they are the Advocates of mercy the procurers of Ob. pardon the Preachers of repentance and men that are made to save life and not to put any one to death or to bring any man unto his end I answer That they are therefore the fittest men to be the Judges both Sol. of life and death For who can better and more justly judge me to death than he that doth most love my life it is certain he will not condemn me without just cause even as God that is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Father of mercies and even mercy it self is the fittest and most righteous Judge that can be found both of death and damnation because his mercy and goodness Clergy how fit to be Judges towards his creatures will not permit his severity against sin though never so detestable to his purity to do the least injustice to their persons so our love of mercy and pity will not suffer us to do any thing that shall transcend the Rules of justice and equity And as our inclination to mercy prohibites us to condemn the innocent so our love to justice and our charge to preserve it will not permit us to justifie the wicked for the Scripture teacheth us That he which justifieth the wicked and be that condemneth the innocent that calleth the evil good and the good evil that spareth Agag and killeth Naboth are both alike abominable unto the Lord. And therefore notwithstanding this unjust Canon I never find in any of our Histories that the Bishops did ever withdraw themselves and quit their Votes in this case either before or after save only from the 10th year of Richard the 2d unto the 21th year of the raign of the same unfortunate King which they did not because they could not justly be present but because they had just reasons to be absent as you may find it in the Annals of his time Therefore I know not how to palliate their facility Non-Canonicall Lords of yielding way to those Non-Canonical Lords to produce those non-obliging Canons which they abhorred in all that made not for the furtherance of their design to exclude them from doing this which was one of their chiefest duties for who knoweth not the Lord Say and Lord Brook and others of the Lords to hate all Canons even the old Canons of the Apostles as inconsistent with their new Rules of Independent Government and yet herein to exclude the Bishops Votes in the judgement of this man and the passing of this Bill which being admitted might perhaps have turned the scales they will take hold of the unjustest Law and alleadge one of the worst of Canons a Canon against reason and most repugnant to the best of God's Properties which though they be all equall in themselves summè perfectissimè yet are they not so perceived by us but hiw mercy is over all his works But you will say Was this man so just that he was unjustly condemned to death Did all men so untruly complain against him And was he good notwithstanding all the evill that was proved against him I answer That I dare not and I do not say that he was unjustly adjudged to death or that the Bill it self was unjust But this I assure my self that he was a very wise and understanding man and indued with may rar◠Heroick-vertues and most excellent graces as among the rest with those The Earle'◠Vertues two incomparable indowments that cannot easily be found among many of the Nobles of this World 1. Faithfulness to his Prince to whom as I conceive he shewed himself a true servant and most Trusty in his greatest imployments save in what was and I know not that justly proved against him and I believe he would never have taken Arms as some others of the Lords do now against his Soveraign 2. Love unto the Church and Church-men to whom though others think it their glory to oppresse them and a vertue to contemn them yet he was a true Friend a most Noble Benefactor and most just unto his death as his very last speech unto his dearest Son doth sufficiently testifie unto all posterity which speech was to this effect and I would to God it were indelibly imprinted in the memory of all our Nobility That as he regarded his father's blessing or expected a blessing from God upon what his father left him so he would be careful never to take away or in any wise to diminish any part or parcell of the goods or Patrimony of the Church which if he did would prove a Canker to waste and consume all that he had Yet it may be he was which in truth I cannot imagin as the Philosopher saith of Marcus Antonius a man of that composition that his vices did equalize if not exceed his vertues and his offences cloud all his graces and obscure all his glory And as the saving of one mans life cannot save him from suffering that doth unjustly put another man to death so the rarest Vertues cannot justifie the man that committeth so many horrible How a Malefactor may be unjustly condemned offences as his accusers conceived this man did to which it may be well replyed That a notorious Malefactor though I apply not this to him may be unjustly condemned and so he may be justly condemned and unjustly executed as when he is not condemned for the fault committed or condemned not according to the Law which condemneth that Fact For though a Murderer deserveth death yet any one may not presently be the death of that Murderer nor the Judge condemn him for robbery And though I should commit many offences worthy of death yet if the Law doth not condemn me I ought not to die for any of them For as the Apostle saith Where there is no Law there is no sin because sin is the transgression of the Law Therefore the Earl of Strafford might be an evill man and do many things that in the sight of God and good men were worthy of death Yet if our Law made not those crimes Capital or if the Law made them Capital and not Treason we ought not for Treason to adjudge him unto death So in sum the result is this That he might justly deserve death and yet be very unjustly condemned to death And it seemed to some of his friends that so he was especially because they had no plain unquestionable Law but were fain in some kind to make a Law to take off his head and when his head was off this new manner of proceeding should end and be no Law for any other that came after And a Declaration must be made That the course prosecuted for his punishment shall not afterward be drawn into an Example it must be produced for no Pattern but for him alone and none other lest perhaps if the same course should be still practised the contrivers of this Plot might have the like payment to fall ere long upon their own Complaint to the
portion is fit for every one and what service is required from him I answer that the voice of equity and justice tells us that a generall Law Sol. doth never deâ—ogate from a speciall priviledge or that a priviledge is not opposite to the pâ—inciples of common right and where the Law it selfe gives this priviledge as our Law doth it yet enâ—y it selfe can never deny this right unto the King to grant his dispensation whensoever he seeth occasion and where the Law is tacite and saith nothing of any priviledge yet seeing in all Lawes The end of every Law is chiefly to be respected as in all other actions the end is the marke that is aimed at and this end is no oâ—her then the publique good of any society for which the Law is made if the King which is the sole Law-maker so as I shewed in my Discovery of Mysteries seeth this publique good better procured by granting dispensations to some particular men doth he not performe thereby what the Law intendeth and no wayes breake the Law of common right as if a mans absence from his proper Cure should be more beneficiall to the whole Church then his residence Reasons of dispensations upon his Charge could possibly be as when his absence may be either for the recoveâ—y of his health or to discharge the Kings Embassage or to do his best to consute Heretiques or to pacific Schismes or to consult about the Church affaires or some other urgent cause that the Law never dreamt of when it was in making shall not the King whom the Lawes have intrusted with the examination of these things and to whom the principal care of Religion and the charge of all the People is committed by God himselfe and the power of executing his own Lawes have power to grant his dispensations for the same Certainly they that would perswade the world that all Lawes must have such force that all dispensations are transgressions of them as if generall rules should have no exceptions would manacle the Kings hands and binde his power in the chaines of their crooked wills that he should not be able to do that good which God and Right and Law it selfe do give him leave and their envy towards other mens grace is a great deale more then either the grace of humility How God doth diversly bestow his gifts Matth. 25. 15. Gen. 43. 34. or the love of truth in them for doth not God give five talents to some of his servants when he gives but one to some others and did not Joseph make Benjamins messe five times so much as any of his brethren's and have not some Lords six or eight or ten thousand pounds a year and some very good men in the Common-wealth and perhaps higher in God's favour not ten pounds a year and shall not the King double the reward of them that deserve it in the Church of God or shall he be so curbed and manacled that he shall neither alter nor dispense with his own Law though it be for the greater glory unto God and the greater benefit both to the Church and Common-wealth Besides who can deny but that some mens merits virtue paines and learning are more worthy of two Benefices then many others are of one and when in his younger time he is possessed of a small Benefice he may perchance afterwards when his years deserve better far easier obtain another little one to keep with it then get what I dare assure you he would desire much rather * For who would not rather chuse one Living of an 100 l. a year then two of 50 l. a peice one Living of equall value to them both and shall the unlearned zeal of an envious minde so far prejudice a worthy man that the King 's lawful right shall be censured and his power questioned and clipped or traduced by this ignorant Zelot I will blesse my self from them and maintain it before all the world that the King's dispensations for Pluralities Non-residency and the like Priviledges not repugnant to common right are not against Law nor the giving or taking of them upon just causes against conscience but what the violence of this viperous brood proclaimeth an intolerable offence we dare warrant both with good reason and true Divinity to be no sin no fault at all but an undoubted portion of the King 's right for the greater benefit both of the Church and State and the greater glory unto God himself And therefore most gracious King we humbly desire your Majesty suffer The Author's Petition to His Majesty not these children of Apollyon to pull this flower out of your Royal Crown to abridge you of your just right of granting dispensations for Pluralities and Non-residency which the Lawes of your Land do yet allow you and which they labour to annul to darken the glory of God's Church and to bring your Clergy by depriving them of their meanes and honour into contempt lest that when by one and one they have robbed you of all your rights they will fairly salute you as the Jews did Christ Haile King of the Jewes when God knows they hated him and stript him of all power I speak not of his Divinity either to govern them or to save himself 3. As the King hath right and power to grant his dispensations both of grace 3. The toleration of divers Sects and sorts of religions and of justice of grace when it is merely of the King ' Princely favour as in legitimations and the like and of justice when the King findeth a just cause to grant it so likewise it is in the King's power and right to remit any offence that is the mulct or penalty and to absolve the offender from any or all the transgressions of his own Lawes from the transgression of God's Law neither King nor Pope nor Priest nor any other can formally remit the fault and absolve transgressors but as God is the Law-giver so God alone must be the forgiver of the offence so the Jewes say who can forgive sins but God onely Yet as Mar. 2. 7. God which gives the Law can lawfully remit the sin and forgive the breach of the Law so the King which makes these positive Lawes cannot be denyed this As David pardoned Absolon and Solomon Abiathar power to pardon when he seeth cause or is so pleased the offenders of his Lawes as you see they do many times grant their pardons for the most haynous faults and capital crimes as treasons murders felonies and the like and if they may grant their pardons for the breach of the Law and remit the mulâ—â— imposed for the transgression thereof it is strange if they should not have right to dispense with whom they please when they see cause from the bond of the Law and therefore we are to discuss how far the King in these Lawes of the Church may give exemptions and tolerations unto them whose consciences cannot submit
lay the prices of their lands at their Preachers feet I know they will answer That this extraordinary Devotion is not of necessity to be drawn into imitation and I confess it But in the Apostles time there were no Vniversities no Schools of Learning no Hospitals nor Alms-houses no Book of the Holy Scriptures divided into Chapters nor Chapters into Verses no distinction of Parishes and many other good things were not then in being And shall we now cast them all away because the Apostles and the first Christians had them not Or will not the giddy-heads understand that as the Sun in the firmament goeth higher and higher unto the noon and perfect day so the truth and knowledge of the Sun of Righteousness and the perfection of his Service groweth more and more unto the fulness of the knowledge of Christ and even as Christ himself increased in wisdom and knowledge and in favour with Luke 2. 52. God and men so doth the Church of Christ And so to return and to apply our selves to the case of Tythes though some places as it may be in the Low-Countries and the Reformed Churches in France have their immunities by themselves and are not charged with the payment of Tythes their state and condition not admitting it yet in lien of their Tythes their Ministers are maintained with as sufficient supplies and necessity excuseth even in greater matters as in not praying and not receiving the Sacraments as well as in not paying Tythes when the case cannot be otherwise As S. Paul for some special exigency took no stipend of some Churches for his labours in the preaching of the Gospel Yet he tells them that by right he might have claimed it and therefore inferreth that what he did for some special causes should not be drawn into an example to prejudice and defraud others of that which was their due So we say That in those Churches which pay not their Tythes in kind there is an allowance equivalent to the Tythes given to those Ministers that The Ministers of the Reformed Churches in the other Countrys have no cause to complain have no Tythes And as the Kings of Persia imposed no Tribute upon those subjects that brought in their voluntary contributions that increased their Exchequer more than their Tribute So their Preachers have no cause to complain for not receiving their Tythes when they have as much or more than their Tythes are worth And the example of these that live by their set and certain stipend ought not to be alleadged and pleaded to the hurt and prejudice of them that are sustained by their Tythes And though all this that I have said be very true yet because as I conceive it taketh not away the strength of the foresaid Argument which is That if it be a Moral Precept that doth oblige us to observe it semper ad semper then it obligeth all men and in all places to pay their Tythes and they sin that pay them not though they do pay some other stipend be it more or less in lieu of them because it lieth not in man to alter or change the Commandment of God but to do what he commandeth them Therefore 2. I say and yield That the Precept of paying Tythes for the Service of 2. Answer more fully God being a Moral perpetual and universal Precept it obligeth all men in all places and at all times as well before the Law as after the Law and as well after the incarnation of Christ as before his incarnation to observe and to obey the same and that they sinned which did it not for as God hath imprinted it in the heart of man and the light of nature teacheth him that God must be served and a set time must be appointed for that Service What all the generations of men are bound to do and a standing proportion of our goods allotted for them that do him service and teach others so to do and God hath shewed unto us that the ser time for his Service should be every seventh day which we should Sanctifie and keep Holy for that end and the standing quantity and proportion of our goods that we ought to set forth for his Service should be our Tythes So accordingly every man among all the generations of men ought to do to sanctifie the Seventh day to serve God and to pay their Tythes for the performance and continuance of his Service And if man by his transgression hath obscured this light of nature and obliterated that impression which God had imprinted in his heart and through his own negligence or forgetfulness remembreth neither the day that he should keep holy nor that part that he should pay for his Service Shall that make the Commandment of God of none â—ffect or acqult man for the not performance of his duty By no means for you know what the Prophet saith of the children of Israel when God had done his wonderful Psal 78. 11. Psal 106. 13. works for them in Egypt and fearful things by the Red Sea they soon forgat what he had done and were not mindful of his Covenant So did all the sons of Adam forget not only these but also all other the Commandments of God especially in many if not the chief points thereof and nâ—ither their negligence nor forgetfulness can excuse them herein from sin in the breach of his Commandment But you will say This Commandment of keeping the Seventh day and eplicatio giving the tenth part of our goods for his Service was never directly and precisely or expresly given in terminâ— until Moses time and where there is no Law there is no transgression therefore they did not sin when they had no Commandment I answer That when Cain and Abel brought their Oblation unto the Responsio Gen. 4. 3. Chap. 4. 26. Chap. 8. 20. Lord and when children were born unto Sheth and men began to call upon the Name of the Lord and when Noah built an Altar unto the Lord and offered burnt-offering upon the Altar And so likewise when Abraham did the like and called on the Name of the Lord the everlasting Else these Services had been but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a Will-worship and no wayes acceptable unto God God we read of no Command in terminis that they had to do these things but God had written these Commandments in their hearts with the Pen of Nature And so as the Apostle saith having no Law they were a law unto themselves and having no Commandment they were commandments unto themselves and whosoever transgresse the same transgresse the Commandments of God And therefore these things being imprinted in mans heart by the Pen of Nature I say that what Nation soever and what Church soever have not or do not serve God and pay their Tythes to Christ and his servants for the Service of God and the continuance of his Service they do transgresse the Commandment of God But I do
their examples Besides God himself had foretold the defection of the ten Tribes for the sinne of Solomon and he being Lord proprietary of all his donation transferreth a full right to him on God is the right owner of all things and therefore may justly dispose any Kingdom whom he bestowes it and this made Shemaiah the man of God to warâ— Rehoboam not to fight against his brethren for as when God commanded Abraham to kill his sonne it was a laudable obedience and no murther to have done it and when he commanded the Israelites to rob the Aegyptians it was no breach of the eighth Commandement so this revolt of these Tribes if done in obedience unto God could be no offence against the Law of God but because they regarded not so much the fulfilling of Gods will as their not being eased of their grievances and the fear of the weight of Rehoboam's finger which moved them to this Rebellion I can no ways justifie their action and though God by this stent did most justly revenge the sinne of Solomon and paid for the folly of Rehoboam yet this doth no wayes excuse them for this rebellion because they revolted not with any right aspect and therefore it is worth our observation that the consequences which attended this defection was a present falling away from the true God into Idolatry and not long after to be led into an endlesse Captivity Which is a fearful example to see how suddenly men do fall away from God and from their true religion after they have rebelled against their lawful King and how to avoid imaginary grievance they do often fall into a real bondage and so leap out of the Frying pan into the fire And for the Edomitâ—â— they were not Israelites that led their lives by the law of God neither can any man excuse the conspirators against Amazia from the transgression of the Law of God 6. For Vzziah that was taken with a grievous sicknesse so that he 6. Example answered could not be present at the publique affaires of the Kingdom I say that according to the law by reason of the contagion of his disease he was rightly removed from the Court and concourse of people and his sonne in the mean time placed in his fathers stead to administer and dispose the Common-wealth but he in all that while like a good sonne did neither affect the name nor assume the title of a King 7. For the deposing of Athalia I see nothing contrary to equity because 7 Example answered she was not the right Prince but an unjust Vsurper of the Crown and therefore Jehoida the chief Priest having gathered together the principal Peers of the Kingdome and the Centurions and the rest of the people shewed them the Kings sonne whom for six yeares space he had preserved alive from the rage and fury of Athalia which had slain all the rest of the Kings seed and when they saw him they did all acknowledge him for the Kings sonne they crowned him King and he being crowned they joyfully cryed God save the King and then by the authority of the new crowned King that was the right heir unto the Kingdom they put to death the cruel Queen that had so tyrannically slain the Kings children and so unjustly usurped the Crown all that while And therefore to alledge this example so justly done to justifie an insurrection contrary to justice doth carry but a little shew of reason And I say the like of the Macchabees and Antiochus that neither he nor any other Macedonian Tyrant had any right over them but they were unjust Vsurpers that held the Jewes under them in ore gladii with the edge of their swords and were not their lawful Kings whom they ought to obey and therefore no reason but that they might justly free themselves with their swords that were kept in bondage by no other right then the strength of the sword 8. For the example of Thrasibulus Junius Brutus and other Romans or 8. Example answered whosoever that for their faults have deposed their Kings I answer with Saint Augustine that Exempla paucorum non sunt trahenda in legem universorum Examples not to be imitated we have no warrant to imitate these examples for though these things were done yet we say they were done by Heathens that knew not God and unjustly done contrary to the law of God and therefore with no blessing from God with no good successe unto themselves and with lesse happinesse unto others but it happened to them as to all others that do the like to expell a mischief and to admit a greater as besides what I have shewed you before this one most memorable example out of our own Histories doth make it plain In the time of Richard the second the Nobility and Gentry murmured The ill successe of resisting our superiours much against his government in brief they deposed him and set the Crown upon the head of the Duke of Lancaster whom they created King Henry the fourth The good Bishop of Carlile made a bold and excellent Speech to prove that they could not by any law of God or man depose and dispossesse their lawful King or if they deposed him that they had no right to make the Duke of Lancaster to succeed him but he good man for his pains was served as Saint Paul and others were many times for speaking the truth committed to prison and there was an end of him but not an end of the story for the many battels and blood-shed the miseries and mischiefs that this one unjust and unfaithful act produced had never any period never an end till that well nigh a hundred thousand English men were slain in civil warres whereof two were Kings one Prince ten Dukes two Marquesses 21. Earles 27. Lords two Viscounts one Lord Prior one Judge 139. Trâ—ssel in his supplement to Daniel's History Knights 421. Esquires and Gâ—ntlemen of great and ancient Families a farre greater number a just revenge for an unjust extrusion of their lawful King whose greatest misery came from his great mildnesse And therefore these things being well weighed in the ballance of the Sanctuary in the scales of true wisdom it had been better for them All the pressures that we have suffered since the first year of our king are not comparable to the miseries that one years civil warre hath brought upon us as it will be for us and all others patiently to suffer the crosse that shall be laid upon us untill that by our prayers we can prevail with God that for our sinnes hath sent it in mercy to remove it then for our selves to pluck ouâ— necks out of the coller and in a froward disobedience to pull the house as Sampson did upon our own heads and like impatient fishes to leap out of the Frying-pan into the fire from hard usage that we impatiently conceived to most base cruel bondage that we have deservedly merited
and all other Kings and Princes would do the like 2 How Christ dealt with the Temple when it was prophaned Matth. 21. 12 13. 2. When our Saviour found such gross abuses in the Temple so that they had made the House of God a den of thieves yea Sacrilegious thieves yet he doth not offer to pull down the Temple and to turn it to Prophane uses though they had prophaned it or transfer it to build them houses as our men do with the ruines of Gods House or to take away the lands tythes and revenues of those Priests by whose neglect and default the Holy Temple became thus grossly abused either to maintain their lawfull Wars or to continue their unlawfull delights but he dealeth better and taketh away the abuse by driving away the buyers and sellers out of the Temple and out of the Courts of the Lords House and overthrowing the tables of the money changers and the seats of them that sold Doves and so he restored the House of Prayer to its old use and Pristine Dignity to be a fit House for Gods service and so should we restore things abused to their old and good former use and not take them to our selves or give them away to others 3. Reason it self teacheth us to take this course and to distinguish betwixt 3. What Reason teacheth us in this case of good things abused that fault which proceedeth ex natura facti out of the nature of the fact and that which springeth ex abusu boni from the abuse of that which is good for if the thing be simply evil no circumstance no dispensation can make it good and therefore it should be wholly rejected and abolished because as Aristotle saith Cujus usus simpliciter malus est ipsum Arist Topic. 1. Siusus principalis alicujus rei sit mortifer mortiferam quoque rem ipsam efficiet quodque malum esse necesse est that thing whose use is simply evil must needs be likewise evil of it self but if the fault be not in the thing it self but advenâ—iâ—ioâ—s in usu agentis in the use or rather in the abuse of the agent then certainly the thing it self as being good ought to be retained and the abuse only is to be removed or amended And therefore the endowing of Gods Church with means to maintain Gods service or the giving of our goods to the use of Gods Worship whether it be praying to him or preaching to his people or relieving his Navar. Enchiâ—id c. 14. members being not only simply good but also most excellently good both commanded and commended by God himself it is a Maxime even in nature Things once dedicated to God may not at any time by any body be aliâ—nated from the Church and confirmed by meer reason that Semel Deo dicatum non est ad usus humanos ulterius transferendum that which is once given and dedicated for and to Gods service which is a service acceptable to God ought not afterwards by any means be any more transferred to mans uses because as Plato saith Quae rectè data sunt â—ripi non licet those things that are well given ought not to be taken back again and because as the Fathers say Bis Dei sunt quae sic Dei sunt God hath in all dedicated things that are given to uphold his service a double right and interest 1. As his own Creatures and gift given to man And 2. As in a thankfull acknowledgment of Gods goodness the gift of man back again to God which twofold cord tieth them so strong that this sin deserves no less than the heavy curse of Anathema for any one not consecrated to do the service of God to challenge them and to take them away from Gods service and the donors first institution whereupon not only 6. Decret de reg juris Plato Phileb 1 Chron. 29. 14. Plin. 2. Ep. l. 10. Epist 74 75. the Divines but also the Philosophers and Canonists have concluded that Si facta aedes sit licet collapsa sit jam religio tamen ejus occupavit locum If an house be once dedicated to God though afterwards it should fall down and be utterly demolished so that the ruines of it could scarce be seen yet the soil and ground of it is still holy and religious and not to be imployed to any civill or prophane uses And therefore I say that those men which have or do or shall under the colour of Reforming the Church and the pretence of any law rob the Church and deprive either the Bishops or Ministers of their houses lands or tythes or any other portion which hath been given to the Church and for the service of God are Thieves and Sacrilegious thieves be they who you will and their pretences what they will And here I must tell you that I find two sorts of men that may be questioned Two sorts of men guilty of Sacriledge under pretence of law for being guilty of this sin of Sacriledge 1. The Spirituall-men the Bishops and other Priests the Ministers of Gods Church that have made away the lands houses and goods of the Church 2. The Lay-Princes Lords and Gentlemen and others that take away the goods lands and houses of the Church and all as both these sorts of men pretend by the right and benefit of the Law and therefore no waies offending and so not to be taxed for any Sacriledge But to discuss these points and to find out the truth I say that although the Pope be not the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the great Antichrist that was expected to come into the Church as I have fully shewed in my book de Antichristo yet I doubt not but that he is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the great Sacrilegus and the chiefest Sacrilegious person that ever these Kingdoms saw as hereafter I shall more fully declare unto you Next I say that others Bishops and Priests especially of his Church 1 Spirituall men Sacrilegious and how may be as indeed many of them have been very Sacrilegious and robbers of the Church of Christ as when they let out either by Lease or fee-farm to their children friends or for fine the lands houses or any other goods and possessions of the Church to the loss and prejudice of the Church and to disinable their successors to discharge their duties and the service of God as they ought to do But they will say with St. Paul that Where no Law is there is no transgression Obj. Rom. 4. 15. and there was no Law to inhibite them to lease out their lands to whom they would nay the Law gave them leave and impowred them to do it and therefore no Sacriledge nor offence in them in all that they did when they did nothing but according to Law I answer that the Human law must not intrench nor can infringe the Sol. law of God nor any waies allow the thing that should prejudice the service of
Quisquis pro officii sui loco vehementer non exarserit He shall have his portion with Simon Magus the Proto-Simonist the first unlawful buyer of holy graces which according to his place doth not do his best to suppresse the sin of Simonie that is the buying and selling of spiritual graces and promotions I will a little unfold the heynousness of this sin that as many of them I fear are settled in their resolutions to continue the doing of it so they may the better know hereby what they do and what a horrible sin they do commit to the great dishonour of God and the damage of the Church of Christ And I say that the Pope is the prime and principal father of this Bastard-brood Simonie usually practised in Rome and by former Popes and that nothing was wont to be rifer at Rome than this sin of Simonie which did therefore seem the lesse sinful because it was acted by the more powerful Patron And though we read it in their own Decrees that Tolerabilior est Macedonii haeresis qui â—sserit Spiritum Sanctum esse servum patris filii quà m haec Symonaica pactio quia isti faciunt Spiritum Sanctum servum suum ut ait Terasius Patriarcha Constantinopolitanus This selling of Church-Livings is more intolerable than the heresie of Macedonius who said That the Holy Ghost was the servant of the Father and of the Son because they make the Holy Ghost to become their servant as Bern. in Convers Pauli Sermâ—ne 1. Terasius saith to Pope Adrian Yet S. Bernard that saw much but not all saith Sacrigradus dati sunt in occasionem turpis lucri quaestum aestimant pietatem Holy Orders are now become the occasion of filthy lucre and gain is counted godliness And this Simonie is Sacriledge indeed and not only Musculus citeth these Verses that were made of Pope Musculus in cap. 6. Johan Alexander Vendit Alexander claves altaria Christum Vendere jure potest emer at ille prius but Durandus also saith That Simonie doth so reign in the Church of Rome Durand de mo do celebrandi Câ—ncilii Extra de officio judicis delegati ex parte N. in Olâ—ssâ— as if it were no sin at all And their Canonists as Bartolus Felinus Theodoricus and some others of the Pope's parasites are so impudent as to averr that the selling of these things and taking monie for Ecclesiastical promotions can be neither Sacriledge nor Simonie in the Pope because he is the Lord of them all and accounteth them all his own But since we have bidden Adieu to him and his corruptions his Simonie and his Sacriledge blessed be God for it doth not so much prejudice us and therefore letting him to do what he will with his own and either to stand or fall to his own Master I will address my self to shew the manifold evils and wickednesse of our own Sacrilegious and Simonaical Pâ—trons that sell those Benefices which they should freely bestow And I say 1. That this buying and selling of Church-goods for both these acts are The selling of Ecclesiastical-Livings against all Laws 1. Of Moses Gen. 47. 22. relatives and to be put in the same predicament when as nothing is sold that is not bought è contra is a thing contrary to all Laws and to the judgement of all good men for 1. The Laws of Moses provided so liberally for the Priests and Levites that the buying and selling of Priests places was never known nor heard of among the Jews until Jeroboam's time who as he sold them so he sold himself to do evil and to commit wickedness 2. Pharaoh was so religious that when in the great Dearth all the land 2. Of the Gentiles of Aegypt was sold the Priests had such a portion of Corn allotted them that they needed not to sell one foot of their land and therefore I doubt not but Pharaoh will rise in judgement against all those that take away the lands of the Priests as our Gentlemen and Souldiers strive to do or do sell the Spiritual promotions unto the Priests as our Simonaical Patrons do 3. The Law of Grace saith Freely have you received that is all the 3 Of grace graces and gifts of God therefore freely give especially what you give Math. 10. 8. to God and for the Service of God and sell it not 4. The Civil and Ecclesiastical Laws forbid nothing more and with 4. Of the Civil and Canon-Law greater care than the buying and selling of Spiritual Offices And the ancient Fathers learned Schoolmen and all the later Classes of Casuists Jesuites and of our zealous purest Protestant Writers together with the wisest Princes and Statesmen that have established many Statute-Laws against this sin are all infinitely deceived if this buying and selling of Ecclesiastical preferments be not infinitely prejudicial to the Church of God and therefore a most heynous and a horrible sin against the Law of God 2. I say that this buying and selling of Church-Livings will be the diminution 2. This selling and buying of Church-Livings will be the decay of Learning and Religion of all Learning and the lessening of the number of Learned men for when the world seeth that after a man hath spent his time first in School where he suffereth a great deal of sorrows and thinks no creature more miserable than himself when he seeth all others free and himself only as he supposeth bound under the rod then in the Vniversity where most of the Schollers are as Phalaris saith to Leontides 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 needy of all things but of hunger and How difficult it is to become a Scholar fear or else if they escape these rocks the better part do with continuall watching and studying wear their bodies and tyre their spirits and spend all the means they can procure from their friends for many years together and in the end after all this cannot get a poor Parsonage or Vicarage unless they pay for the lease of their wearied and almost worn out life to the hazarding of their soules and all other Preferments when the truth of their buying is made known What Fathers will be so improvident I had almost said so irreligious I may truly say so unworldly wise or so little prudent in managing of their estates as to cast away their means and their sons upon such sourges I think I may say with the Poet Invitatus ad haec aliquis de ponte negabit A beggars brat knowing these inconveniencies would scarce accept these Offices and discharge those duties they do owe upon these conditions But you will say that we must not and ought not to respect our own Obj. gain and look after our own profit but as the Apostles and servants of Christ our chiefest care should be for the peoples good because our reward shall be great in Heaven I answer that as in the Common-wealth we owe our selves and our
Government of the Common-wealth CHAP. VIII That it is the Office and Duty of Kings and Princes though not to execute the function and to do the Offices of the Bishops and Priests yet to have a speciall care of Religion and the true Worship of God and to cause both the Priests and Bishops and all others to discharge their duties of Gods service And how the good and godly Emperours and Kings have formerly done the same from time to time BUt as God hath given unto the Kings and Princes of this world a Power and Authority as well over his Church and Church-men be they Prophets Apostles Bishops Priests or what you will as over the Common wealth and all the lay persons of their Dominions So they ought and are bound to have a special care of Religion and to discharge their duties for the glory of God the good of his Church the promoting of the Christian Faith and the rooting up of all Sects and Heresies that defile and corrupt the same for as Saint Augustine saith and I shewed you before In Aug. contra Crescon l. 3. c. 51. hoc Reges Deo serviunt herein Kings and Princes do serve God if as they are Kings they injoyn the things that are good and inhibit those things that are evil and that Non solum in iis quae pertinent ad humanam Societatem sed etiam ad divinam Religionem and again he saith that Kings do serve Idem Epist 48. Christ here on earth when they do make good laws for Christ and Athanasius said unto the Emperour Jovinian Conveniens est pro principe studium amor rerum divinarum It is meet and convenient for a good Prince to study and love Heavenly things because that in so doing his heart shall be alwaies as Solomon saith in manu Dei in the hand of God and Saint Theodoret l. 4. c. 3. Cyrill tells the Emperours Theodosius and Valentinian that Ab ea quae erga Deum est pietate reipublicae vestrae status pendet the state and condition of Prov. 21. 1. their Common-wealth doth wholly depend according to that piety and Religion which they bear towards God Because as Cardan truely saith Cardanus do sapientia lib. 3. Summum praesidium Regni est justitia ob apertos tumultus Religio ob occultos Justice is the best defence of a Kingdom and the suppressor of open tumults because righteousness exalteth a Nation and Religion is the only Protector and safety against all secret and privy Machinations because as Minutius Minut. Fâ—l in Octav. Foelix saith What the Civil Magistrate doth with the sword of justice to suppress the nefarious doers and actours of wickedness Religion rooteth The want of the fear of God the only thing that maketh Rebells out and suppresseth the very thought of evil which a Godly and a Religious man feareth as much and more then a wicked and prophane man doth dread the punishment of his offence and so Religion Piety and the fear of God keepeth the very hearts and souls of the subjects from swelling against their Soveraign and from the least evil thought of Rebellion and it is the want of the fear of God and true Religion whatsoever men pretend that makes Rebels and Traytors in every place because the true Religion Rom. 13. 1. tels us plainly that every soul that is every man unfainedly from his heart should be subject to the Higher Powers And the true Religion teacheth us as Tertull. saith Colere Imperatorem ut hominem à Deo secundum Tertul. ad Scapul solo Deo minorem To acknowledge and to serve the Emperour and so our King and our Prince as the next person to God and inferior to none but to God When as he is Omnibus major solo Deo minor above all men and below none but only God And therefore it is most requisite that all Kings and Princes should have How requisite it is for Kings to have a care to preserve Religion care of the true Religion and the service of God and with the Prophet David to build Temples and Churches for him that hath given their Crowns and Thrones unto them and to provide maintenance for those servants of God that serve at his Temple as they do for those that serve themselves and so both to be Religious themselves and to see that their subjects so far as it lieth in them should be so likewise and this their own piety and goodness in the service of God will make them famous amongst all posterities and their names to shine as the Sun when as Saint Ambrose saith Nihil honorificentius quà m ut Imperator filius Dei dicatur nothing Ambrosius Epist 32. can be more honorable then that the Emperour or King should be named and called the Son of God which is a more glorious Eâ—logie then Homer The fruits and benefits of maintaining true Religion in a kingdom could give to the best Heroes of all Greece or that Alexander Julius Caesar or the like could atchieve by all their military exploits or the best domestick actions that they have done and their making provision for the Teachers of the true Religion and the promoters of Gods service the Bishops and Ministers of Christ his Church which makes their subjects both Loyall and obedient unto them and also Religious towards God will preserve the peace and procure the happiness of their Kingdoms And according as God hath given this Authority and laid this charge How many former kings were very zealous to uphold Religion upon all Kings and Princes to have a care of his Religion and the Ministers of his Church so we find very very many both in former times and also of latter years and so both of Gentiles Jews and Christians that were exceeding zealous for the Honor of God and the upholding of them that served at his Altar as 1. Gentile kings 1. The Gentile Kings as Pharaoh King of Egypt that in the extremity of that dearth which swallowed the whole Land he made provision for Gods Priests so that they neither wanted means nor were driven to sell The great bounty of king Croesus to the god Apollo and to his Priests their Lands And so Croesus King of Lydia was so wounderfull zealous of the Honor and the worship of the god of Delphos and so bountifull to Apollo's Priests that Herodotus saith that he made oblation of three thousand choice Cattel such as might lawfully be offered and caused a great stack of wood to be made wherein he burnt Bedsteads of Silver and Gold and Golden Maysors with purple rayment and Coats of exceeding value and he laid the like charge upon the Lydians that every man should consecrate those Jewels which he possessed most costly and pretious from which their Sacrifice when as the streams of liquid and molten Gold distrained in great abundance he caused thereof to be framed half slates or sheards
punished and removed if they amend not for their negligence and transgressions 3. To provide by their good Laws such maintenance revenues and means for the Reverend and godly Bishops and the rest of the worthy Clergy whereby they may be inabled with joy and comfort to discharge their duties in God's Service to his glory and the good of his people 4. To put a bar and to hinder by their Regal power and authority all the sacrilegious violaters of holy things to rob the Church of Christ and his servants and to commit the horrible sin of Sacriledge which is so transcendently abominable in the sight of God and so infinitely destructive to the souls of men These things ought to be done as I conceive by all good and godly 1. The necessity of Cathedral-Churches and other Parochial Chappels for the Service of God Kings and Princes and whoso doth these things shall never fail And. 1. In defence of Cathedral-Churches we have to alleadge that till the time of Euaristus and Dionysius Popes of Rome no other kind of ministerial Church was ever heard of from the beginning of the World for from Adam unto Moses men did call upon the Name of the Lord and offered Sacrifices but without any ministerial Church at all And in Moses time Platina de vitis Pontif. Carrion annal Monarch Exod. 25. 40 Acts 7. 44. 2 Sam. 7. 6. Acts 7. 47. God commanded him to erect a Tabernacle which stood instead of a Church for all the Land of Judea and that was Templum portatile as Josephus calls it to be carried up and down until the dayes of Solomon But Solomon erected a Temple as a standing Church at Hierusalem to be in the place of the Tabernacle And then until the time of the Gospel there was no other Church for God's people I speak not of the Gentiles idolatrous Temples throughout the whole World And that Metropolitan Church of Hierusalem was more than Diocesan or Provincial for it was National for the whole Kingdom of Jury And after the Gospel was preached unto the Gentiles and all Nations began to be converted then sundry ministerial Churches were erected according to the number of their Bishops so that every particular Bishop had his particular Church after the manner and in imitation of the Jews which having but one Bishoprick and one High Priest or Bishop had likewise but one Cathedral-Church for that whole Nation And afterwards when the Bishops saw the multitude of Christians exceedingly increasing Evaristus first Titulos seu Paraesias in urbe Roma presbyteris divisit post eum Dionysius idem fecit And after him Dionysius the Pope devised Parochial Congregations and divided every Bishoprick into particular constant Congregations which were but Members and their Churches but the Chappels of the Diocesan and Provincial Churches And the use for which both the Cathedral and Parochial Churches do serve was and is for the servants of God to meet in them for to worship God and this besides the practice of all times ab origine to this very day do sufficiently conclude the necessity of them 1. For as the body politick or the whole multitude of the Common-wealth is to be divided into his several Limits Provinces Counties Baronies 1. Publick prayers are more prevalent with God than the private prayers and the like so the collective and mystical body of God's Church is to be distributed into several Congregations as the body natural is to be distinguished by the several parts and parcells thereof and though as we are private and particular men the place and time and form of prayer and service of God are in the choice of every particular man according to the condition of his necessity and private occasion yet as every particular man is a member of the publick State either Temporal or Ecclesiastical Church or Common-wealth so the service that he oweth and ought to perform either to the King or to God must needs be publick and together with the rest of the members of the State and so the publick Service is so much worthier than the private and excelleth the same as much as a Society or Congregation of men is worthier and excelleth one particular man And S. Chrysostom to shew the excellency of the publick Service of God S. Chrysostomes example to shew the benefit of publick prayer and how it excelleth the private and Common-prayer before and above any private prayer or service saith That as the coals of fire being scattered do yield but little heat and will soon die but when they are close heaped together they 'l yield much heat and the fire continueth long So a multitude of devout and faithful men gathered together and with one heart and one soul pouring forth their prayers and petitions unto God their prayers are a great deal more prevalent and more likely to obtain their request from God then when they are severed and offered up by every single person as a twisted thred like a threefold cord is far stronger than any two single ones So though the prayers of one man be but weak yet the supplications of many men are very mighty and like unto the loud sound of thunder or the noise of many waters as S. Basil saith and the consent of desires the concord betwixt them and the united love of joynt Assemblies are so well-pleasing unto God that as a holy Father saith Impossible est multorum preces non exaudiri It is almost impossible but that the prayers of such associated Congregations should be heard because as S. Ambrose saith The publick meeting of Gods people hath a special promise of Gods presence to be with them as where Christ saith When two or three are gathered together in his Name he Matth. 18. 20. will be there in the midst of them And therefore the King of Ninivâ—h called his people together to jâ—yn with him in prayer to God that they might not be destroyed and so besetting God or besieging God as Tertullian saith like an Hoste of men their â—onas 4. 11. prayer was heard and they were received into grace And S. Paul though he might have confidence his prayer should speed with God assoon and obtain as much as any other yet doth he confess that the prayers of the Church of Corinth together with his own prayers did much help and 2 Cor. 1. 11. further his deliverance from those great troubles that he suffered in Asia 2. The publick prayers and service of God hath this prerogative above 2. Publick prayers more justifiable thâ—â— the private the private that they do assure us they are more lawfull and shall sooner be heard of God because the things prayed for and deprecated are judged to be good and needfull and are so approved of by the general judgment of the whole Congregation when we hear them deprecated or desired by the common consent of all the people 3. The convention or meeting of the people in such
and could do it thrown down many of our Churches and brake in pieces the Fonts wherein they were Baptized and threw down the Tombs and Monuments of their Fore-fathers and made such havock of Gods Houses 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 stroyed all Holy places so as is lamentable to consider it And 〈◊〉 â—ell us most impudently that to hold up such places to serve God thâ—â—ein is nothing else but with King Saul to reserve the execrable and accursed things for Gods Worship which is abominable in the sight of God To this I Answer 1. That it is better to serve God in those places that Sol. 1 have been superstitiously abused as formerly all places were Idolatrously defiled by the Heathens than not to serve him in any place for as when certain Christians found a vacant and a voyd place in the City of Rome where they thought they might conveniently build a Church and certain loose companions that were Victuallers made claim and pretended a Title unto it and told Alexander Severus it was not so fit to make a House to serve God in as it was for them to sell and vent their commodities the Emperour led by the light of nature being no Christian answered most The discreet answer of Alexander Severus Christian-like that he thought it better God should be Worshipped any way and in any place rather then that they should have their way to make it a place for their shambles so say I that it is a great deal fitter to serve God in these Houses that were so Zealously erected and so Religiously Consecrated for Gods service howsoever they were afterwards soyled with some vanities and perhaps defiled with some Idolatries then that they should be thrown down or be made a Stable for their Horses or a Kitchin to dress meat for their tables as some of these Sectaries have made these Houses of God to be 2. I say that there is no more affinity or likeness between those times of the Israelites and our times and betwixt that people who were Jews and us that are Christians then is betwixt Simon Peter and Simon Magus or Philip the Apostle and Philip King of Macedon for we are not commanded to do against Idolaters as they were commanded to do against the Canaanites as they were forbidden to make Covenants of peace or to have any commerce with the inhabitants of that place and they were commanded to root out and to destroy all that people and we have no such injunction to prohibite us to trade and traffick either with Papists Jews or Gentiles neither may the Reformed Churches and Protestants put others their neighbours to the sword only because they are Idolaters or of a contrary Religion but they are rather to labour for their Conversion as St. Paul did the Idolaters of Athens and not to work their destruction 3. I say that the examples of Jehosaphat and Hezechias are no commanding precepts and have not the force of laws and you know that Vivitur praeceptis non exemplis men are to live by laws and not by examples whereof we have more bad then good but were they never so good and so godly yet are they no Commanders but Councellors and no laws to injoyn us but lessâ—ns to direct us and that in the like cases for where the proportion and the equality betwixt the example and the following of it faileth there we must likewise fail to follow it and we find a great deal of disproportion and inequality betwixt the groves and high places of the Jews and our Cathedrals and Churches that were the Papists because their groves and high places were very dangerous to be left for the just fear of a secret access and coming unto them by the superstitious Jews that were alwaies so apt and so ready to fall into Idolatry and our Cathedralls and Churches are freed from this fear when as they are throughly cleansed and purged from all the former superstitions by the pure Preaching of the Word of God and no Idolatrous Papist comes unto them nor any other but only those that professe themselves to be of the pure Religion And therefore learned Zanchius saith that Vbique locorum in omnibus ferè Hieron Zanch. de operibus redemptionis l. 1â— c. 12. Regnis Provinciis quae amplexae sunt evangelium Templa ipsa in quibus Idolatria admissa fuit tot annos retenta sunt In every place and in all Kingdoms and Provinces wel-nigh which have imbraced the Gospel the Churches themselves where Idolatry hath been committed have been retained so many years together And why should they not be still used For what evil have the Churches committed that they which were dedicated to such an Holy use as is the true service of God should be now so severely handled as to be either quite demolished or diverted and turned to any other purpose For the senseless creatures cannot be said to be sinful and so not to be censured and therefore the Leprous mans house was rather to be purged then to be pulled down and where the malady is uncurable there as the Poet saith immedicabile vulnus Ense recidendum ne pars syncera trahatur The part only infected and putrified is to be cut off and not to cast away the whole and so the wiser Divines threw down the Altars of those Churches where Idolatry and superstition were most used but they thought good to keep the Churches still to their former uses And so when the two hundred and fifty men offered incense unto the Lord in the Rebellion of Kora God himself bade Eleazar the High Priest not to throw away those brasen Censers which those men offered but to imploy them for his service and to make of them Broad plates for a covering Numb 16. 38. of the Altar And when Jericho was taken by the Israelites Joshua caused the Gold Silver Brass and Iron that were execrable goods not to be thrown away but to be brought into the House of the Lord and put into the Treasury of Gods House And it is very well worth your observation to Josh 6. 26. consider what the Lord himself commandeth Gedeon to do namely to take his Fathers young Bullock even the second Bullock of seven years old that was fed to be offered unto Baal and throw down the Altar of Baal and cut down the grove that is by it and Build an Altar unto the Lord Judg. 6. 26. thy God upon the top of this rock and Take the second Bullock and offer a burnt Sacrifice with the wood of the grove which thou shalt cut down And according to these Presidents the Law provided that the houses Cod. l. 1. tit 8. Valent. Mart. tit 12. leg 11. Honor. wherein the Hereticks did meet and broached their damnable Divinity should be adjudged to be united to the Orthodoxal Churches as were also the houses and habitations of the Caelicoles that were Hereticks so called and in Saint Augustines time the Churches that the
examples they teach them to offend 2. As they are in these respects to have a special care of their own lives 2. How careful the Bishops Priests ought to be to teach the people Ezech. 3. 17. c. 33. 7. and conversations to live justly and holily as the servants of Christ ought to do so they are likewise obliged to be sedulous and diligent in the instruction and tuition of the people committed under their charge for they are made the Watchmen and Shepherds over God's people to teach them and instruct them what they should do and what they should believe even as our Saviour saith unto his Apostles Go ye and teach all Nations baptizing them in the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Matth. ult 19. 20. Ghost and teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you And therefore S. Paul chargeth Bishop Timothy before God and before Jesus Christ that he preach the word and be instant in season and out 2 Tim. 4. 1 2. 1 Cor. 9. 16. of season reprove rebuke and exhort with all long-suffering and doctrine and he saith Wo is me if I preach not the Gospel And S. Gregory saith Oportet ut praedicatores sint fortes in praeceptis compatientes infirmis terribiles Greg. in Mor. 30. super Job 39. in minis in exhortationibus blandi in ostendendo magisterio humiles in rerum temporalium contemptu dominantes in tolerandis adversitatibus rigidi It behoves that Preachers should be strong and strict in their precepts compassionate and pitiful to the weak terrible in their threatnings to the impenitent smooth and gentle in their exhortations in shewing their power and authority humble in despising the world and all worldly things stout and domineering and in suffering and bearing adversities firm and constant And the same S. Gregory saith also that Non debet praedicator Idem Moral l. 17. infirmis insinuare cuncta quae sentit nec debet praedicare rudibus quanta cognoscit which is a very good lesson And so you see partly what the Bishops and Ministers of Christ ought to do and how to behave themselves in the Church of God Yet I must confesse we and our Predecessors the Bishops of God's Dan 9. 5. Church have sinned and have committed iniquity and have done wickedly and have rebelled even by departing from God's Precepts and neglecting the performance of our duties for whereas Exemplar vitae populis est vita regentis And as S. Gregory saith Lux gregis est flamma doctoris The light whereby the flock walketh is the shining flame of the Shepherds life Yet many of our Predecessors I am sure and I pray God that none of our present Prelates may do the like have given very evil examples unto the people if the example of covetousness injustice and the obstructing and neglect of Gods Service and the furtherance of mens salvation be evil examples for letting passe what we find written of Pope Sixtus the Fourth of whom this Epitaph was made Sixte jaces tandem fidei contemptor aequi Pacis ut hostis eras pace peremptus obis And of Alexander the sixth that made a league with the Devil as Balaeus saith to obtain his Papacy and of whom it was said as I shewed before Vendit Alexander cruces altaria Christum Emerat ille prius vendere jure potest And of Boniface the eighth and divers others wicked Popes that pretended to be the Bishops and Vicars of Christ but were indeed the limbs of Anti-Christ We find nearer home that what pious men and good Christians had formerly most zealously bestowed upon the Church and Churchmen for the Honor of God the relieving of the poor and the promoting of the Christian faith many of our own Bishops most wickedly and Sacrilegiously either through Covetousness for some fine or for love and affection to their Children friends or servants have alienated and made away the same from their Successors in Fee-farm or long leases some for one thousand some for one hundred years and some for other longer term reserving only some small rent for the succeeding Bishops as in my Diocess of Ossory that Lordship was set for ten pound yearly that is well-nigh worth two hundred pound and that was set for â—our pound which is better worth then fifty pound with many others in the like sort whereby we that come after them and they that shall come after us are neither able to keep Hospitality nor to feed the poor nor scarce our selves and our own families nor indeed to do any other work of piety and service of God which the Scripture requireth us to do And if these things be not wickedness and a high degree of abominable Sacriledge mine understanding fails me and this being Sacriledge I know not what laws can make it good Let them have what Laws and what Acts of Parliament soever they please to justify their doings I know not how those Laws and Acts of Parliament will or can justify them before the Throne of the just God And therefore not to do my self what I blame in others lest God should condemn me out of mine own mouth as my good God hath hitherto preserved me and kept my hands clean from all Corruption and from taking any the least bribe or gift from any man or any service but what I paid for even in my poorest state and meanest condition when I had not for many years together twenty pound per annum to maintain me so I have resolved and do pray to God continually to give his grace to perform it and do hope that God will grant it me that I will never take either bribe for any thing or gift from any man or fine for any House Land or Lordship that belongs either to my Deanery or Bishoprick while I live if I should live a thousand years but what shall be for the repaire of the Church And besides all this and many other faults in their own lives of less moment I have often bemoaned one offence of some of my brethren above all the rest when I considered how they not following the Counsel of St. Paul in the Ordination of Priests and Deacons To lay hands on no man rashly but to see that the persons that are to be admitted to holy Orders should be no novices that is no young Divines because as Saint Gregory saith Nequaquam debent homines in aetate infirma praedicare Men ought not to Preach in their young and tender years Quia juxta rationis usum sermo doctrinae non suppetit nisi in perfecta aetate because that according to the use of Reason Learning and Wisdom is not attained unto but in perfect age Et Redemptor noster cum Caelâ— siâ—conditor Angelorum Doctor ante tricennale Greg. sup Ezech. Ho. 2. in Pastor tempus in terra magister noluit fieri hominum ut videlicet praecipitatis vim
compendious and short that they might not be forgotten for which cause the Ten Commandments are styled decem The Commandments are very short that we should not forget them verba ten words and these ten words are contracted into one word which is but one syllable and all the Commandments of God are comprehended in that one syllable Love For love is the fulfilling of the Law There is no reason we should look that all the inclusive particulars contained in that one word or in those few short precepts should or could be particularly expressed therein But they are alwaies left to be understood and explained by the Pâ—eachers and Commentators As when he saith Thou shalt love the Lord thy God the Sanctifying of the Sabbath you must confess is therein concluded and yet that the Sabbath shall be the seventh day is not therein mentioned So when he saith Thou shalt have none other gods but me the Tythes that are a special means to uphold and further his outward service must of necessity be understood to be therein comprehended though in direct terms the tenth part is not expressed And Further I answer to their fourth Objection That although a Judicial and a Ceremonial consideration may be rendred for the payment of Tythes among the Jews As that equality might be preserved among the tribes of this people that because in the Division of the Land of Canaan the Levites had no part of the Land Moses thought it fit the Tythes which were to be paid to God should be given to them out of every tribe and that would make their estate and maintenance proportionable to the other tribes yet this judicial consideration of paying the Tythes unto the Levites doth no waies infringe or weaken the equity and morality of this precept for the perpetual payment of the Tythes to Christ and his Ministers to further and uphold the service of God And besides the equity and morality of this precept seeing Moses was Any Kinâ—dom may take laws from other Kingdoms when they are seen good so just and so excellent a Law-giver far beyond and much better then all the Law-givers of the Gentiles Greek or Latin there is no reason why other Kingdoms or Nations should not use the same judicial Laws as were used among the Jews for the politick powers of any Kingdom may take Laws from any other Kingdom where they see the best Laws made as the Romans took their Law of the twelve Tables from the Athenians and the Cities of Germany from the Venetians and then Sicut leges quas Athenis Romani transtulerunt cum ab ipsis comprobatae confirmatae fuissent eas nihilominus Jus Civile Romanorum nominarunt As the Laws which the Romans took from Athens when they were received and confirmed by the Senate of Rome they were styled The Civil Laws of the Romans saith the Câ—â—us de jâ—re Râ—gis Ecclesiast Lord Cook so when any Kingdom or Common-wealth takes those Laws of the Jews that were meerly Judicial and not any waies Moral precepts or the like politick Laws of any other Nation and confirm them for Laws to be observed in their Territories they have the force of binding-Laws and may not with a safe Conscience of any of the Subjects of those Dominions where they have their Sanction be voyded or violated CHAP. XVII What the ancient Fathers of the Church and the Councils collected of most Learned and pious Bishops have left written concerning Tythes And of the three-fold cause that detains them from the Church ANd now having seen by the Testimony of the Holy Scripture and by What the Fathers say of Tythes and Oblarions Iren. l. 4. c. 34. many Reasons that the Tythes are by a Divine right due to Christ and his Ministers Let us hear what the Fathers and Councils and the Canons of the Church have said of this point concerning Tythes and I do find that Irenaeus who was Scholler to Polycarpus that was the disciple of S. John the Evangelist saith Offerimus Deo bona nostra ut signa gratitudinis pro illis donis quae à Deo recepimus We offer to God our goods that is our Tythes and Oblations to God as the signs and tokens of our thankfulness unto God for those gifts which we receive from God And Origen saith Origen in num Hom. 11. Qui colit Deum debet donis oblationibus agnoscere cum Deum datorem omnium He that Worshippeth God must by his gifts and oblations that is his Tythes and Offerings acknowledge God to be the Lord and giver of all things And Innocentius saith Deus speciali titulo decimas sibi-ipsi reservavit Extra de deâ—â—mâ—c Cum non sit in signum dominationis jurisdictionis super omnia God hath by a special title reserved and kept unto himself the Tythes of all things to shew and put us in mind of that Vniversal power right and Dominion that he hath over all things Itaque Judaei decimas persolvendo testabantur quod omnia sua seque ad cò ipsos Deo autori omnium bonorum largitori deberent And so the Jews by the payment of their Tythes testified that they owed all that they had and themselves also to God the Author and the giver of all good And what God hath reserved to himself he hath resigned and given to his Ministers that do serve at his Altar because the Lord requireth none other reward from us but what tendeth to his Worship to Praise him and magnify him for ever And it is an argument of his Infinite loving kindness that for all the fruits and profits that he bestoweth upon us he requireth by way of precept as a Rent-charge to maintain his publick Worship but the tenth part to be restored back to him again and that only to this end that his people might not forget him to be their God and the giver of all the good that they have And in that respect S. Gregory saith Cum non ab hominibus sed à Deo ipso decimae sunt institutae quasi debitum exigi possunt Seeing the commandment of paying Tythes is not from men but from God himself they may be required by Gods Ministers as due debts that do belong unto them But to let pass what I might collect from all the rest Saint Augustine Decret Greg. l. â— tit 30. c. 34. that in my judgment is the most learned and most judicious of all the Fathers is most plain and plentiful in this point saying Haec est Domini justissima consuetudo Si tu illi decimam non dederis tu ad decimam revocaberis id est daemonibus quae est decima pars angelorum associaberis This is the just proceeding of the Righteous Lord that if thou wilt not pay thy Tythes to him thou shalt be reduced unto the tenth and associated unto the Devils which is the tenth part of the Angels and in the interim the mean while Dabis
God out of their hearts as the Gergezites drove Christ Little fear of God in them that expell their Pâ—iâ—sts oâ—t of their societies out of their Coasts when they expell Aaron the chief Priest or Bishop out of their Assemblies there is but little fear of God before their eyes for if Seneca that was but Nature's Schollar could tell us that when we go about any wicked Act a grave Cato or severe Aristides standing by us would mâ—ke us blush and stop the doing thereof thereof then certainly the Christian that hath any grace will be ashamed of his evill intent and be afraid to offend God when he seeth a man of God so near him who doth oftentimes ponere obicem make a stop to stay the proceedings of the wicked that would not seldom be farre worse and do more unjustice if it were not for the company and perswasions of the Priest and Preacher And therefore the former ages that feared God more then we and were The wisdom of the former age wiser to use this means that they might fear him desired that in their greatest Assemblies of greatest affairs as Sessions Councels Parliaments and the like the Bishops and Preachers might be as the chief members of their consultations as well to witnesse the uprightnesse of their actions as to direct them in cases of conscience what is most agreeable to the divine constitution And wheresoever you see the expulsion of these men and the rejection of The â—xpussion of-Bishops the cause of mâ—ny subsâ—qâ—ient mischiefs these helps and furtherances unto godlinesse you shall find no good success nor better fruit of their greatest Counsels than Sedition Oppression Confusion and Rebellion For it is not the least part of the Bishops office and the duty of all Preachers not onely in the Pulpit where what they say is of many men soon forgotten but also in all other meetings and assemblies and in the very instances when occasion shall be offered to do as Christ and his Apostles did perswade peace righteousnesse and obedience unto the people and the want of their association hath been the opening of many gaps to let in much injustice and impiety in many places because their present perswasion may do as much if not more good with men when they are in action then their preaching can do when they come to contemplation And therefore if any assembly hath like Corah rebelled against Aaron and cast their Bishops and Preachers out of doores I would advise them to follow the Counsell of Saint Ambrose in the like case Quod inconsultò fecerunt consultiùs revocetur what they have inconsiderately done to throw them out let them more advisedly revoke and call them in again and they whose breeding hath been in knowledge and their calling is to do justice and to teach truth will help and not hinder them to understand the truth and to proceed in righteousnesse And so you see who these men were in regard of their places CHAP. III. Sheweth the assured testimonies of a good and lawful Governour their qualifications our duties to them and wherein our obedience to them consisteth SEcondly we are to consider Qâ—ales fuere how these men were qualified 2. How these Governours were qualified for their places 2. Points discussed 1. How they obtained their places Many usurp their places for their places touching which these two points are to be handled 1. Modus assumendâ— the manner of obtaining it 2. Facultas exequendi the ability and fidelity of discharging it 1. I told you before that many do obtain their places by sinful means as many of the Popes and Roman Emperours by poysoning and murthering their Predecessours have unlawfully stept the Thrones of Majesty and so did Henry the fourth by the unjust deposition of Richard the second and Richard the third by the cruell and secret murthering of his poor innocent Nephewes attain unto the Crown of England And in such manner of assuming government there is just cause of resisting and a fair colour of rebelling against them if you call it a Rebellion when men discharge their duties in defeâ—ce of justice to oppose usurpation But neither Moses nor Aaron came so to the places of their government For 1. Moses had a double testimony to approve his calling to be from 1 Moses hâ—d â— twofold testimony to justifie his calling God The first was Laternum to assure himself And the second was Externum to confirm the same unto the people For 1. When Moses said unto God Who am I that I should goe unto Pharaoh 1. Inward The Lord answered I will be with thee ad protegendum derigendum saith the glosse and this shall be a token unto thee that I have sent thee After that you have brought the people out of Egypt you shall serve God upon this Mountain and that may assure thee that I have sent thee and will bring thy people unto Canaan as I have brought them into this wildernesse 2. That the people might be assured he was lawfully called God gave 2. Outward which was a threefolâ— sign 1. Oâ— his Rod. unto him a threefold sign 1. Of his Rod that being cast to the ground was turned to a Serpent but taken by the tayle it turned to a Rod again to shew that when the rod of Government is thrown out of the Magistrates hand the people are People without government like Serpents like the brood of Serpents a malicious and a viperous generation but being taken into the hand of government they prove a royal and a glorious Nation 2. The hand thrust into his bosom and taken out was Ieprous but 2. Of the Hand thrust again and taken out was made whole to signisie that a good Magistrate out of the bosom of the Law must pull out the hand of justice both to wound and to heal to kill and to make alive as the Poeâ— saith Parcere subjectis debellare superbos To defend the innocent and to punish the wrong doer 3. The water taken out of the river and cast upon the dry ground 3. Of the Water should be turned into blood to intimate unto them that the blood which was spilt by Pharaoh when their children were murthered and drowned in the Rivers should be required and revenged upon the Aegyptians when by the government of Moses the carkasses of those outragious oppressours should be cast out of the Red Sea and laid upon the dry ground Thus Moses shewed that he was lawfully called 2. For Aaron the Apostle makes him the pattern of all lawful entrance 2. Aarons calling justified Heb. 5. into this Calling when he saith that No man taketh this honour upon him but he that is called as Aaron was and Mosâ—s manifested the lawfulnesse of his calling unto all Israel when according to the number of their twelve Tribes he caused 12. Rods to be put in the Tabernacle of witness and of all them the Rod of Aaron only which
expresseth the same to be Tribute that is Imposts Subsidies Gifts or the like call it by what name you will we are commanded by God to the uttermost of our abilitie to supply their occasion and necessities even as the children are bound to relieve their parents in their extremities And if we see our Moses our King or chief Governour any wayes 3. To hazard our lives for them impugned or like to be oppressed either by forraign Aegyptians or domestick Israelites though they should be Datqan and Abiram the most prime and popular men in all the Congregation that could draw thousands after them yet are we bound to the hazard of our lives to preserve the Life Crown and Dignity of our Prince as the subjects of King David hazarded themselves to save him harmlesse And if we will not do this 2 Sam. 18. 3. Hester 4. 14. then as Mordecai in the like case said to Hester If thou altogether holdest thy peace at this time then shall there inlargement and deliverance arise to the Jews from another place but thou and thy fathers house shall be destroyed So I say with King David the Lord will help his Annointed and deliver him from the strivings of his people and if we still be silent and do nothing yet the Starres in their order shall fight against Sisera Et conjurati veniunt ad classica venti and as the Angell of the Lord said of the Merozites Curse ye The punishment of them that will not assist their Governours Meroz curse ye bitterly the Inhabitants thereof because they came not to help Barack against the Canaanites So let them fear a bitter curse and a curse from God that will not help their Prince against his enemies especially such enemies as have least reason to be enemies unto him So you see what obedience we owe unto our Governours and therefore their rebellion was the more intolerable that thus spurned against their Magistrates CHAP. IV. Sheweth the objection of the Rebels to justifie their Rebellion the first part of it answered that neither our compulsion to Idolatry nor any other injury or tyranny should move us to Rebell BUt we must not condemn them before their cause be heard and therefore Corah shall have his Counsell to object what he can for himself And I find but one Objection of any moment though the same consisteth of many branches As What if Moses the King or chief Governour being so much affected The objection of the Rebels and addicted unto Aaron the chief Priest or Bishop and to others his prime Councell should be led by evill advice to set up Idolatry and to play the Tyrant to take away the goods destroy the lives and bring most of his people to most miserable conditions may neither private men nor the subordinate Magistrates nor the prime Nobility of the people nor any other Court or Assembly of men restrain his fury or remove this mischief from Gods inheritance from the Church and Common-wealth This is that Gordian knot which is so hard to be untied But if I might in the School of Divinity have leave to resolve this question Solutio and not to be confuted as Saint Steven was with stony arguments I would soon answer that 1. In neither of these cases 2. Neither of these Two Parts of their objection men may do it and I could make this good by very good authority for Si Magistratus est bonus nutritor est tuus if our Governour be good he is our Nursing-Father and we should receive our nourishment with thanks and no thanks to us for our obedience to such a one And if our Governour be evill he is so for our transgression and we should receive our punishment with patience and therefore no resistance but either obey the good willingly or endure the evill patiently But to proceed to break this Gordian knot in pieces and to answer each part of this Objection 1. I say that many wicked Kings and cruel Emperours have set up 1. Part of their objection answered Not to rebell for any cause 1. Not for our compulsion to Idolatry Idolatry and blasphemy against God and yet I do not find that any of Gods servants did ever rebell against them for you know Jeroboam the son of Nebat that made Israel to sin did set up golden Calves to be worshipped Nebuchadnezzar King of Babylon made an Image of gold and commanded all his people to fall down to worship it And what shall I say of those Idolatrous Kings Achab Manasses Julian and abundance more that most impiously compelled their subjects unto Idolatry and yet you shall not find that either the faithfull Jews under Jeroboam or the Prophet Daniel in Babylon or Elias the man of God in the time of Achab or any of all the good Christians that were under Julian either did themselves or perswaded others of the servants of God at any time to rebell against those Idolatrous Kings for they considered how far the Law of God that prohibiteth Idolatry and instigateth us against the allurers and perswaders of us to Idolatry and blasphemy extendeth and that is If thy brother Deut. 13 6. How far the Law of God extendeth to resist Idolaters the son of thy mother or thy son or thy daughter or the wife of thy bosom or thy friend which is as thine own soul shall intice thee to Idolatry and to serve strange Gods thine eye shall not spare him neither shalt thou have any pitty upon him but for the sonne to rise up against the father the wife against her husband the servant against his Lord the subject against his King here is not a word and therefore by this Law they are not obliged but rather forbidden to do it for though the son is not expressely prohibited to accuse his father nor the wife her husband nor the servant his Lord nor the subject his King yet because Gods Law is absolute and perfect to which we must neither adde nor detract nor construe it as we please the Divines conceive those things forbidden which are not expressed especially in penall precepts which are to be restrained and not extended any further then they are set down as Tostatus doth most truly conclude Tostatus in Deut 13. q. 3. And what the sonne may not do against his father nor the wife against her husband nor the servant against his Lord that certainly no man may do against his King which is the father of his Country the husband of the Common wealth and the supreme Lord over all his subjects And therefore Christ himself that came to fulfill the Law and knew best how farre it reached living under the Empire of Tiberius the Principality of Herod and the Government of Pilate that were all wicked and idolatrous did notwithstanding submit himself in all things which the Law of God forbad him not unto them and though for strength policy and power he might easily have resisted them yet
killed but there succeeded infinite losses to that Kingdom and therefore Writers say that the death of Caesar was no benefit unto the Romans because it brought upon them farre greater calamities then ever they felt before as you may find in Appian those infinite miseries that succeeded in severall fields and battels which could never end untill the overthrow of Anthony by Augustus Caesar And when Nero perished it fell out with no good successe but the next year that followed after his death felt more oppression and spilt more blood then was spilt in all those * nine years wherein he had so tyrannically reigned So when the Athenians had expelled His first Quin quennium was good one Tyrant they brought in thirty And when the Romans had abandoned their Kings they did not put away the tyranny but changed the Tyrants for wicked Kings they chose more wicked Consuls which is nothing else but as the Proverb goeth Antigonum effodere to go out of Gods blessing into the warm Sun or rather to change a bad Master for a worse â— And this is contrary to the judgement of that ulâ—erated wretch in A fable worth the observing the fable who when the traveller saw him full of flies swarming in his sores and pitying his miseries would have swept them off prayed him to let them alone for that these being now well filled would suck the lesse but if these were gone more hungry flies would come which would most miserably suck his blood And so Histories tell us of many other Kings that by Heathens and rebellious subjects were for their injustice cruelty and tyranny either expelled or murdered but very seldom or never with any publick benefit when the chiefest plotters of any rebellion do most chiefly aym at their own private revenge or profit Yea many times those very Parasitical Lords Who do many times rebell and why that have most perswaded the King to do things which he knew not to be illegall and made benefit of those Monopolies and exactions to their own advantage to fill their own purses and then upon either discontent with the King or to content the people and to escape their own due deserved punishment will be the chiefest upbraiders of their King the greatest sticklers of rebellion and the head leaders of all the disloyal Faction What fools then are the people upon the false pretence of publique good to take up arms to destroy themselves when this name of publique good is nothing else but a vain shadow to hide their private ends Or were it granted that it might happen for the publique good yet it is not good to do it because it can never stand with a good conscience because it is contrary to the Commandement of God for in every Tyrant there is A threefold power in every Tyrant a three-fold power and authority that doth concurre 1. Paternal 2. Conjugal 3. Herile and you know the law of God doth not permit the children to renounce their father nor which is lesse to laugh at their fathers nakednesse nor doth it suffer the wife to forsake her husband nor the servant to chastise his Lord and Master and therefore much lesse may the Subjects deprive their King from his Dominion and take from him what God hath given him or any wayes chastize him for his ill government whereof he is accomptable to God and not to them or if they might depose him or reduce him by their correction when he doth degenerate into a Tyrant yet seeing there are many kinds of Tyrannies I demand if the same reason shall serve to proceed against all kinds of Tyranny Punishment should be proportionable to the fault to the like condemnation of all tyrannous Kings and this every Sophister will deny for where the punishment is not proportionable to the fault the sentence is most unjust and the suppressors of the Tyrant do shew the signs of a worse tyranny and if there must be an adaequation of the punishment to the sin I would know how they would distinguish to impose the just measure that is due to each kind of tyranny Three kinds 1. Kind But to leave the Rebels in this Labyrinth till they bâ— better able to evade I say that there are three speciall kinds of tyrannies 1. Is against all humane right for his own private commodity to the publique 1. Kind losse and dammage of his subjects as was the tyranny of Achab when he took away 〈◊〉 vineyard and of those Kings which Samuel 1 Sam â— doth describe 2. Violateth the divine Law to the contumelie of the Creatour as was 2. kind the tyranny of Nebuchadnezzar when he would have forced the three children to adore his golden Image and of Jeroboam the son of Nebat that made Israel to sin because he compelled them to go to Dan and Bethel to adore his Calves and hindred them to go to Hierusalem for to worship the true God 3. Treadeth and trampleth under foot both the divine and humane 3. kind right to the utter overthrow of all piety and justice as was the tyranny of Manâ—sses Julian and others that regarded neither the worship of God nor the good of men And I do confidently affirm that each one of these tyrannies apart or all of them coupled in one Tyrant as well that which offereth violence unto God as that which bringeth calamity and cruelty unto man ought to be suffered and not abolished untill he doth abrogate the same which alone loofeth the belts of Kings and girdeth about their loyns as Joâ— speaketh For you know the fore-named Tyrants and many more as bad or worse then they as Solomon himself that by his Oppression Polygamy and Idolatry had most grievously sinned both against God and man and yet all of them went on without either the diminution of their glory or the losse of their These should be our parterns unlesse we have some new revelations dominions and Achab did most tyrannically kill Naboth and took away his Inheritance without law as David did before kill Vrias a most innocent man and took away his wife contrary to all law which was death by their law to any other man and he exiled the Prophets and was the death of many of them and he trampled down the true Religion under his feet and by publique authority established the Idolatrous worship of Baal in every place and yet neither the inferiour Magistrates nor the greatest Peers nor the consent of all the people durst presume contrary to the Ordinance of God to depose or suppresse any of these tyrannous men If you alleadge Jehu I confesse indeed he did it when he conspired Object 2 Reg. â— Sol. against Joram his own Lord and Master But how did he this By a power extraordinarily given him from Heaven as you may see in the 6. and 7. verses of that Chapter when the same was not permitted him by any lawes as Jezabel her self could tell
only bring a punishment upon them that are seduced but a far greater plague upon you that do seduce them and God who hath at all times so exceeding graciously defended His Majesty and contrary to your hopes and expectation from almost nothing in the beginning of this rebellion hath increased his power to I hope an invincible Army will be a rock of defence unto his annointed because it is well known to all the world that whatsoever this good King hath suffered at the hands For what causes the King suffereth of his subjects it is for the preservation of the true Protestant Religion of the established Lawes of his Kingdomes and of those Reverend Bishops Grave Doctors and all the rest of the Learned and Religious Clergy that have ever maintained and will to the spilling of the last drop of their blood defend this truth against all Papists and other Anabaptistical Brownists and Sectaries whatsoever And therefore if you that are his Parliament should like unthankeful vapours What a shame it is to use the power we have received against him that gave it us that cloud the Sun which raised them or like the Moon in her interposition that obscures the glorious lamp which enlightens her in the least manner imploy that strength which you have received from his Majesty when he called you together against His Majesty it will be an ugly spot and a foul blemish both for your selves and all your posterities And if not suddenly prevented you may raise such spirits that your selves cannot lay down and sow such seeds of discord and disconteâ—t between the King and his people as may derive through the whole Race of all succeeding Kings such a disaffection to Parliaments as may prove a plague and poyson to the whole Kingdom For if the King out of his favour and grace call you together and intrust you with a power either of continuing concluding or enacting such things as may be for the good of the Common wealth and you abuse that power against him that gave it you I must needs confesse that I am of his mind who saith That the King were freed before God and That it is lawful to recall a power given when it is abused man from all blame though he should use all possible lawful means to withdraw that power into his own hands which being but lent them hath been so misapplyed against him for if my servant desireth to hold my sword and when I intrust him with it he seeks to thrust the same into my breast Will not every man judge it lawful for me to gain my sword if it be possible out of his hand and with that sword to cut off his head that would have thrust it into my heart or as one saith If I convey my estate in trust to any friend to the use of me and mine and the person intrusted falsifie the faith reposed in him by conveying the profits of my estate to other ends to the prejudice of me and mine no man wiâ—l think it unlawful for me to annihilate if I can possibly do it such a deed of trust And therefore Noble Peers and Gentlemen of this ancient Kingdom of Ireland that your Parliament may prove successeful to the benefit of the Common-wealth let me that have some interest and charge over all the Inhabitants and So journers of Kilkenny perswade you to think your selves no Parliament without your King and that your Votes and Ordinances carrying with them the power though not the name of Acts of Parliament to oblige both King and Subjects to obey them are the most absolute subversion of our Fundamental Lawes the destructive invasion of our rightful Liberties And that by an usurped power of an arbitrary rule to dispose of our estates or any part thereof as you please to make us Delinquents when you will and to punish us as Malignants at your pleasure and through your discontent to dispossesse your rightful King though it were to set the Crown upon the head of your greatest One al is such a priviledg that never any Parliament hath yet claimed Or if you still go on for the inlargement of your own usurped power under the title of the priviledge of Parliament to Vote diminution of the Kings just Prerogative that your Progenitors never denied to any of his Ancestors to exclude us Bishops out of your Assemblies without whom your determinations can never be so well concluded in the fear of God and to invade the Liberties of your fellow-subjects under the pretences of religion and the publique good I will say no more but turn my self to God and put it in my Liturgi From Parasites Puritanes Popes and such Parliaments Good Lord deliver us CHAP. IX Sheweth the unanimous consent and testimonies of many famous learned men and Martyrs both ancient and modern that have confirmed and justified the truth of the former Doctrine ANd so you see that as for no cause so for no kind or degree of men be they what you will Peers Magistrates Heads of Families Darlings of the people or any other Patriots whom the Commons shall elect it is lawfull to rebell against or any wayes to resist our chief Princes and soveraign Governours This point is as clear as the Sunne and yet to make it still more clear unto them that will not believe that truth which they like not but as Tertullian saith Credunt Scriptur is ut credant adversus Scripturas do alledge Scriptures to justifie their own wilful opinions Testimonies of famous men against all Scripture I will here adde a few testimonies of most famous men to confirm the same Henry de Bracton Lord chief Justice of the Kings Bench under Hen. 3. L. Elismer in orat habita in Camera Fiscali ann 1609. pag. 108. saith as he is quoted by the Lord Elismer That under the King there are free men and servants and every man is under him and he is under none but onely God If any thing be demanded of the King seeing no Writ can issue sorth against the King there is a place for Petition that he would correct and amend his fact and if he shall refuse to do it he shall have punishment enough when the Lord shall come to be his revenger for otherwise touching the Charters and deeds of Kings neither private persons nor Justitiaries ought to dispute This was the Law of that time whaâ— new Lawes our young Lawyers have found since I know not I am noâ— so good a Lawyer The Civil Lawyers do farre surpasse the Common Law herein for Corsetus Corsetus Sic. tract de potestat reg part 5. num 66. Sâ—ulus saith Rex in suo regno potest omnia imò de plenitudine potestatis And Marginista saith Qui disputat de potestate Principis utrum benè feâ—erit est infamis Hostiensis saith Princeps solutus est legibus id est quoad vim coactivam non quoad vim directivam Thom. 1. 2ae q. 96. ar 5.
of his Father of blessed memory and of all other his most noble Progenitors the freest subjects under Heaven And I hope they desire not to be such Libertines as those in the Primitive Church who because Christian liberty freed us from all Jewish The Libertines of the Primitive Church what they thought Ceremonies and all typical Rites which were such a burthen that neither we nor our fathers could undergo and also from the curse and malediction of the moral law would under this pretence of Christian liberty be freed from the obligation of all lawes and give themselves the freedom to do what they pleased for this would prove to be not the liberty but the bondage and the base slavery of a people that are not governed by lawes but suffered to do what they please because that neither God nor good lawes confine us but for our own good and he that forbids us to obey impious commands bids us to obey all righteous lawes and rather to suffer then to resist the most unrighteous Governours But I fear that under the name of the liberty of the subjects the licentiousnesse of the flesh is aymed at because What is often aimed at under the name of theâ— liberty of the Subjects Whether for the preservation of ouâ— Religion we can be warranted to rebell you may see by what is already come to passe our civil dissention hath procured to many men such a liberty that few men are sure either of their life or estate and God blesse me from such a liberty and send me rather to be the slave of Christ then such a libertine of the world And if religion be the cause that moveth you here hereunto I confesse this should be dearer to us then our lives but this title is like a velvet mask that is often used to cover a deformed face decipimur specie recti for as that worthy and learned Knight Sir John Cheek that was Tutor to King Edward the sixth saith If you were offered Persecution for Religion you ought to flye and yet you intend to fight if you would stand in the truth ye ought to suffer like Martyrs and you would slay like Tyrants Thus for Religion you keep no Religion and neither will follow the Counsel of Christ nor the constancie of Martyrs And a little after he demands why the people should not like that Religion which Gods Word established the Primitive Church hath authorized the greatest learned men of this Realm and the whole consent of the Parliament have confirmed Sir John Cheek in The true subject to the rebell p. 4 c. and the Kings Majesty hath set forth is it not truly set out Dare you Commons take upon you more learning then the chosen Bishops and Clerks of this Realm have This was the judgement of that judicious man And I must tell you that Religion never taught Rebellion neither was it the will of Christ that Faith should be compelled by fighting but perswaded by Micah 3. 10. preaching for the Lord sharply reproveth them that built up Sion with blood and Hâ—erusalem with iniquitie and the practice of Christ and his Apostles was to reform the Church by prayers and preaching and not with fire and sword and they presse obedience unto our Governours yea though they True religion never rebelleth were impious infidels and idolatrous with arguments fetched from Gods ordinance from mans conscience from wrath and vengeance and from the terrible sentence of damnation And this truth is so solid that it hath the clear testimony of holy Writ the perpetual practice of all the Primitive Saints and Martyrs and I dare boldly say it the unanimous consent of all the orthodox Bishops and Catholick Writers both in England and Ireland and in all the world That Christian Religion teacheth us never with any violence to resist or with arms to withstand the authority of our lawful Kings Whether the Laws of our Land do warrant us to rebell If you say The Laws of our Land and the Constitutions of this our Kingdom give us leave to stand upon our libertie and to withstand all tyrannie that shall be offered unto us especially when our estates lives and religion are in danger to be destroyed To this I say with Laelius that Nulla lex valeat contra jus divinum Mans Laelius de privileg Eccles 112. lawes can exact no further obedience then may stand with the observance of the divine precepts and therefore we must not so preferre them or relye upon them so much as to prejudice the other and for our fear of the losse of estate life or religion I wish it may not be setled upon groundlesse suspitions for I know and all the world may believe that our King is a most clement and religious Prince that never did give cause unto any of his subjects to foster such feares and jealousies within his breast and you know what the Psalmist saith of many men They were afraid where no fear was And Job tells you whom terrours shall make afraid on every side and shall Job 1â— 11 12. drive him to his feet that is to runne away as you see the Rebels do from the Kings Army in every place and in whose Tabernacle shall dwell the King of fear for though the ungodly fleeth when no man pursueth him yet they that trust in God are confident as Lyons without fear they know that the heart of the King is not in his own hand but in the hand of the Lord as the Prov 21. 1. Bonav ad secundam dist 35. art 2. qu. â— rivers of waters and he turneth it whithersoever it pleaseth him either to save them or destroy them even as it pleaseth God He ordereth the King how to rule the people And therefore in the name of God and for Christ Jesus sake let me perswade you to put away all causelesse fears and groundlesse jealousies and trust your King if not trust your God and let your will which is so unhappy in it self become right and equall by receiving direction from the will of God and remember what Vlpian the great Civilian saith that Rebellion and disobedience unto your King is proximum sacrilegio crimen and that it is in Samuel's judgement as the sinne of witchcraft whereby men forsake God and cleave unto the Devil and above all remember The remembrance of his Oâ—th should be a terrour to the conscience of every Rebel the oath that many of you have taken to be true and faithful unto your King and to reveal whatsoever evils or plots that you shall know or hear to be contrived against his Person Crown or Dignity and defend him from them Pro posse tuo to the uttermost of your power So help you God Which Oath how they that are any wayes assistant in a warre against their King can dispence with I cannot with all my wit and learning understand and therefore return O Shulamite return lay down thine
and every one of us did make when we entred into holy Orders 3. These false Prophets saith the Apostle do lead simple or silly women 3. Noâ—â— 2 Tim 3. 6. Gen. 3. 1. 6. captives just as their Master first seduced Eve and she Adam so do these and because they have lesse worth than can attain to the height of their ambition you may see most of them by women raised to great fortunes that their pride disdaineth to be obedient or if they fail of such wives yet are they swelled with envie which is as rebellious in these as pride is in the other 6. Under the pretence of making our Clergie more spiritual and Apostolique 6 Ordered to take away all the revenues of the most worthy Clergy they have voted away most of our temporal estates the Lands and Lordships of the Bishops Deans and Prebends and the Pluralities of those persons that possessed double Benefices and made their Order that no man should pay any rent or any dues unto any of the forenamed persons And by this taking away the free-hold of the Clergy now in present which they hold with as good right and by the same Law as the best Lord in England holdeth his Inheritance and by this discouragement of Learning for the time to come they thought to make our Clergy Angelical but have proved themselves I will not say diabolical but most injurious unto the Church of Christ by committing an Act of as great injustice and as prejudicial to the Common-wealth as can be found among the Pagans For what can be more unjust or more inhumane than to take away my Lively-hood which is my very life in mine old age without any offence of mine for which I had laboured all the dayes of my life And what consequence can this produce than that which succeeded in the like case in Jeroboam's time when he robbed the Priests and Sublatis studiâ—rum prâ—miis ipsa studia pereunt C. Tacit. 1. Reg. 1â— 31. Matth. 15. 14. Levites of their Inheritance ignorance and barbarity and the basest of the people to be the Preachers of Gods Word whereby the blind do lead the blind untill both do fall into the ditch as I can testifie some of our greatest Nobility intended to make their sonnes Priests and Bishops while the glory of Israel and the beauty of our Church remained un-obscured and now contempt and poverty being enacted and ordered to be their portion those resolutions are vanished and the Vniversities can bear me witnesse the lowest Gentrie are not so well contented to undertake this highest calling These and many other things â—jusdem farinâ— of the same mold they have already done to overwhelm the ship of Christ under the waves of this turbulent Faction And these prophanations of Gods divine Service and the violations of the Sepulchres of the dead whose ashes and bones like canes sepulchrales they have disturbed in their graves and those unheard-of sacriledges on Gods Priests and portion are so equally practised that it is almost hard to judge which are greater either their impiety towards God their inhumanity towards the dead or their injustice towards the living CHAP. VIII Sheweth what Discipline or Church-government our factioâ—s Schismaticks do like best And twelve principal points of Doctrine which they hold as twelve Articles of their faith and we are to believe the same or suffer if this faction should prevail 2. FOr the discipline and the doctrine that they would establish they 2. What discipline and doctrine the new Synod is like to set up have not yet and I believe they can never fully agree what they shall be their desire is first to overthrow the old and then they will take care and consult how to devise a new but I could wish they would let the old alone till they could agree to produce a better Yet because their blind zeal is so violent to have their own unjust desires to destroy the vine-yard of Christ root and branch I that have served seven years a Lecturer among them in the heart of London and was conversant with the purest of these holy brethren and thereby understood most of their Anabaptistical and ridiculous tenets and what discipline they best liked will here draw you a model of their Vtopian or New England Church which they would transport hither to obscure the glory of old England 1. For their discipline and government Some would have the Scottish 1. Their discipline Synods and that form of Government which old furious Knox hath first brought among them and is fully described by that Reverend Arch-Bishop Bancroft in lib English â—cottizing Bancroft Others like better of the Geneva Assemblies instituted by M. Calvin and continued by Theodore Beza two worthy members of that Church or the discipline of the Hugonots in the new French Reformation which differeth but a little from the other But most of them like better of the manner of Amsterdam where every Church is independent and every Pastour is a Pope in his own Parish and to that purpose you may remember how vehemently they have lately most foolishly written * As Smith Best Davenport Canne Robinson and Mris. Childley and many other anonyms Sober Sadnesse p. 22. for this Independent Government and how the Lord Say and the Lord Brooks two leading Captains of that faction have often protested they would dispense with all sorts of Religions so they might freely exercise their own and that such a toleration ought to be granted to all others because their Independencie cannot otherwise consist for he that is accountable to none will use what Religion he pleaseth without controule and therefore they support their own Army by men of all Nations and Religions not their grand Adversaries the Papists excepted but of fifty or sixty Souldiers that billeted in Adthrop there were no less than three or four Papists amongst them But how unsutable these Governments would prove to stand with our How unsutable their government would be to our Gentric English Nobility and Gentry besides the novelty of them and how farre dissonant they are to the Apostolique discipline I will appeal to their own judgement when every undiscreet Parson and poor Vicar shall be able upon every discontent to excommunicate the best man in his Parish and as we have seen some of them debarring whom they pleased from the holy Table because their great anger or little judgement conceived them to be unworthy When as the Church deemed it fitter that none of her children should undergo the least indignity for any personal distaste but upon due examination of witnesses a full hearing and a just censure in open Court which course if it be neglected should be rather punished in the offenders than the discipline dissolved the Governours removed and a new fantastical fancie erected 2. For the Doctrines of these men they are like the poetical fiction of 2. The Doctrines of the faction that are like to
too great an interest as well in the faith as in the affections of the people in confidence of their own strength they came roundly to the businesse and what they knew was not their right as their former Petitions can sufficiently witnesse they resolve to effect the same by force but as insensibly as they can devise as 1. To seize upon the Kings Navie to secure the Seas 2. To lay hold upon all the Kings Magazine Forts Towns and Castles 3. To with-hold his moneys and revenues and all other means from the King 4. To withdraw the affections and to poyson the loyalty of all his Majesties Subjects from him And hereby they thought and it must have been so indeed except the Lord had been on his side they had made their hill so strong that it could not be moved and the King so weak and destitute of all means that he could no wayes subsist or relieve himself as a member of their own House did tell me for 1. They get the Eaâ—l of Warwick to be appointed Vice-Admiral of the 1. Earl of Warwiâ—k made Vice-Admiral Sea and commit all the Kings Navie into his hand and to take away that charge from Sir John Pennington whom most men believed to be far the better Sea-man but more faithful to his King and the other purer to the Parliament 2. They send Sir John Hotham a most insolent man that most uncivilly 2. Sir John Hotham put into Hull for the Magazine contemned the King to his face to seize upon the Kings Magazine that he bought with his own money when they might as well take away my horse that I paid for and to keep the King out of Hull which was his own proper Town and therefore might as well have kept him out of White-Hall and was an Act so full of injustice as that I scarce know a greater 3. Because moneys are great means to effect any worldly affaire and 3. They detained the Kings moneys Esay 1. 23. the sinews of every warre when as men and arms and all other necessaries may be had for money some of them and their followers shew themselves to be just as the Peers of Israel companions of thieves meer robbers which forcibly take away a mans mony from him they take all the Kings â—reasure they intercept detain and convert all the Kings revenues and customes to strengthen themselves against the King 4. Because their former Remonstrances framed by this faction of the 4. They labour to render the King odious by lyes ill government of this kingdom though in some things true which the King ingenuously acknowledgeth and most graciously promiseth to redresse them yet in all things full of gall and bitternesse against the King could not so fully poyson the love and loyalty of the Kings Subjects as they desired especially the love of those that knew his Majesty who the better they knew him did the more affectionately love him and the more faithfully serve him they thought to do it another and a surer way with apparent lyes palpable slanders and abominable accusations invented printed and scattered over all the parts of this kingdom by their Trencher Chaplains and parasitical Preachers and other Pamphleters some busie Lawyers and Pettifoggers to bring the King into an odium disliked and deserted of all his loving Subjects And what created power under heaven was able to dissolve that wickednesse which subtilty and malice had thus treacherously combined to bring to passe 1. Lye that he intended to war against the Parliament Hereupon after many threâ—tning votes and actual hostility exercised against his Royall person the King is forced to raise a guard for the defence of himself and those his good Subjects that attended him then presently that small guard that consisted but of the chief gentry of the Countrey was declared to be an Army raised for the subversion of the Parliament and the destruction of our native liberties an invincible Army is voted to be raised the Earl of Essex is chosen to be their Generall with whom they promise both to live and die the Earl of Bedford General of the Horse moneys are provided and all things are prepared to fetch the King and all delinquents or to be the death of all withstanders and that nothing might hinder this design though the King in many gracious Messages attested by the subscription of many noble Lords that were upon the place assared them he never intended any warre against his Parliament yet they proceed with all eagernesse and declare all those that shall assist the King either with Horse money or men to be malâ—gnants and enemies unto the King and Kingdome and such delinquâ—nts as shall be sure to receive condigne punishment by the Parliament Hoc mirum est hoc magnum And among the rest of their impudent slanders this was their Master-piece which they ever harped upon that he countenanced Papists and intended to bring Popery into this Kingdgm and to that end had an Army of Papists to assist him But to satissie any sensible man in this point I would crave the resolution of these two Questions 1. Whether every Papist that is subject to his Majesty is not bound to Two questionâ— to be resolved assist and defend his King in all his dangers 2. Whether the King should not protect his Subjects that are Papists in all their dangers so far as by the Law he ought to do it and accept of their service when he himself is invironed with dangers For first I believe there is no Law that inhibiteâ—h a Papist to serve his 1 All Paâ—ists bound to assist their King King against a Rebellion or to ride Post to tell the King of a Design to murder Him or any other intended Treason against Him or being present to takeaway a weapon from that man that attempted to kill the King because his not coming to Church doth not exempt him from his Allegianâ—e or discharge him of his duty and service unto the King and therefore if a â—â—eet from France or Spain or any other forreign part should invade us or any Rebellion at home should rise against his Soveraign and seek to destroy those Lawes and Liberties whereof himself and his Posterity hath as good an inâ—erest to as any other Subject I say he is bound by all Laws to assiâ—t his King and to do his best endeavour both with his purse and in his person not only to oppose that external Invasion but also to subdue as well that home-bred Rebellion as the forreigâ— Invasion 2. If a Papist should be injured his estate seized upon his house plundered 2. The King bound to proâ—ecâ—â—uâ—iful Papists dered and his person if taken imprisoned not because he transgressed any other Law but that he dispenceth not with the Law of His conscience to be no Papist and being thus injured should come unto his King and say I am your Subject and have lived dutifully I did nothing which
how they have invaded and violated each one of these For 1. Touching the Priviledges of Parliament We confess that former 1. Against the Priviledges of Parliament Kings have graciously yielded many just Priviledges unto them for the freedom of their persons and the liberty of their speeches so they be free from Blasphemy or Treason or the like unpardonable offence but such a freedom as they challenge though for my self I confess my skill in Law to be unable to distinguish the legitimate from the usurped yet in these subsequent particulars I find wise men utterly denying it them As 1. When they forbid us to dispute of their Priviledges and say That 1. Denying us to dispute of them L. Elismer in post-nati themselves alone are the sole Judges of them when as in former Ages they have been adjudged by the Laws of the Kingdom when Thorpe the Speaker of the House of Commons hath been committed and detained Prisoner upon an Execution and the House confirmed that Act. 2. When the Members of the House of whose elections and transgressions 2. Committing and putting out their Members against the House or any of their fellow-Members or the like the House is the proper Judge which ought to have as free liberty as any of the rest upon any emergent occasion are committed as Master Palmer and others were or put out of the House as Sir Edward Deering the Complaint p. 11. Lord Faulkland Sir John Culpepper Sir John Strangwayes and others have been voted hand over head for speaking more reason than the more violent party could answer or in very deed for speaking their minds freely against the sense of the House or rather against some of the prevalent Faction of the House which we say is no Priviledge but the pravity of the House to deny this just Priviledge unto those Members that were thus committed or expelled For hereby it doth manifestly appear that contrary to the practice of all former Parliaments and contrary to the Honour of any Parliament things were herein debated and carried not by strength of argument but by the most voices and the greater number were so for from understanding the validity of the alleadged Reasons that after the Votes passed they scarce conceived the state of the Question but thought it enough to be Clerks to Master Pym and to say Amen to Master Hampden by an implicite faith 3. When they deny the Members of their House or any other imployed by them in this horrid Rebellion should be questioned for Felony Treason 3. Denying their Members to be legally tried for any capital Crime Vide Dyer p. 59. 60. â—rompton 8. b. 9 10 11. Elâ— m. post-natâ— 20. 21. I he viewer P. 43. Murder or the like capital Crimes but only in Parliament or at least by the leave of that House whereof they are Members or which doth imploy them for by this means any Member of their House may be a Traitor or a Murderer or a Robber whensoever he please and may easily escape before the party wronged or complainant can obtain this leave of the House of Commons and therefore this is as unreasonable and as sensless a Priviledge as ever was challenged and was never heard of till this Parliament For why should any man refuse his Tryal or the House deny their Members to the justice of the Law when as the deniall of them to be tryed by the Law implyeth a doubt in us of the innocency of those whom we will not submit to Justice and their Tryal would make them live gloriously hereafter if they were found innocent and move the King to deliver those men that had so wickedly conspired their destruction to the like censure of the Law But for them to cry out The King is mis-informed and we dare not trust our selves upon a Tryal may be a way to preserve their safety but with the losse of their reputation and perhaps the destruction of many thousands of people If they say They are contented to be tried but by their own House which in the time of Parliament is the highest Court of justice It may be answered said a plain Rustick with the old Proverb Ask my fellow if I be a Thief For mine own part I reverence the justice of a Parliament in all other judgements betwixt party and party yea betwixt the King and any other Subject yet when the party accused shall be judged by his own Society his Brethren and his own Faction I believe any indifferent Judge would see this to be too great partiality against the King that he shall not have those whom he accuseth to be tried by the Laws already established and the ordinary course of Justice and if the Judges offend in their Sentence the Parliament hath full power undenied them by his Majesty to question and to punish those Judges as they did for that too palpable in justice as they conceived in the case of the Ship money but they will be judged by themselves and all that dissent from them must be at their mercy or destruction And yet it is said to be evident That no Priviledge can have its ground or commencement unlesse it be by Statute Grant or Prescription And by the Stat. 26. Hen. 8. cap. 13. it is enacted That no offender in any kind of high Treason shall have the priviledge of any manner of Sanctuary So all the Grants of such a priviledge if any such should be made are meerly void 1 Hen. 7. Staffords case and not one Instance could hitherto be produced whereby such a Priviledge was either allowed or claimed but the contrary most clearly proved by his Majesty out of Wentworths case And therefore seeing your own Law-books tell us That the Priviledge of Parliament doth not extend to Treason the breach of the Peace and as some think against the Kings debt it is apparent how grossely they do abuse the People by this claim of the Priviledge of Parliament 4. When they connive with their own compeers for any breach of priviledge 4. Conniving with their Faction for any fault as with Master Whitakers for searching Master Hampdens pockets and taking away his papers immediately after the abrupt breaking up of the last unhappy Parliament and those that discovered the names of them that differed in opinion from the rest of the Faction in the business of the Earl of Straffords and specially with that rabble of Brownists and Anabaptists which with unheard-of impudency durst ask that question publickly at the Bar Who they were that opposed the well-affected party in that House as if they meant to be eeven with them whosoever they were And likewise that unruly multitude of zealous Sectaries that were sent as I find it by Captain Ven and Isaac Pennington to cry Justice Justice Justice and No Bishops no Bishops and this to terrifie some of the Lords from the House and to awe the rest that should remain in the House as they had formerly done in the
and displace his most faithful servants only because others cannot confide in them when no criminal charge is laid against them And therefore for the Lords and Commons to make Orders and Ordinances without the King and in opposition to the King is a meer usurpation of the Regal power a nullifying of the Kings power and a making of the Royal assent which heretofore gave life to every Law to be an empty piece of formality which is indeed an intolerable arrogancy in the contrivers of these Orders and the makers of these Ordinances a monstrous abuse of the Subjects and a plain making of our good King to be somewhat like him in the Comedy A King and no King And whereas no Subject yea under favour be it spoken nor the King himself after he hath taken his Oath at his Coronation is free from the observation of the established Laws yet they make themselves so far above the reach of Law that they freed him which the Lord chief Justice Bramston had committed to Newgate for felony in stealing the Countess of Rivers goods they hindered all men as we found in their journal from proceeding against Sir Thomas Dawes they injoyned the Judges by their Orders to forbear to proceed in their ordinary courses in the Courts of Justice contrary to the Oathes of those Judges and some Parliament men came to the Bench to forbid the Judges to grant Habeas Corpus's which is as great an iniquity and as apparent an injustice as ever was done by any Parliament The most abominable wickedness of these factious Rebels And that which is a Note above Ela above all that could be spoken whereas the Law of God and man the bonds and obligations of Civility and Christianity tye us all to be dutiful and obedient unto our King in all things either Actively or Passively and no wayes for no cause violently to resist him under the greatest penalties that can be devised here and damnation hereafter yet these men contrary to all Laws do injoyn us and compell us as much against our Consciences as if they should compell us with the Pagan Tyrants to offer sacrifice unto Idols to war against our most gracious Soveraign whom we from our hearts do both love and honour and they proscribe us as malignants and as enemies to the Common-Wealth if we contribute not Money Horse and Arms to maintain this Ps 50. 22. Augu. contra Faâ—st l. 22. c. 75. 76. ungodly War and so become deadly enemies unto our own souls O consider this yee that forget God lest for tearing us He tear you in pieces while there is none to help you for considering what the Apostle saith Rom. 13. 1 2. and what Saint Augustine saith Ordo naturalis mortalium paci accommodatus hoc poscit ut suscipiendi belli Autoritas atque consilium penes principem sit and lest men should think they ought by force of Armes to resist their King for Religion he answereth that objection by the example of the Apostles Isti non resistendo interfecti sunt ut potiorem esse docerent victoriam pro fide veritatis occidi We conceive this to be so execrable an Act and so odious to God and man that we are made thus miserable and abused beyond measure to have our Religion which is most glorious our The miserable consequences of their wicked doings Laws that in their own nature are most excellent and our Liberties that make us as free as any Subjects in the World under false pretences and the shadows of Religion Laws and Liberties to be â—radicated and fundamentally destroyed whereby 1. We are made a spectacle of scorn and the object of derision to our 1. Mischief neighbour-Nations that formerly have envied at our happiness and we are become the Subject of all pitty and lamentation to all them that love us 2. As in the Roman Civil Wars in the time of Metellus the Son did kill 2. Mâ—schief his own Father so now by the subtilty of this faction we are cast into such a War as is 1. A mâ—st unnatural War the Son against the Father and the Father against the Son The Earl of Warwick fighteth for the Parliament and my Lord Rich his Son with the King The Earl of Dover is with the King and my Lord Rochsord his Son with the Parliament So one brother against another as the Earl of Northumberland with the Parliament and his brother with the King The Earl of Bedford with the Parliament and his brother with the King Master Perpoint with the Parliament and the Earl of Newark with the King Devoreux Farmer with the Parliament and his brother Richard Farmer together with his brother in law my Lord Cokain with the King and the like and of Cosens without number the one part with the King and the other with the Parliament And if they do this in subtilty to preserve their Estates I say it is a wicked policy to undo the Kingdom which all wise men should consider 2. A most irreligious War when one Christian of the same professed Religion shall bathe his Sword and wash his Hands in the blood of his fellow Christian and his fellow Protestant that shall be coheir with him of the same Kingdom 3. A most unnatural irreligious and barbarous War when the Subject shall take Arms to destroy or unthrone their own Liege a Religious and most gracious King 3. The Service of God in most Churches is neglected when almost all 3. Mischief the ablest gravest and most Orthodox Divines and Preachers are persecuted plundered imprisoned and driven to flie as in the time of the Arian or Donatist which was worse than the Heathen persecution from City to City and to wander in Desarts from place to place to save themselves from the hands of these Rebels against the King and Persecuters of Gods Church which is a most grievous and a most cruel persecution far more general than that of the Anabaptists in Germany or of Queen Mary here in England The Lord of Heaven make us constant and give us patience to indure it 4. The whole Kingdom is and shall be yet more by the continuance 4. Mischief hereof unspeakably impoverished and plunged into all kind of miseries when the travailer cannot pass without fear nec hospes ab hospite tutus the Carrier cannot transport his commodity but it shall be intercepted the Husbandman cannot till his ground but his Horses as my self saw it shall be taken from the Plough and his Corn shall be destroyed when it is ready for the Sickle which must be the fore-runner of a Famine that is ever the Usher to introduce the Plague and Pestilence and all other kind of grievous diseases and these things put together do set wide our Gates and open our Ports to bring forraign foes into our Coasts to possess that good Land whereof we are unworthy because with the Israelites we loathed Manna we were weary of our peace and
Trust interrupting our Peace opposing his Majesty and violating all our ancient liberties Or if a better way may be found let us follow the same to God's glory and to produce the peace and happinesse of this Kingdom lest if we persist obstinately in this wilfull Rebellion to withstand God's Ordinance to oppose his Anointed and to shed so much innocent blood we shall thus fighting against Heaven so far provoke the wrath of the God of Heaven as that the Glory of Israel shall be darkned the Honour of this Nation shall be troden under-foot and be made the scorn of all other Nations round about us and the light of our Candlestick shall be extinguished and we shall all become most miserable because we would not hearken to the voice of the Lord our God Which I hope we will do and do most earnestly pray that we may do it to the Glory of God the Honour of our King and the Happinesse of this whole Kingdom through Jesus Christ our Lord to whom be Praise and Dominion both now and for ever Amen Jehovae Liberatori AN APPENDIX THe man of God speaking of transcendent wickednesse saith Their Vine is of the Vine of Sodom and of the fields of Gomorrah their Deut. 32â— 3â—â— grapes are grapes of gall their clusters are bitter their wine is the poison of Dragons and the cruel vemon of Aspes And I believe never any wickednesse deserved better to be clad with this elegant expression than that threefold iniquity 1. The unparallel'd Vote 2. The intolerable Ordinance 3. The damnable Covenant which the rebellious Faction in Parliament have most impiously contrived to make up the full measure of their impiety since the writing of my Discoveries For 1. Omitting that horrible practice of those rebellious blood thirsty Souldiers that did their best to murder their own most gracious Queen this Factionseeing how God prevented that plot voted this most loving and most loyal Wife to be impeached of High Treason for being faithful to do her uttermost endeavour which will be her everlasting praise to assist her most dear and Royal Husband their own Liege Lord and Soveraign King in his greatest extremities against a virulent mighty Faction of most malicious Traytors The strangest Treason that ever the World heard of 2. They made an Ordinance for the composing and convocating of such a Synod whereof I said somewhat before of Lay-men ignorant men factious men trayterous men and such concretion of heterogeneall parts like Nebuchadnezzars Image Gold Brass and Clay all mixed together and all so ordered limited and bridled as it is expressed in the 5. and 6. page of their Ordinance by the power of both Houses where there are such abundance of Schismaticall and seditious Members that I should scarce put the worst sensitive soul to professe that â—rratical faith or any brute beast to be guided by that Ecclesiastical Discipline that such factious Traytors as some of them are like to be proved should compose or cause to be composed 3. They composed a form of a sacred Vow or Covenant as they term it or as it is indeed the Covenant of Hell a Covenant against God to overthrow the Gospel of Christ under the name of Christ which Covenant is the oil that swimmeth uppermost upon the waters that is the oil of Scorpioâ—s or as Moses saith The poison of Dragons so lately wringed and diffused far and near to defile and destroy millions of souls when forgetting their faith to God and the oathes of their allegeance so often and so solemnly taken by many or most of them to be faithful unto their King they shall be compelled which is one degree worse than the vow of them that bound themselves with a curse neither to eat nor drink till they had killed Paul so hypocritically so perjuredly so rebelliously so horribly and so bloodily to make such a fearful Vow and such an abominable Covenant so wickedly contrived that without great and serious repentance spitteth forth nothing but fire and briâ—stone and can produce nothing else but Hell and Damnation to all that take it especially to them that will compell men to be thus transcendently wicked as if they would send them with Corah quick to Hell All which triplicity of evil I shall leave to some abler and more eloquent Pen to be set forth more fully in the right colours that being sufficiently displayed they may be throughly detested of all good men Amen O Lord have mercy upon us and incline our hearts to keep thy Laws THE CONTENTS Of the severall Chapters in the Plots of the Parliament Chap. I. SHeweth the Introduction the greatness of this Rebellion the originall thereof the secret plots of the Brownisticall Faction and the two cheifest things they aimed at to effect their plot Page 251. Chap. II. Sheweth the eager prosecution of our Sectaries to take off the Earl of Strafford's head How he answered for himself The Bishops right of voting in his cause His excellent virtues and his death p. 254. Chap. III. Sheweth how they stopped the free judgement of the Judges procured the perpetuity of the Parliament the consequences thereof And the subtile device of Semiramis p. 259. Chap. IV. Sheweth the abilities of the Bishops the threefold practice of the Faction to exclude them out of the House of Peers and all the Clergy out of all Civil Judicature p. 262. Chap. V. Sheweth the evil consequences of this Act How former times respected the Clergy How the King hath been used ever since this Act passed and how for three speciall Reasons it ought to be annulled p. 265. Chap. VI. Sheweth the plots of the Faction to gain unto themselves the friendship and assistance of the Scots To what end they framed their new Protestation How they provoked the Irish to rebell And what other things they gained thereby p. 270. Chap. VII Sheweth how the Faction was inraged against our last Canons What manner of men they chose in their new Synod And of six speciall Acts of great prejudice unto the Church of Christ which under false pretences they have already done p. 274. Chap. VIII Sheweth what Discipline or Church-government our factious Schismaticks like best Twelve Principal points of their Doctrines which they hold as 12. Articles of their faith and we must all believe the same or suffer if this Faction should prevail p. 270. Chap. IX Sheweth three other speciall points of Doctrine which the Brownists and Anabaptists of this Kingdom do teach p. 274 Chap. X. Sheweth the great Bug-bears that affrighted this Faction The four speciall means they used to secure themselves The manifold lyes they raised against the King And the two special Questions that are discussed about Papists p. 278. Chap. XI Sheweth the unjust proceedings of these factious Sectaries against the King Eight special wrongs and injuries that they have offered him Which are the three States And that our Kings are not Kings by Election or Covenants with the people p. 283. Chap. XII
or ignorantly neglected to ascribe unto him or else maliciously endeavoured as the most impudent and rebellious Sectaries of our time have most virulently done to abstract them from him And seeing the Crown is set upon the head of every Christian King and the Scepter of Government is put into his hand by a threefold Law 1. Of Nature that is common to all 2. Of the Nation that he ruleth over 3. Of God that is over all As 1. Nature teaching every King to governe his People according to the common Every Christian king established by a threefold Law Psal 119. rules of honesty and justice 2. The politique constitution of every several State and particular Kingdom shewing how they would have their government to be administred 3. The Law of God which is an undefiled Law and doth infallibly set down what duties are to be performed and what Rights are to be yielded to To what end the stories of the kings of Israel and Judah were written Rom. 15. 4. every King for whatsoever things are written of the Kings of Israel and Judah in the holy Scriptures are not onely written for those Kings and the Government of that one Nation but as the Apostle saith They are written for our learning that all Kings and Princes might know thereby how to govern and all Subjects might in like manner by this impartial and most perfect rule understand how to behave themselves in all obedience and loyalty towards their Kings and Governours for he that made man knew he had been better unmade than left without a Government therefore as he ordained those Laws whereby we should live and set down those truths that we should beleive so he settled and ordained that Government whereby all men in all Nations The ordination of our government as beneficial as our creation should be guided and governed as knowing full well that we neither would or could do any of these things right unless he himselfe did set down the same for us therefore though the frowardness of our Nature will neither yield to live according to that Law nor beleive according to that rule nor be governed according to that divine Ordinance which God hath prescribed for us in his Word yet it is most certain that he left us not without a perfect rule and direction for each one of these our faith our life and our government without which government we could neither enjoy the benefits of our life nor scarce reap the fruits of our faith and because it were as good to leave us without Rules and without Laws as to live by unwritten Laws which in the Unwritten things most uncertain vastness of this world would be soon altered corrupted and obliterated therefore God hath written down all these things in the holy Scriptures which though they were delivered to the People of the Jews for the government both of their Church and Kingdom yet were they left with them to be communicated for the use and benefit of all other Nations God being not the God of the Jews onely but of the Gentiles also because the Scripture in all morall Rom. 3 29. and perpetual precepts that are not meerly judicialia Judaica or secundae classis which the Royal Government was not because this was ordained from the beginning of the world to be observed among all Nations and to be continued to the end of the world nor the types and shadows that were to vanish when the true substance approached was left as a perfect patern and platsorme for all Kings and People Pastours and Flocks Churches and Kingdoms throughout the whole world to be directed how to live to govern and to be governed thereby Such was the love and care of God for the Government of them that love and care as little to be governed by government And therefore the dim and dusky light of bleare-ey'd Nature and the Every Government the better by how much nearer it is to the Government of the Scripture kings dark distracted inventions of the subtillest politicks must stoop and yield place in all things wherein they swerve from that strict rule of justice and the right order of government which is expressed necessarily to be observed in the holy Scripture either of the Kings part towards his People or of the Peoples duty towards their King And though each one of these faculties or the understanding of each one of these three Laws requireth more than the whole man our life being too short to make us perfect in any one yet seeing that of all three the Law of God is abyssus magna like the bottomless sea and the supreme Lady to whom all other Laws and Sciences are but as Penelopes handmaids to attend her service the Divine may far better and much sooner understand what is naturall right and The Divine is better able to understand Law then the Lawyer to understand Divinity Psal 1. 2. what ought to be a just nationall Law and thereby what is the Right of Kings and what the duty of Subjects than any either Philosopher or Lawyer can finde the same by any other art especially to understand the same so fully by the Law of God as the Divine that exerciseth himselfe therein day and night may do it unless you think as our Enthusiasts dream that every illiterate Tradesman or at least a Lawyers Latine I speak of the generality when I know many of them of much worth in all learning may easily wade with the reading of our English Bibles into the depth of all Divinity and that the greatest Doctour that spent all his days in studies can hardly understand the mysteries of these Camelion-like Laws which may change sense as often as the Case shall be changed either by the subtlety of the Pleader or the ignorance or corruption of the Judges But we know their deepest Laws discreetest Statutes and subtillest Cases cannot exceed the reach of sound reason and therefore no Reason can be shewed but that a rational man meanly understanding Languages may sooner understand them and with less danger mistake them than that Law which as the Psalmist saith is exceeding broad and exceedeth all humane sense Psal 119. 96. 1 Cor. 2. 14. and the most exquisite natural understanding when as the Apostle saith The natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God for they are foolishness unto him neither can be know them because they are spiritually discerned and being not discerned or misunderstood they make all such mistakers liable to no small punishment if God should be extreme to marke what is done amiss and this not understanding of God's Law is the errour of other Laws and the What causeth many men to rebell The Scriptures say more for the right of kings then any book in the world Downing in his discourse of the Ecclesiasticall State p. 91. August cause of much mischief for if men understood not the Law of God or would beleive us that
territoâ—ies of them that he subdued c. Esdras 1. 2. Esay 45. 1 2. Dan. 2. c 4. from their seat and given away their crownes and kingdomes unto others that were more humble and meek or some other way â—itter to effect his divine purpose as he did the kingdom of Saul unto David and Belshazzar's unto Cyrâ—s and this he doth most commonly by the power of the sword when the Conquerour shall make his strength to become the Law of justice and his ability to hold it to become his right of enjoying it for so he gave the Kingdoms of the earth to Cyrus Alexander Augustus and the like Kings and Emperours that had no other right to their Dominions but what they purchased with the edg of their swords which notwithstanding must needs be a very good right as the same cometh from God which is the God of war and giveth the victory unto Kings when as the Poet saith Psal 144. 10. Victrix causa Deo placuit And he deposeth his Vicegerents and translateth the government of their Kingdomes as he seeth cause and to whom he pleaseth 3. When either the Kings neglected their duty and omitted the care of 3. The right of elective kings and how they came to be elected their People so far as that the People knew not that they had any Kings or who had any right to be their Kings or upon the incursion of invading Foes the Nations being exceedingly multiplied and having no Prince to protect them did change the orderly course of right belonging unto the first-born which their rude and salvage course of life had obâ—â—â—erated from their minds unto the election and choice of whom they thought the better and the abler men to expel â—heir enemies and to maintain justice among themselves so the Medes being oppressed with the insolencies and rapines of enemies and the greater man said it cannot be that in this corruption and lewdness of manners we shall long enjoy our Countrey and therefore 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Let us appoint over us a King that our Land may be Herodot lib. 1. governed by good Lawes 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 And we turning our selves to our own affairs need not be oppressed by the rage and violence of the lawless and finding by their former experience of him that Deâ—â—ces was the justest man amongst them they â—hose him for his equity to be their King which is the first elective King that I do read of and Câ—â—ero saith Mihi quidem non apud Medos sâ—lùm sed â—tiam â—pud majorâ—s nostros Cicero in Oâ—â—ic pag. 322. justitiae fruendae causâ videntur olim benè morati râ—gâ—â— censâ—tuti even as Justin said before And when the People do thus make choice of their King it is most true which Roffensis and our most learned Divines do say that Licet Rossensis de potestate Papae fol. 283. communicatio potestatis quandoque sit per consensum hominum potestas tamen ipsa immediatè est à Deo cujus est potestas though the power be sometimes conferred by the consent of menâ— yet it is immâ—diately given from God whose power it is Et communitas nihil sui confert regibus saith Spalat nisi ad Spalat tem 2. 529. summum personam determinet potiùs personam applicat divinae potestati quà m divinam potestatem personae it à Winton Resp ad Matth. Tort. â—ol 384. saith Christâ— Domini non Christi pâ—puli â—â—nt But as their justice and goodness moved the People to exalt them to this Why kings were rejected by the people height of Dignity so either their own tyranny when change of place did change their manners or their Peoples inconstanâ—y that are never long pleased with their governours caused them to be deposed again and many times to be murdered by those hands that exalted them Then the People perceiving the manifold evils that slow from the want of How the Aristocracy and Democracy issued out of Monarchy government do erect other governments unto themselves and rather then they will endure the miserable effects of an Anarchy they resign their hurtfull liberty and their total power sometimes into the hands of â—â—w of the best of the flock which we call Aristocracy or optimacy and sometimes into the hands of many which we call Democracy or a popular state In all which Elections of Magistrates and resignations of the Peoples power voluntarily to the hands Each form of government lawfull of their governours call them what you will Senate Consuls Duke Prince or King thougâ— thoug I dare not any way reject any of them as a forme utterly disallowed and condemned of God yet comparing them together I dare boldly Democracy the worst kinde of Government say the farther men go from God's first institution the more corruption we shall finde in them and therefore it must needs follow that Democracy is the next degree to Anarchy and Aristocracy far worse then Monarchy for though it may seem very unreasonable that one man should have all the power toto liber in orbe Solus Caesar â—rit And many plausible reasons may be alleadged for the rule of the Nobles or of Inter partes plebemque certamina exercere modâ— turbulenti tribuni modò consules praevalidi in urbe ac foro tentamenta civilium bellorum mâ—x è plebe infiâ—a C. Marius nobilium saevissimus L. Sylla victam armis libertatem in dominationem verterunt Tac. l. 2. hist P. 16. usque 28. Prov. 28. 2. Ecclesiast 10. 16. Aug. de l. arbit l. 1. c. 6. the People yet the experience that the Roman State had in those miserable Civill Wars that so frequently and so extremely afflicted them after they had put down their Kings as when Caâ—â—s Marius the meanest of the Commonalty and Lucius Sylla the cruellest of all the Nobility destroyed their liberty and rooted out all property by their Civill faction and the assistance of an illegal Militia and a multitude of unruly voluntiers and the fatal miscarriages of many businesses and the bad successes of their Armies when both the Consuls went forth Generals together with the want of unity secrecy and expedition which cannot be so well preserved amongst many do sufficienty shew how defective these Governments are and how far beneath the excellency of Monarchy as it is most fully pâ—oved in the unlawfullness of Subjects taking up armes against their Soveraigne and more especially by the wisest of men that tells us plainly that for the transgressions of a Land many are the Princes thereof but by a man of understanding and knowledg the State thereof shall be prolonged and in another place he crieth Wo to that land whose king is but a childe either in knowledg or in years for that during his infancy and the want of ability the government will be managed by many others which can produce nothing else but woes to that Common-wealth and therefore
Where the Puritans place the authority to maintain religion 1 In the Presbytery which have neither right to own it nor discretion to use it and that is either 1. A Consistory of Presbyters or 2. A Parliament of Lay men For 1. These new Adversaries of this Truth that would most impudently take away from Christian Princes the supreamo and immediate authority under Christ in all Ecclesiastical Callings and Causes will needs place the same in themselves and a Consistorian company of their own Faction a whole Volume would not contain their absurdities falsities and blasphemies that they have uttered about this point I will onely give you a taste of what some of the chief of them have belched forth against the Divine Truth of God's Word and the sacred Majesty of Kings Master Calvin a man otherwise of much worth and Calvin in Amos cap. 7. worthy to be honoured yet in this point transported with his own passion calleth those Blasphemers that did call King Henry the eight the supreme Head of this Church of England and Stapleton saith that he handled the King himself Stapl. cont Horn. l. 1. p. 22. with such villany and with so spiteful words as he never handled the Pope more spitefully and all for this Title of Supremacy in Church causes and in his fifty fourth Epistle to Myconius he termed them prophane spirits and mad men that perswaded the Magistrates of Geneva not to deâ—rive themselves of that authority which God hath given them Viretus is more virulent for he How Viretus would prove the temporal Pope as he calleth the King worse then the spiritual Pope resembleth them not to mad men as Calvin did but to white Devils because they stand in defence of the Kings authority and he saith they are false Christians though they cover themselves with the clâ—ke of the Gospel affirming that the putting of all authority and power into the Civil Magistrates hands and making them masters of the Church is nothing else but the changing of the Popedome from the Spiritual Pope into a Temporal Pope who as it is to be feared will prove worss and more tyrannous then the Spirituall Pope which he laboureth to confirme by these three reasons 1 Reason 1. Because the Spiritual Pope had not the Sword in his own hand to punish men with death but was fain to crave the aid of the Secular power which the Temporal Pope needs not do 2. Because the old spiritual Popes had some regard in their dealings of Councils 2 Reason Synods and ancient Canons but the new Secular Popes will do what they list without respect of any Eâ—clesiastical Order be it right or wrong 2 Reason 3. Because the Romish Popes were most commonly very learned but it happeneth oftentimes that the Regal Popes have neither learning nor knowledg in divine matters and yet these shall be they that shall command Ministers and and Preachers what they list and to make this assertion good he affirmeth that he saw in some places some Christian Princes under the title of Reformation to have in ten or twenty years usurped more tyranny over the Churches in their Dominions then ever the Pope and his adherents did in six hundred years All which reasons are but meere fopâ—eries blown up by the black Devil to blast the beauty of this truth for we speak not of the abuse of any Prince to Viretus his scandalous reasons answered justifie the same against any one but of his right that cannot be the cause of any wrong and it cannot be denyed but an illiterate Prince may prove a singular advancer of all learning as Bishop Wickham was no great Scholler yet was he a most excellent instrument to produce abundance of famous Clerks in this Church and the King ruleth his Church by those Laws which through his royal authority are made with the advice of his greatest Divines as hereafter I shall shew unto you yet these spurious and specious pretexts may serve like clouds to T. C. l. 2. p. 411. hide the light from the eyes of the simple So Cartwright also that was our English firebrand and his Disciples teach as Harding had done before that Kings and Princes do hold their Kingdoms and Dominions under Christ as he is the Son of God onely before all Worlds coequal with the Father and not as he is Mediator and Governour of the Church and therefore the Christian Kings have no more to do with the Church government then the Heathen Princes so Travers saith that the Heathen Princes being converted to the saith receive no more nor any further encrease of their power whereby they may deale in Church causes then they had before so the whole pack of the Disciplinarians are all of the same minde and do hold that all Kings as well Heathen as Christian receiving but one Commission and equal Authority immediately from God have no more to do with Church causes the one sort then the other And I am ashamed to set down the railing and the scurrilous speeches of Anthony Gilby Gilby in his admonition p. 69 Knox in his exhortation to the Nobility of Scotland fol. 77. against Hen. 8. and of Knox Whittingham and others against the truth of the King 's lawful right and authority in all Ecclesiastical causes For were it so as Cartwright Travers and the rest of that crew do avouch that Kings by being Christians receive no more authority over Christ his Church then they had before * Which is most false yet this will appear most evident to all understanding men that all Kings as well the Heathens as the Christians are in the first place to see that their people do religiously observe the worship of that God which they adore and therefore much more should Christian Princes have a care to preserve the religion of Jesus Christ For it cannot be denyed but that all Kings ought to preserve their Kingdoms The Gentilee Kings preâ—ervers of religion and all Kingdoms are preserved by the same means by which they were first established and tâ—â—y are established by obedience and good manners neither shall you finde any thing that can beget obedience and good manners but Lawes and Religion and Religion doth naturally beget obedience unto the Lawes therefore most of those Kings that gave Lawes were originally Priests and as Synes ep 126. Vide Arnis part 2. pag. 14. Ad magnas reipubl utilitates retinetur religio in civitatibus Cicero de divin l. 2. Synesius saith 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a Priest and a Prince was all one with them when the Kings to preserve their Laws inviolable and to keep their people in obedience that they might be happy became Priests and exercised the duties of Religion offering sacrifices unto their Gods and discharging the other offices of the Priestly Function as our factious Priests could willingly take upon them the offices of the King or if some of them were not Priests
of Eâ—tyches Constantine the Fiâ—th called the sixth Synod against the Monothelites and so did many others in the like cases God having fully granted this right and autho ity unto them for their better information in any point of religion and the goverment of the Church And therefore they that deny this power unto Kings or assume this authority unto themselves whether Popes or Parliament out of the Kings hand they may as well take his eyes out of his head because this is one of the best helps that God hath left unto Kings to assist and direct them in the chiefest part of The unparallel'd presumption of the Faction to call a Synod without the king their royal government how presumptuous then and injurious unto our King and prejudicial to the Church of Christ was the factiâ—n of this Parliament without the Kings leave and contrary to his command to undertake the nomination of such a pack of Schismatical Divines for such a Synod as might finally determine such points of faith and discipline as themselves best liked of let all the Christian world that as yet never saw the like president be the Judge and tell us what shall be the religion of that Church where the Devil shall have the power to prompt worldlings to nominate his prime Chaplains Socinians Brownists Anabaptists and the refuse of all the refractory Clergy that seem The quality of the Synodical men learned in nothing but in the contradiction of learning and justifying Rebellion against their King and the Church to compose the Articles of our saith and to frame a new government of our Church I am even ashamed that so glorious a Kingdom should ever breed so base a Faction that durst ever presume to be so audacious and I am sorry that I should be so unhappy to live to see such an unparallel'd boldness in any Clergy that the like cannot be found in any Ecclesiastical History from the first birth of Christ's Church to this very day unless our Sectaries can produce it from some of the Vtopian Kingdoms that are so far South ward In terra incognita beyond the Torrid Zone that we whose zeal is not so fiery but are of the colder spirits could not yet perfectly learn the true method of their Anarchical government or if our Lawyers can shew us the like president that ever Parliament called a Synod contrary to the King's Proclamation I shall rest beholding to them produce it if they can Credat Judaeus apella non ego The third thing requisite to a King for the preservation of true religion and 3. An authority and power to guide the Church and to uphold the true religion the government of God's Church is power and authority to defent it for though the Prince should be never so religious never so desirous to defend the faith and never so well able in his understanding and so well furnished with knowledge to set down what Service and Ceremonies should be used yet if he hath not power and ability which do arise from his right and just authority to do it and to put the same in execution all the rest are but fruitless embryoes like those potentials that are never reduced into actions or like the grass upon Ps 1â—9 6. the house top that withereth before it be plucked up But to let you see that Kings and Princes should have this power and authority in all Ecclesiastical causes and over all Ecclesiastical persons we finde that all Ages and all Lawes have warranted them to do the same for Solomon displaced Abiathar and placed Sadoâ— in his room Jeremy's case was heard by the King 1. Reg. 2. 27. 35. Jerem. 26. How all kings and Emperors exercised this power oâ—er the Church of Israel Theodoâ—â—â—s and Valentâ—nian made a Decree that all those should be deposed which were infected with the impiâ—ty of Nestorius and Justinian deposed Sylverius and Vigilius and many oâ—her Kings and Emperours did the like and not onely the Law of God whereof the King is the prime keeper and the keeper of both Tables but also the Statutes of our Land do give unto our King the nomination of Bishops and some other elective dignities in the Church the â—ustody of the Bishops Temporalties during the vacation the Patronage Paramount or right to present by the last lapse and many other furtherances and preservatives of religion are in terminis terminantibus deputed by our Lawes unto the King and for his care and charge thereof they have setled upon him our first Fruits Tenths Subsidies and all other contributions of the Ecclesiastical persons which the Pope received while he usurped the government of this Church these things being due to him that had the supreme power for the government And therefore seeing the examples of all good Kings in the Old Testament and of the Christian Kings and Emperours in the New Testament and all Lawes both of God and man excepting those Lawes of the Pontificials that are made against the Law of God and all Divines excepting the Cassian de Incarn l. 1. c. 6. Jesuites and their sworn Brethren the Presbyterians do most justly ascribe this right and power unto Kings I may truly say with Cassianus that there is no place of audience left for them by whom obedience is not yielded to that which all have agreed upon nor any excuse for those Subjects that assist not their Soveraign to inable him to discharge this great charge that is laid upon him What then shall we say to them that pull this power and tear this prerogative out of the King's hand and place it in the hands of mad men as the Prophet epithets the madness of the people I or that furious Knox belched forth Psal 65. 7. How the Disciplinarians rob the king of this right Knox to the Commonalty fol. 49. 50 55. this unsavory Doctrine That the Commonalty may lawfully require of their King to have true Preachers and if he be negligent they themselves may justly provide them maintain them defend them against all that oppose them and detain the profits of the Church Livings from the other sort of Ministers a point fully practised by the English Scotizers of these dayes and as if this Doctrine were not seditious enough and abundantly sufficient to move Rebellion Goodman publisheth that horrible tenet unto the world that it is lawful to kill wicked Kings which most dangerous and more damnable Doctrine Dean Whittingham affirmeth to be the tenet of the best and most learned of them that were our Disciplinarians But when as true Religion doth command us to obey our Kings whatsoever their Religion is aut agendo aut patiendo either in suffering with patience whatsoever What true religion teacheth us they do impose or in doing with obedience whatsoever they do command Religion can be no warrant for those actions which must remain as the everlasting blemishes of that Religion which either commanded or approved of
their doing I am sure all wise men wil detest these Doctrines of Devils and seeing it is an infallible rule that good deserveth then to be accounted evil when it ceaseth to be well done it is apparent that it is no more lawful for private and inferiour persons to usurp the Princes power and violently to remove Idolatry or to cause any Reformation then it is for the Church of Rome by invasion or treason to establish the Doctrine of that See in this or any other forraign kingdome because both are performed by the like usurped authority Yet these were the opinions and practises of former times when Buchanan The old Disciplinarians Knox Cartwright Goodman Gilby Penry Fenner Martin Travers Throgmorton Philips Nichols and the rest of those introducers of Outlandish and Genevian Discipline first broached these uncouth and unsufferable tenets in our Land in the Realm of England and Scotland and truely if their opinions had not dispersed themselves like poison throughout all the veines of this Kingdom and infected many of our Nobility and as many of the greatest Cities of this Kingdome as it appeareth by this late unparallel'd rebellion these and the rest of the trayterous authours of those unsavory books which they published and those damnable tenets which they most ignorantly held and maliciously taught unto the people should have slept in silence their hallowed and sanctified Treason should have remained untouched and their memorial should have perished with them But seeing as Saint Chrysostome saith of the Hereticks of his time that although in age they were younger yet in malice they were equal to the antient Our rebellious Sectaries far worse then all the former Disciplinarians Hereticks and as the brood of Serpents though they are of less stature yet in their poyson no less dangerous then their dammes so no more have our new Sectaries our upstart Anabaptists any less wickedness then their first begetters nay we finde it true that as the Poet saith Aetas parentum pejor avis Tulit nos nequiores These young cubbs prove worse then the old foxes for if you compare the Wheles with the wolves our latter Schismaticks with their former Masters I doubt not but you shall finde less learning and more villany less honesty and more subtilty hypocrisy and treachery in Doctor Burges Master Marshal Case Goodwin Burrowes Calamy Perne Hill Cheynel and the rest of our giddy-headed Incendiaries then can be found in all the seditious Pamphlets of the former Disciplinarians or of them that were hanged as Penry for their treasons for these men do not onely as Sidonius saith of the like apertè invidere abjectè Sidon lib. epist fingere serviliter superbire openly envy the state of the Bishops basely forge lyes against them and servilely swel with the pride of their own conceited sanctity and apparent ignorance but they have also most impudently even in their pulpits slandered the footsteps of Gods Anointed and so brought the abomination of their transgression to stand in the holy place they haue with Achan troubled Israel and tormented the whole Land yea these three Kingdomes England Scotland and Ireland and for inciting provoking and incouraging simple ignorant poore For which their intolerable villanies If I be not deceived in my judgement they of all others above all the Rebels in the kingdom deserve the greatest and severest punishment God of Heaven give them the grace to repent discontented and seditious Secturies to be Rebels and Traytors against their own most gracious King they have not onely with Jerusalem justified Samaria Sodome and Gomorrah but they have justified all the Samaritanes all the Sodomites all the Schismaticks Hereticks Rebels and Traytors Papists and Atheists and all that went before them Judas himself in many circumstances not excepted and that which makes their doings the more evil and the more exceedingly wicked is that they make Religion to be the warrant for their evil doings the pack-horse to carry and the 〈◊〉 to cover all their treacheries and thereby they drew the greater multitudes of poore Zelots to be their followers And therefore seeing it is not onely the honour but also the duty as of all other Kings so likewise of our King to be as the Princes of our Land are justly stiled the Defenders of the Faith and that not only in regard of enemies abroad but also in respect of those far worse enemies which desire alteration at home it behoves the King to looke to these home-bred enemies of the Church and seeing the king though never so willing for his piety and religion never so What Gods faithful servants and the kings loyal Subjects must do in these times 1. To justifie the kings right able for his knowledge and understanding yet without strength and power to effect what he desires cannot defend the faith and maintain the true Religion from the violence of Sectaries and Traytors within his kingdome it hehoves us all to do these two things 2. To justifie the kings 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 his authority and right to the supreme Governour and defender of the Chuch and of Gods true religion and service both in respect of Doctrine and Discipline and that none else Pope or Parliament hath any power at all herein but what they have derivately from him which I hope we have sufficiently proved 2. To submit our selves unto our king and to add our strength force and 2. To assist Him against the Rebels power to inable his power to discharge this duty against all the Innovators of our Religion and the enemies of our peace for the honour of God and the happiness of this Church and Common-wealth for that power which is called the Kings power and is granted and given to him of God is not onely that Heroick virtue of fortitude which God planteth in the hearts of most noble Princes as he hath most graciously done it in abundant measure in our most gracious king but it is the collected and united power and strength of all his Subjects which the Lord hath commanded us to joyn and submit it for the assistance of the kings power against all those that shall oppose it and if we refuse or neglect the same then questionless whatsoever mischief idolatry barbarity or superstition shall take root in the Church and whatsoeuer oppression and wickedness shall impair the Common-wealth Heaven will free His Majesty and the wrath of God in no smal measure must undoubtedly light upon us and our posterity even as Debora saith of them that refused to assist Barac against his enemies Curse ye Meroz curse bitterly the Inhabitants thereof because they Jud. 5. 23. came not forth to helpe the Lord against the mighty CHAP. VIII Sheweth it is the right of Kings to make Ecclesiastical Lawes and Canons proved by many authorities and examples that the good Kings and Emperours made such Laws by the advice of their Bishops and Clergy and not of their Lay
Counsellours how our late Canons came to be annulled that it is the Kings right to admit his Bishops and Prelates to be of his Council and to delegate secular authority or civil jurisdiction unto them proved by the examples of the Heathens Jewes and Christians OUt of all this that hath been spoken it is more then manifest that the king ought to have the supreme power over Gods Church and the Government thereof and the greatest care to preserve true Religion throughout all his Dominions this is his duty and this is his honour that God hath committed not a people but his people and the members of his Son under his charge For the performance of which charge it is requisite for us to know that God hath granted unto him among other rights these two special prerogatives 1. That he may and ought to make Lawes Orders Canons and Decrees for the well governing of Gods Church Two special rights and prerogatives of the King for the government of the Church 1. To make Laws and Canons 2. That he may when he seeth cause lawfully and justly grant tolerations and dispensations of his own Laws and Decrees as he pleaseth 1. Not onely Solomon and Jehosaphat gave commandment and prescribed unto the chief Priests and Levites what form and order they should observe in their Ecclesiastical causes and methode of serving God but also Constantine Theodosius Justinian and all the Christian Emperours that were careful of Gods service did the like and therefore when the Donatists alleadged that secular Princes had nothing to do to meddle in matters of Religion and in causes Ecclesiastical Saint Augustine in his second Epistle against Gaudentius saith I Aug. l. 2. c. 26. have already proved that it appertaineth to the Kings charge that the Ninivites should pacifie Gods wrath and therefore the Kings that are of Christs Church do judge most truely that it belongeth to their charge to see that men Rebel not without punishment against the same because God doth inspire it into the Idem ep 48. ep 50. ad Bonifac mindes of Kings that they should procure the Commandments of the Lord to be performed in al their Kingdomes for they are commanded to serve the Lord in fear and how do they serve the Lord as Kings but in making Laws for Christ as man he serveth him by living faithfully but as King he serveth him in So they are called the kings Ecclesiastical Lawes making Laws that shal command just things and forbid the contrary which they could not do if they were not kings And by the example of the king of Ninive Darius Nebuchadnezzar and others which were but figures and prophesies that foreshewed the power duty and service that Christian kings should owe and performe in like sort to the furtherance of Christs Religion in the time of the New Testament when al kings shall fall down and Worship Christ and all Nations shall do him service he proveth that the Christian Psal 72. 11. Aug. cont lit Peul l. 2. c 92 Idem in l. de 12. abus grad grad 2. kings and Princes should make Laws and Decrees for the furtherance of Gods service even as Nebuchadnezzar had done in his time And upon the words of the Apostle that the king beareth not the sword in vain he proveth against Petilian that the power and authority of the Princes which the Apostle treateth of in that place is given unto them to make sharpe penall Lawes to further true religion and to suppress all Heresies and Schismes And so accordingly we finde the good Emperours and Kings have ever done The good Emperours have made Laws for the government of the Church Euseb in vita Constant l. 2. 3. for Constantine caused the idolatrous religions to be suppressed and the true knowledge of Christ to be preached and planted amongst his people and made many wholsome Lawes and godly Constitutions to restrain the sacrificing unto Idols and all other devillish and superstitious south sayings and to cause the true service of God to be rightly administred in every place saith Eusebius And in another place he saith that the same Constantine gave injunctions to the chiefe Ministers of the Churches that they should make speciall supplication to God for him and he enjoyned all his Subjects that they should keep holy certain dayes dedicated to Christ and the Sabboth or Saturday which was then wont to be kept holy and as yet not abrogated by any Law among the Christians he gave a Law to the Ruler of every Nation that they should celebrate Idem de vita Constant l. 1. 3. 4. c. 18. the Sunday or the Lords day in like sort and so for the dayes that were dedicated to the memory of the Martyrs and other festival times and all such things were done according to the ordinance of the Emperour Nicephorus writing of the excellent virtues of Andronicus son to Immanuel Niceph. in praefation Eccles bist Palaeologus and comparing him to Constantine the Great saith thou hast restored the Catholique Church being troubled with new opinions to the old State thou hast banished all unlawfull and impure doctrine thou hast established the truth and hast made Lawes and Constitutions for the same Sozomen speaking of Constantines sons saith the Princes also concurred to Sozomenus l 3. c. 17. the increase of these things 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 shewing their good affections to the Churches no less then their father did and honouring the Clergy their servants with singular promotions and immunities both confirming their fathers Lawes and making also new Lawes of their own against such as went about to sacrifice and to worship Idols or by any other means fell to the Greekish or Heathenish superstitions Theodoret tells us that Valentinian at the Synod in Illirico did not onely confirme the true faith by his Royall assent but made also many godly and sharpe Lawes as well for the maintenance of the truth of Christ his doctrine as also touching many other causes Ecclesiastical and as ratifying those things that were done by the Bishops 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 he sent abroad to them Theodor. l. c. 5 6 7. that doubted thereof Honorius at the request of Boniface the first made a Law whereby it might Distinct 7 9. siduo appear what was to be done when two Popes were chosen at once by the indiscretion of the Electors Martianus also made a Statute to cut off and put away all manner of contention about the true faith and Religion in the Councell of Calcedon The Emperour Justinus made a Law that the Churches of Heretiques should be consecrated to the Catholique Religion saith Martinus Poenitentiarius And who knowes not of the many Laws and Decrees that Justinian made in Ecclesiasticall causes for the furtherance of the true Religion for in the beginning of the Constitutions collected in the Code of Iustinian the first 13 titles are all filled with Laws for to rule
the Church where it forbiddeth the Bishops to reiterate baptisme to paint or grave on earth the Image of our Saviour L. 1. tit 5. L. 1. tit 7. Novel 123. c. 10. Novel 58. Novel 137. c. 6. And in the Novels the Emperour ordaineth Lawes of the creation and consecration of Bishops that Synods should be annually held that the holy mysteries should not be celebrated in private houses that the Bishops should speak aloud when they celebrate the Sacraments of Baptisme and the Eucharist and that the holy Bible should be translated into the vulgar tongue and the like And not onely these and the rest of the godly Emperours that succeeded them but also Ariamirus Wambanus Richaredus and divers other Kings of Spaine did in like manner And Charlemaigne who approved not the decisions of the Greekish Synod wrote a book against the same * Intituled A Treatise of Charlemaigne against the Greekish Synod touching Images whereby the King maintained himself in possession to make Lawes for the Church saith Johannes Beda of which Lawes there are many in a book called The capitulary Decrees of Charles the Great who as Pepin his predecessour had done in the City of Bourges so did he also assemble many Councils in divers places of his Kingdoms as at Mayns at Tours at Reines at Chaalons at Arles and the sixt most famous of all at Francfort where himself was present in person and condemned the errour of Felician and so other Kings of France and the Kings of our own Kingdom of England both before and after the Conquest as Master Fox plentifully recordeth did make many Lawes and Constitutions for the government of God's Church But as Dioclesian that was neither the best nor the happiest governour said The saying of â—â—oclesian most truly of the civil government that there was nothing harder then to râ—le well * That is to rule the Common-wealth so it is much harder to govern the Church of Christ therefore â—s there cannot be an argument of greater wisdome in a Prince nor any â—hiâ—g of greater safety and felicity to the Common-wealth then for him to make â—hâ—ice of a wise Council to assist him in his most weighty affaires saith Cornâ—lius Tacitus Tacitus Annâ— lib. 12. So all religious Kings must do the like in the government of the Church and the making of their Lawes foâ— that government foâ— God ouâ— of his great mercy to them and no less desire to have his people religiously governed left such men to be theiâ— supporters their helpers and advisers in the performance of these 〈◊〉 and â— pray you whom did Kings chuse for this business but whom Gâ—â— â—ad oâ—dâ—ned for that purpose for you may observe that although those Christian King and Emperours made their Lawes as having the supremacy and the 〈◊〉 â—â—r of 〈◊〉 â—eligion committed by God into their hands yet they dâ—d never make them that ever I could read with the advice counsel or direction of any of â—heir Peers or Lay Subjects but as David had Nathan and Gâ—◠〈◊〉 had Daniel and the rest of the Jâ—wish Kings and The good Kings Emperours made their Lawes for the government of the Church onely by the advâ—ce of their Clergy A good Law of Iâ—stinian Constit 123. Heathens had their Prophets onely and Priests to direct them in all matters of religion so those Chrâ—stian Kings and Princes took their Bishops and their Clergâ—e â—nâ—ly to be their counsellors and directors in all Church causes as it appeareth out of all the 〈◊〉 Authors and all the Histories that do write thereof and Justinian pâ—blishâ—d this Law that when any Ecclesiastical cause or matter was moved his Lay officers should not intermeddle with it but should suffer the Bishops to end the same according to the Canons the words are Si Ecclesiastâ—â—â—m negotium sit nullam communionem habento â—iviles magistratus cum â—a disceptatione sed religiosâ—ssimi Episcopi secundum sacros canones negotio finem imp nuntâ— â—or the good Emperour knew sull well that the Lay Senate neither â—nderstood what to determine in the points of faith and the government of Christ's Church nor was ever willing to do any great good or any special favour unto the Shepherds of Christ's flock and the â—eachers of the true religion because the Son of God had foâ—e-told it that the world should hate us that secular men and Lay Senatours should commonly oppose cross and shew all the John 15 19. Matth. 10. 16. spite they can unto the Clergy of whom our Saviour saith Behold I send you forth 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as sheep in the midst of wolves Whence this 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 great distance between their dispositions being observed it grew into a Proverb that Laici semper infesti sunt Clericis And Doctour Meriton In a Sermon before King James observed this as one of the good savours the How the Laity love the Clergy A very memorable act Anno 39 Eliz. cap. 4. Clergie of England found from our Parliaments since the reformation when many men first began to be translated from the seat of the scornefull to sit in Moses chaire aâ—d to prescribe Lawes for Christ his Spouse to make an Act that all wandering beggars after their correction by the Constable should be brought to the Minister of the Paâ—ish to have their names registred in a Book and the Constable used to give to the Minister 2d for his paines for every one so registred but if he refused or neglected to do it the Statute saith he should be punished sive shillings for every one that should be so omitted where besides the honourable office I will not say to make the Minister of Christ a Bedle of the Beggars but a Register of the vagrants you see the punishment of one neglect amounteth to the reward of thirty labours therefore all the Christian Emperours and the wisest Kings considering this great charge that God had laid upon them to make wholesome Lawes and Constitutions for the government of his Church and seeing the inclinations of the Laity would never permit any of these Lay Elders and the Citizens of the world to usurp this authority to be the composers contrivers or assistants in concluding of any Ecclesiastical Law until the fences of God's vineyard were pulled down and the That the Laity should have no interest in making Laws for the Church wilde Boar out of the forrest the audacious presumption of the unruly Commonalty ventured either to govern the Church or to subdue their Prince since which incroachment upon the rights of Kings it hath never succeeded well with the Church of Christ and I dare boldly say it fidenter quia fideliter and the more boldly because most truly the more authority they shall gain herein the less glory shall Christ have from the service of his Church and the efore Be wise ô ye Kings And consider how any new Canons are to be made by our
Statute 25 Hen. 8. Ob. But then it may be demanded if this be so that the Laity hath no right Ob. in making Lawes and Decrees for the government of God's Church but that it belongs whâ—lly unâ—o the King to do it with the advice of his Bishops and the rest of his Clergy then how came the Parliament to annul those Canons that were so made by the King and Clergy because they had no vote nor consent in confirming of them Sol. Truely I cannot answer to this Objection unless I should tell you what Sol. the Poet saith Dum furor in cursu currenti cede furori Dâ—fficiles aditus impetus omnis habet They weâ—e furiously bent against them and you know furor arma ministrat dum regnant arma â—lent leges all Lawes must sleeâ— while Armes prevaile besides you may finde those Canons as if they had been prophetically made fore-saw the increasing strength of Anabaptisme Brownisme Puritanisme most likely to subvert true Protestantisme and therefore were as equally directed against these Sectaries of the left hand as against the Papists on the right hand and I think the whole Kingdom now findes and feels the strength of that virulent â—action and therefore what wonder that they should seek to break all those Canons to pieces and batter them down with their mighty Ordinances for seeking to â—ubdue their invincible errours or else because as they say the Eâ—clesiâ—stical State is not an independent society but a member of the whole the Parliament â—â—s not so to be excluded as that their advice and approbation should not be required to make them obligatory to the rest of the Subjects of the whole Kingdom which claim this priviledge to be tyed to the observation of no humane Lawes that themselves by their representatives have not consented unto 2. As the King is intrusted by God to make Lawes for the government of 2. To grant dispensations of his own Lawes the Church of Christ so it is a rule without question that ejus est dispensare absolvere â—njus est condere he hath the like power to dispense with whom he pleaseth and to absolve him that transgresseth as he hath to oblige them therefore our Church being for reformation the most famous throughout all the parts of the Christian world and our King having so just an authority to do the same it is a most impudent scandal full of all malice and ignorance not to be endured by any well affected Christian that the new brood of the old Anabaptists do lay upon our Church and State that they did veâ—y unreasonably and unconscionably by their Lawes grant Dispensations both for Pluralities and Non-residency onely to further the corrupt desires of some few to the The scandals of the malicious ignorants against the worthier clergy infinite wrong of the whole Clergy besides the hazard of many thousands of souls the intolerable dishonour of Gods truth and the exceeding disadvantage of Christ his Church for seeing God hath principally committed and primarily commended the care of his Church and service unto Kings who are therefore to make Laws and Orders for the well governing of the same I shall make it most evident that they may as they have ever done most lawfully and more beneficially both for Gods Church and also for the Common wealth do these three things 1. To grant that grace and favour unto their Bishops and other Ecclesiastical Three special points handled persons as to admit them of their counsel and to undertake secular authority and civil jurisdiction 2. To allow dispensations of Pluralities and Non-residency which they may most justly and most wisely do without any transgression of the Law of God 3. To give tolerations where they see cause of many things prohibited by their Law to dispence with the transgressions and to remit the fault of the transgressours For 1. Though the world relapsed from the true light and declined from the sincere 1 Point Religion to most detestable superstition yet there remained in the people certain impressions of the divine truth that there was a GOD and that this The great respect of the Clergy in former ages Saravia l. 2. c. 2. p. 103. 1. Among the Gentiles Osor p. 231. De tota Syria Palestina refert Dion l. 37. quòd rex summi Pontificis nomen habeat Strabolib 2 Apud Tertul. advers Valent. Hermetem legimus appellari Mâ—x sacerdotem maximum regem Cicero l. 2. de legibus Diotogenes apud Sâ—obâ—d cit 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Aethiopeâ— reges suos del gebant er numero sacerdotum Diodor l 3. c. 1. Titus Vespas Pontificatum maximum iâ—ed sese professus est accipere ut puras servaret manus Sueton iâ— Tito cap. 9. In Aritia regnum erat concretum cum sicerdotio Dâ—anae ut innâ—it Ovid De arte amandi lib. 1. Ecce suburbanae templum nemorale Dianae Parâ—áqâ—e per gâ—adios regna nocente manu Strabo lib. 5. God was religiously to be worshipped and those men that taught the worship of that God how fowly soever they did mistake it were had in singular account and supereminent authority among all Nations and as Saravia saith they were compeers with Kings in their Government so that nothing was done without their counsel and consent and as Theseus was the first that Cives Atticos è pagis in uâ—bem compulit and put the difference betwixt Nobles Husbandmen and Artificers so the Priests were always selected out of the noblest families and were ever in all their publick counsels as the Divines sate among the Athenians and the South-sayers sate with the King among the Lacedemonians in all their weightiest consultations and Strabo tells us that the Priests of Bellona which were in Pontus and Cappadocia for that Goddess was honoured in both places were regarded with the greatest honour next to the King himself and the Romans that were both wealthy warlike and wise did almost nothing without the advice and counsel of their Priests I will omit what Valerius Maximus setteth down of their care of Religion and their great respect unto their Priests and religious persons and I will refer you onely to what Tully writeth of this point where he saith that the greatest and worthiest thing in their Common-wealth was the priviledge and preheminence of the Divines which was joyned with the greatest authority for they dismissed the companies and the Councels of the chiefest Empires and the greatest Potentates when they were proposed they restrayned them when they were concluded they ceased from the affaires which they had in hand if but one Divine did say the contrary they appointed that the Consuls should depose themselves from their Magistracy and it was in their intire power either to give leave or not to give leave to deale with the people or not to deal to repeal Laws not lawfully made and to suffer nothing to be done by the Magistrate in peace or war without
continue in labour and the Courtier cannot alwayes wait in the same posture nor the Scribe alwayes write nor the Divine alwayes Change of labour is a kinde of recreation study but there must be an exchange of his actions for the better performance of his chiefest imployment and that time which either some Gentlemen Citizens or Courtiers spend in playing hawking or hunting onely for their recreation the better to inable them to discharge their offices why may not the Divine imploy it in the performance of any other duty different but not destructive or contradictory to his more special function especially considering that the discharging of those good duties to give counsell to do justice to releive the distressed and the like are more acceptable recreations unto them as it was meate and drink to Christ to do his fathers will then the other fore-named John 4. 34. exercises are or can be to any others and considering also that where the Bishop or Pastor hath great affairs and much charge he may have great helpes and much aid to assist him You will allow us an hour for our recretion why will you not allow us that hour to do justice 2. If you say they are spirituall men and therefore cannot have so great a Ob. 2 care of the temporall State and Common-wealth I answer that as now the Common-wealth is the Church and the Church is Sol. 1. The ability of the Clergy to manage civil affaires Ignat. Epist ad Ephes 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Common wealth and have as good interest therein and better we hope then many of the Common-wealth have in the Church and they should be as able to understand what is beneficiall to the Common-wealth as any other for Ignatius saith that Kings ought to be served by wise men and by those that are of great understanding 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and not to be attended upon by weak and simple men and if Kings must be served by such men then certainly the service of God is not to be performed by Weavers and Taylors and others like Jeroboams Priests but it will require men of great abilities learning and understanding in all businesses whatsoever such as are indeed well able to discourse De quâ—â—â—bet ente And they have very unprofitably consumed themselves with their time in their head-pain vigilâ— and heart-breaking studies in traversing over all the Common-wealths of the world if they have learned nothing whereby they may benefit their own Common-wealth The Clergy of better abilities to benefit the Common-wealth then many others that now sway it or do understand less what belongeth unto the good of their Countrâ—y especially in matters of equity and right then illiterate Burgesses and meere Chapmen for if you read but the bookes of the Prophets you shall finde how plentifull they are in the precepts of peace in the policies of war and in the best counsels for all things which concern the good of the Common-wealth and do not the Divines read the Histories of all or most other Common-wealths how else shall they be inabled to propose unto their people the example of Gods justice upon the wicked and his bounty and favour unto the observers of his Lawes throughout all ages and in all places of this world and will deprive the King of the assistance of such instruments for the government The imployment of the Bishops in civil affaires is the good of the Common wealth of his people that are stronger then any one man can rule and would quickly despise Heaven and destroy the earth if their consciences were not awed with Religion or would you damme up the channels of those benefits that should flow from them to the Common-wealth for it is not the additon of any honour to the calling of a Bishop but the King's interest and the peoples good that is aimed at when we assert the capacity of the Clergy to discharge the offices of the most publique affaires because as Petrus Blesensis saith it is the Petrus Blesensis ep 84. office of the Bishops to instruct the King to righteousness to be a rule of Sanctity and sobriety unto the Court to mix the influencies of Religion with the designes of State and to restrain the malignity of the ill-disposed people and all histories do relate unto us that when pious Bishops were imployed in the King's Counsels the rigour of the Lawes was abated equity introduced the cry of the poor respected their necessities relieved the liberties of the Church preserved pride depressed religion increased the devotion of the Laity multiplied the peace of the Kingdom flourished and the tribunals were made more just and merciful then now they be And therefore the sacred histories do record of purpose how the people of God never adventured upon any action of weight and moment before they had well consulted with the Priests and Prophets as you see in the example of Ahab No Nation attempted any great matter without the advice of their Priests that was none of the best Kings yet would not omit this good duty and such was the custom of all other Countries wheresoever there was any religion or reverence of God Quae enim est respub ubi ecclesiastici primum non habeant locum in comitiis publicis de salute reipub deliberationibus for which is that Common-wealth where the Ecclesiastical persons had not the first place in all meetings and publique consultations about the welfare of the Common-wealth as in Germany the three spiritual Electours are the first in France the three Ecclesiastical persons were the first of all the Peers in England till this unhappy time the two Archbishops and in Poland as many were wont to have the chiefest place and not unworthily quia aequum est antestent in concilio Apud Euseb Pamphilum l. 11. Strabo l. 4. Caesar de bello Gallico lib. 6. qui antestant prudentiâ nec videtur novisse res humanas nisi qui divinas cognitas habet as the Indian said unto Socrates and therefore the Chaldaeans the Aegyptians the Graecians the Romanes the French and the Britons thought it alwayes ominous to attempt any notable thing in the Common-wealth without the sad and sage advice of their Priests and Prophets for they knew the neglect of God was never left without due revenge and though their false gods were no gods yet the true God was found to have been a sharp revenger of the contempt of the false gods because that to them they were proposed for the true gods and they believed them so to be as Lactantius sheweth and therefore all antiquity that bare any reverence to any Deity shewed all reverence and respect unto the teachers of his religion but now men desire to throw learning over the Bar because it should not discover the ignorance of the Bench or rather piety is excluded because it should not reprove their iniquity And the Clergy must not sit on the seat of
do because the God of Heaven that hath built his Church upon a rock and will not turn away his face from his Anointed will so bless our King that it shall never be with him as it was with Zedechia when it was not in hâ—s power to save Gods Prophet but said unto his Princes Behold he is in your Jeâ—em 28. 5. hand for the King is nâ—t he that can do any thing against you yet as Mordecai said to Hester God will send enlargement and deliverance unto his Church and Hester 4. 14. they and their fathers houses that are against it shall be destroyed because as Saint Peter saith we have forsaken all to become his servants that otherwise might have served Kings with the like hâ—nour that they do and we have left the world to build up his Church we put our trust under the shadow of his wings and being in trouble we do cry unto the Lord and therefore he will hear our cry and will helpe us and we sâ—all never be confounded Amen CHAP X. Sheweth that it is the Kings right to grant Dispensations for Pluralities and Non-residency what Dispensation is reasons for it to tolerate divers Sects or sorts of Religions the foure special sorts of false professors S. Augustines reasons for the toleration of the Jewes toleration of Papists and of Puritans and which of them deserve best to be tolerated among the Protestants and how any Sect is to be tolerated 2. WHereas the Anabaptists and Brownists of our time with what conscience 2. That the King may lawfully grant his dispensation for Pluralities and Non-residency I know not cry out that our Kings by their Lawes do unreasonably and unconscionably grant dispensations both for Pluralities and Non-residency onely to further the corrupt desire of some few aspiring Prelates to the infinite wrong of the whole Clergy the intolerable dishonour of our Religion the exceeding prejudice of Gods Church and the lamentable hazard of many thousand soules I say that the Pluralities and Non-residency granted by the King and warranted by the Lawes of this Land may finde sufficient reasons to justifie them In Anno 112. for if you consider the first limitation of Benefices that either Euaristus Bishop In Anno 636. of Rome or Dionysius as others thinke did first assigne the precincts of Parishes and appointed a certain compass to every Presbyter and in this Kingdome The first distribution of Parishes Honorius Arch-bishop of Canterbury was the first that did the like appointed the Pastorall charge and the portion of meanes accrewing from that compass to this or that particular person whereas before for many years they had no particular charge assigned nor any Benefice allotted them but had their Canonicall pensions and dividents given them by the Bishop out of the common stock of the Church according as the Bishop saw their severall deserts for at first the greater Cities onely had their standing Pastors and then the Countrey Villages imitating the Cities to allow maintenance according to the abilities of the inhabitants had men of lesser learning appointed for those places Therefore this limitation of particular Parishes being meerly positive and an Pluralities and Non-residency no transgression of Gods Law humane constitution it cannot be the transgression of a divine ordinance to have more Parishes then one or to be absent from that one which is allotted to him when he is dispenced with by the Law-maker to do the same for as it is not lawfull without a dispensation to do either because we are to obey every ordinance of the higher power for the Lords sake so for the higher power to dispence with both is most agreeable to reason and Gods truth for all our Gods Law admitteth an interpretation not a dispensation of it Lawes are either divine or humane and in the divine Law though we allow of interpretation quia non sermoni res sed rei sermo debet esse subjectus because the words must be applyed to the matter else we may fall into the heresie of those that as Alfonsus de Castro saith held it unlawfull upon any occasion to sweare because our Saviour saith sweare not at all yâ—t no man King nor Pope hath power to grant any dispensation for the least breach of the least precept of Gods Law he cannot dispence with the doing of that which God forbiddeth to be done nor with the omitting of that which God commandeth but in all humane Lawes so far as they are meerly positive and humane it is in Mans Law may be dispensed with the power of their makers to dispence with them and so quicquid sit dispensation superioris non sit contra praeceptum superioris and he sinneth neither against the Law noâ— against his own conscience because he is delivered from the obligation of that Law by the same authority whereby he stood bound unto it And as he that is dispensed with is free from all sin so the King which is the dispenser is as free from all fault as having full right and power to grant His dispensations â—or seeing that all humane Lawes are the conclusions of the Law of nature or the evidences of humane reason shewing what things are most benefiâ—iall to any society either the Church or Common-wealth and that experience â—eacheth us our reason groweth often from an imperfection to be more perfect when time produceth more light unto us we cannot in reason deny an abrogation and dispensation to all humane Lawes which therefore ought not to be like the Lawes of the Medes and Persians that might not be changed Aug. de libero arbit l. 1. and so Saint Augustine saith Lex humana quamvis justa sit commutari tamen pro tempore juste potest any humane Law though it be never so just yet for the time as occasion requireth may be justly changed dispensatio est juris communis relaxatio facta cum causae cognitione ab eo qui jus habet dispensandi Dispensation what it is and as the Civilians say a dispensation is the relaxation of common right granted upon the knowledge of the cause by him that hath the power of dispensing or as the â—tymologie of the word beareth dispensare est diversa pensare The reward of learning and vertue how to be rendered to dispense is to render different rewards and the reward of learning or of any other virtue either in the civill or the ecclesiasticall person being to be rendered as one saith not by an Arithmeticall but a Geometricall proportion and the division of Paâ—â—shes being as I said before a positive humane Law it cannot be denyed but the giver of honour and the bestower of rewards which is the King hath the sole power and right to dispose how much shall be given to this or that particular person If you say the Law of the King which is made by the advice of his whole Ob. Parliament hath already determined what
5. de dist dupl jurisdict saith that Kings are the highest and most paramount secular power and authority that ever God appointed on earth and denies that either the old or the new Testament makes any mention of an Emperour juris utriusque testimonia manifestè declarant imperialem dignitatem potestatem immediatè à filio Dei ab antiquo processisse said Philip King of France in Constit de potest elect Imperat. Irvin p. 33 34 35. â— quoteth many authors to confirme the same truth Lombard Gratian Melancthon Cranmer Tyndall and abundance more without number do likewise most peremptorily affirme that the Kings Power is the supreme power on earth and as the mirror of our time the Bishop of Winchester observeth the Scripture testifieth that their Throne their Crowne their Sword their Scepter their Judgement their Royalty their Power their Charge their Person and all in them are of God from God and by God to shew how sacred they are and ought to be unto us all and so the very Heathens teaching sounder Divinity then our Sectaries thought and said Homer Plutarch Ovid. Fast l. 5. Quia à jove nutriti ab eo regnum adeâ—ti sunt Scapula in verbo 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that Kings were 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Ministers of God and not the servants of the people Good God! what shall we say then to those children of Adam that will not onely with Adam be content to be like God but with Antichrist this 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 * Many-headed beast 2. The difficulty of Government 2. Things shewing the difficulty of Government as Plato calleth them wil exalt themselves above all that is called God they will devest the King and invest themselves with his right and therefore 2. This sheweth how difficult a thing it is to rule and govern this unruly aspiring and ambitious multitude for the fuller understanding of which difficult duty Osorius saith that two things are to be considered 1. Suscepti muneris amplitudo the greatness of the charge which is of that weight that we can scarce think of a greater in all our life the care of Church and Common-wealth and to rule millions of men far and neare 2. Gubernandorum qualitas the quality and conditions of those men that are to be governed which if there were nothing else to prove it will sufficiently shew the difficulty of their government for if it be a very hard thing to govern a mans selfe how much harder is it to govern such a multitude of mad men for Cicero saith the multitude is the greatest teacher of errour the unjustest judge of dignity being without counsell without reason without Cicero Tusc 3. de finibus lib. 2. Plutarch in Alcibiad judgement and Plutarch calleth them pessimam veritatis interpretem whereunto agreeth the answer of that Pope who being demanded what was furthest from truth answered populi sententia the opinion of the People and as they are the weakest for judgement so they are most instable in their resolutions to day crying Hosanna and to morrow Crucifige this is the nature of the People of whom these our Sectaries are the very dregs the worst and the basest Osorius his description of the factious Puritans most plainly seen verified in our Rebels of all I must crave leave to set down what Osorius saith of them long ago and you may finde that this rebellion proves his words most true for he saith the desire and end of this faction is too much liberty then which nothing can be more averse to the office and government of Kings for it is the duty of a King to cut off all haynous offences with just punishments the unbridled people desires to be free from all fear of punishment the King is the Minister of the Law the Keeper of it and the auenger of the transgression thereof the people as much as possibly they can with an impetuous temerity pulleth down all Laws the King laboureth to preserve peace and quietness the people with an untameable lust turmoileth and troubleth the peace of all men lastly the King thinkes not fit to distribute rewards and compensations indifferently to all men alike but the people desire to have all difference of worth and dignity taken away infima summis permisceri and to make the basest equal with the best whence it happeneth so that they hate all Princes and especially all Kings quos immani odio persequuntur whom they persecute with a deadly hate for they cannot endure any excellency or dignity and to that end they use all endeavour ut principes interimant vel saltem in turbam conjiciant either utterly to take away and destroy their Princes or to implunge them into a World of troubles which thing at first doth not appeare but when the multitude of furious men hath gathered strength then at last their impudent boldness being confirmed by daily impunity breaketh forth to the Osoriu in ep Reginae Elizabethae praefix l. de relig destruction of the royal Majesty And a little after he saith add to these things the abolition of Laws the contempt of Rule the hatred of royal Majesty and the cruel lying in wait which they most impiously and nefariously do endeavour for their Princes add also their clandestine and secret discourses where their confederacies are made for the extirpation of their Kings and to plot with unspeakable mischief the death of them whose health and safety they ought most heartily to pray to God for and then he addeth cum immodica libertatis cupiditate Pagina 24. 25. rapiantur leges oderunt judiciâ— detestantur regum majestatem extinctam cupiunt ut licentiùs impuniùs queant per omnia libidinum genera vagari and this is most manifest saith he all their endeavours ayme at this end that Princes being taken away they may have an uncontroulabâ—e leave and liberty to commit all kinde of villanies and to that purpose they have poysoned some kings Revera mihi videtur esse ars artium ho minem regere qui certè est inter omnes animantes maximè moribus varius voluntate diversus Nazian in Apol. and killed others with the sword and to root out all rule Consilia plena sccleris inierunt they are full of all wicked counsels And therefore this being the condition of the people as the Scripture sheweth plainly in the Jews by their continual Rebellions and murmurings against Moses and Aaron and we see it as plainly in our own time when our people hath confirmed all that this Bishop said it is not an easie matter to govern such an unruly people But we finde that the rod of Government is a miraculous rod that being in Moses hand was a fair wand but cast unto the ground turned to be an ungly and a poysonous Serpent to shew that the people being subject to the hand of Government is a goodly thing
professed in Q. Elizabeth's times that was established by the Lawes justified by the paines and confirmed by the bloud of so many worthy men and faithful Martyrs but a new religion first hatched in Amsterdam then nourished in New-England and now to be transplanted into this Kingdom 3. Who are the persons that are imployed in this war he first of all that 3. Meet Members is the more disloyal because he was a person of honour that had so much honour conferred upon him by His Majesty and so much trust reposed in him and would notwithstanding prove so unthankful as to kick with his heeles against his Master and so follow whom you know passibus aequis whose example any other man that were not rob'd of his understanding would make a remora to retain him from rebellion and what are the other heads but a company either of poor needy and mean condition'd Lords and Gentlemen Who the Rebels are and what manner persons they be or discontented Peers that are misled or such factious Sectaries whose blind zeal and furious malice are able to hurry them headlong to perpetrate any mischief for their Captains and their Officers I believe they fight neither for the Anabaptists creed nor against the Romane faith nor to overthrow our Protestant Church but for their pay for which though they cannot be justified to take their hire for such ill service to rebel against their King and to murder their innocent brethren Yet are they not so bad as their grand Masters and for their common Souldiers I assure my self many of them fight against their wills many seduced by their false Prophets others inticed by their factious Masters and most of them compelled to kill their brethren against their wils and therefore in some places though their number trebled the Kings yet they had rather run away then fight and what a miserable and deplorable case is this when so many poor soules shall be driven unto the Devil by Preachers and Parliament against their wills 4. If you consider quâ authoritate by what authority they wage this war 4. The supreme authority they will answer by the Authority of Parliament and that is just none at all because the Parliament hath not the supreme authority without which the war is not publique nor can it be justified for a war is then justifiable when there is no legal way to end the controversie by prohibiting farther appeales which cannot be but onely betwixt independent States and several Princes that Albericus Gentilis de jure belli l. 1. c. 2. Subjects can never make a lawful war against their King have the supreme power in their own hands and are not liable to the censure of any Court which power the Parliament cannot challenge because they are or should be the King 's lawful Subjects and therefore cannot be his lawful enemies but they will say Master Goodwin Burroughs and all the rest of our good men zealous brethren and powerful Preachers do continually cry out in our eares it is bellum sanctum a most just and holy war a war for the Gospel and for our Lawes and Liberties wherein whosoever dies he shall be crowned a Martyr I answer that for their reward they shall be indeed as Saint Augustine saith of the like Martyres stultae Philosophiae when every one of them may Res dura ac plena pericli est regale occidisse genus be indicted at the bar of God's justice for a felo de se a Malefactour guilty of his own untimely death and for their good Oratours that perswade them to this wickednesse I pray you consider well what they are men of no worth rebellious against the Church Rebels against the King factious Schismaticks of In what condition their Preachers are and of what worth no faith of no learning that have already forfeited their estates if they have any and their lives unto the king and will any man that is wise hazard his estate his life and his soul to follow the perswasions of these men my life is as deare to me as the Earle of Essex his head is to him and my soul dearer and I dare ingage them both that if all the Doctors in both Vniversities and all the Divines within the kingdome of England were gathered together to give their judgement of this War there could not be found one of ten it may be as I beleive not one of twenty that durst upon his conscience say this war is lawful upon the Parliament side for though these Locusts that is the German Scottish It is contrary to the doctrine of all the Protestant Church for Subjects to resist their king and the English puritane agreeing with the Romane Jesuite ever since the reformation harped upon this string and retained this serpentine poison within their bosome still spitting it forth against all States as you may see by their bookes Yet I must tell you plainly this doctrine of Subjects taking up armes against their lawful King is point blanck and directly against the received doctrine of the Church of England and against the tenet of all true Protestants and therefore Andreas Rivetus Professor at Leyden writing against a Jesuite Paraeus in Rom. 13. Boucher l. 2. c. 2. Kecâ—erm Syst pol. c. 32. Jun. Bruâ— q. 2. p. 56. Bellar. de laic c. 6. Suar. de fid cathol c. 3. Lichfield l. 4. 19. sect 19. Field l. 5. c. 30. that cast this aspersion upon the Protestants that they jumpe with them in this doctrine of warring against and deposing kings saith that no Protestant doth maintain that damnable doctrine and that rashness of Knox and Buchanan is to be ascribed praefervido Scotorum ingenio ad audendum prompto Juel and Bilson and all the Doctors of the Church are of the same minde and Lichfield saith no Orthodox father did by word or writing teach any resistance for the space of a thousand yeares and Doctor Field saith that all the worthy fathers and Bishops of the Church perswaded themselves that they owed all duty unto their kings though they were Hereticks and Infidels and the Homilies of the Church of England allowed by authority do plainly and peremptorily condemne all Subjects warring against their King for Rebels and Traytors that do resist the ordinance of God and procure unto themselyes damnation and truely I beleive most of their own consciences tell them so and they that thinke otherwise I would have them to consider that if they were at a banquet where twenty should aver such a dish to be full of poyson for every one that would warrant it good would'st thou venture to eate it and hazard thy life in such a case O then consider what it is to hazard thy soule upon the like termes So you see the justness of the War on the Parliament side But. 1. On the Kings side it cannot be denied but his cause is most just for his own defence for the maintenance of the
servatorem esse justum that a King must preserve his people by justice as Clemens Alexand. expoundeth it because as Theognis pag. 431. saith 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 justice is that virtue which comprehend all virtues in it self and therefore Solomon saith that the Kings throne is established by righteousnesse and justice exalteth a Nation making it to flourish and Prov. 16. 12. c. 14. 34. Injustice destroyeth Kingdomes famous and justice destroyeth the people when a Kingdome is translated from nation to Nation because of unrighteousnesse the same being as it was said of Carthage fuller of sins then of people as you see the Monarchy of the Assyrians was translated unto the Medes and Persians and the most famous repub of the Romanes was spoiled when forgetting their pristine honesty they became unjust Lucan l. 1. Mensuráque juris Vis erat And the Law was measured by strength and he had the best right which was most powerful and so the ancient nation of the Britons came to utter ruine and destruction propter avaritiam principum injustitiam judicum negligentiam Episcoporum luxuriam populi saith Gildas Ezechiel 33. 11. and 18. 22. Judges 17. 6. Dan. 2. 21. 37. 1 Chron. 2. 84. 1 Sam. 10. 1. 1 Reg. 19 15. Romans 13. 4. Tertul. ad Scap c. 2. Optâ—t cont Parmen l. 3. p. 8. 5. Auson in Monosyll Et id possumus quod jure possumus Chrysost ad Pop. Antioch hom 2. Ambros apol pro Davide c. 4. c. 10. Aug. de civit l. 4. c. 33. Greg. epis l. 2. ep 110. Autor libelli cui inscriptio bre vis narratio quomodo Hen. 4. And therefore God that desireth not the death of a sinner much lesse the ruine of any Nation would have us to seeke for justice and to live uprightly one among another but as the sheepe that are without a shepheard wander where they list so as you read often in the booke of Judges when the people were without a King there was no justice amongst them but every man did that which was right in his own eyes therefore to prevent oppressions and wrongs God out of his infinite love and favour unto mankind from the beginning of the World called and appointed Kings to be his Vicegerents to judge the earth and to see that the poore and the fatherlesse have right for besides many other places that might be alleadged the Spirit of God saith directly ego dixi Dii estis and by me Kings do reign that is by my appointment by my direction and by my protection they do and shall rule and reign over my people as Tertull. Optat. Saint Chrysost St Ambrose St Aug. Saint Gregory and the rest of the most Orthodox Fathers have ever taught and maintained and therefore this is not inventum humanum as the Puritans have dreamed and the Popes flatterers have maintained but it is an ordination of God that we have Kings given unto us not to domineere and to satisfy their untamed wills and sensual appetites but to administer justice and judgement unto their people and so to guide them to live in all peace and tranquillity for as Auson saith Qui rectè faciet non qui dominatur erit Rex And therefore Plinius Secundus in his panegyricks saith ut foelicitatis est posse quantum velis sic magnitudinis est velle quantum possis bonitatis facere quantum justum as it is a great felicity to be able to do what we will so it is a most heroick resolution to will no more but what we should and to do nothing Bellar. de laic c. 5. Rhem. anno 1 Pet. 2. 23. De la Cerda in Virgil. l. 1â— p. 560. c. Herod l. 2. but what is just Claudian saith to Honorius Nec tibi quid liceat sed quid fecisse decebit Occurrat mentémque domet respectus honesti and so Homer saith that Sarpedon preserved Licia 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 through justice and fortitude whereupon the old Scholiast citeth the words of Aeschilus 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that virtue and justice are ever coupled together and Dio. Chrysost saith 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 he is the best of men that is the most valiant and most just Orat. 2. and Herodian saith of Pertinax that he was both loved and feared of the Barbarians Plut. in vit Cicero 2. orat in Anton. Ovid. Met. 6. Suet. de act c. 2 as well for the remembrance of his virtues in former battels as also 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 because that wittingly or willingly he never did injustice to any man at any time Plutareh ascribeth these virtues to Lucullus and to Paulus Aemilius Cicero saith the like of Pompey Ovid. of Erictheus Suetonius of Octavius Augustus his father Virgil of Aeneas Krantius of Fronto king of the Danes and of our late king James of famous and ever blessed memory we may truly say Cui pudor justitiae soror Incorrupta fides nudáque veritas Quando ullum invenient parem Horat. lib. 1. Od. 26. Neither need I blush to apply the same to our present King So you see how Justice exalteth a Nation commends the doers of it and crownes them with all honour and as the Poet saith 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 he that worketh justly shall have God himself for his Co-adjutor But here you must observe that which indeed is most true 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 He is not a just man that doeth no hurt but he that is able to do hurt and Who rightly termed just will not do it that can be unjust and will not be for it is no great matter to see a poore man that hath no ability to do no wrong but it is hard to use power right even in the meanest office and therefore this is that that is to be urged to be then most just when we have most power to offend which most properly doth belong to all kings and Princes to put them in minde of their duties to what end God hath made them kings for they are but base flatterers quibus omni a principum honest a atque inhonesta laudare mos est that Tacit. annal l. 3. Plut. in Apotheg Eustath ad Iliad β. Sulust in Orat. Cas cont Catil will commend all the doing of Princes be they good or bad and which say 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 all things are honest and just that kings do as that flattering sycophant said to Antigonus or like those Chirodicai 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 who thinke justice lyeth not in the Lawes but in their hands because as Caesar saith in maxima fortuna minima licentia est the higher their places are the more righteous they ought to be and the lesse liberty of sinning is left unto them and that in respect 1 of God 2. of others 3. of themselves 1. Where God hath conferred much honour there he exspecteth much equity Kings ought to be more just then all others in
Caesar's that is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which the Greekes take promiscuously though the Civilians distinguish them de solo fundo de bonis mobilibus de mercibus of our grounds of our goods of our merchandize we ought to pay subsidies aid and tribute unto our King and that not sparingly nor by way of benevolence as if it were in our power to do it or not to do it sed ex debito but as his due jure divino regulâ— justitiae as his proper importance annexed unto his Crown for I take it infallibly true which Suarâ—z saith acceptationem Suarez de leg l. 5. c. 17. n. 3. sol 316. Tribute due to the King populi non esse conditionem necessariam tributi ex vi juris naturalis aut gentium neque ex jure communi quia obligatio pendendi tributum it à naturalis est principi per se orta ex ratione justitiae ut non possit quis excusari propter apparentem injustitiam vel nimium gravamen the consent of the people is not any necessary condition of tribute because the obligation of paying it is so natural springing out of the reason of justice that none can be excused for any apparent injustice or grievance and therefore the Parliaments that are the highest representations of any Kingdome do not contribute any right unto Kings to challenge tribute but do determine the quota pars and to further the more equal imposing and collecting of that which is due unto Kings by natural and original justice as a part of that proper inheritance which is annexed unto their Crownes And therefore our Saviour doth not say give unto Caesar but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the same word which S. Paul useth when he biddeth us to pay Matth. 22. Rom. 13. Latimer in Mat. 22. 21. our debts and to owe nothing to any man saying 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 pay to every man that which you owe and Father Latimer saith if we deny him tribute custome subsidie tallage taxes and the like aid and support we are no better then Theeves and steale the kings dues from him because Navar. apud Suarez de legibus sol 300. sol 311. the Law testifieth tributa esse maximè naturalia praese ferre justitiam quia exiguntur de rebus propriis and Suarez saith penditur tributum ad sustentationem principis ad satisfaciendum naturali obligationi in dando stipendium justum laborauti in nostram utilitatem tribute is most naturall and just to be paid to the king for our own good therefore Christ pleading for the right of Caesar that was a Tyrant saith not give unto him quia petit because he demands it but pay unto him quae illius sunt the things that are his and are due unto him even as due as the hirelings wages which we are commanded not to detain for Deut. 24. 15. one night because this is a part of that reward and wages which God alloweth him for all his pains and cares that he takes to see Justice administred in the time of Peace and to protect us from our enemies in the time of War which makes the life of kings to be but a kind of splendid misery wearing many times with Christ a Crown of Thornes a Crown full of cares while we lap our heads in beds of downe and therefore it is not only undutifulnesse to deny him or unthankefulnesse not to requite the great good that he doth unto us but it is also a great injustice especially if we consider that as Ocham saith Qui est dominus aliquarum personarum est Dominus rerum ad easdem personas spectantium omnia quae sunt in regno sunt regis quoad potestatem utendi eiâ— pro bono communi Ocha tract 2. l. â— c. 22. 25. to detain that right from him which God commands us to pay unto him and that indeed for our own good as Menenius Agrippa most wittily shewed unto the People of Rome when they murmured and mutined for these taxes that whatsoever the stomach received either from the hand or mouth it was all for the benefit of the whole body so whatsoever the King receiveth from the People it is for the benefit of the people and it is like the waters that the Sea receiveth from the Rivers which is visibly seen passing into the Ocean but invisibly runneth through the veines of the earth into the Rivers again so doth all that the King receiveth from the People return some way or other unto the People again And there be six speciall reasons why or to what end we should pay these dues unto the King 1. For the Honour of his Majesty Six reasons for which we pay Tribute unto the king 2. For the security of his Person 3. For the protection of his Kingdome 4. For the succour of his confederates 5. For the securing of our 1. Goods 2. Estates 3. Lives 6. For the propagating of the Gospel and defence of our Religion But for the further clearing of this point you must know that every just and Lawfull tribute must have these three essential conditions that are proprietates constitutivae 1. Legitima potestas that is the Kings power to require it Three conditions of every lawfull Tribute 2. Justa causa an urgent necessity or need of it 3. Debita portio a due proportion according to the Kings necessities and the peoples abilities that he be not left in need nor the people overcharged For As the Subjects are thus bound to supply the necessities of their King so the King is not to over-charge his Subjects for the King should be the Shepheard of his People as David calls himself and Homer tearmeth all good Kings and not the devourer of his people as Achilles calleth Agamemnon for the unreasonable Kings should not overcharge their Subjects taxes that he laid upon them therefore good Kings have been very sparing in this point for Darius inquiring of the Governours of his Provinces whether the tributes imposed upon them were not too excessive and they answering that they thought them very moderate he commanded that they should raise but the one half thereof which had Rehoboam bin so wise to do he had not lost A worthy speech of Lewis 9. ten parts of his Kingdome and Lewis the ninth of France which they say was the first that raised a tax in that Kingdome directing his speech to his Son Philip and causing the words to be left in his Testament which is yet to be found Registred in the chamber of accounts said be devout in the service of God have a pittifull heart towards the poore and comfort them with thy good deeds observe the good Lawes of thy Kingdome take no taxes nor benevolences of thy Subjects unlesse urgent necessity and evident commodity force thee to it and then upon a just cause and not usually if thou doest otherwise thou shalt not be accounted a king but a
of their doings 12. They averre that the King hath no negative voice in making Lawes but they may conclude them and make them obligatory without the Kings approbation or ratification and that they may do any thing conducible to the good of the Church and Common-wealth any Law Statute or provision made to the contrary notwithstanding 13. They are not ashamed to teach as they do practice that it is lawfull for What they say of their Covenants them to make Covenants Combinations and Confederacies of mutuall defence and offence against any person whatsoever whom themselves judge malignant not excepting the King himselfe and they say that it were better for them to renounce their Baptisme then to forsake their Covenant which they believe will be more advantageous to the Kingdome then all the Priviledges that are granted in Magna Charta or the Statutes that have been made ever since 14. They jeered at the Kings Proclamations trampled his Declarations under feet and incountred the same with rebellious Protestations 15. They perswade the people to give no eare to any discourse of Accommodation To what they liken the kings pardons or conclusion for any peace and say that the King is not to be trusted that he will performe no promise that he maketh either in his Proclamations or Declarations and therefore that the Kings Pardons may be likened to a buckler of glasse or a staffe of reede on which there is no trust no committing themselves to the defence of any such pardon So we may say with the Poet Nos juvat alma quies gens haec fera bella minatur Et quoties pacem poscimus arma crepat 16. They teach the Doctrine of coercion dedignifying degrading and decapitating Whence they learned their Divinity of Kings when they deeme them unworthy of that dignity and their arguments and reasons they collect and produce out of Dâ—lman Bellarm. Suarez and the Magazine of the most rigid Jesuites 17. They have so barbarously so irreverently and so prophanely abused our Service-Bâ—â—k that it would â—ath your â—ares to heare transcend modesty to tell you how they have dealt with it and they threatned that if the Ministers would read it they should never read book again 18. They do agree with the worst of Papists the Jesuites in a great many of How contrary to 〈◊〉 doctrine Matth. 13. 19. they would root out all Papists the worst points of doctrine that they teach and yet being not well able to understand their tenets they hate Papists so much that they would root them out of their very being they would destroy all the Irish that are Papists and dâ—ive all Papists out of England out of the world that the name of Papists should be no more in remembrance and contrary to all reason diâ—inity and humanity they would force and compell every man to profess the Religion that they are of though some of them as their independents are far on the other side would have every man to have liberty to profess what Religion himselfe liketh best 19. They have most ingratefully and disloyally injured a most loving wife How they have wronged the Queen the Nobility Clergy Gentâ—y and Commons of this Land and their owne most gracious Queen for shewing Her love and discharging Her duty to Her husband They have imprisoned and barbarously used some of the Nobility most of the Clergy and abundance of the Gentry and others of the best account of the common Subjects of this Kingdom they have plundered and robbed many thousands of men they have killed and murdered as many they have made our Cities dens of theeves our Churches prisons and all the Land Aâ—heldama's fields of blood they multiplyed the number of Widowes Orphanes and Theeves without number throughtout the Land and they filled the whole Kingdome with miseries lamentations and woes and they have done so many mischiefes as if I should set them all down would fill up another volume And 20. As if all this were not enough to fill up the measure of their iniquity they How they laboured to call in the Scots spared neither pains nor cost to call in the Scots to assist them to perpetuate the War to fill our Kingdome with strangers and to make our calamities everlasting so they fell from evil to worse from discontent to schisme from schisme to open Rebellion and their Rebellion more wicked then any Rebels that we can reade of in any History which is the just judgment of God upon them that they which rebelliously run out of the Communion of Gods Church should most dâ—sperately run out of their own wits and refusing to be guarded by the Heavenly Angels should give themselves to be guided by the infernall Divels which made a merry fellow at the enumeration of their abhominable and indeed innumerable wickednesses to say Hell was never better then it is now because he thought the Divels were all in London or otherwise it were impossible that the The speech of a merry companion Citâ—zâ—ns which have received so many gracious offers of pardons from His Majesty and promises of other favours should still continue so wicked as they are so gulled and seduced by this Parliament faction that non suadâ—biâ— etiam si persuaseris because as S. Augustine saith impiamens nolit intellectum and they love to câ—zâ—n and cheat their own souls by new painting these old sins and calling their faction faith their madnesse zeale and their horrid Rebellion fighting for Religion but as the Poët saith Non tantiest civilia bella movere Whatsoever pretences move them to it this remedy will increase their miseries for if God be no more mercifull to us then their sin deserves it may end here in an universal destruction and hereafter in their eternall damnation for both not all the world see how God scourgeth us with the rod of our own furious madnesse and like as it befell the Ammonites and Moabites that fighting against the 2 Chron 20. 23. Israelites did help to destroy one another so we striving not against Israel but as we pretend both against the Edomites against falshood doe utterly destroy our selves Exempióque pari ruit Anglica turba suóque Marte cadunt coesi per mutua vulnera fratres And we that did keep our enemies in awe shall be now destroyed by the sons of our own mother but I confesse our Land abounds with sâ—ns and our sins have justly deserved this heavy punishment to light upon us yet I beseech our God to chastise us with his own hands and let us not â—all under the swords of the uncircumcised Philistines that are a people much more wicked then our selves and if he will let our soules live we shall praise his name 21. When they had most fraudulently gotten His Majesty to pâ—sse an Act which though really intended yet to many men seems a very strange Act to How they intended to get all Ireland to themselves refer the managing
with us to the comfort of our King and the glory of our God through Jesus Christ our Lord To whom with his Father and the Holy Spirit be all honour thanks prayse and dominion for ever and ever Amen Amen Jehovae liberatori FINIS Errata PAge â— lin 35. dele not p. 5. l. 50. for make r. made p. 9. l. 23. for hand r. had p. 27. l. 53. dele can p. 39. l. 25. r. right to be p. 51. l. 54. r. this day p. 54. l. 37. dele and p. 61. l. 21. r. that denyed repentance p. 62. l. â—â— r. the same hope p. â—5 l. 18. for justice r. injustice p. 106. l. 49. for ye r. yet The Contents of the severall Chapters contained in the RIGHTS of KINGS CHAP. I. Sheweth who are the fittest to set down the Rights which God granted unto Kings what causeth men to rebell the parts considerable in S. Peter's words 1 Pet. 2. 17. in fine How Kings honoured the Clergy the faire but most false pretences of the refractary Faction what they chiefly ayme at and their malice to Episcopacy and Royalty Pag. 1 CHAP. II. Sheweth what Kings are to be honoured the institution of Kings to be immediately from God the first Kings the three chiefest rights to kingdoms the best of the three Rights how Kings came to be elected and how contrary to the opinion of Master Selden Aristocracy and Democracy issued out of Monarchy 7 CHAP. III. Sheweth the Monarchicall Government to be the best forme the first Government that ever was agreeable to Nature wherein God founded it consonant to Gods own Government the most universally received throughout the world the immediate and proper Ordinance of God c. 11 CHAP. IV. Sheweth what we should not do and what we should do for the King the Rebels transgressing in all those how the Israelites honoured their persecuting King in Egypt how they behaved themseves under Artaxerxes Ahashuerus and under all their own Kings of Israel c. 17 CHAP. V. Sheweth how the Heathens honoured their Kings how Christ exhibited all due honour unto Heathen and wicked Kings how he carried himself before Pilate and how all the good Primitive Christians behaved themselves towards their Heathen Persecuting Emperours 23 CHAP. VI. Sheweth the two chiefest duties of all Christian Kings to whom the charge and preservation of Religion is committed three several opinions the strange speeches of the Disciplinarians against Kings are shewed and Viretus his scandalous reasons are answered the double service of all Christian Kings and how the Heathen Kings and Emperours had the charge of Religion 27 CHAP. VII Sheweth the three things necessary for all Kings that would preserve true Religion how the King may attain to the knowledge of things that pertain to Religion by His Bishops and Chaplains and the calling of Synods c. 34 CHAP. VIII Sheweth it is the right of Kings to make Ecclesiasticall Lawes and Canons proved by many authorities and examples that the good Kings and Emperours made such Lawes by the advice of of their Bishops and Clergy and not of their Lay-Counsellors how our late Canons came to be annulled c. 40 CHAP. IX Sheweth a full answer to four speciall Objections that are made against the Civill jurisdictions of Ecclesiasticall persons their abilities to discharge these offices and desire to benefit the Common-wealth why some Councels inhibited these Offices unto Bishops c. 47 CHAP. X. Sheweth that it is the Kings right to grant Dispensations for Pluralities and Non-residency what Dispensation is reasons for it to tolerate divers Sects or sorts of Religions the foure speciall sorts of false Professors S. Augustines reasons for the toleration of the Jewes toleration of Papists and of Puritans and which of them deserve best to be tolerated among the Protestants and how any Sect is to be tolerated 56 CHAP. XI Sheweth where the Protestants Papists and Puritans do place Soveraignty who first taught the deposing of Kings the Puritans tenet worse then the Jesuites Kings authority immediately from God the twofold royalty in a King the words of the Apostle vindicated from false glosses c. 64 CHAP. XII Sheweth the assistants of Kings in their Government to whom the choice of inferiour Magistrates belongeth the power of the subordinate officers neither Peeres nor Parliament can have Supâ—emacy the Sectaries chiefest argument out of Bracton answered our Lawes prove all Soveraignty to be in the King 70 § The two chiefest parts of the Regall Government the foure properties of â— just war and how the Parliamentary Faction transgress in every property 74 CHAP. XIII Sheweth how the first Gouernment of Kings was arbitrary the places of Moses Deut. 17. and of Samuel 1 Sam. 8. discussed whether Ahab offended in desiring Naboths Vineyard and wherein why absolute power was granted unto Kings and how the diversities of Gouernment came up 78 § The extent of the grants of Kings what they may and what they may not grant what our Kings have not granted in seven speciall prerogatives and what they have granted unto their people 83 CHAP. XIV Sheweth the Kings grants unto His People to be of three sorts Which ought to be observed the Act of excluding the Bishops out of Parliament discussed the Kings Oath at His Coronation how it obligeth him and how Statutes have been procured and repealed 88 § Certain quaeries discussed but not resolved the end for which God ordained Kings the praise of a just rule Kings ought to be more just then all others in three respects and what should most especially move them to rule their people justly 92 CHAP. XV. Sheweth the honour due to the king 1. Feare 2. An high â—steem of our king how highly the Heathens esteemed of their kings the Marriage of obedience and authority the Rebellion of the Nobility how haynous 3. Obedience foure-fold divers kindes of Monarchs and how an absolute Monarch may limit himselfe 98 CHAP. XVI Sheweth the answer to some objections against the obeying of our Soveraigne Magistrate all actions of three kindes how our consciences may be reformed of our passive obedience to the Magistrates and of the kings concessions how to be taken 104 CHAP. XVII Sheweth how tribute is due to the king for six speciall reasons to be paid the condition of a lawfull tribute that we should not be niggards to assist the king that we should defend the Kings Person the wealth and pride of London the cause of all the miseries of this Kingdome and how we ought to pray for our king 116 CHAP. XVIII The persons that ought to honour the king and the recapitulation of 21 wickednesses of the Rebells and the faction of the pretended Parliament 121 CHAP. XIX Sheweth how the Rebellious faction have transgressed all the ten Commandments of the Law and the new Commandment of the Gospell how they have committed the seaven deadly sins and the foure crying sins and the three most destructive sins to the soul of man and how their