not why before the third I find nothing material only p. 92. in answer to that acknowledgement That the Holy Church was founded in Prelacy because the Church when that Statute was made was Popish he insinuates that it was so when it was first founded in Prelacy A thing which the Romanists have long in vain laboured to prove and if Mr. Cr. will at last do it effectually the Pope will no doubt acknowledge his good sevice with many thanks The third of the Oxf. Reasons is now considered Why it was not in its own turn considered I know not unless this Book was wrote by a Club and he to whose lot this fell was not timely provided The first was this The Oxf. men alleadge That they had as they were by Law required testified their approbation to that Government as agreeable to the Word of God which they are now required to swear down as contrary to it To which Mr. Cr. if not for the above mentioned Reason his fellow-helper tells us The Article might only intend it to be a Political Civil Constitution as indeed all our Statutes do suggest and so an adiaphoron c. p. 94. This is the best Salvo to reconcile this Oath with the Subscription and this Mr. Cr. himself refutes p. 95. By telling us That in the Book Ordering Priests c. It is directly affirmed That it is evident by the Holy Scriptures c. That from the Apostles Bishops Priests and Deacons c. Which words declare their intent to found that Government upon the Word of God not the Law of the Land and so that Interpretation of his is false and the Oxf. mens Reason good and the Covenant irreconcileable with the Subscription The Oxf. mens second Reason is They had received Orders from Bishops Hands and therefâ—re could not so ill requite them as to lay to their hands to pull them down To which Mr. Cr. Replyes p. 96. In so doing they would do the Bishops a real kindness of which he gives us this satisfactory account Richard Havering Archbishop of Dublin dreamt that a Monster heavier then the whole world stood upon him and when he waked thought it to be his Bishoprick and renounced it Sure Mr. Cr. was scarse awake when he thought to answer the University with a dream The fourth Reason is this They held their livelyhoods by such Titles c. And sure being not convict of any crime were not to be bound to undo themselves and were to the contrary sworn Cr. p. 97. They held their Estates at the pleasure of the Parliament whose Powâ—r is over the enjoyment of all publick much more particular Societies against whose Laws no Domestick Laws or Oaths could bind them We have already shewed how this Covenant destroyes the Kings Prerogative this Doctrine teaches us in what a high degree it asserts the Proprieties and Liberties of the Subject The Power of Parliaments over our Estates so as to dispose of some part in Taxes according to our several Proportions is indeed clear and legal To prevent wilful mistakes I do not mean to justifie the Taxes the Long Parliament imposed For they may dispose of the Subjects money to the King They have no pretence of right to dispose of it to themselves But this Power of Parliaments which Mr. Cr pleads for is equally groundless and unreasonable a power so unlimited both in regard to their King and Countrey as it is not fit in regard of either they should have nor doth it at all appear how or when they came to have it It can never be made appear to be one of the due priviledges of Parliament unless we suppose whatever it is possible for them to Vote to be so though against all the Laws and the King and then what a prety Animal is his Majesty of England But in earnest if it be considered by any but those who no otherwise are like to get Estates or can justifie what they have already got That the two Houses may dispose at pleasure of all the Lands of publick and particular Societies and sure then private mens for so beside that other capacity are those who are interessed in Publick Lands though câ—nvict of no crime That they may cancel all Oaths is what I never till now thought to be one of the Liberties of the Kingdom If their Power and Trust be so great I would we had not at least the security of an Oath that they would use it well By this Doctrine they may even strike up a bargain and share all amongst themselves And call you this Securing Propriety A Monarchy may possibly be founded in Nature and so in himself retain all rights he hath not parted with But such a thing as an Assembly as our Parliaments can have no pretence to any thing as I before have observed but what they have by Grant from him who calls them or compact with those who send them Whatever therefore they cannot thus shew they are not to pretend to for Assemblies are not born but made As to Lands that the two Houses have any thing to do further then by Established Laws they are enabled which receive all force from the Kings assent I cannot imagine ground for Our Lands we all receive from and hold of the KING as Sir Edward Cook in the first part of his Instit and as I remember in the very beginning but that we at all depend upon the two Houses for them He though a great adorer of that Assembly affirmeth not But if we had received them partly from the two Houses of which there is not the least shadow or colour yet that would not justifie this Doctrine They may dispose of them at pleasure as Mr. Cr. prodigiously affirms to the Oxf. men who alleadge That they were not convict of any crime because they had not broke the conditions upon which they received them Did they at the same time give them and keep them at their own dispose And upon this ground it is that His Majesty could not without injustice and consequently without sin should He have agreed to the Houses in that particular though in the Courts of Earth it might have had the effect of a Law yet in that of Heaven it would have passed for Iniquity established by a Law because by giving it to another he passed away that interest from himseif when he gave it away The Dominium utile I mean and in this I think consists the propriety of the Subject But Mr. Cr. hath placed this All-disposing Power in the two Houses when they were in hostile opposition to the King and so makes us as great Slaves as Earth hath any to our fellow-Subjects And much greater slaves are all we free-born People of England made by the assertors of our Liberties then Villains were among our selves For I remember though not the page and have not the book by me that Sir Edw. Cook in his Chap. of Villenage affirmes That whatever the slave had was his
me to an Oath himself in cases of danger or profit broke takes me a Fool and engages me to take him for a Knave If the Covenant be a National Obligation obliging all even those who took it not as well as those who took it and Posterity into the bargain as Mr. Cr. in the sixth Section throughout none are more guilty than those who imposed and asserted it because none have acted more contrary to it according to that loyal sense which is now put on it The truth is it is penned so ambiguously that like their Consciences it might suit all times They swear in the third Article To preserve the Kings Person and Authority c. By preserving the Kings person their practice teaches me to understand preserve i. e. keep safe i. e. in custody i. e. in Prison As for his Authority that was preserved too where as things then stood they could have been content it should have been continued That they would have preserved the Kings Authority I shall not deny but in whose hands let themselves speak They told us pretty fair at the beginning of the War See 19 Propositions All the Kings Privy Council to be approved by them take such an Oath as they pleased so likewise the Chancellour Iudges the Steward c. all the great publique Officers so likewise Peers the whole Militia at their disposal and the marriage of the Kings Children all who had stood for the King to be at the mercy of the Parliament Their other Proposals were much at the rate of these I therefore pass them over all and so I shall their Votes of Non-Addresse with their Declaration upon them because shame hath made them buy them all up so that upon ordinary enquiry they are not to be had and themselves revoked them when they knew not well how to help it but were fain to make a vertue of Fear and Spite and call it Loyalty at the Isle of Wight-Treaty where the Kings Party must be first acknowledged guilty of the blood shed in the War in the Preface and accordingly treated in the Articles the Militia Law-making Officers c. all in them solely for twenty years all Peers made by the King since the Great Seal went to him null their Great Seal approved c. with much more to be seen in the Articles And after all this for fear some Regalia some shadow of Authority should have escaped their observation they only Voted his Concessions a fit ground for establishing a peace so that if they could think of any thing else which looked like Authority they were resolved to have it for the Agreement was only begun not made As to the Kings Person I do not finde they can acquit themselves much better I very well know that in the actual cutting off the Kings Head and some other attendant violences the Army did not suffer the Presbyterian party to have the whole share of the benefit but I suppose that will not free them from the whole share of the guilt except when two joyn in an unlawfull design he who is outwitted is presently innocent First I enquire whose Army it was who raised them furnisht them with opportunity not at present to say Principles Had there been no more they could not have been easily acquitted for a man is responsible for the consequents of his unwarrantable actions especially if they are foretold and he will not desist In that case he can scarce say He did not intend those consequences not at all pretend he did not produce them In our Law if a man in his lawfull calling doth an act though without his intent or knowledge by which a man is unawares to him killed the punishment is severe though morally he cannot be supposed to help it As a Mason throwing stones or timber from the top of a House a Man going by by chance is killed but if such a Man doth such an act out of his Calling it is Death and that deservedly So the two Houses had they professed no hostility to the King they not being in their employment the power of the Sword not at all being by our Lawes vested in them nor can they make out which way they came by or who gave them that Authority whatever is the consequent of their so doing they are guilty of it be it what it will And truly it is reasonable that they who will usurp employment should be obliged to see the Ills of it not to be greater than those which before perhaps they did but fancy He who forces me out of the security of the Law and by violence confines me to another protection is obliged to see that that be not less And this would have been so suppose the King to have had the rights barely of a private person He who without authority of Law but solely upon the grounds real or imaginary of expediency will commission enrage and arm men against me and after their having made them my mortal Enemies make them my Life-guard commit my life to the keeping of those themselves had often represented me to as not fit to live he before God and Man is answerable for my life without whom those others could have had neither power nor pretence nor in all probability would have a will to take my life from me But alas how small a part of the Presbyterian Parliaments guilt is this from whom they received not only opportunity but principles and example They not only enabled but taught the Army by doctrine and practice Imprisoning the King our Law and common sense too calls compassing his Death For in that case his life as to the publique can be nothing but a capacity of taking away theirs and they all that while are in a fair probability of being hanged After the imprisonment of a King suppose him like to escape and head a numerous party did he not deserve to be farther proceeded against and would not their own security require it Would they have ever restored the King to the Exercise of any power till he had assented to what they should please or no If no I desire to know first what the Army did more then that Secondly what a King he were who had nothing to do in the Government but only groâ—n under it And thirdly why may not they who have Authority to depose a King and have just grounds viz the security of the publique may not for the assurance of that security put him to death If they would have restored the King though he had not tamely said Yes to every Demand yielded his Crown to save his Head let them say so for shame if they can What they did and owned from the beginning and it may be too justly concluded from the no remorse we finde in them would own again were it not for fear and shame will justifie the Army from any thing but being their servants who understood and only acted their Commandement In the first Reason for a War The
him The silly vulgar suspected and the crafty knaves proclaimed him to be a Confederate of Hannibals Nor was that errour discovered till there was reason to repent it Timeo Danaos vel dona ferentes Had there been lesse ability and resolution to oppose Rome in that head it might in all probability have stood longer upon its own shoulders Mr. Cr. wonders at that expression In the intended sense without which words the Oxf. men would never have denyed the Rage c. of the enemies of God and Religion to be at that time encreased because they saw and felt it And truly on which side they were Mr. Cr. shall witness even where he is professedly handling the Argument p. 28. Who abetted the murther of the late King Which Army did that needs no dispute Who commissioned the men that did that furnished them with Principles and opportunity in prosecution of whose avowed Declarations and Resolves that Act might be justified The men of Oxf. saw then as clearly as all the World do easily now If the Kings death was as Mr. Cr. urges a design of the Papists the King the Bishops and the Royal Party were not sure their only Factors You see Sir one may believe the presumption of the enemies of God to have been at that time increased and yet not in that sense That Papists rejoyced at our Troubles is granted and withal that they have not at all discovered their sorrow their joy they have that this Covenant pulled down that Church which themselves by strength of Arguments and Armies could not do Oxf. Second Reason is They could not truly say That they had used or given consent to any Supplication or Remonstrance to the purpose therein expressed The force of this is plainly thus They durst not swear they had done what they knew they never did To which Mr. Cr. p. 29. Had not they Representees in Parliament did they give No to such Supplications or if they did were they not carryed by the major Vote and is not the Negative swallowed therein that all persons and bodies Corporate did thereunto consent This a strange piece of sense Whatever the Parliament upon other mens Supplications Vote though of such a nature as many men from their very souls abhor the thought of it is for that sole reason true that they supplicated for it and they may swear it though they know they did not On the other side I conceive I may be bound to submit to many Laws as proceeding from a competent Authority which I may truly affirm I neither did nor was at all bound to desire Had the Parliament when they first voted No-Addresse in 1647. Voted the Kings death which they might have done by the same law of Reason nor could their ablest defenders ever answer Goodwin and others upon that Head did every man in England therefore supplicate for it But for Him we need not be sollicitous seeing at the very beginning of the War he was declared but a Trustee who had shamefully betrayed his Trust c. But if this Logick be good there is a worse story behind even this Blessed Covenant hath lost its ablest defendor not to say at one blow it hath lost them all seeing the Parliament have voted the Covenant burnt and Mr. Cr. himself may swear he hath supplicated for it Sure he will finde a way to evade this special piece of Law so applyed That by the Parliament all Persons and Towns Corporate did consent that in things belonging to their cognisance the Majority concludes the whole House and they the Nation I believe true and account it reasonable But Mr. Cr. good friend Mr. Baxter tells us another story and endeavours to prove it in the enlargement of his 179. Thesis of the Efficient and Conveying causes of Power p. 185 186. The Minor part if it be the better and wiser are not concluded and if they have any advantage as strength c. they may use it I suppose that he thinks with the Minor he will perswade them who will be not unapt to believe it of themselves that they are the wiser and better The next thing considerable is p. 30. an answer to the fourth Reason which is that they apprehended it not to be according to the Commendable practise of these Kingdoms or the example of Gods people in other Nations nay the Defenders tels us The world never saw the like before To which M. Cr. tels us That Israel did in the dayes of Ioash Iosiah c. The only difference is in short one of the greatest reasons for which this Covenant was expresly and frequently refused and refuted Those were with This expresly against him in whom that Obligatory Power lay the Prince In his Reconciling these words with those of Mr. Nye Mr. Cr. grants what is abundantly enough to prove what he denies That for Matter Persons and other Circumstances the like had not been in Any age or Oath we read of in Sacred or Profane Stories Whence I thus argue If there is so much in this Covenant distinct from what was ever in any before and that so considerable as to make a distinct Argument to commend this Covenant to the world more then any other ever could pretend to That for Matter and Persons i. e. The thing sworn and persons swearing besides other circumstances there had never been the like before It is not imaginable this should be warranted by former examples when neither in Matter nor Persons the thing sworn or persons swearing besides other attendant circumstances the like had ever been before It seems it was done after and warranted by the example of a thing nothing like it According to Mr. Cr. method we proceed to The First ARTICLE First exception is They are not satisfyed how they can in judgement Swear to preserve the Religion of another Kingdom To which Mr. Cr. p. 39. T is but Reason they suspend their act till they can swear in judgement If so the Visitors the tender-conscienced Visitors turned the Oxf. Heads out of their places and by the way put themselves in for not doing what in Mr. Cr. judgement they ought not to have done But neither hath he given or offered any thing to satisfie us How and where Christ bound us to Swear the Reformation of another Kingdom by fire and sword Gods people sure we are Jewish and Christian had Idolators in the Regions round about them yet we do not finde them Covenanting to pull down the Idols of silver and gold that they might put the silver and gold in their own Pockets If the Scots may Covenant to reform England and Ireland why not France and Spain Doth Religion forbid them violence in its cause against all but their own Prince or is Rebellion never sanctified till it is against him to whom we owe particular Allegiance But besides the general unwarrantableness of such courses the Oxf. men render several Reasons peculiarly relating to Themselves and that Cause As first That as
of the Lords Supper as of greater solemnity and consequently requiring greater preparation Yet Baptism alwayes so esteemed as not to be administred by a Deacon but in the absence of a Priest The great clamor amounts to this then The Sacrament of Baptism because of the sudden occasions which may often require haste hath therefore been thought fit by the wisdom of the Church rather than the administration thereof in case of danger should be omitted to be permitted to be performed by a Deacon in case a Priest be not at hand to perform it The case in the Lords Supper is clear otherwise because that is not usually administred without publike notice given to the People some convenient time before when it shall be done at which time it is presumed the Priest who gave the notice will be present to attend the service There is a clear disparity in the Natures of the two Sacraments those Reasons which Apologize for Permission in case of the one will by no means reach the other Nor do we want evidence for the Deacons power to Baptize out of Scripture it self In the 8. of the Acts we read that Philip the Deacon ver 12. Baptized that it was that Philip not the Apostle appears because we find Peter and Iohn sent to lay hands on those he preached to that they might receive the Holy Ghost and accordingly we read that they two did lay their hands but no manner of intimation that he did joyn with them which he would certainly have done had he been an Apostle In the 21. of the Acts where his being one of the seven i. e. a Deacon is expresly mentioned he is there owned an Evangelist though but a Deacon He who will say he was a Presbyter ought well to consider how to prove it The next of the Oxf. Reasons is That in taking this Oath they should break another And what security can they expect by an Oath who themselves teach men to break them By this Covenant they swear to alter what they had by the Parliaments Order sworn to maintain in the Protestation 5. of May 1641. Which Mr. Cr. thus reconciles p. 65. The House of Commons the then known Legislators explained the Protestation to be meant only so far as is opposite to Popery That is to say The House of Commons are Legislators distinct from King and Peers For in that capacity they made that interpretation of an Oath which sure they were not solely to interpret because they were not the sole Imposers and they declared the Lords meaning contrary to their Lordships express protest to the contrary that that was not their meaning Their being sole Legislators in defiance of King and Peers for so it was in that case is very prety Doctrine which I would have been glad to have seen one Law to have proved I wonder Mr. Cr. should think it would be taken for granted But indeed Mr. Cr. hath one expression which could not have been well spared The House of Commons were then known to be c. I must confess there were many prety things then known to be though no man knew why The words of the Protestation The Protestant Religion expressed in the Doctrine of the Church of England c. Now what is in the 39. Articles is I suppose The Doctrine of the Church of England and then if the Covenant be contrary to any of those these are contradictory Oaths The 36. Article which declares that there is nothing in the Book of Consecration superstitious or ungodly is hardly reconcileable to the second Article of the Covenant Sure the meeting of the Assembly is irreconcileable with the 21. Article if we suppose His Majesty was a King at that time As to the explication of it by the House of Commons notwithstanding the Lords express dissent it was an arrogating of the whole Parliamentary Power and more to themselves solely and so a breach of the Fundamental Constitution of that Assembly And then declaring none fit to bear Office but those who would except of that explication and so concur with and assist them in that violence was against the Liberty of the Subject as depriving Men of what they had no way legally forfeited Where the Legislative Power resides I do not here mean to decide But certainly according to the worst Principles then owned The Commons were not the sole Legislators and then sure not the sole Interpreters and therefore the Oxf. Men had very little cause to accept of their meaning for Authentick That Man is little obeyed whose words must be taken in the sense that another and he as frequently in our case his declared Enemy shall put upon them The next is The consistency of the Covenant with the Oath of Supremacy which binds us to defend all Iurisdictions Priviledges Preheminencies granted or belonging united or annexed to the Imperial Crown of this Realm of which in the 25 Hen. 8. c. 19. this is one That the Clergy are not to Enact Promulge c. any new Canons Constitutions c. or by whatever Name they shall be called unless the KINGS ROYAL Assent first be had to make promulge c. Now the very meeting of the Assembly and this Covenant was a defiance to this His Prerogative unless the Votes of the two Houses be the KINGS ROYAL Assent Mr. Cr. answer to this is p. 67. in short High Treason That the Power given to the King is such a Power as Bishops Cardinals Popes had used not such as Parliaments who ever retained a Iurisdiction in themselves over Church and Crown As I understand words Your Majesties humble and Loyal Subjects assembled in Parliament signifies not your Lords and Masters How comes Treason to be against the King and not against them if they are Supream How come they to have ever retained a Iurisdiction over the Crown when our Law so often owns all Iurisdiction to flow from the Crown How comes the Kings Masters to be so absolutely at His disposal as to be turned out as easily as it is possible for him to say so How comes England in our own and other Chronicles and Laws to be styled a Monarchy an Imperial Crown How comes it to pass that we neither pay nor promise Allegiance to these our true Soveraigns The King is expresly called sole Supream Governour in the Oath of Supremacy and yet he hath Superiours Sharing in the Supremacy with the King was all I had thought would have been required not retaining Iurisdiction over him I wonder if this be true That Mr. Cr. did so prevaricate with his Brethren when he pleaded as he calls it for the King when it was indeed only against the Sectaries and so was not Loyalty but Spite But why did he if this be true urge Precepts for and Examples of Obedience out of Scripture and the Primitive Church though by the way they were such as themselves had before taught them to slight or answer Why did he urge them when they reached
not the case For those Princes were confessedly Supream Our King it seems is not not God's Vicegerent but the Peoples Officer from whom he received his Power and is but Tenant at Will at best They still retaining Iurisdiction over him may abridge it at pleasure He is a stranger in England that doth not know all Land to be held of the Crown and every one of us pays acknowledgment that we received it from thence and all manner of Iurisdiction to be owned in Law to proceed from the King without the least concurrence of the two Houses In England when any doth Homage Fealty c. in their Oath they perpetually have a Salvo of saving their Faith to other Lords In the Oaths of Allegiance and Supremacy we find no such salvo of our Faith to the two Houses No nor if any of us take them during their Session do we promise any equal Allegiance But the very Members do promise Allegiance to the King inasmuch as no Member though never so fairly elected can sit without taking those Oaths But according to this Doctrine of Iurisdiction over the King never any Laws in the World were so sottishly penned as the English to place all Marks of Soveraignty where it is not and none at all where it is Nay that the very two Houses when they send to the King as in that capacity should Petition their Inferiour and acknowledge themselves Humble Loyal and Obedient Subjects to him over whom they ever retained Iurisdiction Ever retained O the brave English Monarchy of the two Houses of Parliament This is a strange concealed Iurisdiction of the two Houses which never any King owned or Parliament claimed When King Iames came in he should have recognized them not they him Nor was that Parliament faithful either to King or Countrey in concealing so important a concernment I will cite but one Law and that not Ancient for none I think can doubt its Opinion in this point but one When the assent of the two Houses to Law-making was required and after those words so much to serve some mens turns wrested beyond their import Be it Enacted by the King Lords and Commons came in fashion It is Anno 24 Hen. 8. c. 12. Whereas by sundry old Authentick Histories it is manifestly expressed That this Realm of England is an Empire governed by One Supream Head and King having the Dignity and Royal Estate of the IMPERIAL Crown of this Realm unto whom a Body Politick compact of all sorts and degrees of People and divided in terms and by names of Spiritualty Temporalty bin bound and ought to bear next to God a natural and humble Obedience If the King is next to God what Iurisdiction the two Houses have over Him I profess my self unable to comprehend or how owning natural and humble Obedience signifies retaining Iurisdiction over Him But those who are not of this wild Opinion do yet embrace the ground of it and stand stiff for a share in the Government These two grounds Mr. Cr. often insists upon That their Assent is necessary to the making and repealing Laws and that the King receiving his Power from them they reserved a considerable part of it to themselves The former I have spoken to in The Rebels Plea That that doth not at all evince any such thing and it is also false in Experience for the Monarchs of the East whom none ever supposed to have sharers in the Government could not alter all their Laws at pleasure c. And I there referred to an Author who had so admirably stated that Point in Law and Reason in that Incomparable Treatise The Case of our Affairs that nothing can be added on that Head it is there done so fully and clearly I think it is not easie to shew such a King whose Laws are as ambulatory as his pleasure and yet sure there are some whose Subjects are not Partners in the Soveraignty And certainly so long as Kings are but single men and not naturally stronger then all their Subjects they must rule by the help and advice either of Gentlemen or Ianizaries The former way is I think more honourable for the King and better for his People There can be no way of proving this Proposition unless it carries its own Evidence which though generally granted I do not apprehend why The Prince promises not to exercise such a part of his Power without the consent of his People Ergo They share with him in it is a consequence far from Necessary When Tenants get Rights by Promise Grant or Custom do they presently share in the Dominion Is none a perfect Landlord that cannot turn out all his Tenants as easily as say so Can no man make another a firm Estate in the Tenancy but eo ipso he makes him his Co-Landlord Is it the same to have sharers in the Authority and to be limited in the exercise of it This is perfectly the case The King hath granted to us that he will not alter our old Laws or make new till by common consent it is represented to him expedient for the Publique good from hence alone we gather that we share with him in the making of them As to the other Point That Princes received their Power by Election is a very plausible Impossibility Let us consider a rude scattered multitude as Men are supposed to have been when they chose their first Governours living sine Lege sine Lare to meet together about a business of that nature where could not but be many who apprehended it their Interest to use Violence Can we suppose them all to carry it fairly and prudently and equally A thing which certainly we could not expect from the most civilized Common-wealth this day in the World There could not want bold Villains who would make it their business to usurp Dominion over their well-meaning neighbours There could not but be many who would think themselves wise enough to Rule Nor could there want enow to make their title good by strong hand by the Combination though of a very few and the Combination of a very few could not but have overpowred a very great undisciplined Rabble Surely those men were not of the same species with us where a whole People meet together without any force over them every one gives his Vote freely every one names his man every one acquiesces It were certainly a prety sight when all the World was wise and innocent and had it been so still they would have sound no want of vernment If the Original of Government had been a fair and free Election it is not at all probable that the most ancient Governments would have been Monarchies Not only for that to have made more then one would have been a very good exdient to reconcile competitors But because it seems also at the first sight better to trust more then One. Or if they had been so it is not like they would have been so absolute Arbitria Frincipum pro-legibus
some cases as duty which it would severely and might justly punish in others not so related as a crime But not to stand on that at the very first reading this Article suggests a considerable difference from all the above-mentioned Instances In those I am only obliged to discover present guilt and endeavours which if not prevented may go on to the high dishonour of God and disturbance of the Publick Considerations if sincere much above any private or particular Obligements But this Covenant obliges to discover all who have been Malignants no consideration that the design is prevented or repented of and therefore serves not at all for Publick Security but may for private Ambition or Revenge There is another Exception which though Mr. Cr. pleases to slight I will be bold to say all the Earth cannot answer it viz. That it betrays inevitably The Liberty of the Subject We there swear to maintain in setting up an Arbitrary Power when all the Rule they are to go by is As they think convenient which Mr. Cr. answers by saying nothing to it He repeats indeed the other words As the Supream Iudicatories or others from them c. But saith not one word in answer to that expression wherein the malignity lies As they shall judge convenient Words fit only for those men to use who knew they had no Law on their side It might here not unseasonably be asked Who are the Supream Iudicatories Certainly the two Houses distinct from the King are so far from being the Supream that they are no Court at all nor is there in Law any style or form of their joynt Acts. To the fifth Article It is said first That there is a false Assertion These Kingdoms if Ireland be one as in the former Parliaments it is are not at Peace nor dare the men of Oxf. abusively thank God for a blessing they do not all believe and Mr. Cr. proves by no better Argument then that England Scotland entered in Covenant As to the Peace which was between England and Scotland made by both Parliaments I ask If the Power of War and Peace be not solely the Kings If so here is another of the Kings Prerogatives this Covenant preserved As to the second Remora Mr. Cr. asks where this Covenant is defective towards the Kings Rights c I might rather ask where it is not where it left him the Authority I do not say Name but Power of a King or the freedom of a Gentleman The very design of all their Proceedings which this Covenant was a main Engine to effect was perfect dethroning him when they made what the Law what their Wit the foundation of all their Power called but his Counsel his Controllers And this is a Truth so clear that they durst not for shame but call themselves his Subjects even when they exercised all but the Name of his Soveraign When they raised Armies to compel even then they made a resemblance of their duty by sending Petitions to beseech They could not be Rebels but in the style of Your Majesties Humble and Loyal Subjects assembled in Parliament Let Mr. Cr. shew me any thing that Law or Reason call a Right or Prerogative of the King and I shall quickly make it appear how they took it from the King and Mr. Cr. himself p. 98. hath proved the truth of the Maxime he so much rails at No Bishop no King by giving us just such a King as he hath allowed us Bishops To the Bishops he will allow the formality of the Chair and the KING for ought I perceive shall have no more The Lords and Commons Melthodi Majestatis causa apply themselves to him Well said though I would the Law had been cited for it The King poor Gentleman may sit uppermost whilest he is mannerly his assent shall be asked if he will first secure us he will never refuse If he doth he shall then be reminded where the Reason of the Kingdom nay and King too resides As in the Declaration about Hull in 1642. p. 36. I am so far reconciled to this absolute depriving the King of his Authority that I like it much better than the prety knack of sharing it between him and two equal Houses which would be the worst Government in the world It is in our Saviours judgment Hard to serve two Masters But this Nation should have served three co-ordinate Enemies whose Interests and consequently commands were thwarting Every Convention would be a wrastling match where each his business was to give another a fall The Contradictions the Oxf. men assign are so clear as nothing more I shall therefore say little to them because they best appear when they are nakedly considered One Ambiguity I shall pitch upon because it is the most considerable part of this Mystery of Iniquity The Oxf. men demand Which be the best Reformed Churches Because before they swear to make those Churches their pattern it were well certainly that they knew them To which Mr. Cr. p. 129. The Covenant asserts not which are the best reformed Churches but binds the Covenanter to the observation of whatever shall appear and be found the best reformed as the example to which he shall endeavour England may be confâ—rmed Very well Sir The Covenant asserts not which is the best reformed Church but binds me to reduce England to what shall appear the best reformed Church That possibly may appear to me either that already established in Old England or that devised for New England Possibly I may not find Classes or other canting knacks in the Word of God and then tell you in your own language I dare not own that for the Scepter of Christ which I believe nay can prove to be an Humane Institution I can tell where and when it came first up and that Policy was the very best and if any was that was the only justifiable Ingredient in all its constitution How shall I then reform England according to the Word of God and the best reformed Churches and yet according to the Scotch mode which I know to be neither Or if I am not bound to the Scottish pattern How shall I bring the three Kingdoms to Uniformity not only in Confession of Faith but Form of Church-Goverment Directory for Worship and Catechizing and how preserve that in Scotland which I swear to do and yet set up another in England which in that case I am sworn to also But because Mr. Cr. tells us p. 129. The Covenant hath not determined which is the best reformed Church c. I would fain know whether these three terms we are equally sworn to The Word of God the best Reformed Churches Uniformity with Scotland are three expressions of the same Rule or of different ones If of the same then it is not true what Mr. Crofton being put to his shifts sayes because it is expresly determined viz. Scotland If of different With what Conscience can we swear to all when by keeping our
SHORT STRICTURES OR ANIMADVERSIONS On so much of Mr Croftons Fastning St Peters Bonds As concern the REASONS OF THE UNIVERSITY of OXFORD Concerning the Covenant By Tho. Tomkins Mr. of Arts and Fellow of All-Souls Coll. in Oxon. LONDON Printed by E. C. for A Seile over against St. Dunstans Church in Fleetstreet 1661. To the Reverend IOHN MEREDITH Doctor of Divinity and Warden of All-Souls Colledge in Oxford Honoured Sir BEfore I presume to beg your Patronage I must bespeak your Pardon You might indeed justly wonder how I should think my self able to judge what were material in this weighty Controversie did I not live in an age of so much Light that there are two things we are all able to do viz. to Reform a Church and Model a State There is a Fault I must confess in Our as in All Governments which as some men are resolved never to Pardon so I have no hope ever to see mended viz. That all are not uppermost There is an Objection will be made against this Innocent Treatise that it is wrote against Consciencious men I cannot deny but that the concerned Gentlemen are admirably furnished with Consciences for every occasion To prevent this Cavil my appeal is to You who know what conscience is having suffered so much to preserve a good one A tryal those Gentlemen were never very forward to undergo nor if my Augury fail me not ever mean to be That sacred thing or what was mistaken for it or at least called by that Name hath done strange things in this Nation which it highly concerns some to enquire whether it will justifie We read in Scripture of Obeying for conscience but not one word of Rebelling for it And yet men can do it and at the same time make the written Word the rule of their Action It first distinguished between the Kings Person and His Power and next between his head his shoulders And truly they who once divide the Kings Person and Power are concerned that they never unite again Because men do dayly disobey Laws upon the score of conscience and for that reason take themselves and are taken by others for Innocent I shall beg your leave to ask this Question Whether following Conscience is a sufficient Plea to quit us from sin even where it is so indeed To say nothing of those Universal Pretenders Artifice and Melancholy The Scripture maketh mention of seared Consciences reprobate minds which sure are no great perfections and of strong delusions which though they be new lights are but flashes of hell-fire And St. Paul reckons himself the greatest of sinners for what he did out of the dictates of conscience I my self thought verily that I ought to do many c. These are competent grounds of rendring that Tenent suspicious I ask therefore briefly Hath the conscience any rule besides it self or no If not How is the written Word of God the rule of Action If it have Whether it be possible for it to swerve from its Rule or no If not then every man is infallible there can be no such thing as strong delusions believing a lie c. If it be possible for conscience to swarve from its Rule whether its swarving be its Innocency For if it be not so it is no sufficient ground for men to conclude themselves innocent when they disobey Authority because it is their conscience so to do because the Word of God to which Conscience as well as other Faculties ought to be subject and sins when it is not prescribes obedience to Governours in the most universal terms imaginable I could not but say thus much because This is our conscience was the old non-conformists first plea and the latter in name only different Enthusiasts only plea and if it be a sufficient one it must hold in all cases as well as any because the reason is equal in all It may justifie those many who killed the King and those many more who killed our Saviour My want of years and judgement I shall not at all excuse but urge as my fitness for this employment It were a disparagement to the University of Oxford if such an Antagonist could not be answered by one of the meanest who can plead relation to so Renowned a Body The many weaknesses you will find in these papers are so many evidences that I came to Oxford in times of Reformation when Learning was counted little lesse then an enemy to Grace as indeed it was to what they called so Our Imperfections Honored Sir we blush not to discover to you whose goodness will not see them but only to remove them whose business is not so much to preside in a Colledge as to reform it to be our Warden as Example Like the Sun who when he rules the world enlightens it too when he shines he cherishes so that its most spendid Majesty is but Love in all its glory So your Commands are so many boons and injunctions endearments so that you do not rule but assist and oblige us and have now abundantly satisfyed the Obligation the Founder laid upon you of promoting the good of the Colledge to your uttermost by vouchsafing to take us into your particular care So that how mean soever this Present is from your self I am assured to learn how in time to come I may make a better And in the mean time glory that I can account my self Honored Sir Your most devoted and obliged Servant THO. TOMKINS All Souls Coll. Oxon Sept. 26. To the Reader READER I Very well foresee that many who are conscious to themselves that such things are possible will laugh and scorn at the Author of this Treatise as one who meant to write the sense of the Times rather then his own In the beginning therefore I bar all who have been themselves guilty of what they only suppose to be viz. Our late Complyers whose consciences have been in this sense tender that they might be bended any way And now I hope I have prevented my most numerous and severe Accusers But now I think on it I will release them too let them employ all their art and passion in telling the World how unworthy such Proceedings while they have been their own are For why should I hinder such men from laughing at themselves The worst all those can say of me is I am like them and that were bad enough if it were true This Account is civil enough for these men I should gladly afford them another if I had any reason to think so well of them that their Principles would not fail them if it should once happen that they would consist with their duty and that their beloved Rule Obey the present Power whatever it be Blasphemously called following Providence had not this one and that the only Exception Provided it be not the Lawful Power And sure there is too much Reason so to guess when those whose Consciences scrupled nothing under an Usurper scruple indifferent things under
King was but a Trustee and had broken his trust which tended to the Dissolution of Government That was fair to begin with Tended to c. i. e. The relation of King and Subjects was fairly going and why if but a Trustee and the Trust broken it may not be re-seized I could almost tell them I see no cause Sure it would sufficiently shew their intentions in case of the King but not at all better their own claim I would not have the House of Commons triumph too soon because as is very evident they had received their whole power and trust so both in the Judgement of him who called them and those who sent them they had basely betrayed it Again the King was not King in his personal but political capacity i. e. themselves against whom therefore to wage War was Treason according to this the cutting off the Kings Head cannot be Treason I shall not deal farther in this but only desire all those of them who would perswade themselves of their own innocency that they are at least thus far concerned that they employed and empowered those men who but for them never would have been able to accomplish nor in all likelihood to contrive that black Act and that after the King had often by rational and convincing Arguments shewed it to be the necessary result of their principles and proceedings And truely the Army were almost obliged in their own defence to pull down the King and Lawes they had so much offended that they could scarce hope for pardon nor at all be secured of it the King being once restored any farther then they were assured of the Kings regard to Honour and Conscience a thing the two Houses had very unworthily often declared to be none at all I cannot but observe how the Parliament thought to order the King by employing such men as would doe their work throughly They could not in discretion trust the King but could an Army and so betrayed themselves with a great deal of warinesse as it is very ordinary for men to ruine their own Interest by preferring it before their Duty And in that case the question is this Who knowes what is fittest to be done God who commanded this or themselves who contrived that And sure it cannot be otherwise expected but that God should declare those who take upon them to be wiser then him to be very Fools But in our case they did not more sacrifice their Religion and Allegiance to Craft and Interest then they did sacrifice that Craft and Interest to Passion and Humour and truely it frequently happens that they who change Government do neither mend it as to the Peoples advantage nor enjoy it as to their own The chief Instruments of prosperous Rebellion are usually the Avengers of it at once expound and chastise the vice set up a power which is indeed Arbitrary both in the rules and exercise of it when that they had pulled down one which was only called so it fared so with us The people had as little need to be fond of their Patriots as they of their Army Neither of us have cause to complain of any but our selves It was just with God to permit us our ruine when we were fond of it that after we had complained without a cause we should have cause to complain The Parliament and People both say they were unhappy let us see whether they were not as unwise beside the being dishonest We employed Mercenary Souldiers to secure our Liberties we expected that a victorious Army i.e. Legions of Indigent persons armed with power and want should secure propriety after having pulled down their Prince submit to their fellow-subjects having ventured Lives and Fortunes and their Souls too to get a Conquest having got it intend only to be called Good Boyes and then very mannerly retire to their old Trades and Beggery This was not very probable that after having beaten their Enemies their Friends should Vote them down Let the Parliament as they did tell them of duty themselves had employed against it they will obey their command by your own Example act according to the declared sense of the Houses interpreted by their practice And in earnest were it not that Sin and Vengeance are not laughing matters it would make one smile to hear a Rebel earnestly tell others of their Duty to him conscientiously state the obligation of an Oath to those himself had employed in breaking all Sir Iohn Hotham told his Majesty he would obey his Commands signified by both Houses of Parliament when the Army afterwards thought they had been Rebels long enough for other mens sakes and advantages it was time now to be so for themselves Had they then said they would obey the Resolves of the two Houses delivered by his Majesty could the most desperate Villain in that Assembly have retorted any thing but a Blush Is there any disparity here but what is to the disadvantage of the two Houses the King being their Head nor can they oblige at all without his consent when as to Militia Affairs the King needs not their Authority at all We would willingly forget their former Actions if they would suffer us but their desire to begin again appears by resuming now all other marks of distinction are worn out their so long laid aside Original Mark and Bond whereby to discern and engage their Party to know their strength and how to use it The nature of which being abundantly laid open by the Oxf. Reasons there needs no more to be said as to the strength of those Reasons and innocency of the Covenant then briefly to consider some passages in both which Mr. Crofton was willing to mistake ERRATA PAge 8. line 21. read whom the Carthaginians could not beat p. 10. l. 17. r. could not do till then p. 12. l. 19. add Our Representes in Parliament as to the exercise of that Power the Law vests in them which every one that knows the constitution of England knows to have bounds do legally bind us because we chose them and gave them authority for that purpose To consent for us But if they usurpe any other Power as the Milicia Reforming the Caurch in spite of the King c. the conclude not us at all We neither entrusted them with any such Power nor know of any such Power inherent in our selves to trust them with This being very clear to any but those that will not see in this sense I grant Thay by c. p. 12. l. 21. r. do consent and that p. 13. l. 9. r. that if he l 13. add Good Doctrine for the Rump p. 20. l. 4. r. and then to one which p. 24 l. 10 r. A Tenent which the Army raised upon the score of this Covenant learnt so well p. 32. l. 2. f. what r. which l. 8. f. to r. so p. 42. l. 14 after questioned add it as to that p. 43. l. 6. aft nothing add of it p. 45. l. 14.
of an answer If no doth reforming according to those rules that is as I understand it bringing in the Doctrine of Scotland c. signifie Doing some new act to continue the established Doctrine in England or to let it alone as it is If either of these let that word have the same meaning in all parallel places and this Controversie is at an end But how we shall be brought to the same Confession of Faith Directory c. which is also sworn without altering the establisht Doctrine Worship Government which are different is not very clear As to the Doctrines themselves here called The Religion exercised Though it is no Demonstration at Oxon that they are false because the Scotch Army made them a Pretence to get Money with yet being they are as Mr. Cr. acknowledges private men he must also acknowledge it concerns only those private men to defend them But from that Answer of his I shall conclude a little farther and over-throw it by its own self prove what it denies out of what it grants For it is in it self very clear seeing the Quarrel was at the Religion exercised not established Those Opinions called the exercised Religion ought only to have been discarded and the establisht Doctrine have been made the Rule to reform by by which they might have had the Law and their Adversaries too on their side But because they name another Rule It is plain they mean to alter that too and so are lyable to those inconveniencies Mr. Cr. endeavours to free them from by a strained Interpretation which their words and actions are no way capable of Though it is a pretty strange account of bringing Englands established Religion to the Scotish mode by Allegations out of Authors which are contended for to be no part of that Religion so established Mr. Cr. doth indeed set several Doctrines and name Authors many of which have been eminently useful to this Church and therefore hated by Rome and Scotland but being there are no references to any part of their Works with what sincerity it is done I am not able to say But I may guess it to be done with very little if I may conclude by one which I single out because that sort of people have so little shame or conscience as to Preach it down to the people as Arminianism It is p. 47. That men had free will of themselves to believe and repent he may justly say The University was poysoned with Arminianism if this horrid Tenent was owned and there countenanced Arminians need not be angry that they are slandered for that is a tacit Confession there is not truth enough to object against them Men must bely them to make them odious part with their own Innocency to darken theirs But I much wonder Mr. Cr. should tell the Masters of Oxf. That This Tenent among others was defended by them from censure Though people are apt to believe any thing of Papists Arminians yet the Oxf. men are not so apt to believe any story of themselves They challenge all the world to tell when and by whom they defended that horrid Doctrine from censure The utmost ground of this accusation is some men in Oxf. might possibly affirm they understood not what it was to be made willing whether we would or no how freedom and force liberty and necessiâ—ation were the same thing This is far enough from the purpose But censure is there a judicial word I demand therefore Whether the University defended the men he means from the censure of these who had authority to censure them or from those who had nothing to do in the matter If from the former I desire to know How it was possible for them to do it and when they did it If from the later those who had nothing to do with it sure the harm is not great If I should grant all the Tenents he reckons up to be false because it were perhaps too hard to prove them so to one who would deny it I do not apprehend the considerable advantage he would get by it toward his Cause because they are only particular mens He will not sure think himself concerned in all we can prove preached in Camp and City and the men not only defended against the King and the Laws but encouraged applauded and preferred Might not men safely preach at London Believers to be above all Ordinances but those of the two Houses Was any more care taken at London even when the Covenant was Triumphant and set up in Churches instead of the Lords Prayer and Ten Commandements of what Opinions men were of any more then of what Countrey if they would but fight against the King Was there any Heresie but Loyalty or Common Enemy but the King Might not those take the Scripture in any or no sense who would take the Laws in equitable sense It is altogether as reasonable to pull down Presbytery because there were Independents in the Parliaments Army as they to Covenant us into the Doctrine of the Church of Scotland because some men preached what their ablest Defender acknowledges no part of the Doctrine of the Church of England And this is equal supposing those Doctrines false which as yet are only said to be so But at last comes an Attempt to answer those Arguments the force of which Mr. Cr. hath hitherto evaded by pretences which I have proved and perhaps himself perceived groundless It will not saith he p. 49. justifie the Recusancy of the Papists because these things were never a reason of it This answer is none at all because if those things to which their conformity was required were really sins we cannot at all blame nor justly punish them for refusing to be partakers in them It is not easie to think of any thing which would more please them in or justifie them for disobeying our established Laws than our proclaiming them thus to be grosly horrid so apparently abominable as there was an unavoidable necessity of using the worst of remedies a Civil War and the worst of dangers hazarding our souls in the most suspicious of actions the defiance of our Prince to remove them It is from hence if this be once granted clear we have all along punished Papists for not conforming to what it is a Christians duty not to conform to And this is sure a competent ground for not assenting to this part of the Covenant for be the grounds of sinfulness what it will our selves by this should own that to be sin which we punished them for not joyning in the concession of which would be so pleasing to them that I wonder to see those men plead for it who make spite to Rome the only rule they walk by As to the second part of the scandal justifying the Separatists Mr. Cr. answers not much better p. 50. Neither can such an acknowledgment justifie the Separatists For that the corruptions established were never made such Essential parts of the Worship as to
which provokes their anger and Mr. Cr. like an angry Disputant confutes himself Is that our fault that we shew a peculiar respect to that part of it which peculiarly concerns our Saviour his Words and Works Our particular obligation assures us it were ill if it were otherwise Outward Reverence provided we do not let it serve in stead of but use it to signifie and promote inward cannot in that case be a crime But if to dignifie some parts of Scripture above others be a crime themselves are guilty as doing so to the Psalms of David only they are not Davids but Sternholds by singing them before every Sermon a thing in Scripture no where commanded But so have I seen a distempered person in spite to another beat himself The next thing considerable is p. 55 56. Christmas Easter c. and the Holy-days are superstitious plainly repugnant to Gal. 4.10 Col. 2.16 If the Feasts there mentioned were evidently not Christian Festivals I suppose I may safely conclude Christian Festivals not to be plainly forbid in that place where they are not so much as spoke of The Text in the Galatians mentions expresly Moneths and Years proportions of Time no way to be accommodated to Christian Festivals or then or now That in the Colossians is so plain that it must be a worse Principle than Inconsideration which occasioned the mistake not only because it expresses New Moons a thing not established by Christian Authority but in the words following the 17. verse gives a clear account of the unlawfulness of those Feasts of the Observance of which he there complains which are a shadow of things to come but the Body is Christ Those Feasts therefore were not reproved as having been commanded by any Christian Church which it is clear they were not but because they had in them not only a general malignity as being kept in Obedience to the Iewish Law and so must suppose that to be still in force but had besides a peculiar malignity in their nature being and for that very reason reproved a shadow of Christ to come and so consequently denyed His coming Now then all which can be gathered from this place is Christians must not keep Feasts which prefigured Christ to come Ergo they may not keep Feasts in remembrance that He is come There is a pretty piece of Divinity p. 56. to enforce the former Conclusion which no doubt would be admirable if it were but sense To observe the Nativity Circumcision Passion Resurrection Ascension severally is irrational and irreligious irrational because they are not in themselves Mercies to the Church but as they center in Mans Redemption irreligious because without Divine warrant That none of all these signal condescensions of Divine goodness should be esteemed in themselves Mercies or worth giving thanks for when Edge-Hill and Nasby Battails though but in order to the undoing of the King were so accounted argues a more passionate esteem and concernment for the Covenant of Scotland than that of Grace That it is irreligious because without Divine warrant is said but not proved For a thing becomes unlawful only by being against some Law that is by being forbidden not barely by being not commanded Our Saviour Christ we are sure observed Feasts which had not such Institution notwithstanding that prohibition which was as strict to the Iews whose Authority instituted those Feasts and in obedience to which He kept them as it can possibly be to us Ye shall not add c. Christ did indeed abolish the Ceremonial Law of the Iews and that was all He did abolish so as to make unlawful From hence men gather That it is â— sin for us to imitate them in any thing we find done by them according to the Principles and Dictates of Nature Gratitude c. as Feasts of Commemorations clearly are Though this is a Proposition sufficiently distant upon this pitiful ground without any more ado do men put off all which can be fetcht out of the Old Testament whereas though Christ abolisht the Ceremonial Law he left all other Laws and Rules as he found them But as Christ observed Feasts not instituted by divine Authority so possibly doth Mr. Cr the command in Scripture for Sunday being not so very clear that Mr. Cr. cannot but doubt to be Irreligion and Will-worship in his notions of those terms No man can ground it on the fourth Commandement that doth not take the seventh and first to be the same day i. e. Seven and one to be the same number If he will interpret the Seventh-day to signifie one in seven I desire to know whether the Iews might have observed which of the seven days they pleased and whether then the Reason of the fourth Commandement was not strangely impertinent to the Matter of it That being expressed to be For in the Seventh day God rested c. seeing that was the very seventh and no other and a command in the New-Testament for it I suppose is not to be found The next three leaves 57 58 59. are spent in proving what none ever denyed That There are several things in the Form of our Service and Discipline not commanded in the Word of God A thing comes to be unlawful sure by being forbid not by being uncommanded Seeing this is the only fault I ask Is the Directory the Form there prescribed in the Word of God I desire a direct Answer to that Can that pretend to anything but to be the result of Prudence and Authority Both Directory and Common-Prayer agree in that which the Directory was made to differ from the Liturgy in both were made by Men. The only imaginable difference is the one was made by those who had Authority the other by those who had none That the Scripture is a compleat Rule of Faith And what cannot be proved thereby as it is interpreted by that Original and unquestionable Tradition by which we receive the Scripture it self is not to be believed as a revealed Article of Faith We not only assert but in the defence of this Practice of ours whereby we are said to over-throw the Scriptures being a compleat Rule we contend for it as an advantagious Truth in this Cause Because this Doctrine Nothing is to be in Discipline or Order but what we find in Scripture is a Doctrine in Scripture no where to be found So that the very Accusation is the same Crime it would be thought to reprove And what is clear concerning this Principle is as clear concerning their Practice Till the Form and Order in the Directory prescribed be shewed to be so in the Bible too The demand of the Written Word for every particular of Order and Discipline is hugely plausible and senseless I will not throw away Reason upon unreasonable men to show the vanity of that admired tenent That whatever though but of Order Decency Discipline is not in the Written Word which is a compleat Rule for all is Will-Worship c. I shall
for quiets sake grant the Scripture to be so and that the Directory or any other beloved way is plainly in terminis in the Bible But then I shall require this in return that they would show me where-abouts for I would willingly read it there and truly this is but reasonable They who when we obey the Church though in matters of Order and Decency tell us We hang our Faith upon the Churches sleeve though by the way the word Faith is not very properly applyed to such matters They of all men should not require us to hang our eyes upon their sleeves believe that Form to be plainly in Scripture which we who know our selves able to read know not to be there let them but shew it us there and we will believe Themselves approve not they tell us Believing by an implicit Faith and we as little like to see with implicit eyes That things indifferent are not unlawful to be used because commanded we need no other Principle but their own That Humane Commands alter not the Nature of things Ergo They do not become unlawful by it Ergo they may even then be used without sin and if so Whether then it be not a duty I leave to him to consider who remembers Obedience to all Magistrates Civil and Ecclesiastical to be enjoyned in the terms of the greatest latitude Those general Commands signifie something sure the general Rule of Decency and Order were not intended for nothing St. Paul reproved the irregularities at Corinth upon other Principles then would admit the wild extravagancies of any thing that might be mistook for or called Tender Conscience If any man seem to be contentious we have no such custom nor the Churches of God So then to plead Christian Liberty against the Customs of the Church is indeed spiritual Pride Faction Singularity though it may be called Conscience There was a disorder in the Church of Corinth as we read Chap. 14. v. 23. St. Paul rectified it by the Rules of Decorum the Principles of Reason without any reference to the revealed Will of God Will they not say Ye are mad In the 26. of that Chapter he tells them One had a Psalm another a Doctrine a third a Revelation c. Every one after his own way as if there be no common Authority which hath power to restrain what can hinder It is very probable it was upon this very mistake of the Liberty given by Christ as appears in the close of the Discourse ver 33. God is not the Author of Confusion c. i.e. They mistake the matter quite Christ indeed abolisht the Laws of Moses but never told them he did those of Decency He never instituted Ordinances of disorder or Sects of rudeness And if there must be Decency and Order no confusion If Authority must not judge what is so but every private man for himself then I would fain know how Order differs from Disorder Though this is clear in the nature of the thing yet I shall show out of Scripture it self allowed Instances of the Churches Authority exercised over and altering of Institutions confessedly immediate of divine Institution At the Institution of the Pass-over Exod. 12.11 it is commanded expresly they should eat it in that manner with their loins girt shooes on their feet staves in their hands yet our Saviour according to the allowed and accustomed practise of that Church eat it in a Table-posture His loyns not girt nor His staff in his hand Now what account can be given of this matter by those who allow the Church in matters of this nature no Power but declaratory what the written Word in this case which every Cobler who can read hath let themselves tell us The practice of the Kings in varying as occasion served in such cases from the Law is mentioned and commended in Scripture and hath been often urged in this case The Truth as well as the Practise is clear That the nature of Government can no more be devested of this Power than it can of being what it pretends to be This power of varying with occasions from the very express Letter of Scripture the Presbyterians as well as all the rest of the world allow and practise The Eucharist was not instituted to be in the morning nor at the Publike Service The Decree Act. 15. of things strangled and bloud though made by the authority and direction of God Himself and in peremptory terms is not observed and he who says The Reason of that Command ceases doth not answer but confirm my Argument That in change of Times we may alter what is established in Scripture much more Power sure we have over what is not at all mentioned there The Order of Widows treated of in the fifth Chap. of the 1. of Timothy no where now The famous Love-Feasts every where ceased Let them not delude the World with a shew of Scripture-Discipline when of that little part which is come to our knowledge themselves retain nothing Though how according to their Principles who allow no Authority in the Church but confine it to the Written Word be our Times never so different they can omit or add any tittle without the most horrid Impiety I ununderstand not There is a Query p. 59. which they are very happy in having taken generally for granted Sure I am They cannnot say one word of sense to prove it Whether the Instituting significant Ceremonies be not the very Formality of Superstition I am very confident were not our Ceremonies significant they would be styled silly and useless and now they are significant they are Impious To the Query I say this The word Superstition 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is used several times in Scripture but in what place they can pretend it to have that meaning I wish they would consider first and tell us afterward The Criticks I suppose will not befriend them with such a notion of it in the learned Authors I find St. Paul charging the Athenians Act. 17.22 downright with this crime Ye are too superstitious I suppose Mr. Cr. will not prove the very formality of their fault to be significant Ceremonies I find in Scripture a significant Ceremony viz. The Holy kiss If it was instituted by the Apostles as they were Ordinary Governours of the Church in that capacity they were to have Successors while there is a Church or World and so it proves the Churches Power to institute significant Ceremonies If they did it as Apostles it concerns us now The most material Objection is p. 60. How comes it to pass that the work of the Ministery is divided in Ordination Deacons Baptize but administer not the Lords Supper That the Church should give power to Deacons to Baptize though not to administer the Sacrament some account may be given from the different natures of both Sacraments Both of them it is confessed are equally Holy yet were alwayes looked upon with some difference that of Baptism as of greater necessity that
approved at Rome The clearing of this should in all Reason commend Episcopacy to those men who make opposition to Rome the rule of their Faith But oh the intolerable though holy villany of those godly Cheats who Preached up this Tenent for Popery which all who understand what Popery means know to be the bane of it and was at Trent by the See of Romes most skilful Advancers discarded as such It seems some not esteemed Iesuites can lie for God and pious frauds can be used and rayled at It is said by the Oxf. men in their third ground of their first exception That they are not satisfyed of that Phrase in the Covenant Lest we be partakers of other mens sins They do not apprehend how they are guilty of those sins suppose them to be sins which is not yet proved unless they endeavour by fire and sword to root them out To which Mr. Cr. Replyes p. 76. That they are so guilty but hath not one word to prove it That Saints in Scripture did weep for other mens sins I read But that they esteemed them to be made their own if they did not fight them down I do not read There were Kings of Israel who were Idolaters and the Law was general that they who were such should be put to death yet I do not find the Prophets telling the People that it was the same thing for them not to stone the King as it was for him to worship stones And yet this is the Import of that expression Those are our sins we are partakers of them if we do not pull them down The Foundation of the second Article of the Covenant is harder then all the Laws of God besides if it self be one It binds us to the extirpation of all Superstition Heresie Schism Profaneness or whatever shall be found contrary to the Power of Godliness and this they make to be every mans duty and swear him to it under no milder expressions then these Lest we be partakers of other mens sins and so in danger to receive their plagues And here if we consider the way of endeavouring this Covenant practised and required viz. Fire and Sword and with this their Invitation to Foraign Churches where there are no Parliaments with pretence of share in the Government so that they must only be looked upon as so many private men on whom yet this duty is incumbent It teaches us this by that Engagement Lest we partakers of other mens sins c. That a godly man can never be at peace with himself till he be at war with every one he knows or thinks wicked He must perpetually expect Gods vengeance on himself when he is not executing it upon another The first thing of moment against this Article is p. 78. That the Universal alleadged Practise of 1500 years will more weaken then strengthen the Divine Right for the most pure estate was before that in the first 140. years I shall not at all insist upon the Catalogues of Bishops in unquestionable Histories to be had even from the beginning But only say this That all Christian Churches in those dayes should deviate from the Primitive pattern and all the same way no common cause imaginable inducing them to err the same way is a thing highly incredible As to that which is ordinarily urged viz. Ambition it could not if we consider the Persons or Times have been universal nor if we consider the thing have been at all Being a Bishop having only the priviledge of being burnt next Mr. Cr. in the following Pages makes demands for Texts Though the Article insists only on Practise and so is not concerned Which if not granted good National Parochial Churches The Canon of the Scripture and the Lords-Day are lost Nor is this Truth utterly past by in Scripture though if it had considering that the intent was to deliver to us Doctrine not the precise Form of Discipline we might rationally have appealed to Antiquity in that Point i. e. to the Practise of those from whom we receive the Canon of the Scripture and without whose Suffrage were it once questioned it were not possible without immediate Revelation to have it sufficiently attested to be what it pretends to be Mr. Cr. tells us that Bishops and Presbyters are intrusted with the same Power of Governing But I cannot be satisfied in this particular since I find Timothy and Titus being single men are without any intimation of others being equal with them directed how to receive accusations and to rebuke and censure Evidences in my apprehension pregnant enough of sole Iurisdiction To disprove the Universal alleadged Practise he tells us That the King of Denmark in the year 1537. exstirpated it and so did the Scots since Goodly goodly And so did those he pleads for the long Parliament I cannot apprehend but that either he droles or is utterly ignorant of the nature of Tradition as taking it to be what none ever contradicted a notion of it which they that understand what it means have not Sure I am at that rate the Deity of Christ cannot approve it self to be Catholick Doctrine because there were Arians of old and are Socinians now The mutual correspondence by Letters which was at that time used in the Church forbad any Church to be ignorant of what all the Churches do hold so that Innovations could not but be discovered And to suppose that the same Imposture should be imposed upon all the Churches together in those early dayes as an Apostolick Tradition upon so many various Countries and Inclinations upon men whose choisest care was in delivering and dying for that Faith they had once received from the Apostles is to suppose all the World to be out of their wits together If they tell us It was the ambition of Pastors that introduced that Order no account can be given how this should be universal and yet not perceived or resisted and this is as strange as to the Exemplar Piety of those Times And yet more in the nature of the thing it is absurd For their ambition in that case could tend to nothing but a more quick and severe Martyrdom to be sooner burnt then their fellows The Heathens spite was at the Bishops as well as the Presbyterians Aerius being called a Heretick for promoting that Opinion himself glories in he qualifieth with this That Austin only calleth it Proprium dogma p. 87. Which term in St. Austin's esteem signifieth nothing less In his judgement for a private man to oppose his own private Opinion dictated by discontent as some late ones are known to have been for not being Bishops themselves in a matter of fact against all Records Histories and the owned Practise of all the Churches was Spiritual Pride and Folly And St. Austin in that case would if pertinaciously held not at all have stickt to have called it Heresie If the expression he useth do not import as much In the Answer to the fourth Exception handled I know