only ad Temporalia and for spirituall matters he hath no more to doe with them than Vzzah had to touch the Arke who for his paines was striken with death 2. Sam. 6.7 hee dares not denie but Magistrates be gods for David should confute him I have said yee are gods Psa 82. but yet say of them as the Aramite said of the God of Israell that he was the God of the Mountaines not of the Vallies 1. King 20.28 they be gods and governours of the Laitie not of the Clergie For the Councell of Constance Sess 31. Laicus in clericum iurisdictionem non habet The Councell of Trent Sess 25. Personarum Ecclesiasticarum immunitas adeò instituitur Beller lib de eler cap. 28. clerici non possunt à iudice politico puniri nec sunt Reges Clericorum superiores idque habuit iure divino The exemption is by a divine right saith the same Cardinall gainst Berclay cap. 34. quite contrary to the order and course of Scripture for David had the same power over the high Priests that Kings have over their subjects and calls Zadoc the Priest and Nathan the Prophet his servants 1 Kings 1. Salomon his sonne turned Abiathar out of the Priesthood that the word of the Lord might be fulfilled which was spoken against the house of Ely 1 King 2.27 Which text hath so puzled Bell. writing against Berclay that hee is glad to confesse that in Salomons time Priests were subject unto Kings Christus solvit c. Math 17 24 25. Paul appealed ad Caesarem non ad Petrum and he hath warrant Act. 23.11 when Saint Chrisostome expounded that of the Apostle Rom. 13. speaketh thus c. consonant to this is Tert lib. de Idela cap. 15. and St. Bernard ad Archiepiscopum Senonensem Epist 42. Si omnis anima et iam et vestra quis vos accepit ab vniversitate si quis tentat excipere conatur decipere For conclusion note onely how Bellarmine in this point hath contradicted himselfe in writing against Barclay cap. 34. his position is Clerici exempti sunt non solum privilegijs Principum sed jure divino and yet in his 1 Lib. Ecclesiae de membris militantis intituled De Clericis cap. 28. Nullum potest deferri Dei verbum quo ista Clericorum exceptio confirmetur Propos 4. In the first skirmish he is like to Thrasilius in Anthonies Deipnosoph lib. 12. challengeth every page of Scripture to be their advocate that if it were possible for paper and inke to blush his bookes would be as red as his Bonnet and at the parting he is willing to confesse that there is no expresse precept of Scripture for it I end with the speech of Constantine the great noted by Theodoret lib. 1. cap. 20. when he exiled Eusebius Bishop of Nicomedia Si quis Epispiscoporum in consulto tumultuatur meae authoritati illius audacia coarcebitur If it be Gods prerogative to appoint Magistrates what may we thinke of them that would wring this power from God and cast it upon him that sits in the Temple and advanceth himselfe above all that is called God making himselfe the King of all other Kings to whom all Kings and Kingdomes must doe homage and pay tribute the greatest Monarchs must fall downe and kisse the feete of his Holinesse as they say their bookes Sacrarum Ceremoniarum lib. 1. cap. 3. sect 2. The Emperour must hold his stirrop when he mounteth the bridle when he lighteth beare his traine when he walketh holde the bason when he washeth he now acts the same part that the Divell acted Matth. 4.9 and takes upon him as he did to dispose of all the Kingdomes of the earth and we may say of him as Irenaeus said of the Divell Mentitur Diabolus nam cujus jussu homines creantur illius jussu regna constituuntur Who knowes not that Fredericke the first was deprived of his Kingdome by Pope Alexander the third as Petrus Iustinianus reports in his Lib. 2. Rerum venatarum Fredericke the 2. by Innocentius the 4. Leo the 3. called Leo Isauros was by Gregory the 3. first excommunicate and then deprived of all his revenues in Italy because he commanded that Images should be pulled downe in their Churches as Carion in 3. of his Chro. in the life of Leo the 3. That Paul the 2. in the beginning of his life a Venetian Pedler as Platina calls him at the end strangled by the Divell in the act of Sodomie as Melancton lib. 5. pag. 913. deprived George the King of Bohemia and stirred up the King of Hungaria to make warre against him as Omiphrius saith of him and for no other reason but because he favoured the doctrine of Iohn Husse as Bonfimus Rer Hung Dec 4. lib. 1. Pope Iulius the 2. deprived the King of Castile Pope Alexander the 6. tooke away the East Indies from the true owner and gave it to the Lusitanians the West and gave it to the Spaniard that Atabalippa might justly challenge but all in vaine Quid monstri esset iste Papa qui sic daret non sua as Montinaeus de temporali pontij monarchia cap. 5. That Pius the 5. as Genebrard at the yeare 1569. tooke away this Kingdome from the late Queene and gave it to Philip King of Spaine That Sixtus the 5. deprived Henry the 3. of France first of his Kingdome and then of his life I omit the wrongs to Henry the 2. they are noted by Matthew Paris at the yeare 1170. to have beene so shamefull that Matchaivell himselfe in the Lib. 1. Hist Florent seemes to scorne him for it Rex his flagellis tergum subjecit quorum hodie puderit quemlibet privatum And when King Iohn complained Romanis artibus emunxi Anglos argento Pope Innocentius the third tooke away his Kingdome and gave it to Philip of France as Matthew Paris at the yeare 215. I marvell not that the Pope would faine have footing in England which Innocentius the 4. called Hortum delitiarum puteum vero inexhaustum Who would not desire to have such a garden who would not wish such a well as that The Poets feigne that the River Arethusa being suddenly swallowed up into the ground runnes quite through the sea and riseth againe in Cicily But without feigning from England as from a well hath sprung golden rivers which being suddenly swallowed up did runne through the sea and rise againe at Rome in the Popes Exchequer But I marvell why Priests and Iesuites will bee his Factours whom hee useth as a fisher useth little fishes to catch great ones hee fisheth with Priests and Iesuites as baites to catch Kings and Princes and Kingdomes I remember a fable of the Ape seeing a Chesnut in the fire and knowing not how to get it spied a Spaniell by the fire-side and suddenly catcht his foote to take out the chesnut wherein these men may see their faces in a homely glasse The golden Supremacy is the chesnut perills and dangers
IETHROES COVNSELL TO MOSES OR A DIRECTION FOR MAGISTRATES A Sermon preached at St. Saviours in Southwarke March 5. 1621. Before the Honourable Iudges by that Reverent Divine THOMAS SVTTON Dr. in Divinity LEVIT 19.15 Ye shall doe no unrighteousnesse in judgement thou shalt not respect the person of the poore nor honour the person of the mighty but in righteousnesse shalt thou judge thy neighbour LONDON Printed by WILLIAM IONES dwelling in Red-crosse-streete 1631. TO THE RIGHT HONOVRABLE SIR ROBERT DVCE Knight Barronet Lord Major of the City of LONDON and to the Right Worshipfull the Sheriffes and Aldermen of the same W. I. P. wisheth increase of knowledge and grace in Christ here that you may reigne with him hereafter in glory HAVING a Sermon come to my hands of the Counsell of Iethro given to Moses the servant of the Lord how hee might with more ease to himselfe and the people decide all controversies as it was preached before the Iudges in Southwarke by that Reverend and learned Divine Mr. Dr. Sutton late Preacher at Saviours The which Sermon giveth direction not onely to Iudges but also to all Magistrates in the Land how to carry themselves in their severall places against all offenders and betwixt man and man It being a subject of so necessary a use it is thought meete to publish it in these evill times because the seate of Iustice is now had in much contempt by many who live as if there were no God in heaven to behold their wickednesse nor Magistrate on earth to punish their horrible crimes And seeking out for a Patron I thought fit to dedicate it to your Honour and Worships To your Honour who in your Shreivalty shewed your great zeale and love to the Gospell of Christ that upon a discovery of the practises of Iesuites and Priests rose at midnight to execute the warrant of Sir Robert Nanton then Secretary to King Iames of most blessed memory where was taken seventeene Altars for their Popish Masse ten Copes twelve or thirteene Surplices above ten thousand Popish bookes besides severall packets of Letters partly come from Bruxels and going to Bruxels c. And seeing the Lord hath advanced your Honour into the chaire of Moses under our gracious Soveraigne Lord King CHARLES the Lord give you courage and zeale against all Popish superstitition and Idolatry requesting you that you would be pleased to peruse the short directions in it That so you may with the rest of your Right Worshipfull Brethren the better direct all and severall Officers in their severall places under you in your severall Wards that they also may be men of courage fearing God To that end I beseech the Lord of heaven who directed his servant Moses so to direct your hearts that you may have both the courage and zeale of Moses against all idolatrous Priests and Iesuites that swarme in the Land whose treacherous practises this worthy Sermon doth at large discover and so put them out of all hope of gaining any Proselites here among you Thus daily praying unto the Lord on your behalfe I humbly take my leave Your Honours and Worships to be commanded in the Lord Iesus W. I. P. Dr. SVTTONS Prayer OH most gracious and most glorious God before whom the Sunne and the Moone become as darknesse the blessed Angels stand amased and the glorious Cherubims are glad that they may cover and hide their faces as not daring to behold that incomprehensible greatnesse and that infinite goodnesse which thou art with what confidence shall we forlorne sinners be ever once able to appeare before thy all seeing providence that terrible and angry countenance that sinne-revenging justice of thine which is so fierce and terrible that it will shake the heavens melt the mountaines dry up the seas and make the tallest Cedars in Lebanon to tremble Good Lord where shall we hide our selves from thy presence masses of corruption mountaines of sinne dead and dry trees fit fewell for thy fierce wrath to worke upon if we should climbe up into heaven to hide us from thee thou art there or goe downe into the bottome and depth of hell thou art there also or take the wings of the morne and fly to the utmost part of the seas even there also will thy allseing eye behold us and thy right hand will quickly visit and finde us out we will therefore here dissolve and melt our selves into a floud and fountaine of many teares bewailing and bemoaning our wofull and miserable estate for albeit by reason of that soule Chaos and staine of naturall corruption and originall sinne we have deserved long since to have had the sweete issue of all thy good blessings to be stopped and dried up thy milde and gentle corrections to be turned into the sodaine execution of bloody tortures and fearefull judgements upon us even in this life and at our departing out of this world to be plunged everlastingly into a pit of destruction there to be fryed and scorched with Satan and his Angels for evermore And yet for all this O Lord wee have never ceased to adde oyle unto this flame and to blow up the coales of thy fearefull displeasure through the hot and eager pursuit of many loud crying actuall sinnes and transgressions so that from the crowne of the head to the sole of the foote there is not one place sound or whole within us but we are all full of sores and swellings and botches full of sinne full of corruption our understandings which should have knowne thee to be our true God and him whom thou hast sent Iesus Christ our Redeemer these are blinded and missed with ignorance and doubting our affections which should have beene good guides to have directed our feete into the way of peace they are become swift messengers of Satan to buffet us our bodies which should have beene sweet Temples for thy blessed Spirit to dwell and lodge in they are sinks of sinne and cages of filthy birds our eyes O God are like open windowes and doores to receive sinne our hearts like common Innes to lodge sinne our heads like skilfull Politicians to contrive sinne our tongues smooth and sweet Oratours to pleade for the maintaining of sinne and all our hands like stout souldiers and couragious Champions to fight in the defence of sinne Thus have we waged and managed warre against thee our God ever since we were borne so that now thou maist justly spue us out of thy mouth cut us off in the midst of our sinnes come amongst us this very present and binde us hand and foot and at the end of these few and miserable dayes send us all into hell together that so Satan might pay us our wages onely whom thus long we have obeyed and served thus emptying our selves from all trust and confidence in the arme of flesh we fly unto thee O God the anchor of our hope and the tower built for our defence with many deepe sighes and groanes from our perplexed consciences
〈◊〉 to be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of a naturall to bee a spirituall man transformes him from a meere man to be a pure Saint The braine is the beginning of animall faculties chiefe commander of the body sits in the highest roome as in her royall pallace compassed about with the Cranium the Pericranium and the two Meninges which are like strong Castles and Countermures against forraigne invasion it hath the five externall senses as intelligencers to give notice what is done abroad the cōmon sense he fantasy the understandings privy counsellors the memory as register book of records yet the brain is not idle but busied in tempering the spirits received from the heart sending them by nerves into the old body and thereby giving sense and motion to each part And this braine is the fit embleme of a good Magistrate who as he hath forts and guards and Counsellours and records so must he know that he hath them not for his owne use but for the benefit of the body Politique and therefore must bestirre himselfe in tempering the spirits received from the heart I meane in making use of spirituall counsells received from the Minister of the Gospell Now as the body Naturall is in best estate when all these three are well affected but very ill at ease if there be a distemper or dyscracie in any of them so in the body Politique if the Physitian the Divine and the Magistrate be faithfull in their places and follow the rule of their bookes there would be no complaining in our streetes But if the Physitian instead of wholesome Physicke minister nothing but hemlocke the Divine in stead of wholesome Doctrine broach nothing but heresie and curiosity the Magistrate turne justice into wormewood then is the head sicke and the heart heavie and in the Symptomes of death upon the whole body once more Of all parts in the body Naturall the braine is most subject unto diseases and of all parts in the body Politique the Magistrate most obnoxious to slips and falls First because he hath many provocations which others want Secondly he wants a benefit which others have he is not freely reproved as others are Thirdly because of those Cubiculares Consiliarij as Lypsius calleth them Politic. cap. 9. lib. 3. Tineae et Sorices Palatij these rattes and mothes of the Court that feede upon other mens wants live by other mens losses and as the common souldier in Tacitus in Pompeium Miseriâ nostrâ magnus es grow great by others mens miseries who sell their Masters favours as Zoticus in Lampridius solde the faire promises of Heliogabolus and are alwayes ready for their owne advantage to applaud their Masters worst and basest actions Hence is it that Iethro gives this good direction to Moses the Iudges and Magistrates which thou doest appoint must be men of courage fearing God dealing truly hating covetousnesse Which words have in them 1. A Quis 2. A Quos 3. A Quibus The Quis is Moses Sed consulto Domino and gives this conclusion that the ordination of Iudges and Magistrates is of God In the beginning of time the Lord prescribed to the heavens their courses and motions and they observe them to the Elements he set bounds and limits and they keepe them the bees he gave a King saith Elian de hist. animal lib. 1. cap. 11. and they obey him to man hee gave lawes and hee transgressed them wrote them in his heart and man blotted them out Againe whensoever the Heathen made lawes they were wont to father them upon some of their gods thereby to purchase credit and reverence When Licurgus made lawes for the Lacedemonians he fathered them upon Apollo Minos for the Cretians he fathered them upon Iupiter Solon and Draco For the Athenians they fathered them upon the Goddesse Minerva as Diodorus Siculus reports of them When Numa made lawes for the Romans he fathered them upon the Goddesse Egraecia as Plut. in the life of Numa Pompilius reports When Anacharsis the Scythian Philosopher made lawes for the Scythians hee fathered them upon Zamolxis as Vives upon Aug. and Herodotus in his Melpomene have related but all this could not refraine wilfull man from exorbitancy and manifest riot against God It is true of him which the olde Lacedemonians said of the olde Athenians they knew what was to be done but did it not and which the Cimickin Laertius objected to the Philosophers of Greece they had good lawes but practised them not they made no more account of lawes than Remus in Livie dec 1. lib. 1. of bestriding the walls which Romulus had built hee stood in no more awe than the frogges in the fable of leaping over the jawes of the lion when he was couchant and fast asleepe and therefore did God appoint the Magistrate to put life into this dead letter and made him 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as Aristotle calls him Ethi lib. 5. cap. 4. a living law that these two the Law and the Magistrate the one as a sword the other as a souldier to draw it the one as a soveraigne medicine the other as a Physitian to apply it the one as a pibble gathered out of the streame the other as a skilfull David to sling it might unite the forces to the utter extirpation of idolatry the protection of justice the supporting of sound religion the disparaging of sinne and this is the authority they have from God In which point wee must with Tully distinguish the power it selfe Secondly the meanes of attaining Thirdly the manner of execution The first is allwayes of God but not the second nor the third Potestatem Deus distribuit God gives the power Elationem potentiae malitiam venit saith Gregor as he is quoted by the ordinary glosse If the Magistrate be good he is set there for the good of the people if wicked he is set there for the sinne of the people Saul is appointed by God as well as David Nero as well as Iosiah and Ashur as well as Moses or Ioshua But the one is stirred up to be the Saviour of the people as Ehud was Iud. 3.15 the other as the rod of his wrath as Ashur was Esa 49.23 Kings shall be thy nursing fathers and Queenes thy nurses Nor from Christ who commands to giue unto Cesar that which is due unto him Mat. 22.21 nor from Peter who bids honour the King 1. Pet. 2 27. nor from Paul who bids pray for Kings and Magistrates 1. Tim. 2 2. nor from Moses who commands not to raile upon the Iudge nor speake evill of the ruler of the people Ex. 22.28 It is true of them which God said to Samuell concerning the Iewes when they disliked their present government they have not cast away thee but they have cast away mee that I should not rule over them 1. Sam. 8.7 The other is the Papist who denies not temporall authority of our Kings and Iudges yet tyes one of the Magistrates hands lessens his authority and limits him