15. And to wait on them with all patience if God peradventure may give them repentance 7. The destruction of the flesh must be the destruction of the body But the bodies of the godly are saved no lesse then their spirits in the day of the Lord. 8. And for many of the former reasons by delivering to Satan cannot be meant a miraculous tormenting of the body by Sathan with the saving of the life Such as we read was the case of Iob for the delivering to Sathan is to cast out of the Church and declare such an offendor to be of the number of the wicked world of which Sathan is Prince Ioh. 12. 31. Ioh. 14. 30. and God 2 Cor. 4. 4. and that which we assert as the essentials of excommunication are 1. Here is a member of the Church one vvho is within 1 Cor. 5. 12. one who hath fallen in a foul scandall and had his fathers wife ver 1. who by the Church conveened in the name of our Lord Iesus with that spirit of the Apostle given to them by Christ v. 4. was delivered to Sathan that his soule may be saved for that is the genuine and intrinsecall end of Excommunication and to be purged out of the Church lest he should infect the Sheepe ver 7. and Christians were not to bear company with him nor to eate with him ver 9. 10 and he was judged to be cast out as a Heathen and Publican ver 12. 13. and that by a convened court having the name and authority of him who is King of the Church ver 4. and more wee doe not crave Obj. To deliver any to the power of Sathan is no mean of salvation Answ A morall delivering to the efficacy of error and a reprobate minde is not a mean of salvation nor is excommunication such a mean nor in the power of the Church but a medicinall depriving of an offender of the comfortable communion of the Saints and of the prayers of the Church and meanes of grace such is a means and mighty through God to humble CAP. V. Quest 1. Whether the word doth warrant discipline and censures even to the excluding of the scandalous from the Sacraments beside the Pastorall rebukes inflicted by one VVE are not to conceive that there was nothing Morall in the Lawes that God made to his people of Israel to debar the unclean from the society of Gods people and from communion with them in the holy things of God Numb 5. 1. And the Lord spake unto Moses saying 2. Command the children of Israel that they put out of the Campe every leaper and every one that hath an issue and whosoever is defiled by the dead Lev. 5. 2. If a soul touch any unclean thing whither it be a carcase of an unclean beast or the carcase of unclean cattell or the carcase of unclean creeping things and if it be hidden from him he also shall be unclean and guilty 6. And he shall bring his trespasse-offering unto the Lord for his sin which he hath sinned Lev. 7. 20. But the soul that eateth of the sacrifice of the peace offerings that pertaineth to the Lord having his uncleannesse upon him even that soul shall be cut off from the people 21. Moreover the soul that shall touch any unclean thing as the uncleannesse of man or any unclean beast or any abominable unclean thing and eat of the flesh of the sacrifice of peace-offerings which pertain unto the Lord even that soul shall be cut off from his people In the which observe that here the soul that shall touch any unclean thing is to be cut off but Num. 5. 2. He is only to be put out of the Campe now these were not killed that were put out of the Campe and therefore to be cut off from the people must be a morall cutting off by Excommunication not by death also the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 signifieth to make a Covenant to cut off either by death or any other way as by banishment by which a thing leaveth off to be in use though it be not destroyed as when a branch is cut off a tree 1 Sam. 31. 9. Yea we have Isa 50. 1. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Where is that Bill of cutting off or divorce Now this was not a Bill of killing the wife that was divorced but putting her from her husband as our Saviour saith It is not Lawfull to marry her that is divorced Matth. 19. 9. A killed and dead woman is not capable of marriage yet the word is Deut. 24 1. Ier. 3. 8. from that same Theame 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The Hebrews have another more ordinary word to signifie death as Exod. 31. 14. He that doth any work on the Sabbath in dying he shall die And it is expounded he shall be cut off from the midst of the people 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but Lev. 7. the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is four times used without any such expression ver 20 21 25 27. To which may be added that when zealous Hezechiah did finde that the people were not prepared According to the purification of the Sanctuary though they had celebrated the Passeover the King did not only not kil them but prayed God might be mercifull to them and the Lord killed them not saith the spirit of God but healed them Exod. 12. 15. He that eateth unleavened bread that soul shall be cut off from Israel but it is expounded ver 19. That soul shall be cut off 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 from the Church of Israel Certainly he that is killed is cut off from both State and Church and from the company of all mortall men on earth Isa 38. 11. Then to be cut off from Israel is onely to be deprived of the comfortable society of the Church of Israel as the holy Ghost expoundeth it Also Lev. 4. If any commit any sin but of ignorance and so if he touch any unclean thing or eat unleavened bread forbidden of God he is excluded from the holy things of God while the Priest offer for him according to the Law Now if he was presently to be killed either by the Magistrate or in that act killed by Gods own immediate hand as Aarons sons were there was not a journey to be made to the place the Lord had chosen to sacrifice there which might have been three dayes journey from his house who was unclean yea when the man that gathered sticks was stoned and the false Prophet stoned Deut. 13. there was no sacrifices offered for any of them before they were killed and I hope there were no sacrifices in Moses his Law offered for the dead Hence learn we 1. That to cut off from the Congregation was not to kill but it was the Iewish Excommunication greater or lesse 2. That Moral sins under the Old Testament debarred men from the holy things of God while the Priests sacrificed for them and brought them in a capacity to receive the holy
Magistratibus as Vtenbogard speaketh from and under the Magistrate as the Vicars Deputies and Ambassadors of the Magistrate yea that Magistrates teach the people by the Pastors as by their Vicars then Zebadiah should more diligently care for the matters of God then Amariah as the Lord and Master should more care his own businesse then his servant should do 3. More or lesse doth not vary the nature of things then must the Magistrate Sacrifice Teach judge between the clean and the unclean minister before the Lord as the sons of Aaron and the sons of Levi but lesse diligently But what calling hath he to any of these Acts at all Hath the Lord chosen the Tribe of Iudah or the Tribe of Levi to minister before him And by the same reason the Priests Levites should do these same things but more diligently And again Amariah is to use the sword and to condemne ill doers to death But lesse diligently these be pleasant dreams 5. The Priest and Judges are companions as Moses and Aaron Ergo the one is not Master and the other servant and Deputy â—â— Erastus dreameth and they are the rather of that in divers Senats 6. But how proveth Erastus That the Levites were common Servants both to Priests and Judges For though it were so this will never subject the Priests to the Civill Iudge nor confound these two Iudicatures David 1 Chron. 26. divided the Levites and set them in their courses for service Ergo They were King Davids servants as King it followeth not except Erastus prove David did not this as a Prophet and that the Lord did not choose the Tribe of Levi. But David did it as a King and so all Magistrates may appoint offices in the House of God and call men to the Ministry by vertue of the Magistrates place But David 1 Chro. 24. distributed the Priests as well as the Levites Ergo the Priests are servants to the King as well as the Levites But the Levites are expresly 1. Chron. 26. given by office to wait on the sons of Aaron for the service of the house of the Lord for the purifying the holy things for the shew bread for the fine flour for meat offerings and for the unleavened Cakes and that which is baked in the pan and for that which is fryed and for all manner of measures and size to praise the Lord at morning and night to offer all burnt sacrifices to the Lord c. In all which no man can say they were servants to the King For then the King sacrificed by them as by his servants no Divinity is more contrary to Scripture It is true 1 Chron. 26. 30. some of the Hebronites were Officers in all the businesse of the Lord and the service of the King But that is because ver 26. they had the oversight of the spoile that the King dedicated to the house of the Lord for the building of the Temple and that is called the Kings businesse Erastus Jehoshaphat 2 Chron. 19. did not depart from Moses his Law But we read not that there were two distinct Iurisdictions commanded and instituted by God Ans If this be a good Argument all that David and Solomon did for and in the building of the Temple in the structure forme length breadth Cedars gold Altars c. of the Temple shall be without Warrant Solomon and David departed not from Moses But Moses spake nothing of the Temple and a thousand things of Divine institution in the Temple But this is our Argument Jehoshaphat did erect no new Iudicatures but restore those that had their Warrant from Moses his Law But so it is that Iehoshaphat reinstituteth two distinct Iudicatures Ergo The Lord by Moses at the beginning did institute these two distinct Iudicatures Erastus We are not anxiously to inquire what be the matters of God it is all one with what he said before ye judge not for men but for the Lord. The Rabbines the judgement of Capitall causes is the judgement of souls the scripture nameth all judgements most frequently the judgements of the Lord Deut. 1. Ye shall not fear men for the judgement is the Lords Exod. 18. The people come to me to inquire of God that is to seek judgement Therefore are the Judges Exod. 22. Psal 82. called Gods The matter of God is any cause expressed in the Law of God and proposed to the Judges to be judged and the Kings matter is that which properly belongeth to the King Ans Erastus his anxiety to inquire is little because he cannot Answer 1. The matter of the Lord cannot be all one with this Ye judge not for men but for the Lord For the matter of the King or a point of Treason to be judged is to be judged not for men but for the Lord. But the Text differenceth between the matters of Lord and the matters of the King 2. In the former 2 Chron. 19. 5. he speaketh of civill businesse but the matters of the Lord are such as concern the Law of God and the true sense and meaning thereof to be proposed to the conscience and 3. That is a common thing to all causes that in the manner of Iudging Iudges are to look that they do as men in the place of God so then as God if he were judging would do no iniquity nor respect persons nor take gifts as he saith ver 7. So neither should men do iniquity or respect persons in judgement and so is it taken Deut. 1. 17. Now this clearly is the manner of righteous judgement and Modus judicandi but the matter of Iehovah is Res judicata the thing to be judged which may be unjustly Iudged and this matter of Iehovah is not common to all causes but is contradistinguished in the Text from the matters of the King which in the manner of judging is no lesse to be judged according to the judgement of the Lord then the matters of Jehovah 4. The Chalde Paraphrast Vt inquir at instructionem Vatab. Vt consulat deum This is a false interpretation That to inquire of God is to seek judgement from God For it is to ask the Lords minde in doubtsome cases and this they asked from Moses as he was a Prophet not as he was a civill Iudge except Erastus will have the Magistrate of old to give responses and to have been Oracles by vertue of their Office which is a clear untruth Saul David Solomon Joshua though Kings did not give responsals and answers when they did go to War or were in doubtsome perplexities But did ask Counsell at the Priest and Oracle of God and the Ark 1 Sam. 15. 37. Iosh 9. 14. Iudg. 20. 27. 1 Sam. 30. 8. and 23. 2. 4. And by this the Magistrate as the Magistrate should resolve all doubts of conscience now to perplexed consciences under the New-Testament 5. The Iudges are called Gods because they are under-Deputies in the room and place of the great God not because every judgement of
the Image to be God objective commemorative representative relative declarative significative Non essentialiter non per se non realiter 2. There is an honour or negative râ—verence due to any Image of God ordained by himself or to any mean of honouring God because it is such though it cannot be expressed in the act of Adoration but the question is if the honour of adoration either relative or absolute be due to the Image 3. The Jews intended to honour Jehovah in their Images what inferiour intention they had to honour the Image we are now to inquire 4. We bow our knee two wayes before a creature either before a creature as an object by accident as while we pray there of necessity must be before us some creature a wall a Table a Pulpit none of these are adored because they are before us by accident as having no Religious state The Image before the Iew and the Sacramentall elements before the kneeler cannot be thus present 2. The creature is before the kneeler of Religious purpose as a Religious object 5. The Creature is Religiously present before the kneeler two wayes 1. Active 2. Passive 1. In the meer and naked act of teaching and exciting the memory so that when that act is past I turne from the creature and adore the Creator So at the sight of the Sun or Moon being taught and instructed of the wisdom and power of God in creating such excellent creatures I am to turn from them and adore the Lord of these creatures Thus the creatures are kindely and per se objects in the act of teaching but not objects at all in the act of adoration 2. The creatures are objects passive when bodily bowing in a religious state is directed toward the creatures really and bodily present by a commandment of the Church or of purpose and so they are made objects of Adoration I. Conclusion The relative expression of God which is in the works of God is no formall ground of any Adoration of the creatures 1. Because Adoration upon this ground though the creatures the Hoast of Heaven be excellent is forbidden Deut. 4. 19. 2. Not only Images which cannot represent God and the Sacraments but all the creatures even Rats Mice Flyes Frogs Worms Iudas and wicked men yea and Devils are to be worshipped because all things having being are shadows and footsteps of God their cause first Author and last end Psal 19. 1. Psal 103. 22. Rom. 1. 19 20. Act. 17. 27 28 Prov. 16. 4. Rev. 4. 11. Rom. 11. 36 37 3. Because God is really and by the diffusion of his blessed essencâ— present in all creatures it followeth not that we should Adore them The Formalists upon this ground that Christ is really present in the Sacrament though the manner we know not think that Christ should be Adored in the Sacrament according to that Verbum audimus motum sentimus modum nescimus But if this be good Logick because we know not the way of the Spirit and how the bones grow in a woman with childe Eccles 11. v. 5. And God where he worketh is present by the immediation of essence and power though we know not the way of his presence we are to Adore the soul of man and the bones of a young childe in a womans belly though they should say that God-man Christ is in a more powerfull and efficacious manner present in the Sacrament then in the works of nature yet should it follow that God is to be worshipped in the works of nature also for Magis minus non variant speciem for then we could not conclude any thing but this Though there be not so reall a ground of Adoring Lice and Frogs as Adoring of the Sacrament Yet there is a ground seeing God is in the realliâ—y of his blessed essence present in all creatureâ— II. Conâ—lusion The Idolatrous Jews did not Adore the golden Calf as a creaâ—ure but as God by representation Exod. 32. 4. And when Aaron had made thereof a golden Calf they said These be thy Gods O Israel which brought thee up out of the Land of Aegypt 5. And when Aaron saw it he built an Altar before it and Aaron made Proclamation and said To morrow is a Feast to Iehovah Now that they believed not the golden Calf to be really and essentially Iehovah is more then evident 1. Because they believed not Moses to be essentially God but their guide and leader under God but this Calf they made to supply the want of Moses v. 1. The people gathered themselves together against Aaron and said unto him Vp make us gods which shall go before us For as for this Moses the man that brought us up out of the Land of Aegypt we know not what is become of him They made then the Calf only a visible God under Iehovah to lead them in Moses his place 2. There is no reason why they should have made Aaron rather the maker of the Calf then another but because he being the Lords Priest they thought by his holinesse the God head of Jehovah did slide into this Calf and so they held the Calf to be a thing different from Iehovah 3. They say to Aaron Make us gods Ergo they believed Iehovah to be before this made Calf 4. They saw the Calf melted before their eyes knew it was made of their ear-rings 5. They call it Iehovah yet they made it Iehovah and therefore they differenced betwixt the Calf Iehovah for they knew that Iehovah brought them out of Aegypt before the Calf was framed but the Calf was an Image of that Iehovah Bellar. and Gregor de Valent. say They worshipped not Iehovah but a vain Idol Else how is it said Psa 106. when they made this Calf that they forgot the Lord if they worshipped God in the Calf they were mindefull of God It is vain reasoning this the wife that taketh another Husband to bed with her Morally forgetteth her husband and to worship God in a memorative signe forbidden of God is a forgetting of God and a false God indeed 2. Those who acknowledge that the Heathen believe that some Godhead dwelt in Images and gave Responses and Answers out of them do thereby acknowledge that the Image it self had not the honour of giving Responses as God hath but that the inclosed Godhead gave these Responses and therefore the inclosed Godhead was that which they worshipped So Aquinas and Vasquez saith The Heathen acknowledged a Godhead to dwell in the Images And Bellarmine saith It is not improbable that the Iews believed that they worshipped the true God in an Idol Papists then may take to them Heathens Idolatry for Heathens worshipped God in Images and not Images as they are such and Abulensis and Cajetan in the Commentaries of the first Edition on Exodus said this same 3. Though the Iews believed the Calf to be essentially God yet it was God
said Erastus cometh to finde some use for a Presbytery if the Magistrate be an heathen he cannot examine or debarre any from the seals Let Erastus answer if he be a Christian how can it be denied but if the Magistrate by his office is to steward the bread to one of the children not to another but he is a steward to cut and divide the word and seals both aright and how could Paul make it one of the properties of the Pastor 2. Tim. 2. to cut the word and by the same reason to distribute the seals aright if it depend upon another officer by his office to command him to divide it to this man whom he hath examined and findeth in his mind qualified and not to this man We judge the Elders of the New Testament do agree in this common and perpetuall morality that both are to put difference between clean and unclean holy and unholy though many things were unclean to the Iews that are not unclean to us and that the Church hath yet a power to bind and loose Mat. 16. 9. Erastus There was never a wiser common wealth in the world then that of the Iews Deut. 4 But in the Common vvealth of the Ievves there vvere never tvvo distinct judicatures concerning manners Ergo There should not be these tvvo different jurisdictions in the Christian common vvealth But all should be given to the civill Magistrate Ans Erastus is seldome happy in his Logick his Syâ—logismes are thin sowne all Gods laws are most wise but if this be a good Argument was not their Church their Religion their Ceremonies their judiciall Laws all wise and righteous Then the Christian Church should be conform yet to the Iewish we should have those same bloody sacrifices judiciall lawes Ceremonies that they had The Iudicatures and officers are positive things flowing from the positive will of God who doth appoint one jurisdiction for them most wise and another to Christians different from them and in its kinde most wise 2. We give two judicatures in the Church of the Iews concerning manners one civil acknowledged by Erastus another spirituall Ecclesiastick ordaining Ecclesiastick and Spirituall punishments upon the unclean Lev. 10. 10. As to be removed out of the campe and such like and Deut. 17. Thou shalt come to the priests the Levites and the Iudge that shall be in those daies according to the sentence vvhich they of that place vvhich the Lord shall chuse shall shevv thee and thou shalt observe to doe according to all that they informe thee ver 12. And the man that vvill doâ— presumptuously and vvill not hearken 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to the Priest that standeth there to minister before the Lord thy God or unto the judge 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 even that man shall die and thou shalt put avvdy evill from Israel There is here an evident disjunction that clearly holdeth forth that both the Priests and the civill judge judged in matters of manners and that he that presumptuously despised the sentence of either was to die a judicature of the Priests is evidently here and a judicature of the civill judge Erastus cannot deny and that the Priest judged in subordination to the civill judge is refuted by the words which saith the Priest was immediatly subordinate to God not to the Magstistrate He that will not heare the Priest that standeth to minister before the Lord thy God shall die Ergo He is the Minister of the Lord and God called and separated Aaron and his sonnes to stand before the Lord and to minister and he did call the Levites the Magistrate called them not to office Erastus Beza saith that Moses Ioshua David Salomon did not execute the office of the Priests and therefore the charge of the Priests and of the civill Magistrates were different offices and charges but I said before the Lord chose Aaron and his sonnes to be Priests they were not so distinct charges but they did agree to one and the same person for Moses to omit the rest did execute the office of Aaron Levit. 8. But after that it was not lawfull for any to doe the office both of King and Priest and therefore Saul and Vzziah were justly corrected of God for it But what is this It proveth not that the Priests had publike judicatures to punish wickednes of manners Ans Certainly if Erastus deny the charge of the Priest and the King to be different offices because once Moses did offer Sacrifice and so was Melchisedeck both a King and a Priest Heb. 7. he must say that Moses offered Sacrifices Levit. 8. not as a Priest Sure I am Moses was a Prophet and a Prince and Ruler but no Priest But Moses by Erastus his way must as a civill Magistrate have offered Sacrifices and not as a Priest or priviledged person by a speciall and an extraordinary commandement of God for to deny the two offices of Priest and King to be different offices because one man discharged some Acts proper to both Offices as Moses both did beare the Sword of God as a Prince and did also discharge some Acts proper to the Priest as Erastus saith he did Leviticus 8. is a poore and naughty Argument undeniable it is that Melchisedeck was both King and Priest but even then to be a King and to be a Priest were two distinct offices in nature and essence because Melchisedech did not take away the life of a Murtherer as a Priest but as King of Salem Heb. 7. 1. Nor did Abraham pay tithes to Melchisedech as to a King but as to a Priest Tithes in Moses Law as tithes were never due to any but to the Priests and therefore even in Melchisedeck the Kingly and Priestly office were formally distinct Ordinances of God just as David as a King and judge took away the head of the man who brought Sauls head to him and not as a Prophet he did this so as a Prophet he penned the Psalmes not as a King If one and the same man be both a Musitian and a painter he doth paint excellently as a painter not at a Musitian and he singeth excellently not as a Painter but as a Musitian and though one and the same man doe acts proper to both that may prove that Musick and the art of painting are one subjectively onely that they may both agree to one and the same man but not that they are not two faculties and gifts of God different in spece and nature 2. Though Erastus confesse that it was unlawfull that Vzzias and Saul should sacrifice yet he will have the Kings office and the Ministers office under the New Testament not so different for he said expresly Who knoweth not now when Aarons Priesthood is removed but we are all equally Priests Saul and Vzziah sinned when they were bold to sacrifice and burne incense but the Magistrate doth not therefore sin who exerciseth the charge of the Ministery if he might for
theirs is the judgement and very sentence of God and according to that the cause they judge is nothing but the cause of God for they are to judge the Kings matters no lesse then Gods matters 6. For what end Erastus speaketh of the Rabbines here I know not I think he knoweth not himself the man was ignorant of them and innocent of their language Erastus I am not against that the things of God be things belonging to the Worship of God and the matters of the Kings Civill businesse The Priest must especially take care that there be no error in Faith and Ceremonies and this belongeth also to the King as is clear Deut. 17. So Zebadiah is not excluded from Gods matters Nor Amariah from the Kings businesse Ans This interpretation is fully refuted Zebadiah is in the Text excluded from judging Ecclesiastically in the matters of God as a Priest Levite or Elder For if he must judge so he must either judge as a Priest or Levite which he was not or as a Civill Iudge if as a Civill Iudge then is he no lesse over the people in the matters of God then in the Kings matters Now the Text could not exclude him from these things which belongeth to his office and put him in another Sphere in the businesse of the King and put such a wide difference between the object of the two men as the Kings matters and the matters of the King of Kings The like I say of Amariah 2. The King Deut. 17. as King is to Iudge according to the Book of the Law that he may be a godly King and fear God and keep the words of the Law Ergo he is to teach the people no lesse then the Priest and to judge between the clean and unclean and that as King This no way followeth Erastus If you please by the matters of God to understand the causes of appeals and by the Kings matters other judgements I contend not And because the Priest was better accustomed with the Law of God then others therefore the High Priest was set over these yet so as Zebadiah was over the Kings businesse But I think the two first especially the first the best Exposition But 1 Chron. 26. These same persons are set over both the Kings and the Lords matters Ans Consider how dubious Erastus is in his three Expositions to elude the force of the place If it was the Magistrates place virtute officii by vertue of his office to command the Priests and to direct them as Erastus and Vtenbogard say in the internall and specifick acts of Sacrificing Iudging between the clean and the unclean teaching the people then the King and the Civill Iudge were by office to be more skilled in the Causes of God then the Priests because the Commander and the directer who may by his office exercise those same acts that he commandeth his servants yea and is by office to command him to do thus in these internall Acts and not thus he ought by his office to be more skilled in these then the servant I grant the King Commandeth the Painter all the morall equity requisite in Painting that he endamage not the Common-wealth by prosuse lavishing of Gold and in this it is presumed there is more Iustice and morall equity by office in the King Commanding then in the Painter Commanded But if the King should take on him to Command virtute officii that the Painter regulateth his actions of art thus and thus and direct and Command by his Royall office as King that the Painter draw the face of the Image with more pale and white and lesse red and incarnate colour in such a proportion according to art and not in such a proportion Then by office the King as King might paint Pourtraictâ— himself and behoved by office to be more skilled in Painting then the Painter Now Erastus presupposeth Whatever the Priests do as Priests in an Ecclesiasticall way he excepteth Sacrificing and burning incense but for a time that the King as King may do the same also so the King as King may teach give responses in matters of God and now under the new Testament Preach and dispense the Sacraments and judge as King whether Priests and Pastors do right or no and that not only in order to Civill but also to Ecclesiasticall punishments as deprivation from their offices and debarring from the Sacraments Hence it must follow that Zebediah should by office be better skilled in the matters of God then Amariah or any Priest and by office he should rather be over the matters of God then any Priest in the world 2. Now its clear that these same things to be over men in the matter of God and in the matters of the King 1 Chron. 26. proveth nothing except they be over these same matters by one and the same power of the Sword as Erastus saith Amariah the High Priest and Zebediah the Civill Iudge promiscuously were both of them without exclusion of either over the people in the matters of the Lord and in the matters of the King and in the same judicature by the same coactive power of the sword as Erastus saith Priests and Civill Iudges were in the same judicature by the same Civill power Iudges to give out joyntly in a judiciall way the sentence of a bloody death and to inflict a bloody death by the same power 3. It is Erastus his ignorance of the Originall Text to say these same words that are 2 Chron. 19. 11. are also 1 Chron 26. ver 30 32. for 2 Chron. 19. 11. it is said Amariah is over you in all the matters of the Lord Hence the matters of the Lord were the formall object of his judging But 1 Chron. 26. 30. the Hebronites were officers in the businesse of the Lord or to the businesse of the Lord and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to the service of the King Levites might have been imployed in both Ecclesiasticall and Civill businesse in the Temple and in the overseeing of those spoiles that David in Wars had taken from the Enemies and Dedicated for building the House of the Lord which are called the Kings businesse and the construction ver 32. is varied where it is said The Hebronites mighty men of valour and so fit for war were made by King David Rulers over the Reuâ—eniâ—es Gadites and the half Tribe of Manasseh for every matter not in every matter pertaining to God The affixum 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is here and the affaires of the King These Levites seem to be imployed in the war and are called valiant men which must be some extraordinary case But otherwise when God commanded to number the Children of Israel for War Numb 1. 3. 45. The Levites were not numbred God did forbid Moses to number them because they were appointed for another service ver 48 49 50. Yet it seemeth in Davids time when there were exâ—raordinary warres that they were not exempted from
Word and Sacraments if then the Magistrate by his office may preach and dispense the Sacraments who made him a judge and a Ruler Will this satiâ—fie mens conscience The Magistrate as the Magistrate may play the Minister but the Minister may not play the Magistrate Now as Erastus saith the Minister in holy things is his servant called by him may not the Minister be called by him to the Bench also Erastus Eli and Samuel were both Priests and Iudges and so to Erastus they are not inconsistent 2. Ministers ought not to usurpe the civill sword Ergo they have no power of governing by the sword of the Spirit it followeth not the contrary is evident 1 Thes 5. 12. 1. Tim. 5. 17. 1 Cor. 12. 28. Rom. 12. 7 8. Erastus Peter Martyr saith Com. 1 Sam. 8. Those that live wickedly may be corrected by the Magistrate But Papists give one civill Ecclesiastick power to the Pope and another to the Magistrate whereas the civill Magistrate is sufficient enough Ans Pet. Martyr 1 Cor. 5. expresly asserteth Excommunication and acknowledgeth a Presbyterie of Pastors and Seniors or Elders Peter Martyr condemneth the use of both swords in the Pope and saith it is sufficient that the Magistrate have the Sword Erastus Christ saith my Kingdom is not of this world that is it is not pollitick externall visible for Christ reigneth in the world but his Government is invisible and spirituall in the Word and the Spirit Ans Christ denieth only that his Kingdome is of this World in regard it is not holden up by the civill sword of men or Magistrates as Erastus doth dreame who maketh the Magistrate with his club to be the onely Catholick and principall Ruler in all Christs courts which Christ refuteth when he saith If my Kingdome were of this world mine owne would fight for me Now Erastus will have no weapon but the Magistrates sword to hold out and cast out all offenders out of Christs Kingdom but it is false that Christs Kingdom is not politicall externall and visible this is to deny that Christ hath a visible Church Sure exhorting rebuking censuring withdrawing from the scandalous excommunication are visible externally and in a politick spirituall way exercised by Christ in his Ambassadors for externall and spirituall are not opposed nor are politicall and spirituall opposed as Erastus dreameth and therefore this is a non sequitur of Erastus His Kingdom is not of this world Ergo it is not externall Erastus When Pompeius invaded and possessed Iudea and Gabinius having overcome Alexander had changed the state of Iudea the Pharisees did reigne wholly at Ierusalem The Kingly power was removed and Aristocracy set up Ioseph bel Iud. l. 1. c. 6. Ioseph antiq l. 14. c. 10. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The Synedrie for the most part had its owne authority vnder Hyrcanus and under Archilaus it was more fully restored as is cleer by the Evangelists and Iosephus Claudius in the tenth year after Christs death setteth forth an Edict 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Ioseph Ant. lib. 19. Titus Vespasianus promised the same thing to them Ans Will then Erastus have Christ Mat. 18. to restore the power of the Sanedrim in gaining a lost brother that is to cite him before the Roman Iudges But 1. the Romans made high Priests from yeere to yeere did Christ acknowledge the Sanedrim to be a restored Iudicature in this 2. Say that the Sanedrim in sacris in in the holy things of God had its full power the Romans not impeding them hath any man a face to deny but Pharisees corrupted both Law Gospell Sanedrim and all and doth Christ establish their most corrupt government especially when they set themselves against the Messiah Cesar or Pompeius could give the Sanedrim no more then it had before they were subdued but before they were subdued the Sanedrim was changed and corrupted 3. This is to beg the question to say they kept the power of the Sword For 1. We utterly deny that by Gods Law they ever had any such power and forsooth because the High-Priests servant smote our Saviour on the face and they scourged and imprisoned the Apostles What then therefore the Sanedrim had the Law of God for it and Aaron and his sonnes might beat scourge imprison and kill as they killed Steven without Law or warrant except the Law that they had from the Roman Emperours for which cause I judge their Sanedrim was then a mixed Judicature surely this is a vaine consequence 4. It is like enough Claudius and Tiberius both gave them liberty of their own Religion Ceremonies and customes at their pleasure and that is much for us the adversary so do reason from a corrupt unjust and wicked practice to infer a Law Erastus I have solidly proved there were not two distinct jurisdictions but that the Magistrate Governed all I deny not that the Magistrate took counsell at those that were skilled in the Law And I have proved that the Sanedrim in Christs time when he spake these words had the power of the sword in things pertaining to Religion Ans Let another man praise thee solidity of the probation to most of Protestant Divines is plain emptinesse 2. That the Magistrate took advice of Divines and learned men skilled in the Law is not like the first pattern of Moses David Solomon who as Magistrates saith Erastus did rule all in the Church gave the Law to Aaron his sons directed and commanded the Prophets from the Lord as nearest to him what they should do what Laws they should teach the people Shew us one precept practise or promise in the word where Moses David Solomon asked Counsell at Aaron the Priests Gad Nathan or the Prophets saying O sons of Aaron O Prophets advise us Magistrates what Laws we should command you touching your office your holy garments your washing your beasts clean and unclean your lâ—per your putting men out of the Camp touching the forme dimensions structure materials of the Arke Tabernacle Temple c. that we may know what to command you from the Lord for we are nearer to the Lord and have a more eminent place as Church-Officers then you who are but our Vicars Deputies and servants to be directed by us Now 1. Moses received all Laws immediatly from God and never consulted with any man either Aaron Priest or Prophet David and Solomon had the forme of the Temple given to them by the Lord in writing and advised with none at all therefore received from God and delivered to the Church what they received of the Lord. 2. What warrant the Magistrates should advise with Ministers what they should command-Ministers to preach and do in their Ministery if by vertue of their Office they command Ministers 3. So like as Christ referreth men to the Civill sword on their bodies to gain their souls which is the scope of Christ Matth. 18. CHAP. XVII Quest 13. Whether Erastus can make good that the
Ordinances giving them Laws in all Positive externals which place the Beast the King of the Bottomlesse Pit the Pope usurpeth But I would gladly be informed of Formalists how the King is the Head and Vicegerent of Christ over the Church if Christs Kingdom be only spirituall Mysticall Internall not Politicall not externall for sure the King as King exerciseth no internall and Mysticall operations upon the consciences of men under Jesus Christ his power is only Politicall and Civilly Politicall about or without the Church not properly within the Church Surely if Rulers be Subjects and Members under Christ the Head and King I shall believe that Christ must in all Positive things of externall Policie give to them Particular Laws in the Scripture and Rule them and that they being Members not the Head must as particularly be Ruled in all externals Positive by the will and Law of the Head Christ and that they are not Kings Heads and Law givers and Rulers to themselves And especially upon these considerations This King and Head must be particular in an immutable perpetuall and unalterable Platform of Church-Government 1. Salomon for wisdome in the order degrees number attire of his servants and Policie of his house to the admiration of the Queen of Sheba in this we conceive was a type of a greater then Salomon 2. The Positives of the policie of Christs house must be congruous to a supernaturall end the edification of souls and that Symbolicall Rites of mens devising speak supernaturall duties that Christ hath already spoken in the Scripture as that Crossing spell out Dedication to Christs Service Surplice pastorall holinesse which both are Gospel truths 1. Pet. 1. 18. 1 Pet. 2. 24. Isa 52. 11. Is as supernaturall a mean for edification as that bread and wine signifie Christs body and blood therefore the one more then the other ought not to be left to humane reason but must be expresly set down in Scripture 3. All these must lay a tie upon the conscience but if they have their rise from the vain will of Prelats and men they can never bind my conscience for how can they bind my conscience as the Scripture bindeth them on me and yet Rulers as Rulers in the name of Christ the King cannot presse them upon me Formalists give divers Replies to this As 1. Hooker You are constrained to say that of many things of Church-Policie some are of great weight some of lesse that what hath been urged of immutability of Laws it extendeth in truth no farther then only to Laws wherein things of greater moment are prescribed as Pastors Lay-Elders Deacons Synods Widows else come to particulars and shew if all yours be perpetuall and our particulars unlawfull Ans 1. Things of greater and lesse weight we acknowledge in Church-Policie and in Doctrinals too but in this sense only 1. That they be things Positive 2. They be both things that are unchangeable by any except by God himself and oblige us Necessitate precepti by the necessity of a Divine Commandment as Matth. 23. 23. To pay tythe of Mint Annise and Cummin is a lesse matter then the weightier duties of the Law Iudgement Mercy and Faith But there is nothing so small in either Doctrinals or Policie so as men may alter omit and leave off these smallest Positive things that God hath commanded for Christ saith Paying of tythe of Mint ought not to be omitted though the Church of Pharisees should neglect it and command some other petty small things in place thereof If therefore Prelats should obliterate the Office of Ruling Elders which Christ the Lord instituted in his Church and put themselves in as Governours in their Room they may put out Pastors and Sacraments and take in for them Turkish Priests and Circumcision with a signification that Christ is already come in the flesh We urge the immutability of Christs Laws as well in the smallest as greatest things though the Commandments of Christ be greater or lesse in regard of the intrinsecall matter as to use water in Baptisme or to Baptise is lesse then to Preach Christ and believe in him 1 Cor. 1. 17. Yet they are both alike great in regard of the Authority of Christ the Commander Matth. 28. 18 19. And it s too great boldnesse to alter any Commandment of Christ for the smallnesse of the matter for it lieth upon our conscience not because it is a greater or a lesser thing and hath degrees of obligatory necessity lying in it for the matter but it tyeth us for the Authority of the Law-giver Now Gods Authority is the same when he saith You shall not Worship false Gods but me the only true God And when he saith You shall not adde of your own one ring or pin to the Ark Tabernacle Temple yea either to break or teach others to break one of the least of the Commandments of God maketh men the least in the Kingdom of God Matth. 5. 18. And to offend in one is to offend in all Iam. 2. 10. 2. That our things of Church-Policie are perpetuall we prove and that what we hold of this kinde we make good to be contained in the Scripture either expresly or by due consequence and so the Church and their Rulers act nothing in our way but as Subordinate to Christ as King and Head of the Church and Surplice humane Prelats Crossing we hold unlawfull in the house of God because they are not warranted by the King and Head Christs word and because the devisers and practisers of these do neither devise nor act in these as Subordinate to Jesus Christ as King Priest or Prophet by the grant of our Adversaries Hooker l. 3. Eccles Pol. pag. 124. The matters wherein Church-Policy are conversant are the publick Religious duties of the Church as administration of the Word Sacraments Prayers spirituall censures of the Church and the like to these the Church stand alwayes bound and where Policy is it cannot but appoint some to be leaders of others and some to be led If the blinde lead the blinde they both perish and where the Clergy is any great multitude order requireth that they be distinguished by degrees as Apostles and Pastors were in the Apostolick Church And number of specialities there are which make for the more convenient being of these principall parts of Policy Ans 1. If Christ as King have appointed word and Sacraments in generall and Censures he hath appointed the Word Sacraments and Censure in speciall to wit such a word such Sacraments Baptisme the Lords-Supper such Censures Excommunication admonition or then he hath left the Specialities of written and unwritten Word to the arbitriment of men and that there be Excommunication or no Excommunication and this Doctrinall and the like he hath left to mens devising to wit Crossing is a Dedication of the childe to Christ now Jerome Advers Helvid saith Vt hec que scripta sunt non negamus ita ea quae non sunt
of the Church and is indeed a teaching sign and so should not be counted a Positive of Church-Policy 2. Most false it is that the Tabernacle and Temple were nothing but a meeting place of the people for Worship as our Churches or Chappels are 1. Because it is to Argue the Holy Ghost of want of wisdom to spend so much Canonick Scripture in setting down things idely not tending at all to edification and teaching us nothing of God and in specifying the Form Height Length Bredth Curtains Candlesticks Sockets Rings of naturall places that contained their bodies for what should it edifie us if God should describe so particularly all the Churches and meeting places of the people under the New Testament Now certain it is Whatsoever things were written afore time were written for our Learning Rom. 15. 4. 2. Many things in the Tabernacle as Candles in day light Rings Sockets Shew-bread belonged nothing to a naturall place as our Chappels or Meeting houses do 3. Expresly the Scripture maketh them more then places to wit Holy Religious and Typicall signes of Divine institution as the Tahernacle was a Type Heb. 8. 2. 5. Heb. 9. 1 2. c. Heb. 10. 1 2 3. And the Temple a Type of Christs body Ioh. 2. 19. Ioh. 1. 14 15. And all these were Types and shadows of Heavenly things Heb. chap. 8 9 10. Gal. 4. 1. 2. c. Col. 2. 16. 17. Which our Churches and Chappels are not being only places common to sacred and Civill actions 2. God therefore can no more in expresse words set down the form matter dimensions of Christian Churches and Chappels then of the Synagogues of the Iews which had no Morall use for edification and instruction 3. Yea because the Tabernacle and Temple and their implements were teaching shadows of good things to come and our Churches and Chappels are not so nor have they any Morall or Religious use or influence on our spirits as the Tabernacle and Temple had therefore the Lord who is expresse in all Morals which of their own nature do teach and edifie he behoved to name Bezaliel and Aholiah and the form and colour of the Priests garments which also are Typicall and could not name our Elders or the colour or form of their Garments 4. All these weak retortions suppose that the Tabernacle and Temple were types of our meeting houses for Worship which is a meer conjecture they were no more types of our Chappels then of the Iewish Synagogues we may not expound types at will but as the Holy Ghost expoundeth them to us in the New Testament And this is a conjecturall Exposition and a dream to make Bezaliel and Aholiah types of Embroyderers and Tradesmen 5. We know the Tabernacle and Temple were corporall things made with hands and that they are things different from the spirituall things that they signifie as the sign and the thing signified as therefore the Lord is expresse in the elements and Rites of the Supper of the Lord because all of them Bread Wine taking eating breaking pouring out the Wine drinking are teaching and edifying signes and our Lord never left it to the wisdom of men to devise signes to teach themselves so in like manner should the Lord expresly specifie all the teaching and signifying signes in the Old Testament and as Moses might devise none of his own but was tyed to follow the patern which the Lord himself shewed to him in the Mount So are we now under the New Testament tyed to the patern of that same will revealed in the Word and it is laid on us Not to be wise above that which was written and it is of perpetuall equity The supream Law-giver never left it to the wisdom of Angels or Men or Prophet Apostle or Church to serve and Worship God as they thought good But he himself particularly prescribed the way signes and means And because God hath not been pleased in the New Testament to specifie types of Christ incarnate and come in the flesh already therefore are we obliged in Conscience to believe and practise no more either in Doctrinals or teaching types or Positives of Church-Policy then our Patern in the Mount the Scripture hath warranted to us to be the will of God and in this and this only standeth the force of the present Argument unanswered by paterns of unwritten Traditions and not in these loose consequences that we under the New Testament should have these types and Policy that the Church of the Iews had which is the Doctrine of Papists and Formalists following them not ours for they prove their Pope and Prelat from the Iewish High Priest their Surplice from the linnen Ephod of Jewish Priests their Humane Holidayes from the Iewish dayes their kneeling to bread from their bowing toward the Ark. 6. It is not true that the Tabernacle and Temple were meer corporall things no more then bread and wine in their spirituall relation are meer corporall things The Lords end use and intent in the Tabernacle and Temple was that they should be to the people Images and shadows of heavenly and spirituall things Heb. 8. 5. Heb. 10. 1. 7. That all the things of the Tabernacle were delivered to Moses as a King and not as a Prophet and writer of Canonick Scripture Heb. 3. 5. Heb. 8. Luk. 24. 44. 27. Luk. 16. 31. is an untruth except Formalists make the King so the head of the Church in prescribing Laws for the Policy thereof as they make him a Canonick writer as were David Moses Solomon from whose example they would prove the King to be the head of the Church But I judge Moses saw the patern in the Mount and God face to face as a Prophet whose words are Scripture to us Deut. 34. 10. And there arose not a Prophet since in Israel like unto Moses whom the Lord knevv face to face And as a Prophet not as a King his face did shine Exod. 34 27 28 29. And he was commanded as a Prophet to write the Law not as a King Numb 12. 6. 7. Moses is made the most eminent Prophet that was in the Old Testament And why Because God spake to other Prophets by Dreams and Visions But he spake the Law and written Scripture to Moses mouth to mouth This should not be a comparison between Prophet and Prophet but between Prophet and King by this learning 8. We judge Noahs Ark doth prove the same it being a speciall type of the Church 1 Pet. 3. 20 21. And he built it by Faith Heb. 11. 7. And so by a Word of God and at Gods speciall direction in all the length bredth formes of it and not of his own head Gen. 6. 14 15 c. And is commended by the spirit of God for so doing Gen. 6. 22. Thus did Noah according to all that God commanded him so did he And Formalists should deserve the like Testimony if it could be said of them And as the Lord commanded the
perfect though it teach us not any thing of tradionals in speciall yet in generall it doth hold forth the traditions of the church So Tostat Abulens in Deut. 4. v. 2. ad lit saith Hic commendatur lex ex perfectione quia perfecto nec addi potest nec auferri debet Here the Law of God is commended saith he from its perfection and that is perfect to which nothing can be added and from which nothing should be taken Yea so far forth is the scripture perfect in the Articles of Faith that Castro in summa c. 8. Canus locor Theolog. l. 2. c. 7. and l. 4. c. 4. and Tannerus tom 3. in 22. disp 1. de fide Q. 1. dub 7. saith We are not now to wait for any new revelation of any verity unknown to the Apostles Et nihil novi definiri ab ecclesia Apostolis incognitum and all verities now revealed were implicitely believed by the Apostles and contained in Vniversall generall precepts as that the Saints are to be worshipped that Canonicall Books containeth the word of God the Bishops of Rome are the true successors of Peter and Catholick pastors c. and he saith Quod ecclesia non posset novum fidei articulum condere communiter etiam docent Scholastici in 3. dis 25. he subscribeth to that truth of Vincentius Lyrinensis c. 17. In ecclesia nulla nova Dogmata procudi sed pretiosam divini Dogmatis Gemmam exsculpi fideliter cooptari adornari sapienter ut intelligatur illustrius quod antea obscurius credebatur No new points of saith or manners are forged in the Church but the precious pearl of divine truth is in it polished faithfully applied and wisely illustrated that they may be more clearly understood which before was more obscurely beleeved so that to say the perfection of scripture consisteth not in particularizing all the small positives of policy is no more then Papists say of the perfection of the scripture in their traditions 2. Moses speaketh both of the Morall and Ceremoniall Law called by the names of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Statutes rights and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Judgements and Laws whatsoever extolled by David Psal 119. As his delight his joy his heritage his songs in the house of his pilgrimages and of both he saith that there is life in keeping them Now the Ceremonies of Moses had an exceeding great excellency in looking to Christ and being shadows of good things to come Heb. 10. 1. And our Ceremonies have the same aspect upon Christ Why but the day of the commemoration of Christs Death Nativity Ascension Dedication to Christ by a Crosse in the Aire should have the same influence and impression on our hearts if they be lawfull that the like Ceremonies and Laws had upon Davids spirit Christ being the object and soul of both 2. Of these Ceremonies and Laws Moses faith 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 v. 6. for this is your wisdom and your understanding in the sight of the Nations Why but these same Ceremonies looking with a broader and fuller face on Christ already come if Christ have put any life of lawfulnesse in them then their dim shadows of old should also be our wisdom in the hearing of Pagans who know not God 3. It is a wonder to me that the learned Master Prynne should say that the place Deut. 4. speaketh nothing of Church-Government and Ceremonies but only of Doctrines of Canonicall Books For that is as much as to say the place speaketh nothing of Divine Ceremonies but only of divine Ceremonies for what a number of Divine Ceremonies and Laws are in the Law of Moses which were given by the Lord himself as is clear by the words ver 1. Now therefore hearken O Israel unto the Statutes and judgements that I teach you that ye may live and v. 5. Behold I have taught you Statutes and judgments which the Lord my God commanded me v. 8. And what nation is there so great that hath statutes and judgements so Righteous as all this Law which I set before you this day Now of all this Law the Lord saith v. 2. Ye shall not adde unto the Word which I commanded you Neither shall ey diminish The Learned and Reverend Mr Prynne must restrict this word of the Law which can admit of no addition to some speciall Law either the Morall only or the judiciall and Ceremoniall only not to the former for then additions to the Decalogue only should be forbidden this never man taught Stapleton indeed Relect. Prin. fid Doctrin cont 4. Q. 1. Art 3. restricteth it to the Ceremoniall Law only but Moses maketh it a Law as large v. 2. as the word which God Commandeth And as saith he v. 5. the statutes and the judgements which the Lord Commanded me v. 8. All this Law Deut. 31. 9. This written Law delivered to the Priests and kept in the Ark the Law that all Israel heard read v. 11. Of which it is said v. 24. When Moses had made an end of writing of the words of this Law in a Book untill they were finished Now this was the whole five Books of Moses And were there nothing of Church-Government in Moses Law What shall we then say of the High Priest his calling Office habit of the Priests Levites their charge calling attire of the Law of the Leaper his healing his extrusion out of the Camp of the Law of those that were defiled with the dead of their qualification who were to be Circumcised who were to eat the Passeover or who not who were to enter into the house of God and Congregation who not not a few of these touching Church-Government are included in the Law that God Commanded Israel as their wisdom 4. That there were many additions made to the service of God in the Temple not mentioned by Moses is nothing to purpose except it be proved that these additions were made by the Church without any word of God the conâ—rary whereof is evident for the Temple and whole patern thereof was delivered in writing by the Lord to David 1 Chron. 28. 11. 19. If Formalists will have no Laws made but by Moses as the only Law-giver they have as good reason to say That Moses was the only Canonick writer and none but he which is absurd Or 2. That Moses by his own spirit was a Law-giver and had active influence in excogitating the Law We conceive that Protestants are to own this Doctrine which Tostatus imputes to us as Hereticks Com. in Loc. Q. 2. Quasi Moses nudus minister relator verborum dti esset non legem conderet As if Moses were a meer servant and a naked reporter of the Lords Law and words and not a Law-maker For in the making of Laws and Divine institutions we judge that all the Canonick writers were meer patients as the people are for God is the Commander and Moses the person Commanded and a meer servant Deut. 4. 5. Mal. 4. 4. Heb. 3.
of adoring God Obedience is founded not formally upon Gods excellency properly so called but upon his jurisdiction and Authority to Command Adoration is the subjection or prostration of soul or body to God in the due recognition and acknowledgement of his absolute supremacy There is no need that Vasquez should deny that there is any internall Adoration for that Adoration is only an externall and bodily Worship of God can hardly be defended for there may be and is Adoration in the blessed Angels as may be gathered from Isa 6. 1 2 3. Hâ—b 1. 6. And it is hard to say that the glorified spirits loosed out of the body and received by Christ Act. 7. 59. Psal 73. 27. Into Paradice Luk. 23. 43. And so with him Philip. 1. 23. And Praying under the Altar Rev. 6. 9 10. And falling down before the Lamb and acknowledging that he hath Redeemed them Rev. 5. 8 9 10. do not Adore God and his Son Christ because they have nor bodies and knees to bow to him and yet they Adore him Phil. 2. 9 10. in a way suitable to their spirituall estate It is an untruth that Rapha de la Torres in 22. q. 84. Art 2. disp 2. n. 1. saith That Protestants detest all externall Worship now under the New Testament as contrary to Grace and Adoration of God in spirit and truth For things subordinate are not contrary we should deny the necessity of Baptisme and the Lords Supper and of vocall praying and praising under the New Testament which are in their externals externall worship I grant internall Adoration is more hardly known But 't is enough for us to say as externall Adoration is an act by which we offer our bodies to God and subject the utter man to him in sign of service and reverence to so supream a Lord so there is a heart-prostration and inward bowing of the soul answerable thereunto As the profession whither actuall or habituall in a locall and bodily approach or in verball titles of Honour in which we Honour great personages by bowing to them in prostration and kneeling is an act in its state Civill not Religious we intending I presse not the necessity of a â—ormall or actuall intention only to conciliate Honour to them suitable to their place and dignity so a profession whither actuall or habituall in a Religious bodily approach to God either by prayer or prostration or inâ—lination of the body tending to the Honour of God is a Religious act Now bodily prostration of it self is a thing in its nature indifferent and according as is the object so is it either Artificiall as if one should stoop down to drive a wedge in an image or civill if one bow to Honour the King or Religious when God and Divine things are the object thereof But with this difference the intention of the minde added to externall prostration to a creature reasonable may make that prostration idolatrous and more then civill honour Thus bowing to Haman Honoured by Ahasuerus who hath power to confer honours if people bow to him as to God is more then civill honour And Cornelius his bowing to Peter Act. 10. as to more then a man is Idolatrous and not civill honour and the Carpenters bowing to an Image as to a piece of Timber formed by Art is only Artificiall bowing and if any stumble at a stone before an Image and so fall before it it is a casuall and naturall fall whereas a falling down with intention to Adore had been Religious Adoring But when the object of bodily prostration or kneeling is God or any Religious representation of God whither it be the elements of bread and wine which are Lawfull Images of Christ or devised pictures or portraicts of God or Christ because these objects are not capable of artificiall naturall or civill prostration if therefore they be terminating objects of bodily kneeling or prostration these Religious objects to wit God and Religious things must so specifie these bodily acts as that they must make them Religious not civill acts though there be no intention to bow to God for bowing to God hath from the object that it is a Religious bowing though you intend not to direct that bowing to God as bowing to Jupiters Portraict is a Religious Worshipping of that Portraict though you intend not to worship the Portraict for the act and Religious object together maketh the act of prostration or kneeling to be essentially Religious though there be no intention to bow to these indeed the intention to bow to God maketh kneeling to God to be more Morally good laudable and acceptable before God then if therewere no such intention but the want of the intention maketh it not to be no Religious worship nor can it make it to be civill worship Hence let this be observed that intention of bowing can or may change that bowing which otherwayes were but civill if there were no such intention of over-esteeming the creature into a Religious bowing but neither our over or under-intention can change a Religious kneeling to God or to an Image into a civill kneeling because civill or naturall bowing to creatures is more under the power of an humane and voluntary institution of men then Religious bowing which hath from God without any act of mans free will its compleat nature When we kneel to Kings we signifie by that gesture that we submit our selves to higher powers not simply saith P. Martyr but in so far as they Command not things against the Word of the Lord. When we Adore God we Adore him as the Supream Majesty being ready to obey him in what he shall Command without any exception the Adoration of men signifieth a submission limited if it go above bounds it is the sinfull intention of the Adorer who may change the civil Adoration into Religious and may ascend But the Aderation of God cannot so descend as it can turn into Civill Adoration only keeping the same object it had before Worship is an action or performance or thing by which we tender our immediate honour to God from the nature of the thing it self 1. I call it an action because the passion of dying or suffering is not formally worship but only dying comparatively rather then denying of Christ or dying so and so qualified dying with Patience and Faith may be called a worship 2. I call it not an action only but a performance or thing because an office as the Priesthood the Ministery is a worship and yet not an action Sometime Time it self as the Sabbath Day is a Worship yet it is not an action So the Lord calleth it His Holy Day and undenyably the lewish dayes the High Priests garment and many things of that kinde were Divine or Religious performances things or adjuncts of Divine Worship but so as they are not meerly adjuncts of Worship but also worship for the High Priests Ephod was not only a civil ornament nor was it a
things of God Leviticus 10. 10. The Priests were not to drink wine when they went into the Tabernacle That ye may saith the Lord put difference between holy and unholy and between unclean and clean Now Haggai expresly saith cap. 2. 11 12. That it was the Priests part to put this difference and so to admit to or exclude from the holy things of God Hence for this cause it is said as 2 Chron. 23. 19. Iehoiada appointed the officers of the Lords house so he set porters at the gates of the house of the Lord that none which are unclean in any thing might enter in so Ezra 9. 21 22. None did eat the Passeover but such as were pure and had separated themselves from the filthinesse of the Heathen of the land for this cause doth the Lord complain of the Priests Ezech. 22. 26. Her Priests have violated my law and have polluted my holy things they have put no difference between the holy and the prophane neither have they shewed the difference between the unclean and the clean Ezech. 44. 6. And thou shalt say to the Rebellious even to the house of Israel thus saith the Lord God O ye house of Israel let it suffice you of all your abominations 7. That ye have brought into my sanctuary strangers uncircumcised in heart and uncircumcised in flesh to be in my sanctuary to pollute it even my house when ye offered my bread the fat and the blood and they have broken my Covenant because of all your abominations 8. And ye have not kept the charge of my holy things But ye have set keepers of my Charge in my Sanctuary for your selves 9. Thus saith the Lord God no stranger uncircumcised in heart nor uncircumcised in flesh shall enter into my sanctuary of any stranger that is among the children of Israel Here is a complaint that those that have the charge of the holy things should suffer the holy things to be polluted I grant it cannot bear this sense that none should be admitted to be Members of the Visible Church under the New Testament but such as are conceived to be regenerate except it can be proved that the Sanctuary was a type of the visible Church 2. That the Apostles constituted their Churches thus but we read not in all the New Testament of any admission of Church Members at all but only of baptizing of those who were willing to be baptized and from this resulted the capacity of a Church Relation in all Churches visible Nor 2. Do we finde any shadow in all the word of God of tryall of Church Members by way of electing and choosing of such and such as qualified by reason of a conceived regeneration in the persons chosen or of rejecting and refusing others as conceived to have no inward work of grace in them this I believe can never be made good out of the word of God 3. They must prove the Apostles admitted into the Sanctuary of the Visible Church Ananias Saphira Simon Magus and others uncircumcised in heart to pollute the holy things of God and that the Apostles erred and were deceived in the moulding of the first Apostolick Church in the world which was to be a rule and pattern to all Churches in the New Testament to all Ages I deny not but they might have erred according to the grounds of these who urge the comparison for a Church of visible Saints but that the Apostles De facto did erre in their Election and judgement in that wherein the holy Ghost holdeth them forth and their acts to be our rule and pattern I utterly deny I grant Act. 15. In that Synod they did Act as men and Elders not as Apostles but that it could fall out that they should uctually erre and obtrude false Doctrine instead of truth to the Churches in that Synod which is the first rule and pattern of Synods I shall not believe But there is this Morall and perpetuall truth in these Scriptures 1. That there are under the New Testament some over the people of God in the Lord some that watch for their souls and govern them as here there were Priests Levites that taught and governed the people 2. That the Rulers of the Churches alwayes are to have the charge of the holy things and to see that these holy things the Seals and Sacraments and word of promise be not polluted and that therefore they have power given them to debar such and such profane from the Seals and so are to discern between the clean and the unclean and this which the Prophet speaketh ver 9. is a prophecie never fulfilled after this in the persons of the people of God therefore it must have its spirituall truth fulfilled under the New Testament as is clear ver 11. Yet the Levites that are gone away far from me shall be Ministers in my Sanctuarie having charge at the gates of the House and Ministering to the House 14. And I will make them keepers of the charge of the House for all the service thereof and for all that shall be done therein Ver. 15. And the Priests and the Levites the sons of Zadok that kept the charge of my Sanctuary when the children of Israel went astray from me they shall enter into my Sanctuary and they shall come neer to my Table to minister unto me and to keep my charge 23. And they shall teach my people the difference betweene the holy and prophane and cause men to discerne between the uncleane and the cleane 24. And in controversie they shall stand in judgement and they shall judge it according to my judgement and they shall keepe my Lawes and my Statutes in all mine assemblies and they shall hallow my Sabbaths Now this Temple was another house then Solomons Temple as is evident out of the Text it having roomes dimensions structures so different that none can imagine them one house and these chapters containe the division of the Holy Land which after the captivity was never done for the ten Tribes never returned and this Temple is clearely a type of the new Ierusalem and agreeth to that City spoken of Revelation chapters 21. and 22. As may appeare especially by the foure last chapters of Ezekiel and in the last words of the last chapter And the name of the city from that day shall be The Lord is there And the Priests after the captivity as well as before brake the covenant of Levi Mal. 2. And therefore I see it not fulfilled except in the visible Church of the New Testament and in the Assemblies of Christian Churches Mat. 18. Act. 15. and the rest of the Church-assemblies under the New Testament As for the Lords personall raigne on earth it is acknowledged there shall be no Church policy in it no Word Sacraments Ordinances no Temple as they say from Rev. 21. 22. And with correction and submission the Priests and Levites that Ezek. 44. 15. are said to keep the charge of the Lords
House when others went astray I take to be a prophecie of these Pastors under the New Testament to wit the Apostles of Iesus Christ and Pastors and teachers that Christ left in his Church for the edifying of his body Ephes 4. 11. 12. When these Scribes and Pharises did sit in Moses his chaire for a while Mat. 23. but onely as porters and inferiour Officers in Gods house yet they were to be heard while God should cut them off as he prophecied Zach. 11. 8. We cannot say as some doe that persons were deprived amongst the Iewes of Church communion in the holy things of God because of Ceremoniall not of Morall uncleannes but now under the new Testament only Morall uncleannes can exclude persons from the holy things of God and therefore to argue from ceremoniall uncleannes in the old to morall uncleannesse in the new is no good consequence I answer the Ceremoniall uncleannesse in the Old which did exclude from the holy things of God doth strongly conclude that morall uncleannesse under the New Testament doth exclude from the holy things of God if that exclusion of the Leaper out of the campe seven dayes and the touching of the dead though imprudently did typifie some other exclusion from the holy things of God as no question it did then the consequence must be strong 2. It is also false that morall uncleannesse did not exclude from the holy things of God under the Old Testament For 1. what was more ordinary then that sacrifices should be offered for sins of ignorance for trespasâ—es and while this was done the person was not admitted to partake of the holy things of God 2. Whence was the Lords frequent complaints of wearying his soule with sacrifices solemne assemblies feast dayes and new Moones when they were morally uncleane and their hands were full of blood and they had not put away the evill of their doings did not love judgement and justice Isaiah 10. 11 12 13 16 17 18 19. And when God complaineth so of them Ier. 7. 8. Will ye steale murther and commit adultery and sweare falsely and burne incense unto Baal and walke after other Gods whom ye know not 10. And come and stand before me in this house which is called by my Name Ergo Murtherers and adulterers were debarred from entring into the Congregation of the Lord and partaking of the holy things of God while they repented Let none say by prophecying or the keyes of knowledge in preaching the Word they were declared unworthy to enter into the Temple but that will not conclude that it was the Priests office by power of discipline to exclude them from coming unto the Sanctuary of God Ans But if the Porters were set at doores of the Lords house to hold out the uncleane and if the Lord charge the Priests with this crime that they Ezek. 44. 8. set keepers of the charge of the Lords house for themselves that is for their owne carnall ends and not for the honour of the Lord And that ver 7. They brought into the Sanctuary of the Lords house uncircumcised in heart that is such as were morally uncleane then had the Priests a power to debarre from the Sanctuary such as were morally uncleane and if the Priests are said to beare rule by their meanes Ier. 5. 31. Then the Priests did beare rule and governe though they abused their Power and the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 signifieth to have dominion over any Psal 72. 8. Psal 110. 2. 1 Kin. 4. 24. Levit. 26. 17. And the Scripture gives a power of judging and governing to the Priests And 2 Chron. 30. 6 7. The Posts that Hezekiah and the Congregation of Israel sent through the Land commandeth a morall preparation to those that were to keepe the Lords Passeover to wit that they should turne againe unto the Lord God of Abraham and should not be like their Fathers nor like their Brethren that trespassed against the Lord God of their Fathers And ver 11. divers of Ashur and Manasseh and Zebulun humblid themselvs and came to Ierusalem to keepe the feast of the Passeover This proveth clearly that people under the Old Testament were no lesse to try and examine themselves by the King and Priests commandment carried to them by Postes before they should eate the Passeover then they are to try themselves before they eate and drinke at the Lords Supper onely the adversaries say the Priests by preaching were to debarre from the Passeover those who were morally unclean but not to debarre those who were morally uncleane so they were not typically and ceremonially unclean by any power of Discipline or by Porters set at the gates to keepe them out of the Sanctuary But I answer 1. How are the Priests Ezek. 22. 26. reproved for violating the Law of God and prophaning his holy things in that they put no difference between the holy and prophane the clean and the unclean Surely the Priests prophaned in the highest way the holy things of God in admitting into the Sanctuary those who were not onely ceremonially but morally uncleane as murtherers adulterers Who cryed the temple of the Lord Ier. 7. And they put no difference betweene the Holy and Prophane when they admitted to the holy things of God and into the Sanctuary the uncircumcised in heart for they doe more pollute the holy things of God who partake of them being morally uncleane and uncircumcised in heart then those who are onely uncircumcised in flesh Object But the Church under the New Testament can no other way but morally and by preaching as it would seeme onely debarre scandalous persons from the Seales and Prayers of the Church for should a scandalous person or an excommunicate person obtrude himselfe on the Lords Supper against the will and sentence of the Church the Church cannot use any bodily violence to hinder such prophane intrusion upon the holy things of God because the Churches weapons are not carnall but spirituall bodily violence can be no spirituall weapon that the Church as the Church can use so do the Remonstrant Arminians argue and some other for the congregationall way Ans This Argument is against all Church-censures but though the Church as the Church cannot hinder scandalous intruders upon the holy things of God by bodily violence it doth not follow Ergo The Church can keep the holy things pure no way but morally that is by preaching only for we can give a third way The rebukes admonitions and Excommunication or delivering to Satan are all transacted without any bodily and externnll violence Christs Kingdom resigneth all such carnall weapons to the Magistrate who is the only Governour of the Church of Christ as the Opponents say All Church Censures are by way of Declaration applied to such men by name and there co-action though penall is not by bodily violence but by acting upon the conscience of men and putting them to shame Hence 2. We argue if beside
window in the conscience of others 4. Pauls practise at Corinth is but a negative ex particulari and not concludent The heathen came to hear the word at Corinth 1 Cor. 14. 23. And Paul doth no where command the Heathen should be excluded from the Sacraments Will Erastus then have them admitted 5. When Paul saith that unworthy Communicants were guilty of the Lords body and blood and required fidelity in the Stewards 1 Cor. 4. He taketh for confessed scandalous persons should not be admitted by the Church its true the sin of others who communicate unworthily is not the sin of another fellow-communicant who hath not authority to debar his fellow-communicant Erastus The Scripture debarred no Iews of old neither from sacrifices nor other sacraments but commandeth that all the male children Iews or Strangers that were not legally unclean nor from their homes should thrice a year appear before the Lord in Ierusalem for to partake of the holy things of God Ergo None were Excommunicated from the holy things of God for morall wickednesse Ans Erastus counteth this an Argument that cannot be Answered but it Answers it self to me And Erastus proposeth a Law that is Catholick to all the males yet he maketh it not Catholick himself but propoundeth a number of males that are excepted as he excepteth those that were legally unclean those that are from home and yet Deut. 16. 16. Exod. 23. 17. Exod. 34. 23. in the Letter of the Law there is no such exception as Erastus maketh I hope if he make an exception so may we according to the word of God Though we should give but not grant that there was no Excommunicaâ—ion amongst the Iews but only for Ceremoniall uncleannesse yet it proveth not there is no Excommunication in the Christian Church but the contrary for if for touching the dead by Gods Law men were separated from the holy things in that Church far more for Morall uncleannesse are men to be separated from the holy things of God under the New Testament for undeniably Ceremoniall separation signified and typed out Morall separation Col. 2. 21. 2. What ground Erastus hath to except those that were Ceremonially unclean and so as uncircumcised in flesh that they were not to appeare before the Lord let him shew the Letter of Scripture for it the same ground have we to shew that the uncircumcised in heart are not to appeare before the Lord Ezek. 44. 7 8 9. Ezek. 22. 26. Nor shall I thinke God would both command all the male without exception to compeare before him thrice a yeare whether they were Adulterers Theeves Murtherers Idolaters or not such but truly sanctified and holy and that he would expresly rebuke the Males that were Adulterers Theeves Murtherers Idolaters because they compeared for him in his House Ier. 7. 8 9 10. So then as he commandeth the the Males to compeare except they be legally uncleane or Lepers and would rebuke them if they should appeare before him being Ceremonially unclean and therefore in that case God would have them not to come So also if they should be Morally unclean he would have them not to come that is it is not their sin that they appeare before the Lord quoad substantiam actus but their obedience but it is their sinne that they appeare â—ali mâ—do in their unrepented guiltinesse yet is it the sinne of the Priests in not differencing betweene the cleane and the uncleane that they suffer them to come tali modo that as Swine they pollute the holy things of God to the Male it is their sinne that they come so and so guilty and that they come not it is their sinne but to the Priests it is their sinne that they admit the uncleane and cast Pearles to Dogs But as God would not rebuke unworthy Eaters at the Lords Table 1 Cor. 11. if they might eate unworthily by Gods Law so neither would he rebuke Theeves and Murtherers for appearing before him in his Temple if they ought not by Law not to appeare in that state No doubt saith Erastus pag. 106. there were many wicked persons in the time of Ioshua Iudges and the Kings in such a multitude yet they were bidden all to compeare before the Lord and none are excepted for their wickednesse and it is certaine God would not both bid them compeare and not compeare Ans All that sinned in Israel were bidden offer Sacrifice yet those who are wicked as Sodom are expresly debarred from Sacrifices except they were morally clean Esai 1. 13. Bring me no more vaine oblation incense is an abomination unto me 16 Wash you make you cleane So say I here God said expresly Ier. 7. 9 10. Except you be washed from your lying stealing come not before me to stand in my house to prophane my holy Name Ergo the Morally unclean are excommunicated from those holy things so all the wicked by the same reason were forbidden they remaining in their wickednes without Repentance to eate the Passeover yea to take the Name of God in their mouth Psal 50. 16 17. to Sacrifice Esai 66. 3. to touch the Altar of God except their hands were washed in innocency Psal 26. 6. And the Priests had the charge of the house of God to put difference betweene the cleane and the uncleane and the Priests are said to violate the holy things of God if the wicked as well as the Ceremonially unclean were not debarred Hag. 2. 11 12. Ezek. 22. 25 26. Ezek. 44. 7 8 9. and certainly the Males that were Leapers were expresly excepted and forbidden to come in the Congregation of Gods people as is before proved Erastus The Pharisees and Sadduces debarred none from the Sacraments for their wicked life Ans What will Erastus make the Pharisees practise our Rule they killed the Lord of Glory and then eat the Passeover with bloody hearts and hands Is such a Practise our Rule Erastus Iohn Baptist refused Baptisme to none willing to bee baptized and referred the inward Baptisme by the Spirit and fire to Iesus Christ Ans Iohn baptized those who confessed their sinnes and professed their Repentance and the like we crave of those that are admitted to the other Sacrament And the instance of Iohn or an Apostles baptizing cannot warrant the Baptizing of all Murtherers Idolatrous persons or the wickedst living as Erastus saith and the vildest on earth if they should but desire Baptisme and give no confession of their Faith nor profession of their Repentance Erastus Christ who rebuked many abuses and cast the buyers and sellers out of the Temple would have rebuked the pollution of the Sacraments also but that he never did and Christ said that Peter should forgive his offending Brother often in one day if he but say It repenteth me and he saith This transaction shall be ratified in heaven Will you be more cruell then God Do not we often lie to God in our Confession to God He meaneth well who desires to
but will it follow therefore the Pastor should not watch over him to try in another way in a Pastorall way by his walking profession and practicall knowledge whether he be in Christ or no. The contrary is Heb. 13. 17. They watch for the souls of the people as they that must give an accompt And they are so far to try that are Shepherds that they are obliged in a Pastorall way to know those of the flock that are diseased Ezech. 34. 4. Sick broken driven away and lost And to what end should they try themselves least they eat damnation to themselves Ergo the Stewards should try the stomacks that they eat not poyson If then the Lords Law bid men beware they be not tempted to Sorcery Sodomy Murthers and if every man ought to have personall watchfulnesse over his own conscience that he be not insnared to those sins and Achan was to try if his heart was ingaged to the wedge of Gold and to be wary to meddle with it but it doth not follow that Magistrates as Joshua should not try out Sorcerers Sodomites and other Achans to punish them Erastus 2 Cor. 13. is against this a person is to try himselfe Will it follow when he hath tryed himselfe that he cannot come to the Lords Supper except he seem meet to the Elders And this not our consequence let Erastus owne it we care not In a constitute Church he should else Erastus provides no way against a Pagan who hath heard the Word as he may doe 1 Cor. 14. 23. may without the Elders and Church sit downe at the Lords Supper for Erastus provides no stop for him but only his own pagan Conscience and so may one by that rule but trample on the Sacrament his owne Conscience is all his rule contrary to what he saith himselfe lib. 3. c. â— p. 207. Erastus 1 Cor. 11. Paul forbiddeth none to come to the Supper but upon supposition that they come as the manner is he biddeth them come worthily as all are bidden hear the Word though they â—e forbidden to he are it as if it were some prophane History nor doth the Lord command sinfull coming for no act commanded of God is evill Ans 1. Paul then forbiddeth not Pagans more to come to the Supper and Children then he forbiddeth them to heare the Word which is absurd he commandeth all to heare but he commandeth not all to come to the Supper but those onely that can discerne the Lords body for to heare the Word though I be not prepared is simply necessary if I would be saved and to sacrifice if I would be reconciled and to pray if I would obtaine any blessing though the manner of doing all these be commanded that I heare sacrifice and pray in faith But to come to the Supper is not commanded to all not to Pagans not to children not to the unregenerated but onely to the regenerated and to those who discerne the Lords body and for a child to come to the Lords Supper or an unrenewed man is forbidden not commanded and no ill act is commanded and it is a sinne that they come at all But Erastus will have it lawfull as it is to heare the Word then doth Christ command Turks and children to come to the Supper for he commandeth them to heare the Word and Peter bade Simon Magus pray Act. 8. 22. but he neither bids give the Supper to him nor bids he him receive it but by the contrary forbids pearles to be cast unto Swine Erastus Arg. 16. God will not have fewer Christians to be members of the Church now then of Iewes to be members of the Iewish Church But God would have all circumcised even the most flagitious that were punished by the Magistrate to be members of the Iewes Church Ergo God will have all the baptized to be Members of the Church Ans This will prove that all baptized even children should come to the Supper 2. I deny the Minor to wit that all the most wicked remained Members of the visible Iewish Church jure before God the wicked Iewes to God were as Sodom and Gomorrah Esa 1. 10. Yea he saith Amos 9. 7. Are ye not unto me as children of Ethiopians O children of Israel saith the Lord What they were de facto and not cast out was the fault of the Priests and that the Church does tollerate Iezabels Wolves Lions in the flock and admitteth them to holy things is their sin Erastus But Repentance was not alwaies commanded to those Iewes especially who were unclean by touching an unclean thing against their will and ignorantly and the purging of them depended on their owne will so they observed the Ceremonies of Moses Ans That is much for us if those who were uncleane against their will and cast out of the campe it being a trying Type that far more those that are wickedly scandalous are to be cast out of the Church Erastus The Church is a draw-â—et a field a marriage Supper there be good and ill in it and it was not the sinne of the inviters who are bidden invite all good and bad Mat. 22. But the man that came himselfe without the wedding garment he is cast into utter darkenesse Ergo The Officers are to invite all and forbid none Ans They are to invite all to all Ordinances and Seals even Dogs and Swine that is false They are to invite all to some Ordinances to heare the Law and Gospel preached but not the Seales that were to cast Pearles to Swine 2. The way of Erastus is that none are to be debarred nor to debarre themselves from the Seales more then from the Word The Lords forbidding Adam to touch the tree of Life and his casting of him out of Paradise and Cains being cast out from the presence of the Lord to me are rather Types presignifying Excommunication and that God will have wicked men debarred from holy things then patternes of Excommunications and so are they alledged by Beza and our Divines CHAP. VII Quest 3. Whether Erastus doth justly deny that Excommunication was typified in the Old Testament VVEe take types of uncleannesse in the Old Testament to be rightly expounded when the holy Ghost in the New-Testament doth expound them Now that Ceremoniall uncleannes did typifie Morall uncleannesse is cleare 2 Cor. 7. 17. Touch no uncleane thing and I will receive you 18. And I will be a Father unto you and yee shall be my Sonnes and Daughters saith the Lord Almighty This is a manifest Exposition of the Ceremoniall holinesse and cleannesse commanded in the booke of Leviticus for after the Lord hath given them a number of Lawes about eschewing of uncleane things he saith in generall Lev. 26. 3. If ye walke in my Statutes and keepe my Commandements and doe them 11. I will set my Tabernacle amongst you and I will be your God and ye shall be my people And it is a cleare allusion to Numb 19. 11. He that toucheth
his businesse performe both doth Paul make exceptions of Magistrates and Potentates when he saith 1 Cor. 14. You may all prophecie Hence he must grant that the civill Magistrate now may both preach baptize and administer the Supper of the Lord and therfore not only hath the Church no Senate nor Ecclesiasticall court to punish faults and scandals with Ecclesiastick censures but there is no Presbytery of Elders to give their judgement in matters of doctrine for the Magistrates and all Christians may as well prophecy by ◠Cor. 14. as Ministers saith he yea the faculty of preaching is no more proper to the Ministers of the Church then to the Magistrates of the city Now by this nothing is proper to the Magistrate as the Magistrate but to the Magistrate as a Christian and to all Christians But Erastus contendeth that the government of the Church and punishing of Scandals which we say belongeth to those that are over the people of God in the Lord and to Church Rulers doth belong to the Magistrate as the Magistrate and virtute officii by vertue of his office so that if any Iew or Turke or any ignorant or extreamely scandalous should attempt to intrude himselfe upon the Seals the Magistrate as the Magistrate and virtute officii is to examine and judge if he be unworthy to debar him or as he findeth him worthy admit him to the Seals Now any seeth that it is but a deceiving of the Reader to say that one man may discharge both the place of the Magistrate and the Minister of God as Moses did and Ioshua David For let Erastus and his followers shew us roundly and down-right whether or no prophecying debarring the unworthy from the Seals and all acts of Church government not proper to the Magistrate as the Magistrate and virtute officii And if so as indeed Erastus teacheth it is bu◠a poore shift to say that one and the same man may both exercise the part of a Magistrate and of a Minister Erastus Beza for ever shall not prove that there was a Church judicature that had power to punish scandalous men Iehoshaphat 2 Chron. 19. ordained judges in all the fenced cities and admonished them of their duty 2. And did the same at Ierusalem 3. And ordained judges of Levites and Priests and heads of families for the judgement of the Lord and for every cause and Amaziah the High Priest was chiefe in the causes of the Lord and Zebadiah in the Kings causes This Synedrie at Ierusalem was the politick Magistrate they judged of stroaks servitude deaths But your Synedrie judgeth not between blood and blood it judgeth not of every cause as Deut. 17. Those that are not well versed in Scripture are to note two things 1. That the cause of the Lord where mention is made of judicatures is not onely a cause of Religion but any cause proposed in judgement especially the causes of the widdow the Orphan oppressed which the Lord saith he will avenge 2. The Levites Priests were no lesse civil judges then others it is known that onely the Levits were Magistrats in the cities of refuge there was need of men exercised in the Law of God that the judges might judge righteously Ans If you take punishing for inflicting Church-censure as we here take it then all the places that sayes the Priests pronounced the Leper clean or unclean to put out of the campe or take in to judge of the adulterous woman of the restitution made by those for whom they offered Sacrifices to judge between the clean and unclean to hold out of the Sanctuary the unclean the uncircumcised in heart and flesh Levit. 13. 3 4 c. and 20 22. and 21. 26 and 30. 44. and 31. 50. Ezek. 22. 26. and 44. 8 9 10. Num. 3. 6 and 5. 18 19. Deut 17. 12. say the Priests had power to punish for transgressing of Gods Lawes and where the Prophets complaine of the Priests mis-government and unjustice it is presupposed they were to govern justly according to the Law Ier. 5. 31. 2 King 12. 4. Ier. 26. 7 8 11. Hag. 2. 11 12. Ezek. 44. 8 9 10. 2. For the place 2 Chron. 19. it is evident that Iehoshaphat doth reforme both Church and State and brought the corrupted Iudicatures to that which they should be by Law and v. 5 6 7. He set judges in the fenced cities of Iudah Here is the civill judicature And v. 8. Moreover in Ierusalem did Iehoshaphat set of the Levits and of the Priests and of the chiefo of the fathers of Israel for the judgement of the Lord and for controversies when they returned to Ierusalem Now that this second is a Church judicature I am confirmed 1. Because Iehoshaphat appointed civill judges in all the fenced cities of Iudah Ergo Also in Ierusalem the prime fenced city Now this civill judicature was not tyed to a place but was in every city even all the fenced cities but the Synedrie of Priests Levites and Elders was onely at Ierusalem in the place that the Lord should chuse Deut. 17. 8. Hence a judicature tyed to no city but which is in every fenced city 2 Chron. 19. 5. Deut. 17. 8. and a judicature tyed to Ierusalem the place that the Lord did choose Deut. 17. 8. 2 Chron. 19. 8. must be two distinct judicatures but such were these 2. There is a moreover put to the Iudicature at Ierusalem 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and also in Ierusalem did Iehoshaphat set of the Levites c. This could not have been said if this had not been a judicature different from the former for if Iehoshaphat appointed Iudges in all the fenced cities Ergo He appointed them first at Ierusalem the Mother city and fountaine of justice now then he should say the same thing needlesly and with a moreover if this judicature at Ierusalem were not a judicature Ecclesiasticke and different from the judicature civill that he appointed at Ierusalem as one of the prime fenced cities which was common with the civill judicatures in other fenced cities 3. The persons in the judicatures are different for v. 5. the members of the court 2 Chro. 19. 5 6 7 are called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 judges these could not be Churchmen for of these he speaketh v. 8. they are expresly distinguished from the Levites Priests and Elders v. 8. who are all Church-men for the fathers of the people were no other thing then our governing Elders and these were members of the other court v. 8. 4. The objects of these judicatures are very different The Spirit of God saith of the one ver 5. That they judge for the Lord ver 13. for all the Kings matters this must be all civill causes in which the King and inferiour judges under the King doe judge but the object of the other is higher The Priests and Levites are appointed by Iehoshaphat for the judgement of the Lord ver 8. And in every matter of
the Lord v. 13. Now whereas Erastus putteth a note of ignorance on all that hath been versed in the Old Testament before him whereas he confesseth he understandeth not the Originall Language let the Reader judge what arrogance is here where ever there is mention saith he of judgement there is signified not religious causes but also other causes especially the cause of the widow and Orphane It bewrayeth great ignorance For 1. The matters of the Lord and the matters of the King are so evidently distinguished and opposed the one to the other by two divers presidents in the different judicatures the one Ecclesiasticall Amaziah the chiefe Priest in every word or matter of the Lord and the other Zebadiah the sonne of Ishmael the ruler of the house of Iudah for all the Kings matters that the very words of the Text say that of Erastus which he saith of others that he is not versed in the Scripture for then the causes of the Lord and the causes of the King in the Text by Erastus should be the same causes whereas the Spirit of God doth distinguish them most evidently 2. If the cause of the King were all one with the judgement of the Lord and the cause of the Lord yea if it were all one with all causes whatsoever either civill or Ecclesiasticall what reason was there they should be distinguished in the Text and that Amaziah should not be over the people in the Kings matters though he were the chiefe Priest and Zebadiah though a civill Iudge over all the matters of the Lord and causes Ecclesiasticall 3. The Kings matters are the causes of the widow and orphan and oppressed as is evident Ier. 22. 2. O King of Iudah v. 3. execute yee judgement and righteousnesse and deliver the spoiled out of the hand of the oppressor and doe no wrong doe no violence to the stranger the fatherlesse nor the widdow so Esa 1. 10. 17. Prov. 31. 4 5. Iob 29. 12 13 c. Then the Text must beare that every matter of the King is the Iudgement of the Lord and the matter of the Lord and every matter and judgement of the Lord is also the matter of the King and to be judged by the King then must the King as well as the Priest judge between the clean and the unclean and give sentence who shall be put out of the Campe and not enter into the Congregation of the Lord no lesse then the Priests Let Erastus and all his see to this and then must the Priests also releeve the fatherlesse and widdow and put to death the oppressour 2. The different presidents in the judicatures maketh them different judicatures 3. It is denied that all causes whatsoever came before the Ecclesiasticall Synedry at Jerusalem Erastus doth say this but not prove it for the place 2 Chron. 19. doth clearly expound the place Deut. 17. for the causes of the brethren that dwell in the Cities between Blood and Blood between Law and Commandement Statutes and judgements are judged in the Ecclesiasticall Synedrim at Ierusalem not in a civill coactive way by the power of the sword 1. Because all causes are by a coactive power judged as the matters of the King the supream sword bearer 2 Chron. 19. 5. v. 13. Rom. 13 4. to eschew oppression and maintain justice Ier. 22. 2 3. But the causes here judged in this Synedrim are judged in another reduplication as the matters of the Lord differenced from the matters of the King 2 Chron. 19. 13. now if the Priests and Levites judged in the same judicature these same civill causes and the same way by the power of the sword as Magistrates as Erastus saith why is there in the Text 1. Two judicatures one v. 5. in all the fenced cities another at Ierusalem v. 8 2. What meaneth this that the Kings matters are judged in the civill judicature not by the Priests and Levites as Erastus saith for the Ruler of the house of Iudah was president in these and the matters of the Lord were judged by the Priests and Levites and Amariah the chiefe Priest was over them for then Amariah was as well over the Kings matters as the Ruler of the house of Iudah and the Ruler of the house of Iudah over the Lords matters as over the Kings for if Priests and Levites judged as the Deputies subordinate to the King and by the power of the sword the Kings matters are the Lords matters and the Lords matters the Kings matters and Amariah judgeth not as chiefe Priests as he doth burne incense but as an other judge this truly is to turne the Text upside downe 2. The causes judged in the Synedrim at Ierusalem are said to be judged as controversies when they returned to Ierusalem 2 Chr. 19. 8. and matters too hard between plea and plea between blood and blood between stroke and stroke Deut. 17. 8. and so doubts of Law and cases of conscience Now Mal. 2. 7. The Priests lips should preserve knowledge and they should seek the Law at his mouth for he is the messenger of the Lord of hostes and this way only the Priests and Levites judged not that they inflicted death on any but they resolved in an Ecclesiasticall way the consciences of the judges of the fenced Cities what was a breach of the Law of God Morall or Judiciall what not what deserved Church censures what not who were clean who unclean and all these are called the judgement of the Lord the matters of the Lord because they had so near relation to the soul and conscience as the conscience is under a divine Law 3. Erastus saith it is knowen that the Levites only were Magistrates in the Cities of refuge but I deny it Erastus should have made it knowen to us from some Scripture I finde no ground for it in Scripture Erastus It is true that Beza saith that the Magistrate hath a supream power to cause every man do his duty But how hath he that supream power if he be also subject to the Presbyters for your Presbyters do subject the Magistrate to them and compell him to obey them and punish them if they disobey Ans The Magistrate even King David leaveth not off to be supream because Nathan commandeth him in the Lord nor the King of Niniveh and his Nobles leave not off to command as Magistrates though Jonah by the word of the Lord bring them to lie in sackcloth and to Fast all the Kings are subject to the rebukes and threatnings of the Prophets Isa 1. 10. Jer. 22. 2 3. Ier. 1. 18. 2 Kin. 12. 8 9. 10 11 12. 1 Kin. 21. 21 22 23. Isa 30. 33. Hos 5. 1 2. and to their commandments in the Lord If Presbyters do command as Ministers of Christ the highest powers on earth if they have souls must submit their consciences to the Lords rebukings threatnings and Commandment in their mouth Court Sycophants say the contrary but we care not 2. But they punish the
he instituted a Presbytery in place of the Magistrate Ans This consequence is so strong though the consequent be not ours to prove a Synedrie that Erastus shall never be able to refute it for that the Priests might teach the people they were to judge and governe the people and wâ—re to judge between the holy and prophane not onely that the Priests might informe the pâ—oples minds but that the Priests and Levites might 2 Chron. 9. 8 9 10. Deut. 17. 8 9 give judgement between blood and blood between plea and plea between stroake and stroake being matters of controversie and hard to be judged by the inferiour judges these concerned not the instruction of the people as matters of opinion as Erastus imagineth but they concerned the governing of the people in justice that v. 12. the man that will doe presumptuously or will not hearken unto the Priest or the judge shall die the death Was not this to governe the people and to judge them Certainly Erastus in the same Chapter saith so to wit that there was one common Synedrim of civill judges Priests and Levites at Jerusalem that the Priests and Levites were Iudges in capitall matters and gave out the sentence of death de capite sanguine and he proveth page 270. 271. that the Priests were civill judges and did give sâ—â—tences of blood of life and dâ—ath Ergo the Priests did not discerne between the clean and the unclean between blood and blood onely that they might teach the people but that they might regulate their owne practise in judgement and govern the people yea that the Priests might pronounce some unclean and to be put out of the Campe so many dayes that they might debar out of the Sanctuary the unclâ—an the uncircumcised the strangers and Lev. 10. the end of judging and governing is expresly set down v. 10. and so a judicature and the other end v. 11. that they may teach the children of Israel all the Statutes which the Lord hath spoken by the hand of Moses 2. From the Elders preaching the Word and dispensing the Sacraments simply we inferre no judicature at all farre lesse a politick judicature which we doe not ascribe to the Priests for Iohn Baptist both preached the Word and baptized and yet was no judge nor did he erect any Church judicature but from the power of the keyes given to the Church and exercised by the Church Mat. 16. 19. Mat. 18. 15 16 c. 1 Cor. 5. 1 2 3. c. Revel 2. 1 2 3 c. we inferre a Church judicature we never placed a Presbytery in place of the Magistrate for it is no more the Magistrates place then to sacrifice is the place of the Magistrate Erastus J wonder that you seeke your Presbytery in Moses Law all yours say the Synedrie Christ speaketh of did rise after the captivity at least when the sword was taken from the Iewes They say David and Solomon did punish vices they approve August 39. quest in Deut. that Excommunication doth now what putting to death did of Old and deny any Excommunication to have beene in the Church of the New Testament Ans Erastus declares himselfe to be a childe not versed in Protestant Divines for we except Musculus Gualther Bullinger some except Aretius all our Protestant Divines goe the way Beza goeth 2. Let him produce any of ours who say that the Synedry that Christ speaketh of was Iewish and ours say that Christ alludeth to the Iewish Synedrie But all few excepted that Christ Mat. 18. speaketh of the Christian Church to be erected 3. The Kings of Israel punished scandals but that is not enough did they governe the Church pronounce who were clean or unclean or middle with the charge of Ecclesiastick Government committed to Aaron and his sonnes 4. We say with Augustine that some that were killed of old are to be Excommunicated now Augustine speaketh not of all and what is that against us Erastus Not any but your self Beza say that Moses speaketh of thâ—se same persons things and office Levit. 10. and Deut. 17. in Levit. 10. he speaketh onely of the Priesthood and Deut. 17. of the Iudges or Magistrats Ans Beza expoundeth the one place by the other but he saith not these persons things and office are in both places 2. Erastus onely contradicteth Beza and saith Moses speaketh of the Magistrates Deut. 17. But he is refuted by the Spirit of God 2 Chron. 19. 8 9. who repeating the very words of Deut. 17. saith the Iudges here were Priests Levites and heads of Families whom all men deny to be Magistrates Erastus You say Deut. 17. mention is made of blood of the cause of Pleas not because the Synedrie judged of the fact but because they answered the true sense of the Law I say whether they answered of the fact or of the Law they sentenced judicially of life and death so that there was no provocation from them to the civill judicature for he was put to death who would not stand to their sentence but you deny that any politick causes or matters of blood or death belongs to your Presbytery Ans 1. Beza said well the fact and the putting of the man to death which is the assumption and conclusion belonged to the civill judge not to the Priests But the questio juris the question of Law belonged to the Ecclesiasticall judicature of Priests Levites and Elders and it is evident that it was a case of conscience concerning a matter or an admirable cause that cannot be determined by the judges in the city they not being so well versed in the Law as the Priests whose lips should preserve knowledge Mal. 2. 7. Therefore it is not a fact that may be cleared by Witnesses there is not such difficulty in facts except in adultery or secret Murthers the word commeth from 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to admire or to be separated from sense and reason Lament 1. 9. Gen. 18. 14. Is there any thing hard to or â—id from Jehovah 2. They are called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 causes or matters of contention Vatablus causa insolita difficilior Our translation hath it matters of controversie 3. It is said thou shalt come and inquire or diligently search out 4. The Priests and Levites shall shew thee the sentence of judgement so it is evident that the Priests and Levites did not so much judge as declare and resolve the law-part of which the inferiour judges did doubt for the difficulty of the question as Saul came to Samuel the Seer to aske concerning his fathers asses and it is true bloods and stroakes came under the cognizance of the Priests but as bloods comes before Lawyers and those that are expert in the civill Law in the Parliament of England and Scotland the Lawyers as Iudges put no man to death the King could say fall upon such an evill doer and kill him and the judges and Princes might put to death But
The Assumption is false Deut. 17 saith the contrary 3. Though we could not shew a place for the formall institution of an Ordinance yet if we show the thing instituted it is sufficient 4. Erastus much doubteth himselfe if Moses his government was altogether civill especially before the Lord separated Aaron his sons and the Tribe of Levi to teach and governe the people in an Ecclesiasticall way for Erastus said before that Moses prescribed Lawes to Aaron sacrificed and did that which was proper to the Priests though after that God forbad the Kings to usurpe the Priests office and punished Saul and Vzziah for so doing though I never read that Saul usurped the Priests office you may take it upon the word of Erastus and we all know that Moses was a Prophet of God Deut. 18. 18. I will raise them up a Prophet from amongst their brethren like unto thee Deut. 34. 10. And there arose not a Prophet in Israel since like unto Moses whom the Lord knew face to face Heb. 3. 5. Moses verily was faithfull in all his house as a servant Now those that will say Moses his government of the Church was all civill and politicall as a civill judge and King and that he acted not in the governement of the Church as in writing and delivering Laws and in doing many things yea in commanding the will of God as a Prophet to Aaron to his sons and the whole tribe of Levi to me speakes non-sense Erastus That judicature to the which the inferiours appealed as to the supreame is politick Ans It is denied they appealed to it as the supreme Ecclesiastick in point of Law and Conscience Ergo It was not politique all the rest are answered before yea Iehoshaphat 2 Chron. 19. putteth this as a thing peculiar to the Priests v. 12. What cause soever shall come before you of your brethren between blood and blood between Law and Commandement Statutes and Judgements ye shall even warne them that they trespasse not against the Lord that is as Erastus yeeldeth ye shall teach them what is just and agreeable to and what is unjust and repugnant to the Law of God Civill judges lips were not to preserve knowledge as the lips of the Priests Mal. 2. 7. and Deut. 17. 11. According to the sentence of the Law that they shall teach thee and according to the judgement that they shall tell thou shalt doe Hence it is clear that this judicature in civill things was a teaching a telling a declaring and resolving judicature and that in blood they resolved of causes of blood of stroakes but judged not persons nor bloody men nor violent persons Erastus Moses and Iehoshaphat speake of one and the same judicature Moses doth not give teaching and commanding divisibly to some but joyntly to all the Synedrie Though the Priests were more skilled in the Law for Moses commandeth to teach the sense of the Law by judgeing as he saith himselfe Exod. 18. 16. I judge between one and another and I doe make them know the statutes of God and his lawes Moses putteth them all joyntly together they shall tell thee thou shalt doe what they shevv thee according to the Lavv that they shall teach thee shalt thou doe not declining to the right-hand or to the left-hand Ans 1. That Iehoshaphat speaketh of the same judicature that Moses speaketh of is clear 2 Chron. 19. 8 9. 10. The very words of Moses Deut. 17. 8. are the same both the same judges and the same causes compared with v. 5 6 7. But Iehoshaphat maketh two judicatures as I have proved and Iehoshaphat reformed according to Moses his Lavv as Erastus granteth 2. I cannot be induced to beleeve that the judges here teached by judging it is spoken contrary to Theology The end of teaching is to informe the conscience and Teachers as Teachers watch for the soule and the end of civill and politick judging is a quiet and peaceable life 1 Tim. 2. 2. the vveapons of teachers are not carnall but spirituall 2 Cor. 10. 4 5. the weapons of civill Iudges are carnall for the civill Iudge beareth not the svvord in vaine Rom. 13. 4. then these same civill judges did not both teach and judge at once they taught not as civill judges but as Priests they judged not as Priests but as civill Iudges and therefore there is no ground to say that Moses ascribeth these same acts to civill judges and Priests and Levites as if they made one Synedry for in both Texts not one word of teaching which is proper to the Priests Mal. 2. 7. Ier. 2. 8. Hos 4. 6. is ascribed to the civill Iudge and not one word of judging and condemning to death which is proper to the civill Iudge Num. 35. 24. Deut. 22. 18 19 Deut. 17. 2. 3 4 c. and 21. 19 20. 1 King 21. 11. 2 Sam. 14. 15. 1 Kings 2. 28 c. Rom. 13. 4. Luke 12. 13. 14. c. is ascribed to the Priests and Levites but the Priest or the judge are set downe by way of disjunction Deut. 17. 12. which could not be if they made one and the same judicature and therefore Iehoshaphat 2 Chron. 19. clearely distinguisheth them in two judicatures one v. 5 6 7. Another v. 8 9 10. having two sundry presidents and two sundry objects to treat about to wit the matters of Iehovah and the matters of the King 3. The place cited Exod. 18. 16. confirmeth much our opinion for Moses as a Iudge saith vvhen they have a matter they come unto me and I judge between one another This he spake as a civill Iudge and when he saith And I make them knovv the statutes of God and his lavves This he spake as a prophet for Moses was both a Iudge and a Prophet Now if all civill Iudges be such mixt persons as to teach the Stautes and Laws of God they doe this either as civill judges or as Prophets then there was reason why Malachie should have said the civill judges lips should preserve knowledge and they should seeke the Law at his mouth for if a civill judge as a Iudge teach the people and watch for their souls what marvell then he beare the sword to preserve their bodies as a Prophet and not as a Iudge and if he beare the sword as a Prophet and Teacher all Teachers must beare the sword which is against reason and Scripture and what reason is there if Moses teach as a civill judge but he may as properly be obliged in conscience to teach and so he should sin if he imploy not his talent that way as he is obliged to exercise the sword as a judge and by the contrary a Prophet as a Prophet should be obliged in conscience as kindly and per se to exercise the Sword as to preach the Gospel for nothing agreeth more kindly to the subiect then that which agreeth to it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 under that reduplication as it is
such Now this is against sense and reason and confoundeth all callings on earth but if Erastus grant that Moses judgeth as a civill judge and teacheth the people the Law of God as a prophet then to make this Sanedrim a mixt company both to judge civilly and to teach as spirituall men by office must all the Priests and Levites in this Sanedrim be both Priests and Levites and also civill Iudges And all the civill Iudges must be both civill judges and also Priests and Levites which is expresly against the Text that speakes Deut. 17. of the Priest or the Iudge as two distinct offices and so God must have chosen the Iudge no lesse then the Priest to minister before him So it is false that teaching and judging are copulatively ascribed to these same persons and to the same judicature as Erastus saith Erastus He saith Deut. 17. he shall die who standeth not to the sentence of the Priest or judge by way of disjunction in regard of divers times for the Princes or Iudges were not alwayes the same for often onely the Priests governed and for the same reason he saith not Deut. 17. ascend to Ierusalem but to the place which the Lord thy God shall chuse for the Arke was not alwayes in one place or city So Deut. 19. when he speaketh of the false witnesse he saith and they shall stand before the Lord that is before the Priests and Iudges that shall be at that time Who vvould thinke that there are here distinct and divers Iudicatures Ans It is a conjecture of Erastus that Moses speaketh Deut. 17. of the Priest or the Iudge by way of disjunction because of divers times not of divers and distinct Tribunals for all Moses his time and Ioshua's time and for the most part there were both Iudges and Priests and we had rather beleeve the Spirit of God then Erastus for 2 Chron. 19. under Iehoshaphat at one and the same time there were both civill Iudges and Priests and Levites and these two Judicatures had two different sorts of causes and two different Presidents if then at one and the same time the man was to be put to death who did not stand to the sentence of the Priest though he should stand to the sentence of the civill judge and so if hee was to be put to death who should stand to the sentence of the Priests and give an outside of obedience to the Ceremoniall Law if he should not stand to the sentence of the civill Judge then were there at the same time these two sentences in these two judicatures but the former is true by the expresse Law of God Ergo so is the latter when God saith Goe up to the place that the Lord shall chuse he meaneth Ierusalem and one determinate place at once and if Moses had said Goe up to the place that the Lord shall chuse or to some other place that the Lord shall not chuse then could I inferre well that at one and the same time they might have gone to either places or to both places having two sorts of causes as there be ever two sorts of causes in the Church some Civill some Ecclesiasticall 3. Erastus should have shewen a time when onely the Priest as the Priest did governe and there neither was a civill Iudge nor was that Priest who governed the civill judge If Erastus shew not this he sheweth nothing for his owne cause which is to make one confused Judicature of civill and Ecclesiasticall Iudges and causes which the Scripture doth carefully distinguish 4. In the place Deut. 19. nothing is said against us but that onely the civill Iudge put to death the false Witnesse which is much for us that though the false witnesse was to stand before the Priests and incurre an Ecclesiastick censure yet the Priest as Priest had no hand in putting him to death Erastus Sometime the Priest vvas president in this Sanedrim as Eli and Samuel vvithout a judge therefore vvhen it is said the chiefe Priest vvas â—ver them in all the matters of the Lord and Zebadiah in the Kings matters they made not tvvo different Iudicatures and the high Priest and Zebadiah vvere both over the same Iudicature Iosephus excellently versed in the Ievvish lavvs saith antiq lib. 9. c. 1. they vvere 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 fellovves or companions then they vvere not in divers Senats The Levites vvere equally servants to both though it may be the Priests were more diligently to goe about the canses of God and the Iudges the causes of the King Ans Were Eli and Samuel presidents in the Sanedrim without a Iudge that is as much as to say Eli and Samuel who undoubtedly by the Testimony of the Spirit of God were civill Iudges of Israel 1 Sam. 4 18. and 7. 15. and 8. 1. 7. were Judges without Iudges I conceive Eli was both a Priest and a Judge and Samuel both a Prophet and a Iudge whether Samuel was a Priest or not let Erastus determine Samuel was of the Tribe of Ephraim not a Priest though he sacrificed by an extraordinary Priviledge nor was Moses a Priest 2. I see no reason to say Eli was a Priest without a Iudge more then to say he was a Iudge without a Priest for he was both But this may shew the Reader that Erastus alwayes confoundeth the office of the Priest and the Civill judge so as he maketh them not only subjectively one which God himself did in the person of Eli but also one formally for as I shew before Erastus must say Eli sacrificed as a Iudge and he condemned ill doers to die exercised the sword as a Priest Samuel prophesied as a Magistrate Samuel did judge Israel as a Prophet for the Magistrate as the Magistrate to Erastus doth both the part of a Iudge of a Priest and Prophet of old and now of a Pastor and Teacher 3. It is enough to us that Amariah and Zebadiah were over diverse causes in divers Courts and differenced 2 Chro. 19. in that the one was for the kings matters the other for Gods matters Erast saith right down they were both for these same matters But the one was to care more for the Kings matters the other more for Gods matters so Erastus is forced to make a difference But he maketh it in the comparative degree and the spirit of God maketh the difference in the positive degree But 1. Erastus saith without the Text Amariah was to care for the matters of the King but more for the matters of God The Text saith no such thing but the contrary he saith Zebadiah the Civill Magistrate was to care for the matters of God but more for the matters of the King 4. This is against Erastus his his way which is that the Magistrate hath a supreame principall and only care of Church-Government and the Priests and Levites and Pastors and Teachers only as the servants of the Magistrates A sub
and subjects are Christians but where the Magistrate is of a false Religion two different Governments are tollerable Ans 1. This argument destroâ—eth all Aristocracy Parliaments and Senates where many good men have equall power and so the Common-wealth may not have 70. Heads and Rulers of equall power which is against the Scripture which commandeth subjection to every Civill ordinance of man as lawfull Rom. 13. 1 2 3. Tit. 3. 1 2 3. 1 Pet. 2. 13 14. Deut. 1. 16. It maketh no Government lawfull but Popedome and Monarchy in both Church and state 2. It is to beg the question that there cannot be two supream powers both supream in their owne kinde for they are both supream in their owne sphere as Pastors dispense Sacraments and Word without subjection to the Magistrate as they are Pastors and Magistrates use the Sword without dependence on Pastors and yet is there mutuall and reciprocall subjection of each to other in divers considerations Pastors as subjects in a Civill relation are subject to the Magistrate as every soul on earth is and Magistrates as they have souls and stand in need to be led to heaven are under Pastors and Elders For if they hear not the Church and if they commit incest they are to be cast out of the Church Mat. 18. 1 Cor. 5. Rom. 16. 17. 1 Thes 3. 14. 15. If they walk inordinately we are to eschew their company if they despise the Ministers of Christ they despise him who sent them Math. 10. 40. Luk. 10. 16. God respecteth not the persons of Kings and we finding them not excepted if the preachers of the Gospel be to all beleevers 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 over them in the Lord 1 Thess 5. 12. 1 Tim. 5. 17. call it authority or no Authority they have some oversight over the Christian Magistrate and here be two supreams two highest powers one Ecclesiasticall another Civill nor should any deny Moses to be above Aaron as the supream judge Aaron not having the power of the sword as Moses had and Aaron must be above Moses in sacrificing in burning incensâ— in judging between the clean and the unclean which Moses could not do 2. The excellency of the Civill power in regard of earthly honour and eminency in the fifth Commandment above the servants of God in the Ministry of Christs spirituall Kingdom which is not of this world we heartily acknowledge 3. That the King Preacheth and dispenseth the Sacraments by Pastors as by his servants is wilde Divinty Pastors then must have Magistraticall Authority and power of the sword committed to them as the Deputies and inferior judges of the Lords of the Gentiles which Christ forbade his Disciples Luk. 22. 25 26 27. For the servant must have some power committed to him from the principall cause in that wherein he is a servant 4. What reason is there that where the Magistrate is a Heathen two Governments and so two heads in one body should be for then there is and must be a Church-Government where the Magistrate is a Heathen and that in the hands of the Church if then the Magistrate turn Christian must he spoile the Church of what was her due before Erastus The Lord Jesus changed nothing in the New Testament of that most wise Government in the Iewish Church now there all Government was in the hands of Moses I say not that the Magistrate might sacrifice or do what was proper to the Priests but he did dispose and order what was to be done by the Priests Ans Yea but Erastus saith the Magistrate may dispense word and Sacraments in the New Testament if he had leisure Why might he not sacrifice in the Old Testament also 2. Pastors do by their Doctrine and Discipline order and regulate all callings in their Moralls of right and wrong of just and unjust yet is not the Pastor the only Governour in all externals 3. If Christ changed nothing of the Iewish Government we have all their exclusion of men out of the Campe their separating of the unclean and their politick and Ceremoniall Lawes which is unsound Divinity Erastus Moses Ruled all before there was a Priesthood instituted God Exod. 4. Numb 12. calleth Aaron to his office and maugurateth him by Moses nor doth he command him to exercise a peculiar judgement when he declareth his office to him and when Aaron dieth Moses substituteth Eleazar in his place Ioshua c. 3 4 teacheth the Priests what they should doe and commanded them to circumcise Israel so did Samuel David Solomon and in the time of the Maccabees it was so Ans Moses was once a Prophet and Iudge both Ergo so it may be now it followeth not except Moses as a Magistrate did reveale what was the Priesthood What Aaron and Eleazer his sonnes might doe by as good reason Moses David Solomon Ioshua as Magistrates wrote Canonick Scripture and prophecied Then may Magistrates as Magistrates build new Temples typicall to God give new Laws write Canonick Scripture as these men did by the Spirit of prophecy no doubt not as Magistrates for why but they might sacrifice as Magistrates and why should Moses rather have committed the Priesthood and the service of the Tabernacle due to him as a Magistrate so to Aaron and his sonnes as it should be unlawfull to him as a King and unlawfull to Vzziah to burn incense and to sacrifice and to doe the office of the Priest If the Magistrate as the Magistrate doe all that the Priests are to doe as Priests and that by a supream principle and radicall power in him he ought not to cast off that which is proper to him as a Magistrate to take that which is lesse proper he casteth the care and ruling of souls on the Priests and reserveth the lesser part to himself to rule the bodies of men with the Sword all these are sufficiently answered before Erastus The King of Persia Ezra 7. appointed Iudges to judge the people and teach them but there is no word of Excommunication or any Ecclesiastick punishment but of death imprisonment fines nor did Nehemiah punish the false Prophets with any other punishment Iosephus speaketh nothing of it nor Antiochus Ans I shew before that there is forâ—eiting and separation from the Congregation Ezra 10. 8. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 he shall be separated from the Church 2. If the King of Persia appointed men to judge and teach the people why should he deny any judicature at all 3. Where ever Iosephus speaketh of the judging of the Priests as he doth antiq l. 11. c. 7. ant l. 11. c. 8. l. 12. c. 9. he hinteth at this Erastus Christ dischargeth his Disciples to exercise dominion Christ would not condemne the adulterous woman nor judge between the brethren Luke 12. Paul calleth Ministers dispensators stewards Peter forbiddeth a dominion Ans Let Erastus be mindfull of this himselfe who yet saith that the Magistrate may both judge also if he have time dispence the
any Law-power except usurped when the Iews were now riper for destruction and had taken on them the blood of the Lord of glory and so growing more daring and insolent against the Roman povver to their own just desolation that came on them under Vespasian That they used witnesses will not prove they had Law to stone Steven for Timothy had no power of life and death over Elders one brother hath no power of life and death over another as Erastus will grant yet with both there is use of witnesses 1 Tim. 5. 19. Matth. 18. 16. This I hope concludeth but weakly any lawfull civill power so all this is from a naked practise of those that alvvayes resisted the holy Ghost And the like I say of Paul who saith Act. 26. 10. of himself Many of the Saints did I shut up in prison having received authority from the high Priests 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 suppose it were true that Saul had Law and Authority from the high Priests to imprison the Saints and to murther the Saints no high Priest can make over a Law-power to another which he hath not himself now certain this Law-power of the Pharisees and High Priests by Gods Law is the question Let us see Law or institution where the High Priests for of these only the Text speaketh did imprison and put to death either blasphemer or false Prophet or if by Moses his Law which must be a rule to all the High Priests in the time of persecuting Saul it was either Law or practise that the High Priest had power to imprison or scourge or put to death any man and this was most proper to the King and the Civill judge and the Elders and Iudges in every City 2 Sam. 1. 14. 15 16. 1 Kin. 2. 9. 2. 6 7. Isa 1. 23. Ier. 22. 1 c. Ier. 22. 27. Numb 35. 12. 24. Deut. 22. 18. 7. 5. 19. 12. 13. ver 18 19 20 21. 21. 19. 1 Kin. 21. 11. Hos 6. 8. Zeph. 3. 1 2 3. Rom. 13. 4. We know undoubtedly the King the Civill Iudge had power of all bodily punishments as of scourging death stoning strangling crucifying hanging But shew meany Vestigium or the least consequence where the Priests or High Priests had such power or did execute such power in any one man it is true Deut. 17. the Priests might determine in Law what was blasphemy and so what deserved the punishment of blasphemy which is death But so the written Law of God the very letter of it could in many cases clearly resolve the Civill judge even though there had been no controversie about the fact whether it was condemned in the Law of God or not we know Samuel not being judge but Saul being King supream Magistrate not executing judgement on the Amalekites he killed Agag certainly all Divines even Popish not excepted say Saul the Civil Magistrate ought to have killed Agag that Samuel not by vertue of his place as a prophet or as a Priest or a Member of the Sanedrim as Erastus would say but excited by an extraordinary motion of Gods spirit killed him as Phineas the son of Aaron slew Num. 25. Zimri and Cosbi 7 8. And Elijah slew Baals Priests 1 Kin. 18. 40. 2 Kin. 1. 10. If Phineas by office and Elias by office killed those ill doers as Erastus would dream The Prophets and Priests by their office were Civill Iudges and had power to put to death evil doers Now Erastus denyeth and with good reason that the Lords disciples should bear civill dominion over men as the Lords of the Gentiles Luk. 22. 24 25 26. and that Christ though both a Prophet and a Priest could not take on him to be a Iudge and a Ruler Luk. 12. yet here Erastus will have the High Priest by a Law-power to imprison and put to death 2. Erastus may with as good reason say that the high Priests had a Law-power by Gods institution to punish and to compell Christians to blaspheme God and to persecute them to strange Cities and to murther the Saints that believed in the Lord Iesus for he went to Damascus for this effect Act. 26. 12. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 with povver and Commission from the chief Priests This was not a Law-power in generall to punish such as the Law of Moses discerned to be blasphemers but a limited particular Commission to murther the Saints who should hear and obey the Prophet like unto Moses whom the Lord should raise up Deut. 18. What Law had the High Priests for this Had they not a Law on the contrary Deut. 18. Erastus Paul confesseth ingenuously before the Roman Judges that he persecuted the Saints and that he had authority and power from the Priests and Elders so to do Act. 22. 26. and we read not that the Priests or Paul were censured for these things as having done any thing against the Laws or will of the Romans Act. 5. They send their Officer the Captain of the Temple they imprison the Apostles they convene a Councell give out a sentence and agitate the killing of the Apostles amongst them while Gamaliel impede them Ans It is true the Romans heard that the Sanedrim exercised Civill jurisdiction and inflicted bodily punishment But for false Doctrine the Romans I conceive took as little care as Gallio did of any of Gods matters and whether the Sanedrim kept the rule of the Lords first institution Deut. 17. yea they looked not much whether the Priests might put to death false Prophets or if the Civill judges only might do it and Erastus said before that the Romans gave the Iews liberty of all their own laws and customes in matters of Religion 2. What care would the Romans take whether the Iews killed and oppressed Iews for questions of their owne Religion so they remained loyall and true to Cesar 3. We know Herod Felix Festus Agrippa being willing to pleasure the Iews did oversee many breaches of Law in them especially in matters of the Gospel Act. 12. 3. and 24. 27. and 16. 36 37 38 39 40. Ioh. 19. 15 16 17. 4. How doth he prove that the Romans did not take this for a breach of their Lawes Because they accuse not the Sanedrim for this surely it followeth not We read not that the Romans challenged them for a manifest breach of Law when they scourged and cast in prison Paul and Silas who were Romans and had not condemned them Act. 16. 38 39. 5. We deny not a lawfull judicature of the Sanedrim Act. 5. But that they had any Law of God to scourge and imprison and put to death the Apostles is the question we say they neither had Gods law nor durst be answerable to the Romans Laws for that fact and so this is a fact brought to prove a Law Erastus If this was insolencie in the Jevvs which rose from the confusion of the two jurisdictions hovv say some of yours none can be
in way of Preaching or in way of censure is a part of the Gospel But Pastors are to Preach the Gospel to all to great and small who stand in need of Reconciliation 2 Cor. 5. 20 Act. 9. 15. He is a chosen vessel to me to bear my name before Gentiles and Kings and the Children of Israel Erastus It is false that the Sword of the Magistrate is not sufficient to coerce sins Psal 101. Kings have put to death those that seek not God It is nothing that you say the Priest judged those same sins in a spirituall manner that the Magistrate judged politically for it is false that the Priests judged in a Judicature separated from the Civill Judges as your Presbytery sitteth See Levit. cap. 4. 5. 6. God seemeth to have given no Laws of punishing offenders by themselves as with us least we should imagine two distinct Judicatures Ans We deny not but the Sword is sufficient to punish offenders in its own kinde in order to the peace of the Common-wealth to remove evil to cause others fear to pacifie Gods wrath as the Scriptures speak so David and good Kings purged the city of God but Erastus cannot deny but God ordained spirituall means of rebukings putting out of the Camp eschewing the company of offenders that they may be ashamed and those spirituall means have a spirituall influence on the soul to remove offences to gain the offenders Matth. 18. 15. Psal 110 2. Isa 11. 4. Psal 141. 5. 2 Thess 3. 14 15. 2. The word maketh the Priests separated from Civill Iudges Zach. 3. 7. The Angel of the Lord protested unto Ioshua the high Priest if thou wilt walk in my wayes and keep my charge then thou shalt also judge my house and thou shalt keep my courts The Civill Magistrate judged not the house of God the way that the High Priest did The Divines that noteth on the place say The chief part in Ecclesiasticall affairs was upon the High Priest Deu◠17. 12. 2 Chron. 19. 11. The word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is given to the Priest is to judge to give out sentence in judgement the very word that is given to King Iosiah He judged the cause of the poor and needy and Ier. 5. 28. They judge not the cause the cause of the fatherlesse and Ier. 21. 12. O house of David execute judgement in the morning and the sons of Aaron the Priests 1 Chron. 24. 5. are made some of them Governors of the sanctuary and Governors of the house of God It is the word that signifies Princes 2 Kin. 9. 5. A word to thee O Prince 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 1 Sam. 22. 2. 1 Chro. 11. 6. Ier. 17. 25 Num. 23. 3. 10. All the princes of Moab Isa 30. 4. Isa 10. 8. Are not my princes Kings and Lev. 4. 5 6. chapters judiciall acts are given to the Priest that are proper to him as Priest which none do but he nor have the Civill ludges any part in it more then they can offer sacrifices which none do but the priests for he was to judge of the quality of the sins and might not offer any sacrifice for every sin nor dip his finger in the blood of the bullock seven times for every sin this spirituall judicature was the Priests And neither Moses the Prince nor any Civill Iudge on earth could share with the Priests in judging this all the world will say the judge may use the sword against the Murtherer and Elders or Pastors have not to do with the sword at all and the Pastors are to convince rebuke and work upon the conscience of the Murtherer to gain him to repentance and no civill judge as a civill judge hath to share with him in this here be distinct punishments one corporall and civill another spirituall why then must they not flow from two distinct Iurisdictions or if it displease any man that we call Church-censures with the name of punishment we can forbear the name for rebukes suspension from the Sacraments Excommunication because they are intrinsecally and of their own nature such as tend not to the hurt but to the gaining and saving of the souls of the persons censured they are unproperly punishments as the power and court they come from is unproperly a rod a Iudicature a Court and those that inflict the censures improperly Iudges yet can it not be denied to be spirituall Government and that there is a spirituall sword the word of God and a spirituall coaction flowing from Heralds or servants in the name of the King of Kings and Head of the Church who reigneth in his own Ordinances and Ministers Erastus The priests bade Uzziah not burn incense because it was their part only to sacrifice But vvhere is it vvritten that the King vvas condemned by the sentence of the Priests Ans The Priests were a Colledge of Elders who not only judicially condemned the Kings fact as against the Lavv of God but 2 Chron. 26. Azariah and eighty priests vvith him vvithstood him and resisted him yea they gave out sentence against him ver 18. It pertaineth not unto thee Vzziah to burn incense to the Lord but to the Priests the sons of Aaron that are consecrated to burn incense go out of the sanctuary for thou hast trespassed they give out the sentence of the Law of God Numb 16. 40 Nor might any come in to the Holy place but the Priests and Levites Num. 18. 6 7. here is a sentence judiciall by the voyces of 80. Priests in an externall court given out against the supream Magistrate for they gave not out this sentence as private men but as Priests judging according to the Law and in this the King was subject to Ecclesiasticall jurisdiction Erastus It is a vaine thing to say they Excommunicate not the Magistrate as the Magistrate none but Kata-baptists and such as deny Magistracy to be an Ordinance of God can say that Every man might excuse rebellion so and say I persecute not the Magistrate as he is a Magistrate but as he is a tyrant But I say you may not reproach the Magistrate Exod. 22. farre lesse may you punish him How can I obey him whose whole life and actions I may by Power and coaction limit The Magistrate so is but a servant to the Presbytery Ans Erastus scorneth this distinction to say the Magistrate not as a Magistrate but as a scandalous man is Excommunicated Yet we can make him receive the distinction whether he will or not For Erastus saith that Pastors may rebuke convince and threaten the Magistrate Good man may Pastors threaten and rebuke the Magistrate as the Magistrate or may they only threaten and rebuke him as an offending man Erastus dare not say the first for so he were a grosse Kata-baptist for then Pastors were to rebuke the very office and to condemne it if he say the latter as he doth in expresse words then he acknowledgeth that Pastors may bind
Ambrose did no more then a faithfull Pastor and Amariah and the 80. valiant Priests did in not suffering the holy things of God to be polluted Lipsius no religious man saith l. 2. c. 24. de Constantia quo facto nihil magis impium omnis veâ—us impietas habuit Beza Bucer P. Martyr Melancton Calvin Anto. Waleus Gomaras commend Ambrose And truly to kill seven thousand Citizens of Thessalonica of which the most part were innocent deserved more then Excommunication if more could be inflicted by the Church See Ambrose Epist 5. 28 29. Erastus had no reason to compare so laudable a fact to the proud fact of an abominable Pope trampling on the Emperours neck and abusing the word of God Psal 91. to defend his devilish pride CHAP. XX. Quest 16. A vindication of other Arguments for Excommunication as from sacrificing offering of gifts c. with bloody hands Erastus Esay 1. c. 52. c. 66. Ier. 6. 7. Ezech. 23. and 33. Psa 50. are alledged for Excommunication to which I answer 1. The Lord doth not condemne sacrificing for he commanded it but the abuse thereof as he that commendeth modesty to one that eateth undecently doeth condemne unmannerly eating but commandeth not abstinence from eating so Christ Mat. 6. removeth not fasting and praying but the abuse of them When the Hebrews propound two just and right things of which they approve the one and deny the other there is only a comparison understood as Hos 6. I will have mercy and not sacrifice that is rather mercy then sacrifice Prov. 8. Receive my instruction and not silver that is receive rather my instruction then silver so this is no good consequence God hateth the sacrifice of the wicked Ergo Presbyters are to be chosen who should hinder wicked men to sacrifice it followeth not for then this should be as good a consequence God hateth the prayers of the wicked Ergo Presbyters are to be chosen who should hinder men to call upon God to praise God to rest on the Sabbath to give almes except these Presbyters judge them worthy Ans In the following books Erastus refuteth some Treatises of Authors without names the books I cannot have and if he doe them right in repeating their minde faithfully I know not but I know in many things and in this very argument Erastus fancied arguments on Beza which he would reject as none of his 1. Sacrificing seemeth to be a confirming ordinance as eating the Passeover and the Communion of the Lords bodie and blood and as there was some examination of the persons for whom sacrifices were offered required in the Priests as I said before from Mat. 8. 4. Levit. 14. 3 4. 9 10 11 12. So there is Morall cleannesse required in all that are to partake of the Sacraments that presupposeth conversion and I grant the first and native consequence of these is that it was the sin and hypocrisie of the persons themselves who sacrificed first and principally But that it was not the sins of the Priests who admitted those that were no better then Sodom and Gomorrah Esa 1. 10. and had hands full of blood ver 15. is now the question I conceive that it is a taxing of the Priests and Church Rulers that is Esa 1. 10. no lesse then of civill judges and the people yea that he rather taxeth the Priests called Rulers v. 10. and that that is not as Socinians say a new commandement of Christ but an old Mat. 5. 23. Therefore if thou bring thy gift unto the Altar and there remembrest that thy brother hath ought against thee What if the Priest should know that he had killed an innocent man and beside the guilt of innocent blood that the sad hearted widow and the weeping Orphanes had any blood to charge him withall was the Priest either to offer or sacrifice for him while he were reconciled to the widdow and fatherlesse Christ addeth v. 24. Leave there thy gift before the Altar and goe thy way first 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 be reconciled to thy Brother and then come and offer thy gift I offer it to the consideration of the Reader if as the offerer of the gift was to leave his offering knowing himself to be under blood and to have offended his brother he was to leave his offering at the Altar so if the Priest who offered the same should also know that the same day he had offered his childe to Molech or the Devill if the Priest in this case should offer for him and if the Priest should not eat this mans sin and communicate with the bloody impenitent man in offering with him and for him the sacrifice of fools if he should not leave offering for him till he went and was reconciled with his brother for the Priest by office was to forbid such a bloodie man to offer Ergo he could not by office also offer for him Here an order prescribed that is morall perpetuall and common both to the ordinances of the Old and New Testament for Christ doth here expound the Law which was corrupted by the Pharisees 2. He doth not set down a rule concerning the Ceremoniall Law which was shortly to be abrogated but sure he hath an eye to the worship of the New Testament What if he that is come to the Table to eat and drinke with Christ and both his owne conscience and the Elders remember the widdow orphane have a just accusation against this man of late yesterday he killed their husband and father should either this man eat and drinke at this time with Iesus Christ or should the Elders give these holy things to him I thinke noâ— And to come to the argument it is true Isa 1. sacrificing is not condemned but sacrificing by such Princes of Sodom and tali modo by men of bloodie hands Ergo they were not to abstaine from sacrificing but at that time and in that condition nor doe we forbid either coming to or debarring from the Lords Table by the Elders but onely haec vice and onely while 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 first he be reconciled to his brethren and testifie that he repenteth we never heighten Excommunication to such an extremity as it doth totally unchurch the man and exclude him from the Seals simpliciter and absolutely but according to Christs 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and his order and therefore the Elders are to exclude for a time just as this God will have mercy and not sacrifice that is rather mercy first mercy and first faith and repentance then sacrifice that is then afterward externall worship afterward receiving of the Passeover the Lords Supper and offering of gifts at the Altar And secondarily even in the second place in regard of time he will have all these externalls whence the man is to debarre himselfe and by the same reason the Elders as the 80. Priests did to a King 2 Chron. 26. are to debarre the man while he repent And 2. This also I will have mercy
and not Sacrifice or I will have mercy rather then Sacrifice doth imply that both mercy and Sacrifice are lawfull and acceptable to God in their owne order and way But where saith God I will have sacrificing rather then sacrificing with bloody hands so as both sacrificing and sacrificing with bloody hands shall be lawfull and acceptable to God in their owne order for Sacrificing with bloodie hands was never lawfull never acceptable to God in any order Nor said God ever he would chuse the coming of those to his Sanctuary who the same day they came in had slaughtered their sonnes to Molech God alwaies hated it and never chose it if at the same time both mercy and sacrifice cannot be as David starving cannot both abstaine from eating shew-bread as the Law in its letter required and shew mercie to his life and the life of his followers and eate yea he is to eate and the Priests knowing his case doe give him the Shewbread to eat forbid abstinence as they would forbid selfe-murthering and selfstarving so here where at one time eating at the Lords Table and reconciliation with the widow and fatherlesse cannot be co-existent together at one time and place an exigence of divine providence forbidding both the bloodie man is to debarre himselfe from the Lords Supper it being as sacrificing and lesse necessary if we speake comparatively and the Elders are not to give those holy things to the bloodie man while 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 first he be reconciled to the widow and Orphane which now comparing the one with the other is mercy whereas eating and drinking at the Lords Supper is but Sacrifice but it should be as sacrificing with bloodie hands which God condemneth and forbiddeth and the Priests and Elders knowing it to be such a sinne ought to forbid and to hinder it Hence as this I will have mercy and not sacrifice hath this sense I will have you to omit Sacrifice when it cannot be done without neglect of mercie vvhich is more acceptable to me then all Sacrifices so I vvill have reconciliation to the offended widdow and Orphanes and not coming to the Lords Supper vvithout the former for the former is more acceptable to me and should be to you and the Elders in your practice then the latter and therefore the comparison of eating and eating undecently halteth for eating undecently before another which would procure deadly sicknesse to your brother ought to be forbidden by the Ruler it being known to be so and ought to be abstained from hic nunc as a sinne and a hurting of your brothers health and yet the Ruler cannot forbid totall abstinence from meat to him that eateth undecently as the Elders cannot command totall abstinence from the Sacraments 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 alwayes and in all cases 2. We draw no conclusion of erecting a Presbytery from those places but those two we draw Ergo 1. It is a sin to the people themselves to sacrifice with bloodie hands because God condemneth such a manner of sacrificing 2. Ergo they are to be debarred by some who hath the charge of the holy things of God but from the Antecedent we neither inferre Ergo Presbyters nor Ergo the people nor Ergo the Prince should debarre them 3. Calling on God is not to be forbidden nor giving of almes because they are abused but the manner of the abusing those ordinances are forbidden by God and may be hindred by the Church and forbidden under the pain of Excommunication The Church cannot forbid men of totall abstinence from the Lords Supper but they can command him that is not reconciled to his brother and visibly under the guilt of blood to leave the Table as Christ Mat. 5. 23. commandeth the unreconciled man to leave his gift at the Altar and goe first be reconciled with his brother and then at the next occasion come to the Lords Supper so the Church of the Iewes could not forbid the Pharisees to pray but they could passe such an act as is Act. 15. 22. We forbid Pharisees or any other to bring their private prayers to the Markets and streets and when they are to give almes we forbid them with sound of Trumpet to make proclamation to all men that they are the onely holy and charitable men in the earth Nor doe we thinke that the Church can debarre men from the Sacraments for inward and and invisible unworthinesse but onely for visible and professed uncleannesse and Levit. 9. 13. it is clear the man that is uncleane is forbidden to keepe the Passeover Will Erastus say O he is not forbidden to eate the Passeover but onely he is forbidden to eat it tali modo being unclean and therefore it is not the Priests sinne if he should give the Passeover to the uncleane man and forbid him to eate tali modo in his uncleannesse see Erastus himselfe against this lib. 1. c. 3. page 103. 104. where he confesseth that the unclean are debarred and yet uncleannes in the eaters of the Passeover was an abuse onely and made not eating of the Passeover unlawfull in it self So the Lord complaineth Ezek. 23. 38. Moreover this they have done unto me they have defiled my Sanctuary in the same day and have prophaned my Sabbaths 39. For when they had slaine their children to their Idols then they came 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the same very day into my Sanctuary to prophane it and loe this they have done in the midst of my house Will Erastus now say It was Ceremoniall uncleannes not Morall to kill their seed to Molech and that Morall uncleannesse and bloodie murthering of their seed in the same day when a person is to come to the Lords supper known to be such a Murtherer to the Elders who have power to judge the scandalous and to cast him out 1 Cor. 5. did not sinne if they should be instrumentall to lead Murtherers into the Temple and say to them Take yee eate yee this is the body of the Lord that is broken for you Erastus answereth The Prophet Ezek. 23. accuseth not the Priests or Elders that they debarred not those Murtherers from the Temple and Sacraments if there had been any precept for this some footstep should have appeared in Gods rebuking of them Ans The Lord doth not particularly reprove the Priests by name in every place in which he reproveth the people But expresly for this same very sinne the Lord reproveth the Priests Ezek. 44. 7. Let it suffice you that ye have brought into my sanctuary strangers uncircumcised in heart and uncircumcised in flesh to be in my sanctuary to pollute it 8 And ye have not kept the charge of my holy things but ye have set keepers of my charge in my sanctuary for your selves 24. And in controversie they shall stand in judgement he had spoken of their teaching the people to discerne between the clean and the unclean v. 23. and they shall judge it according to
my judgements and they shall keep my Laws and my Statutes in all mine assemblies and hallow my Sabbaths so 2 Chron. 23. 19. And Iehojada set the porters at the Gates of the house of the Lord that none which was uncleane in any thing should enter in And shall we concelve that porters that is Levites would hold out those that were only ceremonially unclean and receive in murtherers who had killed there Children to Molech that same day there was not to enter in 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the unclean in any matter the text is generall excludes idolaters and murthers and such as should refuse to enter in Covenant with the Lord of which the Text speaketh As for Erastus his consequence which he unjustly imputeth to us to wit Israel sinned in coming to the Lords temple to prophane it in the very day that they slew their Children to Molech Ergo there ought to have been Priests and now there must be Presbyters and selected overseers in a Church judicature to debarre murtherers and the like scandalous persons from the Sacraments 1. This is not our consequence But this we say if the Priests knew that same day that they came to the Temple they slew their Children to Molech the Priests should have debarred them from coming to the Temple and from eating the Passeover as their office and duty was by the Law of God Num. 9. v. 6 7. Num. 19. 11 12. Lev. 22. 6. The soul that hath touched any such unclean shal be unclean till even and shall not eat of the holy things unlesse he wash his flesh with water 7. and when the Sun is downe he shal be clean and shall afterward eat of the holy things because it is his food Now it was the Priests office Lev. 10. 10. that he put a difference between holy and unholy and between clean and unclean so if Eli knew that his sonnes made themselves vile before the people and committed furnication with the women at the doore of the Tabernacle of the Congregation Ergo Eli should as a judge have restrained them 1 Sam. 3. 13. But from this antecedent we draw not this consequence Elies sonnes do publikely make themselves vile Ergo there ought to be such an Ordinance as a judge with Civill power to punish them and Ergo there ought to have been no King to punish them but a judge like unto Eli and Samuel this consequence followeth not from this antecedent but only hoc posito that Eli hath the sword and be the Civill judge Ergo he ought to punish from scandals in the Church and prophaning the holy things of God we inferre not Ergo there must be such a judicature erected as if the antecedent were the cause of the consequent But this only followeth Ergo supposing there be a Church and Presbytery invested with this power they ought not to admit murtherers or any unclean persons to come and partake of the Sacraments and so defile the holy things of God as for the place Ezek. 33. I undertake not from thence to conclude debarring of any from the holy things of God by the Priests what may follow by consequent is another thing Erastus Whereas it is said Deut. 23. the Lord would not have the price of a whore offered to him Ergo far lesse would he have a whore admitted to the sacrifice it followeth not but a penitent or a whore professing repentance may be admitted to the sacrifices 2. He forbiddeth only the price of a whore to be offered to him as a vow or a thing vowed it may be that agree not to all sacrifices For God forbiddeth a living creature that is unperfect in a vow But Lev. 22. he forbiddeth not such imperfect living creatures to be offered to him in a free will sacrifice so God forbiddeth honey to be offered in an offering by fire but not in all other oblations But will not the Lord have a whore to offer to God that which is lawfully purchased or which is her patrimony or may not a whore offer her first borne to the Lord or circumcise him We find not that forbidden From things to persons we cannot argue we may not offer a lame beast to God Ergo doth the Lord so abhor a lame man that he may not come to the Temple God alloweth not tares amongst the wheat yet he will not have the externall Ministers to pluck up the tares while harvest Ans If the hire received for a whores selling of her body to uncleannesse must not be applyed to the service of God farre more cannot a whore as a whore be admitted to partake of the holy things of God for the price or money is called abomination to God Deut. 23. for the whore not the whore for the money and so we may well argue from the things to the persons 2. It is false that God forbiddeth the price of a whore onely in vows and not in sacrifices he forbiddeth it because as Moses saith Deut. 23. 18. it is an abomination to the Lord and as Erastus saith it is money unjustly purchased Yea Davids practise teacheth that what we bestow on sacrifices as well as in vows it must be our own proper goods and not so much as gifted to us 2 Sam. 24. 24. Neither will I offer burnt offerings unto the Lord my God of that which cost me nothing farre lesse would he offer the price of a whore in sacrifices and the Divines of England say on the place hereby is forbidden that any gaine of evill things should be applied to the service of God Mich. 7. 1. Vatablus saith the like 2. For the Lords forbidding to offer in a vow Bullock or Lambe or any thing that is superfluous or lacking in his parts and permitting it in a free-will offering by a free will offering is meant that which is given to the Priest for food of a free gift but otherwise what is offered to the Lord in a vow or a free will offering must be perfect for the blind broken maimed having a wenne scurvy or scab can in no sort be offered to the Lord Lev. 22. 20 21 22 23. There is no word of the Lord in the free will gift that Erastus speaketh of but only the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is liberall free from 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to give freely to God or man 3. A whore repenting or professing repentance was not debarred from sacrifices but that is without the bounds of the question an heathen could say Quem penitet facti is pene innocens est Senec. in Traged We debarre none that professe repentance from the seals of the Covenant 4. When a whore as a whore did offer her first borne being a bastard in the Temple I conceive neither she nor her childe were accepted Deut. 23. 2. Abastard shall not enter into the Congregation of the Lord if the childe was born of Married Parents the woman repenting the question now must be far altered 5. For a lame
perfect in the one as in the other 5. The great error is here that Erastus being sleeping when he wrote thinketh that to eat and drinke unworthily to offer a gift at the Altar the offerer being unreconciled to his brother is an action internall and known to God and that can no more be known to man then the thoughts of the heart A palpable untruth is not worshipping of Baalim murthering stealing whoring killing the Children to Molâ—ch and coming to stand in the Temple of the Lord which are called a prophaning of Gods holy name Ier. 7. 9 10 11. Ezek. 23. 38 39. are not these actions visible externall and as feazable to be judged by man as murther may be judged by a Magistrate Yea by this let a Pagan come to the table of the Lord we are not to hinder him why it is an internall action knowne citra errorem to God only and we cannot then judge whither he have examined himself or not if he be not against us here he is with us saith Erastus Quod deus facere jussit ab eo revocari aut retrahi nullus ab hominibus debet si modo externe sic fiat ut precepit deus Yea so the Magistrate cannot hinder either Pagan or the open enemy and persecutor who will trample upon the Sacrament from the Sacraments the contrary whereof Erastus said pag. 207. hunc ego minime admittendum censeo and let Erastus give us Scripture either expresse or by consequence where a Pagan or a persecutor may be impeded by Church or Magistrate from externall receiving of the seals except that we are not to give pearls to swine But was it not as hard to judge whether Saul persecuting the Church out of blind zeal was a swine or a dogge as to judge whether he that killeth his sonne to Molech out of blind devotion and cometh the same day to the Temple of the Lord doth prophane the Name of the Lord 6. If we must do nothing in externalls without the expresse commandement of God nor may we without Gods command either expresse or a necessary consequence admit dogs and swine to the Lords table 7. Paul indeed rejoyced that Christ was preached though out of envy Phil. 1. but by men called and gifted of God to preach and therefore ought not to be forbidden to preach while the Church for their scandalous life do cast them out say they are called Ministers once the Church is not to cast them out for this or that particular sinne if they be not contumatious and Paul saith he Rejoyceth that Christ was preached but he saith not he rejoyced that they preached Christ tali modo out of contention thinking to add affliction to his bonds Yet God forbiddeth the externall act of preaching in those that hateth to be reformed Psal 50. 16 17. and forbiddeth the Church to lay hands on or to call to the Ministery wicked men that hateth to be reformed or to keep them in the Ministery and this hindreth not but Paul might rejoyce at the consequent of their Ministery to wit at the preaching of the Gospel so long as they remained in the Ministery as we may rejoyce in that Christ was crucified for sinners and not allow that Herod and Pilate did with wicked hands crucifie the Lord of Glory nor yet are we to rejoyce in their sinne But all this hindreth not but he that is at wrath with his brother and knowne to be so by the Priests should be hindred to offer his gift while he be reconciled to him 8. We are not to hinder acts of externall worship as praying praising preaching nor can the Church forbid them except where God by his Commandement require that we do them wiâ—h a speciall visible qualification and order As first be reconciled to your brother first examine your selfe and then ofâ—er your gift and come and eat and drinke at the Lords table and in Negatives Come to my Temple but come not that very day you killed your sonnes to Molech while ye repent and be humbled for that sinne Erastus The godly Kings compelled the people to observe the rites ordained of God at least externally and 2 Chron. 15. killed those that sought not the Lord then they sinne who punish sinnes by debarring men from the Sacrament for beside that they forbid a thing commanded of God and as it falleth under mens judgement that is as it is externall and good so they cast their sickle in another mans field because the correcting of sinnes in so farre as they are externall belongeth to the Magistrate and in so farre as they come from a depraved will they belong to God onely Ans Here is one palpable error that all externall scandals are punished either by the Magistrate as the Magistrate so he must be understood else he saith nothing or by God onely contrary to 1 Cor. 5. 11. Rom. 16. 17. 2 Thes 3. 14 15. For we give a third they are punished by the Church but only in a Ministeriall way It is false that the godly Kings could compell the unclean Jewes though circumcised to come to the Temple or the murtherers of their Children that same day to come with bloody hands to the Temple Yet the very locall and personall presence of a Iew in the Temple and the very posture of his body in looking with his face toward the Temple while he prayed was an externall lawfull Ordinance of God They could not then lawfully compell the Iews to these rites except with such and such previous qualifications they could not compell the Priests unwashed and having drunk wine to go to the Sanctuary 2 Chro. 15. It is not said they were to be put to death that should omit any Ceremony though every Religious observance be a seeking of God but they that would not seek God by entring in Covenant to renounce idols and serve the Lord or should prove apostates from the sworne Covenant were to be put to death 3. If that be a punishment we contend for things not for names which is a privation of good inflicted for a sinne then let Erastus sâ—e if the Priests punish not who debarred men from the holy things of God by Erastus his grant for Ceremoniall omissions against a Law of God And if the Priests should not suffer an unreconciled man to offer gifts and if the Church should deny pearls to apostates if this be not punishment and if the Magistrate be to cast out or inflict Ecclesiasticall censures shall he not punish in so doing Erastus To be cast out of the Synogogue is not to be Excommunicated For the Synagogue signified sometime all Iudea sometime a particular Congregation or the place of meeting or the sermon By no Law could a circumcised Iew be cast out of all Iudea and sent to the Gentitles or be compelled to say they were not Iews Yea they were killed who denyed Iudaisme 2 Maccabees so the cast out of the Synagogue were not debarred from the Temple
should chuse the Elders at least at the first even though the Church doe not consent But how can they sit in place of the Church and judge who were against the will and minde of the Church chosen to be Judges for though the Magistrate be a chiefe Member of the Church yet to Tell the Church is not to Tell the Magistrate as you say but to Tell the whole Church and it is no â—xcuse that the Magistrate doth but once chuse the Elders for if hee have no right nor Law from God to doe it he can never doe it and if he have Law from God to doe it he ought alwayes to doe it Ans Here Erastus reasoneth against some Auâ—hor that inclineth to the way of Morellius If there bee no formed Church endued with knowledge and discretion to chuse their owne Elders if there be godly men fit to be chosen they are to convene and chuse from amongst them Elders the godly Magistrate is to joyne his Vote and Power because there is a Church not yet constitute it is now Perturbatus aut corruptus Ecclesiae status and I ever judged it a golden saying of that great Divine Fran. Iunius that when the Magistrate will not concurre the Church in that extraordinary case may doe somewhat which ordinarily they cannot doe and againe when the Church doth not their duty the Magistrate in that case may doe something more then ordinary to cause the Church doe their dutie for its a common Laâ— to ills out of order remedies out of the road way may be applyed So if the Priests and Levites be corrupt Iehoshapaht and Hezekiah and Iosiah may reforme And therefore though the godly Magistrate jure communi by the common Law of Nature imploy his power to appoint Elders all Errors and confusions in the Church are in some measure out of order yet it followeth that jure proprio and ordinarily he should alwayes doe this 2. Elders are not properly Representators of the Church to me while I be better informed for power of feeding and ruling is immediately given by Iesus Christ to the Elders and not by the interveening mediation of the Church but onely by their designation to the office thâ—s power is given by the people 3. The Magistrate as the Magistrate and by vertue of his place is neither a Member farre lesse a chiefe Member of the Church for then all Magistrates should be Members of the Church even Heathen Kings and Rulers which no man can say The Christian Magistrate as a Christian is a Member of the Church But that is nothing to helpe Erastus Erastus Because the multitude can doe nothing in order therefore say they they have power to choose Elders to whom belongeth the power of Excommunication But how prove they this Though a company vvanting a Magistrate have this power shall it follovv that a company to vvhom God hath given a godly Magistrate should have this povver But because confusion vvould follovv therefore Elders are to be chosen Ergo Such Elders as make up your Presbyterie à genere ad speciem affirmativè nulla est consequutio Ans 1. Not only from necessity of eschewing confusion but from the positive Ordinance of God we infer Presbyters we do not own any such consequence Prelaâ—es and Papists argue for a Monarchy in the Church from order we know no creatures of the like frame Erastus is for a Bishop he may so argue not we We finde Christ hath placed such organs in his body as Eph. 4. 11. 12. 1 Cor. 12. 28. 1 Tim. 5. 17. 1 Tim. 3. 1 2 c Act. 6. 1 2 c. and 14. 23. Ergo they ought to be for we think the Church cannot govern it self 2. If the Church wanting a Magistrate as the Apostolick Church did have power to chuse Presbyters and by a Divine Law how dare Erastus say That it followeth not when the Church hath a godly Magistrate she should keep the same power Can the godly Magistrate when he cometh into the Church take any Divine power from the Church Is the Magistrate given to the Church as a Nurse-father to preserve that power that Christ hath given to his Spouse or is he given as a spoiler at noon day to take to himself the power and make the Ambassadors of Christ his Ambassadors and Servants to preach in his Name whereas before when they had no Magistrate Pastors did preach only in the Name of Iesus Christ Erastus Sure the Lord hath concredited to the Magistrate the Command and all power of externall Government so as he hath subjected not only Civill but also Sacred things to his power that he may manage the one according to the Word of God the other according to Iustice and equity which since it is Commanded in the Old Testament and practised by all holy Iudges and Kings and we finde it not changed in the New Testament We justly say that the Church that hath a godly Magistrate cannot by Gods will chuse a new Senate or Presbytery to exercise publikely Iudgement for God hath not armed subjects against their Magistrates Nor hath he Commanded them to take any part of their power from them and give it to others and to subject them to externall Dominion Ans Sure the Lord concredited to the Priest not to King Vzziah to burn incense and to the Priests to rebuke Vzziah and command him to desist and this is no lesse externall Governing of the house of God quoad hoc in this particular then Excommunication for to Excommunication on the Churches part as Excommunication is no more required but that the scandalous and murthering Magistrate should not come to the Table of the Lord or remain in the society and Church-fellowship of the Saints as a Member of the Church Now if the Magistrate obey not the Church as the Church can use no bodily coaction or restraint to hinder the Magistrate to obtrude himself upon the holy things of God though other either fellow-Magistrates or the inferior Magistrates if the party â—xcommunicated be the supream Magistrate or the Parliament may and ought to use their power as Magistrates by the sword to hinder the holy things of God to be prophaned for I think it easie to prove if this were a fit place that inferior Magistrates are essentially Magâ—strates and immediatly subject to the King of Kings for the due use of the sword as the supream Magistrate or King And therefore there is no more externall dominion used in Excommunicating a bloody and scandalous Magistrate then in rebuking and threatning him Now Erastus granteth That Pastors may rebuke and threaten according to the Word of the Lord even Magistrates and Kings 2. If because Iudges in the Old Testament as Eli and Samuel Sacrificed and we finde this not changed in the New and nothing extraordinary in this Ministers in the New Testâ—ment may do the same Then the Iustice of Peace and Mayors of Cities and every constable may by vertue of
no sinne nor any prophaning of the Sanctuary of God Then all their sinne was that being Morally unclean they came to the Sanctuary Ergo God forbade such bloody men to come to his Sanctuary because God forbiddeth all sinne in his perfect Law Ergo those that deserved to dye by the hand of the Magistrate for open murther deserved for that open murther to be debarred from the holy things of God what ever Erastus say on the contrary Erastus The adversaries contend that some are to be excommunicated who deserve not to dye as if any to a light injury adde contumacy But they should have a warrant for this for this is a contradiction Every one who is clean according to the Law should keep the Passeover and this some who is clean according to the Law to wit who liveth wickedly and scandalously and yet is Ceremonially clean should not keep the Passeover Ans We finde no distinction made by Christ Matth. 18 and therefore we make none He that offendeth his brother Christ maketh no exceptions of light or small offences if he cannot be gained by admonitions and be contumacious against the Church he is reputed as a heathen and a publican and this is our warrant 2. Let Erastus answer this contradiction according to his owne way Every one who is Ceremonially clean should come to the Temple Some who are Ceremonially clean to wit who the same day have slaine their sons to Molech should not come into the Temple The affirmative is holden as a truth by Erastus The negative is the word of the Lord Ezech. 23. 38 39. 3. It is no contradiction which Erastus proposeth For every one who is Ceremonially clean should not keep the Passeover except also he be Morally clean For he that discerneth not the Lords body should not eat and the Lambe was no lesse Sacramentally the Lords body then the Bread and Wine is his body so the former is false in rei veritate The latter to wit Every one Ceremonially cleane should not keepe the Passeover to Erastus is false Now of two propositions contradicent both cannot be false Erastus may know this is bad Logick Erastus The Prophets rebuked the abuse and prophaning of the Sacraments but they interdicted none circumcised of the use of the Sacraments they said the sacrifices of the wicked were no more welcome to God then if they offered things forbidden dogs and swines blood to God but they never say the Priests are to be accused for admitting such into the Sacraments They accuse and rebuke the Priests that they transgressed and taught not the people aright but never that they admitted such into the holy things of God The Prophets say alwayes those things are wicked before God but not in the face of the Church Ans If the Prophets rebuked the prophaning of the Sacraments then they also forbade prophane men to use the Sacraments could the Prophets rebuke any thing but sin Ergo they forbade the sinne which they rebuked Ergo they forbade the man that had murthered his sonne to Molech to come to the Sanctuary while he repented for they could not rebuke but what they forbad 2. If the bloody mans comming to the Sanctuary in that case was nothing more acceptable to God then the offering of a dog to God then as the offering of a dog to God was both forbidden to the people and to the Priest so was the people and Priest both accused for the bloody mans comming into the Temple the one should sin in comming the other in admitting him to come 3. The Priests are expresly accused for this Ezek. 22 25 26. and 44. 23 24. Hag. 2. 11 12 13. 4. Those were not onely sinnes in foro Dei before God for so when they were secret they were sinnes before God but when openly knowen as Jer. 7. 9 10 c. Ezek. 23. 38 39. they were the Priests sins The bloody are forbidden to come to the Sanctuary what then were not the Porters whose calling it was to hold out the uncleane to debar all whom the Lord forbade to come Certainly they excluded to their knowledge all whom God excluded else how had they the charge to keepe the doores of the Lords House and the Priests are not onely rebuked for not instructing the people but for erring in governing Ier. 5. 31. they are not Prophets but Priests and Governours both Ecclesiasticall and civill that the Prophet complaineth of who did rule with rigour cruelty over the people beside that they feed not the flocke but themselves Ezek. 34. 1 2 3 c. Ier. 23. 1 2 3 4. and 10. 21. and 22. 22. and 50. 6. Micah 2. 11. Hos 4. 18. Micah 7. 3. Erastus Though ill doers be not killed by the Magistrate yet it followeth not that God for any such cause deserving death would have them debarred à recto usu from the right use of holy things by some that are not Magistrates nor are manifest Idolaters Apostates and Hereticks though they be not put to death by the Magistrate to be debarred by these fancied or imaginary Presbyters Ans 1. Erastus taketh ever for confessed without any probation that it is rectus usus the right use of the holy things of God that men with bloodie hands use them which is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a most false principle for he that killeth his children to Molech and that same day cometh into the Sanctuary of God is so farre from the right using of the holy things of God that the Lord saith expresly his comming in in that condition to the Sanctuary is saith the Lord the prophaning of my Sanctuary Ezek. 23. 39. is this rectus usus Ceremoniarum the right use of the holy things of God It is not 1. It is a forbidden use of holy things Isa 1. 13. Mat. 7. 6. Mat. 5. 23. 2. It is a rebuked use of holy things Ier. 7. 9 10 11. Isa 66. 3. 3. It is a prophaning of holy things Ezek. 23. 38 39. 4. It is such a use as bringeth damnation to the party that useth it 1 Cor. 11. 27 29. and it is all these quoad externa in externall things 2. Erastus could yeeld they be debarred but by the Magistrate not by Imaginary Presbyters But all his Arguments as I shew before doe prove they should be debarred à recto usu from the right use of holy things by no man no more then they should be debarred from giving of almes or reading the word this is Erastus his owne Argument I pray you may the Magistrate or any on earth by any authority inhibite a Malefactor or a Murtherer who ought to die by the Magistrate to read the Word to give almes to pray for mercy to God because he hath killed a man 3. If hereticks apostates open idolaters are to be debarred by whom shall they be debarred Erastus pag. 207. thinketh they ought not to be admitted to the Sacraments who shall debar them The Magistrate
and God inviteth them to repentance and the staying in the Church And the Sacraments are to Erastus means of repentance and this casting out must be to save them for no power is given of God to the Magistrate or Church for destruction but for edification Now to put them out of the Church that they may be saved is as Erastus conceiteth to cast a lascivious Virgin out of the company of chaste Matrâ—ns to the end she may preserve her chastity I speak here all in the language of Erastus who useth all those against casting any out of the Church by Presbyters but they stand with equall strength against his casting out of idolaters and apostates out of the Church and so do the rest of his Arguments Therefore this conclusion of Erastus is a granting us the whole cause after in six books he hath pleaded none should be Excommunicated he falleth on Bellarmines Tutissimum igitur c. when he had written six books against justification by faith Lastly why should idolaters apostates and obstinately wicked men be excluded from the dispute of Excommunication and suspension from the Sacraments for he knoweth that Beza and Protestant Divines do make these the speciall though not the whole subject of the dispute Now Erastus concluding his six books doth hereby professe he hath never faithfully stated the question when he excludes those from the subjectum questionis who especially heareth not the Church and ought to be Excommunicated Thus have I given an account as I could of the wit of Erastus against the freedome of the Kingdome of the Lord Iesus CHAP. XXIII Of the power of the Christian Magistrate in Ecclesiasticall Discipline QUEST XIX Whether or no the Christian Magistrate be so above the Church in matters of Religion Doctrine and Discipline that the Church and her Guides Pastors and Teachers do all they do in these as subordinate to the Magistrate as his servants and by his Authority Or is the spirituall power of the Church immediately subject to Iesus Christ only VVEE know that Erastus who is Refuted by Beza Vtenbogard whom Ant Walens Learnedly Refuteth Maccovius opposed by the Universities and Divines of Holland Vedelius Answered by Gu. Apolonius and others and the Belgick Arminians in their Petition to the States and Hu. Grotins against Sibrandus Lubert Divers Episcopall Writers in England do hold That the Guides of the Church do all in their Ministery by the Authority of the Christian Magistrate I believe the contrary And 1. We exclude not the Magistrate who is a keeper of both Tables of the Law from a care of matters of Religion 2. We deny not to him a power to examine Heresies and false Doctrine 1. In order to bodily punishment with the sword 2. With a judgement not Antecedent but Subsequent to the judgement of the Church where the Church is constituted 3. With such a judgement as concerneth his practise lest he should in a blinde way and upon trust execute his office in punishing Hereticks whether they be sentenced by the Church according unto or contrary to the word of God as Papists dream 3. We deny not but the Prince may command the Pastor to Preach and the Synod and Presbytery to use the keys of Christs Kingdom according to the Rules of the Word But this is but a Civill subjection though the object be spirituall But the Question is not 1. Whether the Christian Magistrate have a care of both Tables of the Law 2. Whether he as a blinde servant is to execute the will of the Church in punishing such as they discern to be Hereticks we pray the Lord to give him eyes and wisdom in his Administration 3. Nor thirdly Whether he may use his coercive power against false Teachers that belongs to the controversie concerning Liberty of Conscience 4. The Question is not Whether the Magistrate have any power of jurisdiction in the Court of Conscience they grant that belongeth to the Preaching of the Word But the Question is touching the power in the externall Court of Censures 5. The Question is not Whether the power of exercising Discipline be from the Magistrate I mean in a free and peacable manner with freedome from violence of men we grant that power and by proportion also that exercise of Discipline is from him But whether the intrinsecall power be not immediately from Christ given to the Church this we teach as the power of saying peacably from danger of Pirats and Robbers is from the King but the Art of Navigation is not from the King But the Question is whether the Magistrate by vertue of his office as a Magistrate hath Supream power to Govern the Church and immediatly as a little Monarch under Christ above Pastors Teachers and the Church of God to Iudge and determine what is true Doctrine what Heresie to censure and remove from Church-Communion the Seals and Church-offices all scandalous persons and that if Pastors or Doctors or the Church Teach or dispense censures they do it not with any immediate subjection to Christ but in the Name and Authority of the Magistrate having power from the Magistrate as his servants and delegates To this we answer negatively denying any such power to the Magistrate and doe hold that the Church and Christs courts and Assemblies of Pastors Doctors and Elders hath this power onely and immediately from Iesus Christ without subordination in their office to King Parliament or any Magistrate on earth by these Arguments 1. Because in the Old Testament the Lord distinguished two courts Deut. 17. 8. If there arise a matter too hard for thee in judgement 10. Thou shalt come unto the Priests the Levites and unto the Iudge that shall be in those dayes and inquire and they shall shew thee the sentence of judgement And thou shalt doe according to the sentence which they of that place which the Lord shall chuse shall shew thee c. There be here two Courts clearly one court of Priests and Levites that were Iudges another of the Iudge Now the King by vertue of his Kingly office might not usurpe the Priests office 1. Vzziah was smitten with Leprosie for so doing 2. It is evident in Moses his writing that Aaron and his sonnes the Priests and Levites were separated for the service of the Tabernacle to teach the people to carry the Arke to sacrifice to judge the Leper and to judge between the clean and the unclean to put out of the campe out of the congregation the unclean and to admit the clean Lev. 1. 7 9 12 c. and 5. 8. and 7. 7. and 13. 3 4 c. 23. Numb 5. 8. c. and 18. 4 5. 2 Chron. 29. 11. You hath the Lord chosen to stand before him 1 Sam. 21. 1 2. Lev. 21. 1. Iosh 3. 8. 1 Kin. 8. 3. 1 Chron. 8. 9. 2 Chron. 5. 7. and 7. 6. and 8. 14. Zeph. 3. 4. Hag. 2. 11 12. Mal. 2. 7 Deut. 10 9. and 21. 5. Num. 1.
29. Deut. 10. 8 18. Numb 1. 50. and 3. 9 12 41. and 8. 10. Psal 122. 5. In Jerusalem there were set thrones of judgement the thrones of the house of David Mat. 22. 21. Christ commanded to give to Cesar the things that are Cesars and he in his own person refused to usurpe Cesars place Luke 12. 14. Man who made me a Iudge and interdicted his Apostles thereof Luke 22 24 25 26. and yet appointed for them a Judicature of another kinde Mat. 18. 15. Mat. 16. 19. Ioh. 20. 21. 1 Tim. 5. 17. Heb. 13. 17. 1 Cor. 5. and if any should deny that the Civill Magistrate had another Court in which he judged the Scriptures will refute him 3. It is evident that Iehoshaphat did not institute but restore those two courts 2 Chron. 19. 11. And behold Amariah the chiefe Priest is over you in all matters of the Lord and Zebadiah the son of Ishmael the ruler of the house of Iudah for all the Kings matters never any Erastian could satisfie either themselves or others to shew us what were those two courts so distinguished by their two sundry Rulers Amariah and Zebadiah the one a Priest the other a Magistrate 2. By the different formall objects the matters of the Lord the matters of the King and confounded they must be if the King and Ruler be a judge in the matters of God except God make him both a civill judge and a Prophet as were Moses and Samuel which yet were differenced when the God of order established his Church in Canaan The Church convenes for a Church businesse Iosh 18. 1. to set up the Tabernacle but for a civill businesse to make war the State conveneth Iosh 22. 12. 15. 16. Iudg. 21. 12. and Ier. 26. 8. there is the Church judicature discerning that Ieremiah was a false Teacher and they first judge the cause and v. 16. The Civill Iudicature discerneth the contrary and under Zorababel Ezra and Nehemiah they indured different judicatures Iesus Christ was arraigned before Caiphas the High Priest for pretended blasphemie before Pilate the civill judge for treason but Caiphas was to determine onely by Law in questione juris whether it was blasphemie which Christ had spoken but he had no power by Gods Law to lead Witnesses or condemn Christ Nor is it true that the Priests had their government onely about Ceremonialls for they were to judge of Morall uncleannes also which even then debarred men from the holy things of God as is cleare Hag. 2. 12. Ezek. 44. 9. 10 23 24. and if any say that the Magistrate amongst the Iewes did judge of Ecclesiasticall things and reformed Religion We answer extraordinarily the Magistrate might prophecie and did prophecy as did Samuel David Solomon Why do not Erastians bring those examples to prove that Kings Provasts Iustices may now preach the Word and administer the Sacraments which yet is unlawfull to them by grant of Adversaries for the examples of the Kings amongst the Iewes is as strong for preaching as for governing and because Prophets did judge the people of old yet no Protestant Divine will say that now Pastors may also usurpe the civill Sword Now least any should object the case is not alike in the Jewish and Christian Church surely the King of the Church hath no lesse separated such men as Paul and Barnabas for the Ministery now then at that time Rom. 1. 1 2. Act. 2. And sent labourers to his vineyard Luk. 10. 2. Matth. 20. 2. 9. 37 38. And Ambassadors to Preach in his Name 2 Cor. 5. 20. Ministers of Christ and Stewarts of the mysteries of God 1 Cor. 4. 1. Men sent of God whose feet are pleasant for their good News as were the Prophets of old who were not only gifted to preach but instructed with Divine Authority as is clear Rom. 10. 14. 15. Isa 52. 7. 40. 9. Nahum 1. 15. Yea and men that feeds the flock not only by Preaching but also Govern the Church so that they must take heed that Ravening Wolves creep not into the Church who shall not spare the flock Act. 20. 28. 29. Men who must be obeyed because they watch for our soules Heb. 13. 17. And can govern the Church as well as they are apt to teach 1 Tim. 3. 5. 2. Men that labour amongst us and are over us in the Lord 1 Thes 5. 12. And men who are to call to the work other faithfull men that are able to teach others 2 Tim. 2. 2. Such as are separated from the affairs of this life such as Magistrates are not 1 Cor. 6. 3. such as Rule well 1 Tim. 5. 17. and are not to receive accusations but under witnesses and are to lay hands suddenly on no man not to call them to the holy Ministery till they be sufficiently tryed 1 Tim. 5. 19 20 22. all which import teaching and governing Now if all these directions be given to Timothy and other Pastors till the end of the world then must all these directions be principally written to the Magistrate as the Magistrate and these Epistles to Timothy agree principally to the Christian Magistrate and to Pastors and Doctors at the by as they be delegates and substitutes of the Magistrates and that by office the Emperour of Rome was to lay hands suddenly on no man and commit the Gospel to faithfull men who could teach others and was not to receive an accusation against an Elder and certainly if the Magistrate call to office those that are over us in the Lord and if those who watch for our soules especially be but the curates and delegates of the King and Parliament then the King and Parliament behoved in a more eminent manner to watch for our souls for directions and commandments of God in this kinde are more principally given to the Master Lord and chief Governour of the house of God if the Magistrate be such then to the servants delegates But where is there any such directions given to the Emperour King or Christian Magistrate by any shadow of ground in the Word It is not much to say The Magistrate was an heathen an enemy at this time and therefore those could not be written to him For 1. No force can strain these two Epistles to Timothy and the other to Titus which contain a form of Church-policy to any Christian Magistrate for then the qualification of the King if he be the supream Governour of the Church should far rather have been expressed then the qualification of a Bishop and a Deacon which is no where hinted at 2. All these directions notwithstanding this do and must actu primo agree to the Magâ—strate for his office who is chief governour what he should be is described in the Word 3. When Christ ascended on high he gave as a fruit of his ascension sufficient means for his intended end The perfecting of the Saints the gathering of his Body the Church and the edifying thereof even
the Iewes that he should not be taken and crucified as is clear in the words but he opposeth not his Kingdome to an externall visible Kingdom for his Church visible consisting of visible Officers is his Kingdom Eph. 4. 11 12. 1 Cor. 12. 13 c. The Word of the Kingdom is audible and it is visibly professed and Ministers are visibly and externally called to the holy Ministery by the laying on of the hands of the Elders and voices of the People but he opposeth his Kingdome to a Kingdome fighting with the Sword and using the coactive power of the sword to save him from being apprehended and crucified by the Iewes Now this is the Magistrates Kingdome for he beareth not the sword in vain Rom. 13. 4. and so Christ evidently proveth in these words that the power that beareth the sword which is the very essence of the Magistrates office as a Magistrate is not a part of his Kingdome for his Kingdome is of another World and Spirituall but the Magistrates power is of this World and useth worldly weapons as the sword Then it is evident that the Magistrate as the Magistrate 1. Is not subordinate to Christ as Mediator and head of the Church 2. That when it was said All power in heaven and earth is given to the Mediator Christ The sense cannot be the power of the sword was given to him as Mediator to be a judge and a Ruler on earth which he refused Luke 12. 13 14. though as God he hath the power of the sword 3. That the supream Magistrate as Magistrate is not the onely Deputie Delegate and Vicar of Christ as Mediator for if Christ as Mediator have a substitute and Deputie such as the Magistrate as the Magistrate who beareth his bloodie sword to cut off the enemies of the Church and to fight for Christ then 1. Christs Kingdome surely should be of this World 2. By the same reason since as Mediator he is Priest and a High Priest to offer a sacrifice to God as all Priests must doe that are proper Priests Heb. 8. 3. c. 9. 7. c. 10. 14. c. 10. 1 2 3. c. there must be Priests under Christ properly so called to offer some bloodie sacrifice satisfactorie for sinne which is blasphemie to say I meane proper Priests for otherwise in a figurative and borrowed sense all beleeevers are Priests to offer themselves to God Rom. 12. 1. Revel 1. 5. 6. 1 Pet. 2. 9. but not the Deputies of the High Priest Iesus Christ and by the same reason he must have Prophets under him that are Vicars and Deputies which is unpossible for Christ as Prophet and great Prophet is essentially Lawgiver and the Author of Cannonick Scripture and he who really by a supernaturall power teacheth the heart but so he hath no Deputies nor any Ministers or Prophets nor any under Law-givers or under Prophets which by an action or any active power communicated to them can as under Lawgivers devise any part of Law or Gospell or any other part of Cannonick Scripture or have any active influence supernaturall to make a new heart Hence all our Divines say Christ as Mediator and King of the Church hath no Deputies neither King nor High Priest nor Pope nor Saint 4. It must follow that the Magistrate who as Magistrate beareth the Sword is not the head officer of the Church under the Mediator for as Magistrate he must act with the sword upon the Church as the Church and the Ministers of the Gospell as they are such whereas when the Magistrate doth act as Magistrate on the Ministers with the sword he doth it on them as men erring and sinning But onely so he procureth as a Magistrate the spirituall good of the Church as the Church indirectly and by the sword in driving away Hereticks and wolves from the flock That Church which is the pattern and rule to all the Churches unto the end of the world in those things that belongeth to a Church as a Christian Church must be our rule and paterne in Government But in the Apostolick Church of Jerusalem Antioch Ephesus Thessalonica Corinth Galatia Philippi Colosse the seven Churches of Asia planted and framed up as perfect Christian Churches by the Apostles the Magistrate was not the only supream Governour of Churches nor did the Apostles Elders and Teachers in those Churches nor the Church act preach dispence the Sacraments rule governe as servants under and through and from the Authority of the Magistrate or King as his Vicars deputies and servants But by immediate Authority from Iesus Christ placed in them without the interveening mediation of Magistrates Ergo that Church should be the patern of our Church though the adversaries deny the proposition to wit that the Apostolick Churches as Apostolick should be our patern in all things in regard that the Magistrates were then heathens enemies to the Church and Gospel and so de facto actually and by accident could not be the supream officers and Governours of the Church yet now when we have Christian Magistrates that are nursefathers to the Church and beleevers professing the Gospel such as David Solomon Iosiah Iehoshaphat and Ezekiah and other godly Princes of Israel and Iudah were and therefore that the Church as it is a Generall both to the Iewish and Christian Church should be our paterne in Government yet we have though I say they deny this Major a great advantage of the adversaries in these 1. We have the first Christian Church to be our paterne and the New Ierusalem that came downe from Heaven from God Revel 21. 10. The mother of us all Gal. 4. 26. Which is builded upon the foundation of the Apostles and Prophets Jesus Christ himselfe being the chief corner stone Ephe. 2. 20. to be our rule and paterne and all that was prophecied though not compleatly in all the degrees of the Church of the Apostles was then fulfilled as touching the essence of a Church 2. Yet here the Magistrate was no chief officer 3. The adversaries must prove Moses David Solomon and those godly Kings as Kings and Magistrates and virtute officij were supream rulers and Church-officers and so that Constantine and all the godly Princes and Emperours were by vertue of their office as Magistrates all such Prophets as were Moses David Solomon for certainly they as Prophets wrote Scripture had the form and structure of the Temple revealed to them of God received Laws from God for the Priests if our Kings as Magistrates now can do the like we shall then say something to their Headship over the Church 4. And if they reformed Religion in the time of the defection of the Priests when they were holy and zealous and walked with God and did right in the sight of the Lord like unto David such as Jehoshaphaet Josiah when the Priests were corrupt we shall grant the like to Parliaments made up of Josiahs and Ezechiahs when the Assembly of Divines are
dreamt of in rejecting an heretick after the first and second admonition Tit. 1. 10. Let our Adversaries shew what influence the Magistrates sword hath here yea say they The Magistrate may banish the heretick ou◠of the Church True Ans Not out of the Church as the Church but out from amongst his subjects as his subjects whom he is to defend in peace and godlinesse 2. It is evident Titus had no power of the sword but was an Evangelist Paul wrote not to Titus to banish the heretick the rejecting here is a spirituall censure performed by previous admonitions 3. What can the Magistrate as the Magistrate do to this 4. The Magistrate is a Lord and hath by Gods appointment a Lordly dominion over those that are under him the Minister is only a Minister a Servant a Preco or Herald and hath dominion in the Church Luk. 22. 24 c. Now those over whom the Magistrate hath a civill dominion as a Magistrate over those he may exercise that Lordly dominion of the sword But the Magistrate as the Magistrate may use no Lordly dominion of the sword over the Church as the Church to Preach Exhort Rebuke Admonish Excommunicate to judge those that are within as the Church may do 1 Cor. 5. 12. Ergo the Magistrate as the Magistrate cannot be the supream and highest Church officer having under him Church officers as his servants and deputies to Preach and censure as à sub under and from him because as a Magistrate he carrieth not that which hath any power over the conscience that is he carrieth no◠the word of the spirit as a Magistrate but the sword bodily to punish evil doers 5. He who by office is chief overseer and watchman in the Church he must by office keep his own vineyard and not be put to keep the vineyard of others Cant. 1. 6. He must watch for the souls of those whom by office he keepeth as one that must give an accompt Heb. 13. 17. He must as a speciall watchman by his office Take heed to grievous Wolves not sparing the Flock speaking perverse things Act. 20. 29. And as a watchman he must blow the Trumpet and give early and seasonable warning to the people of the sword Ezek. 34. 1 c. Yea he must watch for the souls of ministers and teachers and by office rebuke admonish censure and punish them and by office judge of their Doctrine and Discipline and is over the people in the Lord and to admonish them as 1 Thes 5. And worthy of Honour for well Ruling 1 Tim. 5. 17. But these the Magistrate as the Magistrate cannot do 1. He keepeth another vineyard of the Civill state he is not Pastor to the Church as the Church over which the Holy Ghost hath set him Act. 20. 28. 1 Peter 5. 1 2 3. he is not to give an accompt for the soul◠and for the souls of Pastors by his office he may as a Christian be his brothers keeper to teach admonish Col. 3. 15. and exhort Heb. 3. 13. he is not by office to blow the trumpet as Ezekiel was Ezek. 33. 7 8. Ezek. 3. 17 18 19 20. he is not over the people in the Lord to admonish them as a Magistrate as a Magistrate he only is either to praise and reward well doing or take vengence on evill doing Rom. 13. 4. nor doth Paul think Nero 1 Tim. 5. 17. worthy of double honour all those are proper to Church-officers the proposition is necessary because if the Magistrate be the eminent and supream watchman over the Pastors as his under deputies and servants then must the Magistrate more eminently keepe the vineyard and watch for the souls both of Pastors and people feed the flock over which the Holy Ghost hath set him be over the people in the Lord be worthy of double honour as one that ruleth well and is worthy of double honour and that by office Now 1. The word never warranted him in the Old Testament to sacrifice to burne incense to Minister before the Lord to carry the ark But God separated the Priests and Levites for this only and was it such a sinne for Vzziah to burne incense and for Vzziah to touch the Ark and for any to bear the Ark but the Levites and are not these things written for our instruction are we all now to bear the Ark and are we all to dispense the word and Sacraments When Paul will not have women to teach in the Church and when God hath no lesse in the New Testament separated some by the laying on of hands and appointed a Ministery in the New Testament then he did in the Old 2. Where hath God in Old or New Testament set downe that all those qualifications in an eminent manner and as principally due to the Magistrate as he hath described the qualification of the officers of the New Testament in the Epistles to Timothy and Titus and the Ephesians Ch. 4. v. 11 12 13 14 15 16. 1 Tim. 2. 1 Cor. 12. Rom. 12. 3. Did Christ put upon Church-officers in the New Testament all the proper titles priviledges and peculiar Characters of their calling as they are the deputies of Claudius Tiberius and Nero so they had been Christian Princes this the adversaries must prove and must all the Epistles of Paul to the Churches of Christ and of Iames and Peter Iohn and Iude which concern Church-officers be written First and principally to the heathen Emperours as they be Church Magistrates and Church-officers jure though they be in very deed enemies of the Gospel de facto It must put Erastus and all his to paines to prove that Magistrates as Magistrates were separated in the Old Testament to sacrifice to burne incense to bear the Ark of the Lord and Priests and Levites and Prophets were only the under servants and instruments of Kings and the like they must do in the New Testament But this is carefully to be observed that the adversaries though they speake of Government and some yield as Master Prynne doth that there is such a thing as Excommunication especially 1 Cor. 5. yet the truth is they deny all Church-government for I desire to know why they give to Ministers of the Gospel a power to try who are hereticks apostates and unworthy partakers of the holy things of God Yea such as may ordaine Ministers and reject hereticks after admonitions if Iesus Christ hath given this power of Government beside preaching the word I aske quo jure by what Scripture if by no warrant of Christ then it is unjustly given to them and the Apostles and Teachers then had no right to it if there be a right that by office Pastors should know what is soundnesse in the faith and integrity of conversation and so who are to be called to the Ministery who not who are to be excluded totally from the Church as Erastus and Master Prynne say who not Then what warrant hath the Magistrate to limit the
cannot judge the heart or intention whether they do those with conscience to God and reverence and subjection of spirit to his holy Law nor can the manner of doing be proved by witnesses to the magistrate 2. The Magistrate as Magistrate doth not command what he doth not praise or reward for well doing is the object of the Magistrates praising and rewarding power Rom. 13. 3. But as a Magistrate he doth not praise and reward the qualification or spirituality or sincerity of Pastors dispensing of word and seals if they feed the flock the Magistrate is to take care they be rewarded with wages noâ— can the Magistrate as the magistrate withhold praise or wages from labourers in the vineyard because they preach Christ out of envy as some did Phil. 1. 15. or because they feed not the lambs out of a love to Christ as they ought to do Ioh. 21. 15 16 17. it is true magistrates as godly men may love and commend sincerity in faithfull labourers and hate the contrary but this they do as Christian men not as magistrates not by their office and authoritatively 3. Magistrates command that as magistrates the not doing of which they can aâ— magistrates punish with the sword for the object of their vindicative and revenging power is ill doing Rom. 13. 4. But if Pastors feed the flock and rule them the magistrate cannot use the sword against the feeders for that they want sincerity love cheerfulnesse in the manner of doing these things for the sword of the magistrate doth only reach men for their externall facts not for opinions in the mind not for crooked intentions not for hollow-heartednesse hypocrisie infidelity in the manner or inward principles of the actions II. Asser when magistrates command Churchmen to do their duty and to feed the flock sincerely and in the fear of the Lord they do it not as magistrates but as touching the manner they may exhort them to do their duty sincerely cordially and zealously as godly men hence that charge that King Iehoshaphat gave to the Priests and Levites 2 Chron. 19. 9. This shall ye do in the fear of the Lord faithfully and with a perfect heart is a mixt command as touching the judging of the people in all causes and controversies that should come before them the King as King commanded them to do this But for the manner of the doing of it that they should do it faithfully in the feare of the Lord and with a perfect heart this he commanded them not as a King but exhorted them to it as a godly religious man for 1. any godly man might have said this and the King might have punished the Levites and Priests if they had not judged the causes according to the Law But though they had not judged in the fear of the Lord and with a perfect heart yet could not the King as King have punished them therefore nor can any say that the spirituall exhortation of Hezekiah 2 Chron. 29. to the Priests and Levites came from him as King but as from a graced and religious man as King he might command them to Sanctifie themselves legally for so they were to do by office and he might use the sword against them if they failed in that and as King he may command all externall duties not only to Church-men but to all others only he cannot punish them for failings in the spirituall manner of doing externall duties 2 A spirituall and Christian exhortation ex conditione operis and intrinsecally hath influence on the conscience to turne the soul to God But nothing that the magistrate can do as a magistrate hath such an influence on the conscience all that he doth as a magistrate and directly is toward the outward man by rewards and punishments if the magistrate remove false teachers and wolves which would devour the flock and if that work upon the conscience it is indirectly and by accident for quoad actus imperatos he can command that the Gospel which hath a kindly and intrinsecall power to work upon the conscience be preached if the magistrate convince the conscience of a murtherer that he hath failed against the Law of God he doth not that as a magistrate but as a godly and religious man he may convince him as a magistrate that he hath failed against the Lawes of the State and bands of humane society and externall peace and scarce that for ignorantia juris nemimeâ—â— excusat Obj. 1. It may be objected against this If the Elders not only omit to do their duty but also if they erre in the nature and quality of what they do the Magistrate is to punish Ergo the Magistrate not only commandeth the Church to do the externall facts but also commands the facts with such and such qualities the Antecedent is proved because the Magistrate not only punisheth the omission of a Church duty as if Pastors preach not but also if they preach not â—alâ— modo Orthodox and sound Doctrine Ans We never denied but the Magistrate commandeth both the exercise of Church power simply and the manâ—er and such qualifications as are externall and obvious to the knowledge of the Magistrate such as blasphemous and false Doctrine is But we deny that as a Magistrate he doth command those things that arâ— internall and invisible that is the spirituallity of the actions he can exhort and stirre men up to the spirituallity and sincerity of doing as a godly and Christian man Obj. 2. The Pastors and guides of the Church as such do only command externall obedience for they can onely in â—oro Ecclesiae in the Court of the Church censure externall disobedience before men the heart and sincerity thereof is no more obvious to the eye of Elders then of Magistrates Ans 1. I deny the connexion of the Antecedent for Elders may command as Elders more then the not doing of which they can censure which the Magistrate cannot do for Elders have committed to them the word of reconciliation as the Ambassadors of Christ Now the word hath an immediate influence on the conscience on the thoughts and intents of the heart 2 Cor. 5. 18 19 20. 1 Cor. 3. 5. 1 Cor. 4. 15. Ps 19. 7. Heb. 4. 12 13. And therefore their Ministery hath action on the thoughts yet can they not in the externall court of the Church censure the thoughts as not being able to see them but the Gospel which they preach can arraigne the conscience and thoughts 2 Cor. 10. 4 5. But the Magistrate carrieth not such a message and therefore his Magistraticall command can reach no farther then his temporall praise and reward and his sword and that is commensurable and of equall latitude with those Obj. 3. The Object of the Magistrates power is well doing and ill doing both civill and also supernaturall both for the first table or as well for the spirituall acts of worship and Religion in the first table as for acts of Iustice and mercy
the spirituall right and power of the keyes of the Kingdome of God from the Church and Pastors the former should complaine as do the latter Object 8. But if the Kingdome be heathenish and the heart of the King be first supernaturally affected then Religion beginneth at him as a Magistrate and he may appoint gifted men after they are converted to preach the Gospell Ergo The first rise of Religion is from the Magistrate as the Magistrate Ans If the King be converted first as a Christian not as a Magistrate he may spread the Gospell to others and preach himselfe but not as a Magistrate as Iehoshaphat commanded the Levites to do their dutie so might he command those of the house of Aaron who had deserted the Priests office to take the office on them to which God had called them so here gifts and faithfulnes appearing to the new converted Prince he is to command those so gifted for their gifts and faithfulnes is as evident a call as to be borne the sonnes of Aaron to take on them the calling of preaching and of dispensing the Seals But 1. he ordaineth them not Pastors as a Prince but commandeth them to follow the calling which now the Church not constitute cannot give 2. He can preach himselfe as a gifted beleever in an extraordinary exigence but he cannot doe this as a Magistrate yea Moses did never prophecy as a Magistrate nor David as a King 2. All the rise that Religion hath from the Prince as the Prince in this case is civill that men gifted may be commanded by civill Authority to dispence Word and Sacraments but nothing Ecclesiasticall is here done by the Prince as the Prince 3. The highest power in the Church as the Church and the highest amongst men as men are much different The Magistrates power in commanding that this Religion that is true and consonant to the Word of God be set up and others that are false be not set up in his Kingdome is a civill power and due to him as a Magistrate but a highest Church power to dispense Word and Sacraments agreeth to no Magistrate as a Magistrate but it followeth not that when the true Religion is erected by his power as a Magistrate that he may as a Magistrate dispence Word Sacraments and Synodicall acts and censures except God have called him to preach the Word and to use the sword of the other Kingdome as a Member of the Church joyned with the Church Object 9. But the Magistrate is unproperly subject to the Pastor who is but a meer Herald servant and Minister who hath all his authority from the word of another and so it is but imperium alienum a borrowed power he is subject properly to Christ speaking in his Word Titius is subject to the King properly but unproperly to the Kings Herald Ans 1. Let the subjection be unproper there can no conclusion from thence be drawn against us If 1. The Pastors as Pastors have their commissions from Christ and be his immediate Servants and have no Commission Pastorall from the Magistrate as the power of the Herald floweth immediately from the royall power of the King and he is the Kings immediate servant then to obey him in those acts which he performeth in the Kings name is to obey the King and in those acts subjects doe properly obey the Herald and so here Heb. 13. Obey those that are over you in the Lord according to that He that heareth you heareth me he that despiseth you despiseth me 2. It is enough for our purpose that Magistrates are so to obey Pastors in the Lord and Pastors are so supreame under Christ as the Magistrate is not above them and they have their Ambassage calling and commission immediately from Iesus Christ without the intervention of the Magistrates Authority Obj. But the obedience of the Magistrate to the Pastors is not absolute but conditionall if they command in the Lord Ergo It is no kindly obedience and subjection Ans It followeth not for so we should give no kindly obedience to Kings to Parents to Masters for we obey them onely conditionally in the Lord as they warrant their Commandement from the Word Yet Vedelius will not say it is unproper subjection we owe to the King nor can he say that the Royall power is imperium alienum a begged power all obedience to men this way is begged and if we come to Logick if I should say the nature and definition of obedience agreeth not univocally to obedience to God and to obedience to the creature Vedelius should hardly refute me It is enough Ministers of the Gospell discharge an Ambassage in the roome and place of God 2 Cor. 5. 20. God commandeth in his Ministers a limited obedience is kindly obedience Obj. 10. The keeping of the booke of the Law is given to the King Deut. 17. and 2 Kin. 11. v. 12. Iehoiada the Priest gave the booke of the Testimony to King Iehoash when they made him King the Priests indeed kept the booke of the Law in the side of the Arke but as servants of the King and custodes Templi Ans You may see solid answers to this in Walens Cabel Iavius and Iac. Triglandius 1. The booke of the Law was given to the King for his practise that he might feare the Lord his God and his heart not be lifted up above his brethren Deut. 17. 18 19 20. and this was common to him with the Priests and all the people of God but to the King in an exemplary and speciall manner that 1. The people might follow his Example and therefore these same words which concerne the practice of the King Deut. 17. 19. are also given to the people Deut. 6. 2. and 10. 13. and 111 2 13 22. and 12. 1 2 28. and 13. 4. and 27. 1. and 28. 1. with a little change sure no change that by any consequent will make the book of the Law to be delivered to the King to this end that his lips by his Royall office should preserve knowledge and that the people should require the Law at the Kings mouth which was the speciall office of the Priest Mal. 2. 7. as proper and peculiar to the Priest as the Covenant of Levi ver 8. and that they should not be partiall in the Law but should teach the people the difference between the cleane and the unclean the precious and the vile in Iudgement not accepting the persons of father and mother Ezek. 44. 23 24. and 22 26. Lev. 10. 10 11 Ieremiah 15. 19. Deut. 33. 9. Yea it was no lesse peculiar to the Priests then to offer Sacrifice to the Lord Leviticuâ— 10. 10 11 12 13. Mal. 2. 7 8. compared with v. 2. and with c. 1. v. 6 7 8. Now the King as King was not a confederate in the Covenant of Levi to burne incense and teach the people but in a farre other Covenant â— Kin. 11. 17 18. 2. In which the
King was to use the sword in defence of the Law and punishing Idolaters for 1. the King is neither commanded to teach Priests and people out of the booke of the Law Nor 2. rebuked for his neglect in this both these we may read of the Priests every where in the Prophets Deut. 33. 10. Mal. 2. 7. Lev. 10. 10 11. Ier. 2. 8. and 6. 13 14. Hos 4. 6 7 8. Deut. 17. 11 12. yea the booke of the Law is put in the keeping of the Priests and Levites Deut. 31. 25. And Moses commanded the Levites which bare the Arke of the Covenant of the Lord saying 26. Take this book of the Law and put it in the side of the Arke of the Covenant of the Lord your God Now if the Priests had been onely the Kings servants immediately subordinate to the King and mediately onely to Iesus Christ the Arke all the holy things the booke of the covenant the burning of incense before the Lord had been principally and first injoyned to the King Ezra the Priest read the book of the Law not Nehemiah nor was it ever commanded that the King should read it in the hearing of the people and give the sense of it as the Priests were to doe by their office Hilkiah 2 Kin. 22. found the booke of the Law that was lost and Shaphan the Scribe read it before the King that they might see their Apostacie and Iosiah might accordingly reforme 2 King 22 9 10. Object 11. Isai 49. Kings shall be thy Nurse-fathers Ergo Kings were Fathers and heads of the Church Ans This text is brought for the Popes Supremacy but it is Isai 60. 10. Their Kings 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 shall serve thee this is no dominion And the breasts of Kings which the Church is to suck is not the sincere milk of the Word which the King preacheth by himself or others but the externall strength dignity that the King shall adde by his Authority to the Church but the Tutor cannot â—ob the Pupil of the Law and priviledges of the inheritance 2. The Prince is not a father spirituall of the second birth of the Church as Paul was 1 Cor. 4. 15. Object 12. He for whom we are to pray that under him we may lead a quiet and peaceable life in all godlinesse and honesty and procureth the good of the Church as the Church to him as the supream Officer and Shepherd is the Church as the Church subject but the Magistrate is such 1 Tim. 2. 1 2. Ergo. Ans The Major is false and the Assumption untrue also and all that the conclusion can bring forth is that the Prince hath 1. An externall coactive care by way of dominion to procure the removall of Wolves from the fold 2. To procure the good of the Church in order to a naturall and civill good 3. To procure good to the Church as the Church in a coactive way by the sword in punishing Idolators 2. The Church as the Church is not subordinate to the Prince but as Subjects of the common wealth because he by a coactive power may procure the good of the Church as the Church for indirectly and by the sword the Magistrate defending godlines and procuring the good of souls doth not prove that his dominion and sword extendeth to their soules or that he watcheth for their soules as Heb. 13. 17. Obj. 13. The Kings of Israel and Iudah have reformed Religion Ans I cannot trouble the Reader to adde here what I have answered elsewhere but let the Reader see Triglandius Ant. Walens Gabel Iavius in the cited places they have in the defection of the Priests which is extraordinary Reformed Religion 2. They did many things as Prophets not as Magistrates 3. They have done much in Religion quoad actus imperatos non elicitos by their civill power commanding Priests to doe their dutie Object 14. It s true in severall respects he that is a Governour may be a subject but in one and the same spirituall respect to judge and to be judged to sit on the Bench and stand at the barre of Christ Iesus is as impossible as to reconcile the East and the VVest together so The Bloodie Tenent I demand if the Church be a Delinquent who shall judge It is answered the magistrate Again if the magistrate be a delinquent I ask who shall judge it It is answered The Church Whence I observe which is in most cases of the world monstrous that one person to wit the Church or the Magistrate shall be at one time the delinquent at the Barre and the judge upon the Bench for the Church must judge when the magistrate offends and yet the magistrate must judge when the Church offends whether she contemâ—â— civill authority in the Second Table for thus dealing with him or whether she hath broken the rules of the first table of which say they God hath made him a keeper and preserver what blood what tumults hath been and must be spilt upon these grounds Ib. so the Church calleth one of her members to office and ordaineth him an officer The Magistrate opposeth him as an unworthy officer and according to his conscience suppresseth him upon this the Church complaineth of the Magistrates violation of her priviledges and that he is turned persecutor and not prevailing with admonition She excommunicateth the Magistrate The Magistrate again not induring such violation of ordinances he cutteth off with the sword such prophaners of ordinances Ans All this is but wind devised against the Magistrates punishing of Idolaters and I shew the same followeth upon the Magistrates or Church erring the one in abusing civill authority or the other in prophaning ordinances or preaching the word for instance The Iudges of a land or of Ierusalem make grievous and bloody decrees against the poor the widdows and the Orphane A faithfull Isaiah a zealous preacher by authority from the Lord judgeth and condemneth according to his conscience these judges and cryeth out as Isai 10. 1 in the name of the Lord before all the Congregation Woe be to you who decree unrighteous decrees and write in the Bench grievousnesse to turne aside the needy from judgement and to take away right from the poore Now the Magistrate that decreed those decrees judgeth in his conscience they are righteous decrees and he according to his conscience noâ— induring that Isaiah or any preacher should thus abuse and prophane so holy an Ordinance of prophecying and preaching as to preach lies in the name of the Lord he proceedeth in his civill court and cuâ—teth off with the sword such false Prophets because they â—lander the Lords annoynted and preach lies of him is not here a reciprocation of judging in the same cause What will the Author say to this O saith he the Magistrate ought not to use his sword against those Prophets for they preach according to their conscience the truth of God But say that Shimei were a Prophet and
fail in their judging the Magistrate is to command the Church to judge it over againe but the Magistrate cannot judge it himself as there is a complaint made to the Magistrate that the Pâ—inter hath not drawn the image exactly according to the samplar the Magistrate judgeth not of the Art of the Painter nor can the Magistrate as the Magistrate draw the image himselfe But the Magistrate may judge of the Painters breach of promise who did â—action to draw it exactly according to the samplar and hath not kept faith to the man who payeth him wages and therefore the Magistrate may either punish his morall error his breach of promise not his error of Art the faculty or company of Painters must judge of of that or then command the Painter to paint the same image again according as the Painter convenanted But it may be objected You then make the Magistrate to meddle no more with matters of faith and preaching truth or falsehood and giving out Ecclesiasticall rules in Church government as Act. 15. then he meddleth with painting according to the principles of Art now painting according to Art belongeth not at all to the conscience of the Magistrate but sound preaching right ruling in Gods house belongeth in a far nearer relation to the conscience of the godly Magistrate I Answer As touching the formall judging Ecclesiastâ—cally and as concerning this that the Magistrate should say it seemed good to the Holy Ghost and to me or his dispensing of Word and Sacraments or his burning incense before the Lord it no more belongeth to him as a Magistrate to do these in his owne person formally because God hath not called him to act these then it belongeth to him to paint an Image to sew shooes to siâ— at the helme of a Ship and stir and guide her to such a Port as is clearer Heb. 5. 4. 1 Cor. 7. 17. 21. Rom. 10. 14. 1 Tim. 5. 17. and 3. 1 2 3. Act. 13. 23. and 20. 28 29 30. Heb. 13. 17. 2 Chro. 26. 18 19 20 21. But in another consideration as sound or unsound dispensing of Word and Sacraments as right or unjust ruling in the house of God may more or lesse hurt or benefit the souls of men which he is to care for indirectly in ordine ad penas vel premia civilia et corporalia it belongeth more to the Magistrate to take care of the Church of Religion of preaching and governing Gods house then any painting or Arts in the earth Again the Church proceeding in these things that are against common iustice in all judicatures no lesse then in the Church as to condemn the party never heard or not convinced either by confession or under two sufficient witnesses or to do manifest unjustice in the manner of proceeding leaveth a clear place to the wronged party by the Law of nature if not to appeal yet to flee and have re-course to the Christian Magistrate who is Parâ—ns Patrie the father of the Common wealth 6. The question may either be of any really wronged by the Church whether he may appeal to the Magistrate or whether he who either beleeveth or thinketh or falsly lyeth and saith that he was wronged may appeal to the Magistrate 7. An Appeal is different from a Declinature a Declinature is properly a refusing to be judged because the judge is incompetent and the businesse belongeth not to him those who follow Erastus and deny all power of censures to the Church doe decline but not appeal from the Church thinking the Church hath no power at all to judge or censure the scandalous An Appeal is properly from the same inferiour judicature to a superiour judge in eadem serie in the same kind and it is either proper or unproper Proper it is when a particular Church doth appeal to a Synod of many Churches in the same place Unproper when either a wronged person hath recourse to one or many Pastors of Authority as Chrysostome Flavianus Athanasius appealed to the Bishop of Rome that he would request the Church to proceed orderly Or 2. The godly Magistrate would command that the Church would unpartially proceed to right an oppressed man as Cabeljavius saith Or 3. When there is no Synods to be had then as Triglandius saith well from Beza the Christian Magistrate may provide â—it meanes of releeving the oppressed 8. This would ever be remembred that in case of the Churches erring in judgement which must be thought of as a sort of extraordinary case the godly Magistrate may do more then what ordinarily he can doe and so may the Church when the Magistrate oppresseth in judgement as great Iunius saith 9. We grant when any complaineth to the Magistrate that they are oppressed in judgement by the Church that the Church is obliged to give an account of their doings but that from common charitie to remove the scandall and that they owe to all Christians as may be evidently collected from 1 Pet. 4. 15. but this will not prove a subordination to common Christians as to Iudges nor yet to the Magistrate 2. The Magistrate when his judging is deemed scandalous is to give an account to the preachers of the Gospel who watch for his soul as King Saul gave an account to Samuel with a false Apologie I grant that he had obeyed the Commandement of the Lord but if Saul had been faultlesse in sparing â—gag and the cattell yet was he obliged to give an account to Samuel But that will not prove that King Saul was subordinate to Samuel to be judged of him because Prophets are but servants and Ministers to declare Gods will yet is it all the subordination that we require in this according to that And the people beleeved the Lord and Moses Now all the Arguments before alledged to prove that Pastors as Pastors are not subordinate in their pastorall acts to the civill Magistrate do also prove that there is no appeal from the Church in an Ecclesiasticall businesse to the civill Magistrate For 1. If two Painters contend touching any controversie in the mysterie of their Art they cannot appeal to the King as Iudge the King then should formally be a painter and which is absurd not by accident but as a King and so here if the King were the judge to whose determination we might appeale from the Church in a Church controversie sure the King as King should be a Church Officer if the Priests in controversie touching burning incense or offering strange fire to God should appeal to the decision of the King as the King sure the King in that as King should be an eminent High Priest and right of burning incense to the Lord should belong to him in as farre as the Kings lips in that controversie should preserve knowledge and they should seek the Law from his mouth which is proper to the Priests Mal. 2. 7. Ezek. 22 26. and 44. 23 24. Deut. 17. 11. 2. The Church of Antioch should have
Christ mediator for he denieth expresly Ioh. 18. 36. that he hath such a Kingdom as Mediator or that he was instructed with the sword as Mediator Luk. 12. 13. Now as God and Creator of the world Christ could not deny but he had a Kingdom worldly and that he hath a regnum potentiae an universall Kingdom of power as Lord of Hoasts to dispose of all the Kingdoms of the world and to rule amongst the children of men and to rule over the children of men and to give them to whomsoever he will Dan. 4. 25. 8. 18. â—er 27. v. 6 7 8 9. Psal 24. 1. Psal 50. v. 12. Nor is this Kingdom and Power given to Christ nor is he made Prince and a King as God but as Mediator to give repentance to the House of Israel and forgivenesse of sins Act. 5. 31. I grant it is said Phil. 2. 9. God hath highly exalted Christ and given him a name above every name that at the name of Iesus every knee should bow of things in heaven and of things in earth and things under the earth What doth not this say the adversaries comprehend a royall power given to Christ and hath not Christ from this power to substitute Magistrates in his place as his vicars under him and as little mediators I answer it doth in no sort follow for that is a spirituall power as is clear Rom. 14. v. 9. For to this end Christ both died and rose and revived that he might be Lord both of dead and living v. 11. For it is written as I live saith the Lord every knee shall bow to me and every tongue shall confesse God So it is clearly expounded of Christs exalting at the right hand of God Act. 5. 31. for spirituall and supernaturall ends I grant as Mediator and King he breaketh his enemies Devils and men Psal 2. 9. With a rod of yron and dasheth them in pieces like a potters vessel and maketh his enemies his footstool Psal 110. 1. But that is no carnall power such as earthly Kings useth it is a spirituall power for the reason is given ver 2. The Lord shall send the rod of thy strength out of Sion By which v. 5. as a great Anti-royalist He strikes through Kings in the day of his wrath Now Christ as Mediator sendeth not out Kings and Princes to conquer souls to him with their sword Renowned Salmasius saith When Christ sent his Apostles first to preach the Gospel and to lay the foundation of the Christian Church did he send out with them lictors pursevants men of war with a bundell of rods and with axes to compell men to come in to his Kingdome Commanded he to smite them with swords and axes who would not receive the Gospel No yea he would not have them to take with them a staffe a scrip or shoes But though Christ subdue all his enemies Devils and wicked men it shall never follow that Christ is for that King and head of Devils and wicked men For Christ is as Mediator King and Head or mediatory King and Head of those that are the subjects and redeemed conquest of this King and of those who are members of the body of which he is Head now this body is his Church only Col. 1. 18. He is the Head of the Body the Church Eph. 1. 22 23. And gave him to be Head over all things to the Church Which is his Body the fulnesse of him that filleth all The Body of Christ to be edified Ephesi 4 12. Till we all all that body of the Saints to be perfected v. 11. come in the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God unto a perfect man unto the measure of the stature of the fulnesse of Christ v. 16. from whom the whole Body fitly joyned together and compacted by that which every joynt supplieth according to the effectuall working in the measure of every part maketh increase of the Body unto the edifying of it selfe in love Now never Divine can say that Devils and wicked men who shall bow to Iesus are the subjects of this Kingdom of Christ who have right to the fruits of the Kingdom Righteousnesse and peace and joy in the Holy Ghost Rom. 14. 17. far lesse that they are of the Body that is Christs Body Christs fulnesse Christs Body to be perfected edified to Come in the unity of faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God into a perfect man c. Arg. 6. These Megistrates that are the mediatory vicars deputies and heads of the Head Iesus Christ and his Kingdom these are of his Body and subjects under the King and Mediator Christ the chiefe Head and King For it is not to be presumed that Christ will appoint these to be heads and vicars of his Body and little Kings over his Kingdom as he is Mediator who are not members of his Church nor subjects of his mediatory Kingdom But Magistrates as Magistrates are not members of his Church nor subjects of his mediatory Kingdom no more then Husbands as Husbands Fathers as Fathers are members and their should have been Husbands and Fathers though the Lord Iesus never had been Mediator advocate and Priest of a redeemed Church Obj. But are Pastors and teachers and Elders as such members of the Christian Church Ans If eyes and ears be members of the body and watchmen members of the city then are they ex officio by their office members of the Church But if the Magistrate as a Magistrate be a member of the Church then all Magistrates Heathen and Turkish are members of the Christian Church ex officio by vertue of their office Arg. 7. That opinion is not to be holden which layeth ground that Christ Mediator is a temporary King hath under him Magistrates even heathenish who have nothing to do with a Mediator to bear a temporall sword for a supernaturall and spirituall end as Christâ— under heires he himselfe being the first heir of all such and so maketh heathens within the verge of the mediatory Kingdom as if Christ were as Mediator a King to Heathen and all and every one of mankind who must have Magistrates and so maketh the Kingdome of men as men and the Kingdom of Grace commensurable and of alike latitude and extension and maketh nature and grace of equall comprehension But such is the former opinion the proposition cannot be denied except by Arminians Socinians Papists who do maintain an universall redemption a grace universall a Catholick Kingdom of Grace comprehensive of all and every man of Pharoah Evil merodach Belshazer all the Kings of Romans Persians Assyrians Chaldeans and of Turk India and such as worship the Sunne and Moon the Devil and the work of mens hands The assumption is granted by Master Coleman who saith Christ is the rightfull King of the whole earth he meaneth Christ as Mediator to whom the Father hath given a Kingdom Obj. Doth not Christ as King make all
his enemies his footstool and subdue all things to himselfe Ergo his Kingdome is as large as all things Ans The Lord Iesus Christs power Kingly and his power mediatory which includeth a power as God for he is Mediator and a mediatory King according to both natures doth no way make him King of Devils of Hell of sin of the reprobate and damned no more then Davids power over Ammonites and Moabites makes him King and feeder of the Ammonites and Moabites Never Divine said that Christ was King of Devils and King of Hell though he subdue Devils and Hell and make them his footstool Col. 2. 15. But as hability and gifts was not sufficient to make Christ a Priest but he behooved to have 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 authority and a lawfull calling Heb. 5. 4 5. so he behooved to be called set and established on the Holy-hill of Zion as a King of the Fathers making Psal 2. 5 6. Psal 89. 26 27 28 29. Luk. 1. 32 33. ver 68 69. 54 55. And therefore though as King and an eternall King he subdue all things even his enemies yet it followeth not he is King and Mediator and Head of his enemies Arg. 8. All those whom Christ maketh officers Legats and Ambassadors of his mediatory Kingdom they have either the word of the Kingdom committed to them as Pastors and Doctors and of old Apostles Evangelists Prophets that they may make work on the consciences of men to make them Kings and Priests unto God or they are by the word of admonition and rebuke to deal for the same end as governours and Elders 1 Cor. 12. 28. 1 Tim. 5. 17. for the officers of the Kingdome and sword or scepter of the Kingdome the Word of God Psal 45. 4. Rev. 19. 15. Heb. 4. 11. Rev. 1. 16. which are the means are congruously proportioned to the end the gathering of the Saints the perfecting of his body Eph. 2. 11 12. But never did Christ appoint the Magistrate with his sword and his temporary rewards and praise of well doing to have any action on the conscience of men or to co-operate for so high an end directly and kindly for sure the sword cannot reach that end except indirectly and by accident in some imperated acts He may procure that there be such means as word and seals and Church-officers and so be an intrinsecall mean to set up those which are the spirituall and truly intrinsecall means and this is all Object 1. Was not this the first step of papal tyranny that the Church-men would be exempted from the power of the Magistrate and sâ—t themselves up as supream collaterall Independent powers in all Ecclesiasticall affairs as the Magistrate was supream in all politick businesse Ans It is a calumnious consequence Pastors and Teachers will not be judged by the Magistrate in things meerly Ecclesisticall â—o stand to his Ecclesiasticall decision as if his lips ex officio should preserve knowledge Ergo Pastors and Doctors do exempt themselves from the Lawfull power of the Magistrate in his civill judging by the sword it is as if they would say Church-men refuse to submit to an usurped and unlawfull power of the Magistrate Ergo they refuse to submit to their lawfull power 2. They bring not one word to prove that this was the first step of papal tyranny now a supremacy and independency in doctrinals and civill things the adversaries deny not If King Ahab finde the Priests of Iehovah turn Priests of Baal and the Prophets prophesie lies we and the adversaries agree that King Ahab hath a supream independent power to judge and punish them with the sword and if King Ahab will take on him to burne incense to the Lord the Priests and Prophets of the Lord have an immediate supream independent power to rebuke King Ahab for usurping that which is independently and incommunicably proper to the Priests onely and they may refuse to bee judged by King Ahab when he would judge them for giving out this sentence It belongeth not to King Ahab or King Vzziah to burne incense to the Lord but to the Priests the sons of Aaron 2 Chron. 26. Will they say this supremacy of the Priests is a step to papall Tyranny 3. This is rather papall Tyranny it selfe that the Magistrate as head of the Church and as an Ecclesiasticall person may as a Magistrate governe in all externalls the Church as he pleaseth with a royall supream independent power and because the Magistrate may send others to rule for him 2 Chron. 19. 8 9. 1 Pet. 2. 13 14. Ergo he may commit this royall power to a creature called a Prelate as to his Deputie in his name to judge as Phocas gave first a supremacy to Boniface the third which no Bishop of Rome had before and judge if this be not the first step to Papall Tyranny They possibly may say The Magistrate can commit no Magistraticall power to any Churchman for Christ for bad them to take on them the civill domination of the Lords of Gentiles Luke 22. 26 27. Ans But this is an Ecclesiastick not a civill administration and if it be a lawfull Ecclesiasticall supremacy why may not the Magistrate who hath power to send Deputies to act in his name depute a lawfull Ecclesiasticall power to Ecclesiasticall persons Pastors and Doctors who in the mind of the adversaries are all but the Deputies of the Magistrate in all that they doe Obj. 2. But is it not Popery that the Magistrate shall be obliged as a Lictor to execute the decrees of the Church Ans I know not if the Lictor with blind obedience be to behead Iohn Baptist or if Doeg should kill the Lords Priests because King Saul commandeth him 2. This Argument concludeth that neither Magistrate nor people should beleeve Articles of faith because the Church and Pastors saith so but because Iehovah saith so nor is the Ruler to beleeve or execute what the Church decrees because they decree it but because he beleeveth it is the will of Christ what they give out in Name of Christ 3. Is it not Popery that the Pastors and Teachers should execute the lawes of the Magistrate both in dispensing Word Sacraments and Discipline for they may not as Pastors and Doctors judge whether the Ecclesiasticall decrees of the Magistrate be the will and minde of Jesus Christ or no. The Magistrate in doctrine and discipline is the onely supream judge here as in all causes civill as he exerciseth a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and a dominion in the on Luke 22. 27. so also in the other except the Adversaries shew us a difference Yea as Mr. Pryn with the Erastians say Because there is no certain form of the government of the Church in Scripture he hath an Arbitrary power as Magistrate to appoint any government in the Church not contrary to the Word any Officers Prelates and Cardinals any ceremonies as pleaseth him and may impose them on the consciences of Pastors
so in a Physicall and naturall necessitie to save his owne temporall life that by all probabilitie was in great danger and these who being in no such necessitie did eat such meats scandalous and so distructive to the soules of weake ones and having varietie of other meats to keep them from sterving and so a meere necessitie of preserving the bodily life if we compare one affirmative command of God with another may remove that which may be supposed a soule necessitie And the reason is because in the doctrine of scandall which is more intricate and obscure then every Divine conceives God placeth acts of providentiall necessitie as emergent significations of his approving will which are so to us in place of a divine Commandement of Gods revealed will and these providentiall acts of necessitie doe no lesse oblige us to morall obedience then any of the expresse written Commandements of God I cleare it thus There is an expresse law It is sâ—â— and unlawfull for David or any man who is not one of the Lords Priests to eat shew-bread But God commeth in and putteth David in such a posture of divine providence that if he eat not shew-bread he shall be sinfully guiltie of violating a higher morall law of God who saith I will have mercie and not sacrifice Then David shall be cruell to his owne life and sinne against the sixt Commandement Thou shalt doe no murther If he eat not for not to eat when you are in a providentiall condition of sterving if you may have it is to kill your selfe and this providentiall condition doth no lesse oblige you to the Morall obedience of the sixt Command then if God in the letter of the Law should command you to eat This fact of David was not done by any extraordinarie impulsion of the Spirit but by a constant chanell that Providence ordinarily runneth in according to which I or any Professor must be obliged to preferre a worke of Mercie to Sacrifice that is by which we are to give obedience to the sixt Command which is not to kill even as without extraordinarie impulsion I may absent my selfe from hearing the Word when I find going to Church may indanger my life for non-obedience to affirmatives in a greater necessitie is ordinarie And therefore Christian prudence with which the Wisdome of God keeps house Prov. 8. 12. doth determine many things of scandall And prudence is a vertue commanded in the word of God for a wise man observes times and so will he observe all other circumstances yet there be rules here which standeth alwayes and they be these 1. Comparing a physicall and meerely naturall necessitie with a morall necessitie if we yeeld to the physicall necessitie and neglect the moral we sinne against God and may lay a stumbling blocke before others as to eat such meats where the losse is small and the necessitie of eating meerely physicall and the eating be a scandall to the weake we sinne and give scandall the case is cleare Rom. 14. for eating the case being indifferent as it was Rom. 14. is a meere physicall necessitie and not scandalizing a weake brother is a morall necessitie 2. Rule if we compare a greater morall necessitie with a lesse morall necessitie the lesse necessitie must yeeld to the greater a necessitie of mercie must yeeld to a necessitie of sacrificeing if David then should not have eaten the shew-bread in his providentiall necessitie of samine he should have been guiltie both of active scandalizing the soules of others in killing himselfe and should have killed himselfe and the lesse morall necessitie ceaseth and is no necessitie when a greater moral necessitie interveneth 3. Rule Where there is a physicall necessitie of the thing yet not extreame and a morall necessitie of abstinence we are to abstaine The Jewes had a physicall necessitie of the Babylonish Garments but not so extreame in point of perishing through cold as David had of Shew-bread in point of sterving for famine therefore Achan should have obeyed the morall necessitie of not touching the accursed thing and neglected the physicall necessitie which if it had amounted to the degrees of necessitie of mercie rather then obeying a Ceremoniall Command such as was Touch nâ—t the accursed spoyle Achâ—â— might without sinne or scandall to himselfe or others have medled with the spoyle 4. Rule That which is necessarie in speciè in the kind as to goe to Church and heare the Word to come to the house of God and Worship may be in individuo in a particular exigence of providence not morally necessarie but the contradicent thereof morally lawfull David doth lawfully forbeare to come to the Lords house if he knew Saul may kill him by the way â— The things which we are to forbeare only for necessitie of scandall and upon no other ground these I may doe in private if I know they cannot come to the notice of these who shall be scandalized upon the ground of lesse physicall necessitie as Rom. 14. beleevers for their necessitie ordinarie and for nourishment might eat fleshes in private though before a weak Jew they could nâ—â— because the sinne is not in the act of eating but wholly in the scandall and in the manner of the unseasonable doing of it But these things which are morally not necessarie because tâ—â—â—â—bstance of the fact is against a law we are to forbeare both in private because they are against a law and in publick before others for the scandall as Achan sinned in taking the Babilonish Garment though in private and his sinne should have been more scandalous if he had done it publickly Now these we are upon no ordinarie necessitie to doe but such as may incroach upon the hazard of the losse of life in which case an exigence of providence does stand for a Command of non-murthering had Saul and his Army been reduced to a danger of starving in a wildernesse and could have no food except they should kill and eat the Cattell of the Amâ—lâ—kites â— conceive The Lords preferring of Mercie before Sacrifice should warrant them to eat of the Amalakites Cattell yet would this providentiall necessitie be so limited as it may fall out that it stand not for a divine Command for it holdeth in affirmative commands only and 2. so positives as there must be yea there can be no sin eligible by such and such a case as Lot sinned in exposing his daughters to the lust of men to redeeme abstinence from Sodomie Hence it is cleare we may not doe a lesse nor counsell another to commit a lesse sinne to eschew a greater as the Jesuites wickedly teach So Tannerus so Turrianus and others who make a scandalum permissum a scandall that a Christian may hinder another to fall in and yet he permitteth him to fall in it But God hath a prerogative to permit sinfull scandals men have no such power when they are obliged to hinder it The divinite of
man to be a Priest we can say something but that all the lame in Israel were debarred from the Temple and the holy things of God we dare not say and a difference of things and men we acknowledge but that is nothing to weaken the argument 6. How proveth Erastus the tares are not to be plucked up by men Mat. 13. will bear no such thing ill men are to be cast out of the Church before the day of judgement both by the Magistrate and miraculously by the Apostles and by Excommunication say we Mat. 18. 1 Cor. 5. Erastus He that possesseth the price of the whore is not to be debarred out of the Temple though the money could not be offered to God The Pharisees would not have the price of blood cast in the treasure of the Temple yet they cast not Judas out of the Temple which these patrons of Ceremonies would have done if there had been any Law for it Ans This is to beg the question the whore who sold her body for a price was unclean and more unclean then the innocent money and so in that case excluded from the holy things of God 2. They admitted doves oxen and money changers into the Temple and prophaned it and why should they cast Judas out of the Temple will their practises prove any thing they used all divine ceremonies and Lawes of God to their owne carnall ends Erastus Heathens vvere not admitted into the Temple But a scandalous man is a heathen Ezech. 16. Your Father was an Ammorite also if thou be a transgressour of the Law thy circumcision is become uncircumcision Rom. 2. he is vvorse then an Infidell 1 Tim. 5. Erastus ansvvereth but if vve look to Gods estimation vvicked brethren are vvorse then pagans But if vve consider the externall face of the Church there be many things in vvicked men that agreeth not to heathen vvicked circumcised men might go in to the Temple Gentiles might not so the assumption is most false 2. A circumcised man and a Baptisedman can never turn non-circumcised or non baptised Ans I say nothing to the cursing and blessing Deut. 27. Nor do I owne that Argument it is not ours 2. Those which are so our argument runneth as Heathens and Publicans as Pagans Ammorites whereas they were sometimes Brethren and Members of the Church are not to be admitted to the Sacraments nor to be acknowledged as members of the Church more then Heathen Ammorites Pagans are to be be admitted to the Sacraments and Members of the Church But wicked men amongst the Iewes and amongst us Christians who will not hear the Church and are fornicators idolaters railers drunkards and extortioners and walke inordinately and cause divisions contrary to the Gospell of our Lord Iesus are to be esteemed as Heathens Pagans Amorites and worse then Infidels therefore such amongst the Iewes were not admitted to the Temple and holy things of God and amongst us not to be admitted to the Sacraments nor to be acknowledged as members of the Church Erastus answereth not to this Argument either Major or Assumption but propoundeth an Argument of a namelesse Author as he knoweth best to answer and remove himself 2. Many things saith he agree to Pagans and Turks which agree not to scandalous Christians True scandalous Christians are not Amorites and Pagans simpliciter they differ in profession the one being baptized not the other and once being baptized they can never be unbaptized but that is not our Argument but they agree in this that they are no more really Christians being fornicators railers drunkards extortioners c. then Pagans but have the onely name and title of such and are to be esteemed so by us and are to us quoad hoc in regard of Church priviledges as heathens and publicans and so the Lord of old termed his Apostate people Sodom and Gomorrah Esa 1. 10. and as the children of the Ethiopians and Philistines Amos 9. 7. and as uncleane and uncapable in a Church way of the Passeover and now of the Lords Supper to us as Ethiopians Sodomites of old and this day Turks and Pagans are to us 3. That the wicked that were circumcised might go into the Temple amongst the Iews de facto they might but de jure by Law they might not Ier. 7. 9. Ezek. 23. 39. Esa 66. 3. no more then by Law they might prophane the holy Name of God or kill a man or sacrifice a dog to God or offer swines blood or blesse an Idoll The argument from sanctifying the Sabbath I passe it hath no sense nor reason as Erastus propoundeth it Erastus Christ Mat. 5. commandeth him who is to offer a gift to leave his gift at the Altar and first to be reconciled to his brother Ergo he will have us not to use the Sacraments while we be first reconciled to our Brother But so saith Erastus we should not pray to God nor seeke forgivenesse of sinnes while we first forgive those that have wronged us Christ doth not here speake of the externall governing of his Church but of the perfection of a Christian man else wee could doe nothing that is good and just and we were all to be Excommunicated he saith not if the Presbyters shall command leave thy gift but if thou shalt call to minde thy selfe he speaketh not of a prohibition of others discharging an instituted vvorship but of that which a mans owne minde doth enjoyne him you may as easily prove the Papists Masse from this as Excommunication Ans Surely this is to me convincing if I be discharged by the Holy Ghost to meddle with the holy things of God or offering a gift to God at his Altar while I first be reconciled to my brother then those who have by office power to steward those holy things in wisedome and fidelity putting a difference betweene the precious and the vile knowing that I am at wrath wiâ—h my brother and having convinced me before two or three Witnesses that I have highly trespassed against my brother are to deny to Steward or dispense any such holy thing to me while I be first reconciled to my brother and the like I say of the Sacrament of the Lords Supper 2. To Erastus his Argument I answer it is not alike here as in praying for praying is so absolutely necessary that it obligeth by a command of God even a Simon Magus to pray while he is in the gall of bitternesse that the thoughts of his heart may be forgiveâ— Act. 8. 22. But Erastus as if he had set himselfe to contradict Christ would insinuate as much as Christ were not to be obeyed for his Exposition holdeth forth this sense When thou bringest thy gift unto the Altar and remembrest that thy brother hath ought against thee leave not thy gift depart not goe not about to be reconciled to thy Brother but first offer thy gift But Simon Magus though he should remember that he was in the gall of bitternesse