Land I need not tell but the most remarkable instance is to be collected from the different success of the different tempers of Margaret of Parma in the Government of the Neatherlands and the Duke de Alva when she by her moderation and Clemency had almost quencht the great fire and flame therein kindled He her Successor in that Government managed it with that fury that it proved too hot both for him his Prince and his Religion to abide it He did not consider him that said Fury is not in me 27 of Esay 4th and where is the Fury of the oppressor 51 of Isa 13. him that loveth Violence his Soul hateth 11 Psal 5th for thy Violence against thy Brother Jacob shame shall cover thee and thou shalt be cut off for ever Obad 10. For the Dukelike Jehu most furiously did drive on the designs concluded on at Bajon for the extirpation of the Protestant Religion § Some others not Papalins nor yet Phanaticks are much against any Connivence and not altogether without some shew of reason As that to give Dissenters satisfaction in some requests will but give them encouragement and pretence to prepare more and to think they are their due and that it is easier and more secure to deny their demands than being once gratified tho but in part to prescribe them a measure or a Non Vltra and that the granting
this Life and in that which is to come meer Vassals they and their Subjects likewise in no better condition than the Sheep in Demosthenes where the Dogs were to be banished and the Wolves to be their Guardians for they endeavor to make the World believe that they have power over their Souls and Bodies at their pleasure both in this Life and after Death These have been the Collections and Observations of Fra. Paolo and other learned and faithful Writers and eye-witnesses The best is Ab initio non fuit sie there are no such Doctrines in Bibliis Sacris but the contrary And our Doctrines concerning these points and indeed our Religion is the same which is contained in the Scriptures in General Councils and in the Fathers of the First Three I might say Five Ages which have not been purified in their Purgatory their Indices expurg and agrees with the Articles of Faith and only differs in those which they have lately invented and added which he that examines them one by one shall find that none of them make for the Glory of God but all for the Increase of the Grandeur Wealth worldly Power and Jurisdiction of the Ecclesiastical Order so that in truth the true Roman Religion such as it was in the dayes of the Apostles and some Centuries next succeeding is insensibly but manifestly Bastardized and become spurious at Rome and all reduced to a new fashioned Religion which chiefly if not only makes for the pomp and Interest of the Court of Rome So that in truth these latter Popes are no more nor otherwise the true Possessors or Successors of St. Peter's Doctrines at Rome than the Grand Signior is of the Doctrines of St. James's at Jerusalem or of St. Paul's in those famous Churches of Asia In the dayes of Sixtus Quintus that Great Prince there lived in Italy that famous Alchymist and Impostor Nick-named Mamugna who was verily believed that he could make Gold not by the Vulgar only but by Cardinals Princes nay by the Pope himself One more wise and more merry than the rest habiting himself like this famous Alchymist went up and down the City of Venice in a Gondelo well fraught with a Cargo of fire Bellows Crucible Glasses c. crying Al Magmugna A tre lire il soldo del loro sino who buyes a shillings worth of pure Gold for nine pence which being told the Turkish Chiaus made this short answer Il gran signore dumque verra a servirlo if he can make Gold the Great Turk shall come to be his Servant I shall make no other Application or inference of this Mountebank Story than what is natural qui vult decipi decipiatur if Princes will be content to let false and base Coin go for currant be it so But in truth all the Papalins were not of the same mind and opinions with those famous Cardinals and Jesuits the Popes Partisans nor with the Court of Rome but Books were Printed Pro and Con by Papalins themselves in great numbers For besides the Papalins within the State of Venice the Sorbonists were very Orthodox and maintained the Defence of the lawful Secular Power opposing themselves against the Usurpations of Rome and maintaining the Liberty of the Gallican Church for that Kingdom holds it for a matter most certain and apparent that Popes have no power over Princes and that they ought not to proceed by Censures against them or their Officers in things which concern the State And as soon as the King knew of the publication of the Monitory at Rome he complained greatly of the too hasty proceedings of the Pope and sent a dispatch to him with speed requesting him to accommodate the differences The King of Polonia absolutely denyed the publishing of the Popes Monitory for that it did not stand with reason to govern themselves after another fashion towards that Republick of Venice whose Cause was common with his own Kingdom The Catholick King of Spain on whom the Pope relyed for Succors for that he had sometime before made liberal offers unto His Holiness from which he retreated in time of necessity and advised him to neglect his own private Interests for the universal good of Christendom and said that it did not beseem the Father of all Christendom to ground a War so cruel and pernitious to Christian People upon a King so pious and that His Holiness would abase the Apostolick Dignity if he sustained by humane means the Authority which God had given him Quarrels of Paul the Fifth pag. 374 375 376. Thus you see Rome it self divided the Pope and Court of Rome differing in this their greatest point and Diana Jurisdiction both from the old and from the more Novel Church of Rome as well as from that of the Church of the Protestants And thus you may perceive the unquiet and uncertain State that all Princes are like to be in and their Condition never like to be better whilst such monstrous State-destroying-Principles are held for Gospel at Rome For it matters not whether these Doctrines are true or false or received and believed by others or no nor yet whether Protestants or Papists it is all a case so long as so believed at Rome You see the State of Venice a Popish Republick no more safe nor quiet than England a Protestant Kingdom Had the Popes Swords been keen and powerful enough no doubt but that they would have brought both those States in their respective differences and quarrels as once Frederick Barbarossa the Emperor to that Brute Alexander the Third creeping on their knees to obtain Absolution from their Sentences of Excommunication or as Henry the Fourth whom Hildebrand would not release from his Excommunication till he came bare-foot to Canusium in a bitter cold Winter waiting three dayes before the Popes Palace for his Absolution which he hardly obtained by the Intercession of the Dutchess Matilda The Pope besides that he is the Head of Romish Religion is also a Prince who hath for more than 600 years by past aspired to the Monarchy of all Italy at least I might say at an universal Monarchy Temporal and Spiritual which he hath been some time so near to obtain that it is a wonder that he hath misled of it seeing he leaves no stone unturned quacunque arte to enlarge his Jurisdiction He hath three great charges upon him 1. That of Religion 2. That of Ecclesiastical affairs 3. The Temporalty of his Estate The care of all which I shall not grudge him as of right belonging unto him in one or other of his Capacities so he kept within his own Dominions and Territories tho happily all of the Romish Religion will not allow him so much for that all Bishops ought to be governed by the Canons and in which both Pope and all Bishops antiently in the best and purest dayes did acknowledge the Supream power to be to which they all submitted and not by the Pope alone there being also three kinds of
and Administration of Sacraments they have had from the largess and good graces of good and Pious Emperors tho now so grateful as to scorn to acknowledge them but to claim them by the most potent claim in the World Jure Divino and to fight against the Sons and Successors with the very Weapons which their Fore-Fathers and Predecessors had put into their hands In sum the Popish claim of such enormous and exorbitant Jurisdiction over all Kings and Bishops hath certainly been the grand cause of all the discords troubles and wars in all Countries of these latter Ages Both the Eastern and Western Churches lived in Brotherly Communion and Christian Charity for 900 years or more In which time the Pope of Rome was complemented both by the Greeks and Latins as the Successor of St. Peter and to be the first of the Eastern Catholick Bishops more out of respect of Rome being the Imperial City than of any Divine right he had above his fellow Bishops In the Persecution of Hereticks his help as also the help of the other Italian Bishops was implored and peace was easily preserved because the Supream power was in the Canons to which both Greeks and Latins professed to owe subjection the Ecclesiastical Discipline was exactly maintained in both Churches by their own proper Prelates as it seemed best unto them but absolutely according to the disposition and tenour of the Canons no intruding into one anothers Government but each mutually assisting other in the observation of the Canons In those dayes never any Pope of Rome pretended so much as to confer a Benefice within the Diocess of another Bishop nor had the Court of Rome as yet introduced the Custom of drawing Moneys from others by way of Bulls and Dispensations But immediately after the Court of Rome began to challenge a Freedom from being subject to the Canons and that at their pleasure they might change all Antient Constitutions of the Fathers Councels yea and of the Apostles themselves and endeavored in the room of the Antient Primacy of the See Apostolick to introduce an absolute Monarchy and Dominion not bounded or regulated by any Law or Canons the Division soon sprang up and tho 700 years past Peace and Re-union have been divers times attempted yet could it never be effected because disputes have ever been intended and promoted more than the taking away of that abuse which was the true Cause that brought Divisions in and made the Rupture and is the only Cause that still maintains them Whilst the Churches were united the Doctrine of St. Paul was held by both Churches and observed that in affairs of publick Government all men ought to pay subjection to the Prince because God commands it should be so whom he doth disobey who will not yield obedience to the secular power by him appointed for the Government of all Mankind never did any pretend that he might not be punished for misdeeds holding it for certain that exemption to do evil is a thing condemned both by God and Man the words of St. Paul in those dayes were held for good and sound Doctrine viz. wilt thou not be afraid of the Temporal Power Do that which is good and thou shalt have praise for the same but if thou dost evil be afraid for he beareth not the Sword in vain for he is the Minister of God a Revenger to execute wrath upon him that doth evil Rom. 13.1 2 3 4 5. After the Division of those Churches the same opinion still remained in the East and continues to this day The truth of these things being so undeniable methinks that it would not be unbeseeming him who accounts himself the Father of all Christendom to put off the Mask of Religion and abandon all his pretentions unto unlimited Powers which would in good earnest be for the good of all Christendom considering he hath but one Soul and that he ought to do any thing to save it and nothing to destroy it and that it is not made of any better or other mould or mettal than the Souls of his Brethren in both Capacities of Prince or Bishops and that Heaven and Hell must divide the whole World and therefore he should wave his own private sublunary Interests for the universal good of all Christendom If such considerations move not yet methinks they should consider that the World is now grown wiser and have made a full discovery of the Vanity of all his Excommunications Censures of his Bulls Interdicts c. nay they themselves have made them all Ridiculous in many particulars witness themselves at Rome who Annually with great formality and Solemnity Excommunicate their most Catholick King of Spain every Maunday Thursday for keeping away part of St. Peters Patrimony and with as great Formality and Solemnity absolve him again on Good Friday without giving any satisfaction witness also the Venetians who upon the close with Paul the Fifth so slighted all his Monitories Interdicts Excommunications and Censures that they did not only refuse Absolution and Apostolick Benediction offered by him but also refused to give him the Ordinary satisfaction of words and of all Pontilles Subtleties Ceremonies that might have the least Semblance or appearance of any such thing The Pope finding himself thus baffled and slighted did not desist but had recourse unto little pittiful tricks and Subterfuges and therefore suffered to go abroad and to be divulged Four Counterfeit Writings 1. A Breve to Cardinal Joyeuse which gave faculty to take away Censures 2. An Instrument of Absolution dated April 21 3. An Instrument of the Delivery of the Prisoners 4. A Decree of the Senate for the restitution of the Religious c. which tho they did not dare to divulge in formal Copies yet under-hand dispersed Breviates of them designing that after a while when they might not be so easily detected and discovered they might be produced and pretended to be true and so to be believed of necessity And this Policy hath often succeeded well to these men who have many times given colour to many such false Writings prejudicial to divers Princes So Gregory the Second served Alphonsus King of Spain about the Office of Mozarabes So Innocent the Third Anno Dom. 1 199. saith that the Interdict against France because King Philip Augustus had put away his Wife Isemberge was observed in the Kingdom when there was no such thing So Adrian the 20. Anno 870. sent a severe Monitor to Charles the Bald King of France which afterwards he was fain to recall with many submissive excuses Stories are full of such Artifices § What Pitty nay what shame is it that so great Princes as Popes esteeming themselves Gods on Earth and Vicars of Christ should by taking such wrong measures of their Authority and Jurisdiction be driven to such pittiful tricks to uphold Powers so exorbitant and which were never given unto them by any Law of God or Man Did they but seriously consider 1. That they like Gods
own Sabbath were ordained for men and not men for the Sabbath nor yet for Popes that what Powers soever of Right belongs unto them they are given unto them for the good and benefit of Christians and not to Tyrannize or Lord it over Gods Heritage 2. That God hath not given unto Popes any greater Authority in the Government of their Dominions whether of Church or State than unto other Princes and Bishops to whom God hath also confirmed and ratified all Power that is necessary for the good of the Governed And as it appertaineth not to other Emperors and Kings to govern Romish Church or State so it doth as little appertain to Popes to Govern either Church or State of other Kingdoms 3. That no people were or ever will be contented with a Government which tends more to the benefit grandeur pomp and pride of life of those that Govern than to the good and comfort of those that are governed it being the natural and fundamental right of the governed to apply and devolve as much of their own power without divesting themselves thereof as they please to one or more Persons subject nevertheless to the trusts reposed in them to be alwayes imployed and improved to the behoof and benefit of the governed 4. That all people do with some contentedness endure a reasonable Bond but from an excessive one every one doth naturally endeavor by all means tho indirect to free themselves The Antient History of Nodus Gordianus which because Alexander could not unty he cut in pieces whereby Oraculi sortem vel elusit vel imâ—â—evit is applicable to all Humane tyes and Obligations not excepting Governments Ecclesiastick or Civil which if of such a Nature that those that are unjustly or too hard bound may free themselves by ordinary way of Justice then they are endured with some patience But if there be no ordinary means to relieve themselves then they ever have had and I fear ever will have recourse to means extraordinary tho Indirect as Seditions and the like Wherefore it is undoubtedly doing God the best Service to keep every Government within its due bounds which is absolutely necessary for the preserving and propagating of Religion and for keeping the State in quiet temperament and that to grant Ecclesiasticks exorbitant Authority thinking it to be a favoring of Religion as heretofore they did perswade some Emperors with design to get their power into their own hands is an undiscreet Zeal prone to end in the dishonour of God damage of Religion and in publick confusion As God himself without respect to Persons made the Earth by his Power established the World by his Wisdom stretched out the Heavens by his understanding Jer. 51.15 so he never made Kingdoms and Nations for Popes or Princes but both the one and the other for the Comfort and Solace of the governed Think you that if his Vicars or Ambassadors or Vice Royes govern otherwise than according to his own Rules and Precepts who will measure all by his own Line and righteousness by his own Plummet that they shall go unpunished I tell you nay but except they repent they shall all likewise perish His Holiness himself not excepted according unto Jer. 23.1 2. Wo to the Pastors that destroy and scatter the Sheep of my Pasture Therefore thus saith the Lord ye have scattered my Flocks and driven them away and have not visited them behold I will visit upon you the evil of your doings I say again is it reasonable to believe that ever God who created light and darkness Heaven and Earth the Sea and all things that are therein and created and formed all Mankind in general a little lower than the Angels out of one and the same Clay in his own likeness and after his own Image without respect to these or those Persons Popes or others and gave unto Mankind in General Dominion over the Fish of the Sea and over the Foul of the Air and over the Cattel and over all the Earth and over every living thing that moveth upon the Earth and all this for the good and comfort of all men in general should yet subject all Mankind Emperors Kings and Temporal Princes not excepted to the will and pleasure of one Pope or one Vicar or one Ambassador or one Vice-Roy as Vniversal Monarch to be governed and guided by the Will and pleasure of these men because they stile themselves Gods Vicars nay Gods on Earth whereby one Mans will may become all mens misery No! God made all Governors in the World for the good and happiness of the governed and not the governed to be subject to the Will Lusts and Pleasures of the Governors he never gave Precepts nor Commands relating to Government and Governors but what conduced to the good of the governed and alwayes rebuked and punished all such Governors as well those that he anointed and set up himself as severely as those whom the People did choose that walked and governed contrary to his Rules and Precepts Did God think you send his own Son out of his own bosom to take on him the form of a Servant and was made in the likeness of men and being found in fashion as a man humble himself and became obedient to that shameful death the death of the Cross for us Men and our Salvation in General And can we then be so sottish as to believe that all Mankind were made to be Slaves and Vassals unto one Compito one Vicar General made Governor by themselves by delegating their own Power without divesting themselves thereof upon this or that man for their own good and benefit and for the better Government of their whole body either explicitely or implicitely alwayes implyed and alwayes so to be understood undoubtedly all Governors in the World whether Ecclesiastick or Civil be their Power what it will never so absolute never so Arbitrary yet by the Law of God they ought to govern no otherwise than Christ himself would govern were he come in glory to Reign on Earth and to square their Actions according to the Dictates and Laws of God delivered unto us by the Prophets and Apostles And tho so to govern be a happiness and a favour indeed unto the Subjects yet it is an absolute duty unto God and Man and of which he will certainly one day exact an Account The reason is demonstrable for that no man living Paternal Government excepted nor any number of men whatsoever can have any compleat lawful Authority over any Politick Society of men but he must have it either by consent of Parties or immediate appointment of God Hooker 70. Notwithstanding this natural right of publick Societies I appeal to all Story if ever it were Recorded that ever any Pope quitted his pretensions to his Supremacy or to his pretended power over any Temporal Prince that was at variance with him since the day that they first took them up unless he were Cudgelled into better manners and better obedience
Bellarmine doth this Proposition viz. that the Pope may judge of all sins they are forced to except the greater part of particular sins Besides a Prince may sin by breaking his own Laws as the same St. Thomas proves 1.2 quaest 96. Art 5. yet of this sin he cannot be judged of any but God alone as Cajetane in that place declareth shewing that in foro Poenitentiae and in the sight of God is all one in sence Certes to affirm that a Prince transgressing his own Laws should be therein subject to the Censures of the Pope were wholly to take away the Power and Authority of Princes And to affirm that he should be subject to them in other Crimes and not in that were to overthrow the very ground of the reason presupposed in that infamous Chapter Novit Moreover it is very necessary well to observe the very words of Innocent the Third Intendimus decernere de peccato cujus ad nos pertinet sine dubitatione Censura quam in quemlibet exercere possumus debemus And a little after Ad officium nostrum spectat de quocunque peccato mortali corripere quemlibet Christianum which Bellarmine Translates le tutti di Principi del mundo All the Princes of the World by which it is plain he had more than an ordinary Pique at Kings and Princes Now if he be bound by the duty of his place quia potestas nostra non est ex homine sed ex Deo to denounce censures against every mortal sin and against every Christian so offending surely if he do it not he sins and endangers damnation to himself And yet we do not find that the Pope sends out any Censures against the Curtizans the Concubines of Priests and profest Harlots who yet abide and persist notoriously in their sins Besides if by quemlibet Christianum be understood all the Princes of the World as Bellarmine hath rendred it it belongs to him to Excommunicate the Turk the King of Persia the Tartar cum multis aliis And St. Peter's Successor must accuse St. Paul of false Doctrine who said 1 Cor. 1.5.12 quid mihi de his qui foris sunt judicare what have I to do to Judge them that are without § I have insisted the longer on this Chapter Novit because it was designed purposely under pretence of favor to make an Ass of England and her King it being made use of to that very end and also against the French King as appears by the Story And trow you Contrives she not Complots she not at this very day to make England once more to carry the Saddle If ever the like Fate betides us or if ever it be again the Stile of England I cannot say less than Not the Pope only but the Devil rides us § His next recourse is unto another Buckram Decretal Extravagant Vnam Sanctam examined rightly stiled Extravagant called unam Sanctam I must confess I could wish that before he had made any use thereof that he had first reconciled it with another of Pope Clement the Fifth who succeeded him not long after which begins thus Meruit de privilegiis cap. 2. extravag com where Clement saith that he determineth and declareth that by the said Extravagant Vnam Sanctam Meruit charissimi filil nostri Philippi Regis Francorum Illustris sincerae affectionis ad nos Ecclesiam Rom. integritas progenitorum suorum praeclara merita meruerunt Meruit insuper Regnicolarum puritas ac devotionis sinceritas ut tam regem quam regnum favore benevolo prosequamur Hinc est quod nos Regi Regno per definitionem declarationâ—m banae memoriae Bonisacii Papae Octavi Praedecessoris viri quae incipit Unam Sanctam Nullum volumus vel Intendimus praejudicium generari nec quo id per illam Rex Regnum Regnicolae praelibati amplius Ecclesiae sint subjecti Romanae quam antea existebant sed omnia intelligantur in eodem esse statu quo erant ante definitionem praefaram tam quantum ad Ecclesiam quam etiam ad Regem Regnum Regnieolas superius nominatos there shall be no prejudice or injury done to the King and Kingdom of France nor that the said King and Kingdom shall be any more or otherwise subject to the Church of Rome than they were before but that all things shall continue in the State they were in before that Extravagant Now it had not been unworthy so great an Ecclesiastick as my Lord Cardinal Bellarmine was to have dealt so ingenuously as to have declared whether Boniface in this Extravagant Vnam Sanctam did make a Declaration of Jus Divinum in this point i.e. expound and declare that Jurisdiction which the Pope hath de Jure Divino over Princes or whether he did thereby impose a new subjection over Princes in some matters wherein God had not made them subject before unto the Popes Be it which His Eminency pleaseth it will avail him nought if Boniface meant the latter then it was an Innovation after the year 1294. A meer Extravagant after English Construction a void Decree an Vsurpation an Incroachment and an abuse of the Power given them by God by enlarging it beyond its just bounds Besides by what reason Scriptural or other could Clement declare or mean that France alone should be exempted from that Extravagant and not all other Princes and Kingdoms Neither was it a matter or favor to be yielded as in recompence of the good deserts of that King and Kingdom but a thing due unto them of right and Justice Now if Boniface intended it as a Declaration of Jus Divinum it were worthy our knowledge to know by what right Clement could free the King and Kingdom of France from that subjection which God had appointed them unto the case being very clear according to their own Doctrine that the Pope cannot exempt any man from his own Power and Jurisdiction which he holds de Jure Divino so it undeniably follows that if Boniface were in the right Clement was in the wrong and è contra Pope against Pope no news at all Besides that which Boniface saith in that Extravagant viz. si deviat terrena potestas judicabitur à potestate spirituali that the Authority Temporal when it erreth ought to be corrected and rectified by the Spiritual be a Declaration of the Law of God yet then according to as wise honest and learned of your own Fraternity as ever writ in your defence it ought to be understood only for so much as concerns the Salvation of their Souls and that only in foro Dei and Abstract from all Temporal Power of that kind which the Lawyers term Coactive and that all the Ecclesiastical Power over Princes is therefore only Spiritual And herein we shall not need to have recourse to Signior Papa our Lord the Pope for that this kind of Authority is in every Bishop and Priest how Heretical soever it be esteemed by some
sit in the seat of God I have a Heart like the Heart of God Ezek. 28.2.6 whilst he exalteth himself above all that is called God above all Magistrates to the Abasure of Gods Lieutenants above measure and much more than he ought attributing that to themselves which is proper and peculiar unto God only Were not our first Parents so tempted by Sathan ye shall be as Gods Gen. 3. I admire Gods insinite patience and mercy yet wonder that they have hitherto escaped the Judgment of Herod and have not long ere this been eaten up of Vermin because to this very day they have not given God the glory by expunging all such expressions bordering so near upon nay indeed are the quintescence of Blasphemy out of their extravagants and Decretals Canons and Authors when by their Indices Expurgatorii they have obliterated and expunged many Divine Truths out of the Antient Fathers and Books nay out of God's own Commandements out of his own Decalogue written with his own finger on Tables of Stone and split another into two that the same number might still remain And are they thus Hogen Mogen in words only Have not their Acts and Enterprises been answerable What say you to deposing of Kings of Emperors or if any thing in Magistracy may be more transcendent To speak of Kings of Italy France England Translating their Kingdoms oft attempted sometimes executed is but to speak them modest in pride and haughtiness these in their esteem being but Dii minorum Gentium what thing you of the deportment of Alexander the Third towards the Emperor Frederick Barbarossa doth it not proclaim him in pride Luciferian Such facts read many in the Cardinal de Rom. Pont. Lib. 5. c. 8. not related only but justified as done de Jure and pleaded as evidence to prove that the Pope hath Supream Power Temporal on Earth tho not directly yet in Ordine ad Deum for all Spiritualia How long Lord Holy and Just dost thou not avenge the Abasures of thy Lieutenants upon that false Prophet Stir up O Lord the Spirit of Princes that once the lofty looks of that proud man may be brought low Who is there amongst the Lords Anointed ones whose heart the Lord hath inclined to be an instrument of his vengeance upon this Pater omnium fornicationum Abominationum terrae his God be with them And if hereto the offering of the People be not willing unworthy they to see the peace and welfare of the everlasting Gospel But that I may not in the least prevaricate with my Lord Cardinal Bellarmine so great a Prince so great a Scholastick nor yet seem in the least to imitate him in his equivocating arguings of which I so much complain I shall joyn issue with him upon his own Instance viz. For the Pope is able to do all that is necessary to the conducting of Souls to Paradise Perche puo five tâ—tto questo che è necessario à condurreâ—i ' anime in Paradiso puo ' levare tutti gli impedimenti che il mundo o' l' demonio con tutta la loro fozza o' astutia and can take away all the Impediments which the World or Devil can lay in the way A doughty Prince doubtless To answer which I must preliminarily once more Interrogate His Holiness Who hath put wisdom in the inward parts Who hath given understanding to the Heart Is it the Inspiration of His Holiness or of the Almighty that giveth understanding Wilt thou then disanul his Judgments Wilt thou rob him of his glory that thou maist seem righteous or that thou maist be Dominus fac totum To conduct the Soul of an Infant into Paradise which is yet in the Mothers Womb and cannot be brought forth alive necessary it is one way or other to make it partaker of Grace can the Pope do it I trow not For neither can he institute a Sacrament for this purpose nor grant that the Child should be cut out of the Mothers Belly and therefore the Pope cannot do any thing necessary to conduct this Soul into Paradice According to like Romish Doctrine a man being Actually in some mortal sin and in this State deprived of his Wits cannot be saved unless he recover his wits again and repent himself can the Pope restore him to his wits again I trow not and yet according to their own Doctrine it is necessary for this Mans Salvation But if he can he shall have my Vote to be Doctor to all the Bedlams in the World Nothing more necessary to Salvation than the Internal motions of the mind Can the Pope influence the Hearts of men by secret Heavenly suggestions and illapses of the Spirit Can he speak unto the Hearts of men in a Dream in a Vision in the Night when deep sleep falleth upon them in slumbrings upon the Bed Can he then open the Ears of men and seal their Instruction All these and much more can and doth God do that he may withdraw Man from his purpose and hide pride from him Job 33.14 15 16 17. No no the fining pot is for Silver and the Furnace for Gold Prov. 17.3 But God only searcheth the heart and tryeth the reins Jer. 17.20 and Ch. 20.12 And their own St. Thomas denyeth that the Pope hath any power over the hearts and minds of men If Bellarmine will not believe nor Scripture nor St. Thomas yet I hope he will believe himself who in his own Book de Rom. Pont. makes a long discourse prescribing limits to the Pope's Authority and touching many things which the Pope cannot do oportet mendacem esse memorem Infinite indeed are the things which are necessary for the conducting a Soul into Paradise which are not subject to the Pope's Authority If He can remove all Impediments which the World and the Devil can lay in the way with all their Subtilty why then doth he not convert all Jews Turks Infidels and Hereticks Nay can they save their own Souls by removing all Impediments c. then can the Devils too some of them so peerelesly vicious full of all unrighteousness not in their own Persons only but like Jeroboam making Israel to sin St. Paul is too nice and too modest when he reckons Fornicators Adulterers Effeminate Covetous Extortioners 1 Cor. 16.9 10. among the damned Crue Let not the Laws Curse touch them except they be found unholy profane Murtherers Parricides Sodomites Perjured what not Nor he reputed the Man of Sin except he be found amongst Bishops Christian as Ahab amongst Kings of Israel a sine pare a none such that have sold themselves to work wickedness in the sight of the Lord. Ly their own Chroniclers Martin Polon Anno 986. Platina in Bonifac. 7. in Sylv. 2. in Benedicto 9. Martin Polon Anno 1042. Beno Cardin. de vita gestis Hild. or were their Popes many such Necromancers in express league with the Devil purposely Sacrificing unto him Masters of that Hellish Art to
to seed his Fock No no Ezekiel shews that their duty is to strengthen the Diseased to heal the Sick to bind up the broken to bring again that which was driven away and to jeek that which was lost this also is consonant to the Doctrine of St. Peter 1. Ep. 2 3. Feed the Flock of Christ taking the oversight thereof not for filthy Lucre but of a ready mind neither as being Lords over Gods Heritage but being Examples to the Flock Besides it can never be proved by Scripture that Christ's instituting Pastors in the Church did at any time exempt them from obedience to the Church she being the Common Parent of all Christians both Ecclesiastical and Secular and the Practice was so in the purest times as may appear by St. Cyprian Lib. 1. c. 4. Moreover when Christ ascended on high tho he led Captivity Captive and gave gifts unto men yet he did not divest himself of all power of Governing his Body the Church Militant here on Earth devolving it on the Pope but doth still continue to govern it internally and Spiritually by the secret influences and illapses of his Spirit and so will do until time shall be no more And altho the Popes have nothing at all to do with this kind of Government nor as yet in terminis have laid any claim thereunto yet their Illustrissimo Bellarmine hath had such effronted Impudence as to aver that the Pope is able to do all that which is necessary to the Conducting of Souls to Paradise unto which end certainly Divine Inspiration is most necessary and can take away all Impediments which the World or the Devil with all their force or Crast are able to oppose which doth covertly insinuate and attribute the same Spiritual Invisible power to be also in the Pope hoping it will not be seen but it is discovered for without such Insluences and assistances it is very improbable if not altogether impossible to be conducted to Heaven and if Bellarmine's Doctrine be good what need of petitioning Heaven for Graces it is but going to Rome a pleasant Journey where we may have all things necessary for our Journey to Paradise for asking for some merry Pence Romae omnia venalia As to the external Government of his Body and Church Militant here on Earth it consists here of visible men The Church to be Governed by its own Body So Christ himself would that it should be governed by visible men without divesting himself of his Spiritual influences and in order thereunto he appointed Pastors and Teachers for the perfecting of the Saints for the work of the Ministery for the Edifying of the Body of Christ Ephes 4.8 11 12. Who having in his life-time endowed them with power and commands to teach all Nationis Baptizing c. Matth. 28.19 which is all the Authority that ever Christ gave or bequeathed unto them and which is purely Spiritual without any mixture Temporal and that only as Ministers and Servants not as Lords of his Body which power tho it may be peculiar to the Clergy of the Church as chief Officers and Ministers thereof yet the application of the same Authority to the person is purely elective and depending on the Body hence it follows that the Body or Sheep having chosen their Bishop or Pastor he is now become subject to the Body and not the Body to him which Authority of choosing them a good or of Judging or of censuring a wicked Pastor being given them of Christ their Head and Father they cannot wave or devolve the same without committing great offence against God and if they should yet they cannot wholly divest themselves thereof Besides in disputes among themselves whether the Pope be above a Council very many of the most Learned of them do argue and agree that as the Head or Superior of the Inquisition is not Superior to the whole Congregation of the Inquisition being assembled nor do they admit that the rest of the Body hath no power over the Head especially being such a Head as the Body it self hath constituted They argue the like also from the examples of Kings and Kingdoms of which I shall make this use only that if these be good instances among themselves to prove a Council to be above the Pope it will hold also in minor collective Ecclesiastical Bodies Thus do they abuse all places of Scripture by wresting them from their proper meaning and intendment The Popes claims first modest then Impudent as I have hitherto shewed and therefore the Readers may do well to bear in their memories the Cautions and Observations laid down in the Paraenesis forementioned The pretensions of the Popes were at first modest as I have shewed you in Gregory in respect of that height of Impudence they have now arrived unto They claimed only precedency or Primacy not Supremacy but now their Judgments are Infallible their Jurisdiction Infinite their Empire boundless fetching in and Monopolizing all Churches and Kingdoms All Bishops but their Curates All Kings and Emperors but their Vassals for of the Pope was meant Gens regnum quod non servierit tibi eradicabitur and this Bellarmine Baronius and others of the same Leaven plead for not out of the Decretal Epistles or Constantine's Donations but out of Scripture The first and best Bishops of Rome thought more of their Martyrdom than of an Universal Monarchy expounding Scripture with contentedness according to the natural sence of the Text without racking or torturing it unto wrong ends and purposes But their Successors lost by degrees first conscience then Learning and now at last all Grace and Modesty This their Babel as it now stands was not built in a day but as the itching desires of this or that proud and haughty Pope of enlarging their Fringes and Phylacteries did increase so their claims and pretentions increased therewith At first they claimed a Primacy of Order or at most of Honor not of power among their Brethren only not over them And these contestations were with Bishops not yet with Emperors they medled yet only with the Keyes not with the Swords owning all their power to be meerly and purely Spiritual for the benefit of Souls nothing at all directly or indirectly temporal But when once they had put a Padlock on the Scriptures and Preached Ignorance up to be the Mother of Devotion then the Mystery of Iniquity became quickly advanced to that monstrous height which at this day we see but cannot remedy And the better to set out this Pageant not only some scraps and shadows of old Fathers and Councils but the Scripture it self our Lord Christ and St. Peter are brought upon the Stage and rackt and tortured to do obeysance unto this Monster of Iniquity whereas we may safely swear that there is not one word or Syllable of the Pope or his Power in all the Scripture Old or New but what is due to all Bishops in Common with him save only as he is described
in vogue and as prevalent amongst them as ever And is it now time a day to plead for favors connivences and Indulgences for such a Generation of such Hellish-minded and Principled men after so many more fresh diabolical contrivances and plottings now in agitation against King and Kingdom Laws Liberties Religion what not And suffer our selves to be wheedled into compliance and association with them upon what C. H. H. and E. C. write or what Rome dreads men famous indeed in their Generation the one for Antient Noble Birth the other for plotting his own and the King and Kingdoms ruine but he was snared by the work of his own hands and in the Net that he made was his own foot taken and so let all the implacable and irreconcileable Enemies of God and the King be snared Very pretty a very fine whim to make all England as very Mungril-Christians as Rome it self like those of Samaria who feared God yet served Idols and like those of Israel who swear by the Lord and Melcom their right hand of Fellowship being but the right hand of falsehood Psalm 144.8 11. that they may be snares and traps unto us Is this the way for the Sons of God to purifie themselves even â—s he is pure and to be perfect as our Heavenly Father is perfect 1 John 3.3 Is it not rather to toss us to and fro like Children and to carry us about with every wind of Doctrine by the slight of men and cunning craftiness whereby they lye in wait to deceive Eph. c. 14. is it not rather to pervert the right wayes of the Lord and to invite us to joyn in Abominations with other men Is this the right way and method to hold the Mystery of Faith 〈…〉 consciences And to keep our selves unspotted of the world 1 Tim. â— â— 2 James 15 16 17. and pure by not pertaking of other mens sins 2 Timothy 5.22 Whence is this wisdom which is not pure but Sensual Earthly Devillish No better than Jeroboam's Politick device of setting up two Calves in Dan and Bethel The narrow rules of the Apostles viz. to abstain from all 〈◊〉 of evel to resist unto blood striving against sin will not allow 〈◊〉 dâ—â—bing with such untempered Morter 〈◊〉 the ill consequences and fruits of this wisdom this Politick 〈…〉 First We hazzard our selves and Posterity to Infection 〈…〉 5 6 13. A little Leaven leaveneth the whole lump 2. Unto the â—â—ath of God Come out of her my People that ye be not partakers of her â—â—ns and that ye receive not of her Plagues Apoc. 18.4 3. We hazard and encourage even the Papalins themselves to obstinate Impiety 4. We blemish our own sincerity and heavenly-mindedness 5. Quantum in nobis we encourage others to the like Linsey-wolsey-medly-mongril-worship Saints of old were more scrupulous more wary David would not sit with vain Persons neither would he go in with Dissemblers but hated the Congregation of evil doers and would not sit with the wicked Psalm 26.4 5. so Jeremy sate not in the Assembly of Mockers nor rejoyced Jer. 15.17 The Lord himself commanded that if any Person Son Brother Daughter the Wife of thy bosom or thy Friend which is as thy own soul shall intice to Idolatry as by sad experience we know they dayly do Importunately Indefatigably or any City shall set up a new Worship the one shall he killed the other destroyed Deut. 13.6.9.13.15 and the undoubted Precept is to separate the pretious from the vile and let them return unto thee but return thou not to them Jer. 15.19 the Gospel confirms the same is it possible that righteousness can have Fellowship with unrighteousness or that light should have communion with darkness Or can Christ have concord with Belial Or can the Temple of God have Agreement with Idols 2 Cor. 6.15 which Temple we are wherefore come out from among them and be separate v. 16.17 And in truth what is it less or other than to have Fellowship with Devils 1 Cor. 10.20 David expelled not courted the Idolatrous Jebusites out of Jerusalem 2 Sam. 5.8 Asa put Maacha his Mother from her Regiment because she was an Idolatress and brake down her Idols 2 Chron. 15.16 the Law was Thou shalt make no Covenant with them nor with their Gods they shall not dwell in thy Land lest they make thee sin against me Exod. 23.32 33. Deut. 7.2 3 4. Where Gods Ark is there Dagon shall be thrust out of his place and fall down before it Sam. 1.5 To Conclude this point having treated more fully of this Subject elsewhere Have we not had above an hundred years experience of their incessant evil Machinations and deportments towards us and our Religion Have they ever been quiet Was Queen Elizabeth ever five years without a design against her Life Was King James free from their Conspiracies either here or in Scotland Do they not boast at this very day that notwithstanding all that hath been done discovered and executed that still their Plot drives on and boast that it is so deeply laid that it cannot be discovered nor prevented Besides what security can they possibly give for their peaceable deportment They are Devotees sworn to another Forreign Head and Oaths made to us are not of any force to oblige them according to their own Maxim Nulla Fides servanda cum Haereticis and therefore we have no reason to confide in them but to secure our selves Do they not compass Sea and Land and dayly pervert the right wayes of the Lord by making divers Proselytes and them thereby two fold more the Children of Hell than they were before Have they changed their Principles Or are their Contrivances and Plottings against Church and State even at this very day less numerous or less dangerous than at any time heretofore Can we be so blind as not to see not to perceive that they are playing their old Games over again and that they will Iterate and Reiterate them again and again as from Age to Age they have hitherto successively done And is it not then profound reason of State in us and pure Religion to boot to give this Crudele genus these unreasonable blood-thirsty men more Countenance more freedom more power amongst us by nourishing them in our bosoms qui vult decipi decipiatur my Prayer shall be from this ill kind of men Libera nos Domine and I do not doubt but that all true and sincere English Protestants having Souls Bodies and Estates to save loving God their King and their Country will think themselves highly oblidged by all these obligations and Tenures to the best of their power and knowledge to maintain the true Protestant Established Religion which stands Diametrically opposite to all the forementioned abominable Errors and will not hazard their Temporal Estates much less the Eternal wellfare of their immortal Souls by a sinful compliance and Kings and Princes least of all for that there is no Prince nor Nation that
the Son of a Boarnerges yet fury he hated sire and faggot were none of his principles after much solemn deliberation chose to Steer his Course in a mild and gentle way and therefore first recalled those that had abandoned the Kingdom and released the Imprisoned because they would not submit to Romish superstition and corruptions that they might enjoy that liberty of Conscience for which they had suffered extremities in his Fathers time and that they might be serviceable to him in the furtherance of the work of Reformation and forthwith without staying for the return of the Banished he smoothed the way to the intended work by setting out some preparatory Injunctions yet extant which were sent abroad into all parts of the Kingdom by certain Commissioners or Visitors attended by Godly and Learned Preachers appointed to instruct the People where they were to sit and Act the better to facilitate the work that the people might not cool or relapse these Preachers were more particularly instructed besides the points contained in the said Injunctions to disswade the People from Praying to Saints to the dead from Adoring of Images from the use of Beads Ashes and Processions from Mass Dyrgies Praying in unknown Languages c. all which was done to prepare the People by little and little that with the more ease and less opposition they might insensibly admit the total intended Alteration in the Face of the Church In the whole Progress they did deem it best to remove those things first which were least needful and newliest crept in and therefore did Abrogate a number of Sts. dayes and recalled the Latine Services and all Antiphoneys Missals Grailes Processionals Manuals Legends Pies Portuasies Journals and Ordinals after the use of Sarum Lincolne York Bangor Hereford or any other of Private use and all other Books of Service that might hinder the Service in English and so Established the Liturgy which was also Translated into the French for the use of the Marches of Calais and the Islands of Jersey and Guernsey famous for that unparallel'd Martyrdom of Perotine Massey who being great with Child was in the Marian dayes there committed to the Flames amidst which her Belly bursting and her Child falling into the Fire was like a Brand pluckt forth thereof by one William House but was presently ramanded again to the flames by Gosling the Baily that it might have the Honour which never any had before to be born as well as dye a Martyr Articles of Religion and discipline Catechisms Churches cleansed of things burthensom to the People offensive and scandalous to the Simple to which God gave such Blessings and Success that many Papists considering the reasonableness and purity of the Worship frequented our Churches and turn'd Protestants others tho Papists still frequented our Churches until the Pope made it a signum distinctivum and then many return'd with the Dog to the Vomit and with the Sow that was washed to her wallowing in the Mire unto their old Idolatrous and Superstitious fopperies again Tho this most worthy Prince by his wise and moderate Council and management brought that great that difficult that admirable work of Reformation to such excellent perfection in so short time that this Nation hath found the Blessing and comfort of it ever since even to this very day yet doth it not escape the private reproach of this Author among others tho elsewhere he seem also in some part to approve it who would have us remember that our Reformers were but men who never claimed Infallibility and that the Reformation was performed by men which never claimed perfection f. 36. that the Book of Common Prayer became a bone of contention from its very Cradle to this Nation and unto other parts of the World many of the People and Ministers seeming to be enlightned with a beam of truth with an equal luster and brightness with that which shined in the minds of their Brethren wholly decrying that prudential Complyance with the Peoples Ignorance and Adherence to Popery and which Considerations he supposes ought to prevail with sober men to take the whole matter of the Imposition of this or the like form once more under a Sedate Consideration f. 40.41 § It is true that our Reformers were but Men that they never claimed Infallibility nor their work perfection such perfection as God promises Isay 35.8 a High way of Holyness throughout this Land that Way-faring men tho Fools should not err therein yet such perfection as the wisdom of the wise and Godly of those times and the posture of Affairs then could devise and would admit of we humbly conceive they had and ought so to be esteemed But is not he that Objects these and were not those great Luminaries he minds us of Men subject to like Passions and Infirmities with their Brethren or is he or were they any more Infallible than those he Objects against If not so nor so why so quarrelsom why so Captious O! to have the whole matter taken once more into a Sedate Consideration The request I confess is modest and mannerly and not without Reverence and it shall be considered with like respects By this Discourse of his he seems to me to be of Opinion happily not erroneous viz. That there is no such Contrariety between the different Opinions of the Assenters and Dissenters in point of Liturgies and things indifferent but that some moderation and connivance may be indulged to the Dissenters without peril of Inconvenience to the Government and that without it these petty differences and trifles may accidentally foment Divisions and disturb the quiet State of the Kingdom and therefore the more prudent and safe way were to connive at least by a prudent Neutrality between the Contrarieties and take care that none do Condemn the other nor yet the present Government but that all do live peacibly and Piously together In the dayes of Luther many moderate Popish Princes were of the same Opinion and that many of the Modern Innovators Opinions might have been tollerated if they had been modestly Maintained without Condemning the Church of Rome and the Doctrine of the Schools which constrained Leo to retort against Luther those Arrows which he had first Shot against the Apostolick See But what more usual in all Countries Ages and Times than for Innovators by Petition nay by Protestation to shew willingness to refer themselves and to submit to a Sedate Consideration nay even for Papists themselves in their Differences and Disputes which are not few as may be seen in Bellum Papale to refer themselves to the Pope yet neither the one nor the other ought to be believed that he or they have a purpose to acquiesce if a neat and sit occasion be offered to evade Of this great truth the Arrians the Dominicans and Franciscans Jansenists and Molinists indeed all Sects and Heresies give abundant Testimony nay of this Luther himself was a Manifest example who while he had to do only with